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
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Sent a note to Lord Monckton for you
Harrabin is a long-time good egg. Go for it, people, I mean scientists. (I am not a scientist, sadly, but look forward to the BBC rediscovering its reputation for balance, thanks to Harrabin.)
@Arijigoku
I don’t think David Bellamy is working – the BBC sacked him for his views on global warming.
Run quickly away.
This man is not to be trusted at all. He is weak.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/08/bbc_blog_bully/
It’s an attempt to get some skeptics on board so they can be shot down and made to look foolish.
Please don’t fall for it, we have legions of these people in the UK.
In an earlier post, I should have said I was a British geologist.
If anyone knows of UK academic climate sceptics, it would be Nigel Lawson, who is probably as well connected as you can possibly get in the British Establishment.
Anthony,
Does this chap have the required background to view climate science as a multidisciplinary field and not a monolith? It would seem to me to be easy to find someone sceptical of models, for example.
I am sure David Bellamy would love to be included.
This could all be a ruse to shake out any remaining dissenters of the “thermogedon” message in the UK scientific community. 🙁
The government honcho Ed Milliband has threatened war against climate change deniers (do they ever think about that phrase?), using their propaganda arm, the BBC would be a natural route for them to pursue and reveal such.
Also if none are turned up by WUWT sources they can claim that none exist.
Now where did I leave the meds. 🙂
I’m an engineer, not a scientist, and an American, but I have some relevant comments for Mr Harrabin. Thank you for having an open mind. Skepticism is part of science. If it can’t be challenged by an outsider, it’s dogma, not science. Third, and most importantly, if you accept the truth of the linked chart, it shows that CO2 concentration in the past is not correlated to global temperature; it has been as much as eleven times higher than currently. How do climate scientists accept this and simultaneously claim that an increase in CO2 will lead to amplified temperature runaway?
http://ff.org/centers/csspp/library/co2weekly/2005-08-18/dioxide.htm
Thank you
There is always Philip Stott. Also, isn’t Mike Hulme a skeptic now? Those are the first two that come to mind.
Hi Anthony
Have you got a long, long spoon?
Be very careful and very sure before supping with this man.
He only has one agenda, that is the gospel of the true warmers.
He has seldom presented a balanced account of any view that opposes his own.
He never allows discussion of contrary views on his column, (no comments allowed).
You can see the sub text in his next program already, i.e. that is there are no scientists in the sceptic camp, therefore the sceptic view can be dismissed
I believe he is an English graduate, so ask him if he is qualified to comment on technical matters?
I do not see the need to be a scientist to be able to comment on AGW, I am a retired aerospace electronics designer engineer, and I can read a thermometer as well as Hansen or any of the pathetic CRU can!
Just “Google” on “Roger Harrabin”, and read the hundreds of posts about this guy and his position in the warmist camp
regards
Patrick, (in the UK and a long time BBC correspondent disbeliever)
Mr Roger Harrabin,
“Thank you!”
Prof. Ian Plimer (Australia) maybe British don’t know. Someone needs to contact him
This should be cross posted at CA, Sure to find quite a few scientists/academically involved in climnate science there
Philip Stott is surely the obvious choice – the man is a diamond. More than that, he appears weekly on the BBC! http://parliamentofthings.info/climate.html
However, I wouldn’t trust Harrabin either (though Stott can manage him), nor Richard Black. They are tarred with the BBC climate brush, and there’s no way back for them. They are on my ‘List of fools who write without researching’. I’d better leave it at that as my doctor says that it’s not good for my blood pressure.
It would be advisable for him also gather all the information about how this issue of global warming/climate change came about. As I have cited many times, a good source of information can be found at:
http://www.green-agenda.com/index.html
and, about its historical origins at:
http://www.spunk.org/texts/places/germany/sp001630/peter.html
Well done Anthony Watts – I just wonder at what level his “insults” filter is set?
The interesting thing about this is that it does not take an academic scientist to point out many of the flaws in AGW. The science really is not that difficult to understand.
In fact, it’s more likely that an academic would simply believe the consensus science argument is valid without really reviewing the work. Most of them are quite busy in their own areas of research.
Freeman Dyson. though at the Institue for advanced study in Princeton, he is, of course, a Brit!
Lord Monckton is as far as his competencies a scientist. He even has peer-reviewed papers published. They never heard of his name? It’s Christopher Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley.
Prof John Brignell through his wonderful web site ‘Number Watch’ has been at the forefront of UK opposition to AGW for years. Sadly he’s not so well at the moment, but I’m sure he’d love to have the chance to have a go.
Stuck-Record (09:22:56)
So, the plan is that this Harrabin guy already knows the answer to his question (ie there are no UK scientists in current academic posts who are sceptical about AGW) and then he writes an article detailing how after X days, WUWT could not recommend a single credible UK scientist to challenge the consensus?
Pretty paranoid, but I think it would be worth investigating before having made this post if your reasons for mistrust have any solid grounding.
Oh dear – Sunny Hundal a Guardian commentator isn’t going to be happy. Today he accuses the BBC of having become a right wing ‘troofer’ supporting organisation due to the fact that it is finally starting to report on Climategate.
@Andy (09:30:33),
That Register story is nearly two years old. A lot has happened since then, principally – of course – Phil Jones’ comfortable little world being blown out of the water just before the Copenhagen conference. If Richard Black, BBC darling of Phil Jones and Michael Mann, was writing to this blog like that – which, note, HE ISN’T – I might be urging people to question his bona fides. But Harrabin has been an environment correspondent at the BBC for (to my knowledge) nearly 20 years – imagine what it’s been like to work at the BBC while only the Richard Black version of everything was allowed to be broadcast.
Who is that chap who predicts the weather/climate on solar activity? He is a physicist and in academic post.
Nigel Calder is well known and is a past editor of New Scientist.
A guarded congratulations on this to WUWT. Please can I join the others who warn to be very very careful how this is presented. The whole point of the programme may be to show what a load of nutjobs we skeptics are. See if you can set any conditions on how you are edited in the final cut.