UPDATE2: “404 Page not found” now at the BBC for this video on Monday Feb16th. It seems they’ve pulled it. Too much “negative feedback” I suppose. Readers be on the alert for any retractions.
UPDATE: BBC Can’t even get their reporting correct. The reporter in this video report that accompanies the web article says that “The fear is that increased global warming could set off what’s called negative feedback…..” and that now we are in “scenarios unexplored by the models”. No kidding, it’s that bad. For those of you that don’t know, some alarmists claim that “negative climate feedback is as real as the Easter Bunny, which is what makes this BBC factual error so hilarious.
Readers please let the BBC know that they have no idea what they are talking about. Just click here. – Anthony
Click above to watch the BBC video
Guest post by Steven Goddard
On Wednesday, normally stalwart UK global warming promoter – The Guardian, ran this remarkable headline, which was also covered here on WUWT:
‘Apocalyptic climate predictions’ mislead the public, say experts’
The Met Office Hadley Centre, one of the most prestigious research facilities in the world, says recent “apocalyptic predictions” about Arctic ice melt and soaring temperatures are as bad as claims that global warming does not exist. Such statements, however well-intentioned, distort the science and could undermine efforts to tackle carbon emissions, it says.
Undaunted and defiant, their comrades in global warming arms at the BBC, chose this as the lead story for Sunday morning:
‘Global warming ‘underestimated’
The severity of global warming over the next century will be much worse than previously believed, a leading climate scientist has warned.
….
“We are basically looking now at a future climate that is beyond anything that we’ve considered seriously in climate policy,” he said. Prof Field said the 2007 report, which predicted temperature rises between 1.1C and 6.4C over the next century, seriously underestimated the scale of the problem. “
BBC employs the old standby icon - a polar bear
Prof Field said rising temperatures could thaw Arctic permafrost
One fatal flaw with the BBC story is that Chris Field is not a climate scientist, as they claimed. He is actually a Professor of Biology in an Ecology Department. So how does the BBC choose their headlines? In matters of global warming, apparently the apocalyptic words of one American ecologist overrule those of the UK’s own government climate scientists at The Met Office. Chris Field clearly does not have any credentials to be making the climate claims the BBC reported. This looks more and more like a Shakespearean comedy every day.For them all together; which maintained so politica state of evil that they will not admit any goodpart to intermingle with them.William Shakespeare – from ‘Much Ado About Nothing’
“The Met Office Hadley Centre, one of the most prestigious research facilities in the world, says recent “apocalyptic predictions” about Arctic ice melt and soaring temperatures are as bad as claims that global warming does not exist.”
Let the BBC at it i say, its like the old story of the boy who cried wolf. For years we are told that mild winters are here to stay then comes along this winter. Last year we were told that an ice free artic was just around the corner, it wont be a story again unless its actually ice free. Cold winters and ice in the artic do not contradict AGW theory however it does contradict the alarmist reporting.
Mac
February 15, 2009 3:02 am
Since Prof Field is looking at the short term to predict the long term, then this what we know.
The planet has witnessed 10 years of global cooling, whilst CO2 levels have steadily risen.
According to polls climate change is now the lowest ranked priority.
Climate alarmism by warmists is on the rise.
Climate researchers at the Met Office now say that a common misrepresentation of climate change was to take a few years data and extrapolate to what would happen if it continues.
It is clear that Prof Field is concerned that he is losing the public arguement. He has now resorted to misrepresenting the facts, the very act that climate scientists are now warning against.
As for the BBC, it is clear that its environmental correspondents don’t know what they are taking about. “Negative feedback”, oh dear, oh dear. They’ll be telling us next Antarctica is warming up!
Robert Wood
February 15, 2009 3:06 am
Continuing the PR blitz, Hansen writes in the UK Guardian: …coal is the single greatest threat to civilisation and all life on our planet. The trains carrying coal to power plants are death trains. Coal-fired power plants are factories of death.
But he leaves his MMGW argument open to simple rebuttal with the following statement: Several times in Earth’s history, rapid global warming occurred, apparently spurred by amplifying feedbacks.
COP15 in Copenhagen isn’t until December 7-18 2009. Can this level of hysteria be maintained until then?
Pierre Gosselin
February 15, 2009 3:07 am
Get a load of this Dr. Holdren kook: http://icecap.us/index.php/go/they-said-it
Holdren, 1986:
Global warming could cause the deaths of one billion people by 2020.
Holdren, 1973
Encouraged “a decline in fertility to well below replacement” in the United States because “280 million in 2040 is likely to be too many.”
Ben Kellett
February 15, 2009 3:09 am
Steven Goddard (00:02:04) :
“We need to get some broad based support,
to capture the public’s imagination…
So we have to offer up scary scenarios,
make simplified, dramatic statements
and make little mention of any doubts…
Each of us has to decide what the right balance
is between being effective and being honest.”
Steven, this is a scary quote! What is your source and what is the context in which the statement is made?
Ben
Pierre Gosselin
February 15, 2009 3:11 am
“Next time Hansens scenarios A,B,C are considered, we’re going to have to say earth has been exceeding scenario A then. The fact that the current temperature is on and descending below the line for scenario C, we’re left with the conclusion these models have no predictive power whatsoever.”
anonymous, no. 69 http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=5232
Diogenes
February 15, 2009 3:14 am
The other extraordinary quote from the clip is this:-
“Some scientists say the earth is warming because of natural climatic fluctuations not because of man’s influence.”
For the BBC to admit that scientists hold this opinion is progress. Maybe a crisis of faith is emerging.
B Kerr
February 15, 2009 3:14 am
The BBC is a disgrace.
I can no longer watch the 6 o’clock BBC news.
This article “Global warming ‘underestimated’ ” is par for the course.
It is awful, yet there to alarm.
“Prof Field said fresh data showed greenhouse gas emissions between 2000 and 2007 increased far more rapidly than expected. ”
I notice that no values are actually published so we are left to think that these emissions must be say 20 or 30 percent!!
So how do we Brits complain?
Well there is Ofcom. – Office of Communications who are there to:-
“We are an independent organisation which regulates the UK’s broadcasting, telecommunications and wireless communications sectors. We also set and enforce rules on fair competition between companies in these industries.”
Sounds good the very people to contact and complain under section 5.
“Section 5: Due Impartiality and Due Accuracy and Undue Prominence of Views and Opinions”
Yes I think we would question impartiality and accuracy in the BBC article and news broadcast.
So what is the catch? http://www.ofcom.org.uk/tv/ifi/codes/bcode/undue/
The first paragraph says
“(Relevant legislation includes, in particular, sections 319(2)(c) and (d), 319(8) and section 320 of the Communications Act 2003, and Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights.)
This section of the Code does not apply to BBC services funded by the licence fee or grant in aid, which are regulated on these matters by the BBC Trust. ”
We cannot complain to Ofcom about the BBC’s accuracy!
We need to contact the BBC Governors.
So folks we just need to keep paying our BBC licence fee every year and grin!!
As Meatloaf sings “I want my money back!”
Aron
February 15, 2009 3:44 am
The Sunday Times report ends with the ding-dong that the IPCC is a “study centre”.
Roy
February 15, 2009 3:47 am
Perhaps I am missing the point of the comment about “negative feedback”, but surely they’d be fretting about positive feedback–i.e. “runaway” global warming?
D Caldwell writes “In the MSM it’s not really about science anymore. It’s mostly about advocacy now.”
Sorry. ALL the IPCC and pro-AGW reports have been advocacy; they never were scientific.
Alan the Brit
February 15, 2009 4:05 am
Just got back from church & read this post. Amazing.
Well done Anthony, a perfect quotation from a wonderful play, the BBC’s story really is “Much Ado about Nothing” as their scare stories usually are!
I recommend that everyone who wants to complain to the auntie beeb about the standard of envirnomerntal reporting, at the same time advise them that they have also signed up to the new campaign to “PRIVATISE” the BBC. Now that will make them rapidly need the clean underwear!!!!! Trust me, they’re paid by the taxpayer, & nothing like privatisation scares a tax funded employee more. At the moment the BBC is ruling the roost, because of its unique position as a licence funded public body. They’ll soon change their tune when threatened with financial cut backs or worse for them, privatisation. The BBC really has gone beyond its brief & duty by forcing inaccuate & unbalanced science upon the public. It is appalling. REPLY: Steven Goddard wrote most of the post, see hiss title line. I only did the update. – Anthony
What Field or the BBC meant was a “positive feedback”–i.e., one that reinforces the trend. The common error he or it fell into was to interpret “positive” as “good” and “negative” as bad.”
Even if the permafrost is melting, the effect from released methane is unlikely to be catastrophic, since the permafrost melted during the Medieval Warm Period (as evidenced by Viking burials), with no grave consequences (right?).
I agree with the commenter who said it’s not that crucial to be credentialed in climatology. Any scientifically trained person who focuses on the topic and reads the literature for a year or so should be able to think and opine intelligently about it. I believe that expertise in statistics and modeling/forecasting is probably the most important qualification, followed by literacy in the sociology of science. (In particular, in its historical reviews showing how fads (positive) and close-mindedness + shibboleths (negative) can pervade a field and lead it into prolonged error, and how “paradigms” can censor out awareness of contradictory evidence (anomalies).)
mal
February 15, 2009 4:19 am
Looks like the polar bear is extinct …
It’s gone from the story
Steve Fox
February 15, 2009 4:29 am
Anthony,
have sent the Beeb some ‘negative feedback’.
I think their minds are made up, though.
This has been on the main state-owned radio here in Iceland, as well as in the main newspaper. Therefore I wrote some blog here http://agbjarn.blog.is .
Some real negative feedback I hope 🙂
Agust
Steve Fox
February 15, 2009 4:31 am
Sorry Steven.
You’re not Anthony.
haddock
February 15, 2009 4:37 am
The problem here is that you people that live outside the UK are relying on the legacy idea that the BBC is a respected and impartial news service.
Those of us in the UK know it as a government propaganda tool and discount most of its output as government spin.
kenneth wikeroy
February 15, 2009 4:41 am
I have invented a new slogan;
Global warming is not man-made, its Mann-made.
What do you think?
Ellie in Belfast
February 15, 2009 4:46 am
@tallbloke (02:10:54) :
The quote from Stephen Schneider is very telling.
A July 2007 article on NPR documents factors in the rise of global warming in the public conciousness (including the thermally manipulated Hansen Congressional hearing).
“the media is now covering the story more extensively and aggressively. Those few scientists voicing skepticism about global warming don’t receive the same air time they once did, when evidence of climate change was much weaker.
Some psychologists attribute the burst of interest to a phenomenon called “the social amplification of risk.” It’s a theory that explains why we fear some things more than others. It explains why, for instance, countless swimmers stayed out of the ocean after seeing the 1975 movie Jaws, even though, statistically you are 80 times more likely to be struck by lightning than killed by a shark.
The social amplification of risk also explains why the 2004 movie The Day After Tomorrow raised concerns about global warming, even though the movie was scientifically (not to mention artistically) flawed.” http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11787222
Love the last line “a favorite saying of environmentalists, “Nature bats last.””
Barry Foster (02:04:41) :
Carsten. If the Norwegian media simply copies the British media, this must annoy the hell out of you people there! You’ll be telling us you get our football next. Is Norway still the best place in the world to live – because that’s what we’re told in the UK?
Unfortunately, it doesn’t annoy enough people yet.
For example, our minister of the environment, Erik Solheim, is trying to scare the public the best he can with his alarmism, and he seems to be getting away with it so far. As the weather here got rather chilly recently (that means normal), he now claims the fires in Australia are due to global warming:
‘Connects fires to climate change’
“Environmental minister Erik Solheim and australian firemen hope the disaster will be a wake-up signal in climate negotiations”. http://www.dagbladet.no/2009/02/13/nyheter/miljo/brann/4837811/
I wonder if australian firemen agree with that assertion.
Is it BBC who is telling you Norway is the best place to live? Well, we do like to think that. But we do indeed have your football. Just ask my 11 year old son.
Lone Buntyne (01:15:00) :
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/feb/15/james-hansen-power-plants-coal
How does this man get away with it?
‘death factories’?
Isn’t this a confirmation of Godwin’s law?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law
“The Met Office Hadley Centre, one of the most prestigious research facilities in the world, says recent “apocalyptic predictions” about Arctic ice melt and soaring temperatures are as bad as claims that global warming does not exist.”
Let the BBC at it i say, its like the old story of the boy who cried wolf. For years we are told that mild winters are here to stay then comes along this winter. Last year we were told that an ice free artic was just around the corner, it wont be a story again unless its actually ice free. Cold winters and ice in the artic do not contradict AGW theory however it does contradict the alarmist reporting.
Since Prof Field is looking at the short term to predict the long term, then this what we know.
The planet has witnessed 10 years of global cooling, whilst CO2 levels have steadily risen.
According to polls climate change is now the lowest ranked priority.
Climate alarmism by warmists is on the rise.
Climate researchers at the Met Office now say that a common misrepresentation of climate change was to take a few years data and extrapolate to what would happen if it continues.
It is clear that Prof Field is concerned that he is losing the public arguement. He has now resorted to misrepresenting the facts, the very act that climate scientists are now warning against.
As for the BBC, it is clear that its environmental correspondents don’t know what they are taking about. “Negative feedback”, oh dear, oh dear. They’ll be telling us next Antarctica is warming up!
Continuing the PR blitz, Hansen writes in the UK Guardian:
…coal is the single greatest threat to civilisation and all life on our planet.
The trains carrying coal to power plants are death trains. Coal-fired power plants are factories of death.
But he leaves his MMGW argument open to simple rebuttal with the following statement:
Several times in Earth’s history, rapid global warming occurred, apparently spurred by amplifying feedbacks.
COP15 in Copenhagen isn’t until December 7-18 2009. Can this level of hysteria be maintained until then?
Get a load of this Dr. Holdren kook:
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/they-said-it
Holdren, 1986:
Global warming could cause the deaths of one billion people by 2020.
Holdren, 1973
Encouraged “a decline in fertility to well below replacement” in the United States because “280 million in 2040 is likely to be too many.”
Steven Goddard (00:02:04) :
“We need to get some broad based support,
to capture the public’s imagination…
So we have to offer up scary scenarios,
make simplified, dramatic statements
and make little mention of any doubts…
Each of us has to decide what the right balance
is between being effective and being honest.”
Steven, this is a scary quote! What is your source and what is the context in which the statement is made?
Ben
“Next time Hansens scenarios A,B,C are considered, we’re going to have to say earth has been exceeding scenario A then. The fact that the current temperature is on and descending below the line for scenario C, we’re left with the conclusion these models have no predictive power whatsoever.”
anonymous, no. 69
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=5232
The other extraordinary quote from the clip is this:-
“Some scientists say the earth is warming because of natural climatic fluctuations not because of man’s influence.”
For the BBC to admit that scientists hold this opinion is progress. Maybe a crisis of faith is emerging.
The BBC is a disgrace.
I can no longer watch the 6 o’clock BBC news.
This article “Global warming ‘underestimated’ ” is par for the course.
It is awful, yet there to alarm.
“Prof Field said fresh data showed greenhouse gas emissions between 2000 and 2007 increased far more rapidly than expected. ”
I notice that no values are actually published so we are left to think that these emissions must be say 20 or 30 percent!!
So how do we Brits complain?
Well there is Ofcom. – Office of Communications who are there to:-
“We are an independent organisation which regulates the UK’s broadcasting, telecommunications and wireless communications sectors. We also set and enforce rules on fair competition between companies in these industries.”
Sounds good the very people to contact and complain under section 5.
“Section 5: Due Impartiality and Due Accuracy and Undue Prominence of Views and Opinions”
Yes I think we would question impartiality and accuracy in the BBC article and news broadcast.
So what is the catch?
http://www.ofcom.org.uk/tv/ifi/codes/bcode/undue/
The first paragraph says
“(Relevant legislation includes, in particular, sections 319(2)(c) and (d), 319(8) and section 320 of the Communications Act 2003, and Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights.)
This section of the Code does not apply to BBC services funded by the licence fee or grant in aid, which are regulated on these matters by the BBC Trust. ”
We cannot complain to Ofcom about the BBC’s accuracy!
We need to contact the BBC Governors.
So folks we just need to keep paying our BBC licence fee every year and grin!!
As Meatloaf sings “I want my money back!”
The Sunday Times report ends with the ding-dong that the IPCC is a “study centre”.
Perhaps I am missing the point of the comment about “negative feedback”, but surely they’d be fretting about positive feedback–i.e. “runaway” global warming?
D Caldwell writes “In the MSM it’s not really about science anymore. It’s mostly about advocacy now.”
Sorry. ALL the IPCC and pro-AGW reports have been advocacy; they never were scientific.
Just got back from church & read this post. Amazing.
Well done Anthony, a perfect quotation from a wonderful play, the BBC’s story really is “Much Ado about Nothing” as their scare stories usually are!
I recommend that everyone who wants to complain to the auntie beeb about the standard of envirnomerntal reporting, at the same time advise them that they have also signed up to the new campaign to “PRIVATISE” the BBC. Now that will make them rapidly need the clean underwear!!!!! Trust me, they’re paid by the taxpayer, & nothing like privatisation scares a tax funded employee more. At the moment the BBC is ruling the roost, because of its unique position as a licence funded public body. They’ll soon change their tune when threatened with financial cut backs or worse for them, privatisation. The BBC really has gone beyond its brief & duty by forcing inaccuate & unbalanced science upon the public. It is appalling.
REPLY: Steven Goddard wrote most of the post, see hiss title line. I only did the update. – Anthony
“Chris Field, director of the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology and co-chair of the IPCC Working Group 2, …”
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-02/ci-dan021309.php
John M Reynolds
What Field or the BBC meant was a “positive feedback”–i.e., one that reinforces the trend. The common error he or it fell into was to interpret “positive” as “good” and “negative” as bad.”
Even if the permafrost is melting, the effect from released methane is unlikely to be catastrophic, since the permafrost melted during the Medieval Warm Period (as evidenced by Viking burials), with no grave consequences (right?).
I agree with the commenter who said it’s not that crucial to be credentialed in climatology. Any scientifically trained person who focuses on the topic and reads the literature for a year or so should be able to think and opine intelligently about it. I believe that expertise in statistics and modeling/forecasting is probably the most important qualification, followed by literacy in the sociology of science. (In particular, in its historical reviews showing how fads (positive) and close-mindedness + shibboleths (negative) can pervade a field and lead it into prolonged error, and how “paradigms” can censor out awareness of contradictory evidence (anomalies).)
Looks like the polar bear is extinct …
It’s gone from the story
Anthony,
have sent the Beeb some ‘negative feedback’.
I think their minds are made up, though.
This has been on the main state-owned radio here in Iceland, as well as in the main newspaper. Therefore I wrote some blog here http://agbjarn.blog.is .
Some real negative feedback I hope 🙂
Agust
Sorry Steven.
You’re not Anthony.
The problem here is that you people that live outside the UK are relying on the legacy idea that the BBC is a respected and impartial news service.
Those of us in the UK know it as a government propaganda tool and discount most of its output as government spin.
I have invented a new slogan;
Global warming is not man-made, its Mann-made.
What do you think?
@tallbloke (02:10:54) :
The quote from Stephen Schneider is very telling.
A July 2007 article on NPR documents factors in the rise of global warming in the public conciousness (including the thermally manipulated Hansen Congressional hearing).
“the media is now covering the story more extensively and aggressively. Those few scientists voicing skepticism about global warming don’t receive the same air time they once did, when evidence of climate change was much weaker.
Some psychologists attribute the burst of interest to a phenomenon called “the social amplification of risk.” It’s a theory that explains why we fear some things more than others. It explains why, for instance, countless swimmers stayed out of the ocean after seeing the 1975 movie Jaws, even though, statistically you are 80 times more likely to be struck by lightning than killed by a shark.
The social amplification of risk also explains why the 2004 movie The Day After Tomorrow raised concerns about global warming, even though the movie was scientifically (not to mention artistically) flawed.”
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11787222
Love the last line “a favorite saying of environmentalists, “Nature bats last.””
Barry Foster (02:04:41) :
Carsten. If the Norwegian media simply copies the British media, this must annoy the hell out of you people there! You’ll be telling us you get our football next. Is Norway still the best place in the world to live – because that’s what we’re told in the UK?
Unfortunately, it doesn’t annoy enough people yet.
For example, our minister of the environment, Erik Solheim, is trying to scare the public the best he can with his alarmism, and he seems to be getting away with it so far. As the weather here got rather chilly recently (that means normal), he now claims the fires in Australia are due to global warming:
‘Connects fires to climate change’
“Environmental minister Erik Solheim and australian firemen hope the disaster will be a wake-up signal in climate negotiations”.
http://www.dagbladet.no/2009/02/13/nyheter/miljo/brann/4837811/
I wonder if australian firemen agree with that assertion.
Is it BBC who is telling you Norway is the best place to live? Well, we do like to think that. But we do indeed have your football. Just ask my 11 year old son.
Let’s all send a note to BBC to correct their story regarding Chris Field being a “climate scientist”. I just did.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/newswatch/ifs/hi/newsid_4000000/newsid_4000500/4000537.stm
Another example of how this story is simply copied around
From the biggest Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten (conservative)
http://www.aftenposten.no/klima/article2927393.ece
Article translated back to English (Google translate)
http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.aftenposten.no%2Fklima%2Farticle2927393.ece&sl=no&tl=en&hl=en&ie=UTF-8