The BBC is conducting a consultation on their guidelines for covering the general election. There is a web page that tells you all about it here:
This provides the opportunity to complete an on-line questionaire or to make a written submission to the BBC Trust
It seems very likely that climate change will play a relatively small part in the general election campaign when it starts. This is partly because all the main parties are singing from the same hymn book on this subject, but also because there are very real pitfalls for them all if the electorate make the connection between action to reduce Co2 emissions and increased fuel costs, travel costs, and taxation. So it is possible that the electorate will not have an opportunity to assess the various parties’ policies on these matters.
Opinion polls constantly show that when people are asked about global warming they are, at best, lukewarm in their concerns, ranking it way down the list of policy priorities. On the other hand, if they are asked about their willingness to dig into their pockets to fund mitigation policies, the response tends to be far more definite and extremely negative. The prospect of a greater burden on commercial and household budgets is not welcomed at all.
All the main political parties are committed to environmental policies that will cost a very great deal of money, but none of the main parities are likely to include that fact in their per-election boasts. So those who are worried about the financial consequences of such measures will get little opportunity to find out precisely what each of them is likely to do if it gets into government. And bear in mind that there may be a hung parliament, so for once it really does matter what the Liberals think.
Surely it is very important that commonly held views which are not represented by the political parties are heard during the election campaign. An election is, or at least should be, about the preferences of the electorate when they choose who is to represent them in Parliament. Reporting and commentary during the campaign should not be restricted to the agendas that politicians set.
The BBC guidelines are intended to ensure that there is no bias for or against any political party, but it is their broader duty to make sure that the whole spectrum of opinions held by the electorate is represented in broadcast output. What the politicians are not prepared to put in their manifesto’s, speak about at the hustings or advertise in their publicity campaigns is as important to the electorate as the promises that are being dangled before them in an overt attempt to secure votes. True impartiality on the part of our national broadcaster can only be achieved if they cover these aspect of the election too. Their responsibility is to the general public, who are the electorate, and not to the politicians.
If you feel like helping the BBC with their consultation, then no doubt they will be very grateful, but don’t delay. There is a closing date of 2nd February 2010. Here’s the link again:
Well not just climate change. What about a whole range of other issues?
Such as the increasing support for Creationism? Surely they should have increasing air time to match?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/feb/21/religion.highereducation
AIDs/HIV. There are those who say the science isn’t settled on that too. Why should they miss out?
PeterM post 1:
You imply that creationism should not be given much (if any) airtime because it is not supported by sound science. I would agree. You imply also that those who deny the Aids/HIV should not be given much (if any) airtime because denial of the link is not supported by sound science. I would agree with that also. Therefore, as the claimed link between man’s CO2 emissions and dangerous climate change is not supported by sound science, would you agree that that claim also should not be given much (if any) airtime?
Robin,
You guys are acting as if you’d won a great victory in recent months. That there is general acceptance that the ‘AGW scare’ is a thing of the past. That all scientific papers which are the basis of the IPCC reports have been discredited. They haven’t. Or if you think they have show me where they have. And I don’t mean the ‘wattsupwiththat website’. I mean the Royal Society, the AAAS and scientific bodies of similar international standing. Their opinions are unchanged.
You may not like the comparison but your position on AGW has a much scientific merit as the creationist beliefs of those Islamic medics in the link I posted.
PeterM:
You talk glibly of “all scientific papers”. But, on this blog, we’ve been asking you (literally) for years to refer us to just one such paper that demonstrates unequivocally that, based on testable, empirical evidence (you know, Peter, the sort of evidence that supports the theory of evolution and the Aids/HIV link), Mankind’s continued emission of GHGs will cause dangerous climate change. You have failed time and time again to produce that reference.
No, we don’t think we’ve won a great victory. All the continued, and continuing, revelations of recent weeks have done is confirm something we’ve known for a long time: that the AGW scare (as you call it) is built on sand. No surprise there.
Robin,
This business about ‘testable, empirical’ evidence is just something that you and your other triplets , Kif and Vangel, have dreamt up to disqualify anything you don’t like. Which is just about anything that has ever appeared in the recognised scientific literature on the topic of AGW.
Can you show me a single website by any of the world’s recognised scientific institutions, or world’s universities, which comes anywhere near supporting your position?
If you can I’d be genuinely interested to see it. I had a good look myself some time ago, and the only one I could find was from the website of Liberty University in the USA. They are probably better described as a ‘Bible College’. And, BTW, they also supported Creationism over Evolution!
PeterM
Another deja vu moment here, but Robin has stated it very clearly.
If you can provide empirical evidence, based on physical observations, that AGW, caused largely by human CO2 emissions, is a serious threat, then do so.
This evidence does not exist.
1,000+ page reports based on computer model simulations with poorly substantiated assumptions (as is increasingly becoming evident), even if they have been compiled by 2,500 climatologists and underwritten by the political/scientific management of several renowned scientific organizations and a great number of the politicians of this world, provide no scientific evidence.
This can only be provided by empirical data derived from actual physical observations.
The case for HIV/AIDS, Darwinism, etc. is supported by such empirical data. The case for AGW as a serious threat (or the beliefs of the Islamic creationists you mentioned) does not. And therein lies the key difference.
Max
Max
So, Peter, Max puts it precisely: provide a reference (just one) to the “empirical evidence, based on physical observations, that AGW, caused largely by human CO2 emissions, is a serious threat”. Over and over again, after repeated requests, you’ve failed to do so – despite, as you claim, all those “scientific papers which are the basis of the IPCC” . Why? Because not one of those papers refers to such evidence. And all your bluster cannot change that. Your position is no more “scientific” than that of your Islamic creationists or Liberty University. Get used to it.
Is anyone pointing out to the British electorate that the widely-hated wind farms blighting the countryside all over the UK are due solely to a theory that is wildly improbable at best and completely discredited at worst, and that even if this absurd theory were true, the wind turbines wouldn’t do anything to help?
One expects a certain amount of galloping insanity from politicians, but this is far beyond the pale: at the insistence of “environmentalists”, they are destroying the environment on a scale unknown in human history.
Graig Goodrich, #8:
As a certain level of understanding of the both the economics and technology involved in wind generation, and also its competitors, this is not an easy point to get across in the popular press. Only when rising energy cost really become an issue is there likely to be real interest from the general public. This could begin to happen during the election campaign. Also the Conservatives will need solid support in rural constituencies.
I assume that you are familiar with that excellent campaign group Country Guardians. If not, there is a link to their website in the left hand sidebar of this page.
Sorry, the credit goes elsewhere. “This business” was dreamt up centuries ago by Enlightenment philosophers who invented the paradigm of modern science. The fellows here, brilliant though they are, are simply repeating it.
“Can you show me, Galileo, a single letter from any Cardinal of the Church which comes anywhere near supporting your position?”
If there is any actual evidence for the catastrophic CO2 warming theory, it would be in AR4, WG1, Chapter 9 (“Attribution”). I invite tempterrain to look there; there is none. This is not a scientific issue any more, it is a political one — which explains the position of the “science” bureaucracies.