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Wayback Machine Trumps FOI Tribunal
New submitter calder123 writes "Last week, the BBC won an FOIA tribunal ruling that they didn't have to reveal the names of attendees at a seminar in 2006, designed to shape the BBC's coverage of climate change issues. The document, uncovered by Maurizio Morabito, puts comments by the BBC that the meeting was held under Chatham House rules, and that the seminar drew on top scientific advice in an interesting light. In a bizarre coincidence, four of the BBC's attendees at the seminar have resigned in the last few days."
So the BBC is happy to take public money, but doesn't think there should be ANY strings or responsibilities attached? Must be nice. I wonder if they would accept other public agencies refusing THEIR Freedom of Information requests. I suspect not. And yet that is the precedent they could set.
Personally, I think it's a bad precedent to be set by a institution that has a journalistic wing itself. But, then again, I'm a little creeped out by the whole idea of a state-run media in the first place, even one that stringently attempts to remain objective. It's bound to produce conflicts of interest, no matter how much you try to avoid them.
And, even putting the precedent aside, it just looks bad. If you're going to ask others to be open, it's really embarrassing when it looks like you're trying to hide something yourself, especially when openness is one of your stated goals, oft-repeated.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
That's why BBC had to do this:
- This is incredible. In Jan 2006 the BBC held a meeting of “the best scientific experts” to decide BBC policy on climate change reporting (t)
- The BBC has been in court blocking FOI attempts to get the list of the 28 attendees, but it’s just been discovered on the wayback machine (t)
- It turns out that only 3 were current scientists (all alarmists). The rest were activists or journalists (t)
- The BBC sent four low level representatives: Peter Rippon, Steve Mitchell, Helen Boaden, George Enwistle. All have since risen to power. (t)
- Amazingly, those are also the exact four who have thus far resigned this week over the false paedophilia accusations against Lord McAlpine. (t)
It isn't a religious faith. Its science. Its writing on the wall, and serious people are finally starting to read it. The people polluting the Earth are already having an impact on our weather patterns - one that has claimed lives.
Lets see, if you live in the UK and have a TV you have to pay it, and if you don't its a criminal offense.
Sounds like a tax to me
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Before this, the BBC gave equal airtime to pro and anti climate change viewpoints. This was despite the fact that the vast majority by far of scientists (especially those in the field of climate science) agreed that climate change, and man-made climate change, are real. Science is not impartial.
This was the equivalent of demanding that the BNP or Monster Raving Loonies (or whatever 1% political parties the US has) get equal airtime to the main parties in an election, in all respects.
So they changed it to reasonably match what the current reality on the science was, so that they weren't misrepresenting the issues to the viewers.
Since then, it appears that certain people have been continually trolling the BBC because their platform for spreading misinformation has gone away. Aww diddums.
If AGW is a correct theory, it can withstand the light of day.
It has withstood the light of day. Repeatedly. For approximately 20 years. To the point where the vast majority of scientists who study this stuff agree that it's the best available explanation of numerous observed changes in the climate.
The only place there's a serious debate is in the public imagination, and that's largely due to a very well-funded PR campaign funded by the oil and coal industries.
I am officially gone from
or is it a FOIA ?
And what are Chatham House rules? (I know where the Chatham Islands are, but I don't think that has anything to do with this)
And does a "Wayback Machine" look like a blue phone booth with the word "Police" on and a flashing light on top?
I'll bite.
The Royal Institute of International Affairs is also known as Chatham House. The Chatham House Rule states that when a meeting is held under such rule, participants are free to use information from the meeting, but not to disclose the identity nor affiliation of any speaker or other participant. This is in contrast to meetings held "on the record," in which all names and affiliations are fair game for disclosure.
FOIA is Freedom Of Information Act
The "Wayback Machine" at the Internet Archive is a search engine that delivers content archived from the web over the years. It was named after the time machine from the "Peabody" short animated features that delivered a not-exactly-correct view of real historical events, aired as side features along with other Jay Ward productions such as "Rocky and Bullwinkle." No, it didn't look like a police box.
And it's interesting. Apparently, the Beeb decided that the overwheling evidence of climate change and global warming rendered dissenting views not only null, but dangerous, in that these dissents would only impede what is necessary action, and are either specious, disingenuous, false, or all of the preceding. So the BBC essentially wanted to suspend even the pretense of impartial reporting and just go all in for acknowledging man-caused climate change as fact.
Now, it may well be, but this decision had the effect of marginalizing opposing points of vew, on the BBC, to the point that there would be NO dissent.
I wonder if there are any other issues that the Beeb (affectionately referred to as 'Auntie' in the Register article referenced, and also by some of those Brits old enough to suspect the Beeb is less than honorable in some areas) would similarly suspend impartiaility (sometimes considered a foundation of journalism, so therefore suspending the practice of 'journalism' in reference to these issues) and thereby become essentially the mouthpiece of one side or the other in a dispute? Other than the Israel/Palestine conflict, Islamic terrorism, and perhaps global crony capitalism, I can't thing of a thing.
Ssadly, the BBC is become just another media outlet, adding to the spew of whatever meme is advantageous to the powers that be. Those powers, for those of you at home scoring in pen, do not include us.
And of course, the BBC would prefer to not even be asked these questions, much less have to answer them honestly or at least be compelled to admit they even discuss such things. Here in the U.S. we don't have such a problem. Our media outlets are essentially divided into three camps; Leftist, Rightist, and irrelevant. And these outlets are hardly called to account for anything, except by an opposing camp, though the Irrelevants tend to question everything, even themselves, perpetuating their irrelevancy. You know which outlets belong to which camps, right? Ok, score this one in pencil until you get time to review the action and come to a better decision...
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
... but there's some hoops to jump through to get them to stop bugging you about it.
Not according to my British friends, there's not. They just keep bugging you. One of my friends (generally known in the Crome OS and Raspberry Pi communities as "Hexxeh") finally just gave in and paid the fee, even though he only ever uses the thing as a monitor. I told him he was nuts, but the lack of a BBC weenie calling him on his cell phone weekly apparently causes the license to pay for itself in reduced cell minutes.
I suspect if the UK ever got a working "do not call list", then the BBC would do the same thing the US companies and "free cruise!" scammers in the US have done, and just offshore the robo-calls.
Lots of things wrong with that.
1) The TV licensing people don't pester you if you tell them (possibly in writing?) that you don't use the TV to receive broadcasts. I have a TV, and haven't been asked to buy a license for over three years now. I was originally asked once, when I moved into this house and the previous resident's license (the license is for the property) expired.
2) They don't call, they send letters and -- very occasionally -- visit in person.
3) It's free to receive phone calls here.
4) A company you don't have dealings with is breaking the law to telephone you, as they don't have your permission.
I love how the list of attendees includes Jon Plowman, Head of Comedy.
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The only place there's a serious debate is in the public imagination, and that's largely due to a very well-funded PR campaign funded by the oil and coal industries.
Show me the money. If there's a "well funded" PR campaign then someone has to be spending that money. In contrast there are vast sums being spent on pro-AGW PR. For example, whole government programs are devoted to this, such as UK's Met Office and the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (a department in US's NASA).
That doesn't make sense. We don't pay for *incoming* phone calls on a mobile phone in Britain (or on a landline phone for that matter). You only pay for *outgoing* calls.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
While it annoys me how everyone is quickly wearing out the expression, "the new normal", I'm going to do my part and point out that stupidity seems to be the new normal.
First of all, weather professionals and even climate change advocates are careful to point out that Sandy is an individual even that cannot be proven to be related to climate change. Only dim witted sensationalists and politicians are claiming it to be further proof of climate change.
Here is a list of storms and hurricanes that have impacted New York over the years. Please be sure to note the lack of meaningful differences in storm count between now and our pre-carbon fearing days.
Proclaiming Sandy to be proof of climate change/global warming is stupidity. Unfortunately, stupidity seems to be the new normal.
It isn't a religious faith. Its science. Its writing on the wall, and serious people are finally starting to read it. The people polluting the Earth are already having an impact on our weather patterns - one that has claimed lives.
WRONG
It's NOT science.
Science WELCOMES attempts at falsification. It does NOT label doubters "denialists" or "heretics".
So, what do you call people who reject the heliocentric solar system?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Exactly. The problem is that non-scientists and non-engineers don't understand the subtleties of modeled predictions or trade-offs, and that some words in science have different connotations than they do in lay-speak. For instance, the "it's only a theory!" argument, applied to evolution. In lay speak, "theory" means "idea" and is only slightly better than a "guess." In science a "theory" is "something that fits absolutely everything we know and can be overturned in a dime if we find something better, and we're constantly looking for something better."
Or "certainty." There is no such thing as "scientific certainty." It's scientific certainty until we find something better, and whatever models we have right now (for anything) could be correct only to the extent of our ability to measure. For instance, Newton's laws of motion survived every test! We've got it! Scientific certainty! Oh, until Einstein discovered this little 2nd-order effect about velocity compared to the speed of light. And we still keep looking for something better than Einstein's equations.
With engineering, ask the question "can this be done?" The answer is almost always "yes." But people don't ask or don't pay attention to the follow-up question, "at what cost?" or "what do we give up by doing so?"
So the climate scientist says, "the climate is probably changing, and it's probably due to man's influence." And the Alarmist says "See! We're all doomed!" and the denier says "They said probably! It's all fake, and they don't know!" And the consequences of climate change are truly debatable.
And the engineer says "yes, we can produce alternative sources of power that do not (directly) emit CO2 but it will be very costly" and the Alarmist says "See! It can be done, and the only reason not to is because of greed!" and the Denier says "It'll be too costly, and therefore can't be done!" And the truth is in the middle.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
In about 30 seconds with Google, I found:
- an entire book on the subject
- Greenpeace, for whatever their word is worth, claiming that the Koch brothers have donated over $61 million to the cause of denying global warming.
- a 2007 article from Newsweek about it.
I could keep going, but the point is that this is a demonstrably incorrect counterargument (or the pro-global warming folks have some sort of massive conspiracy that they've been able to keep going for a couple of decades).
I am officially gone from
Not really. A paper that contributes no evidence or analysis is not going to be rated very highly or cited much. It may not be published at all.
It's the opposing pole to the adage "extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof".