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Climate

Sceptic tanks, of the non-thinking variety

by Dave Armstrong 02 Oct 2013
Sceptic tanks, of the non-thinking variety

99% of scientific observers is quite a big majority, BBC, for you to ignore, in this climate debate; Polar bear image; Credit: © Shutterstock

It's not just in the US and China. Those resisting all the evidence accumulating on anthropogenic global warming seem to creep out of the woodwork, unedited, in broadcasting too. Scientists in Britain are agog at the people who appear on television to decry global warming. They are usually retired or non-scientists.

Conservatives, ex-Chancellor, Nigel Lawson and Peter Lilley appeared, along with much-repeated footage of an Australian geologist called Bob Carter, representing a group called "the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change!" Despite the international tag, he's funded by the usual suspects: the US Republicans' "Heartland Institute."

All in all, editing of televised programmes should provide the Stockholm news, which is that we caused the global warming of the past few hundred, and unfortunately, the next few hundred years. No British scientist was available to disagree with the generally-accepted view, so into the woodwork crept the journalists.

Presenting reputable science alongside sceptics is equivalent to putting, "a homeopath alongside a brain surgeon for balance," according to one highly-involved commentator, Steve Jones. Scientific balance would involve mainstream research, but would exclude opinionated politicians. It's glaringly obvious that journalists obviously went for un—reporting of in order to gain more argumentative points.

At the end of a war, however, the survivors are the only interviewees worth listening to, not the dead ideas of the losers. Presenters seem to want controversy to add viewers, but to create it on such an urgent subject seems immoral. The inaccurate and misleading Bob Carter seems to gain more criticism than others. Perhaps that will help the cause. That is to achieve a political climate in which people will support leaders who change the energy scenarios around the world.

The LSE’s Bob Ward was enlightening on the nonsense being broadcast:

"Listeners to the World At One on Friday would not have gathered that there is overwhelming scientific consensus that climate change is happening and that it is driven by greenhouse gas emissions and deforestation. More than 99% of journal papers and all major scientific organisations around the world are part of this consensus." That’s only one programme of course, but with the IPCC 90% sure, that’s an awful lot of consensus to ignore.


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