Steve Hilton, the Prime Minister’s director of strategy and ‘green guru’, is the latest person to admit to doubts about climate change. ‘I’m not sure I believe in it,’ he announced at a meeting of the Energy Department, prompting one aide to blurt out: ‘Did I just hear that correctly?’ — The Mail on Sunday, 27 November 2011
Britain’s leading green activist research centre spent £15,000 on seminars for top BBC executives in an apparent bid to block climate change sceptics from the airwaves, a vast new cache of leaked ‘Climategate’ emails has revealed. The emails – part of a trove of more than 5,200 messages that appear to have been stolen from computers at the University of East Anglia – shed light for the first time on an incestuous web of interlocking relationships between BBC journalists and the university’s scientists, which goes back more than a decade. They show that University staff vetted BBC scripts, used their contacts at the Corporation to stop sceptics being interviewed and were consulted about how the broadcaster should alter its programme output. BBC insiders say the close links between the Corporation and the UEA’s two climate science departments, the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) and the Tyndall Centre for Climate Research, have had a significant impact on its coverage. — David Rose, Mail on Sunday, 27 November 2011
Labour MP Graham Stringer last night said he would be writing this week to BBC director-general Mark Thompson to demand an investigation into the Corporation’s relationship with UEA. ‘The new leaked emails show that the UEA scientists at the Tyndall Centre and the CRU acted more like campaigners than academics, and that they succeeded in an attempt to influence the output of the BBC,’ Mr Stringer said. –David Rose, Mail on Sunday, 27 November 2011
Using research money to evangelise one point of view and suppress another defies everything I ever learnt about the scientific method. These emails go to the heart of the BBC’s professed impartiality… its actions must be investigated. –David Davis MP, Mail on Sunday, 27 November 2011
Steve Hilton, the Prime Minister’s director of strategy and ‘green guru’, is the latest person to admit to doubts about climate change. ‘I’m not sure I believe in it,’ he announced at a meeting of the Energy Department, prompting one aide to blurt out: ‘Did I just hear that correctly?’ Hilton has become a big fan of former Chancellor Nigel Lawson, a vocal critic of the global warming lobby. His new doubts chime with the Prime Minister’s decision to tone down his previous emphasis on environmental measures to concentrate on stimulating economic growth. —Mail on Sunday, 27 November 2011
Is the global warming scare the greatest delusion in history? The scare over man-made global warming is not only the scientific scandal of our generation, but a suicidal flight from reality.
On one hand there is the utterly lamentable state of the science which underpins it all, illuminated yet again by “Climategate 2.0”, the latest release of emails between the leading scientists who for years have been at the heart of the warming scare (which I return to below). On the other hand, we see the damage done by the political consequences of this scare, which will directly impinge, in various ways, on all our lives. — Christopher Booker, The Telegraph 27 November 2011
h/t to Dr. Benny Peiser of The GWPF
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The reason is because:
When [SNIP: This is not an endorsement, but that was a step too far. -REP], Steven Chu and Lisa Jackson finally realize they have been duped by the Goracle and Company to support junk science, it will be too late and they will remain laughing stocks for the rest of their lives.
How wonderful it will be to have 3 leading Democrats/environmental wackos/progressives recoginized as BUFOONS AND NINCOMPOOPS!!!
“Durotrigan says:
November 27, 2011 at 11:57 am
It does look suspicious. Although he has not been permitted to appear on BBC television or, to the best of my knowledge radio, Piers Corbyn has been referenced in BBC weather man Paul Hudson’s blog. Paul seems to take a pretty balanced approach to climat and weather and is at least willing to give Corbyn a hearing. However, following Corbyn’s recent dire prognostications with respect to an early blast of severe cold in Britain starting today, I wonder how his reputation will fare, for it is still pretty mild: http://durotrigan.blogspot.com/2011/11/politics-of-climate-science-energy.html”
Give it a chance, the cold is indeed coming and probably snowy for parts of the UK over the next 10days, but the main push is still 24-36hrs away…
@ur momisugly Sandy in Derby
Prof Barnham believes that “cold climates may be the new frontier in solar. “There are a lot of underdeveloped regions and communities living high up in the foothills of the Himalayas that could benefit from solar energy,” he says.”
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn21061-himalayas-could-become-the-saudi-arabia-of-solar.html
If his photovoltaics work better in the cold they’re just what we need for an overheating planet :o)
mfosdb says:
November 27, 2011 at 3:49 pm
“@ur momisugly Sandy in Derby
Prof Barnham believes that “cold climates may be the new frontier in solar. “There are a lot of underdeveloped regions and communities living high up in the foothills of the Himalayas that could benefit from solar energy,” he says.””
Scientists have found this out in 2011? That the Andes and the Himalaya get a high yearly insolation?
The state of academia is worse than I thought.
DirkH says:
November 27, 2011 at 11:55 am
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
The number of sun hours obviously plays a big part. But that is not the full picture. The angle of incidence is also important. In Northern climes the angle of incidence means that there is far less power getting through the atmosphere and onto the panel.
Solar is an option for countries leike Spain but it is not effective for UK or Germany.
neill says: November 27, 2011 at 12:04 pm
Is the ENTIRE political class in Britain already too invested in CAGW to really address this in a meaningful way?
Not the ENTIRE political class no. Some have always been clear that there is scant evidence of success in controlling the climate through the tax system.
It is difficult to overstate though the importance of this coming from Mr Hilton. Expect others to “come out” in the near future.
But is it the US NSF & DOE who are the real enablers propping up this fiasco? Many say yes. Almost all alarmist papers I read are funded by these two. And does the BBC also have ties to these agencies of any kind? Don’t know, but would like to.
4663
date: Thu Nov 13 16:19:22 2008
from: Phil Jones
subject: Re: [Env.faculty] Global Environmental Change Projects
to: Claire Reeves
“The reporting of climate stories within the media (especially the
BBC) is generally one-sided, i.e. the counter argument is rarely made.”
How long is this going to go on? The science is suspect to say the least, sceptics are silenced and the great climate change con goes on and on. We need some people at the top to stand up , I live in hope
The truth about ‘renewables’ is slowly emerging. AGW adherents are falling by the wayside. Some are changing horses to try the sceptic approach.
Meanwhile we must keep the pressure on governments and the BBC to get back into the real world.
The last guy to get the memo that they’ve been made is Germany’s federal minister for the environment Norbert Röttgen who just demanded a CO2 limit for every human being on earth.
http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/0,1518,800206,00.html
“His new doubts chime with the Prime Minister’s decision to tone down his previous emphasis on environmental measures to concentrate on stimulating economic growth”
Let’s hope this change of heart has come in time to prevent the desecration of beautiful parts of Wales and the destruction of the UK economy in the name of wind power.
David L. Hagen says:
November 27, 2011 at 2:11 pm
…
See also “BBC’s principles: Accuracy”
3.2.3 The BBC must not knowingly and materially mislead its audiences. We should not distort known facts, present invented material as fact or otherwise undermine our audiences’ trust in our content.
========
That should be easy to show, assuming we can get real scientists to deconstruct it, in the ‘experiment’ the Beeb showed to push the AGW agenda – comparing heating jar of air with jar of carbon dioxide, and the skeptics in the audience suddenly saw the light..
A “scare over man-made global warming” or a “man-made global warming scare” ?
“UEA’s Tyndall Centre rejects Mail on Sunday claims over influencing BBC policy”
http://www.eveningnews24.co.uk/news/uea_s_tyndall_centre_rejects_mail_on_sunday_claims_over_influencing_bbc_policy_1_1138178
wayne says:
November 27, 2011 at 8:05 pm
But is it the US NSF & DOE who are the real enablers propping up this fiasco? Many say yes. Almost all alarmist papers I read are funded by these two. And does the BBC also have ties to these agencies of any kind? Don’t know, but would like to.
=============
Jones picks some emails to explain, http://www.uea.ac.uk/mac/comm/media/press/CRUstatements/rebuttalsandcorrections/phrasesexplained,one of which is this:
Here’s what the email really said: http://foia2011.org/index.php?id=1527
I’d certainly like to have more details about this “main funder”, how much and for how long, how much influence this has had on the British government’s introduction of more crippling green taxes, and so on. The Americans would be interested I imagine for the EPA connection – they did try at some point, don’t have the emails up now, to get EPA legislation stopped by saying the CRU data unreliable, unsuccessfully.
P.S. to my post above to Wayne http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/27/newsbytes-bbc-in-cahoots-with-climategate-scientists-prime-minister-green-guru-publicly-doubts-climate-change/#comment-811901
http://www.ecowho.com/foia.php?file=1255100876.txt&search=Bank
This is what I’d found on the EPA –
From: Ben Santer
To: ???@uea.ac.uk
Subject: Re: CEI formal petition to derail EPA GHG endangerment finding with charge that destruction of CRU raw data undermines integrity of global temperature record
Date: Fri, 09 Oct 2009 11:07:56 -0700
Reply-to: ???@llnl.gov
The exchange began with an email sent by Rick Piltz:
I can’t tell off-hand if this is from Climategate I or II – does seem very familiar, probably I? I wonder if they’re going to have another go against the EPA with more examples of the bad science practice?
Harold Lewis’ parting shot, calling global warming the ‘most successful pseudoscientific f***d I have seen,’ seems to have had a significant effect. IMO, it helped embolden many who are now speaking up.
Thanks again, Harold.
________
And a fan of Nigel Lawson in the UK cabinet! In charge of Official Greenness! Next, we’ll have an official endorsement of frak gas as a way to rescue its economy from suicidal ruin! Or maybe that’s a few steps further down the road. But we can see it from here …
[reposted starring out Lewis’ use of a verboten WP filter-word.]