Guest essay by Eric Worrall
University of East Anglia Philosophy teacher Rupert Read is outraged that the government funded BBC would invite a climate “denier” to appear on the same show as himself.
I won’t go on the BBC if it supplies climate change deniers as ‘balance’
Rupert Read
Thu 2 Aug 2018 22.16 AESTLike most Greens, I typically jump at opportunities to go on air. Pretty much any opportunity: BBC national radio, BBC TV, Channel 4, Sky – I’ve done them all over the years, for good or ill. Even when, as is not infrequently the case, the deck is somewhat stacked against me, or the timing inadequate for anything more than a soundbite, or the question up for debate less than ideal.
But this Wednesday, when I was rung up by BBC Radio Cambridgeshire and asked to come on air to debate with a climate change denier, something in me broke, and rebelled. Really? I thought. This summer, of all times?
So, for almost the first time in my life, I turned it down. I told it that I will no longer be part of such charades. I said that the BBC should be ashamed of its nonsensical idea of “balance”, when the scientific debate is as settled as the “debate” about whether smoking causes cancer. By giving climate change deniers a full platform, producers make their position seem infinitely more reasonable than it is. (This contributes to the spread of misinformation and miseducation around climate change that fuels the inaction producing the long emergency we are facing.)
From a public service broadcaster, this is simply not good enough.
…
In the end, the broadcast went ahead without me. Much of it wasn’t bad. The scientists interviewed were excellent. But the framing of the debate was awful, and framing is everything, so far as the message that most listeners receive is concerned. The presenter introduced the segment by asking, “Is climate change real?” The journalist doing vox pops bombarded ordinary people with canards such as, “Maybe it’s just a natural cycle?” And, of course, a climate change denier was given a huge and undeserved platform on an equal basis to his opponent.
…
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/02/bbc-climate-change-deniers-balance
How UEA – a philosopher who refuses to debate.
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First things first. How comes philosophy is now a science ? Quote a philosophical unit in the MKS system ? Some sort of vector geometry ?
Quite normal that a philosopher comes to expect action without reaction. Nuff’said.
As an expat East Anglian, every time reports of this ilk surface I am filled with embarrassment.
When the emails from UEA surfaced I expected that the rigor of my native region and its funded University would be polished and beyond reproach.
About that time solar collectors were being advocated for foggy Norfolk.
Were this academic so sure of his position, all he need do is demolish the ‘denier’.
After all, that is the Jesuitical way.
Alternatively he may have lighted upon the Socratic method and asked leading questions to discern truth.
Examples could be
If we in GB shut down all our carbon [sic] emitting infrastructure for a year, by how much would that cut projected global warming by 2100?
State the answer in degrees centigrade with error margin.
Which Western developed country has most reduced its carbon footprint, say, since Trump got elected,by the greatest margin?
Per capita, which country has the biggest carbon footprint?
1China
2Timor Leste.
Per capita, which country has the highest GDP and lowest infant mortality rate?
1China
2Timor Leste.
Since CO2 is a well mixed gas that blankets the Earth the CO2 hypothesis predicts
1A tropospheric hot spot
2 The Antarctic continent warming.
A Has the hot spot been observed, if so by whom and when?
B Which parts of Antarctica are warming?
Are they related to geothermal heat?
Discuss
You seem to forget that CO2 causes volcanoes according to these guys. They have done studies and CO2 increase and volcanoes happen at the same time. What other proof do you need???
What a waste of my tax quids
What do cephalopods have to do with it?
What do cephalopods have to do with it?
My chnce to educate you, it seems.
Quid Noun One pound sterling.
UEA home of CRU and climategate .
The odd thing is he fails to explain outside his unquestioning belief in AGW , what ‘expertise ‘ he would bring to a review of AGW , his background would suggest all he can offer is ‘word play ‘ his own attitude suggest ironically his has no ability to take a philosophical approach , given this requires he very type of questioning he rejects . And it appears his little faith in even his own abilities.
So the point of asking him on the show was what ?
A local guy whose known has a hard-core green and is ‘good with words ‘
But it comes as no surprise to find that he will not debate with people whose views are different, that is after all very much the way climate ‘science ‘ is done and after all ‘why should I show you the data you only want to find something wrong with it ‘
Yet again, we see the favourite tactic of the Left – guilt by association.
and since when?? would a philosopher BE the person to speak on Climate matters anyway?
dipsh*t
He’s right, he is totally unbalanced. Balance is not permitted or he will lose his cred.
The believer-heretic dichotomy exists only in belief systems I thought
“The future of life on earth depends on convincing skeptics that we’re right, and I refuse to engage in a discussion with them.”
The strategy is to refuse to engage skeptics in a debate, pretending that there is nothing to discuss. Whatever. We’ve had an extensive public debate and the alarmist side has lost. We’re not de-carbonizing the global economy, and neither are we enacting wealth transfers of hundreds of billions of dollars.
Humans cannot pass off untruths, he knows he cannot coherently explain his position/thinking and hence why he bailed out.
A good result, of sorts.
What is really needed though is for him to leave the bosom of the bureaucracy.
I would definitely assert that legions of non-productive folks like these are what ultimately destroy civilisations – NOT Climate Change as is what *supposedly* happened to all previous attempts at building/maintaining civilisations.
No. Attempting to support all these hangers-on and their crony friends destroyed the farmland surrounding The Settlement, THAT changed the climate.
The crops & plants stopped growing because they exhausted their dirt. Witness Roman ports now several miles inland because of all the silt they created while this fellow’s counterparts in Rome enjoyed free food/housing/circus tickets/prostitutes etc – all at the expense of the tax paying Plebs.
And who are the people asserting that Climate Change killed off the Romans, Phoenicians, Rapa-Nui, Himyar etc etc if not THE very group of people he is a member of.
But he won’t bail out – not least as he is on a salary of twice the national average and looking forward to a rock solid pension at least equal to national average pay and also index linked.
Comfortable or what.
*There* is the magnifier, the positive loop-gain that turns an otherwise stable system into an unstable positively fed-back system that can only end as a train-wreck.
And how many new universities did Tony Blair create – the graduates of which are lucky now to find jobs flipping burgers. *His* students in all probability.
How many overpaid self seekers like these are now locked into the system?
Just as many senior & middle managers did when the Health Service was told to make some cost-savings a few years ago. They held a gun to the heads of their patients and thus locked themselves into rock-solid positions, entirely un-sackable and doubled their ££ take-home to boot.
And see yesterday how an interest-rate rise actually resulted in the value of the GBP falling off a cliff – exactly the opposite of what *should* have happened.
Don’t tell me – the Climate Changed.
My complaint to BBC: What does a UEA or UAE philosopher know about the science, or these post normal days, even philosophy. Dang right he turned tail! A Dеиуег willing to debate at least has a thoughtful take.
“I won’t go on the BBC if it supplies climate change deniers as ‘balance’”
Which translates as “If I go on, I know I’ll get ripped to shreds by a skeptic who knows their sh1t, and do no amount of damage to the casue”
Rupert Read: “Cargo Cult Climate Scientist”
(Un) Philosopher Prof. Rupert Read exemplifies “Cargo Cult (Climate) Science”. By refusing to debate the issues Read is exposed as believing that global climate models so poorly predict objective facts that he dare not debate the models vs evidence. Instead he descends to illogical ad hominem attacks, trying to persuade by rhetorical shenanigans.
Contrast Physics Noble Laureate Richard Feynman’s high standard of upholding the scientific method in Cargo Cult Science” 1974 Caltech. Feynman shows the necessity of thoroughly examining ALL competing models against the evidence to find the strongest most reliable physics based model (rather than curve fitting).
Robert Bradley Jr. further details the these issues in ‘Climate Denier’: Imprecise, Fallacious And Hateful
Couldn’t take the heat.
Got out of the kitchen.
Crybaby.
Sorry, all I heard was; “Buk-buk-buk, buk-AWK!
Is U of East Anglia prestigious in GB? I never heard of it until its hockey stick scandal.
No, it is a dump. It is 269 in the World ranking. I’ve only been there once and I thought it was full of pretentious 3rd raters.
It is known as the “University of Easy Access”
“NorwegianSceptic” (accurately) describes “Dr Read” as “What a complete and utter Moron!!!”
I used to regularly find myself screaming at the local newspaper every time he wrote in. Despite that, I took a number of screenshots, and here is (thanks to OCR) the content of one of his missives from November 2015, with the initial bolded text being the letter title, as provided by the editor:
We ought to be scared stiff of what is clearly a climate crisis
DR RUPERT READ, Philosophy Department, School of Philosophy, Politics and Languages, UEA, Norwich.
I teach at UEA, alongside some of the world‘s leading climate scientists. One of my fellow academics at UEA, until he left for a new post in London, was the eminent climate scientist Prof Mike Hulme, who warns against using terms such as “catastrophe” in describing the potential future impacts of man- made climate change because he is concerned the use of such alarming terms may disempower people. Now, I agree that it is absolutely not enough to scare people. I agree one needs to emphasise how the changes needed to stop man-made climate change are in themselves life- improving. And I agree one needs to ensure people don’t think the mountain is too big to climb. But, by sticking to talking of “climate change“ rather than of “climate crisis” and “potential climate catastrophe”, one is playing the same game as the more subtle and intelligent of the climate- deniers. One ends up speaking their language. ’ Steven Poole has shown this in his important book Unspeak. Poole documents how the term “climate change” became the term of choice for the Saudis, for the US oil companies, for the Republicans, displacing “global warming”. Because, as leading Republican pollster Frank Luntz put it, in a secret document that was leaked “‘Climate change’ is less frightening than ‘global warming.” Luntz wants us all to stay cool- headed over “climate change”, a goal he shares with Mike Hulme. I, by contrast, think we ought to be mad as hell, and scared stiff. Already in places such as Bangladesh and Ethiopia, and even in the United States, the climate crisis is biting and killing. The mega storm that hit our coasts here in East Anglia a couple of years ago, followed by the great floods in the south-west and the south, was a harbinger of what climate chaos has in store for us unless we stop it. To do this it is vital we change the language surrounding the climate crisis, especially pertinent given the upcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris. My proposal is straightforward. “Climate change” is an Orwellian euphemism, and should be dropped. To use that term is still to be in denial. We should speak honestly We should speak of “climate crisis”, “global over-heating”, and the risk of “‘climate catastrophe”. For those interested in learning more about the effects of global over-heating, Cinema City Norwich is screening important documentaries in the series Years of Living Dangerously every Sunday from now to November 22 from 10.15am to ll.45am.
sticking to talking of “climate change“ rather than of “climate crisis” and “potential climate catastrophe”, one is playing the same game as the more subtle and intelligent of the climate- deniers. One ends up speaking their language.
Now I’ve heard everything!!
Sceptics (and Republicans) invented the term “Climate Change”, and did so because it was less alarming than Global Warming!!?!
Has he never heard of Ross Gelbspan? .. or his mentor Al Gore?
He believes semantics, changing the meaning of words in the middle of the game is a right wing tactic?
Boy, has he swallowed the Kool-ade!
You’ve almost got to admire the sheer gall – the total lack of shame. They coin all these phrases and then turn around and claim skeptics did.
I don’t think he’s SWALLOWED the Kool-aid – I think he’s mixing it up himself.
Censoring, no-platforming, or otherwise refusing to engage with the other side gives them more legitimacy, not less. The allure of forbidden fruit. The claims of persecution. The justification for becoming even more hardline and extreme in their position. You give them all of these things.
UAE is irrevocably tarnished by Climategate. They’ll try and make you forget that.
UEA in my day stood for University of Easy Access. No change there, then
I remember before their “Climate” days, EAU was regularly raked over the coals by the Monty Python troupe.
It used to be said that Norwich had exchanged a second-rate golf course for a third-rate University.
If the framing is “everything” then I guess they don’t need him anyway. He’s not very philosophical, is he? Maybe asking was charity on the part of the BBC. He doesn’t actually sound very bright.
Classic cult behavior.
Wow. I keep saying things like ‘pompous elitist’ but it still amazes me. Every time.
I suppose it’s encouraging, in a way, that this stuff still outrageous me.
Those who do not want to consult or debate (which are different activities) should relinquish the platform to those who wish to do so. If the alarmists run away, the skeptics should be given the platform to show what is true instead of speculate about what is not.
So be it. “Just so” stories about the climate are not preferable to facts and logical analysis.