Lord Oxburgh, the organisation’s director, was called in to head an internal inquiry into the leaked emails which included one infamous message referring to a “trick” to “hide the decline” in global temperatures.
The peer’s investigation cleared the scientists of malpractice. But critics claimed the report was a whitewash and Lord Oxburgh also failed to declare his involvement with Globe before he began his investigation.
Meanwhile Bob Ward, from the Grantham Institute, which works alongside Globe, praised a second inquiry by former civil servant Muir Russell, which also cleared the climate researchers.
He said it had “lifted the cloud of suspicion” and demonstrated that “the integrity of climate science is intact.”
Globe International’s work is paid for with donations from multi-millionaire backers and through partnerships with other environmental groups.
Globe also confirmed last night that it received direct funding from the Department of Energy and the Department of International Development (DfID). including a grant of £91,240 provided by DfID since the Coalition came to power last year.
More cash from DfID is filtered through the Complus Alliance – a “sustainable development communications alliance” of broadcasters based in Costa Rica which is also supported by the BBC World Service Trust, the Corporation’s independent charity,.
Complus, which was awarded DfID cash last year and in 2006, says it has an “ongoing relationship with Globe” helping it run “shadow negotiation” teams at international summits of world leaders.
A spokeswoman for Complus said: “The BBC is a founding member not a funding member. They can make in-kind contributions, like organising events, supporting logistics, sharing content.”
===============================================================
More here.
Also, Dr. Richard North of the EU Referendum has a synopsis of coverage that preceded the Telegraph’s, and there was a significant amount. But even a late awakening is better than none.
Bottom line for the BBC: no matter what, when you are involved in promoting monetarily, in kind, or in any way, the same people and organizations you report on, you can’t have any separation from conflict of interest.
The The BBC has zero credibility left in all matters climate reporting related, in my opinion.
While I had suspicions before, after reviewing these two posts on “contract” and “expenses” for the Oxburgh report at CA, followed by Bishop Hill’s “When is a contract not a contract?“, I believe now that these investigations were complete whitewashes, bought and paid for. It is just that simple.
h/t to WUWT reader and volunteer moderator “AndiC”
John Marshall says:
April 24, 2011 at 2:34 am
I have concerns that my licence fee, to operate a TV set, of £135 per year helps to pay for all this BBC climate rubbish. The fee, in reality a TAX, must be paid on threat of imprisonment.
Nowhere else in the world are viewers forced to pay a tax to view any TV program, even recorded by yourself or of non BBC origin, and the monies go to an unaccountable organization, the BBC, to spend as they see fit.
Mods: sorry if getting somewhat off-topic, but I believe this is important and relevant.
John, don’t pay it, it’s as simple as that. I personally never have, and never will, pay for a TV licence. I cannot bring myself to accept any notion that my government grants me permission to watch a TV in return for a fee. I wouldn’t care if the BBC were uncorrupt and clean as a whistle – I still would not pay for a licence to watch TV because the concept is so morally repugnant. It is no less ridiculous than a “licence to read books” – and yet people accept it almost unquestioningly.
FACT: The BBC licencing people have no right of entry into your house. So, if like me you don’t quite have the courage of your convictions to go to prison for your principles, you can still watch TV, unlicenced, in the privacy of your own home (away from street-facing windows, obviously) and deny entry to any licencing officer who calls. The point is you would be exercising your free right to watch TV – you don’t need to recognise anyone’s permission for that – whilst also denying your funding to this corrupt organisation. I have turned the BBC Gestapo away on three occasions – the last time was about 10 years ago now, and they don’t bother coming anymore. If everyone could do this…
Barry Woods says: April 24, 2011 at 6:11 am
The question nobody is asking is….?
Why Now?
Good question Barry,
Was wondering the same thing myself.
Stephen Rasey provides explanation to the question.
‘Hansen’s climate universe is CO2 centric. What if the real climate system not driven primarily by CO2 concentrations. Then by choosing a poor model, Hansen is forced into every increasing complexity, epicycles on epicycles, to explain observed behavior.’ Theo Goodwin and jorgekafkazar add comment.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/04/23/on-ocean-heat-content-pinatubo-hansen-bulldogs-cherrypicking-and-all-that/#comment-647071
Post hoc ergo propter hoc
And could not account for lack of temporal ambiguity.
Noise.
The journalists (as SRacey points out above) are forced into ever increasing complexity? More prudent to pursue previous truths written?
John Marshall says:
April 24, 2011 at 2:34 am
Nowhere else in the world are viewers forced to pay a tax to view any TV program, even recorded by yourself or of non BBC origin, and the monies go to an unaccountable organization, the BBC, to spend as they see fit.
Sweden also has a TV tax to support the public SVT programs. You don’t even have to own a TV, a computer or VCR/DVD player will leave you open to the Swedish TV tax. A while back there was even talk by the SVT people of taxing businesses with CCTV(I am not joking).
Was there any whitewash left in the shops after Lord Whitewash finished?
Just another case of overpaid bureaucrats being allowed to spend other people’s money badly. This is the only thing governments and quasi-government organisations do well.
The only time this changes is in a total war situation, when you have no choice but to get real managers in to run things properly.
BBC waste and its army of overpaid top heavy ‘mananagement’ bureaucrats enforcing left wing biases on everything is something us Brits have just grown used to – shame on us.
And as noted, Richard North comment above manners and etiquette.
Lack of referencing to the original source(s), but owning the scoop displays a complete nonchalance for [professional] journalist’ Code of Ethics.
paul revere says:
April 24, 2011 at 7:51 am
Actually, it is worse than than. One does not have to question Darwinian evolution. One can simply question its account of the Neanderthals. Then, if you are on the wrong team, your coffin is nailed closed. If you are on the right team, you are published and celebrated.
I take it that everyone knows that Darwinians cannot quite figure out what to do with the Neanderthals. Some prominent theories are that we killed them as aggressors, we killed them inadvertently through competition, or we married them. Not a lot of difference among those theories.
Bernie says: “This is way beyond Yes, Prime Minister. It is positive(l)y Orwellian and Kafkaesque.”
Yes, exactly. We’re all being excessively taxed during hard economic times in order to fabricate pseudoscientific global warming proctoganda and force it upon us with the intent of then confiscating even more of our life’s earnings. The media and the government and academia need to be told to stick it where it came from, folded into a cone and turned sideways.
“Huth says:
April 24, 2011 at 7:36 am”
Those vans were pure propaganda, really I mean that. A good old “scare” tactic as there were simply not enough to catch the “offenders”. As much as I can recall my life in the UK, neither my parents, their parents nor thier offspring paid the fee. Never ever saw one of those “vans”, just the ads. Not a surprise because in the “adverts” on non-commercial TV showed a “Commer BF” van which was massively unreliable (A Big Fail? Oh yeah).
A long, long, time ago. In a galaxy far, far…oh wait, wrong story. In the US, back in the day, any person wishing to persue the office of President (or any political office for that matter) had to be nominated. It was not allowed, as it is now, for people to just “announce” their candidacy. The way this worked is that a hopeful would find a printhouse that published a newspaper with like political views. The paper would distribute the would-be candidates propaganda and if he could afford it, when (because money wins) there was enough support drummed up in this fashion he would be nominated for the office by his supporters.
My point: there has never been, and most likely never will be a MSM (print or broadcast) that is not biased, or skewed to a particular political vein and agenda. That is how they originated, it is the environment (those that hold the purse strings) they have evolved (have created) from: to support and promote a particular political agenda / world view, and in a word it is their ilk.
So with many of the above I agree, and it is a sad state of affairs: chuck the TV or watch it at your own risk. Or, to all of us (and it would seem ALL of us) that have to pay for it, “buyer beware” For the more extreme of heart and mind perhaps it’s time to once again break out the old muzzle loaders and mobilize the largest free militia on the planet. Oh how I long for the days of only 3 TV channels in B&W…life was so simple back then. 😉
Thanks for featuring this story, Anthony. It is heartening to see another investigative journo join the climate investigation on the Sunday Telegraph with James Dellingpole and Christopher Brooker.
The story has been ‘out there’ in various chunks since the apalling ‘Climategate’ pseudo-enquiries, but this article joins the dots superbly.
The Posters on this thread who rabbit on about chucking the TVs have missed the point.
There is this guy who made it his life’s work to critically follow the BBC. Although he does go over the top sometimes he has some particularly well founded examples of BBC’s bias. Google: Biased BBC and you’ll find biased-bbc blogspot.
It’s illuminating for those who aren’t aware of their actions.
“David, UK says:
April 24, 2011 at 8:09 am”
As I say now, down under, maaaaate, hi five to that! However I challenge your stance “they” do not have right of access to your home. You will be surprised “who” has statutory rights to enter your home, even ramblers in the right places, have “right” to “pass through” your home.
“Excerpt: Lord Oxburgh, the organisation’s director, was called in to head an internal inquiry into the leaked emails which included one infamous message referring to a “trick” to “hide the decline” in global temperatures.”
The statement is false. Global temperatures did not decline. The issue is over whether a series of tree ring data should have been included in whole or left out rather than used partly.
Get over the Climategate thing guys. It has been thoroughly investigated by six committees and the participants have been exonerated. The evidence didn’t depend on one data set in any event and the word “trick” is just a shorthand word used commonly in the science community. There is nothing devious about the word at all.
“CLimategate” has already served its PR purpose confusing many and slowing the change process which will inevitably occur nevertheless.
Sadly, the general public has become so apathetic, most people who hear about this won’t even care.
Hugh Pepper,
You’re simply carrying water for these whitewashes. Being their apologist means never having to use critical thinking.
Here’s the way it is: without an adversarial investigation, in which an opposing party has the right to freely ask questions, your so-called “exoneration” is just a cover-up.
When the venue allows for someone representing the defrauded public to cross examine hostile witnesses, then the truth will come out. In the Oxburgh and similar
inquirieswhitewashes, those questions were deliberately barred. How do you explain that, other than admitting that the good old boys closed ranks to protect their lucrative gravy train?“The Posters on this thread who rabbit on about chucking the TVs have missed the point.”
Ok Alexander, I’ll buy it. What point have we missed?
John.
[snip. ~dbs, mod.]
[snip. ~dbs, mod.]
Dave Brittania says:
It was on Horizon about 10 years ago that I first saw Dr. James Hansen. He said NASA tried to muzzle him. The show ended with flames coming out of the ocean due to methane calthrates. That show made look into AGW a lot deeper and I ended sceptical.
Gaylon says:
April 24, 2011 at 8:41 am
“… there has never been, and most likely never will be a MSM (print or broadcast) that is not biased, or skewed to a particular political vein and agenda. That is how they originated, it is the environment (those that hold the purse strings) they have evolved (have created) from: to support and promote a particular political agenda / world view, and in a word it is their ilk”
———–
Perhaps. But never before in history has there been so much collusion between international corporations, left-wing leaning political parties and the mainstream media in suppression alternative points of view, censoring unwanted ideas, and pursuing a common agenda. Why so many media outlets have tied their wagon to the propaganda of multinational corporations is a minor puzzle – except, of course, 1) that fighting climate change (shudder – what self-delusion!) is seen as the morally correct thing to do – a dreadful further perversion of political correctness; and 2) so many media outlets have financial stakes in carbon credit schemes, including the BBC (http://climateresearchnews.com/2010/02/bbc-pension-funds-linked-to-climate-policy/) and not to mention Rupert Murdoch’s embrace of global warming alarmism.
On the side of ‘moral correctness’ Toronto’s Globe and Mail has been calling for the different political parties in Canada’s ongoing election campaigns to re-embrace the problem of global warming, even though this issue is currently almost non-existent for the electorate (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/editorials/the-international-climate-change-battle-begins-at-home/article1993495/).
It has also joined the Boreal Business Forum, a group sponsored in part by American charitable foundations and empowered by the membership of Greenpeace and other environmental NGOs. According to the Financial Post’s editor Peter Foster, ‘the boreal forum includes German multimedia giant Axel Springer AG, Time Inc., and Hearst Corp. These media giants are apparently happy to subscribe to the view that the oversight of markets, shareholders and the law is insufficient to stop companies from destroying the environment. They don’t seem to grasp that they are knitting the fair-trade rope for their own hanging.” See http://opinion.financialpost.com/2011/04/21/peter-foster-lost-in-the-corporate-borealis/
The media in the past, at least, was more independent with fewer vested interests in shoring up an official propaganda war. I am thrilled that the Sunday Telegraph is showing some (belated) journalistic integrity, and glad that the message the Climategate inquiries were a whitewash being spread by new voices. I did not need this latest article to know that the Climategate inquiries were whitewashes (anyone who has read the e-mails already knew that) but this is definitely an article that will be printed out and posted on the office door for the ‘skeptics’ to see.
I am continuing having difficulty getting to your website and can only go through backdoor routes. Typing in Wattsupwiththat.com sends me to a wiki page with the message “wiki does not exist”. I did a virus scan, turned off my computer, and used bing instead of google. Same result. The link icon on my computer has now changed as well for the main page.
Pam I have no trouble probably your DNS provider try opendns.org I think
And you don’t believe in conspiracy theories …?