April 13, 2008...12:30 pm
BBC concedes “we should have flagged changes” to controversial climate change story
BREAKING NEWS
The BBC reporter whose global warming story was changed — with a climate change activist claiming credit for it — has conceded the changes should have been flagged so readers could see it had been altered.
In a post today on the BBC Editors Blog, environment analyst Roger Harrabin says he doesn’t believe there were “material changes” to the story, posted on the BBC website on April 4, but “in hindsight” the fact it had been altered should have been flagged.
Last week, UK climate change activist Jo Abess published a series of emails between her and Harrabin and boasted she was responsible for changes to his story, which stated there had been no global warming since 1998.
As described in my article of last Wednesday about this issue, the emails showed he initially rejected her demands for changes, then, after a particularly bullying email from her, he amended the story to downplay the lack of warming in the past decade and emphasise the belief that temperatures would soon start rising again.
In his Editors Blog article, Roger Harrabin describes how he prepared the original story for broadcast, quoting Michel Jarraud, the secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organisation, as saying global temperatures would be lower in 2008 than last year because of the La Nina climate phenomena, which is strong at present.
“I subsequently received suggestions that the article should offer more background,” Harrabin writes. “The WMO wanted to emphasise M. Jarraud’s view that a slight temperature decrease in 2008 compared with 2007 should not be misinterpreted as evidence of a general cooling. Some of the feedback seemed helpful so we altered and expanded the report – improving it substantially for the general reader, in my view.
“Among my email exchanges was one with an environmental campaigner who published our emails implying that we had changed our article as a result of her threat to publicly criticise our report. We didn’t change it for that reason. We changed it to improve the piece. But we’ve stirred the wrath of some of our readers as a result.
“The main criticism was not about the revised version of the story itself, which contains the same facts as the original plus extra background – but that we changed the report apparently under pressure and did not signal the changes.”
The BBC guidelines on tracking changes say that, when a major change is made, the story should be republished with a new timestamp. But lesser changes, including minor factual errors, corrected spellings and reworded paragraphs, could go through with no new timestamp because in substance a story had not actually progressed any further.
“Was the original copy wrong? No, it was not. Was there any material change? I don’t think so. Should we therefore have flagged that the story had been altered? We didn’t think that was necessary, but with hindsight it might have been a good idea.”
Footnote: As a journalist, I find it refreshing that BBC journalists will engage with their audience the way Roger Harrabin has. Far from ducking for cover when controversy erupts, he has responded to criticism and questions by giving details of how the story was put together, how it was changed, and even concedes he could have done it better by flagging the fact changes had been made. I may be wrong, but I do not recall any New Zealand media being this frank.
14 Comments
April 13, 2008 at 1:56 pm
You are *still* indicating that Harrabin changed the story due to bullying, even though Harrabin expressly denies this and offers an alternative explanation.
I believe it is dishonest of you not to engage with this aspect of Harrabin’s response.
April 13, 2008 at 4:03 pm
I believe it is dishonest of you not to engage with this aspect of Harrabin’s response.
Feel free to believe anything you like. I publish all information that could have a bearing on what I write on this blog as soon as I am aware of it, with as many relevant links as I can, so that readers can make up their own minds. I have done exactly the same with this issue. You will not find me suppressing information that might lead to a contrary view to something I have written. I am the opposite of a spin doctor. On this blog you will find journalism.
Roger Harrabin’s views are crucial to this issue and I have now published three separate articles setting them out in full, the moment I have become aware of them. Two of these articles have been from emails he has sent me in response to questions I have asked him, the third highlights and links to the BBC Editors Blog article he wrote today.
April 13, 2008 at 4:49 pm
Roger Harrabin’s version of events is what many of us thought probably happened.
Rest assured though, denialists will be talking about how he caved into Jo Abess as if it’s proven beyond all doubt for a very long time.
April 14, 2008 at 2:28 pm
Yup
April 14, 2008 at 9:58 pm
I’ve been following these blog posts, and the comments, and I believe you are continuing to be disingenuous in your comments. You are still maintaining, in the face of nothing but evidence to the contrary, that the journalist changed his story because of pressure from the reader. The journalist changed the story because it was inaccurate. You seemingly can’t accept that it really is this simple — Roger Harrabin can admit he was wrong, as all good journalists should. And as you should, in this case.
You also continue to repeat the claim that the BBC reported that there has been “no global warming since 1998″. That is a willful mis-reading of the facts. 1998 was what they call an ‘outlier’: an unusually hot year within a pattern of increasing temperatures. 2005 and 2007 were similarly hot, but didn’t break the 1998 record by fractions of a degree. You saw the graph someone linked to, and commented on how enlightening the information was. Why then continue to spread this poor reading of the facts? You are being intellectually dishonest.
April 15, 2008 at 4:30 pm
terence: What is a “denialist”?
[Poneke says: Anyone who questions even the most extreme claims of the global warming activists
Poneke: So it's not a pejorative then? Where does the "denial" bit fit into this?
Cheers
[Poneke says: Yes of course it is a perjorative. Global warming activists deliberately use the word "denier" to liken a sceptic to a Holocaust denier.]
April 15, 2008 at 7:45 pm
“[Poneke says: Yes of course it is a perjorative. Global warming activists deliberately use the word "denier" to liken a sceptic to a Holocaust denier.]”
Untrue, An “alarmist” is someone who has an exaggrerated belief in the dangers of a threat, a “denialist” is someone who denys the danger or existence of the threat.
Poneke, just because it suits your agenda to try to tar people who use the term “denier” with likening it to Holocaust denialism doesn’t make it so.
You like the term “skeptic”, but in science those sceptical of a new theory base their scepticism on established theory. There is no established scientific theory that disputes AGW, in fact AGW is the established theory, it’s been around for over a hundred years, the “sceptics” only have an ideological - not a scientific - basis for their “scepticism”.
Poneke, you claim that a denialist is “Anyone who questions even the most extreme claims of the global warming activists”, by that definition I’m a denialist, so is Jim Hansen, and so are the team at Realclimate.
The “most extreme claims” made by “global warming activists” eg. Jim Lovelock, are that soon only the poles of this planet will be habitable, and there are few who accept that.
April 15, 2008 at 8:29 pm
OK so “denialist” is a pejorative. This means then that global warming activists who use the term are trying to discredit and/or insult people who disagree with them about AGW - presumably because they are incapable of mounting a proper argument based on the facts or the science. They have lost the argument and by the use of that offensive term they are demonstrating that failure to everyone who sees it. Not only is the debate not over - it is only just getting into top gear. We live in interesting times.
April 16, 2008 at 10:11 pm
Poneke: “Global warming activists deliberately use the word “denier” to liken a sceptic to a Holocaust denier.”
Sceptics who honestly doubt global warming are not equivalent to Holocaust deniers. (However, ‘denialist’ is an equivalent pejorative to ‘alarmist’. If sceptics are happy to use alarmist, they should be prepared to accept denialist.)
But name-calling is not the preserve of the global warming side. Many on the sceptical side have their favourite epithets, as in the standard mantra that AGW is a ‘hoax, fraud and swindle’.
The claim of hoax, fraud and swindle is supported by claims of a massive, worldwide conspiracy by a sinister group of vested interests and fellow travellers whose goal is the accumulation of immense wealth and power at the expense of their fellow human beings. Further, that these sinister characters will stop at nothing to lie, cheat and steal to achieve their goal of world domination.
It doesn’t take a climate scientist to see the similarities between this worldview and Holocaust denial. AGW is Even the epithets are the same. The major difference, of course, is that the Holocaust is historical fact, while AGW is still a contested theory, albeit one that is well supported by the evidence.
However, this difference is one of degree rather than of kind. What the two claims share is the use of science as a cover to advance certain political and ideological beliefs.
April 19, 2008 at 5:05 pm
Brendan said: “…AGW is still a contested theory, albeit one that is well supported by the evidence.”
It’s not a theory, it’s an hypothesis. To qualify as a theory, it would have to have been subjected to independent, properly controlled experimentation and measurement. If the results of such independent testing tended to clearly support the hypothesis on a number of occasions and nothing clearly falsified it, then it should qualify as a theory. AGW hasn’t so it isn’t (a theory).
This is not just semantics. This is the basis of all proper science.
Brendan may believe that AGW is a theory that is well supported by the evidence, but scientists do not. Not even those of the IPCC.
April 19, 2008 at 7:39 pm
Leaving aside the other significant impacts (aerosols/CFCs/Land usage changes)…
The theory that increased atmospheric concentrations of CO2 is a THEORY.
It is NOT a hypothesis.
To quote from Wikipedia:
“A theory is a logically self-consistent model or framework for describing the behavior of a related set of natural or social phenomena. It originates from or is supported by experimental evidence (see scientific method). In this sense, a theory is a systematic and formalized expression of all previous observations, and is predictive, logical, and testable.”
The theory that CO2 will cause warming is due to it’s trapping of outgoing longwave radiation(OLR), this has been observed as shown in papers such as Griggs, J.A. and J.E. Harries, 2007, Comparison of Spectrally Resolved Outgoing Longwave Radiation over the Tropical Pacific between 1970 and 2003…” Journal of Climate.
This small initial warming due to trapping of energy that the planet would otherwise lose is then amplified by increased water vapour due to the temperature dependency of saturation humidity as given by the Clausius Clapeyron relationship. That is not a special issue for CO2 driven warming, it’s an implicit amplifier of any factor changing global average temperature, such as plinean volcanic eruptions or changes in solar irradiance.
AGW makes predictions with regards climate, climate is a 30 year average of weather conditions (WMO):
1) The levels above the effective radiating layer should cool - observed and ongoing (read the peer reviewed science - not JunkScience et al). The mesosphere continues to cool.
2) Warming should continue as CO2 levels go up - observed and ongoing. If you think the current cooling blip refutes that, check out the hemispheric detail. The Northern hemisphere warming continues unabated, the cooling is apparent in the Southern Ocean, and since May last year, the Pacific (La Nina).
3) Diurnal range should increase - observed. The apparent reduction of this trend is best explained with reference to Martin Wild’s work on BSRN (a reduction in aerosols has lead to an increase in surface warming during the day - so that’s caught up with the increased night time rate).
So that’s 3 out of 3. Impressive for any theory!
The real consensus is in the scientific literature, and that is crushing. Jack’s claim that scientists do not see AGW as well supported by evidence is utterly without foundation.
By the way, as a former “sceptic” I don’t see any sceptics of AGW, just denialists. I use that term because they’re in denial of reality, it’s got nothing to do with history. And after some years arguing with such denial, I’ve come to the conclusion that the best way to deal with unreasoning denial is to let the ongoing physical process attend to their doubts.
So this’ll be a “drive by” as I’m far too busy following the Arctic - awesome!
(FYI - I found this blog via News24 Newswatch & Google).
April 20, 2008 at 10:22 am
Jack: “To qualify as a theory, it would have to have been subjected to independent, properly controlled experimentation and measurement.”
Like evolutionary theory, AGW is an overarching framework that attempts to explain various observed phenomena. It comprises a number of components, many of which are already established theories in climate science. To date, AGW theory best explains the observed evidence.
“…may believe that AGW is a theory that is well supported by the evidence, but scientists do not. Not even those of the IPCC.”
The IPCC Fourth Assessment report has this to say: “Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic GHG concentrations.”
(Emphasis in original.)
April 20, 2008 at 7:51 pm
One of the most damning pieces of evidence against the dangerous man-made global warming hypothesis, is the fact that, according to Vostok ice-core studies, CO2 concentration increases several hundred years after the atmosphere warms. There seems to be a very strong link between CO2 concentration and atmospheric temperature and the record confirms this time after time. However, it is the higher temperatures that cause the higher CO2 concentrations, not the other way around. To claim otherwise is akin to saying “lung cancer causes smoking”. Incredibly, it is the latter, preposterous logic that is the basis of dangerous CO2 global warming orthodoxy. This is exactly what Al Gore uses in his infamous propaganda piece “An Inconvenient Truth”. You need to look hard at his graph to see which comes first, but is there for anyone to see. What delicious irony and how fitting for the biggest con-artist of them all.
Then there is this:
Climate scientists at the University of Rochester, the University of Alabama, and the University of Virginia report that observed patterns of temperature changes (‘fingerprints’) over the last thirty years are not in accord with what greenhouse models predict and can better be explained by natural factors, such as solar variability. Therefore, climate change is ‘unstoppable’ and cannot be affected or modified by controlling the emission of greenhouse gases, such as CO2, as is proposed in current legislation.
These results are in conflict with the conclusions of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and also with some recent research publications based on essentially the same data. However, they are supported by the results of the US-sponsored Climate Change Science Program (CCSP).
The report is published in the December 2007 issue of the International Journal of Climatology of the Royal Meteorological Society [DOI: 10.1002/joc.1651]. The authors are Prof. David H. Douglass (Univ. of Rochester), Prof. John R. Christy (Univ. of Alabama), Benjamin D. Pearson (graduate student), and Prof. S. Fred Singer (Univ. of Virginia).
The fundamental question is whether the observed warming is natural or anthropogenic (human-caused). Lead author David Douglass said: “The observed pattern of warming, comparing surface and atmospheric temperature trends, does not show the characteristic fingerprint associated with greenhouse warming. The inescapable conclusion is that the human contribution is not significant and that observed increases in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases make only a negligible contribution to climate warming.”
Co-author John Christy said: “Satellite data and independent balloon data agree that atmospheric warming trends do not exceed those of the surface. Greenhouse models, on the other hand, demand that atmospheric trend values be 2-3 times greater. We have good reason, therefore, to believe that current climate models greatly overestimate the effects of greenhouse gases. Satellite observations suggest that GH models ignore negative feedbacks, produced by clouds and by water vapor, that diminish the warming effects of carbon dioxide.”
Co-author S. Fred Singer said: “The current warming trend is simply part of a natural cycle of climate warming and cooling that has been seen in ice cores, deep-sea sediments, stalagmites, etc., and published in hundreds of papers in peer-reviewed journals. The mechanism for producing such cyclical climate changes is still under discussion; but they are most likely caused by variations in the solar wind and associated magnetic fields that affect the flux of cosmic rays incident on the earth’s atmosphere. In turn, such cosmic rays are believed to influence cloudiness and thereby control the amount of sunlight reaching the earth’s surface and thus the climate.” Our research demonstrates that the ongoing rise of atmospheric CO2 has only a minor influence on climate change. We must conclude, therefore, that attempts to control CO2 emissions are ineffective and pointless. – but very costly.
Now on the web at http://science-sepp.blogspot.com/2007/12/press-release-dec-10-2007.html
The hoax exposed - again. There are none so blind as those who will not see.
April 21, 2008 at 11:43 am
Jack, Regarding warming preceeds CO2 increase:
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/dn11659
SEPP is Fred Singers blog, that particular paper didn’t even get as far as the presentation, which was cancelled, before it was withdrawn because of errors. Presumably Fred keeps the summary up on his blog for the benefit of naive denialists.
“To claim otherwise is akin to saying “lung cancer causes smoking”.”
Ironically Singer was a tobacco industry lobbiest who argued for years that there was no link between smoking and lung cancer.
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