The BBC’s “The Climate Years” is quite simply, frightening. It is clear that the general UK public now has no major medium it can trust.

I watched parts one and two with notepad in hand and the trickery, clever juxta-positioning, character assinations, and bald unqualified non-factual statements were simply scary, and disturbing. These people know what they’re doing.

I would have thought that no scientist worth his salt would be anything other than sceptic, yet the programme’s position is that there are “sceptics” and there are “scientist”. Meanwhile they had their geologist fellow up Albert Gore’s Hockey Stick Ladder!

When he came down from it he said (of investigative work questioning the HS) “Look at that raw cynicism”.

All this, accompanied by fast-editing visual trickery, and very clever word use. As a piece of selling it is extremely professional. As a piece of science it is a disgrace. As a piece of broadcasting from a supposedly independent medium it is very disturbing.

I have no objection to using less energy; no objection to releasing less pollution of all kinds. But using this highly questionable AGW thesis as the reason for the utterly fatuous energy policies of most western nations is reprehensible. The only agenda that I can deduce it may serve is the perennial one of “the more you can scare the populace the more power you will have over it”. But precisely WHO is behind it?

Mr. McIntyre et. al. We need you more than ever. Very well done indeed. Thank you. It now seems to me (and I’m 70 by the way) that there simply has to be some major international political agenda being played out here; my own big question is – what precisely is it?

BBC you disgust me.!!!!

He made no attempt what so ever to clarify the difference between 100% CO² and 0.04% and worse still it is entirely possible that they knowingly and deliberately falsified or misrepresented the experiment by using a wide band IR camera. Disgusting.

narration: “You still hear claims that the Earth was hotter during the MWP, but that’s not true.”

image: graph of what looks like hockey stick 98, and similar reconstructions

source:

“Earth: The Climate Wars”
Programme with Dr Iain Stewart, broadcast this evening, second in a series of three. BBC 2008.

Well, Exxon predicts substantial growth in wind power between now and 2030.

Therefore, since exxon says this, it cannot be true.

The other day I met an Exxon executive. I asked her if 2+2=4. She said yes.
I don’t believe her.

What is the world’s largest global scientific study ever conducted?

What do you mean by a “scientific study? If you’re talking about a study in which original research is done, then IPCC AR4 does not qualify. IT is a literature review and carries out no research or even verification. So I don’t know the answer to your question but it’s not the one that you think.

A lot of the attention in these comments seem to be focused on 1 hockey stick analysis and the BBC. The BBC are not the only people reporting about climate change. For years the BBC has given voice to people like Michael Crichtons scientific views on climate change.

And this means what, exactly? The “1 hockey stick analysis” has lead to ALL of the other hockey stick analyses being shown to be similarly flawed.

I supposed you’re going to tell us that it doesn’t matter whether the method is flawed, the data is corrupt and the statistical analysis nonsensical, just so long as they get the right answer?

A couple of questions for you:

Then four questions follow.

What is the worlds largest global scientific study ever conducted?

Irrelevant. Size may matter for political purposes, but size for scientific studies means nothing. The question is whether it is correct.

What is the array of corporate power aligned against changing the energy infrastructure?

Irrelevant. If the energy infrastructure needs costly change then the reasons had better be more than “look at the size of my scientific study”

How much has been spent on funding the scientific studies against anthropogenic climate change?

Not nearly enough. If AGW had been funded in the same way as non-AGW then I’m sure we would have seen better science. As it is, the AGW side has been funded to the tune of billions of dollars.

Where did this funding come from?

Pretty much all of it came from scraping the bottom of the barrel.

Perhaps one day soon, we start focussing on the science contained in these studies, for and against, rather than this Orwellian propaganda that whoever questions a scientific dogma like AGW must be in the pay of some dark Satanic capitalist conspiracy.