Post by Teddy Bear on Apr 6, 2014 18:38:02 GMT
Oh the duplicity!
We now get a glimpse into the latest method to scam the already scammed AGW agenda.
As we already know too well, and we have shown with numerous examples on this category, the BBC fails to offer the proper balance into the global warming debate.
Even since 2011 they have justified their lack of balance as the proper way to deal with the subject. That it is a closed issue, and any sceptics, no matter how genuine their scientific credentials, should not be given airtime to debate the issue.
Now certain MP's want to make it appear like the BBC has been balanced on the subject. That whatever 'opposing' views they have aired, must also be silenced. I can't imagine just whom or what they are referring to as it just doesn't happen. So whatever 'greeness' people have already been brainwashed with, would imagine that this is not enough, and it is even more serious than they already think it is.
How twisted is that?
Several articles to read on this issue.
James Delingpole also has this piece telling us about a report out this week that the lie on this issue must be told, regardless if any truths would confute it.
PEER-REVIEWED PAPER: LYING ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE TO ADVANCE THE GREEN AGENDA IS GOOD - JAMES DELINGPOLE
In other words, expect the lies to be even more blatant.
We now get a glimpse into the latest method to scam the already scammed AGW agenda.
As we already know too well, and we have shown with numerous examples on this category, the BBC fails to offer the proper balance into the global warming debate.
Even since 2011 they have justified their lack of balance as the proper way to deal with the subject. That it is a closed issue, and any sceptics, no matter how genuine their scientific credentials, should not be given airtime to debate the issue.
Now certain MP's want to make it appear like the BBC has been balanced on the subject. That whatever 'opposing' views they have aired, must also be silenced. I can't imagine just whom or what they are referring to as it just doesn't happen. So whatever 'greeness' people have already been brainwashed with, would imagine that this is not enough, and it is even more serious than they already think it is.
How twisted is that?
Several articles to read on this issue.
MPS SEEK TO SILENCE CLIMATE CHANGE SCEPTICS
by NICK HALLETT
The BBC should give less airtime to sceptics of man-made global warming, and any government minister who questions climate change orthodoxy should "shut up or leave", according to a committee of MPs.
A report by the Commons Science and Technology says that too much airtime is given to climate change sceptics, and calls for them to be either silenced or given "health warnings" when they appear on shows.
It says that the BBC should treat climate sceptics the same way as it would treat politicians. The committee say: "For example, any proposal to invite politicians to contribute to non-political output must be referred to the Chief Adviser Politics. The BBC could benefit from applying a similarly stringent approach when interviewing non-experts on controversial scientific topics such as climate change."
The report also says that the government is "failing to clearly and effectively communicate climate science to the public," and concludes: "All Ministers should acquaint themselves with the science of climate change and then they, and their Departments, should reflect the Government approach in person, in media interviews and online by a presenting a clear and consistent message."
Speaking to the Times, committee chairman, the Labour MP Andrew Miller, likened climate sceptics to the Monster Raving Loony Party, and said that the BBC should give the same amount of coverage to them as it would to fringe political parties.
He said that when Lord Lawson, a prominent climate change sceptic, appeared on the BBC to debate climate policy, the BBC should have made clear that the think-tank he chairs, the Global Warming Policy Foundation, holds views not accepted by the majority of scientists.
"At the very least, put a caption at the bottom of the screen: 'the Global Warming Policy Foundation's views are not accepted by 97 per cent of scientists'," he said.
Mr Miller also singled out Environment Secretary Owen Paterson for criticism, saying he had deviated from the government line on climate change.
He said: "There are dissenting voices inside the Government machine . . . Frankly, the role of a minister is either to accept collective responsibility or shut up or leave. Climate change is such a hugely important public policy issue and therefore to have inconsistency from within Government is extremely dangerous territory."
It is not acceptable, he said, to have "ministers who are not prepared to line up beside No 10 and say 'yes, I accept climate change is real, we must do something about it'. Paterson is one example — he is ducking and diving on this."
Owen Paterson is reported to have told a Conservative Party Conference fringe meeting last year: "People get very emotional about this subject and I think we should just accept that the climate has been changing for centuries."
Responding to the comments, Lord Lawson told the Times: "I think it is appalling that a member of the House of Commons should want to shut down debate on this issue."
Dr Benny Peiser of the Global Warming Policy Foundation told Breitbart London: "The call for media censorship for critics of the conventional wisdom looks like political desperation as the British public is becoming increasingly sceptical about climate hysteria.
"The interested public will be shaking their heads at this Orwellian attack on free speech by a handful of MPs."
by NICK HALLETT
The BBC should give less airtime to sceptics of man-made global warming, and any government minister who questions climate change orthodoxy should "shut up or leave", according to a committee of MPs.
A report by the Commons Science and Technology says that too much airtime is given to climate change sceptics, and calls for them to be either silenced or given "health warnings" when they appear on shows.
It says that the BBC should treat climate sceptics the same way as it would treat politicians. The committee say: "For example, any proposal to invite politicians to contribute to non-political output must be referred to the Chief Adviser Politics. The BBC could benefit from applying a similarly stringent approach when interviewing non-experts on controversial scientific topics such as climate change."
The report also says that the government is "failing to clearly and effectively communicate climate science to the public," and concludes: "All Ministers should acquaint themselves with the science of climate change and then they, and their Departments, should reflect the Government approach in person, in media interviews and online by a presenting a clear and consistent message."
Speaking to the Times, committee chairman, the Labour MP Andrew Miller, likened climate sceptics to the Monster Raving Loony Party, and said that the BBC should give the same amount of coverage to them as it would to fringe political parties.
He said that when Lord Lawson, a prominent climate change sceptic, appeared on the BBC to debate climate policy, the BBC should have made clear that the think-tank he chairs, the Global Warming Policy Foundation, holds views not accepted by the majority of scientists.
"At the very least, put a caption at the bottom of the screen: 'the Global Warming Policy Foundation's views are not accepted by 97 per cent of scientists'," he said.
Mr Miller also singled out Environment Secretary Owen Paterson for criticism, saying he had deviated from the government line on climate change.
He said: "There are dissenting voices inside the Government machine . . . Frankly, the role of a minister is either to accept collective responsibility or shut up or leave. Climate change is such a hugely important public policy issue and therefore to have inconsistency from within Government is extremely dangerous territory."
It is not acceptable, he said, to have "ministers who are not prepared to line up beside No 10 and say 'yes, I accept climate change is real, we must do something about it'. Paterson is one example — he is ducking and diving on this."
Owen Paterson is reported to have told a Conservative Party Conference fringe meeting last year: "People get very emotional about this subject and I think we should just accept that the climate has been changing for centuries."
Responding to the comments, Lord Lawson told the Times: "I think it is appalling that a member of the House of Commons should want to shut down debate on this issue."
Dr Benny Peiser of the Global Warming Policy Foundation told Breitbart London: "The call for media censorship for critics of the conventional wisdom looks like political desperation as the British public is becoming increasingly sceptical about climate hysteria.
"The interested public will be shaking their heads at this Orwellian attack on free speech by a handful of MPs."
Biased BBC! But not the way you think: climate change reporting and 'false balance'
By Tom Chivers
One of my favourite things about the BBC is the painfully earnest way in which they report criticism of the BBC. The very best is when something really egregious happens, and the DG or some other poor executive who hasn't been in front of a camera for five years is dragged before Paxman on Newsnight, blinking like a political prisoner in Pinochet's Chile just before the testicle electrodes come out. Usually, though, it's a bit more restrained than that, and someone on the Today programme calmly says "The report also alleged that BBC graduate trainees were fed to pigs by senior staffers in a blood ritual to summon Cthulhu", and a story on the topic is published prominently on the website.
This morning, the BBC is doing its very polite self-flagellation over its coverage of climate change, in response to a report by the House of Commons science and technology select committee. I know that around here the BBC is regularly accused of bias on this subject. And the committee agreed: the BBC News teams "make mistakes in their coverage of climate science by giving opinions and scientific fact the same weight"; it treats lobby groups as disinterested experts, and despite the very high level of trust that the public has in the broadcaster, it may lack "a clear understanding of the information needs of its audience".
The issue of false balance – the journalistic practice of replacing a wholehearted attempt to get to the truth with a basic he-said-she-said approach, putting Person A Who Believes Thing X up against Person B Who Believes Thing Y with no regard for the relative likelihood of things X and Y or the relative authority of persons A and B – is an old one, and the BBC (and others) have been accused of it over various scientific topics. I was writing about it, on the topic of MMR, way back in 2010. An epidemiologist reporting on the findings of a Cochrane Library meta-analysis is given equal time on the radio to an anti-vaccination crackpot, that sort of thing. More recently, Steve Jones, of this parish, carried out a report into the BBC's coverage. One of the more damning lines was this:
He's right, of course: if it's really that hard to find an expert who disagrees with the consensus, perhaps there aren't very many, and perhaps, then, people who know what they're talking about do pretty much all agree. That's not a reason to go and drag in Lord Lawson. Being balanced does not mean giving equal time to people who are probably wrong as to people who are probably right.
What to do, then? The science and technology committee thinks that the BBC should have guidelines for reporting climate change that are as stringent as its politics guidelines: just as the "likely or historical electoral success of an individual party determines the coverage of that party", so the weight of scientific evidence and consensus behind a particular viewpoint should determine the coverage of that viewpoint. Maybe that's sensible and doable. (I'm a bit loath to give too much weight to the opinions of a "science and technology" committee which includes the homeopathy-supporting David Tredinnick MP, who thinks astrology should be taken into account in medical practice and, in a speech in Parliament, asked surgeons to consider "the awesome power of the moon" when operating.)
But, as the Science Media Centre's Fiona Fox points out, perhaps we should be a bit careful what we wish for. Science coverage, she says, is much better these days – much more thoughtful, much more careful. I agree, and I think it's down to a vigilant online community that calls out bad reporting and false balance. But even if that weren't the case, says Fox, false controversies might be the price we have to pay for coverage:
Besides, even if scientists pretty much do all agree on the evidence, she says, there are still plenty of non-scientists who don't, and who are entirely sincere about it. They need to be heard as well.
I don't know if Fiona's right. I think the BBC – and others – could do more to be objective, and accurate, in reporting climate change and other scientific stories; not assuming that the current state of science is true for all time, but acknowledging that it is the best we have at the moment. An effort to reduce false balance, the overpromotion of lobbyists and loudmouths, would be an obvious starting point. But she has a point that controversy wins column inches, and non-scientific voices shouldn't be driven from the public sphere.
By Tom Chivers
One of my favourite things about the BBC is the painfully earnest way in which they report criticism of the BBC. The very best is when something really egregious happens, and the DG or some other poor executive who hasn't been in front of a camera for five years is dragged before Paxman on Newsnight, blinking like a political prisoner in Pinochet's Chile just before the testicle electrodes come out. Usually, though, it's a bit more restrained than that, and someone on the Today programme calmly says "The report also alleged that BBC graduate trainees were fed to pigs by senior staffers in a blood ritual to summon Cthulhu", and a story on the topic is published prominently on the website.
This morning, the BBC is doing its very polite self-flagellation over its coverage of climate change, in response to a report by the House of Commons science and technology select committee. I know that around here the BBC is regularly accused of bias on this subject. And the committee agreed: the BBC News teams "make mistakes in their coverage of climate science by giving opinions and scientific fact the same weight"; it treats lobby groups as disinterested experts, and despite the very high level of trust that the public has in the broadcaster, it may lack "a clear understanding of the information needs of its audience".
The issue of false balance – the journalistic practice of replacing a wholehearted attempt to get to the truth with a basic he-said-she-said approach, putting Person A Who Believes Thing X up against Person B Who Believes Thing Y with no regard for the relative likelihood of things X and Y or the relative authority of persons A and B – is an old one, and the BBC (and others) have been accused of it over various scientific topics. I was writing about it, on the topic of MMR, way back in 2010. An epidemiologist reporting on the findings of a Cochrane Library meta-analysis is given equal time on the radio to an anti-vaccination crackpot, that sort of thing. More recently, Steve Jones, of this parish, carried out a report into the BBC's coverage. One of the more damning lines was this:
The producers of the recent Today Programme piece on the new IPCC report tried, we are told, more than a dozen qualified climate scientists willing to give an opposing view but could not find a single one (a hint, perhaps, that there is indeed a scientific consensus on global warming). Instead, they gave equal time to a well-known expert and to Australian retired geologist with no background in the field: in my view a classic of “false balance”.
He's right, of course: if it's really that hard to find an expert who disagrees with the consensus, perhaps there aren't very many, and perhaps, then, people who know what they're talking about do pretty much all agree. That's not a reason to go and drag in Lord Lawson. Being balanced does not mean giving equal time to people who are probably wrong as to people who are probably right.
What to do, then? The science and technology committee thinks that the BBC should have guidelines for reporting climate change that are as stringent as its politics guidelines: just as the "likely or historical electoral success of an individual party determines the coverage of that party", so the weight of scientific evidence and consensus behind a particular viewpoint should determine the coverage of that viewpoint. Maybe that's sensible and doable. (I'm a bit loath to give too much weight to the opinions of a "science and technology" committee which includes the homeopathy-supporting David Tredinnick MP, who thinks astrology should be taken into account in medical practice and, in a speech in Parliament, asked surgeons to consider "the awesome power of the moon" when operating.)
But, as the Science Media Centre's Fiona Fox points out, perhaps we should be a bit careful what we wish for. Science coverage, she says, is much better these days – much more thoughtful, much more careful. I agree, and I think it's down to a vigilant online community that calls out bad reporting and false balance. But even if that weren't the case, says Fox, false controversies might be the price we have to pay for coverage:
I think there is a very strong chance that the reason the public cares about climate change, GM and nuclear power is because there is a row. Other scientific issues might enjoy more measured coverage, but that coverage is often on the inside pages of the posh papers and the science strand of Radio 4 rather than the front pages of our red tops and the 8.10 interview on Today. In our ideal media, science would not have to be contested to be big news; in the real one, it might be the price we pay to have science in the headlines.
Besides, even if scientists pretty much do all agree on the evidence, she says, there are still plenty of non-scientists who don't, and who are entirely sincere about it. They need to be heard as well.
I don't know if Fiona's right. I think the BBC – and others – could do more to be objective, and accurate, in reporting climate change and other scientific stories; not assuming that the current state of science is true for all time, but acknowledging that it is the best we have at the moment. An effort to reduce false balance, the overpromotion of lobbyists and loudmouths, would be an obvious starting point. But she has a point that controversy wins column inches, and non-scientific voices shouldn't be driven from the public sphere.
The real cost of Climate McCarthyism, apart from big bills, is to free speech
By David Rose
At the heart of the current, poisoned debate about global warming lies a paradox. Thanks to the ‘pause’, the unexpected plateau in world surface temperatures which has now lasted for 17 years, the science is less ‘settled’ than it has been for years.
Yet, despite this uncertainty, those who use it to justify a range of potentially ruinous energy policies have become ever more extreme in their pronouncements. Their latest campaign is an attempt to silence anyone who disagrees.
This reached a new and baleful milestone last week, with a report from the Commons Science and Technology Committee saying BBC editors must obtain special ‘clearance’ before interviewing climate ‘sceptics’.
The committee’s chairman, Labour MP Andrew Miller, likened sceptics to the Monster Raving Loony Party, suggesting they should be allowed to express their views with similar frequency. High profile commentators, including the Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Davey, often describe climate change sceptics as ‘deniers’, on a par with those who reject evidence of the Holocaust.
One Sunday columnist recently insisted the parallel was exact, because the evidence of global warming is as strong as that for Auschwitz.
Academics who deviate from the perceived ‘correct’ line risk vilification. The most recent example is Professor Richard Tol of Sussex University, who had the temerity to remove his name from a UN climate report because he said it was ‘alarmist’.
Another is Prof Roger Pielke Jnr of Colorado. His ‘crime’ is to have published evidence that, so far, hurricanes have not become more frequent, while financial losses from extreme weather have not increased as a result of climate change. His reward has been an organised campaign demanding he be sacked.
The Breakthrough Institute – an influential, and very green – US think tank has described those who try to close down debate in this way as ‘climate McCarthyites’, after the infamous 1950s Senator who sought to root out Communists from American public life. It is an increasingly apt analogy. Miller, Davey and their allies often cite a study showing that 97 per cent of academic papers dealing with climate say that human-induced global warming is real.
But here is the thing: so do almost all of those attacked as ‘deniers’, including Lord Lawson, whose appearance on the Radio 4 Today show in February sparked the current furore over sceptics getting airtime.
Where they differ from the supposed mainstream is not over the existence of warming, but its speed, and how to deal with it. Then, so do many scientists. The ‘pause’ means that the climate computer models, on which most forecasts are based, say the world should already be rather warmer than it is: in one expert’s words, they are ‘running too hot’.
Why is this? Many scientists are engaged in honest attempts to answer this question. Some suggest that the ‘climate sensitivity’ – a measure of how much the world will warm in response to a given increase in carbon dioxide – may be significantly lower than was widely believed only a few years ago. Moreover, the response to rising CO2 adopted thus far palpably has not worked. The emissions cuts agreed by the EU and other countries at the 1997 Kyoto Treaty and imposed by our own Climate Change Act have made energy more expensive, and exported jobs and prosperity to countries such as China – which adds billions of watts of coal fired power to its grid each year. CO2 emissions have continued to rise.
The architects of such policies know they have failed, but they have no alternative except more of the same. Maybe it’s because their argument is weak that they resort to climate McCarthyism. The cost, apart from higher energy bills, is to democracy, and free speech.
By David Rose
At the heart of the current, poisoned debate about global warming lies a paradox. Thanks to the ‘pause’, the unexpected plateau in world surface temperatures which has now lasted for 17 years, the science is less ‘settled’ than it has been for years.
Yet, despite this uncertainty, those who use it to justify a range of potentially ruinous energy policies have become ever more extreme in their pronouncements. Their latest campaign is an attempt to silence anyone who disagrees.
This reached a new and baleful milestone last week, with a report from the Commons Science and Technology Committee saying BBC editors must obtain special ‘clearance’ before interviewing climate ‘sceptics’.
The committee’s chairman, Labour MP Andrew Miller, likened sceptics to the Monster Raving Loony Party, suggesting they should be allowed to express their views with similar frequency. High profile commentators, including the Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Davey, often describe climate change sceptics as ‘deniers’, on a par with those who reject evidence of the Holocaust.
One Sunday columnist recently insisted the parallel was exact, because the evidence of global warming is as strong as that for Auschwitz.
Academics who deviate from the perceived ‘correct’ line risk vilification. The most recent example is Professor Richard Tol of Sussex University, who had the temerity to remove his name from a UN climate report because he said it was ‘alarmist’.
Another is Prof Roger Pielke Jnr of Colorado. His ‘crime’ is to have published evidence that, so far, hurricanes have not become more frequent, while financial losses from extreme weather have not increased as a result of climate change. His reward has been an organised campaign demanding he be sacked.
The Breakthrough Institute – an influential, and very green – US think tank has described those who try to close down debate in this way as ‘climate McCarthyites’, after the infamous 1950s Senator who sought to root out Communists from American public life. It is an increasingly apt analogy. Miller, Davey and their allies often cite a study showing that 97 per cent of academic papers dealing with climate say that human-induced global warming is real.
But here is the thing: so do almost all of those attacked as ‘deniers’, including Lord Lawson, whose appearance on the Radio 4 Today show in February sparked the current furore over sceptics getting airtime.
Where they differ from the supposed mainstream is not over the existence of warming, but its speed, and how to deal with it. Then, so do many scientists. The ‘pause’ means that the climate computer models, on which most forecasts are based, say the world should already be rather warmer than it is: in one expert’s words, they are ‘running too hot’.
Why is this? Many scientists are engaged in honest attempts to answer this question. Some suggest that the ‘climate sensitivity’ – a measure of how much the world will warm in response to a given increase in carbon dioxide – may be significantly lower than was widely believed only a few years ago. Moreover, the response to rising CO2 adopted thus far palpably has not worked. The emissions cuts agreed by the EU and other countries at the 1997 Kyoto Treaty and imposed by our own Climate Change Act have made energy more expensive, and exported jobs and prosperity to countries such as China – which adds billions of watts of coal fired power to its grid each year. CO2 emissions have continued to rise.
The architects of such policies know they have failed, but they have no alternative except more of the same. Maybe it’s because their argument is weak that they resort to climate McCarthyism. The cost, apart from higher energy bills, is to democracy, and free speech.
James Delingpole also has this piece telling us about a report out this week that the lie on this issue must be told, regardless if any truths would confute it.
PEER-REVIEWED PAPER: LYING ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE TO ADVANCE THE GREEN AGENDA IS GOOD - JAMES DELINGPOLE
In other words, expect the lies to be even more blatant.