Guest post by Barry Woods
The Carbon Brief is a new website designed to provide a rapid response to any climate change related stories in the media.
It is also appears to be intended as a resource for articles and it claims to be an independent mediator between journalists and climate scientists.
The Carbon Brief’s twitter followers seem to have different expectations.
Andrew SimmsNef Bio: 10:10 Campaign Board Member, New Economic Foundation (NEF), Greenpeace UK board member, co-author of The Green Deal Report, founder of the 100 Month initiative, Trustee of TERI Europe(alongside Rajendra Pachauri, Sir John Houghton and Sir Crispin Tickell)
The Carbon Brief seems particularly concerned about how sceptical stories in UK media and blogs are being received by people in India and China and reported in non-EU countries media and blogs. (my bold).
“The media has a huge impact on the way that the climate debate has taken shape in the UK, as it has in the US, Australia and around the world. Comment articles in newspapers and blogs here are often copied and published thousands of times around the globe. The arguments fomented in the pages of The Guardian or the Daily Telegraph can have a significant impact on how climate change is reported in India and China.” – The Carbon Brief
On further investigation, the website demonstrates that they appear to be nothing but advocates of consensus climate change policy. A look at their further resources page gives the first two links as the Climate Science Rapid Response Team and RealClimate and it also include Climate Progress. There are no sceptical or even lukewarm website or blog links of any kind.
“Our team of researchers will provide a rapid response service for climate science stories. We go straight to peer-reviewed science and the relevant scientists to get their opinions” – The Carbon Brief
The Carbon Brief appears to have been set up for the specific purpose of countering sceptical stories relating to ‘climate change’ by going to AGW consensus scientific sources for an instant rebuttal. 
It is a project of the Energy and Strategy Centre, funded and supported by the European Climate Foundation (ECF)
ECF describes itself as “the largest philanthropic organisation in Europe focused on influencing government policy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions”. –The Carbon Brief
“…. To meet that challenge, six funding partners joined forces in 2007 to create a new multi-million euro philanthropic entity called the European Climate Foundation.” – About Us – ECF
On the The Carbon Brief website they say they are just getting started.
I am concerned about this new apparent big Green EU AGW PR and media machine swamping any sceptical voices with instant rebuttals and twitter mobs. They would appear to have very experienced PR, Media and Communications professionals at work now, with all the tools of modern media management, all the funding they need and briefed to follow the European Climate Foundations’ agenda.
If you take a look for example at the Carbon Brief’s Twitter profile, followers already include The Guardian’s environment team and editors, The Times’ science editor, Greenpeace, the Green Party, 10:10, 350, Transitions Towns, left leaning think tanks like the NEF and IPPR. Basically the whole ‘consensus’ media, NGO, politicians and lobby groups seem to know about it.
And they will twitter and retweet the Carbon Brief’s tweets and links propagating the ‘message’ to their thousands of twitter followers (remember key media people) and the ‘climate change’ activists will no doubt descend on the sceptical blogs and comments section to ‘troll’ the articles.
In the future will every sceptical article have an instant twitter response, links and a full PR professional paid media crafted response. I have seen tweets for Watts Up, Bishop Hill, Bjorn Lomborg, Jo Nova, Christopher Booker, GWPF and others already. How can independent unpaid, unfunded bloggers possibly fend off professional PR of this nature from an organisation with multi-million Euro funded backers with the agenda described above.
Nobody seems to have told the Telegraph, James Delingpole (I asked), Christopher Booker about the Carbon Brief, all those journalists organisations and lobby groups. I wonder why?
James Delingpole (Telegraph) had a nasty twitter mob experience himself, just recently, courtesy of an abusive tweet by Ben Goldacre (Bad Science – Ben is the second follower of the Carbon Brief, in the graphic above, he has 85,000 followers alone)
I expect James will get some more soon, as they twitter about every story he writes that they take exception to.
Who is running the Carbon Brief
From the website, the key team members are: Carbon Brief’s Director, Tom Brookes, is director of the Energy Strategy Centre (ESC) the communications unit funded by the European Climate Foundation (ECF). Editor Christian Hunt has worked as a researcher and web editor for Greenpeace and the Public Interest Research Centre.
We believe accuracy should be the key value in discussing climate change, and we aim to act as an independent mediator between the media and scientists.
Our aim is to increase social and political understanding of the risks of climate change so that we can make more informed decisions as a society. – The Carbon Brief
Tom Brookes is a very senior experienced communications professional, drafted in to counter sceptics?
Tom Brookes, Director, ESC – bio ECF
Tom is the head of Energy Strategy Center (ESC), the communications unit of the European Climate Foundation. He has held senior corporate and consultancy posts in government relations and communications.
Christian Hunt is still on the Board of Trustees of the Public Interest Research Centre which describes it’s work below:
Our work examines the connections between climate, energy and economics.
Our team is accomplished at presenting science to non-scientists, including policy makers. With the knowledge and experience to interpret cutting-edge research, and the skills to build it into effective communications tools, we provide a bridge between those at the forefront of climate science research and wider audiences.
I might ask how independent of thought on the Climate Change issue are they really, given the people, organisation and funding partners involved?
Profiles of Commentators
The Carbon Brief separates profiles into those who are commentators and scientists, these profiles appear to be designed as a resource to be used by any media organisation, journalist or blogger as an instant profile on that person, or of an event, or about an organisation. Compare the profiles of Rajendra Pachauri, George Monbiot and Phil Jones, with those of James Delingpole, Christopher Booker, Christopher Moncton, Benny Peiser and Bjorn Lomborg, to witness a mastercraft example of PR and Media management at work, to promote an European Union AGW consensus media brief.
The intent appears to be that any media looking at a sceptical climate change story, ( Chinese and Indian particularly? ) will use The Carbon Brief as a resource, without actually seriously getting into the detail of any of the issues or ask any further questions.
An extract from The Carbon Brief’s – ‘Climategate’ profile
The message was interpreted by sceptics as suggesting scientists wanted to “hide the decline” in global temperatures. This interpretation was offered despite the email being sent in 1999, when temperatures had been rising for some decades.
The process referred to by the word “trick” was characterized by the Russell Report as a legitimate and peer reviewed method of dealing with the fact that a set of proxy temperature data from tree rings had diverged from temperature measurements – the proxy temperatures had declined while real temperatures continued to increase. This problem had been widely discussed in the scientific literature, prior to the UEA email hack.
Personally, I think that proxies for historic temperatures that don’t actually follow thermometers are a little unreliable and not to much faith should be be given to them. Particularly when they have been used to reconstruct a historic temperature record, which has been used inform us that temperatures are now unprecedented, proof of AGW and that we must do something now!
An extract from The Carbon Brief’s – ‘Hockey Stick’ Profile
“…Mann published a list of rebuttals to myths around the hockey stick graph on the Realclimate.org website in 2004.
Sceptic commentator Andrew Montford published the book The Hockey Stick Illusion in 2010. The central claim of The Hockey Stick Illusion is that the iconic graphic has survived only because a conspiracy amongst scientists sought to undermine the peer review process and bully journals into suppressing dissenting views.
Richard Joyner, emeritus professor of physical chemistry at Nottingham Trent University reviewed the book in Prospect magazine, suggesting that “Montford’s book is not an honest contribution” because he “consistently and without evidence…queries the actions and motives of those with whom he disagrees.”
Now I wonder why The Carbon Brief choose that particular review, was it really being independent and balanced, as Matt Ridley (author The Rational Optimist) gave a VERY positive review, which was ALSO in the Prospect Magazine! I wonder what Steve Mcintyre and Andrew Montford will make of those two profiles above (please read in full). Andrew Montford has lots of very positive reviews of his book, some other reviews here.
Andrew Montford had a response to – ‘without evidence’
“This is most peculiar. I mean, there are 270 references in the book. That’s really quite a lot of evidence. And Prof Joyner may have heard of the Climategate emails, heavily sourced in Chapter 17. What are these if not evidence?
What else is there? Well, he says I should have referred to Steve M’s failure to publish his tree ring research. In a book in which one of the themes is the difficulty sceptics have in getting published, this seems a rather bizarre position for Prof Joyner to take.” – Bishop Hill
Well funded with political influence
The Carbon Brief is backed by the European Climate Foundation and it appears to me to be a PR machine specifically designed to counter any scepticism and it has the funding, resources, political backing and contacts to do just that.
“European Climate Foundation aims to promote climate and energy policies that greatly reduce Europe’s greenhouse gas emissions and help Europe play an even stronger international leadership role in mitigating climate change.” –
“…. To meet that challenge, six funding partners joined forces in 2007 to create a new multi-million euro philanthropic entity called the European Climate Foundation.” – About Us – ECF
The activities of the Carbon Brief seems to me to be at odds with the other stated commitment of the European Climate Foundation, which made me laugh in disbelief at their apparent ‘doublethink’.
“We seek to maintain a reputation for objective, high-quality work that is neither ideological nor politically biased.” – About Us ECF
The European Climate Foundation (ECF) is well funded by its partners and even more importantly is very well connected politically in Europe for the clear aim of 80-95 % reduction in CHG’s by 2050. The Energy Strategy Centre is the European Climate Centre’s communications and media arm, which would indicate that The Carbon Brief far from being non-ideological and not politically biased, has as its sole purpose the promotion of the ECF’s agenda, which is to lobby hard for European Union climate and economic policy change.
“The majority of the European Climate Foundation’s fund is re-granted to NGOs engaged in trying to bring about meaningful policy change. When we see an unfulfilled need we also engage in direct initiatives, such as commission papers, convene meetings or launch a new organisation. We seek no public attention for our efforts and instead prefer to highlight the success of those who are actually doing the work.
We have identified four major areas for immediate intervention within Europe:
• Energy Efficiency in Buildings and Industry
• Low-Carbon Power Generation
• Transportation
• EU Climate Policies and Diplomacy
The European Climate Foundation describes the members of the Advisory Board
This international body consists of distinguished professionals who draw on their individual and collective experiences in politics, business, academia and civil society. Members of the Advisory Council actively engage in advancing ECF’s mission both by providing strategic advice and through advocacy.
They represent the elite of European business people, NGO’s, politicians and lobbyists. Including, a Co-editor of the IPCC, Chair of WWF, Chair of Globe EU, VP Club of Rome, former MEP’s, Tony Blairs former Chief of Staff, CEO’s, Directors and Senior partners of corporations and consultancies, including BP and Unilever. Truly the European elite.
I have had a brief look at some of their funding grants (see here), these include, Club of Rome, Greenpeace, WWF, Globe International, Centre for European Policy, in fact over 500 grants in less than 4 years. One organisation called Sandbag, which lobbies for improved emissions trading in the European Union, struck a chord with me. Sandbag has received funding and written significant reports in the area of lobbying for Carbon Emission policy in Europe, backed by the European Climate Foundation.
The founder of Sandbag is Bryony Worthington, she is now Baroness Worthington as she was made a life peer in the House of Lords last year by the Labour party leader Ed Milliband, as she was ‘instrumental in the writing’ of the UK Climate Change Act. Unlike Viscount Christopher Monckton she now a full voting member of the House of Lords for the rest of her life and will no doubt continue her climate change work there (she studied English by the way).
Bryony Worthington is also a board member of the 10:10 Campaign, who were behind the ‘No Pressure’ video nasty. Fellow 10:10 board members are the environmental campaigner Andrew Simms and Tony Juniper. Other Sandbag board member colleagues include Ed Gillespie founder of Futerra and Mike Mason the founder of Climate Care which will sell you carbon offsets (I have one!, but I’ll write another time about that) which is now owned by JP Morgan Chase . When Mike Mason from Climate Care debated Christopher Monckton at the Oxford Union last year he was listed as part of the JMorgan Climate Care organisation (he seems to have since left)
This one organisation alone provides ample evidence to me that there are significant interests and representation by media, politicians, banking and consensus AGW lobby groups at the heart of the EU policy formation.
What next for sceptical websites?
If I get the time, I will follow this post up with an article about the Green Social Network, and how perhaps to engage with it.
It is still very, very early days for The Carbon Brief, it has only just got started. They say they are independent and claim climate science is distorted by vested interests.
“Carbon Brief fact-checks stories about climate science online and in the press. We provide briefings on the people and organisations talking about climate change, and we produce background materials on science issues and news stories.
Distortions of climate science occur regularly, partly because climate science is a complex area, and partly because various interests, motivated by finance or ideology, have sought to confuse the issue.
We are a service for journalists and the online climate community. Our team of researchers will provide a rapid response service for climate science stories. We go straight to peer-reviewed science and the relevant scientists to get their opinions.
Right now we are in the early stages of developing the site.” – About Us – The Carbon Brief
What to expect from for The Carbon Brief because expectations seem to be very high?
Andrew Simms Bio: 10:10 Campaign Board Member, New Economic Foundation (NEF), Greenpeace UK board member, co-author of The Green Deal Report, founder of the 100 Month initiative, Trustee of TERI Europe(alongside Rajendra Pachauri, Sir John Houghton and Sir Crispin Tickell)
What next indeed?
richard verney says:
“When the pack of cards falls down, people will begin to follow the money and the public will wish to hold those involved in the scam to account”
Isn’t it about time somebody made a list of those involved?
Let’s add all those responsible for The Carbon Brief, 10:10, 350, anyone who says “the science is settled” etc.
Well its really nothing new, just SOSdd. Folks like me who advocate science over agenda get such trolls every day. You hit them hard with facts and sources for those facts. All it does for their side is exactly nothing. It also helps to show that there is no mysterious unimpeachable consensus.
For our ‘side’ it is our chance to show them up with fact because the further you dig into their crappy science the less standing it has. I have had full out arguments with the current climate bot and all that has done is get me more followers and allies who, after reading both sides, use their own common sense. Its not about winning or losing.. it is about getting the facts out there so reasonable, intelligent people can decide for themselves. I will tell you that it does not take much to debunk these people because nattering in the backs of everyone’s mind are all the failed predictions, name changes and forecast errors. I would submit to you, people aren’t as stupid as these people seem to think and the fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, not this time pal mentality is growing.
Its just one more nail in the coffin of their credibility. And boy is it a big one.
I should be surprised that they cannot comprehend how absurd it must seem to anyone else coming to the site for them to try and describe themselves as independent and yet be so over the top pro-AGW. But then I am beginning to think these people are simply mentally unbalanced.
It is more reminiscent of something you’d expect in an old Monty Python sketch. I can’t imagine anyone but a real avid AGW convertee would be convinced by this new site. Anyone else looking at it will simply cringe at such blatant proganda.
The EU is fundamentally a Soviet style totalitarian institution. They maintain a sham of democracy, but carefully dilute the influence of voters on actual policy, by limiting the power of the parliament to simple yes or no votes, and by diluting the influence of voters over other aspects of EU policy formation and execution.
In America, the House of Representatives (direct vote) creates legislation, which is debated by the Senate (yes or no), and finally presented to the President (veto power). In the EU, the unelected European Commission creates legislation, which is presented (and re-presented again, and again, if they get the wrong answer), to a parliament which only has the power to say yes or now – a perverse inversion of the US system.
How much democracy would the US enjoy, if the only person who could create legislation was an unelected President (chosen every 10 years by delegates who in turn were chosen by state legislatures), and he had the power to arbitrarily award enormous cash bonuses to representatives and senators who supported his policies? That is reality of political power in the EU.
Of course, a lot of people suffer in this disguised dictatorship – like any dictatorship, the rule of the EU is riddled with injustice. So the EU does what every other dictatorship has done in history, to divert attention from their misrule – they maintain a big lie, a struggle, a war, which they use to justify their misrule.
The big lie used to be imminent Soviet invasion. But since the Soviet Union fell, guess what their new big lie is?
Just tried posting a comment on reply to the Spectator post – with a link to Climate Audit.
“All comments are moderated”
If there’s no comment discussion except a few groupies, it’ll just fade into insignificance alongside “Sceptical Science” and all the other warmist propaganda sites.
Real Climate only struggles on (with a fraction of WUWT’s traffic) because the founders are climatologists with their own fan club.
Paid PR hacks don’t have any fans – so there won’t be anything to read apart from their biased musings.
I’ll give it 6 months max.
David L says:
February 18, 2011 at 4:35 am
David, what you say is true, and your question (at least in my opinion) has just one logical answer: Evil.
Wikipedia’s definition: “Evil is the intention of causing harm or destruction…”, so there you have it. Personally, I can’t fathom why anybody would expend any energy being evil.
Supporting the definition of “evil” we could list the seven deadly sins:
1. lechry/lust
2. gluttony
3. avarice/greed
4. discouragement
5. wrath
6. envy
7. pride
Take your choice.
For an example of what climate sceptics are up against in the UK this article from today’s Daily Mail might be of interest:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1358139/Climate-zealots-life-hell-sceptic-says-Johnny-Ball-victim-porn-blog-smears.html
[In the words of H. L. Mencken, “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”]
The Cold War, The Drug War, The War on Fat, The Space Race, The War on Cancer, The War on Poverty, each were quite effective branding efforts that stuck very well and created focus for entire generations based on ancient human instincts about bad situations as being very primal enemies. But I’m afraid that a “War on Warming” that can only point out a few bloggers who occasionally publish papers lacks the most crucial element of actually having real world damage to point to. Everybody knows warmer is better, basically, since cold destroys life much more so than heat does. It’s laughable, now that Climategate opened the flood gates of popular instead of just blogosphere skepticism. Climate alarmism was a boutique boom economy shakedown that became too mainstream to survive. It was amazing how the media played it up at the exact period in history when the Internet allowed anybody to add a comment to the end of each propaganda piece, thus deflating the entire effect of rote repetition of a cultish mantra.
The Michael Mann & Michael Moore generation created the Glenn Beck phenomenon with the help of Journalism majors.
I posted a link to this article on another article that seem to go hand in hand ..snip..No, the truth is that the Government through it’s controversial information czar, former University of Chicago and Harvard Law Professor Cass Sunstein who has for at least a year now been pushing for what he refers to as ‘Cognitive Infiltration’ of conspiracy oriented Web Sites, to counter the claims by people he theorizes suffer from ‘crippled epistemology’ might soon be infiltrating the site.
What is Crippled Epistemology?
In a nut shell it’s the belief that you are relying on to few and the wrong sources for your news, opinions and views.
Sunstein’s theory is that people prone to believe in and investigate conspiracies become more or less ‘isolated’ on sites like ATS and end up developing opinions and views by over reliance on too few sources of information, where to be fair to the premise of the theory, the information being put forth is poorly researched, or deliberately incomplete to paint a false and misleading picture.
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread649514/pg1
Have faith but do not turn your backs. Oft-repeated lies authoritatively marketed are dangerous propaganda. More specifically targeted and increasingly professional lying propaganda – I mean marketing – can be worse. One hot summer and you lose a country or a continent that used to be a bit skeptical. It is a sign of desperation at this point though.
Especially interested to see how they attack skeptical websites.
China will have a few laughs, Barry Woods. Every time they sell a light bulb. Everytime they sell some rare earth. Every time they sell a wind turbine. Every time they strike oil off of the Florida Keys. Every time they get their interest check from the U.S.
Tom in Florida says: February 18, 2011 at 5:11 am
They should just go ahead and name the site “Pravda” …
Tom, you might want to look again at Pravda.
They actually are not towing the AGW line.
“Who gains profit from global warming myth?”
13.09.2010
http://english.pravda.ru/science/earth/13-09-2010/114905-global_warming-0/#
“Glaciers’ Growth Undermines Global Warming Theory”
21.01.2010
http://english.pravda.ru/news/science/earth/21-01-2010/111772-glaciers_growth_global_warming-0/#
It reads like a spin-off of New Scientist. They seem to wish to be accurate but don’t dwell on balance. One without the other is the sound of one hand clapping. All well and good – that applies to WUWT, too, but this site at least makes no claim to holding nor speaking from a neutral position on the climate. That said I fully expect WUWT will continue to offer a forum for the opposing view far in excess of what every advocacy site offers and you won’t have to explore a black hole of obscurity to find it.
They really need a point/counter-point page for editorial if they wish to be balanced. Problem with that is it is all editorial and balance is not the message for which they exist.
Just noticed on their website – the “management board” seems to only have one member…………..
http://www.europeanclimate.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=44&Itemid=59
…………and he’s the ex Managing Director of Shell Bulgaria.
He’s probably threatened a few poly bears in his time then.
What is appalling, though not surprising, is the lavish sponsorship by private foundations and a ‘Who’s Who’ of radical-left ‘environmental’ mavens. One might wonder, vainly I suppose, whether there are not similar foundations and actual scientists who could put together a ‘quick-response’ website and media operation to counter the constant barrage of scare stories and press releases from the Alarmists. But then, we have Anthony and WUWT, doing a darn good job of showing how naked the Alarmist emperor really is.
It is likely that the lazy denizens of the mainstream media will feed like hungry minnows on the chum that this ‘Carbon Brief’ site will fling at them. But most of those so-called ‘journalists’ will repeat anything the moneyed establishment tells them anyway, without an ounce of skepticism or intellectual curiosity. ‘Carbon Brief’ will just enable them to copy and paste between trips to the coffee machine, and take the afternoons off.
Let us hope the commenters here who confidently assert that this represents the dying throes of the ‘Global Warming’ (now ‘Climate Catastrophe’?) hoax are right. If nothing else, the fiscal crises faced by all the Western nations may put the kibosh on the whole ‘green’ kettle of lies. Of course, the last one to realize that will be the current occupant of the Oval Office in Washington, DC, but with any luck he’ll be gone in 2013.
/Mr Lynn
So the ECF is “the largest philanthropic organisation in Europe. This presumably is an exclusive version of philanthropy(in the literal sense) and AGW sceptics are excluded from the “club” of humanity they profess to love.
And yes, I do know that philanthropy is used in the sense of promoting the welfare of human kind, but presumably we are expected to accept their definition of welfare too.
Like Alex I’m not fazed in the slightest when they say they will-
“..go straight to peer-reviewed science and the relevant scientists to get their opinions”
because that’s their continual downfall as they parrot all this opinionated, post-normal pseudo-science only to make complete fools of themselves. That’s their quintessential problem. Post-normal science gets mugged by reality and who better to advertise that fundamental axiom for us? Piled on top of that are their lunar policy prescriptions which have burned up so much political capital for them now. Just stick with the scientific method folks!
As long as there are blogs such as – Watts Up With That? – there will be an open discussion of the observations and the new analysis. In the end common sense and logic will prevail.
The problem is not only the extreme warming AGW position. The planetary warming due to a doubling of CO2 will be less than 1C. Most of the increase in temperature is at high latitudes which increases the extent of the biosphere. Increases in atmospheric CO2 is beneficial to plant life. For example, there is a roughly 40% increase in cereal crop (rice, grain, and so on) yield for a doubling of CO2. Forest growth will also increase by roughly 40%.
Plants make more effective use of water when atmospheric CO2 levels are higher. (When CO2 levels are higher plants produce less stomata which reduces there water loses and leaves more water at there roots which increases nitrogen production by synergistic bacteria that live on the plant’s roots. There has been an observed reduction in desertification due to the increase in CO2 that is noted in published papers.
Commercial greenhouse raise the CO2 levels in the greenhouse from atmospheric 380 ppm to 1000 ppm to 1500 ppm to increase plant yield and growth rates.
The facts and analysis clearly supports the assertion that an increase in atmospheric CO2 is beneficial to the biosphere. We are at the end of interglacial period. There have been 22 glacial/interglacial cycles. The biosphere contracts when the planet is colder and increases when it is warmer.
The facts and analysis clearly supports the assertion that the planet’s feedback response to any forcing change (including CO2) is negative rather than positive. Planetary cloud cover increases when the planet is warmer reflecting more energy into space and decreases when the planet is colder, thereby resisting any change.
We cannot allow the accompanying AGW leaches that advocate a world tax to fund massive wind farms, bio-fuels, and so on and to send money to corrupt third world government where it will be skimmed off and wasted. Bureaucracies will continue to grow and feed on the AGW paradigm. A world tax and new massive AGW bureaucracy will not help the environment or those paying the world tax.
The rise in food prices in the world is in part due to the massive increase in bio-fuel conversion of corn to ethanol in the US. As almost all are aware the conversion of corn to ethanol was almost no impact on the carbon foot print.
Oh and remember Copenhagen and ‘Blairs Law’ while you do 😉
Thanks for dropping in Christian – it’s good to hear from the editor in person.
I tried to post an item on your site just now and it went straight to moderation – so I’d be interested in knowing what your moderation policies are.
Will it be just snipping bad language or blatant insults – will you be “shaping” the debate like Real Climate by interspersing commentary and disappearing paragraphs which seriously challenge the orthodoxy?
Anyway, I guess lots of people here will be trying to post and we’ll soon know whether any genuine debate is going to be allowed.
A certain church has the Vatican and thousands of believers to proselytize their view of the world, but the organization is steadily losing believers as they learn that there is more to the world than what has been portrayed by the representatives of that church. Revelations of what has resulted to children as a result of that power over the minds of its adherents have also reduced its credibility. Let us hope that it does not take the better part of 2000 years for the true climate story to be known.
IanM
Hope it blows up in their faces…
(Yeah, bad joke..but very deserved.)
Christian Hunt says:
February 18, 2011 at 4:16 am
Hello! Thanks for profiling us so comprehensively. This information is also on our website – http://www.carbonbrief.org/about
As you can see from the above post, we’re open about our what the project is, who’s behind it, and where our funding comes from.
I’m sure that we’re going to differ in viewpoint, and obviously we have quite different ideas of what it is that our project is trying to achieve. But I would say that our genuine interest is in trying to improve the quality of communication around this issue, and I’d welcome constructive comments on what we’re doing.
(It’s also worth noting that we do link to WUWT, along with a range of other commentary sites on climate, from our commentators page.)
———————–
Hi Christian
It is perhaps worth noting that I was specifically describing that the The Carbon Brief, did not link to any sceptical or lukewarm websites in it’s resources page.
http://www.carbonbrief.org/resources
I see that this is still the case.
As the Resources page is describes itself as Other Useful sources of Information. I made the assumption that the absence of sectpical websites was because The Carbon Brief did not think they were suitable for their readers or because of it’s PR and Media brief.
As the The Carbon Brief is funded by the Eurpean Climate Foundation, whose stated intention is too lobby hard for 80-95% reductions of CHG’s by 2050, I assumed these sceptical links were left out on purpose, I think that would be considered a reasonable assumption to make.
As The Carbon Brief has twitterd about Watts Up With That a number of times, it shows that you are aware of its existence
As Watts Up With That is an award winnng science blog ( a finalist again this year) whose web traffic greatly exceeds many of theose websites that The Carbon Brief list (including Realclimate)
I hope you will feel able to add WUWT to your resources page.
As I feel that this would allow The Carbon Brief to fulfill another of its backers (ECF) stated goals which is:
“We seek to maintain a reputation for objective, high-quality work that is neither ideological nor politically biased.” – About Us ECF
Adding Watts Up and some other links I’m sure you might agree would go a long way to fulfilling both the spirit and letter of that intent and inform your readers of all sides of the debate, given equal treatment.
I would like to recommend some other websites that would benefit your readers and allow the ECF goals to be achieved.
Particularly the following 2, as their existence came about because of one of the links you show RealClimate:
Professor Ross Mckitrick
http://rossmckitrick.weebly.com/
Steve Mcintyre
http://www.climateaudit.org
I’m sure you might agree these are also very relevant other useful sources of information. If I may be so bold the following may also be of great interest on this complex issue.
Professor Judith Curry
http://judithcurry.com/
Professor Roger Pielke jnr
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/
Director for the Copenhagen Consensus Center
Bjorn Lomborg
http://www.lomborg.com/
As by Andrew Simm’s tweet, who is as I have described is both politically and idealogicall motivated on a specific side of the debate) with respect to ‘climate deniars, I feel many sceptics may feel suspicious of The Carbon Brief’s intentions.
I hope that you feel able to take these suggestions on board for The Carbon Brief, its readers and the European Climate Foundations benefit.
“We seek to maintain a reputation for objective, high-quality work that is neither ideological nor politically biased.” – About Us ECF
All the Best
Barry
For some more disclosure about who is networked with who and a lot more about Climate finance, check out
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/originals/high_level_climate_finance.html
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/originals/un_progress_governance_via_climate_change.html
Well, Christian has posted my comment now, including the link to CA for the true story 0n Steig/O’Donell – so I guess it’s open season for a full and fair exchange of views.
Maybe this will be the first CAGW site which permits that – which might be a good thing in the long run.
If it turns out like the Guardian’s CIF, where the sceptics win every round of debate, it can only hasten the inevitable end.
This post prompted me to re-read Wiki’s longish article on propaganda. Of the many, many terms used in the article there is not one that I could not apply to the methods of the Agwers. The Carbon Brief fits in there like a glove.