There has been a lot of talk about the edits the BBC made to a story on climate change in response to repeated emails by a single environmental activist. Michael Ronayne has created an animation of the before and after using Google Cache:
image changes every 5 seconds -click for the full sized image
For the story on what transpired, Michael has also supplied some links to commentary and the actual email exchanges:
Glenn Beck has commentary on the email exchanges:
http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/8412/
Blog bully crows over BBC climate victory
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/08/bbc_blog_bully/
From Jennifer Marohasy: There is an amusing you-tube clip with Noel Sheppard on Glenn Beck’s show talking about the BBC. Have a look:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=216v5AoQcFQ
Apparently the BBC is refusing to comment.
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That thing flashes back and forth too quickly. Please slow it down so we can actually read the different versions!
REPLY: I agree, and I’m fixing that. The new version changes once ever 5 seconds.
Wow, trying to read transcripts really sucks. The speech is so disjointed and doesn’t make a lick of sense.
Wow. This is pretty amazing. Outright censorship based on extortion. It must be more desperate for the AGW crowd than we already thought. Why can’t the “science” defend itself?
This is news from yesterday.
Anyway, why are you all shocked about this? When the White House changes hands and the Dems have 60 seats in the Senate, then you can kiss honest data and an impartial media goodbye. It’s gonna get a lot uglier.
The Register did get a comment from the BBC:
“A minor change was made to the ‘Global temperatures “to decrease”‘ piece on our website to better reflect the science. A few people including the report’s authors, the World Meteorlogical Organisation, pointed out to us that the earlier version had been ambiguous.”
Of course, that’s not much more than a verbose way of saying “No comment.”
The Register’s article is the only thing I’ve seen that distills the transcript into something that’s easy to read, but that’s what their editors are for. The transcript at Marohasy’s blog is basic raw data, a copy of what appears to be the original web post at http://portal.campaigncc.org/node/2089 . I’m surprised that post is still up and that only a few comments have been made about it. I think we should keep it that way.
Oh – perhaps Jeff Alberts was referring to the Glen Beck transcript, not the Abbess/Harrabin transcript. Transcripts of spoken word speeches are often difficult to follow. Of dialogs, usually impossible. That’s why you never see a long quote from George Bush.
Jeff B
Why should it? You have a bunch thugs to tell us how to think. Who needs science!
I have a question about the last “apocalypse du jour”: The Hole in the Ozone.
The 2007 Nobel Prize for chemistry was given to Gerhard Ertl for his work on chemical reactions on the surface of crystals. Press releases implied that his work could explain or did explain the loss of the ozone in the stratosphere over the Antarctic. I have not seen any evaluations as to whether the CFC thesis or the reactions on crystals explained the loss of the ozone or which was predominant.
My question is: Do we know what causes the ozone hole in the stratosphere?
Impartial media?? I’ve forgotten what they is.
So long as the Presidency and a third of either house hangs on, the data is safe. (Thank goodness this is a republic, and NOT a democracy!)
Talk about Rewriting History, Time and Time Again….
Can you post the URL of the offending page please?
I guess Jo Abbess’es attempt to “censor” media coverage has had the opposite effect. It has not only brought the story to the attention of many people who otherwise have missed it, but it has also highlighted some of the tactics of the AGW fanatics and how easily the BBC can browbeat into following the party line.
Evan: it’s a little more tenuous than you might think. The House is subject to the rather iron-handed leadership of the Speaker, with the Chairman of the Rules committee playing a major supporting role. A simple majority gets even the most unpopular legislative through the House, no matter how strenuous the objections of the minority, even if they are a minority only by one.
It takes more than a third of the body to support the concerns of a minority in the Senate. It takes 2/5. 60 votes, not 67, are all that’s required to end a debate and move to a vote.
As for the President, all three major candidates have endorsed the AGW crowd to one degree or another.
I suppose I wouldn’t have wanted to be in this reporter’s shoes. This looks like a threat from Jo Abbess read the exchange at http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2008/04/07/climate-activist-got-bbc-change-global-temperatures-decrease-article.
“I am about to send your comments to others for their contribution, unless you request I do not. They are likely to want to post your comments on forums/fora, so please indicate if you do not want this to happen. You may appear in an unfavourable light because it could be said that you have had your head turned by the sceptics. ”
And this part was really bizarre because she was the one who actually did the manipulating.
“Otherwise, I would have to conclude that you are insufficiently educated to be able to know when you have been psychologically manipulated. And that would make you an unreliable reporter.”
Mike
Jon Jewett: “My question is: Do we know what causes the ozone hole in the stratosphere?”
The following quote from a JunkScience.com article:
“The conceptual “ozone layer” is not some delicate, static and fragile wrapping about the outer atmosphere but rather a dynamic and highly volatile component, both created and destroyed by solar radiation. Ozone creation is a continuous process, so we can not “run out” of stratospheric ozone. ”
Since the “hole” appears over the Antarctice at a time when there is little to no sunlight, I would suppose the creation process of sunlight creating ozone (which is unstable) is stoppled or at least slowed to almost nothing. Unfortunately, most people are lead to believe we have a finite ozone layer that is being eaten away never to return. The same sloppiness applies when people fail to distinguish between AGW and natural global warming, and between immigration and illegal immigration in their discussions.
Now where did I put my SPF6 oil?
Here is my original post with comments about date/time stamp forgeries. This is why the date/time line is in red in the animation.
http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/04/04/march-2008-rss-global-temperature-anomaly-data-slightly-above-zero/#comment-10475
The original BBC story has been cycled out of Google Cache but is still available in Yahoo Cache so make a copy before it is too late. There will be another recovery opportunity in about six months using the Way-Back Machine if it is not redacted first. Please make archive backups early and make them often.
Global warming ‘dips this year’
http://216.109.125.130/search/cache?ei=UTF-8&p=%22Global+warming+%27dips+this+year%27%22&fr=ush-news&u=reddit.com/goto%3Frss%3Dtrue%26id%3Dt3_6ellk&w=%22global+warming+dips+this+year%22&d=Nxe2VvH_QkkL&icp=1&.intl=us
At the Ministry of Truth you can read the alternate reality yourself.
Global temperatures ‘to decrease’
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7329799.stm?rss
Please verify the accuracy of the animation by comparing it with the two versions the story referenced above. Only the first section was altered. To bad Roger Harrabin can’t capitalize NASA correctly but it must be difficult to take dictation and type at the same time, while under stress.
Now let us be silent as we wait for the outraged voices of the NutRoots denouncing censorship of the press!
Mike
Robinson:
“Can you post the URL of the offending page please?”
The BBC story is at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7329799.stm
Harrabin at the BBC has a history of writing alarmist claptrap that panders to western guilt about poor people in the developing world and most people’s general ignorance of science.
Unfortunately Google News doesn’t keep access to old stories, otherwise I’d post a few to give you a flavour of his ‘work’.
Jo got quite a few robust comments on the Campaign against Climate Change activists portal http://portal.campaigncc.org/node/2089
I haven’t read a single comment on that thread supporting her, or anything by her by way of rebuttal. I’m wondering whether she simply underestimated people’s reactions, when she made that exchange public on 4th April. If she expected to receive praise, it seems to have misfired badly, in my opinion.
Still flashes a little too fast for me–does that say in the middle:
It would have been a lot warmer if it hadn’t gotten so cold?
Tom: “REPLY: I agree, and I’m fixing that. The new version changes once ever 5 seconds.”
Thanks for the great animation, but I’m probably a slow reading guy who can’t read an article in 5 seconds. 10 seconds would have been good for me.
Jon Jewett,
I can’t answer your question, but as an aside: I heard a news report a couple of months ago that said that “Scientists now think that the effect of Chloroflourocarbons (sp?) on ozone is about 1/10th of what they thought it was when the freon ban went into effect”.
I wonder just how much money was spent on removing freon from the market. I also wonder how much energy is still being wasted on less effective alternatives.
This is right out of Huxley’s Brave New World in which Winston Smith rewrote news and altered the archives of the news on a daily basis.
ROFTLMAO… it looks like Jo’s big mouth is getting her sent back to the abiss.
Sorry about the blink speeds, I have a tendency to like them fast and assume that everyone else is so inclined. You can stop the animation at any time by pressing the “Esc” key on you keyboard. The resume the animation click on the “Refresh” Icon on your toolbar or press the “F5” key on your keyboard.
In future posts I will be careful to include instructions pertaining to using the off/on switch.
This technology is know as a Blink Comparator and has many useful applications.
Blink Comparator
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blink_comparator
Mike