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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“I am trying to talk to UK scientists in current academic posts who are sceptical about AGW.
I’m struggling to find anyone …”
A UK scientist in a “current academic post”, would have a vested interest not to voice any sceptical views. This is like asking a team of scientists who have researched a drug, and found it helpful, to voice sceptical views against it. Though in the case of Climate Science this maynot be impossible.
Why not suggest to the BBC that they extend their criteria to scientists other than those in a “current academic post”?
There is a strong possibility that the purpose of his article is to show that in spite of the CRU scandal, global warming skeptics still have no legitimacy.
David Bellamy is beyond the pale as far as the BBC are concerned for his skeptacism. So I think he would be worth adding to the list.
I’ve suggested Sonja B-C to him, who I had lunch with this week. She can look after herself!
PS Bill Tuttle above has stated what I said about geologists. People in “Current academic posts” are there because they have wholeheartedly supported AGW and “Climate Change”, they are not likely to commit hara kiri.
Re not trusting Harrabin, i wouldn’t know, but i have been startled by the quality of Fred Pearce’s pieces in the Guardian given his views and previous articles – the tide has turned a bit.
The problem here is the term ‘climate scientist’. I have heard of Physics, I have heard of Chemistry, I have heard of Geology and Biology. But I have not heard of climate science. Is it something to do with jografy?
I once coloured in a climate map of Europe. Does that make me one too?
Harrabin could find what he is looking for in any Physics or Geology department and pretty quickly.
Go for it Anthony. I think Harrabin and others are desperate for a way out. The zeitgiest is changing.
Dr David Whitehouse
David Whitehouse, who has a doctorate in astrophysics, was successively BBC Science Correspondent and Science Editor BBC News Online. He is the author of a number of books on solar system astronomy and the history of astronomy.
Professor Anthony Kelly
Anthony Kelly FRS, a metallurgical scientist, was formerly Vice-Chancellor of the University of Surrey. He is a former Founding Fellow, and currently a Life Fellow, of Churchill College, Cambridge.
Dr Terence Kealey
Terence Kealey, a medical biochemist, is Vice-Chancellor of the University of Buckingham. His latest book is entitled Sex, Science and Profits.
Here is a suggestion… ask yourself UK Scientists to publish something here on WUWT. Forget about the BBC… it’s a trap… else they publish something you wrote in full and without editing it.
Another reason to be suspicious of the BBC is the investment strategy of their pension fund:
http://biased-bbc.blogspot.com/2010/02/fingers-in-pies.html
And poor old Phil Jones is looking rather haggard in the latest article in the Norwich paper, where he is STILL insisting he’s right:
http://www.edp24.co.uk/content/edp24/news/story.aspx?brand=EDPOnline&category=News&tBrand=EDPOnline&tCategory=xDefault&itemid=NOED02%20Feb%202010%2017%3A04%3A27%3A773
Quote:
“It makes me quite worried people are beginning to doubt the climate has warmed up,” he said.
Why do they have to be “in current academic posts”. What’s wrong with retired scientists?
Freeman Dyson would be a good person to highlight.
How about Terri Jackson, seems like she gives a good interview:
http://climaterealists.com/attachments/database/Vested%20interests%20scary%20as%20any%20climate%20change%20scare.pdf
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=4975&linkbox=true&position=2
Google is your friend, Roger.
Professor Philip Stott is a regular contributor to the BBC. You can’t get better than him.
Harrabin’s article sounded good until that last sentence, where I sense he betrayed his AGW side. He wrote “The pity is that it’s public understanding of climate change that’s being damaged, and maybe the planet as well.”
I would have preferred “The pity is that it’s public understanding of climate change that’s being damaged, and maybe the planet or the world’s economy as well.”
Philip Stott, David Bellamy, Lord Monckton and at a push Nigel Lawson as a knowledgeable non scientist.
A leopard changing it’s doesn’t seem that likely though.
Seems to me something amiss here! First The Guardian showing a little less bias, now the BBC interested in a project on the weather. I guess it will take a brave scientist to put their head above the parapet. I wonder if the BBC could ask David Bellamy, there is history between them.
“For Whom the Bell Tolls”.
In my opinion, Mr. Harrabin would be better off investigating why he is having such a difficult time finding skeptical scientists in academia. There are several reasons but this is a sad comment on the state of science in the world of academia. Seems it is difficult to find any sort of balance of opinion in academia whether it be politics, medicine, science, economics, etc. Sad indeed…
The Guardian’s agenda is to quickly weed out tainted scientists so that they can get back on the AGW bandwagon.
It might be a good idea to talk to the scientists and get their consent before recommending them.
OT – is it my imagination or has RealClimate gone to sleep?
The problem in the UK is that there are only really three climate research organisations – Hadley Centre (Met Office), CRU and Reading University. One or two other universities do bits and pieces but ……
These three are hugely incestuous. Many scientists will have worked for two of them. I can’t think of anyone off-hand who has worked for all three. I think the famous (or is that infamous) Phil Jones worked for the Hadley Centre at one time (though I can’t be certain) and the current Chief Scientist at the Met Office was a Reading Uni Prof until last year.
The upshot is that there have been no jobs in the UK for climate sceptics (that’s not necessarily deniers) for a long time. Turn up at any of these establishments with an open mind, and you will be working in MacDonald’s.
On top of that a whole generation of climate science students who have been educated by CRU and Reading have been taught to be warmists. Just like any other religion teaching the fundamentals, they have been quite successful.
The Hadley Centre were in at the beginning of AGW, when John Houghton (first Chairman of the IPCC) was the Director General (post now Chief Executive) of the Met Office, but until 2003 the Hadley were kept pretty separate in a different building in Bracknell, Berkshire. Since 2003 when the Met Office HQ moved to Exeter, the Hadley is much more integrated in the same building. The same people who are driving the warming story now appear to be running the Met Office, and that is why it shows in every pronouncement they make – hot summer, mild winters, warm years, and warmest decades.
I fear I have become deeply cynical and untrusting in my dotage. I am baffled why Harrabin did not simply go to Lawson or Monckton in the first place. I smell a very whiffy rat.
And I regret to say that for more years than I care to recall I worked with geologists both in and out of academia. Taught many, a few whom still hold chairs around the globe. I have to report I have found among them a number who today outwardly profess belief in man-made climate change. They would appear to do this for one of three reasons: party political, ensuring a regular input of research funding, or, importantly, not giving a Warmer Dean an excuse to block their promotional prospects – plus get their papers published of course.
Vivian Moses
University College London
Professor Antony Trewavas edinburgh
Dr Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen hull uni
Get with it Harribin
http://euro-med.dk/?p=11956
follow the links to the conspiritors
What too big to handle.
@ur momisugly mpaul (09:54:52), The ‘real story’ for Harrabin is how the public policy regarding research funding has distorted and politized science in the UK.
Yes, and it looks as if there has been a deliberate policy of skewing the national curriculum: how long have schools in the UK been turning out AGW-ers, I want to know?