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.
Dan in California (09:36:46) :
How about this one, see the correlation between temperature and CO2.
http://i446.photobucket.com/albums/qq187/bobclive/CETTEMPfrom1659.jpg
The ‘real story’ for Harrabin is how the public policy regarding research funding has distorted and politized science in the UK. The absence of skeptics in any scientific field should be a bright red flag. This is particularly true when that absence has a distinctive geographic dimension — no skeptical scientists in the UK, but plenty in other countries. What’s causing this?
“..the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity.
…
The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded.”
Source: Public Papers of the Presidents, Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1960, p. 1035- 1040
Great opportunity, just make sure you have your facts and credentials in order. It’s Harrabin’s duty to shoot holes in your case. Don’t hold that against him.
If you can hold your own, then he – and other journalists – will feel more comfortable taking your arguments to alarmists, knowing they won’t be instantly shot down for their source not being “peer reviewed” or “being a scientist.”
Although very recently we’ve seen instances which bring into question the integrity of the IPCC, CRU and other researchers, it hasn’t negated the overall theory.
Why? Because the media takes one look at Christopher Monckton and says “he’s not a scientist, he’s not peer reviewed, he doesn’t have a Nobel Prize (really), and we can see straight away he’s overblowing the Haitians eating mud pies.”
So if you want to defeat NASA, like I’ve said many times in here: you have to trump NASA.
Dr. Donald Keiller seemed pretty skeptical re Briffa’s Yamal et al.
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=1064&filename=1256760240.txt
Philip Stott, a prominent biogeographer at the University of London is the first name to come to my mind. He has no use for global warming alarmists.
Be very wary. I would not be the LEAST bit surprised if they try to spring some sort of “gotcha!!” moment on you.
Picture the BBC as Grima Wormtongue and you should be ok.
isn’t prof. fred singer english? altho he’s based at virginia
Try to find somebody ‘new’ – although I have immense respect for those who have fought this battle for a long time (Stott, Lindzen, Michaels etc.), a new face would show that this is not a small band of inveterate ‘doubters’. Further, I think it should be someone who is involved in the basic science (otherwise we always get the mantra that ‘well, people may have been careless, but the basic science is still valid’) – that is, a specialist in temperature measurements and analysis, and/or someone who understands the impact of greenhouse gases. Maybe a look at participants in the Heartland Institute Conferences?
Hi
I think Patrick is right. Now RH can say “I asked Anthony Watts if he knew any ‘in post’ climate sceptics…but there are none. Sigh, well I tried”
It is an odd request – I cannot believe he cannot find them himself. It is his job after all, isnt it – to find stuff out?
Why does he not ask Christopher Monckton? Surely he is better placed to source such people – maybe he has.
This is simple; just ask the MET office, CRU, or any university
using the scientific method, to give you a list of scientists studying
AGW. Otherwise, you’ll just get a list of advocacy groups. Sorry
Anthony, but this is not an honest request.
Is this man playing nice to get your attention? Perhaps, as others have stated, he is looking for the “there aren’t any” answer. He could then report that “he inquired the biggest, most popular skeptic blog in the world and they came up empty”.
He wants a list of the currently employed who secretly deny the State mantra and its right to dictate the science.
Riiiight.
There are sceptical scientists who are not dependent on science for their incomes, one of whom is an actual part of the State; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Lilley
A physicist. The only hard science grounded member I believe. Maybe the only PhD. Definitely the only member of parliament to stand up and object to the Climate Change Bill – you remember, the one where it was snowing outside, in October, for the first time in decades……
The Speaker actually threatened him into silence. I would bet he has been biding his time. (He used to work for Nigel Lawson)
Piers Corbyn.
Harribin was at the recent Weather Action exhibition. Stood at the back with Roger Black. Neither of them would interact. Upon his return to Stazi headquarters he told Paul Hudson to stop writing about climate.
There has been nothing forthcoming from Harribin as apology for slandering Piers via the BBC website, although not spelling his name correctly might not have helped. Astrophysicists eh? All barmy 😉
The salient points, IMHO, are the lack of evidence about anything to do with CO2 and climate at all actually and the metrics, such as sea-levels and temps and their total and utter normalcy in natures’ rise out of an ice age.
All the rest is distraction.
Anthony,
I am an American in Oregon, and I watch BBC via their I player. If you use a proxy server based in England, the shows are available.
FWIW, if you want more details, email me,
Jack
Sorry to harp on about geologists, however:
In the 1990s there were several spectacular stock exchange scams, the best known being Bre-X, the $3 billion Indonesian gold deposit that never was.
As a result our industry has been purged of those who make disingenuous public statements and claims.
I can tell you without any fear of contradiction that if Jones, Mann, Hansen, Pachauri, Gore etc had followed the equivalent professional guidelines of Australia’s JORC code, or Canada’s NI 43-101 code, their ‘findings’ would have been so full of disclaimers to make their ‘work’ essentially worthless and Copenhagen almost certainly would never have happened.
So much original data has been lost or more likely deliberately destroyed. All too often the amount or reason for adjustments/manipulations of the original data is unknown or unrecorded. Insufficient adjustments are made for UHI, the data base is skewed towards urban sites, probably representing less than 1% of the Earth’s surface – the list of scientific irregularities, taken as gospel is almost endless.
But as several posts have commented, I would be extremely cautious with this individual from the BBC, he almost certainly has only one purpose and that is to discredit and distort the truths in the sceptic cause.
Piers Corbyn is a candidate and he has alternate theories that are working in practice.
I am a Physicist, with three years Geology study also.
Physics is a science, Geology is a science. I don’t know many physicists who feel comfortable embracing AGW.
My training in both makes me extremely sceptical about AGW.
I’m not convinced we should use the term ‘climate science’, until such time as they publically and auditably prove that they are following scientific. It’s a proto-science – still ‘under development’.
Anthony, Maybe you could remind Roger H that categorising science and scientists by nationality does not have a great track record here in Europe. I suggest you go for quality not grid reference. DavidS
I also agree with some of the other posters – proceed with caution. There may be a hidden agenda and honest people are always at risk of innocently blundering into a trap.
Perhaps the story that they should be writing is that the effects of a systematic propaganda campaign, intentional corruption of the peer review and the grant writing process, they have driven skeptical academics either under ground or out of academia.
That the “appearance” of consensus was a facade created by this Orwellian propaganda campaign and not a valid assessment of the quality of the science.
They are paying the price for a 20 year long scientific inquisition that has muzzled the loyal opposition to the popular view.
To restore honest and reputable dissent and the scientific process that absolutely requires the presence of an honerable dissenting voice to test a hypothesis honestly.
They could do more good for the system by pulling back this curtain of manipulation and inquisition than they could searching for the skeptics. The honorable skeptical scientists will appear of their own initiative when the muzzle has been removed by exposing the corruption in the system and the fact that the public has been intentionally fed one sided information to serve a political and financial agenda, not good science.
Pull back the curtains and let the sun shine in, and good science will emerge like the spring flowers.
Larry
Benny Peiser at Liverpool University – if not him, then he probably has some contacts through CCNET
Surprised that Roger Harrabin couldn’t find anyone and ended up coming to WUWT to ask for help! I thought he was supposed to be a journalist? (sorry – couldn’t resist the dig!)
David J. Bellamy OBE
Martin Cohen
Sammy Wilson, the Minister for Environment in Northern Ireland government.
Peter Miller (09:16:02) :
I am a geologist, a chartered scientist and a sceptic, but not an academic. For what it’s worth, I do not know any geologists anywhere – and believe me I know a lot – who believe in AGW.
The geologists I know have been saying that AGW was “bad science” since at least 2004. I recently asked one of them why the “rock guys” haven’t been more vocal about why they came to that conclusion early in the game, and he just said, “We like our jobs — and we like *keeping* our jobs.”
Roger Pielke, Jr.has been doing interviews for the BBC.
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2010/02/bbc-newsnight-on-ipcc.html
Mike Ramsey
Do not trust the journalists. If you do an interview, record it yourself. Record every conversation you have with him.
He has been exaggerating and lying for years. He is not well intentioned. He will not treat you fairly. He will misquote you. He will outright lie about your positions.
It is right and proper for you to assume that he is a man totally devoid of any integrity what so ever.
And remember, he’s gonna retire in a couple of years, so he knows that he does not have to make a public recantation. Unless forced otherwise, he’ll just let the matter drop and hope everyone forgets. He has many more reasons to toe the AGW party line than do you; his career, his credibility, the financial security of his family,…..not to mention being embarrassingly, stupidly wrong.
The only thing driving Mr. Watts is scientific integrity; it is a dangerous mis-match of motivating forces. Please be careful.
Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen emeritus of Hull?