I received this email this morning from Roger Harribin, the BBC’s environmental analyst. It’s interesting because I received an email from the Guardian yesterday asking if I’d like to write a 200 word guest piece. Unfortunately it somehow ended up in my spam filter (which I found this morning) so I missed the 3 PM GMT deadline today.
Here’s what Mr. Harrabin wrote. I hope WUWT readers will come to aid, especially since skeptics are now apparently getting a voice in UK MSM.
From: Roger Harrabin – Internet
Sent: Wednesday, February 03, 2010 6:10 AM
To: [Anthony]
Subject: BBC query
Dear Mr Watts,
I am trying to talk to UK scientists in current academic posts who are sceptical about AGW.
I’m struggling to find anyone – but there may of course be a number of reasons for this. Please could you post my request on your website – and ask people to email roger.harrabin@bbc.co.uk.
We are looking for scientists, of course – not insults.
It strikes me that it might be useful to meet sometime to discuss a project I am planning on the weather.
I enclose my latest column
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8491154.stm
which touches on the difficulties of reporting climate change FYI.
I look forward to hearing from you
Yours
Roger Harrabin
If you know of a skeptical scientist in the UK that may be interested, please advise them of this. Thanks to all for your consideration. – Anthony
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Anthony,
Do not trust this man, or that corporation. Our views, and arguments, are anathema to them.
You are already making a HUGE difference in this debate. My advice from afar would be to simply stay the course and not get distracted by offers such as these. Having vital resources like WUWT, CA, etc, unfairly dismissed in such a forum would be devastating. It’s simply not worth the risk.
Please do not trust them.
Firstly, do not trust this greenie reporter one inch, ney a millimetre. He is as duplicitous as they come. He has too many grubby fingers in too many All the neagtive comments about are absolutely right, he would slit your throat as soon as look at you from an environmental reporting issue! I am still to find coverage of WeatherAction’s October seminar at which both Harrabin & Richard Black attended. Trust neither.
As to scientists in academia, well there is the rub, probably none currently. But in private practice, there is Piers Corbyn, Stephen Wilde, & of course former IPPC reviewer Richard S. Courteney in Cornwall. What about any other former British reviewers? What about Prof Paul Reiter at the Pastuer Institute, Paris, expert on malaria & vector borne diseases? He should be able to put a wet cloth on the claims about disease spread thro’ AGW, & about how brow beaten some scientists were by bureaucrats at the IPCC to delvier a particular conclusion.
Sorry that should have too many greenie pies!
The BBC are clearly considered by CRU as a media gate keeper for al things climate related, just take a look at roger harradins, Richard Blacks pronouncements and partiality (the whole agw theory is the bbc’s mantra)
So they are actually complicit in not allowing the debate..
They even comlinaed to ofcom about channel 4 showing the great global warming scandal!
CRU’s attitude stinks: (climate gate emails)
A qualified person (Paul Hudson) comments on a proccess that might explain the plateauing or cooling in the last decade….
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/paulhudson/2009/10/whatever-happened-to-global-wa.shtml
And INSTANTLY he is dismissed as a sceptic:
climate gate email:
Subject: BBC U-turn on climate
Steve,
You may be aware of this already. Paul Hudson, BBCs reporter on climate change, on Friday
wrote that theres been no warming since 1998, and that pacific oscillations will force
cooling for the next xxx xxxx xxxxyears. It is not outrageously biased in presentation as are
other skeptics views.
Which gets a reply!!!! (travesty, lack of warming!!!)
Kevin Trenberth wrote:
> > > > > Hi all
> > > > > Well I have my own article on where the heck is global
> > > > > warming? We are asking that here in Boulder where we have
> > > > > broken records the past two days for the coldest days on
> > > > > record. We had 4 inches of snow. The high the last 2 days
> > > > > was below 30F and the normal is 69F, and it smashed the
> > > > > previous records for these days by 10F. The low was about 18F
> > > > > and also a record low, well below the previous record low.
> > > > > This is January weather (see the Rockies baseball playoff game
> > > > > was canceled on saturday and then played last night in below
> > > > > freezing weather).
> > > > > Trenberth, K. E., 2009: An imperative for climate change
> > > > > planning: tracking Earth’s global energy. /Current Opinion in
> > > > > Environmental Sustainability/, *1*, 19-27,
> > > > > doi:10.1016/j.cosust.2009.06.001. [PDF]
> > > > > (A PDF of the published version can be obtained from the author.)
> > > > > The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at
> > > > > the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t. The CERES data
> > > > > published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there
> > > > > should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong.
> > > > > Our observing system is inadequate.
Then they say better have a word with the BBC:
Michael Mann wrote:
> > > > > > extremely disappointing to see something like this appear on
> > > > > > BBC. its particularly odd, since climate is usually Richard
> > > > > > Black’s beat at BBC (and he does a great job). from what I
> > > > > > can tell, this guy was formerly a weather person at the Met
> > > > > > Office.
> > > > > > We may do something about this on RealClimate, but meanwhile
> > > > > > it might be appropriate for the Met Office to have a say
> > > > > > about this, I might ask Richard Black what’s up here?
> > > > > > mike
So Paul HUdson is just a ‘weatherman’ note the dismissive language. is now a sceptic
So Richard Black BBC environment corrspondent – qualifications unknown
So Roger Harridan environment editor – english degree.
Paul Hudson bio:
Paul was born and brought up in Keighley, near Bradford, and after reading geophysics and planetary physics at Newcastle University, he joined the Met Office and did two years at Leeds Weather Centre. He combined this with a two-year stint as Number Two weather presenter for BBC Look North and for the BBC local radio stations in Leeds, York, Humberside and Sheffield.
Perhaps this investigative reporter could simply have referred to the Academic Advisory Council of the Global Warming Policy Foundation (www.thegwpf.org), Nigel Lawson’s newly established think-tank.
Not that hard, is it?
Since Benny Peiser runs the remarkably effective CCNet newsletter from Britain I am quite certain he could name dozens, possibly hundreds. This looks to me like Harrabin trying to cover himself by saying the BBC are & have always been willing to report sceptics but had to contact America to find any.
http://biased-bbc.blogspot.com/search?q=Harrabin
Enough on there about Harrabin
Much as I despise the BBC and Harrabin in particular, please bear this in mind: there is to be an investigation within the BBC (by the BBC Trust) this spring as to whether it is impartial on science reporting, specifically “accuracy and impartiality”. OK, we all know the answer to that, but it has to be seen to be going through the motions.
Richard Tait, the chair of the BBC Trust’s editorial standards committee says, “Heated debate in recent years around topics like climate change, genetically modified crops and the MMR vaccine reflects this, and BBC reporting has to steer a course through these controversial issues while remaining impartial.”
With an investigation starting in a few weeks, Harrabin had better get his house in order, at least to the extent that he can pull the wool over the investigation.
If no response is received when a BBC journalist asks a fair question then the BBC will claim that it couldn’t report the sceptical position because none was forthcoming. No spokesman could be found. The BBC does this all the time “We invited body XYZ onto the programme, but XYZ said that no spokesman was available”. And it then goes on to present a one-sided argument.
Remember as well that Channel Four got mildly rapped by Ofcom when it aired the Great Global Warming Swindle because it had not given sufficient time for persons in the documentary to get back to them with comments. The BBC will want to make sure it can claim that it has given opportunity.
Quite frankly, in terms of co-operating with Harrabin, you’ll be damned if you do and damned if you don’t.
Send him the address of the remarkable Jo Abbess
jaymam (00:22:03) :
I think Dr David Bellamy would be fine if he’s prepared to do it. If Roger Harribin and the BBC don’t like having David Bellamy that will show that they are not serious about having proper balance.
No – not David Bellamy. He’s a nice guy who’s heart is in the right place , but he tends to use dodgy anecdotes and will get torn apart by anyone who knows what they’re talking about. Even Monbiot gave him a rough ride.
I’ll repeat – Barrett (that’s 3 times), Courtney (twice) and Wilson Flood. Many of the others mentioned simply don’t have the depth of scientific background and will get murdered in a debate. Philip Stott’s ok though. He speaks well and has a good all round knowledge.
The BBC is a political animal, an elction is coming soon, a change of government is in the wind The Consevatives have already signalled dissatisfaction with many aspects of the BBC’s operation, veiled threats of funding cuts, restructuring are in the pipeline. Heads will roll.
Senior Officers like Harribin are very very well paid, and his performance as environmental analyst has been blatently biased and lacking in objectivity. He could well be on a hit list already.
I think this of his approach has two objectives, he’s obviously been reading WUWT or had his staff do it for him, is impressed by the rating that WUWT has gained over the last year or so, and needs to try and preserve his job.
The contributers to the list have given him all the information he needs to understand the problem he has.
He isn’t trusted , niether is the BBC when it comes to Climate Science in particular.
Start looking for another job Roger ! Or show some real courage and report honestly- much harder to do.
I second David Whitehouse. He was, after all, the BBC’s chief science correspondent for years, and a lot better qualified than RH. I’m not sure if he was dropped when he started to show sceptical tendencies, but this article must have horrified his former employers:
http://www.newstatesman.com/scitech/2007/12/global-warming-temperature#reader-comments
If you want to apply for a public position in the UK as part of the application progress you are now asked about your views on AGW I believe.
I guess that if you don’t have pro AGW views you don’t get the job.
Presto! No one who works in such positions has anti-AGW views.
The problem is getting someone to go on the record. It’s a risk reward thing:
Risk: Be accused of being a killer of unborn babies. Less likelihood of being published after being labelled a crackpot. Lose all your grant applications and lose out on promotions putting your tenure in jeopardy. Receive loads of hate mail accusing you of being an oil industry shill.
Reward: Five minutes on TV for pitiful remuneration with a host like Greenboy Dimbleby who talks over you, cuts your answers short and introduces you as a crank while allowing an unqualified zealot like Porrit to lie, exaggerate and insult you repeatedly without any redress or constraint.
Off the record I’m sure their are plenty of skeptical scientists willing to talk. On the record though precious few will be brave or stupid enough to stick their head above the parapet. Even Bellamy – a man who went to jail for his environmentalist beliefs – was treated abominably. So what chance does anyone else have? What the hell happened to freedom of speech, investigative journalism and objective science anyway
Happily some of the BBC are asking the right things and getting confessions about the real green agenda – predictably being insulted for it too:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/ethicalman/2010/01/the_problem_with_hidden_agendas.html
If there are any real investigations to be carried out, it isn’t likely to be coming from those who were cheer-leading the excesses in the first place – unless they are jumping ship. Send the guys who caused the problem to fix it? Now what does that remind me of…
‘I’m struggling to find’
While the offer engagement might seem welcome, this alone, from a person of supposed decades immersion in the field, suggests the quality of any output is unlikely to be worth much. It reads more like a broadcast-only, ‘by the numbers only’, ‘well I tried’ piece to show willing, or the bosses, at best, than a genuine, polite solicitation.
A career checking an in-box for press releases from only those one is comfortable dealing with or whose views one shares, suggests a mindset that has long since given up on professional integrity or objectivity.
And even now, at last moved to expand horizons, the BBC has shown, often of late, that a lot can indeed get ‘sorted’ in post, especially if the high-ups in editorial mutter darkly about how unsettled science can sabotage the value of pension funds if ‘events’ don’t get ‘interpreted’ ‘correctly’.
Proceed with caution, if not with the simple view that beyond a silly title within a once respected media organisation (if sadly offering all seduced access to an often spoonfed audience by way of critical faculties in the many millions) this person’s background, body of work and record to date make him hardly worth dealing with unless you are a passionate activist from some extreme seeking a greater truth to be assisted in emerging.
Slightly O/T but Anthony Watts and other bloggers get the credit in an influential UK magazine for exposing bogus science:
http://www.spectator.co.uk/spectator/thisweek/5749853/the-global-warming-guerrillas.thtml
The BBC is one of the last bastions still holding out!
It’s a bit rich for Harrabin to be insisting on ‘skeptical [sic] scientists’ in ‘current academic posts’ when he knows that any in that position will have been forced to keep a low profile, not least because of his and the BBC’s uncritical promotion of AGW! As for asking you, who’s meant to be the investigative journalist..?!
Steve Goddard (09:22:57) :
I’m a geologist working for an oil and gas company and know several geologists including the most senior in our company who believe in MMGW.
Anthony,
I have to agree absolutely with the views of Robert Christopher (15:23:35), Stephen Brown (15:42:36) & Cold Englishman (16:35:15).
I have reported before on this excellent blog on my efforts to get straight (or any, Goddamnit!) answers from Mark Thompson, BBC Director General. This has been going on for over 3 years and until I engaged my MP in June last year I got precisely nowhere.
The latest situation is that my MP, at my request, referred this to the Parliamentary Select Commitee and I am promised an answer imminently.
If Thompson thinks this has gone away, he is very much mistaken! I will keep you posted but, in the meantime, take heed of the advice….and keep up the good work!
—– Original Message —–
From: Martin Atkins
To: Roger Harrabin – Internet
Sent: Thu Feb 04 02:25:25 2010
Subject: UK scientists
Dr. Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen is an Emeritus Reader in Geography at the
University of Hull in Kingston-upon-Hull England, and part of the “Environment and Spaces of Governance.
Philip Stott is a professor emeritus of biogeography at the School of
Oriental and African Studies, University of London.
============================================
From: “Roger Harrabin – Internet”
To:
Thanks. I know them. But neither are academics with tenure. Best. Rh
Dave McK (23:46:17) :
“Don’t run! We are your friends!”
http://img341.imageshack.us/img341/3101/ipcc2012.jpg
“We ask only that you trust us. Simply trust us.”
MartinGAtkins (07:51:53) : | Reply w/ Link
—– Original Message —–
From: Martin Atkins
To: Roger Harrabin – Internet
Sent: Thu Feb 04 02:25:25 2010
Subject: UK scientists
Dr. Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen is an Emeritus Reader in Geography at the
University of Hull in Kingston-upon-Hull England, and part of the “Environment and Spaces of Governance.
Philip Stott is a professor emeritus of biogeography at the School of
Oriental and African Studies, University of London.
============================================
From: “Roger Harrabin – Internet”
To:
Thanks. I know them. But neither are academics with tenure. Best. Rh
It tells the whole story. From the beginning it is the retired and the professor emerituses who have been vocal in their skepticism of global warming because they have nothing to lose. No grants, no blocking of publications.
If this fellow Harriobin dismisses retired professors, wh by years of experience, should be on the top of the knowledge pyramid, he is not worth the effort.
It seems that as peer review having been debunked, it is being substituted by “academics with current tenure”.
There is a list of skeptical peer reviewed publications. Lets have a look if there are any British academics there. If not, it speaks a lot of the stranglehold on research in the UK by Jones et al.
How about adding an archaeologist? They have been using relative sizes of tree rings far longer than any climate scientist, and prbably have a much larger sample size from around the world than the UEA appear to have used. They have less to loose too, as any archaeologist who tries to re-write dendrochronology will have major problems.
Here’s a question for an expert in climate modelling. Starting from today’s global greenhouse gas configuration run the models with the following change. Force the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere to decrease at the rate it is currently increasing, allow the consequent changes to other atmospheric constituents eg methane, water vapour/clouds etc to change dependant purely on the the atmosphere’s feedback. After running the model until CO2 level is zero allow it to continue at zero for a further 800 years. I’d like to see the resultant graph of global average temperature vs CO2 level. Then start to run the growth of CO2 forward until it reaches current levels and continue forward until CO2 levels are 3x current levels then stop CO2 growth and continue for a further 800 years. A
Thanks Anthony for the heads-up. I contacted Mr Harrabin about this because it seemed to me I fitted his bill, but it turns out he only wants in-post Academics in “relevant disciplines” [not molecular biology]. People like the excellent Lord Monckton, David Bellamy and Piers Corbyn are relevant but not in-post.
I actually do know one skeptical [and quite prominent] earth scientist but he is scared. Quote: “I agree with you, but if I said that, I’d lose my job.” I think if there is a story here it’s about the worrying monoculture of British Academia which is actually even worse in our secondary schools where, irrespective of your personal views, as a teacher you *MUST* spout the drowny-wowny boily-woily bunny stories [aka National Curriculum] or be sacked. *AND* you have to read the Guardian!