Guest essay by Eric Worrall
The BBC has belatedly decided they need at least a little input from one of the targets of their latest big oil climate conspiracy propaganda piece. Dr. Willie Soon does not hold back in his response.
Note some of the links take you to a “You are leaving the mail.com service” page. This is a harmless artefact caused by copying Dr. Soon’s email, click continue to see the referenced document.
Dear Ms. Keane,
I am wary of responding to your false allegations, since your questions seem somewhat loaded. Disappointingly, they appear to repeat the dishonest and misleading claims of the former Greenpeace USA research director, Kert Davies (now running the so-called “Climate Investigations Center”), whose research we have shown to be disingenuous in Section 2 of our attached 2018 report on Greenpeace (Attachment 1). Unfortunately, the premise of your series seems to be the dangerous conspiracy theories promoted by Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway in their 2010 book Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Climate Change and their 2014 film of the same name. I’ve attached a short 3-page .pdf (Attachment 2) summarizing just a few examples of the poor scholarship and bizarre hypocrisies in Oreskes & Conway’s conspiracy theories.
The BBC has an established history of stifling genuine scientific inquiry and nuanced debate on climate change since its infamous 2006 Climate Change – the Challenge to Broadcasting? seminar, as described in detail in Andrew Montford’s short book The Propaganda Bureau and summarized in various blogs in 2012, e.g., here, here, here and here.
It is also regrettable that you attempted to contact me in such a roundabout way, i.e., by going through the Heartland Institute, rather than emailing me directly here at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. I am not pleased that you saw fit to circulate your letter, with its numerous libellous comments, to a third party.
The BBC seems to encourage the unethical pseudo-journalistic practice of selectively quoting and cherry-picking out-of-context interviewees who disagree with the narrative of the program, in order to make the interviewees seem foolish or uninformed. Richard North, summarized this unethical practice well in this 2011 essay: https://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2011/01/on-being-stitched-up.htmlThis was a particular concern when I considered whether to reply to your allegations.
I am hoping that you have more journalistic integrity than your BBC colleagues who have carried out unethical “hatchet jobs” in the past. I suspect that you may not be planning to “fairly and accurately reflect any comments” as you promised me.
Nonetheless, given the number of false allegations you are threatening to broadcast, I feel compelled to respond. I have copied this letter a number of friends and colleagues who might be interested to see the questions you have asked me and my responses.
I have copied and pasted your letter to me below. Your letter is in bold face: and my responses are in Roman face.
Will you change course in your grave misunderstanding on this timely subject and uphold honest debate and discussion on climate science?
Yours faithfully,
Willie Soon
Phoebe Keane
BBC Radio Current Affairs
BBC New Broadcasting House
Portland Place
London
W1A 1AA
Dear Wei Hok ‘Willie’ Soon,
My Chinese name given by my father is Wei-Hock. There is no need to put a quote on Willie as this is my name.
I’m making a BBC Radio series about the way oil companies have over emphasized the uncertainty around climate change. The series will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in the UK and we intend for it to be available as a podcast internationally and may appear as an online article. It is a 10 part series, each episode is 15 minutes long.
The series is currently titled ‘How they made us doubt everything’ and will discuss how the oil industry has carried out a campaign to make us doubt climate change. It explores how it drew on a ‘playbook’ of tactics developed by the tobacco industry and PR company Hill & Knowlton to make us doubt the connection between smoking and cancer. We’ll set out that these tactics weaponised doubt and enabled both the tobacco and oil industries to undermine science, but also has fed into a broader sense of distrust in facts and experts which has spread far beyond climate change.
I should strongly urge you to reconsider the current premise of your proposed series which seems to be based on the flawed conspiracy theories promoted by Naomi Oreskes & Erik Conway in their 2010 book (and 2014 film), “Merchants of Doubt”. I would recommend you read the attached 3-page critique (Attachment 2) of this pseudo-scientific conspiracy theory by Oreskes & Conway.
Instead, if you genuinely want to address the vested interests who are most seriously hindering and undermining scientific inquiry into climate change, I would urge you to read our 2018 analysis of the anti-science, anti-education and ultimately anti-environment behaviour that Greenpeace has engaged in. In particular, I would refer you to Section 2, in which we specifically review the dishonest and insidious misinformation campaigns which Kert Davies spearheaded while he was Greenpeace USA’s Research Director. I’ve attached a .pdf copy (Attachment 1), but you can also download a copy from the Heartland Institute’s website here: https://www.heartland.org/publications-resources/publications/analysis-of-greenpeace-business-model.
We’d like to offer you the opportunity to respond to the points we intend to broadcast. We therefore draw your attention to the following:
1) You received millions of dollars for your research through 2000 up to 2015 from fossil fuel interests including Southern Company, American Petroleum Institute, Exxon Mobil Foundation. Is that the case? Would you like to respond?
WS: This is definitely not the case. I have definitely not “received millions of dollars for your research through 2000 up to 2015”. My employer, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, is simply not that generous. Frankly, if making money was my main priority, I would not have gone into science. Indeed, if I did not care about science or the environment, maybe I would have found it more lucrative to work for an advocacy group like Greenpeace, which as we discuss in the attached report has an annual turnover of about $400 million.
My salary has come from the Center since I started as a staff position in 1997. Until about 2008, I had no involvement in where the Center received its funding. After my immediate supervisor retired in 2009, one of my additional duties was to write grant proposals on behalf of the Center, which has received funding from many sources including government, industry, charities, foundations and many others. This includes the three groups you mentioned, amongst many others.
However, most employees (including me) receive their salary through the Center. This has the advantage that our research is uninfluenced by the Center’s funding sources. In any case, I am a scientist. I believe it is important to follow the science wherever it leads. I appreciate that there probably are some “scientists” out there who might alter their research results to facilitate vested interests, but the idea is abhorrent to me.
2) Kert Davies of the Climate Investigations Centre says your research was used to slow down progress on climate change. Would you like to respond?
On the contrary, in my opinion, the dishonest and unethical misinformation spearheaded by Kert Davies of the Climate Investigations Center (and previously Greenpeace USA) has been used to slow down progress on genuine climate change research. See for example, Section 2 of our Greenpeace attached report, where we describe what he did through his “ExxonSecrets” campaigns.
3) Our guests outline that this played into a broader campaign to misrepresent the data on climate change, leading to many people doubting legitimate climate change science. Would you like to respond to this?
Again, on the contrary, in my opinion, it is the misinformation promoted by Kert Davies and others like him that is “leading to many people doubting legitimate climate change science”. Often the original sources of this misinformation seem to have arisen from people associated with campaigning groups who have a vested interest in downplaying the extensive ongoing scientific debate within the scientific community on many aspects of climate change: for instance, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, the David Suzuki Foundation (in particular, see the DeSmogBlog website co-founded by the Chair of this foundation, James Hoggan), the Union of Concerned Scientists, etc.
If you visit the websites of any of these groups, you will quickly find that many of their campaigns explicitly rely on the assumption that “97% of scientists agree” and “the science is settled”. In fact, as Legates et al. (2015), of which I was a co-author, demonstrated that the widely-quoted Cook et al. (2013) paper that purported to find 97.1% of 11,944 peer-reviewed climate papers published in the 21 years 1991-2011 all agreed that climate change is mostly human caused, was based on flawed analysis and bad science. Upon a close inspection of their data, they had only found 64 papers or 0.5% of their sample had explicitly argued that climate change was mostly human caused. A subsequent examination showed that only 41 of these, or 0.3% of the original sample, had made that statement. On the other hand, 27 papers concluded the exact opposite that i.e., climate change is mostly natural. Vast majority of the papers did not make any statements one way or the other. For more details on the 97% consensus myth, please read here.
As we discussed in our Greenpeace report, these campaigns can be very lucrative for the campaigning groups. As a result, an honest reporting of the messy and contentious scientific debates that continue to this day within the scientific community would directly harm their claims of “scientific consensus” and “settled science”.
Our case study of Greenpeace showed that it has an annual turnover of about $0.4 billion, and that from 1994-2017 they spent $521 million (i.e., more than $0.5 billion) on their “Climate/Climate & energy” campaigns. In comparison, Greenpeace’s “ExxonSecrets” campaign (led by Kert Davies) claimed that ExxonMobil allegedly spent $1.8 million/year over the period 1998-2014 on “funding climate denial” and that this supposedly substantially altered the public discourse on climate change. I encourage you to read our complete analysis in the report. Meanwhile, consider that if Kert Davies were correct that the alleged $1.8 million/year from ExxonMobil on “funding climate denial” has substantially altered the public discourse on climate change, what was the impact of Greenpeace’s $31 million/year expenditure on “Climate/Climate & energy” campaigning, 17 times greater than Exxon’s alleged expenditure?
4) You have been characterised as downplaying the impact of human activities on climate change. Is that a fair portrayal of your work?
No, definitely not. My climate change research considers all of the plausible mechanisms for climate change that are discussed in the scientific literature. I’m not sure of what definition you have in mind, but to me “downplaying” means making something appear less important than it really is. If that’s the same definition you are using, then that is the exact opposite of my research. My research involves trying to find out exactly how important each of the many proposed climate change mechanisms are in current, past and future climate change.
It is true that many scientists (in particular, several of the main computer modelling groups) have “downplayed” (to use your word) the role of solar variability and other forms in recent and historic climate change. So, by not downplaying these important factors, my work often leads to more nuanced, and in my opinion, more accurate and reliable, conclusions.
Indeed, several of my recent publications have argued that the current global and regional temperature datasets have substantially underestimated the role of a specific local form of human-caused climate change, i.e., the urban heat island phenomenon. The Urban Heat Island is a well-recognized form of local climate change that has nothing to do with greenhouse gas emissions, but is definitely a result of human activities. This is an underappreciated problem because even though urban areas only comprise 1-2% of the planet, many of the weather stations used in current global temperature datasets and most of the ones with the longest records are urbanized. This appears to have led to a sampling bias: the trends of the sampled data are unrepresentative of the global trends.
Your response would be appreciated in writing to the above by 7th July 2020 so we can fairly and accurately reflect any comments you wish to make, where appropriate. Please respond to: [redacted]
For your information we also intend to report:
1) That a 1995 draft primer to the Global Climate Coalition dismisses solar variability, which we describe as your main thesis. The primer says it’s ‘accounted for 0.1 degrees C temperature increase in the last 120 years, it is an interesting finding, but it does not allay concerns about future warming which could result from greenhouse gas emissions.’ [SOURCE: Primer sent from L S Bernstein, Exxon Mobil, Environmental health and safety department, to members of GCC, 21ST December 1995. Made publicly available as part of the court case ‘Green Mountain Chrysler Plymouth Dodge Jeep v. Crombie’ 2005.]
Are you implying that the Global Climate Coalition had already in their 1995 document reached “the definitive answers” on the complex and challenging problem of the attribution of recent and future climate change, a year before IPCC’s Second Assessment Report and nearly 20 years before its fifth? Are you suggesting that all scientific research into climate change since 1995 is redundant?
I’m not sure how you think science works, but that is utter nonsense. Climate change is a complex multi-causal phenomenon, and scientists have been debating the relative importance of different factors since the 19th century, particularly following the discovery of the ice ages.
The role of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) is in many ways the easiest to assess, because according to the Antarctic ice core estimates, atmospheric CO2 has increased near-exponentially from pre-industrial concentrations of nearly 0.03% to a little above 0.04% today. In contrast, the role of the Sun is a much more challenging subject: there is much ongoing debate over which estimates of past “Total Solar Irradiance” (TSI), i.e., solar output, are most reliable. There are also ongoing debates over the various mechanisms by which solar variability influences the Earth’s climate.
If you are interested in learning more about the ongoing debates in the scientific literature over this, I would recommend reading our comprehensive 2015 review paper: Soon et al. (2015), Earth-Science Reviews, Vol. 150, p 409-452. You can download a copy from my CfA website here. If you don’t have time to read the full 44-page article, which is technical in places, there is a simpler overview here:
However, one of the problems inherent in the research of those groups who “downplay” (to use your word again) the role of solar variability in recent and historic climate change and instead focus on CO2 as the “primary climate driver” (as the current computer models do), is that they find it very difficult to explain climate changes before about 1950, as CO2 seems to have still been only 0.031% then.
A consequence of this is that in order to try and fit the historic global temperature trends in terms of CO2 as the primary climate driver, researchers have had to:
a. Increase the modelled “climate sensitivity” of global temperatures to CO2 concentrations; and
b. Revise the estimates of past climate changes to downplay the climate variability before about 1950.
A bizarre result of these attempts to “shoehorn” CO2 as the primary climate driver is that even the IPCC’s latest (Fifth) Assessment Report still suggests that the “Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity” (ECS) to CO2 could be anything from 1.5 °C to 4.5 °C. This year (Meehl et al, 2020, Zelinka et al. 2020) it is reported that the sixth-generation models of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project find the spread to be 1.8-5.6 °C. ECS is the expected global warming that would occur from a doubling of CO2.
In a recent scientific paper that we published in March, we showed that the value of this metric has major implications for international climate change policies. If ECS is at the higher end of the IPCC’s “likely” range, then the 2015 Paris Agreement would be broken in a few decades if we continue “business-as-usual”. However, if ECS is less than 2 °C, then if we continued “business-as-usual” for the rest of the century, the Paris Agreement wouldn’t be broken until at least the 22nd century. That seems to me a pretty important point that the BBC should be discussing.
In case you’re interested, you can download our 2020 “Business-as-usual” paper here: Connolly et al. (2020), Energies, Vol. 13, 1365. Again, it is a rather long paper. However, I hope you appreciate by now that these are complex problems, and that there is a lot of ongoing scientific debate within the scientific community on these issues.
2) That you published a paper in 2006 relating to Polar Bears which concluded that there was no reason for alarm for their continued safety. Please let me know if that’s incorrect.
WS: Incorrect.
I’m not sure what “2006” paper you are referring to. I did co-author three scientific papers which looked at polar bear populations around that time, but none in 2006. It is possible that you’re referring to Dyck et al. (2007) as that was accepted for publication subject to minor revisions in October 2006 (after a lengthy peer review process), but it was not officially published until April 2007.
In any case, that was not the conclusion of the paper.
I also co-authored a follow-on paper, Dyck et al. (2008), in response to some comments on the 2007 paper, and I was a co-author on a separate paper, Armstrong et al. (2008) which also looked at forecasting of polar bear populations.
The three papers are:
· Dyck et al. (2007), Ecological Complexity, Vol. 4., p 73-84. Pdf available here.
· Dyck et al. (2008), Ecological Complexity, Vol. 5, p 289-302. Pdf available here.
This was a response to comments in Stirling et al. (2008), Ecological Complexity, Vol. 5, p 193-201. Pdf available here.
· Armstrong et al. (2008), Interfaces, Vol. 38, p 382-405. Pdf available here.
I would recommend reading the papers to find out the exact details of what we found in those papers, in particular, the Dyck et al. (2007) which I suspect is probably the “2006” paper you were referring to. However, in brief, two researchers (Ian Stirling and Andrew Derocher) and colleagues had published a series of papers in which they concluded that the primary factor in the local polar bear populations in the western Hudson Bay region was global warming from increasing CO2. Specifically, they argued that the long-term spring-time warming since the 1970s in the region was: (a) due to increasing CO2, (b) was reducing local sea ice cover and (c) leading to reductions in local polar bear population.
We looked at the basis for their claims and realized that their analysis was scientifically flawed for multiple reasons. For instance, they apparently hadn’t realized that while the Arctic has warmed since the 1970s, it followed a period of Arctic cooling from the 1940s-1970s, and there was a similar warm period to present during the early 20th century. If their theory was correct, then the polar bear populations should have responded accordingly during those pre-1970s periods. They didn’t. Instead, we found that the local polar bear populations appear to be more influenced by other factors, such as the numbers of bears that are allowed to be hunted.
More recently, I have co-authored a study in which we reconstructed Arctic sea ice cover back to 1900, and found that the variability in Arctic sea ice cover is a lot greater than the IPCC had assumed in their latest reports: Connolly et al. (2017), Hydrological Sciences Journal, vol. 62, p1317-1340. I also co-authored a study in 2019 in which we compared the observed snow cover trends for the entire Northern Hemisphere since 1967 to the trends which the IPCC computer models say should have occurred – according to their assumption that CO2 is the primary climate driver. The results were shocking. The current computer models are unable to explain the observed trends in snow cover for either winter, spring, summer or fall. None of the 196 computer model simulations that the IPCC used for their most recent report succeeded in replicating the observed 1967-2018 trends for any of the seasons. The paper is: Connolly et al. (2019), Geosciences, vol. 9, 135.
As a result, these two recent papers reveal that the computer models which Stirling and Derocher as well as the IPCC had been relying on for their analysis of the Arctic seriously “downplayed” the natural variability in Arctic sea ice and seriously “up-played” the role of CO2in recent trends.
Yours faithfully,
Phoebe Keane
BBC Radio Current Affairs; [redacted]
A final thought: I think it important that you should understand that science is not a matter of mere politics: it is an earnest, continuing and rigorous search for the objective truth. In this reply I have given you some indication of the fact that your underlying premise – that there is only one scientific viewpoint on the climate question and that all other scientific opinions are bought and paid for by vested interests running counter to the vested interest of the BBC – is in all respects wholly false.
Are you a campaigner for a cause that is rooted in such bad science, or are you a proper journalist willing to ask real questions? The moment you begin to look at the climate question not through the eyes of blind faith, not through the lens of political zeal, but through the searing prism of logic and scientific method, you will realize that there are two sides to the climate question based on the data currently available.
Attachment 1 – Analysis of Greenpeace’s business model
Attachment 2 – Paradoxes of the Merchants of Doubt conspiracy theory
What a great response
I fear that this is (mostly) a poor response.
It is all completely accurate, but it fails to respond in the proper bureaucratic manner, and therefore leaves Dr Soon open to being misquoted. Remember, this is not about science – it is about communicating with an enemy. My detailed comments are below:
1. You are charged with receiving millions of dollars for research from Evil Big Oil. Saying that ‘it is not the case’ is not true – the HSC DID receive that money. The BBC can now claim that you denied receiving any money, and then show the grant allocations, making you look like a liar.
2 – You are charged that ‘your research was used to slow down progress on climate change’. Saying that Greenpeace did the same is no defence. Note that they say that your research ‘was used’ – that means that they can get a quote of yours from a real extremist group and smear you by association.
3 – As 2) above. They are blaming you for the use other people made of your work. This is a clever trick – if you complain that you are not responsible for what other people say they will immediately ask you to disavow them, and then use that statement to smear the others…
4 – This is a good response. It won’t stop them presenting you as ‘believing in human activity as a cause of warming’, however.
Other comments:
1 – Essentially, they intend to say that ‘the science is settled’. So your comment that it isn’t can just be brushed aside. They are certainly not interested in learning anything from you.
2 – They also want to smear you as not caring about Polar Bears. Again, they do NOT want to read the papers – they would not understand them and would simply be bored if they tried. You respond properly by telling them that they are incorrect, but you go on to give far too much information. They will mine this for anything else that they can smear you with…
If someone intends on misquoting and misrepresenting what one says, there is nothing you can do to go through them to address those smears. Replying as he did here is fine, since they will just keep smearing him if that is their intent. In this case silence would be worse, because then they’ll use your silence as a smear that you couldn’t rebut their accusations. Just recognize they’ll just keep smearing and distorting the new responses, but don’t remain silent. They want their adversaries to be cowed and remain silent to their lies.
What You have to do is get your unalteredmessage out through another party, as Dr Soon has done here (WUWT) and also via HeartLand’s channels.
Joel says:
If someone intends on misquoting and misrepresenting what one says, there is nothing you can do to go through them to address those smears. Replying as he did here is fine, since they will just keep smearing him if that is their intent
Exactly. Dr Soon did all he could do. Won’t make any difference to the corrupt BBC & their sycophants, but at least his response is out in the public where some rational people will see & understand it.
“ but at least his response is out in the public where some rational people will see & understand it.”
I don’t think the BBC targets rational people.
I truly believe that Dr. Willie Soon has made a terrible mistake by responding to queries from MS Phoebe Keane that she was GOING TO produce a BBC Radio series about the way oil companies have over emphasized the uncertainty around climate change, which, when completed will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in the UK.
Phoebe Keane now has Willie Soon’s response to whatever question or comment that she cares to “pair-up” with when recording her BBC Radio series. It will probably result in an “out-of-context” comedy.
“….If someone intends on misquoting and misrepresenting what one says, there is nothing you can do….”
To a point, Lord Copper.
I did not work in the UK Cabinet Office/Treasury for 20 years without learning some of the tricks that are used. The first point to note is that this is not a dispassionate search for the truth – it is far closer to a game of tennis. Each side serves and returns a message – trying to position their opponent in such a way that they have to give in. Each side needs to consider the weaknesses and strengths of the other’s case, and provide returns which, ideally, put your opponent on the back foot.
I do not intend to devote a long time to considering an appropriate strategy for this case. It can require deep thought! But the BBC obviously require some validation from Dr Soon before broadcasting, otherwise they would not have made this request, and Dr Soon should be careful not to give them the validation that they require. Expanding the process into a conversation might have helped – rather than giving the BBC a set of possible papers about Polar Bears to chose from, for instance, he could just have stated that their references were in error and requested the BBC to state just which paper they were talking about. It is never a good idea to provide lots of extra information in these discussions – any lawyer will tell you that….
As always, the UK TV series ‘Yes Minister’ is full of useful hints….
Dodgy Geezer !
You ARE the real “Bernard Woolley” and I claim my Five Pounds !
😁
Excellent comment, Dr. Geezer. That was one of my biggest faults during my engineering career – giving the Government customer too much information. They were amazing at being able to twist my meanings – and sometimes my words. Please understand that much of the US Government contracting force wants the contractor to fail. It makes them look like a real watchdog – someone who is really on the ball.
I still remember the day (14 years into my career) when I first heard the Government call into a telecon with this greeting: “Good morning, McDonnell Douglas! This is Colonel (redacted). How can we help you succeed today?” I nearly fell off my chair. I remember looking to one of my new teammates. What kind of treachery was this? He quietly assured me this customer wanted us to succeed. I was flabbergasted, and not quite believing, but he and his team were true to their word. Two other customers later in my career had the same interest, and enforced that interest on their systems integration teams. Those were awesome programs – all about achieving the improbably.
But most of the time: answer the question as briefly as possible, and if possible, have your contracting people (lawyers) do the talking. They know little technically, so won’t/can’t say much. Dr. Soon, God bless him, likely gave them ammunition, as they can parse and edit his responses, and who in the press is going to honestly fact-check them?
Ah, yes. The NYT or WaPo.
My friend Willie copied me and others on his response to Ms Keane. I replied as follows:
From: Allan MacRae
Sent: July-13-20 9:41 PM
To: Soon, Willie; Phoebe Keane
Subject: RE: reply to your letter on BBC radio series, Willie Soon right of reply
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/07/12/climate-wars-try-removing-the-word-denier-from-a-wikipedia-entry/#comment-3034361
“No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.” – Albert Einstein
There are more than 25 credible dis-proofs of the climate-and-green-energy scam, but as Einstein said, one would be enough. The catastrophic global warming/climate crisis was never real – it was always a false narrative, concocted by the extreme-left to achieve their political objectives. The left lie all the time – it is their core competence.
THE CATASTROPHIC ANTHROPOGENIC GLOBAL WARMING (CAGW) AND THE HUMANMADE CLIMATE CHANGE CRISES ARE PROVED FALSE
By Allan M.R. MacRae, B.A.Sc.(Eng.), M.Eng., January 10, 2020
https://thsresearch.files.wordpress.com/2020/01/the-catastrophic-anthropogenic-global-warming-cagw-and-the-humanmade-climate-change-crises-are-proved-false.pdf
– Allan MacRae
___________________________________________
From: Allan MacRae
Sent: July-14-20 2:54 AM
To: Soon, Willie; Phoebe Keane
Subject: RE: reply to your letter on BBC radio series, Willie Soon right of reply
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/07/06/duke-energy-dominion-abandon-the-8-billion-atlantic-coast-pipeline/#comment-3030178
It’s all a leftist scam – the enviro BS including the phony court challenges, the full-Gulag lockdown for Covid-19, paid-and-planned protests by Antifa and BLM – it’s all lies.
We published that the climate-and-green-energy rant was a false narrative in 2002, and by 2012 or earlier I wrote that there was a covert agenda, Now the greens are admitting that climate-and-energy was false propaganda, a smokescreen for their totalitarian objectives.(*1)
The green objective is to destroy prosperity and move the USA into a planned economy – with a few rich at the top looking down on the many poor peasants. That model now describes most of the countries in the world. Europe and Canada are far down that path, and the USA will follow if Biden and the Demo-Marxists are elected.
Published 4July2020
In 2002 Dr Sallie Baliunas, Astrophysicist, Harvard-Smithsonian, Dr Tim Patterson, Paleoclimatologist, Carleton U and Allan MacRae TOLD YOU SO 18 YEARS AGO:
http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/KyotoAPEGA2002REV1.pdf
1. “Climate science does not support the theory of catastrophic human-made global warming – the alleged warming crisis does not exist.”
See Michael Shellenberger’s 2020 confession “On Behalf Of Environmentalists, I Apologize For The Climate Scare”. https://quillette.com/2020/06/30/on-behalf-of-environmentalists-i-apologize-for-the-climate-scare/
2. “The ultimate agenda of pro-Kyoto advocates is to eliminate fossil fuels, but this would result in a catastrophic shortfall in global energy supply – the wasteful, inefficient energy solutions proposed by Kyoto advocates simply cannot replace fossil fuels.”
See Michael Moore’s 2020 film “Planet of the Humans”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zk11vI-7czE
Regarding Michael Shellenberger’s 2020 condemnation of the false climate scare and Michael Moore’s 2020 film slagging green energy schemes based on intermittency and diffusivity, I say “better late than never”. The irony is that “the Michaels”, who were wrong for decades, have more credibility with their recent conversions than those of us who were never deceived by the leftists’ climate-and-energy scams. We never lied to you.
The Michaels are now under attack by their former green comrades, who want to preserve their false climate and green-energy scams that have so effectively deceived the pubic and our politicians and squandered trillions of dollars. The Michaels both deserve kudos for having the courage to tell the truth, especially considering how radically they have changed direction from their former positions.
The leftists have already started their counterattack – censoring Shellenberger’s article in Forbes magazine and attempting to block Moore’s film on YouTube. The Michaels are being cancelled.
REFERENCES
1. WHAT THE GREEN NEW DEAL IS REALLY ABOUT — AND IT’S NOT THE CLIMATE
By Allan M.R. MacRae, B.A.Sc., M.Eng., July 19, 2019
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/07/20/what-the-green-new-deal-is-really-about-and-its-not-the-climate/
2. THE COST TO SOCIETY OF RADICAL ENVIRONMENTALISM
By Allan M.R. MacRae, B.A.Sc., M.Eng., July 4, 2019
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/07/04/the-cost-to-society-of-radical-environmentalism/
Apologies to Moderator – I forgot to delete the links.
How very very careless of you Allan 😇
I had to apologize. The last time I left in links they made me cut off my little finger.
From: Allan MacRae
Sent: July-15-20 11:00 PM
To: Phoebe Keane
Cc: Soon, Willie
Subject: RE: reply to your letter on BBC radio series, Willie Soon right of reply
Ms. Keane:
Your story is discussed here.
wattsupwiththat.com/2020/07/13/bbc-asks-dr-willie-soon-to-respond-to-climate-conspiracy-claims/
The expectation is that despite the true facts that have been provided to you, you will still publish a pack of slanderous lies about Dr. Willie Soon.
As I’ve written previously, “The left lie all the time – it is their core competence”. I understand your position – When you are a leftist, lies are all you’ve got! “When all you’ve got is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” But a lie is still a lie – that would concern you if you were an honest person.
You may not have noticed, but the world is finally waking up to leftist falsehoods. “The Michaels”, Shellenberger and Moore, have finally told the truth about the abject failure of global warming alarmism and green energy scams, facts that we have known for decades and published in 2002!
The rats are leaving the sinking ship – it’s time to re-think your position, your pack of lies. Don’t be the last to jump ship.
Regards, Allan MacRae
Your analysis is spot on, Dodgy Geezer. Also, contacting Dr Soon via the Heartland Institute provides an opportunity to use ‘guilt’ by association.
It won’t change one thing about this broadcast.
This is by the same producer Phoebe Keane on The Why Factor? Why is climate change so politicised?
https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/why-is-climate-change-so-politicised/id561904920?i=1000436061869 made in 2020.
Keane’s new BFF is none other than Naomi Oreskes aided by a stream of political and psychological BS from Daniel Sarewitz and Sander van der Linden. Democrats came out as heroes and Republicans came out as ditherers on climate change.
This podcast was totally one sided and that’s what will happen to the Willie Soon podcast.
As a Brit I’m ashamed of the BBC and have spent many fruitless hours complaining about their climate change coverage. The BBC’s responses never once attempted to address my specific points – they were dismissed time after time with repeated invocations to ‘the consensus’ and authority. Attempts to point out that consensus and authority have often held back scientific progress and should never be used to counter real scientific observations simply produced further references to authority and consensus.
Willie Soon is gifted, honest and good-natured and I, too, doubt very much that he will get a fair hearing at the BBC – no matter how watertight or forceful his reply.
It seems to me that his reply was in very much keeping with his scientific integrity and gentlemanly principles. The people in charge at the BBC are scoundrels and will stick to their guns no matter how strongly the argument is made against them. Perhaps a deluge of quite specific complaints from WUWT followers might be the best way to show the BBC that it is not a big oil conspiracy but genuine science which motivates the doubters.
Ditto. Thoughtful and well-written, with just enough of the well-justified impatience that comes from working hours on a response that you know will be misrepresented.
Accurate, but ultimately, pointless response to the BBC who will continue to be complete advocates for climate catastrophe alarm in all their broadcasts, whatever the facts. Also, the reply has far too many words of more than one syllable for many BBC journalists to be bothered to read. Hopefully, the BBC will not be funded through the public purse for much longer.
“The BBC has an established history of stifling genuine scientific inquiry and nuanced debate….”
One might ask with genuine interest and the intent to get a simple answer: exactly what is it that the media in general and in this case, BBC specifically, are afraid of?
No one is addressing this, which in my view is a mistake. What ARE they afraid of?
Sara,
“What ARE they afraid of?”
I suspect it is to do with their pension fund, which IIRC went nap on renewables. A risky move with no obvious upside that will result in smaller pensions , and the possible loss of management autonomy.
I would argue that they’re afraid that the general public might take notice, and after a cursory review, take note of the absolute lack of credibility they have shown. Then wonder why they’re paying for such tripe.
This question strikes at the heart of the problem, what ARE they afraid of ?
Is somebody giving them money to publish things, are they being coerced or are their Jobs and Pensions on the line if they do not push the Global Warming narrative and lastly, does the EU in Brussels have any interest in this ?
Sara,
“What ARE they afraid of?”
I suspect it is to do with their pension fund, which IIRC went nap on renewables. A risky move with no obvious upside that will result in smaller pensions , and the possible loss of management autonomy.
They’re not afraid of anything except individualism, Sara.
They’re collectivist radicals convinced of their rectitude. They suppress because anyone who disagrees with them is ipso facto wrong and evil.
But in every case, the “issue” is not the issue. The issue is power. Toadyism is the only accepted position, and even that does not guarantee safety.
Were they to get true control, look for a return of baldly political executions.
What are they afraid of? That isn’t the right question. The fact is that hardly any BBC employees have any sort of scientific background or training. And there is a strong culture of Groupthink in the organisation. Effectively, they are brainwashed. There is no chance that the BBC will ever change their opinions on the subject of climate change – there is too much face to be lost.
Any BBC employee who does not toe the policy line is swiftly cancelled, silence, sacked, whatever. The weird thing is, they all think they are right, and that anyone who disagrees with them is either stupid or else paid by evil Big Oil organisations to express their opinions.
There is no chance of Willie Soon’s views getting fair treatment on the Radio 4 programme.
I’ll go further than that, and say there is no chance of any such programme on Radio 4 ever being broadcast at all. Though the shill greenwash Producer may be keen, higher-ups will be trembling in their chairs at the response and the logic of Dr. Soon, and at the comments in here, lest their sinecure schemes and scams be exposed to the irascible Public’s steely gaze.
It is certain that if such a series was broadcast, such proselytising for climate alarmism would lead to a barrage of complaints about unwarranted BBC profligacy, and could precipitate the end of cozy junkets around the Globe for Senior BBC Management.
“One might ask with genuine interest and the intent to get a simple answer: exactly what is it that the media in general and in this case, BBC specifically, are afraid of?”
They are Marxists. So they have the fragility of not controlling other people.
Dear sir,
As an Englishman I would like to apologize for you having to respond to such a shoddy organization as the BBC, please keep up the good work.
Kind regards
Paul S Webb
The BBC has become increasingly biased. It has been taken over by the left-wing Green Blob. It should be defunded and allowed to wither away. The BBC is an embarassment.
Philip
The BBC still produces some fabulous programmes on Tv and radio. 99% of these have nothing to do with climate change. Of that small fraction that do, yes indeed the BBC are shockingly biased. They seem to be run by very woke eco warrior
tonyb
tonyb, if you are correct about some redeeming aspect of the BBC is correct, it places them light-years ahead of CNN. When you watch CNN start a report, you start wondering how will they blame Trump for this? And then they do it, and it is so stupid you wonder who their audience is (other than the morbidly curious like myself). Is Dr. Willie Soon the real deal or what? By the way, I sat on an Executive Advisory Committee for CONOCO, and we never discussed bad or fraudulent conduct, totally to the contrary.
In my opinion, the “fabulous programmes” make up a relatively small percentage of BBC output. There is hardly a programme which is not influenced in some way by left/liberal propaganda. Even Countryfile has got in on the act. So the 99% is a large percentage of a small output. There are plenty more issues on which the BBC uses its output to put forward propaganda. One such issue is assisted suicide. And now they are beginning to push three-way relationships (2 men/one woman – 2 women/one man). And has anybody seen a programme on BBC in which President Trump is protrayed positively? Then there is health. The BBC made a programme in which they interviewed a nuber of heath “experts”. All crticised the UK Conservative government. All of them were exposed as having links with either the Labour Party or other anti-government groups.
https://order-order.com/2020/04/28/panoramas-ppe-investigation-party-political-broadcast/
Looking at the schedules for tonight during evening viewing times there are five interesting sounding programmes on BBC 4′ two on BBC 2 ans one on BBC1
There are also half a dozen radio programmes worth listening to.
The overwhelming majority of BBC programmes have nothing whatsoever to do with climate change. Those that do are extremely irritating but they are small in number
Tonyb
Not every BBC programme promotes global warming but just about every programme promotes their leftish woke agenda in some way either by content or the people they employ.
There is some heartening news that they are making cuts to their news staff, it may not be many but it is a start.
Other good news this week has been the lefties and BBC house newspaper The Guardian is cutting staff as revenue drops and their losses increase.
The climate and other woke campaigning is present in most BBC output, they decide the answer in advance, undertake relentless promotion, and fail to allow contrary voices, except when attempting to smear them.
Marxists always seek to silence dissent.
“they decide the answer in advance”
Extremely evident from the “reporter’s” questions.
The BBC still produces some fabulous programmes on Tv and radio
and of what few of those that remain have sadly been infected with left-wing “woke” propaganda/politics, many fatally so.
tonyb, if that’s true, then they should have no trouble finding people who are willing to pay for that “fine programming”.
As much as I respect a lot of your work this comment about the BBC is totally wrong. The BBC produces no watchable programs at all. They used to but not any more. All of the programs have been modified to include LBTARHXIMGTASYKUJ global warming, BLM etc. A while back I saw a clip from a children’s program where kids were stood in front of a red painted box which they called a fossil fuel boiler and it was shaking and rattling.
The kids were forced to say …. yes, you guessed it “It’s really good we have the windmills and solar panels outside “.
Their gardening programs are more about handicapped, black communities, green rooves, etc.
Tonyb – As a long time viewer of these ‘fabulous’ BBC programs i am forced to disagree. BBC used to produce fabulous programs. Everything they produce now is laden with liberal propaganda and social engineering. I’ve stopped watching their programs.
I disagree. The response is both accurate and appropriate. Dr Soon is well aware that it will be presented in very limited bites and out of context. Yet recent defections from the group think CAGW cult will likely cause some to actually read the response in whole, including the links.
They will and have slandered Dr Soon regardless. What better to fight lies with then truth? Dr Soon has presented that opportunity. He has provided the water, no one can force another to drink.
Worth leading a better informed “BBC-free” life, like the ABC-free lives the majority of us lead here….we turned off in great numbers years ago when ‘their ABC’ began promoting their alarmist and myopic programs based on bad science. Bliss…
Tony b; while the BBC may put out some good material, it’s my understanding that much of it is bought in from independent production companies.
The BBC produce surprisingly few programs these days. A large number are bought in from external companies now.
The BBC has been left-wing for a long long time.
What an embarrassment the BBC is
Defund the BBC.
As another Englishman, I second that.
As I am nearly 75, I was looking forwards to no longer paying the license fee, but now they have taken that away.
I couldn’t care less about the money. What I do care about is being forced to pay for a left wing propaganda organisation that is the enemy of the truth.
Chris
Don’t pay it. I stopped after a few years when I lived in the UK.
Chris
Don’t worry, the money they are getting from you is going to be spent on a £100 million ‘diversity’ policy.
tonyb
She’s gonna choke on all those facts, Willie! That’s too much solid food for an unweaned infant. She needs her pablum thin and bland.
“Dear Wei Hok ‘Willie’ Soon,”
The phrase “culturally inept” comes to mind.
it’s actually racism ironically
Poor Willie has errored; he has assumed that she can read and understand logic; if she could she would not be working at the BBC.
Cheers,
Speed
A thorough and appropriate response, Dr. Soon.
I just don’t understand why this dead horse is still being flogged to death as it died ages ago. I suspect that the horse was never even born.
For whatever reason, this reminds me of Lieutenant Kije. A slip of the pen resulted in the creation of Kije and the ruse took on a life of its own.
It also reminds me of, “Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.” link
The result is a house of cards that eventually has to collapse in on itself. Future generations will wonder how we were so stupid.
I remember being shown various examples of bad science, one of which was the work of Samuel George Morton on human skulls. The question is still argued over whether Morton actually cooked his data or just misinterpreted it. In any event, his work warped the progress of science for generations.
reminds me of Lieutenant Kije.
There was a similar MASH episode where some “Captain” was invented, then rumored, and the whole camp went bonkers preparing for a visit by this heroic “Captain”, who was completely imaginary.
“…[H]is work warped the progress of science for generations.”
Just like Sigmund Freud.
“Just like Sigmund Freud.”
Who, apparently, wore slips.
I suspect that the BBC will report “failed to respond”.
It will actually report:
” We gave Dr Soon an opportunity to respond, but he produced a long technical comment which did not address our central complaint that he does not agree with the consensus and is therefore a bad scientist…”
Nice one
Yes, he’s grasped the essence of Green denialism so perfectly, I’m beginning to look slanchwise at Dodgy Geezer. 🙂
Sabotage is best done from the inside…
I hope the BBC, or another investigative group, has a chance to explore the effectiveness of Research Activism (1). I concur with G. Couch’s thoughts-
….”Those who stop questioning, especially their own theories and work (or hinder others testing them) have lost the right to claim a “scientist” title.”….
1) https://i2insights.org/2020/07/07/researcher-activism-tips/comment-page-1/#comment-29949
That was my first thought – ‘declined to appear’!
But what a superb reply from Dr. Soon.
I should imagine his first point would have rattled their woke-correctness and the rest will be sadly over their heads.
We made multiple attempts to solicit a response from “Dr” “Willie” “Soon”, but his rambling and delusional reply came too late to be included prior to our production deadline. Take it from this trusted journalist that there was nothing relevant in his belated reply.
Indeed. She said “Your response would be appreciated in writing to the above by 7th July 2020”. I’m curious as to how little time prior to that date she sent her “questions” (IE how much time she gave for a respond) I’m guessing not very long.
Especially since she didn’t send it to Dr. Soon directly, but had it passed to him through a third party.
I think you have too be British to understand the BBC and its utter bias. Anyone who doesn’t tow the party line is buried on the scrapheap and never used in any TV broadcasting from any channel in the UK.
But from this lockdown when Neil Fergusons models where found to be writing on the back of a crisp packet on a Sunday night at 5pm, and him being found too be knobing a ultra left wing destroy the world brigade married woman during his lockdown. So what did the BBC do when wondering if a second wave was coming… Thats right back to Mr. Ferguson to say his models seen this. OK Neil right.
‘ The series is currently titled ‘How they made us doubt everything’ and will discuss how the oil industry has carried out a campaign to make us doubt climate change. ‘
I suspect that no matter how lucidly and truthfully you write, your response will be simply ignored.
If the BBC were to accept what you have written, there would be no series – unless they were to experience a ‘road to Damascus’ conversion and rename it “How Greenpeace tried to discredit the oil industry’. I cannot see that happening because that is not the way to ensure a weekly paycheck and eventual promotion when working for the Woke.
Agreed, the BBC will proceed as originally intended and Dr. Soon’s response will be ignored. But I’m glad it was posted here, because it’s now a great reference source for the rest of us.
Agree on both counts (unfortunately for the first). But definitely a great reference source.
The BBC and Oreskes: birds of a feather.
Oreskes 238 of 928 papers endorse AGW. Despite claims 928 because no papers actually refuted AGW. 😉
What a lazy, ignorant woman!
Uber Karen ie Phoebe.
She has been busy on twitter collecting fodder for her part of this BBC smear campaign also targeting Chevron
https://twitter.com/Phoebe_Keane/status/1277726785778696194
https://twitter.com/Phoebe_Keane/status/1277722560860487680
Here is what you can expect (from last year) using Naomi Oreskes as the source.
Why is climate change so politicised?
https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/bbc-world-service/bbc-the-why-factor/e/60200598?autoplay=true
Hmmm – it seems her tweets are no longer able to be viewed by the public – only her approved followers. Funny that……
The biggest lie going around. Obviously not the slightest bit of investigative journalism going on here. He is just parroting Noemi Klein.
If Phoebe had any decency at all and just a little bit of journalistic competency and stop trying to be an activist herself she would also make a radio series addressing the way alarmist scientists have exaggerated and distorted the certainty of their so called science. And then let the public decide rather tell us what to think. She could ask Willie for his knowledge of their shenanigans and ask the alarmists to support scientifically all their assertions i.e. put the boot on the other foot. She would be surprised and rather incredulous I am sure. She could then ask Lindzen and Curry and many others for their comments. In time she might realize just how big and powerful Big Green is and just how devious some politicians have been.
If Phoebe had any decency at all and just a little bit of journalistic competency, I doubt she would survive very long at the Beeb.
Indeed, just a little bit of journalistic competency is enough to send her to the unemployment line.
–I’m making a BBC Radio series about the way oil companies have over emphasized the uncertainty around climate change.–
I would think that, “could be anything from 1.5 °C to 4.5 °C”
is creating “uncertainty around climate change”.
Yes, that 1.5C to 4.5C ECS estimate is a “big” uncertainty that hasn’t changed in decades. You would think they could refine this number a little after decades of trying. But no, now they are increasing the uncertainty with their latest science fiction effort.
The “Science” definitely is not settled.
I am sure Paul Homewood will put in a complaint against the BBC if they misreport Dr Soon. Paul has had a lot of practice and has been winning.
Congratulations Dr Willie Soon with that response. You ripped her a new one!
The questions were pre-loaded and she tried to set you up for a fall. Strategically wise move CC’ing people in on it and publishing it. You can see the lack of research and knowledge ….. she could have approached in a much better way but in her head you were the boogeyman, but now when she plays the “mirror mirror on the wall whose the fairest” game she knows what she is.
Keane won’t even pretend to read Soon’s response. She will just have her aides sift through the response for phrases to misquote or take out of context.
Fighting propaganda with truth presupposes people want to hear the truth. Over half the population gets their “dopamine hits” daily by reading the (poorly crafted) lies….gives their worthless lives some sense of meaning…by being allied with the “good” people who care about the oppressed. A case of the arrogant feeding the arrogant.
Phoebe Keane is on LinkedIn. She is a graduate in English Literature and Drama, with a Masters in “Broadcast Journalism”. She obviously doesn’t have a clue what she’s talking about where the science is concerned, and appears to be putting together another of the BBC’s hatchet jobs on a real climate scientist. The whole basis of her series is preconceived and biased assertion. I suggest those of us who can do so should monitor the proposed radio series and complain to the BBC and the UK’s Ofcom about bias whenever it occurs.
If only she would stick to stuff like Shakespeare was gay, etc.
While someone with a good language degree does not have the required scientific insight to question many claims made by scientists, that person should have the ability to reason carefully and logically and see flaws in the way a scientist reaches conclusions. A literature graduate works with a complete manuscript and usually has details about the writer and background. This is key to interpretation – not reading back today’s controversies and thinking or personal feelings into the text.
Today’s scientists looking at the climate are faced with the difficulty of not having “a complete manuscript” but as it were many fragments that they want to piece together. Dr. Soon recognizes this: “Climate change is a complex multi-causal phenomenon, and scientists have been debating the relative importance of different factors since the 19th century.” If this journalist only had 49 fragments totaling 985 words (5%) of Shakespeare’s play “Julius Caesar,” would she be able to reconstruct the basis of the play and recognize how the dramatist has used the historical narrative? I think not. Sadly, the degrees that Phoebe Keane completed seem to have failed to equip her to pursue a course of rigorous and coherent reasoning.
I hope this analogy will be helpful.
Michael,
You are describing classical literature analysis. That is sooooo last century. Now the hip academics all perform their analysis through the filter of current thought. Being “Right” means being able to analyze the text in such a way that the “current truth” is reinforced. Politics is more important than such minor concerns as the physical a psychological struggles of man.
Sadly, what I learned from classical languages in the seventies about the relation of patterns and how this correlates with meaning appears to be ignored in modern language studies. Languages are all fascinating – as fascinating as the pure sciences are to those who love them. However, what is done to language by activists, politicians and the media totally perverts language.
Foundational in all communication is that meaning is determined by the written or spoken context not by some meaning from a totally different context or some subjective impression. A word may occasionally have a particular connotation but there is usually an indication in the context. If language can mean whatever someone feels, this makes clear communication impossible. A good example is the vague use of the phrase “climate change” with no recognition that we have a number of very different climate zones that all have four seasons. What does this phrase mean in relation to these zones? Simply averaging temperatures across all of these is misleading at best.
“Simply averaging temperatures across all of these is misleading at best.”
A point I’ve made repeatedly over the years, always falling on deaf ears.
“A good example is the vague use of the phrase “climate change” with no recognition that we have a number of very different climate zones that all have four seasons. What does this phrase mean in relation to these zones? Simply averaging temperatures across all of these is misleading at best.”
Well, by “Climate Change,” they of course mean by implication “caused by humans” – and they have largely succeeded in implanting that inference in people’s minds through the endless use of propaganda.
As far as it being misleading, just think of how much MORE misleading it is when they show their scary looking temperature change “graphs” in 1/10th of a degree Celsius increments, when they are based on data collected from instruments measuring to the level of FULL degrees, and with a margin of error about as big as the supposed amount of “warming” of the meaningless “average.”
LOL
Chris
Apparently a ‘Drama Queen’ looking for her calling.
Yep, and I think she’s found it – it’s raising the profile and furthering the career of Phoebe Keane, nothing more.
An excellent response, likely to be teased and twisted by the disgraceful BBC scum into whatever they want it to sound like.
Great response, but I think it was a waste of time. If the BBC reports on any of Dr. Soon’s responses, they will spin it to question Dr. Son’s credibility.
Journalists are a dying breed. Most have become activists in search of clicks and followers.
‘Journalists’ are obviously part of the world’s oldest profession…
Responses like this are never a waste of time. “Cast your bread upon the waters”, with every confidence, as somebody once said, that it will eventually float back to you, not only buttered but thickly spread with your favourite jam!
One of these days some reporter with a First in English and an analytical mind will decide to do a little digging and again come face to face with the question “why have these lying b******s — including my own employer! — been lying to me all this time?”
At that point — and it will come — it all becomes worthwhile. But only if people like Willie and Anthony and Paul Homewood have persisted in doing the thankless groundwork in the meantime.
Note the arrogantly condescending tone of the BBC letter. It assumes that all the allegations are true, and that Dr. Soon is some kind of criminal whom they are graciously deigning to allow to respond even though the matter is already conclusively settled.
Agreed!
It is clear the program has been completed and Phoebe is “generously” providing Dr Soon a heads up that his misdeeds will be part of a major “expose”.
The best weapon against such tactics is to insure widespread awareness of Dr Soon’s reply. But as Mark Twain suggested “A Lie Can Travel Halfway Around the World While the Truth Is Putting On Its Shoes.” Phoebe has the Bully Pulpit.
Thank you Dr Soon for a well balanced response to an obviously charged and biased position letter from the BBC. As others have done, can I as a native Brit, apologise for you being asked to respond to such a discredited agenda pushing organisation such as the BBC.
Over the coming months the BBC will be rolling out its latest policy of disgrace. That is to charge the over 75 year olds’ for watching and listening to the BBC output. The older pensioners were previously exempted from paying for the BBC propaganda but now “Autie” thinks it is time to charge them? The response from the UK government to this latest foot shooting exercise, by the Biased Broadcasting Corporation BBC, will be to remove criminal penalty authority from the BBC’s fee collection service. The result of that change will stop people going to jail for failure to pay £157/year to the BBC. The jailed cohort for failure to pay the licence fee are mostly young poor women with no money to spare. Perhaps the BBC are hoping to add 80 year old pensioners with no money to their jailbird stats.
You have a greater patience than many of us Dr Soon, keep up the great work you do, and rest assured very few people actually watch or listen to the BBC despite what they claim.
The licence isn’t to watch the BBC. That would not be unreasonable. You need it to watch any live TV from any source, even from abroad, and also for the BBC’s catch-up service iPlayer.
I hear what you say Rob and I know that is the general background to the licence fee. It does beg the question then, why do the BBC think they have the sole right to decide, those over 75 should be forced to now pay, with pain of imprisonment if they don’t pay the BBC’s demands?
The BBC are trying to have it both ways aren’t they?
You need a licence to tune in to all terrestrial broadcasting, or so they tell us, but only the BBC holds the right to define the price and the authority to impose jail for those who do not pay up. How very woke of them…..
When your pension is, in part, dependant on investments in renewable energy schemes (the claimed antidote to CO2 emissions) what else can you expect from the biased BBC?
Bingo
Yes, what will happen to pension funds when the renewable energy schemes racket is fully exposed?
“When your pension is, in part, dependant on investments in renewable energy schemes (the claimed antidote to CO2 emissions) what else can you expect from the biased BBC?”
Not much relevant. The BBC is a religious organization, they believe in Politics.
The ABC in Oz has got to be even worse.
There is NO way that the ABC would invite a response by an evil denier of the apocalypse.
The thought would not enter their tiny ,well remunerated souls.
Paul is right-our ABC is even worse
WUWT readers may be staggered to learn that the first time anyone ever suggested that the huge bushfires in OZ in December – January were predictable because of the drying effects of the Indian Ocean Dipole, which had been explained by our Bureau of Meteorology, was first mentioned by Michael Manne as a guest on the ABC’s Q and A program earlier this year.
That was the first time the IOD was ever mentioned on the ABC.Up to then (and still is) it was of course climate change that caused the fires was a given in any ABC discussion programs
Geraldine Doogue, one of the ABC’s better presenters on her Saturday morning radio program, confessed she had never heard of the IOD -well of course she hadn’t How could she when she works at the ABC
Two words sum up Dr Soon:
thorough and meticulous
No scientist could wish for a higher accolade.
Seconded.
That makes 97.
My guess is they will cherry-pick to suit their narrative
The full list of programmes is here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000l7q1/broadcasts/upcoming
If he is interviewed Willie should record the entire interview and post to YouTube or other site. I have no doubt they would talk to him for hours to try and get one ‘incriminating’ soundbite.
It is unfortunate that real journalism seems to be dead, if it ever lived in the first place.
Students go into journalism “to make the world a better place”…according to Marx.
There are no jobs available for real journalists…unless John Solomon needs some help.
Great response. Well said.
My advice is to ignore the Bonkers Biased Corpse. They are a propaganda outfit with no interest in the truth. They use the Lewandowsky tactic: tell blatant lies, knowing that even if they are eventually forced to retract, only a very few will ever hear the retraction and the audience will only remember their lies.