The BBC Trust later reported that the seminar had taken this momentous decision on the advice of “the best scientific experts” present. Only years later, after the BBC had spent tens of thousands of pounds trying to suppress the identities of its “scientific experts”, did it emerge that they had been nothing of the kind. The room had been full of rabid climate activists, from pressure groups such as Greenpeace and Stop Climate Chaos.

In 2011, I wrote a report for the Global Warming Policy Foundation charting in detail how this had led to hundreds of programmes that were blatantly biased.

Last week, as the wave of propaganda mounts in advance of that bid to get a new global climate treaty agreed next December, the BBC was at it again, in a 75-minute documentary called Climate Change By Numbers. Using a well-tried formula, the programme purported to be taking a fresh, objective look at the issue, this time employing three mathematicians to subject the basic science on global warming to rigorous mathematical analysis.

As usual, supported by an array of gimmicky graphics, irrelevant anecdotes and film clips from all over the world, what these presenters omitted to say was even more important than what they did. We began with a young lady mathematician explaining how we know that, since 1880, the world has unmistakably warmed.

Although she cleverly skated round the increasingly controversial methods by which computers have been used to “adjust”, “infill” or “homogenise” temperature data, few people would disagree with her conclusion that the world has indeed warmed, by around 0.85 degrees. What she left out was that there has been nothing unprecedented about our recent warming. As the world has generally warmed since emerging from the Little Ice Age 200 years ago, two earlier warming phases from natural causes, between 1860 and 1880 and from 1910 to 1940, were just as great as that of the last 30 years – before CO2 levels rose as they have done recently.

But the computer models relied on by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have been programmed to predict that, as CO2 rises, so global temperatures must follow. So the second segment showed us a professor using his passion for Spurs football team to assure us that those computer models are reliable. What he omitted to explain was that, in the past 17 years, the IPCC’s computer model predictions have turned out to be comprehensively wrong.

In the final segment, another professor used a long sequence about Formula One motor-racing to tell us that pouring increasing amounts of man-made CO2 into the atmosphere has already led us to ever more “extreme weather events”, floods, storms, droughts, hurricanes etc. In years to come, unless we totally change our lifestyle, these will only get even worse and more dangerous. What he failed to tell us was that, as even the IPCC concedes, such events have not become more frequent or intense at all. There have been no more floods, droughts and hurricanes than there were before the global warming scare was invented.

It was telling last week that, in answer to criticism of another even more ludicrously biased programme on another of its favourite subjects, the EU, a BBC spokesman should have insisted “impartiality is paramount for the BBC”. The fact is that they know they have a legal obligation to be impartial. They know that they are breaking the law. But they also know they can get away with it, because no one in authority will ever call them to account for doing so.

4) David Whitehouse: The BBC’s Climate Change By Numbers
Global Warming Policy Forum, 4 March 2015

The BBC has just aired a documentary called “Climate Change By Numbers” in which three statisticians tackle the thinking behind three important numbers associated with climate change – 1) the Earth’s temperature increase since 1880 which is 0.85°C, 2) the idea that scientists are 95% certain about it all, and 3) the 1 Trillion tonnes of carbon dioxide is the maximum we can safely deposit into our atmosphere.

Disappointingly the programme championed style over content. Its treatment of the so-called pause in global annual average surface temperature was misleading. It was described as controversial, although those who say it is statistically meaningless and unimportant are few if vocal, and declining as the “pause” continues. The start date given for the “pause” was incorrect as was the assertion that not all surface temperature datasets show it. The discussion about the reasons for the pause was perfunctory concentrating on the missing Arctic data theory published last year by Cowtan and Way. It was said that when their adjustment was made there was a slight warming trend. What was not said was that this trend is statistically insignificant, surely an important point in a documentary about statistics and climate change. The “pause” was dismissed as a statistical fluke and then, briefly, suggested it might not exist. Also, the “pause” was not predicted by climate scientists other than in a most general way, and with possible durations very much shorter than that currently observed.

What also annoyed me was the lack of error bars in the graphs, especially in the section about the “pause.” Too much hand-waving conjecture about temperature data can be gotten away with if error bars are not included in the data. They could have done a section on accuracy of surface temperature data and displayed the data relevant to the “pause” at that accuracy using one of their light-stick displays. It would have been a straight line. Now that would have been a talking point.

Truth By Association

The transition to section two was not smooth and involved moving the goalposts. We left section one with a 0.85 (errors?) °C global temperature increase since the 1880s. Now we were told there is 95% confidence that half of the post-1951 warming was likely due to mankind. This section got the data wrong in saying there was more post-1951 warming than before. There was no mention of the temperature climb out of the Little Ice Age.

We are told of the value of climate models run on supercomputers and how good they were with no mention that the CIMP5 ensemble does not seem to conform with the reality of the past 20 years – no matter, they worked well predicting the post-Pinatubo temperature dip! This is “good evidence that climate modeling could be reliable.” Other proof of their effectiveness was given such as Arctic ice loss, increased number of heatwaves and the warming and acidification of the oceans! Where was this programme getting its scientific data from?

In the end it came down to a graph that showed how only with the inclusion of human intervention can the post-1950 climate be explained. Natural climatic variability cannot do it alone. No mention of the fact that the model used for natural variability was a simple one that we know cannot be accurate. It omits many of the causes of climatic variability invoked to explain the post-1997 “pause.”

A lot of the programme was “truth by association” suggesting that because a certain approach worked in one instance it obviously will work in another i.e. climate change. As proof we were offered things that fitted with this viewpoint and almost nothing that didn’t.

So Climate Change By The Numbers was a disappointment and a wasted opportunity and certainly not the start of a new narrative in the debate about climate change. But, in the interests of impartiality, why not allow three sceptics a similar platform to present their view of climate data?

Also, the “pause” is clearly a major area of research and debate in climate science having been described by Nature as the biggest problem in climate science. It’s been so for years, so isn’t it about time the BBC did a proper treatment of it and not just seek comments from the usual suspects? Discussion about the “pause” is everywhere, except on the airwaves.

Feedback” [email protected]

5) Richard Lindzen: The Political Assault On Climate Sceptics
The Wall Street Journal, 5 March 2015

Research in recent years has encouraged those of us who question the popular alarm over allegedly man-made global warming. Actually, the move from “global warming” to “climate change” indicated the silliness of this issue. The climate has been changing since the Earth was formed. This normal course is now taken to be evidence of doom.

Individuals and organizations highly vested in disaster scenarios have relentlessly attacked scientists and others who do not share their beliefs. The attacks have taken a threatening turn.

As to the science itself, it’s worth noting that all predictions of warming since the onset of the last warming episode of 1978-98—which is the only period that the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) attempts to attribute to carbon-dioxide emissions—have greatly exceeded what has been observed. These observations support a much reduced and essentially harmless climate response to increased atmospheric carbon dioxide.

In addition, there is experimental support for the increased importance of variations in solar radiation on climate and a renewed awareness of the importance of natural unforced climate variability that is largely absent in current climate models. There also is observational evidence from several independent studies that the so-called “water vapor feedback,” essential to amplifying the relatively weak impact of carbon dioxide alone on Earth temperatures, is canceled by cloud processes.

There are also claims that extreme weather—hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts, floods, you name it—may be due to global warming. The data show no increase in the number or intensity of such events. The IPCC itself acknowledges the lack of any evident relation between extreme weather and climate, though allowing that with sufficient effort some relation might be uncovered.

World leaders proclaim that climate change is our greatest problem, demonizing carbon dioxide. Yet atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide have been vastly higher through most of Earth’s history. Climates both warmer and colder than the present have coexisted with these higher levels.

Currently elevated levels of carbon dioxide have contributed to increases in agricultural productivity. Indeed, climatologists before the recent global warming hysteria referred to warm periods as “climate optima.” Yet world leaders are embarking on costly policies that have no capacity to replace fossil fuels but enrich crony capitalists at public expense, increasing costs for all, and restricting access to energy to the world’s poorest populations that still lack access to electricity’s immense benefits.

Billions of dollars have been poured into studies supporting climate alarm, and trillions of dollars have been involved in overthrowing the energy economy. So it is unsurprising that great efforts have been made to ramp up hysteria, even as the case for climate alarm is disintegrating.

The latest example began with an article published in the New York Times on Feb. 22 about Willie Soon, a scientist at the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Mr. Soon has, for over 25 years, argued for a primary role of solar variability on climate. But as Greenpeace noted in 2011, Mr. Soon was, in small measure, supported by fossil-fuel companies over a period of 10 years.

The Times reintroduced this old material as news, arguing that Mr. Soon had failed to list this support in a recent paper in Science Bulletin of which he was one of four authors. Two days later Arizona Rep. Raul Grijalva, the ranking Democrat on the Natural Resources Committee, used the Times article as the basis for a hunting expedition into anything said, written and communicated by seven individuals— David Legates, John Christy, Judith Curry, Robert Balling, Roger Pielke Jr. , Steven Hayward and me—about testimony we gave to Congress or other governmental bodies. We were selected solely on the basis of our objections to alarmist claims about the climate.

In letters he sent to the presidents of the universities employing us (although I have been retired from MIT since 2013), Mr. Grijalva wanted all details of all of our outside funding, and communications about this funding, including “consulting fees, promotional considerations, speaking fees, honoraria, travel expenses, salary, compensation and any other monies.” Mr. Grijalva acknowledged the absence of any evidence but purportedly wanted to know if accusations made against Mr. Soon about alleged conflicts of interest or failure to disclose his funding sources in science journals might not also apply to us.

Perhaps the most bizarre letter concerned the University of Colorado’s Mr. Pielke. His specialty is science policy, not science per se, and he supports reductions in carbon emissions but finds no basis for associating extreme weather with climate. Mr. Grijalva’s complaint is that Mr. Pielke, in agreeing with the IPCC on extreme weather and climate, contradicts the assertions of John Holdren, President Obama’s science czar.

Mr. Grijalva’s letters convey an unstated but perfectly clear threat: Research disputing alarm over the climate should cease lest universities that employ such individuals incur massive inconvenience and expense—and scientists holding such views should not offer testimony to Congress. After the Times article, Sens. Edward Markey (D., Mass.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D., R.I.) and Barbara Boxer (D., Calif.) also sent letters to numerous energy companies, industrial organizations and, strangely, many right-of-center think tanks (including the Cato Institute, with which I have an association) to unearth their alleged influence peddling.

Full post

6) Andrew Montford: Ditch The Greens If You Want To Save The Wilderness
Bishop Hill, 9 March 2015

Andrew Montford

Matt Ridley’s article in the Times (£) this morning looks at the continuing growth of grain harvests around the world and contrasts this good news with the weasel-worded claims of disaster from environmentalists and scientivists.
The whole thing is worth a read if you have access to it, but I want to pick up on one particular point. It turns out that harvests are not actually increasing everywhere. The main exception is of course Europe and the reasons are plain:

The fault lies in European officialdom’s perpetual war on innovation in agriculture — its precautionary and bureaucratic de facto opposition, at the behest of what the former environment secretary Owen Paterson calls the Green Blob, to safer pesticides and genetic modification, both of which demonstrably boost yields, save inputs and spare land elsewhere in the world.

So once again it is the campaigns of environmental activists that are causing problems for mankind. And, counterintuitively, the result of the greens’ efforts is to increase the pressure to convert wild land into farmland:

Jesse Ausubel, of Rockefeller University in New York, calculates that if we continue raising average yields at the current rate, stop putting 40 per cent of America’s maize into cars in the form of ethanol, and reduce food wastage, then, despite the rising population, an area the size of India could be released from agriculture over the next 50 years and handed back to Mother Nature.

But in the future that the greens want the opposite to happen. Farming in a green-run world will be less intense, more “organic” with the inevitable result that marginal lands will continue to fall to the plough.

There is a pattern here isn’t there? The greens’ campaigns against modern agriculture are leading to wild places being ploughed up for farmland. Their campaigns for “renewable” energy are leading to wild places disappearing under carpets of wind turbines and farmland being covered in solar panels. This represents an all out assault on the wildernesses that so many people cherish and leads to one clear conclusion.

If we want to keep our wild places we have to ditch the environmentalists.