Sunday, July 20, 2008
OFCOM'S GLOBAL WARMING INVESTIGATION SWINDLE
Ofcom's finding on whether the Great Global Warming Swindle film was right is to be published tomorrow so the papers are reporting it yesterday.
The headline story is that they get censured. Buried further down is that they don't get censured for any factual inaccuracy:
The censure then is for:
(A) one participant, Professor Wunsch, wants out because he has clearly found what he said while in no way untrue was not career enhancing
(B) the IPCC complain that they weren't given time on the programme to put their viewpoint despite the fact that they were asked & refused to appear
"Despite this on Channel 4 News last night John Snow, while reporting on the Stern Report said that "we are going to hear from all sides of the argument" which turned out to be David Miliband, George Monbiott & somebody who hoped the new taxes wouldn't hurt too much."
Ofcom's response, if any, will be published.
(C) "In the closing moments of the program a voice over from the climate change sceptic Fred Singer claimed that the Chief Scientist of the UK had said that by the end of the century the only habitable place on the planet would be in the Antarctic and that “humanity may survive thanks to some breeding couples who moved to the Antarctic”.
Sir David has never made such a statement."
This is an out & out deliberate lie. Sir David did indeed make that statement as can be seen from this report in the Independent 2nd May 2004.
Antarctica is likely to be the world's only habitable continent by the end of this century if global warming remains unchecked, the Government's chief scientist, Professor Sir David King, said last week.
......He said that the Earth was entering the "first hot period" since 60 million years ago, when there was no ice on the planet and "the rest of the globe could not sustain human life". The shock warning - one of the starkest yet delivered by a top scientist or senior government figure
......"No ice was left on earth. Antarctica was the best place for mammals to live, and the rest of the world would not sustain human life," he said. And Sir David warned that if the world did not curb its burning of fossil fuels "we will reach that level by the end of the century".
Difficult to be more clear than that. If the Indie was fabricating their story in 2004 the time for him to have denied it was when it came out. He did not deny having said it then because it was a truthful report & it is clearly a lie for him to claim it now.
Incidentally I have reported previously on how the former editor of Nature said Sir David had proved himself, by his Antarctica claim, capable of only a "kindergarten analysis" the learned scientist/ass Jeff Harvey had failed to notice that the claim he was criticising had come not from me but from the government's chief science advisor but since science is about the facts not the prominence of the people discussing them he would doubtless be equally happy to say it to Sir D's face
Compare & contrast with Al Gore's film where a judge decided that 11 or 13 facts (depending on how you count them), amounting to almost every claim he made about warming leaving only his picture & incidental music, were lies. He also had refused space to opponents, indeed the egregious Al has never been willing to publicly debate any of his claims & an obedient media has given him massive coverage while ensuring he never had to. Had Al ever been required to allow the opposing views Ofcom claim to believe necessary he would never have been heard of, which I grant may not be an argument against such rules.
Obviously from now on any media will have no choice but to offer airtime/column inches to sceptics on the warming & indeed other subjects if they intend to claim any remote shred of impartiality (as out TV are required to) & Ofcom will come down like a ton of bricks on anybody who doesn't.
Assuming Ofcom are an honest & impartial monitoring organisation & not merely enforcers of government propaganda that is.
The headline story is that they get censured. Buried further down is that they don't get censured for any factual inaccuracy:
But the broadcaster will not be censured over a second complaint about accuracy, which contained 131 specific points and ran to 270 pages, with Ofcom finding that it did not mislead the public
The censure then is for:
(A) one participant, Professor Wunsch, wants out because he has clearly found what he said while in no way untrue was not career enhancing
(B) the IPCC complain that they weren't given time on the programme to put their viewpoint despite the fact that they were asked & refused to appear
Ofcom is expected to find that the programme made significant allegations against the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, questioning its credibility and failed to offer it timely and appropriate opportunity to respond.Even had they not been asked to appear this would still be a corrupt decision. That is unless Ofcom are about to issue thousands of reports criticising the media for every occasion the warming claim has been broadcast without inviting a sceptic to say why it is rubbish. Also on numerous other "news" items such as anything to do with Yugoslavia. Indeed I am so inspired by this decision that I am going to put in a complaint about the lack of any scepticism in a C4 discussion of the Sterns Report where it was specifically promised:
Channel 4 argues that the organisation refused to cooperate with the programme-makers.
"Despite this on Channel 4 News last night John Snow, while reporting on the Stern Report said that "we are going to hear from all sides of the argument" which turned out to be David Miliband, George Monbiott & somebody who hoped the new taxes wouldn't hurt too much."
Ofcom's response, if any, will be published.
(C) "In the closing moments of the program a voice over from the climate change sceptic Fred Singer claimed that the Chief Scientist of the UK had said that by the end of the century the only habitable place on the planet would be in the Antarctic and that “humanity may survive thanks to some breeding couples who moved to the Antarctic”.
Sir David has never made such a statement."
This is an out & out deliberate lie. Sir David did indeed make that statement as can be seen from this report in the Independent 2nd May 2004.
Antarctica is likely to be the world's only habitable continent by the end of this century if global warming remains unchecked, the Government's chief scientist, Professor Sir David King, said last week.
......He said that the Earth was entering the "first hot period" since 60 million years ago, when there was no ice on the planet and "the rest of the globe could not sustain human life". The shock warning - one of the starkest yet delivered by a top scientist or senior government figure
......"No ice was left on earth. Antarctica was the best place for mammals to live, and the rest of the world would not sustain human life," he said. And Sir David warned that if the world did not curb its burning of fossil fuels "we will reach that level by the end of the century".
Difficult to be more clear than that. If the Indie was fabricating their story in 2004 the time for him to have denied it was when it came out. He did not deny having said it then because it was a truthful report & it is clearly a lie for him to claim it now.
Incidentally I have reported previously on how the former editor of Nature said Sir David had proved himself, by his Antarctica claim, capable of only a "kindergarten analysis" the learned scientist/ass Jeff Harvey had failed to notice that the claim he was criticising had come not from me but from the government's chief science advisor but since science is about the facts not the prominence of the people discussing them he would doubtless be equally happy to say it to Sir D's face
Compare & contrast with Al Gore's film where a judge decided that 11 or 13 facts (depending on how you count them), amounting to almost every claim he made about warming leaving only his picture & incidental music, were lies. He also had refused space to opponents, indeed the egregious Al has never been willing to publicly debate any of his claims & an obedient media has given him massive coverage while ensuring he never had to. Had Al ever been required to allow the opposing views Ofcom claim to believe necessary he would never have been heard of, which I grant may not be an argument against such rules.
Obviously from now on any media will have no choice but to offer airtime/column inches to sceptics on the warming & indeed other subjects if they intend to claim any remote shred of impartiality (as out TV are required to) & Ofcom will come down like a ton of bricks on anybody who doesn't.
Assuming Ofcom are an honest & impartial monitoring organisation & not merely enforcers of government propaganda that is.
