This email in December 2003 shows what appears to be the genesis of the idea of setting up the RealClimate.org website.
There a BBC (impartiality – ho ho) connection. Roger Harrabin at this meeting at Tyndall (why was he there in the first place?) of the BBC apparently “…wanted something more pro-active.” according to the email.
#2974 is an email from Prof John Shepherd, a Tyndall advisory board member, to RealClimate’s Stefan Rahmstorf. Dated December 2003, it is a response to an email in which Rahmstorf has suggested setting up a website to counter sceptic arguments (perhaps the germ of the idea for RealClimate itself?). That’s not the point though. The point will be clear when you read Shepherd’s report of a meeting of Tyndall’s advisory board.
Many thanks for your very helpful comments. Essentially I agree on all counts, and indeed the “sceptics ask, scientists answer” web-page that you have set up is exactly the sort of thing I had in mind as a possible minimal response that we (Tyndall et al, and even maybe the Royal Society if it wants to get involved) might undrertake. Wherever possible this could/should refer to other reputable sites (incl IPCC, Hadley Centre, the ones you mention, etc etc) rather than duplicating the material. I would envisage that such a site could be maintained by a consortium of the willing, in this case involving (say) Tyndall, Hadley & PIK. We could then asked the RS (et al) to mention it and link to it on some sort of “sound science” page on their own web-site(s) (Rachel, do you think that this might fly ?).
We had an interesting debate on this at the Tyndall Advisory Board last week, and the consensus was very much in line with your views, except for the journalist present (Roger Horobin), who wanted something more pro-active. I am more sympathetic to his view than most of you, I think, but the question is what more would be useful, effective, and not too burdensome ? So far I don’t think I have identified anything, but I do think that the sort of web-page mentioned above would be a start, and so I am copying this to Asher Minns, for him to consider and discuss with John & Mike at Tyndall Central.
The date of this email is Wed, 03 Dec 2003
Academia moves slowly in most things. They had to build consensus and then search for money to do it, perhaps money that couldn’t be from NASA or other publicly funded research due to the conflicts of interest that would have created with such an outreach. They found money in the form of Fenton Communications, now Environmental Media Services.
According to whois RealClimate.org was registered as a domain almost a year later 19-Nov-2004 16:39:03 UTC
Domain ID:D105219760-LROR Domain Name:REALCLIMATE.ORG Created On:19-Nov-2004 16:39:03 UTC Last Updated On:13-Jan-2011 00:25:24 UTC Expiration Date:19-Nov-2015 16:39:03 UTC Sponsoring Registrar:Active Registrar, Inc. (R1709-LROR) Status:OK Registrant ID:ACTR1011142017 Registrant Name:Betsy Ensley Registrant Organization:Environmental Media Services Registrant Street1:1320 18th St, NW Registrant Street2:5th Floor Registrant Street3: Registrant City:Washington Registrant State/Province:DC Registrant Postal Code:20036 Registrant Country:US Registrant Phone:+1.2024636670 Registrant Phone Ext.: Registrant FAX: Registrant FAX Ext.: Registrant Email:betsy@ems.org Admin ID:ACTR1011149427 Admin Name:Betsy Ensley Admin Organization:Environmental Media Services Admin Street1:1320 18th St, NW Admin Street2:5th Floor Admin Street3: Admin City:Washington Admin State/Province:DC Admin Postal Code:20036 Admin Country:US Admin Phone:+1.2024636670 Admin Phone Ext.: Admin FAX: Admin FAX Ext.: Admin Email:betsy@ems.org Tech ID:ACTR1011143071 Tech Name:Betsy Ensley Tech Organization:Environmental Media Services Tech Street1:1320 18th St, NW Tech Street2:5th Floor Tech Street3: Tech City:Washington Tech State/Province:DC Tech Postal Code:20036 Tech Country:US Tech Phone:+1.2024636670 Tech Phone Ext.: Tech FAX: Tech FAX Ext.: Tech Email:betsy@ems.org Name Server:NS1.WEBFACTION.COM Name Server:NS2.WEBFACTION.COM Name Server:NS3.WEBFACTION.COM Name Server:NS4.WEBFACTION.COM
Well, the would have dropped her like a hot potato once she was no longer “useful” just like Real Climate would be dropped if it didn’t remain “useful”. The point being the other side of the debate has no such coordination. There is nobody coordinating the posting frequencies and message of the various blogs attempting to expose the AGW mess for what it is. There is nobody organizing press packets to “sympathetic journalists” (Fenton’s words) in various news organizations for the stuff Anthony posts. There is nobody rounding up grass roots organizations in the various states, giving them all different names and coordinating their press activity the way it is being done on the left.
If you look at the donors of the Tides Foundation, it is the who’s who of “the 1%”. Kind of ironic, isn’t it? The other side has nobody with hundreds of millions of dollars to pour into huge organized international efforts. Our only weapon is sunshine. But those “sympathetic journalists” aren’t going to take it up on their own. Fenton makes it easy. They put together a press packet, coach people for interviews, if you have a protest, they arrange to meet the media and escort them to the place with the most impact for pictures and live shots, etc. That is what they do, they are a PR agency. WUWT, No Consensus, Climate Audit, et. al. don’t have that kind of money or coordination. These are sites where you have individuals doing what they think is right.
The trouble is that in many cases they have tried to keep the debate at a scientific level when it really isn’t about the science. That is why no journalist that I know of has never asked Mann or Jones to their face on an interview “Where’s the atmospheric hot spot?”. It is never going to happen unless someone “tricks” them into what they believe is a “friendly” interview and turns the tables but that doesn’t happen.
http://chicago2011.drupal.org/user/betsy-ensley
“Betsy also spent time as a Business Services Consultant for EJF Real Estate working closely with area restaurateurs to facilitate the sale of their existing businesses…”
Is that an intersection between Betsy Ensley and Herman Cain’s “bimbo eruption”, which originated with the National Restaurant Association?
BTW, Fenton Communications also had Kalee Kreider http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/news2005/0516-10.htm as one of their top people back in the early- mid-2000s. Ms Kreider currently serves as Al Gore’s spokesperson – Gore says on pg 411 of his “Our Choice” book that Ms Kreider “has been of invaluable assistance in all of my climate work”. She also worked at Ozone Action, the enviro-activist group I describe in my online articles as the epicenter of the smear of skeptic scientists, and she went from there straight to Greenpeace in mid ’96, AND she is also found in the IPCC’s 1997 “Authors, Contributors, and Expert Reviewers of the Regional Impacts Special Report” Annex H page (scroll down to the USA section http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/sres/regional/index.php?idp=329 )
Disastroturf?
LoL
A-ha, here ya go to tie this together: “Top Scientists Launch RealClimate.org, 10.12.2004…. For more information contact Kalee Kreider… kalee@fenton.com”
http://idw-online.de/pages/de/news94097
Russell C: If its PR is being handled by Fenton, then it is absolutely an activist “progressive” operation because Fenton handles nothing else. It’s what they do, it’s what their very existence is about.
crosspatch;
The other side has nobody with hundreds of millions of dollars to pour into huge organized international efforts. Our only weapon is sunshine.>>>
Despite which…. we’re winning. Oh we’ve lost a lot of battles along the way, but we’re winning the war. Of course, mommy nature is pitching in by refusing to warm on command, which will be the ultimate arbiter in any even… or more likely… non event.
Anyway, I am gobsmacked by what you’ve put together on Fenton. Keep up the great work!
REALLY? I don’t think so. Look at the amount of money spent on this stuff from all governments and corporations over the past 10 years. It keeps climbing every year. Look at the books in your local elementary school that our kids are given to read. Kids graduating from High School today have been indoctrinated in this stuff since they were in kindergarten. This isn’t hypothesis to them, this is FACT to those kids. Explain how we are winning? Take a poll of all citizens under 20. I’ll bet the number you find who are skeptical of AGW is pretty close to zero. But I’ll also bet that the number who can tell you how AGW works is close to zero, too. They have just had it driven into their heads for their entire life that it is a fact and so it becomes a fact.
Making up facts is much easier than telling lies.
crosspatch says:
November 30, 2011 at 9:59 pm
I dunno crosspatch. My friend had one of Al’s acolytes speak at their daughter’s school. The next days discussion was predominately about the term “hypocrite”. There is hope.
crosspatch;
REALLY? I don’t think so. Look at the amount of money spent on this stuff from all governments and corporations over the past 10 years.>>>
Really. Might not feel like it a lot of the time, but we are. Like I said, we’ve lost a lot of battles along the way, but we’re winning the war. Really.
Copenhagen was a bust. Nothing happend.
Durban started with low expectations, and after CG2, they went lower still.
Japan is out of Kyoto unless everyone else like China, Russia, India are in. They’re not. So Japan is out.
Rumours are flying that Canada will be getting out before end of this calendar year.
US and Canada have both said zero $ for the $100 Billion climate fund everyone promised to donate to in Copenhagen. That pretty much leaves Europe and Australia to fund it alone. Europe is broke. That leaves Australia. Fat chance they’ll pony up $100 billion in their own.
Nature (yes, Nature!) just published an article saying “let kyoto die” and is it being picked up by major media:
http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/11/30/let-kyoto-die-prominent-scientific-journal-says/
the big financial rags like Forbes are crying foul, and their readers are financial heavy weights with the ear of politicians.
The FOIA requests as a result of the info in CG2 are just starting to emerge (see the thread on it on WUWT). Is the MSM paying attention? Not particularly. But FOIA laws in the US are way tougher than the ones in Britain. When someone winds up going to jail (and they will) the MSM will report it.
Michael Mann is so desperate to kleep his emails a secret that he applied for intervenor status and argued that only he can “interpret” the emails he wrote. One can only wonder why he wrote them since sending them to other people would then have been pointless. The judge ain’t buying, and those emails are going to come out.
The IPCC is now saying that we should expect no further warming for the next 20 to 30 years. They can justify it by blaming aerosols from little green spaceships from Juptier’s moon if they want, but the average person is going to say…. 20 to 30 years? I’m going to lose my job over this global warming bullarky that nothing is going to happen because of for 30 years? My kids are hungry, screw that.
Oh, we’re a long ways from having “won”, I’ll grant you that. In fact, we’re not even ahead. But think of it like a baseball game. We were behind 10 to nothing in the sixth inning. In the 7th, CG1 got us 7 runs to their 1, so we’re still behind, 11 to 7. CG2 is too soon to count how many runs, heck, CG1 hasn’t even played itself out yet. It is the bottom of the 8th inning, it is 12 to 10, the bases are loaded, and we’ve got nobody out.
That doesn’t mean we let up and relax. No way, stay focused, don’t take your eye off the ball, keep scoring points. It won’t be long before a lot of their “team” is on the sidelines if we keep pushing it hard. The disorganizaed rable tends to win these kinds of wars because we really do believe in our positions. The warmist ship is full of pretenders and hangers on. When they figure the wind has started blowing the other way (and it has) they will start abandoning ship. that’s what rats do when the ship starts to sink.
“According to whois RealClimate.org was registered as a domain almost a year later 19-Nov-2004 16:39:03 UTC”
That is also the date the emails were released. Possible another reason for the date of the release from FOIA besides the POTUS/Chinese connection.
“Nov, 15-18, 2009 US presidente BO visits China
Nov, 19, 2009 Climategate I
Dec, COP-15
Nov, 19, 2011 US president BO visits China
Nov, 22, 2011 Climategate II
Dec, COP-17”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/24/foia2011-and-climategate-a-chinese-potus-connection/
So even with the BBC’s Roger Harrabin directly involved in blatant advocacy of the warming scam, the bulk of the MSM continues in it’s state of deep slumber “move along, nothing to see here”:
But then, few of us would have predicted the fall of the Berlin wall two weeks before it actually happened. When the collapse of the scam eventuates it may cascade much more quickly than most would expect.
Apologies – this should really go in Tips & Notes, but I had problems accessing the page. Anyway the relevance here is the BBC’s ‘impartiality ho-ho’.
There was a programme on BBC Radio 4 on Tues 29 Nov (http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/timc), an episode in the ‘science’ series called The Infinite Monkey Cage. It’s hosted by Prof Brian Cox, a particle physicist involved in the ATLAS project at CERN, media regular & ex-keyboardist with pop group ‘D-Ream’; and a comedian whose name I forget. The topic was ‘how science is portrayed in the media & the issue of scientific balance’. The guests were Sir Paul Nurse, Prof Steve Jones & a token non-scientist (a comedienne in this case). Of course Nurse is president of the warmista Royal Society, & Jones wrote the infamous report for the BBC that the sceptic view of AGW should not be aired (or at least given balance). Guess how the conversation went.
I was disappointed that Cox fell into line with the warmista view, until I saw on his website (www.appoloschildren.com/brian) that he is a ‘Royal Society Research Fellow’ in particle physics at University of Manchester. Nuff said.
Oops. Brian Cox’s website should read http://www.apolloschildren.com/brian
pat says:
November 30, 2011 at 3:23 pm
29 Nov: BBC Ariel Mag: Roger Harrabin: A controversial conversationThe flak’s been flying again over BBC coverage of climate change
Roger Harrabin is taking unpaid leave on a Knight Wallace Media Fellowship at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor
http://www.bbc.co.uk/ariel/15937222
Hmmm, harrabin says “I said the balance of the science suggested that we should not always feature sceptics but that we should continue to represent their views on a case-by-case basis because many legitimate science debates remain and because of the politicised nature of the policy debate.”
I take it the BBc broadcasts “songs of praise” because theres a consensus view that their little invisifriend in the sky is real then?
Wheres the scientific debate on the “god” question?
I wanna see the proof!!
Not taking it on faith are we Rog?
Just like “mann made up global warming” then…..
crosspatch says: November 30, 2011 at 2:34 pm – And lo and behold, a great deal of the contributions to EMS comes from: (drum roll) … Tides Foundation!
Wow. Which is related to the Rockefeller Foundation, see my network graph at:
http://falardotempo.blogspot.com/2010/05/redes-sociais-uma-historia-de-encantar.html
In Portuguese, but it’s amenable I guess.
davidmhoffer @ur momisugly
“Oh wait… Harrabin is with the BBC?
OK, now I am confused. I can’t say you get what you pay for because you poor b***ards in the UK have to pay for the BBC through your taxes. Them, I learned in another thread, that you have to pay a license fee in order to WATCH the BBC programs you ALREADY PAID FOR.”
Just a quickie about how the BBC is funded:
1. All of the BBC and a small amount for Channel 4 is funded from what is called euphemistically called the TV licence fee. This is currently £145 for colour and £65 per annum for black and white (yes, I know, I know, but there are still people who use black and white TV – the late Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother used to watch the horse racing on her original black and white set bought, I think, in the 1950s).
2. The licence fee entitles the holder to have as many televisions as you like in your household, but it applies whether you watch the BBC or not. So, even if you only watch commercial terrestrial, cable or satellite TV, you still have to pay the licence fee. In theory, if you don’t have a TV but watch TV programmes on your computer, then you are still liable to pay the fee.
3. BBC radio is also funded from the TV licence fee income, except for a large chunk of funding for BBC World Service which is provided by the UK Foreign Office (i.e. this is from direct taxation).
4. But, you don’t need to pay the licence fee if you only listen to the radio.
Effectively, the whole lot is a tax, even though most of the commercial channels have to pay their own way with advertising revenue.
So, yes, we are all poor b***ards. But more and more of us are getting fed up with being over taxed.
Hope that helps.
Keep after Harrabin! My taxes, sorry licence fee to operate a TV, pays his inflated salary and I object most strongly.
richard verney says:
November 30, 2011 at 8:32 pm
James Sexton says:
November 30, 2011 at 3:17 pm
///////////////////////////////
James
I have just had a quick look at your site. I have not been on it before. There were some interesting posts well worth a read.
=====================================================
Thanks! Its just a different perspective and doesn’t have some of the constraints other sites have. It isn’t exclusively a climate blog, but I do try to tie in some issues (economical/political) with what’s going on in the climate discussion.
I always thought the name “Real Climate” was quite surreal given that everything they promulgate as facts is based upon computer models.
But “Virtual Climate” and “Unreal Climate” just don’t have that compelling ring to them, do they?
Absolutely. Modern journalism is now synonymous with advocacy. Just like science. Both are now post-normal.
I guess Harrabin is taking leave so no questions can be put to him.
Fenton Communications as professional astroturf is only perhaps the most successful of a new genre; see The Saint Group, which sells itself as a political and land use astroturfing business.
tscg.biz
They craft message, do opposition research, handle the press, create groups, discredit the other side, and so on.
They are for sale to either side, so in one county they may be a bunch of fake citizen groups opposing a department store, and in the next might be a bunch of fake citizen groups supporting a grocery store of the same size and “environmental” impact.
We had them here in 2007 in our county (and some of them are still here), where they worked through PACs to hide the large company with a significant land use application (a for-profit hospital with a track record of targeting community hospitals and siphoning off the patients with insurance and/or money–they were trying to build withing less than 5 miles of the only existing hospital in a county of over 500 square miles, on the grounds that we NEEDED more health care for our growing population, but they could only serve it right next door to the one existing not-for-profit).
They also fronted money and resources for citizen groups, and some of their employees appeared under a variety of names at public hearings.
The most interesting thing I found before it went memory hole (I LOVE printers and discs!) was a supposed zoning company headed by an employee of the group who specialized in healthcare (he has since, on their website, become a green energy specialist), each of whose employees contributed as individuals to the candidates running who were backed by the PACs laundering the healthcare PAC money.
The fact that they donated as individuals did not ping as a corporate donation–we found the company almost by accident because we were researching the employee’s donations, and we never found that it did any zoning work, and lo and behold it disappeared after the election cycle.
Unfortunately, this kind of “PR” is a growth industry.
See http://tscg.biz/what-we-do for a primer on the astroturf PR genre:
“Strategic planning
■Develop and execute targeted campaign strategies and action plans directed at politicians, community groups, the media, special interest groups, and opponents.
…
Identify key pressure points.
■Grassroots coalition building Organize local campaign groups, create advocacy, build coalitions, and identify and neutralize opposition.
…
Orchestrate public events
■Devise appearances at public gatherings, community meetings, public hearings, and local and regional government meetings.”
And so on.
Fenton appears to be truly global.
LazyTeenager says:
November 30, 2011 at 2:43 pm
Crosshatch says
I don’t need to hear any more at this point, I already know the game now. NOTHING published at that site should be believed.
—————
How convenient. A bunch of made up stuff you can’t possibly know is correct is an excuse so you can justify closing your eyes to evidence.
Mr. Lazy please identify the “bunch of made up stuff” (emails etc) that you are talking about. Examples please inquiring minds want to know.