Last week I posted about the submission that Andrew Montford of Bishop Hill and I sent to the BBC’s Review of the Impartiality and Accuracy of Science Coverage. In passing, I mentioned that initially we had written to Professor Richard Tait, Chairman of the BBC Trust’s Editorial Standards Committee (ESC), who was fronting the project, but had failed to get any kind of response from him. I also said that I would post more about this later.
In fact I mentioned what happened in another post on 3rd August 2010, but as putting our submission in the public domain last week created so much interest – Harmless Sky had by far its heaviest traffic to date, although some of that was due to the Ofcom story – it seems worthwhile making the whole correspondence available now, if for no other reason than that it shows what a very strange organisation the BBC is.
This is the original letter that Andrew and I sent to Professor Tait:
Dear Professor Tait
BBC Trust Review of Accuracy and Impartiality of Science Coverage
We understand that during 2010 the BBC Trust intends to carry out a review of the Corporation’s science coverage. This is welcome and encouraging news.
We both run blogs, at Bishop Hill and Harmless Sky respectively, and we have both been extremely critical the BBC’s output relating to climate change. As I am sure you are aware, such comment often becomes the subject of mainstream media stories now, a trend that is likely to accelerate as the public’s scepticism about anthropogenic global warming grows and the media adjust its editorial policies accordingly.
We realise that pubic criticisms of the BBC’s impartiality is very harmful to the Corporation’s reputation, but experience has taught us that, where this subject is concerned at least, going through the official complaints procedures is slow, time-consuming, frustrating, and usually ineffective. The BBC has also failed to respond positively to enquiries that we have made.
It would seem reasonable to assume that the BBC Trust has instituted this review as a result of concern within the organisation as well as criticisms that have appeared in the media and elsewhere. Of the three topics specifically mentioned in the BBC Trust’s press release announcing the review – GM crops, the MMR vaccine and climate change – there can be no doubt that the latter has had by far the greatest impact on public policy and the everyday lives of BBC viewers, listeners, and website visitors. The BBC is a major opinion former in the UK.
We feel that, if the BBC Trust’s review is to be credible and lead to a genuine reappraisal of BBC editorial policy on this crucial subject, then it is essential that the voices of informed critics should be heard. Indeed it is difficult to see how even the terms of reference for the review can be established without some input from sceptical bloggers.
The unexpected and dramatic events of the last few months concerning the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, the failure of the Copenhagen summit, and revelations about the conduct of the IPCC have changed attitudes in the media dramatically, and this transformation has been largely led by the blogosphere. Evidence from opinion polls shows a steady increase in scepticism among the public over the last three years which is now accelerating. This does not suggest that editors will revise their newly adopted policies of publishing sceptical material about climate change any time soon.
As the BBC’s report on impartiality in the 21st century, published in 2007, made clear, impartiality is the cornerstone of the BBC brand. Our concern is that the BBC’s reputation for impartiality should be preserved. We have substantial archives relating to the way that the BBC has reported climate change in recent years and we will be happy to assist the review process in any way that we can.
Yours sincerely
I think that most people would agree that this was constructive, moderate in tone, and fairly conciliatory considering the problems that we have both encountered when dealing with the BBC in the past.
Not having an email address for Professor Tait, I sent the letter to Bruce Vander, the secretary of the ESC with the following covering note:
Date sent: Wed, 07 Apr 2010 11:13:43 +0100
Dear Mr Vander
I attach a letter addressed to Professor Richard Tait and I would be most grateful if you will ensure that he receives this and confirm that you have done so.
Yours sincerely
Tony Newbery
http://www.harmlesssky.org
Which really could not be very much clearer or more straightforward.
I expected swift confirmation that the letter had been passed to the great man and that, in due course, a more or less non-committal, but diplomatic, reply would be forthcoming. Perhaps something along the lines of, ‘Thank you for offering to make a submission to the our review. This should be sent my colleague ….. Do not hesitate to contact me again if … etc, etc’. But that’s not what happened at all.
Just an hour-and-a -quarter after I had hit send, this arrived:
Dear Mr Newbery, Mr Montford,
Thank you for your letter to the BBC Trust, the contents of which I note. [sic]
I will, of course, share you [sic] letter with Richard Tait and with Professor Steve Jones who is authoring the review, but let me take this opportunity to respond to a number of the points you raise.
Your letter states that: ‘It would seem reasonable to assume that the BBC Trust has instituted the review as a result of concern within the organisation as well as criticisms that have appeared in the media and elsewhere’. This is not the case, as the press release and published terms of reference make clear. This is the latest in a series of reviews that assess impartiality in specific areas of BBC output. Previous topics covered were BBC coverage of business (2007) and the devolved nations (2008).
It is a key priority for the Trust that the BBC covers potentially controversial subjects with due impartiality, as required by the Royal Charter and Agreement. The review is a ‘health check’ of current coverage, looking to identify both good and bad practice. It makes no presumption of significant failings – or, for that matter, successes – at the outset.
The published terms of reference make clear what is in the review’s scope and what is out, and the means by which Professor Jones will go about assessing the BBC’s coverage, including detailed content analysis, engagement with key stakeholders and audience research if deemed appropriate.
I hope this letter goes some way to clarifying some of the points you raise.
Yours sincerely,
Jacquie Hughes
Editorial projects [sic] Leader
I have not the slightest idea what an Editorial projects [sic] Leader at the BBC might be, and nor do I very much care. If a letter is addressed to a particular person, however exalted, I do expect to receive a reply from them, even if it only says that the matter is being delegated to someone else. That is a very basic matter of courtesy as well as being sensible public relations.
I’m not going to discuss the content of Ms Hughes’ letter, although there is at least one claim in it that may raise a few eyebrows, but let’s just focus on the careful choice of words in the second paragraph: ‘I will, of course, share you letter with Richard Tait and with Professor Steve Jones who is authoring the review’. There is a world of difference between ‘sharing’ a letter that was not addressed to you with the intended recipient and actually giving it to them, and anyway I hadn’t sent the letter to Ms Hughes but to the secretary of the committee that Professor Tait chairs, with a specific request to deliver it to him. Quite honestly, I wasn’t in the least bit interested in what the Editorial Projects Leader had to say, and in any case her letter didn’t address the main point of our letter, which was to find out whether the BBC’s review would consider a submission from a couple of bloggers who had taken a particular interest in the impartiality of their coverage of climate science. Make no mistake, we were in no doubt that, for some people at the BBC such a submission would be about as welcome as a pile of dog poo on the living room carpet, but that’s not the point. In such circumstances grown-up organisations, however large and exalted, usually go through the motions of being polite and pragmatic when dealing with critics.
I had no intention of getting involved in correspondence with a member of the BBC Trust’s staff who had apparently intercepted the letter, or had it diverted to them by the very person who had been asked to pass it to his boss. So I wrote to Bruce Vander again.
Date sent: Thu, 08 Apr 201010:14:21 +0100
Dear Mr Vander
I look forward to receiving your confirmation that Professor Tait has received the letter that I attached to an email that I sent to you yesterday.
Yours sincerely,
Tony Newbery
http://www.harmlesssky.org
And again:
Date sent: Tue, 13 Apr 2010 11 :26 :02 +0100
Dear Mr Vander
On 7th April 2010 I emailed you asking that a letter to Professor Tait, which I attached, should be forwarded to him and also for confirmation that this had been done.
I look forward to receiving your response.
Yours sincerely,
Tony Newbery
http://www.harmlesssky.org
And yet again:
Date sent: Tue, 04 May 2010 08:31 :07 +0100
Dear Mr Vander
I emailed you on 7th April 2010 in your capacity as secretary to the ESC enclosing a letter addressed to Professor Tait, the chairman of the committee. You have not responded to my request for confirmation that Professor Tait has received this letter in spite of my sending you two reminders.
Unless you provide me with either the confirmation that I requested — or a reason why you have chosen not to pass the letter to Professor Tait — by the end of this week, I will seek an explanation from the BBC Trust for your failure to act appropriately. Ignoring my correspondence will not, I am afraid, make this matter go away.
Yours sincerely
Tony Newbery
http://www.harmlesssky.org
The irony of this situation will not be lost on those who have noticed that Mr Vander is the BBC Trust’s Complaints Manager as well as secretary to the ESC.
Be that as it may, this fourth message did provoked a response, nearly a month after I had asked for confirmation that Professor Tait had received our letter.
Date sent: Tue, 4 May 2010 09:08:02 +0100
Dear Mr Newberry [sic]
I am confused by your requests that you require confirmation that Richard Tait has seen your letter of 7 April 2010. As my colleague, Jacquie Hughes, Editorial Project Manager, wrote to you on the same day (7 April) confirming that she would share your letter with both Richard Tait and Professor Steve Jones, author of the Science Review, which I believe she has done.
You may also remember that she clarified that the review was the latest in a series of reviews that asses impartiality and is a ‘health check’ of current coverage which makes no presumption of significant failings and will identify good and bad practice. The review is not as you suggested “as a result of concern within the organisation”.
Yours sincerely,
Bruce Vander
Complaints Manager and Secretary to the ESC
Up to this point, I had clung on to the hope that the BBC weren’t playing silly word games by referring to the letter being shared. After all, even critics of the BBC would expect our national broadcaster to behave in a grown-up way over such a trivial matter of office procedure. The first paragraph of Mr Vander’s letter dispelled this hope when instead of answering my question he echoed the term ‘share’. And why? Oh why? would Mr Vander say that he believes that the letter has been shared with Professor Tait? Wouldn’t it be so much easier just to say that the letter has been passed to the person it was addressed to if that was the case.
By now Mr Vander was not only wasting his employer’s time, but mine too, so I was fairly blunt when I replied.
Date sent: Thu, 06 May 201010:17:17 +0100
Dear Mr Vander
Thank you for your email and I regret that you find my request confusing.
I would be grateful if you would now answer the question which I asked: have you given the letter to Professor Tait, and if not why not? Your email does not answer this question, although it implies that you have not done so.
Passing the letter to another BBC Trust employee who proposes to ‘share’ the letter with the intended recipient is not an adequate response, and nor is saying that you ‘believe’ that this has been done.
I wish to know whether Professor Tait has received the letter, which was addressed to him.
Yours sincerely,
Tony Newbery
http://www.harmlesssky.org
Unfortunately Mr Vander had still not got the message that I really did want a sensible answer, or perhaps I just wasn’t tugging my forelock humbly enough. After another ten days has slipped by, I had another try.
Date sent: Mon, 17 May 2010 08:58:59 +0100
Dear Mr Vander
I look forward to receiving a reply to my email of 6th May which I have copied below for your convenience.
Your sincerely
Tony Newbery
http://www.harmlesssky.org
Which triggered this auto-reply:
Date sent: Mon, 17 May 2010 08:59:57 +0100
Out of Office AutoReply: Re BBC Review of Science Reporting
Thank you for your email. I am out of the office until 1 June, if your matter requires urgent attention please email XXXXXXX XXXXX at: xxxxxx.xxxxx@bbc.co.uk or XXXX XXXXXXX at xxxx.xxxxxx@bbc.co.uk
As it was now the holiday season, and I was going to be away myself, there was no choice but to be patient. Eventually this turned up in my inbox:
Date sent: Thu, 3 Jun 2010 13:46:48 +0100
Dear Mr Newbery
Thank you for your email dated 17 May.
Please accept my apologies for the delay to my reply but I have been away from the office on leave and only returned this week.
I am writing to confirm that your letter has been shared with Richard Tait.
Yours sincerely,
Bruce Vander
Complaints Manager and Secretary to the ESC
By this time I was about ready to start screaming.
Up until this point I had refrained from blogging about this, although the BBC Trust’s obtuseness – or worse – had made it very tempting. As I’ve said before on this blog, I don’t particularly enjoy Auntie bashing; all I want is a BBC that one can rely on to behave correctly, and be proud of as one of the great British institutions. However this episode had now become so bizarre that there was good reason to make it public, so I wrote what I think was a fairly restrained post about it and, observing the usual courtesy of offering the right of reply to someone who is being criticised, let Mr Vander know that I had done so.
Date sent: Tue, 03 Aug 2010 16:45:14 +0100
Dear Mr Vander
I have now posted a copy of the joint letter sent by Andrew Montford and myself to Professor Tait on 7th April at my blog, together with some comments on the problems we have had obtaining confirmation that this has been delivered to him:
http://ccgi.newbery1.plus.com/blogl?p=319#more-319
It seems only fair to let you know about this, and I will of course be willing to post any response that the BBC Trust may choose to make.
Yours sincerely
Tony Newbery
http://www.harmlesssky.org
The reply was:
Date sent: Tue, 3 Aug 2010 17:08:37 +0100
Dear Mr Newbery
Thank you for email dated 3 August 2010.
Yours sincerely,
Bruce Vander
Complaints Manager and Secretary to the ESC
And at that stage I decided that it really wasn’t worth spending any more time trying to find out whether Professor Tait had seen our letter: or whether it had been diverted to Ms Hughes so that he would not have to reply to it: and if so why? Or whether Professor Tait had in fact seen the letter and connived at the prevarication that followed. Or why any of this should happen when a courteous acknowledgement and emollient invitation to make a submission to the review would have been the sensible response. Such behaviour breeds mistrust.
Eventually, in September, Andrew Montford discovered that the public – but evidently not critical bloggers who might be alarmingly well informed about the issues – had been invited to make representations to the BBC Trust’s review. He wrote to Professor Steve Jones to ask if he would accept a submission from us. The correspondence was brief, but courteous, businesslike, and prompt. Professor Jones gave no indication that he had heard anything of our letter to Professor Tait, although he was not specifically asked about this.
This story has a moral. Last week we went public with our submission to the review, and it immediately began to cause embarrassment to the BBC. If I am interpreting whispers reaching me now correctly, that may be just the start.
Had we received an appropriate response to our original approach to the BBC Trust we might have been content to wait until their review was published before saying anything.
Max,
Whether I would agree that Creationism should be given equal status to Darwinian Evolution either at the BBC or in the educational system isn’t important. It is important that the BBC, and educational authorities, take expert advice and act accordingly.
There is no need for any arguments based on personal opinions – the decision should be made on the basis of expert advice by some well respected scientific body like the UK’s Royal Society. That is the straightforward approach. The “accurate and impartial” way to address these kind of questions.
However, it’s not at all straightforward for you. You can’t agree to that as it will give you the answer you want in one case, but not the other.
Therefore what you are arguing for all hinges on your unqualified opinion and that isn’t acceptable – either to me or, more importantly, to those at the BBC who do have the responsibility for program content.
tempterrain #76
I think we’d all agree with you when you say:
Which is what the BBC claims to have done in their 2006 Climate Change Seminar, as TonyN reports. So why won’t they tell us the names of the experts they consulted? This is the key point of these two posts.
geoffchambers,
I’m not sure why the BBC are so reticent about this; but, yes I’d agree that that the whole process should be completely transparent. Of course, it would be fair enough to campaign that this should happen, and for the formal incorporation of this principle in the forthcoming review.
However, even it does about, I doubt it will make much, if any, practical difference to the way the BBC covers the subject in future. Max, TonyN, and TonyB et al are unlikely to be any happier. I also doubt they’ll end up agreeing with you that this was the ‘key point’ of it all.
tempterrain
‘You may think the BBC should be a “publicly funded messenger service” However, what it is according to its own charter… goes quite a way beyond that.’
From your link… “Purposes: the BBC’s mission to inform, educate and entertain.”
The BBC cannot in and of itself educate inform or entertain anyone without doing so through the medium of messages it collects and delivers as its primary publicly-funded function (although the modern BBC may beg to differ).
If the BBC decides to make itself an obstacle to this core function, the public can quite rightly claim to be ill-informed, poorly-educated and unentertained by the corporation and the material it delivers (regardless of how much CGI tinsel and baubles it now wraps that material up in).
geoffchambers
Geoff – I suspect the BBC turned to self-proclaimed ex[p]erts in 2006 instead of real ones, and is now too embarrassed to admit it. Come Saturday night, my local pub is full of self-proclaimed experts on just about any topic you’d care to mention and the levels of hot air emitted are no doubt similar to those in the BBC’s ‘secret’ meeting.
Peter S,
Yes I think you are quite likely right in saying that the BBC didn’t ask the right people and are now too embarrassed to admit it. It all sounds quite plausible.
I agree that they should have consulted the “real experts” and that the whole process should have been transparent. But do you think the outcome would have been any different, practically?
It wouldn’t. Short of the UK government selling off the BBC to Murdoch’s empire they are never going to be out of step with mainstream science on any topic and that would include climate change.
If TonyN thinks otherwise he is just wasting his time as he seems to be discovering. If he’s got time to waste I suppose that’s his concern, but I can’t help thinking he’d be better off learning something about climate science, prefereably starting with an open mind, before going into battle with the scientific establishment.
tempterrain
I note you skip responding to my retort to your earlier comment. Can I take it mean that you now agree with my argument that the BBC is, at its core, a messenger service? The public can rightly feel themselves to be informed, educated or entertained by the BBC if the quality of the messages the corporation gathers and delivers to them is equal to, or exceeds, those of other sources. If the public is left wanting by the BBC’s efforts in the full knowledge that there is far more to the AGW message than the BBC is prepared to deliver, then the public would be justified in suspecting the corporation has lost all interest in informing, educating or entertaining and has instead set itself the task of misleading, indoctrinating and making fools of the British public.
Peter S,
I’m not quite sure what you are getting at by insisting on the words “messenger service”. I originally took you to mean anything which is indisputable like the football and cricket results etc. But now I’m not sure what you do mean.
Strictly speaking, all digital data conveys a message which can be converted to text, video, or pictures.
I’m not saying that the BBC is perfect and they always get their “messages” right, and when they don’t, then it’s fair enough to correct them. But you need to say just where you feel they have erred first.
PeterM
As an impartial observer, I must say that PeterS makes sense.
It is not BBC’s charter to “brainwash” the UK (and also the world) public with one partisan political view on any topic (including AGW).
It is its charter to act as an objective “messenger service” (as PeterS as stated), to report the news impartially and without favor.
In the case of AGW this means, of course to report the (IPCC) view of “dangerous AGW” due to an estimated “high climate sensitivity” as well as the view of other scientists, i.e. that AGW does not represent a serious threat to humanity due to a relatively “low climate sensitivity”.
It would even be good to air the views of a “mainstream” scientist, such as Judith Curry, who has stated openly that there is “uncertainty” regarding
all of which are of key importance to the “dangerous AGW” premise of IPCC.
Would you disagree with this assessment?
If not, why not?
(Please try to be specific in your response.)
Max
Max,
Well it’s not just Judith Curry who talks about uncertainties. The IPCC do that in their reports too, as you’d know, if you took the trouble to read them properly.
Yes I understan you’ve asked for “impartiality”. If you look at the BBC link you’ll see that they mention “accuracy” too. You don’t seem quite so keen on that.
You’ve still failed to address the question in general terms as to how the balance between ‘ipartiality’ and and ‘accuracy’ should be struck.
On the question of Darwinian Evolution you want to go for ‘accuracy’ whereas on AGW you argue for ‘impartiality’. You need to think through the inconsistency in your approach there!
PeterM
I have, indeed, read the IPCC reports (probably much more “properly” than you have).
And I have seen (as has Dr. Curry) that IPCC has understated “uncertainty”.
Curry has pointed to three specific areas where this has been the case (as I outlined in #83 – but will repeat), all of which are of key importance to the “dangerous AGW” premise of IPCC.
For example on “feedbacks” IPCC has stated that “cloud feedbacks remain the largest source of uncertainty”, yet in its estimate of 2xCO2 climate sensitivity IPCC has cited models, which ALL assume a strongly positive feedback, strong enough to increase the 2xCO2 impact by 1.3C (from 1.9 to 3.2C, on average), instead of including estimates with net negative cloud feedbacks.
With a net negative cloud feedback, AGW is no longer a problem as postulated by IPCC, so this point of “uncertainty” is critical to the entire IPCC premise.
As a second example, IPCC has stated categorically:
based on a single since discredited “hockey stick” study using cherry-picked North American and Siberian tree ring data and a flawed statistical method plus some “spaghetti” copies, largely rehashing the same flawed data.
Yet there are many studies using different paleo-climate methodologies from all over the world, which clearly refute this interpretation, which IPCC simply ignores.
Again, this is a key point: if earlier warming periods (without human CO2 emissions) were just as warm as today, this point of “uncertainty” raises serious questions about CO2 as the underlying cause for current warming.
The 2xCO2 greenhouse impact without feedbacks is another area where there is some “uncertainty” (as Curry has observed), although IPCC does not mention this.
IPCC uses an estimate of slightly below 1C (by Myhre et al.). Other estimates out there are:
So, even here there is significant “uncertainty” (which IPCC does not mention).
The point made by Curry is simply that IPCC understates “uncertainty”, which is obvious from her above examples.
(There are many other instances of this as well, Peter, as you know from earlier posts – which we will not mention here.)
As for Darwinism – huh? (Let’s stay on topic.)
Max
PeterM
We have covered the point of “uncertainty”, where Dr. Curry has gone on record that IPCC has understated this.
Now you talk about a “balance between impartiality and accuracy”
You’re beginning to sound like Stephen Schneider who advised scientists that in order to force change they had to decide between being “effective” and being “honest”.
There is no “balance between impartiality and accuracy”.
UK taxpayers should demand that IPCC be “honest” (rather than “effective” in promoting “change”).
IPCC should report the news impartially and objectively, without fear or favor. ‘Nuff said.
Max
We would like to see some impartiality on the question of God’s word as expressed in Genesis and the Bible generally.
Darwin’s theory of Evolution is just that. Just a theory and is not proven at all. The BBC is supported and paid for by many tax payers who just do not agree that evolution science is the only possible explanation for our existence on this Earth. We have a large body of scientific opinion on our side and we should be heard not ignored.
[TonyN: If anyone is considering responding to this comment I suggest that they visit Blog Rules here first and refresh their memory.]
There’s been a lot of loose talk on this thread about the BBC reporting the ‘mainstream’ view on climate change. This ignores the BBC’s very significant role as an opinion former not only in the UK, but throughout the English speaking world and beyond.
In our submission to the review we highlighted the link between the importance that the BBC has attached to impartiality in building its global brand – as stress in their 2006 impartiality report – and the role that this has given it as an opinion former rather than a mere information provider. People trust the BBC in a way that they do not trust other news providers.
Therefore the BBC has played a very significant part in establishing what the ‘mainstream’ view of AGW is. This leads to a an interesting rhetorical circle in which the BBC, having been instrumental in establishing a particular point of view, also seeks to defend its reputation for impartiality by saying that the way in which it reports that same point of view is impartial. This is not a justification that is likely to make much sense beyond the walls of Broadcasting House.
You could have said:
“There’s been a lot of loose talk on this thread about the BBC reporting the ‘mainstream’ view on Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, the relationship between HIV/AIDS, the safety of vaccines etc . This ignores the BBC’s very significant role as an opinion former not only in the UK, but throughout the English speaking world and beyond.
In our submission to the review we highlighted the link between the importance that the BBC has attached to impartiality in building its global brand – as stress in their 2006 impartiality report – and the role that this has given it as an opinion former rather than a mere information provider. People trust the BBC in a way that they do not trust other news providers.
Therefore the BBC has played a very significant part in establishing what the ‘mainstream’ view of Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, the relationship between HIV/AIDS, the safety of vaccines etc is. This leads to a an interesting rhetorical circle in which the BBC, having been instrumental in establishing a particular point of view, also seeks to defend its reputation for impartiality by saying that the way in which it reports that same point of view is impartial. This is not a justification that is likely to make much sense beyond the walls of Broadcasting House.”
Yes, the BBC is important but the idea that they have in any way defined the mainstream view of science worldwide, doesn’t make any sense at all, either within or without the walls of Broadcasting House. If you are looking for someone to blame for the way mainstream science is, rather that what you would like it to be, you’d be better off going after the Nature publishing group.
http://www.nature.com/
… but we didn’t say that, probably because it doesn’t make sense.
TonyN,
I’d say it certainly doesn’t make sense. Neither with my modified wording nor your original wording.
You may have grasped that was exactly my point!
It doesn’t make sense because you are using an argument by analogy and no sensible analogy can be drawn between the BBC’s coverage of evolution, AIDs or the use of vaccines and the controversy over climate change.
And I’m certainly not interested in arguing about this.
TonyN,
No, I accept there there is a disagreement on this point and there is little chance it will ever be resolved by argument.
However, even if you disagree with me on climate change, you need to make your submission to the BBC on the basis that their review is about Science in general rather than Climate Change in particular.
You need to come up with a formula, which when applied generally, will give you the desired results particularly.
The only one that I can think of is that the BBC agrees to refer the question to someone like Max, or yourself, but I doubt if that is a real option for them!
[TonyN: Wrong: see paragraph 2 here. Also note the date and who was fronting this venture.]
TonyN,
paragraph 2 says : “The review will examine factual and news treatment of subjects including GM crops and climate change. ” So shouldn’t that be “right”?
And what other subjects? Vaccine Safety? Astrologists, Relativity and Quantum Physics dissenters, ? Crop Circle believers? What formula do you propose which will enable the BBC to give you what you want on Climate Change but keep the door closed to what we both probably agree are lots of various undesirable groups who also would like a piece of the same action too?
PeterM
It looks like you and genesisrising (87) are on the same track.
But everyone else here sees that you are attempting to extend Andrew and Tony’s submission to the BBC Trust beyond its intent, which is clearly related to the impartiality of BBC reporting on the uncertainties relating to the ongoing scientific debate surrounding AGW. Period.
Dr. Judith Curry has pointed out that these primary “uncertainties” relate to:
– the 2xCO2 greenhouse impact excluding any feedbacks [I have seen estimates ranging from 0.65°C to 1.4°C]
– the net overall “amplifying or mitigating effects” from feedbacks [i.e. are they negative, resulting in a low climate sensitivity, or positive, resulting in a high one]
– the temperature record of the past several hundreds of years [“hockeystick” and copies versus several historical records and paleo-climate studies from all over the world using different methodologies, which show past warmer periods than today]
These are of key importance to the premise that AGW represents an unprecedented and serious potential threat (as IPCC postulates and BBC parrots without question) or whether it is simply a minor factor, which might actually prove predominantly beneficial to mankind and our environment (as earlier warming periods did), or is simply lost in the “background noise” of natural climate variability (e.g. overwhelmed by “natural climate forcing”).
BBC should report impartially and objectively on all these scientific uncertainties, as Andrew and Tony have indicated.
As a physicist, this should not be that difficult for you to comprehend, so your apparent obstinance on the subject seems to be driven more by sheer stubbornness than a lack of understanding.
Max
PS TonyN can correct me if I’ve misunderstood this.
Max,
Maybe I shouldn’t be giving you and TonyN advice, but the BBC clearly states it will:
” carry out a review to assess the accuracy and impartiality of [its] coverage of science.”
and
“‘science’ (with examples given of climate change, GM crops and the MMR -PM) will be defined to include not just the natural sciences but also those aspects of technology, medicine and the environment that entail scientific statements, research findings or other claims made by scientists.”
So if Tony’s submission doesn’t fully address the criteria, which it won’t do if it only includes the issue of climate change, it will be thrown out straight away.
You’ll have handed the BBC an easy victory.
PeterM
Your logic is warped (96), but I am not going waste anymore of my time to do you the favor of explaining again why this is so. It’s getting boring.
Max
TonyN Last night I watched Professor Brian Cox give this year’s Huw Wheldon Memorial Lecture on BBC2 Wales addressing the main challenges in bringing science to television. Most of what he said was well presented and most, if not all, people would not find anything to disagree with. However why oh why does such an obviously intelligent person have a mental block and break their own rules when it comes to climate change.
He had a dig at the Great Global Warming Swindle, completely misrepresenting what Ofcom had said about it and held up that completely trash BBC series Climate Wars as how to do a science documentary. What is it about the science establishment? I really like Brian Cox and the series he did on the Cosmos was fantastic. I have to say though I though he was clumsy with his comments about the GGWS and portrayed a sense he was unsure what he was talking about on the subject, or perhaps had had some “help”. I cannot believe a person that gets to work with the Large Hadron Collider could have made these comments had they examined the subject before commenting. What does everyone think?
Peter #98
I completely agree with your comments. Everyone-including Brian Cox- suspends belief and good science when talking AGW.
Tonyb
So if you agree with Brian Cox about all science except climate change, doesn’t it at least make you pause for thought?
Don’t you, at least consider the possibility, that he may be right and you wrong?