Guest post by Barry Woods
The Carbon Brief is a new website designed to provide a rapid response to any climate change related stories in the media.
It is also appears to be intended as a resource for articles and it claims to be an independent mediator between journalists and climate scientists.
The Carbon Brief’s twitter followers seem to have different expectations.
Andrew SimmsNef Bio: 10:10 Campaign Board Member, New Economic Foundation (NEF), Greenpeace UK board member, co-author of The Green Deal Report, founder of the 100 Month initiative, Trustee of TERI Europe(alongside Rajendra Pachauri, Sir John Houghton and Sir Crispin Tickell)
The Carbon Brief seems particularly concerned about how sceptical stories in UK media and blogs are being received by people in India and China and reported in non-EU countries media and blogs. (my bold).
“The media has a huge impact on the way that the climate debate has taken shape in the UK, as it has in the US, Australia and around the world. Comment articles in newspapers and blogs here are often copied and published thousands of times around the globe. The arguments fomented in the pages of The Guardian or the Daily Telegraph can have a significant impact on how climate change is reported in India and China.” – The Carbon Brief
On further investigation, the website demonstrates that they appear to be nothing but advocates of consensus climate change policy. A look at their further resources page gives the first two links as the Climate Science Rapid Response Team and RealClimate and it also include Climate Progress. There are no sceptical or even lukewarm website or blog links of any kind.
“Our team of researchers will provide a rapid response service for climate science stories. We go straight to peer-reviewed science and the relevant scientists to get their opinions” – The Carbon Brief
The Carbon Brief appears to have been set up for the specific purpose of countering sceptical stories relating to ‘climate change’ by going to AGW consensus scientific sources for an instant rebuttal. 
It is a project of the Energy and Strategy Centre, funded and supported by the European Climate Foundation (ECF)
ECF describes itself as “the largest philanthropic organisation in Europe focused on influencing government policy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions”. –The Carbon Brief
“…. To meet that challenge, six funding partners joined forces in 2007 to create a new multi-million euro philanthropic entity called the European Climate Foundation.” – About Us – ECF
On the The Carbon Brief website they say they are just getting started.
I am concerned about this new apparent big Green EU AGW PR and media machine swamping any sceptical voices with instant rebuttals and twitter mobs. They would appear to have very experienced PR, Media and Communications professionals at work now, with all the tools of modern media management, all the funding they need and briefed to follow the European Climate Foundations’ agenda.
If you take a look for example at the Carbon Brief’s Twitter profile, followers already include The Guardian’s environment team and editors, The Times’ science editor, Greenpeace, the Green Party, 10:10, 350, Transitions Towns, left leaning think tanks like the NEF and IPPR. Basically the whole ‘consensus’ media, NGO, politicians and lobby groups seem to know about it.
And they will twitter and retweet the Carbon Brief’s tweets and links propagating the ‘message’ to their thousands of twitter followers (remember key media people) and the ‘climate change’ activists will no doubt descend on the sceptical blogs and comments section to ‘troll’ the articles.
In the future will every sceptical article have an instant twitter response, links and a full PR professional paid media crafted response. I have seen tweets for Watts Up, Bishop Hill, Bjorn Lomborg, Jo Nova, Christopher Booker, GWPF and others already. How can independent unpaid, unfunded bloggers possibly fend off professional PR of this nature from an organisation with multi-million Euro funded backers with the agenda described above.
Nobody seems to have told the Telegraph, James Delingpole (I asked), Christopher Booker about the Carbon Brief, all those journalists organisations and lobby groups. I wonder why?
James Delingpole (Telegraph) had a nasty twitter mob experience himself, just recently, courtesy of an abusive tweet by Ben Goldacre (Bad Science – Ben is the second follower of the Carbon Brief, in the graphic above, he has 85,000 followers alone)
I expect James will get some more soon, as they twitter about every story he writes that they take exception to.
Who is running the Carbon Brief
From the website, the key team members are: Carbon Brief’s Director, Tom Brookes, is director of the Energy Strategy Centre (ESC) the communications unit funded by the European Climate Foundation (ECF). Editor Christian Hunt has worked as a researcher and web editor for Greenpeace and the Public Interest Research Centre.
We believe accuracy should be the key value in discussing climate change, and we aim to act as an independent mediator between the media and scientists.
Our aim is to increase social and political understanding of the risks of climate change so that we can make more informed decisions as a society. – The Carbon Brief
Tom Brookes is a very senior experienced communications professional, drafted in to counter sceptics?
Tom Brookes, Director, ESC – bio ECF
Tom is the head of Energy Strategy Center (ESC), the communications unit of the European Climate Foundation. He has held senior corporate and consultancy posts in government relations and communications.
Christian Hunt is still on the Board of Trustees of the Public Interest Research Centre which describes it’s work below:
Our work examines the connections between climate, energy and economics.
Our team is accomplished at presenting science to non-scientists, including policy makers. With the knowledge and experience to interpret cutting-edge research, and the skills to build it into effective communications tools, we provide a bridge between those at the forefront of climate science research and wider audiences.
I might ask how independent of thought on the Climate Change issue are they really, given the people, organisation and funding partners involved?
Profiles of Commentators
The Carbon Brief separates profiles into those who are commentators and scientists, these profiles appear to be designed as a resource to be used by any media organisation, journalist or blogger as an instant profile on that person, or of an event, or about an organisation. Compare the profiles of Rajendra Pachauri, George Monbiot and Phil Jones, with those of James Delingpole, Christopher Booker, Christopher Moncton, Benny Peiser and Bjorn Lomborg, to witness a mastercraft example of PR and Media management at work, to promote an European Union AGW consensus media brief.
The intent appears to be that any media looking at a sceptical climate change story, ( Chinese and Indian particularly? ) will use The Carbon Brief as a resource, without actually seriously getting into the detail of any of the issues or ask any further questions.
An extract from The Carbon Brief’s – ‘Climategate’ profile
The message was interpreted by sceptics as suggesting scientists wanted to “hide the decline” in global temperatures. This interpretation was offered despite the email being sent in 1999, when temperatures had been rising for some decades.
The process referred to by the word “trick” was characterized by the Russell Report as a legitimate and peer reviewed method of dealing with the fact that a set of proxy temperature data from tree rings had diverged from temperature measurements – the proxy temperatures had declined while real temperatures continued to increase. This problem had been widely discussed in the scientific literature, prior to the UEA email hack.
Personally, I think that proxies for historic temperatures that don’t actually follow thermometers are a little unreliable and not to much faith should be be given to them. Particularly when they have been used to reconstruct a historic temperature record, which has been used inform us that temperatures are now unprecedented, proof of AGW and that we must do something now!
An extract from The Carbon Brief’s – ‘Hockey Stick’ Profile
“…Mann published a list of rebuttals to myths around the hockey stick graph on the Realclimate.org website in 2004.
Sceptic commentator Andrew Montford published the book The Hockey Stick Illusion in 2010. The central claim of The Hockey Stick Illusion is that the iconic graphic has survived only because a conspiracy amongst scientists sought to undermine the peer review process and bully journals into suppressing dissenting views.
Richard Joyner, emeritus professor of physical chemistry at Nottingham Trent University reviewed the book in Prospect magazine, suggesting that “Montford’s book is not an honest contribution” because he “consistently and without evidence…queries the actions and motives of those with whom he disagrees.”
Now I wonder why The Carbon Brief choose that particular review, was it really being independent and balanced, as Matt Ridley (author The Rational Optimist) gave a VERY positive review, which was ALSO in the Prospect Magazine! I wonder what Steve Mcintyre and Andrew Montford will make of those two profiles above (please read in full). Andrew Montford has lots of very positive reviews of his book, some other reviews here.
Andrew Montford had a response to – ‘without evidence’
“This is most peculiar. I mean, there are 270 references in the book. That’s really quite a lot of evidence. And Prof Joyner may have heard of the Climategate emails, heavily sourced in Chapter 17. What are these if not evidence?
What else is there? Well, he says I should have referred to Steve M’s failure to publish his tree ring research. In a book in which one of the themes is the difficulty sceptics have in getting published, this seems a rather bizarre position for Prof Joyner to take.” – Bishop Hill
Well funded with political influence
The Carbon Brief is backed by the European Climate Foundation and it appears to me to be a PR machine specifically designed to counter any scepticism and it has the funding, resources, political backing and contacts to do just that.
“European Climate Foundation aims to promote climate and energy policies that greatly reduce Europe’s greenhouse gas emissions and help Europe play an even stronger international leadership role in mitigating climate change.” –
“…. To meet that challenge, six funding partners joined forces in 2007 to create a new multi-million euro philanthropic entity called the European Climate Foundation.” – About Us – ECF
The activities of the Carbon Brief seems to me to be at odds with the other stated commitment of the European Climate Foundation, which made me laugh in disbelief at their apparent ‘doublethink’.
“We seek to maintain a reputation for objective, high-quality work that is neither ideological nor politically biased.” – About Us ECF
The European Climate Foundation (ECF) is well funded by its partners and even more importantly is very well connected politically in Europe for the clear aim of 80-95 % reduction in CHG’s by 2050. The Energy Strategy Centre is the European Climate Centre’s communications and media arm, which would indicate that The Carbon Brief far from being non-ideological and not politically biased, has as its sole purpose the promotion of the ECF’s agenda, which is to lobby hard for European Union climate and economic policy change.
“The majority of the European Climate Foundation’s fund is re-granted to NGOs engaged in trying to bring about meaningful policy change. When we see an unfulfilled need we also engage in direct initiatives, such as commission papers, convene meetings or launch a new organisation. We seek no public attention for our efforts and instead prefer to highlight the success of those who are actually doing the work.
We have identified four major areas for immediate intervention within Europe:
• Energy Efficiency in Buildings and Industry
• Low-Carbon Power Generation
• Transportation
• EU Climate Policies and Diplomacy
The European Climate Foundation describes the members of the Advisory Board
This international body consists of distinguished professionals who draw on their individual and collective experiences in politics, business, academia and civil society. Members of the Advisory Council actively engage in advancing ECF’s mission both by providing strategic advice and through advocacy.
They represent the elite of European business people, NGO’s, politicians and lobbyists. Including, a Co-editor of the IPCC, Chair of WWF, Chair of Globe EU, VP Club of Rome, former MEP’s, Tony Blairs former Chief of Staff, CEO’s, Directors and Senior partners of corporations and consultancies, including BP and Unilever. Truly the European elite.
I have had a brief look at some of their funding grants (see here), these include, Club of Rome, Greenpeace, WWF, Globe International, Centre for European Policy, in fact over 500 grants in less than 4 years. One organisation called Sandbag, which lobbies for improved emissions trading in the European Union, struck a chord with me. Sandbag has received funding and written significant reports in the area of lobbying for Carbon Emission policy in Europe, backed by the European Climate Foundation.
The founder of Sandbag is Bryony Worthington, she is now Baroness Worthington as she was made a life peer in the House of Lords last year by the Labour party leader Ed Milliband, as she was ‘instrumental in the writing’ of the UK Climate Change Act. Unlike Viscount Christopher Monckton she now a full voting member of the House of Lords for the rest of her life and will no doubt continue her climate change work there (she studied English by the way).
Bryony Worthington is also a board member of the 10:10 Campaign, who were behind the ‘No Pressure’ video nasty. Fellow 10:10 board members are the environmental campaigner Andrew Simms and Tony Juniper. Other Sandbag board member colleagues include Ed Gillespie founder of Futerra and Mike Mason the founder of Climate Care which will sell you carbon offsets (I have one!, but I’ll write another time about that) which is now owned by JP Morgan Chase . When Mike Mason from Climate Care debated Christopher Monckton at the Oxford Union last year he was listed as part of the JMorgan Climate Care organisation (he seems to have since left)
This one organisation alone provides ample evidence to me that there are significant interests and representation by media, politicians, banking and consensus AGW lobby groups at the heart of the EU policy formation.
What next for sceptical websites?
If I get the time, I will follow this post up with an article about the Green Social Network, and how perhaps to engage with it.
It is still very, very early days for The Carbon Brief, it has only just got started. They say they are independent and claim climate science is distorted by vested interests.
“Carbon Brief fact-checks stories about climate science online and in the press. We provide briefings on the people and organisations talking about climate change, and we produce background materials on science issues and news stories.
Distortions of climate science occur regularly, partly because climate science is a complex area, and partly because various interests, motivated by finance or ideology, have sought to confuse the issue.
We are a service for journalists and the online climate community. Our team of researchers will provide a rapid response service for climate science stories. We go straight to peer-reviewed science and the relevant scientists to get their opinions.
Right now we are in the early stages of developing the site.” – About Us – The Carbon Brief
What to expect from for The Carbon Brief because expectations seem to be very high?
Andrew Simms Bio: 10:10 Campaign Board Member, New Economic Foundation (NEF), Greenpeace UK board member, co-author of The Green Deal Report, founder of the 100 Month initiative, Trustee of TERI Europe(alongside Rajendra Pachauri, Sir John Houghton and Sir Crispin Tickell)
What next indeed?
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The “Carbon Brief” appears to be comprised of people who engage in this sort of behaviour in the pursuit of scientific honesty:-
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1358139/Climate-zealots-life-hell-sceptic-says-Johnny-Ball-victim-porn-blog-smears.html
I wear them all the time….carbon brief(s)
My son just said that the site should have been called “Rent a Troll” Seems apt enough to me!
A score of organizations, all “independently” checking unassailable “facts” with each other and concluding, at the very least, “..so it must be true” if not “…it’s much worse than we thought”.
I’m surprised there’s no reference to our own, dear Roger Harrabin. Perhaps he’s been left in reserve to be the ultimate referee.
Twittaganda
This is really getting scary. It therefore goes to show: It is no longer about the science, it never was. Good thing I left that continent.
“How can independent unpaid, unfunded bloggers possibly fend off professional PR of this nature from an organisation with multi-million Euro funded backers with the agenda described above.”
Having the truth on our side helps.
Stop your worrying, mate. It’s all about the money, and all will be revealed. Bring it on, and swiftly, I say. These w##kers ain’t got nothin but spume from a blowhole. The more they blow, the more they reveal their weakness. No science.
Joy. Just what we need. More advocacy.
It’s a sign of desperation but dangerous never-the-less. Truth has never been a big part of the global warming agenda. Apart from continuing to publish real data as widely as possible and responding to the false claims of the alarmists we have little option. Earth itself will be the main driver of scepticism. As the planet goes through it’s next natural cycle the taxpayer will be the best bulwark against fraudulent science. Taxpayers in turn vote and politicians make policy at their peril. It’s very difficult to convince a freezing householder that the price of electricity has to rise to stop the earth from overheating. The eventual retribution will be horrific.
Hilarious!
It looks to me as if, recognizing a lost cause when they see it, the PR masterminds of the EU have decided to underbus the wildly compromised dolts at RealClimate and set out on their own quest for 1000 uniques a day.
As the esteemed lagoon guru Sponge Bob Square Pants so aptly put it, “Good luck with that.”
When I see a comment on this site such as:
“Lomborg remains a cool operator, who will continue to ply his plausible trade with panache. We advise that anyone going to hear him speak listens with genuine scepticism, and takes his arguments with a pinch of salt”, it suggests to me that this site is not about real scientific debate or inquiry, but more about the overwhelming support of one side of the debate and the pillorying of anyone who strays from the accepted path. It felt like reading an article by the Spanish inquisition on whether evidence critical of the holy roman church was valid or not. Sad really, I was hoping for more, but it’s the same old ‘ we can’t be wrong, and you are all beneath contempt’ nonsense which is the bane of this whole critical debate.
The warmist proponents are more nervous than ever in Europe, and now view the sceptics as a formidable threat. They already concede that USA is now a lost and cause, and are now scrambling to save Europe. I doubt this Climate Brief is going to make a difference. It’s a desperate reaction. A reaction to events that they’ve lost control of – since Climategate.
I can’t help feeling that PR outfits like Climate Brief are signs of the death throes of climate alarmism. People are turning away from the claims of AGW promoters in increasing numbers and CB is a sign of the exhaustion of the apocalyptic meme.
There’s still plenty of money to be had promoting AGW, though. With a few million euros I could something much more useful than a PR campaign for a discredited belief system.
Now afterproofreading:
The warmist proponents are more nervous than ever in Europe, and now view the sceptics as a formidable threat. They already concede the USA is now a lost cause, and are now scrambling to save Europe. I doubt this Climate Brief is going to make a difference. It’s a desperate reaction. A reaction to events that they’ve lost control of – since Climategate.
Basically, this is a story about die-hard parishioners providing moral support for their priests. Those members of the AGW church who stand to benefit the most financially from pro-AGW policies are providing the funding.
This story has played itself out under different guises through countless generations. It would be pretty funny if it weren’t so pathetic and potentially damaging to economies all over the world.
My last comment is that group think can produce both gullibility and fraud on a massive scale. I guess the big question here is how many generations will it take for AGW group think to expire?
Why don’t they simply present the empirical evidence that would justify dismantling the world economy beyond a guess that maybe over 50% of the alleged warming since ~1950 (i.e. 0.35°C) was very probably due to human CO2 emissions?
With that level of high power, they’re obviously scared. What they don’t notice, because they don’t listen and the vitriolic reaction to anything even mildly suggesting the data are perhaps not quite so good shuts out any discussion, is that lots of people are simply laughing at them. Nod and smile is a good tactic – those in the know get it without setting off a nasty reaction. I even have a lot of hope with the younger generation coming through – they have no time for this nonsense.
We are being led like lambs to slaughter by the EU to further their agenda of a single European state. The fastidious way that the EU is making inroads to every aspect of our lives is becoming more and more apparent. Absolute control is being foisted upon us and they aim to ensure that their way, and only their way, is the only way. By the time they have ruined the economy of the EU, put millions back into the dark ages, it will be too late. Even then they will have an excuse to somehow blame it on someone else.
Why are we letting them get away with instigating such an obviously biased, publicly funded department like this! Every media outlet should be bombarded with realistic, responsible and well proven arguments about the whole debacle. The profile of the sceptical debate has to be raised much higher if any sort of sensible outcome is to happen. Any politician knocking on my door is certainly going to have a long, long talk!
Just a thought. The AGW problem will be solved when we (the West) have a bigger problem to solve. I thought the GFC would do the trick and it certainly slowed the madness. It seems a second GFC may be just around the corner as most of the lessons to be learnt from GFC 1 have been promptly forgotten or simply not applied. The EU as an entity is in debt. European manufacturing is moving to Chindia to cash in on carbon credits and unemployment and social upheavals are becoming more common. Recent happenings in the Middle East are yet to be assessed as to impacts on the rest of us. The US has high unemployment and huge debt. The general populace have far more pressing problems than a heating world exemplified by snow and ice.
So we need to alert people to the costs of mitigation and in particular how it will affect their hip pocket. In this regard we have access to some good one liners. Sound bites referring to the inefficiency of wind power. Rising electricity costs. Dearer petrol. Dearer food . Dearer transport. In answer the proponents have to explain how their policies will lower the temperature. Hard if it’s already freezing.
I have never believed AGW was a conspiracy but this seems to proove me wrong. It is going to be very tough for you to beat these guys but it could also be the undoing of them if this organisation became known about by a wide section of the public who are already sceptical of the big business and career politicians. An unwise move by the warmists.
Desperate and nasty tactics from the alarmist brigade, who have the gall to accuse those of a sceptical mindset that we are ‘well financed and highly organised’ – I wish!
But the truth has a habit of emerging and will in this case; as Abraham Lincoln put it so nicely “You can fool some of the people all of the time but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.”
And how may I ask are these wizards going to get the weather, ah, climate, to join in this exercise, perhaps tweet the sun ?
The more these priests slam their bibles upside people’s heads, the more people are going to get turned off of their dogmatic agenda.
So sit back, crack open a cold one, and enjoy the show as they continue to dig themselves deeper into their own graves.
Sad, and utterly inevitable. This exposes the AGW myth for what it is – a nasty leftist political movement, which will use every trick in the book to silent dissenters and stifle debate. They want to remove all debate as the cracks soon appear in their arguments. That in itself is enough for many open-minded people to take the view AGW is simply a lie, before even considering the overwhelming scientific evidence which demonstrates it.
Take a look at the Booker or Delingpole blogs on the Telegraph website and watch how the AGW fascists behave. AGW is the old anarchist/communist agenda of the ’60s and ’70s in a different guise and it attracts support from the same sorts of misguided, self-loathing, human-hating, arrogant and frankly dangerous ideologues.
The cheerleaders for AGW are well versed in political dirty tricks and media manipulation, not least because a lot of them are employed in the mainstream media.
The only good news is that the climate works to an inexorable cycle, and the cycle is running against these eco-fascists. I hope when it becomes glaringly obvious to the public that AGW and all the idiotic and expensive so-called “clean energy” and carbon trading schemes it has spawned are a massive fraud against them as taxpayers, the leading proponents of this lying propaganda are finally brought to justice.