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?
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Maybe they can get lessons from there guys:
Monty Python – The Spanish Inquisition
😉
Why can’t we semi-organize and rebut their rebuttals?
The bigger they come the harder they fall. Also, they will be very obvious in what they are doing. It is just another example of a con man getting some leftists to fund his great big, beautiful project that will do nothing.
Gareth Phillips says: “…It felt like reading an article by the Spanish inquisition on whether evidence critical of the holy roman church was valid or not…”
Only, in this case, it’s crystal clear that Msgr. Lomborg et al are the Church and the Inquisition. You really must choose your metaphors more carefully, Fr. Gareth.
Douglas says:
February 18, 2011 at 3:41 pm
DaveS says: February 18, 2011 at 2:09 pm
[ ——Hunger makes people smart. The recession has not ended. The days of increasing taxes are over, even green taxes.]
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DaveS you are right about the first point – but I don’t think you are about the second. It will take a bit of blood on the streets to induce these pathetic birks in Europe to learn. At least the Americans are awake –thank God – but the EU – words fail me to describe their blinkered lunacy.
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I recently attended a talk by the former Canadian ambassador to the EU on whether or not it would survive (he thinks it will). One passage of his talk was very revelatory. He commented that one criticism of the EU is its undemocratic nature – and asked how much of a problem this was. His answer: Europe has the world’s largest economy and Europeans are better off economically than they have ever been in history, and thus the Eu has been a good thing. (I noted the pea under the thimble issue going on here.)
My interpretation: In other words, European are willing to exchange democratic accountability and freedom for comfort and a high standard of living. This does not make for a vigilant population.
vigilantfish says:
February 18, 2011 at 8:25 pm
I recently attended a talk by the former Canadian ambassador to the EU on whether or not it would survive (he thinks it will). His answer: Europe has the world’s largest economy and Europeans are better off economically than they have ever been in history, and thus the UE has been a good thing. (I noted the pea under the thimble issue going on here.)
My interpretation: In other words, European are willing to exchange democratic accountability and freedom for comfort and a high standard of living. This does not make for a vigilant population.
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Well vigilentfish – he might be right about the Euros being better off now than ever before – aren’t we all – but as you know that is not the point. Their policies are presently destroying that very prosperity – forcing the single currency upon a very disparate group of nations is the first mistake – witness the Piggs and Germany just now for instance – large cracks appearing there. Witness the madness re the Co2 nonsense – best way to destroy their recent gains in prosperity that I can see. Then, as you quite rightly point out, their trade off of democracy accountability and freedom for the ephemeral mirage of prosperity and short term gains does not say much for the intelligence of these people. Have they not learned anything from their own history? I despair. But I do hold high hopes for the Americans and I put that down to their founding fathers’ constitution and the American’s faith in it. Thank God for that.
Douglas
All it proves is their willingness and ability to errect a fortress around their cherrished beliefs, which only shows who the _real_ funded special interests are.
Here’s something else to consider… Being masters of propaganda, how do we really know they have so many followers on Twitter? What if there’s an average of , say, five profiles to every actual person?
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Douglas says:
February 18, 2011 at 9:03 am
Lawrie Ayres says:
February 18, 2011 at 12:36 am
Pteradactyl says: February 18, 2011 at 1:02 am
We are being led like lambs to slaughter by the EU to further their agenda of a single European state. The fastidious way that the EU is making inroads to every aspect of our lives is becoming more and more apparent.
Lawrie Ayres says: February 18, 2011 at 1:04 am
Just a thought. The AGW problem will be solved when we (the West) have a bigger problem to solve.
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I agree with you guys. The bigger problem in Europe (and for that matter the US) is becoming apparent now. The collapse of the economy and the banking system is driving up the cost of all commodities. People’s savings are being eroded, old people cannot afford care, education is becoming unaffordable, the defence of the nation is unsustainable. In the UK the energy system seems to be near the point of collapse. It is becoming apparent even now that the breaking point in people’s patience is getting close.
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I hope that the people of Europe – who a present let the EU bureaucrats do as they please – will not fall back into the bad old patterns of nationalist behaviour: To blame other nations for the misery. This would be the worst possible outcome of the obviously failing experiment with a single currency.
I see “The Carbon Brief” as a “precautionary” effort of the AGW profiteers (see their supporters & you know who they are) in the EU context: The implementation of carbon reduction goals is going to be very expensive, and it is not yet in the bag. The profiteers surely want to avoid the american experience, i.e. the cancellation of cap and trade in the EU, critical assessment of the subject. I think that insurance companies too stand to gain (or lose) from the AGW craze. They were able to raise premiums in the context of the AGW claims concernig stroms, floods “catastrophic weather events”. The prediction that there would be more of these events, causing more damage too, was used to justify the increases.
We have an EU commissioner for climate change. This commissioner is prepared to start a trade war with Canada over tar sand oil: Import of oil derived form tar sand should be forbidden, according to the commissioner. The EU CO2 reduction goals will cost roughly € 250 bln (ca. US$ 340 bln) per year and most likely drive a lot of production out of the area. In fact, if the Americans act sensibly, they could benefit from our EU climate madness. The BRICS surely will!
CORRECTION of my comment above (Feb. 19, 2011 at 3:45am):
The numbers are wrong. According to a newspaper article in the german FAZ CO2 reduction will cost €uro 270 bln (US$369,859 bln) per year.
http://www.faz.net/s/Rub0E9EEF84AC1E4A389A8DC6C23161FE44/Doc~EC652E68197984D348C2C74EE6C1EAF26~ATpl~Ecommon~Scontent.html
The EU is every bureaucrats dream – and that of many diplomats, too. Thousands of well paid jobs, hardly any accountability, endless career opportunities. There are commissioners for everything and they are good at one thing: The growth of the bureaucratic apparatus.
I too have hight hopes for the Americans – we Europeans are seemingly still too obedient to the bureaucrats…. Maybe we can change that if we try really hard!
The more I see of their site the more sceptical I become. When their resource page shows opinion sites RealClimate and Skeptical Science as useful sources of information above primary sources such as Hadley Centre, NOAA and NASA, then I believe their intent becomes completely clear.
By excusing themselves the accuse themselves.
If the Science they claim supports their view was as robust as they claim, it wouldn’t need constantly shoring up with twitterings or by twits.
They simply add to the noise but don’t obscure the signal
I just spent some time over at The Carbon Brief, reading some of their articles and the comments (most of which are from sceptics as opposed to climate cranks, interestingly enough).
It is quite clear to me that they are not independent or objective. It also seems as though they are fairly light-weight at the moment, albeit they’ve not been going very long.
One article that beggars belief is the one entitled ‘The Agatha Christie Approach To Global Warming’, where CO2 is depicted as a murderer with a smoking gun, standing over a dead guy. Not amusing but totally ridiculous, IMHO.
BROWNSHIRTS plain and simple. GK
This is a scary development. Massive advocacy being tarted up as a one-stop media resource. Of course the Carbon Brief background that Barry Woods reveals above will be willfully ignored by the lazy MSM and the other useful idiots of the CAGW rent seekers.
What also frightens me is the current low calibre of MSM journalism. As Mr. Woods demonstrates, with a little digging we can readily see the tawdry little man behind the Carbon Brief Curtain. Unfortunately, too many investigative journalists have suckled at the teat of advocacy and believe they should be delivering the CAGW message rather than facts, so the website will only make their world view simpler. As well, this new “resource” will be used to try to silence sceptical viewpoints, and trolls will be crawling out of the woodwork to do their masters’ bidding.
I just hope people are smart and cynical enough to see through the advocacy.
Here is a good carbon brief
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/02/11/bomb-boxers-manufactured-new-york-company/
This is a bit of George Bush’s “Old Europe” in action. The continent lost its persecuted dissenters over the centuries to the new world. Next it invented socialism, which gathered in clumps behind the iron curtain and in China. This was followed by the breaching of the Berlin Wall and the economic and social collapse of the system (which, in its simplicity, should have been better interpreted by modern political philosophers). Next the ideologues without a system invaded a Europe already fairly socialist friendly and literate. Institutions like the UN and environmental organizations were particularly easy to invade and came with ready funding and millions of useful fools to exploit….. They even gained a big foothold in the land of the dissenters.
this is priceless Phil Jones’ profile on carbon brief
http://www.carbonbrief.org/profiles/phil-jones
I have a couple of comment waiting for moderation at the Carbon Brief…
http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2011/02/was-government-chief-scientist-thinking-about-climate-when-he-said-'we-should-be-grossly-intolerant-of-pseudo-science‘
Don’t worry, some very good POLITE sceptical comments are present…
It is just that they all knocked off early on Ffiday afternoon… ie the thing employees do… they are all salaried people, with big EU NGO funding.. no realclimate/guardian style moderation policy apparent, sceptical comments have been allowed..
IF only Koch/Exxon would get around to sending me a cheque, I to could have a pension plan, healthcare and other employment perks like the Carbon Brief guys have (company car/mileage allowance ?) [sarc OFF]
I’ve never recieved a penny from anybody, doesn’t seem fair 😉
oakgeo says:
February 19, 2011 at 8:13 am
[This is a scary development. Massive advocacy being tarted up as a one-stop media resource. Of course the Carbon Brief background that Barry Woods reveals above will be willfully ignored by the lazy MSM and the other useful idiots of the CAGW rent seekers.—-
What also frightens me is the current low calibre of MSM journalism.
I just hope people are smart and cynical enough to see through the advocacy.]
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Oakgeo. Journalists, as we once knew them, are thin on the ground these days – — the MSM is controlled by businessmen who are only interested in the balance sheet. IMO they couldn’t give a rat’s arse about professional journalists. But take heart, the ordinary people are smart – just read the comments to articles in the main newspapers – people have an instinctive nose to smell out the BS and you see it in these responses. It sometimes takes a little time – but it happens.
Cheers
Douglas
Don’t hold your breath Barry.
I got a few comments posted yesterday – but the last one disappeared into moderation without trace.
I fear it’s gone the way of all warmist blogs – “submit or die”.
Pretty boring posts as well IMHO – I think all the plutocrat-charidee-activists have wasted their money.
What a shame.
In my opinion, these poor people have nothing going for them except for misplaced faith in AGW. Do they really know what or Who they are up against?
First of all, the facts regarding what has been happening lately are against them. See
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/hadcrut3gl.txt
Before now, one has to go back to the 1940s to find a time when you could go ten years or less before a new high record was broken. Their 2010 anomaly was 0.475 versus 0.548 for 1998.
Secondly, the economy is in poor shape so many people have much greater problems than being concerned about what may or may not happen in 100 years. Someone said that when you have food on the table, you have many problems. But when you have no food on the table, you only have one problem.
And finally even God seems to be NOT on their side according to George Monbiot.
See: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2010/dec/02/cancun-climate-change-summit-monbiot
Referring to God, George Monbiot said:
“Now He’s at it again. Last week, just before the resumption of last year’s failed climate talks, the UK recorded its lowest temperature for 25 years, just down the road from where I live.”
Christian Hunt says:
“…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.)
“If you have comments, please send them to me – info [at] carbonbrief.org – I will read them all.”
I sent you my comments but have not received any reply, nor seen my comments posted. So I’ll comment here:
“Reading” our comments is insufficient. Posting them is necessary. If you’re going to censor comments, you won’t get any more traffic than the other alarmist blogs. What are you afraid of, anyway? Open debate? Contrary facts? Inconvenient questions?
WUWT went from zero to 70 million+ hits, and over 530,000 reader comments in only four years. That didn’t happen because of alarmist-style censorship. Judith Curry’s blog is doing well, too, because she posts comments from both sides of the debate.
By playing these games with your blog you are getting off on the wrong foot. You will end up with a small number of like-minded people head-nodding with each other in your echo chamber. Is that what you want? To be a propaganda blog engaged in spin, ignored by the folks in the middle? They’re the ones you have to convince, you know. And they’re drifting away from the belief in runaway global warming in increasing numbers.
But maybe you already know the truth: that your side has cried “Wolf!!” for far too long, and the public has become jaded. There is no runaway global warming, no tipping points, and every AGW scare that hits the MSM is quickly debunked on sites like WUWT. So then what is the purpose of yet another un-read climate progress, real climate or tamino blog? Those censoring propaganda organs already have all the traffic they’ll ever get. Now they’ll have to share eyeballs with your censoring blog.
Anthony Watts puts alarmist blogs like realclimate, skeptical science, tamino, etc. right on his home page sidebar — above the skeptical sites. Putting WUWT anywhere else but on your home page shows that you’re interested in propaganda, not in differing points of view, and it shows that you’re damned insecure, too.
Either play fair, or forfeit credibility. You can not play games and still have credibility. Your traffic numbers will show you that it doesn’t work that way.
Gary Pearse says: February 19, 2011 at 10:29 am
[This is a bit of George Bush’s “Old Europe” in action. The continent lost its persecuted dissenters over the centuries to the new world. Next it invented socialism——– Institutions like the UN and environmental organizations were particularly easy to invade and came with ready funding and millions of useful fools to exploit….. They even gained a big foothold in the land of the dissenters].
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Gary Pearse. Well that’s a neat and concise little piece that pretty well sums up where we are at just now. Easy to remember too! Lol.
Thanks
Douglas
Seriously…
Thet are allowing comments… be polite.. pre-moderated (as IS my own blog)
remebemr it is their JOB..
They knocked of Friday afternoon, and all went home..
No one is monitoring their blog, ie it is obvioulsy a PR site, intenede for peole to be receptive, rather than allow 24 hour moderation.
Monday morning (UK time) I’m sure they will start approving every reasonable and POLITE comment (yes critical ones)
I see some very interesting comments from bloggers I’ve seen comment here…
They’ve all just gone home for the weekend 😉
Actually may someone is getting overtime at the Carbon Brief…
Polite reasonable comments get in… see mine…
http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2011/02/was-government-chief-scientist-thinking-about-climate-when-he-said-'we-should-be-grossly-intolerant-of-pseudo-science‘
They ARE playing fair on the blog as far as I can see. so it might become a useful blog to actually engage with the warmer side of the debate..
My Carbon Brief comment:
“I was at a Walker Institute lecture last year (Reading Uni) they are part of AVOID, Tyndall centre, met office hadley centre, and the Grantham Intstitute..
Professor Arnell, IPCC author, 2,3,4 and the next IPCC report, I was a guest front row reserved seating.
He described Hansens’ proclamations as ALARMIST nonsense(ie 20 feet sea level, deathtrains) and totally unhelpful..(and agreed with some of the greenpeace,wwf annoucments had no basis in any science)
Does The Carbon Brief and Beddington, have this in mind?
I doubt it, they just want to have a dig at sceptics
Sir John Houghton (Co-chair IPCC 2001) he appears in an activist video (endorsing it) which has graphics of plants withering and dyeing at 385-390 ppm CO2
That is levels NOW.. Also ALARMIST no basis in any science…
Houghton’s role in AGW is enormous…