Sunday, 17 November 2013

SpotlightON – The Philippines, BBC “Question Time” and CACC

INTRODUCTION


On 15th November 2013 that staunch supporter of the Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Change (CACC) hypothesis, the Guardian, posted an article “Japan under fire for scaling back plans to cut greenhouse gases” (http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2013/nov/15/japan-scaling-back-cut-greenhouse-gases). It began with a picture of the Philippines negotiator Naderev Sano at the UN's climate change talks in Warsaw, Poland beneath which it says that he has begun a fast to protest against inaction on global warming, which he blames for Typhoon Haiyan (known locally as Typhoon Yolanda).

 One relevant piece of information missing from all of the reports trying to link the Typhoon Haiyan catastrophe in the Philippines with CACC is that there was a similar catastrophe in the Philippines which killed an estimated 7000 people 116 years ago (Appendix A, Note 9)

Blaming natural weather events like this on our use of fossil fuels is a favourite trick of those who support the UN in its attempts to redistribute wealth from richer to poorer nations. This appears to be one of the main objectives of all of the UN’s propaganda about our use of fossil fuels leading to CACC. Propagandists will use anything that they can in order to promote their agenda but any CACC supporters using a catastrophe such as Typhoon Haiyan simply to promote their own agenda should hang their heads in shame. It is to be expected that leaders of less developed nations, eager to get their hands on as much money as they can from the richer developed nations, would give their unreserved support to the CACC propaganda. They have had their hands outstretched throughout each of the the UN’s Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC) Climate Change Conference of the Parties. The COP19 shindig is no different – Appendix A, Note 1).

What any of this has to do with the BBCs “Question Time” program should become clear later.

QUESTION TIME – 14TH NOVEMBER


The BBC’s 14th Nov. 2013 Question Time program took place in Portsmouth and is available on BBC iPlayer (http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03hztph/Question_Time_14_11_2013/). The web-page begins with “David Dimbleby presents debate from Portsmouth where shipbuilding is about to end”. Unsurprisingly David Dimbleby started the program with a mention of the consequent loss of jobs then went on to introduce the panellists:
- Ed Davey, Liberal Democrat Energy Secretary (Appendix A, Note 2),
- Stella Creasy, Labour Shadow Competition Minister (Appendix A, Note 3),
- Nigel Lawson, Margaret Thatcher’s former Chancellor of the Exchequer (Appendix A, Note 4),
- Paul Kenny, Leader of the GNB, the main union in the shipyards, (Appendix A, Note 5)
- Nikki King, Managing Director of Isuzu Trucks (appendix A, Note 6).

The selection of Paul Kenny as a panellist is unsurprising considering the involvement of the GNB union in the activities of workers affected by recent decisions about Portsmouth’s shipbuilding industry. On the other hand the selection of the other panel members might appear rather puzzling to viewers until just over half way through the program. Unsurprisingly the first 35 minutes of discussion in this 58 minute long program was related to shipyard jobs, the MoD and the recent trial of a Royal marine on a murder charge. Unexpectedly the next 25 minutes was devoted to debating the CACC variety of climate change, energy and sustainability. 

 This was kicked off by a question from one Simon Frost (see Appendix A, Note 7 for details) who asked if Typhoon Haiyan provided further evidence of anthropogenic climate change and what can humans do to reduce the risk of further disasters. That was quite a switch of topic from shipbuilding in Portsmouth. How fortuitous that two panellists, ex-politician Nigel Lawson (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/10340408/Climate-change-this-is-not-science-its-mumbo-jumbo.html) and politician Ed Davy, have a keen involvement in the CACC issue. Also, another panellist, politician Stella Creasy, has expressed strong views about the issue. 

Perhaps the presence of those three panel members was not just a coincidence but was deliberately orchestrated by those within the BBC who support the CACC propaganda. After all, until quite recently when covering items related to climate change and environmental pollution the BBC took every opportunity to display pictures of cooling towers pouring out that essential, life-supporting substance water!

The BBC claims that the "Question Time" panellists have no prior knowledge of the questions to be put by members of the audience but one has to question why Simon Frost was chosen to put his particular question to this particular panel at this particular time. Was it merely a coincidence that the UN’s annual CACC shindig (Appendix A, Note 1) was taking place in Warsaw? – that appears to be most unlikely! The BBC is renowned for taking every opportunity to support the CACC propaganda through its biased reporting (see Appendix B - BBC, BIAS and CACC).

The discussion that followed Simon Frost's question went along the following lines, with a partial transcript being presented in Appendix C. .

 Nigel Lawson rejected any connection between Typhoon Haiyan and climate change, arguing that there has been no increase in the strength of the tropical storms for the past 100 years. Contrary to predictions of more hurricanes for 30 years or more the Atlantic hurricane season this year has been the quietest within living memory. Even the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) acknowledges that there is no connection between climate change and tropical storms of all kinds. It is a scare having absolutely no scientific or statistical merit, there having been no increase in extreme weather events at all.

Ed Davy agreed with Nigel Lawson about there being no evidence of climate change increasing the frequency of tropical storms but claimed evidence of increasing impact of such storms because sea levels are rising. He opined that with sea levels rising because of climate change, ice caps and glaciers melting, the real danger was that islands as in the Philippines and low-lying coastal areas are far more vulnerable to these storms than they ever used to be. He claimed that these disasters are on a scale that we’ve never seen before which is why we have to take climate change extremely seriously (however, see Appendix A, Note 9).
He wants the UK to lead the world by making sure that we are taking measures like investing in renewables, low-carbon or energy efficiency. Next week he is going to the COP19 talks in Warsaw working towards signing a global deal in 2015. All the evidence says it’s more urgent than ever before and he hoped that Nigel Lawson would look at the evidence from the IPCC and realise that the world has to take action on climate change.

Nikki King admitted that she found it all very confusing because of conflicting messages, one minute being told to save her rubbish and the next minute that it all goes into the same landfill site. One minute she is being told that if she doesn’t save the planet it’s going to die in 20 years and somebody else says no, it is just the natural life of the planet. She wishes that somebody would tell her exactly what’s going on so that she could make a decision. She mentioned being in the truck business and the motor industry being one that has done an lot to clean its act enormously and exemplified Calcutta, where the air coming out of the exhaust pipe of one of her trucks is cleaner than the air going in. She also referred to the thousands of ageing vehicles polluting the air there and questioned what Europe can do when there is so much of the rest of the world that needs to come up to speed (but see Appendix A, Note 10).

Stella Creasy invited Nigel Lawson to take up the offer made by the Philippine delegate (Appendix A, Note 8) to the UN’s climate change conference in Warsaw (Appendix A, Note 1), referring to his impassioned speech about there being a connection. She referred to the scientific evidence showing that there is a 95% chance that climate change is man-made and agreed on the need for public policy debate about how to deal with that kind of risk ratio. She considers that 95% is a pretty good basis to start thinking about what can be done to address climate change. She commented about our responsibilities about creating a more sustainable way of living and doesn’t want to take the risk when there is 95% independent evidence. She suggested that Nigel Lawson offers opinions as opposed to facts, ignoring the fact that climate change is happening. She recommended that those who prefer to ignore it, believing that somehow we can make it go away should go and talk to some of the people in the Philippines from whom they might hear a very different story.

Nigel Lawson argued that Stella Creasy was very confused, repeated that there is no connection between global warming and the hurricanes and typhoons, including this terrible one in the Philippines, a fact accepted by the IPCC and a great majority of scientists. They are saying  that they are 95% certain that of the amount of global warming that there has been is largely due to carbon emissions but in fact there has been very little global warming. The fact is that there has been none at all over the past 15 years, as admitted by the UK’s Met Office (see Appendix A, Note 8).

Ed Davy reacted by claiming that every decade for the last two decades it has been getting warmer. This year is going to be the 7th warmest on record. It is not just global temperatures but also temperatures in the oceans, ice caps are melting, sea levels and acidity are rising. There is overwhelming evidence that climate change is happening - don’t believe politicians, believe the scientists. He argued that the IPCC has 259 scientists from 39 countries, received 50,000 comments on its report from peer review, the most peer-reviewed piece of science in human history.

At this stage David Dimbleby drew attention back to Nigel Lawson’s comment about no warming in 15 years.

Ed Davey argued that temperatures had not remained flat, rather the warming had been slowing down and that longer time periods have to be considered. He also alleged that the Global Warming Policy Foundation, which Nigel Lawson chairs, is trying to undermine the scientific consensus on climate change. They use the 15 years period and say that climate change isn’t happening whereas the scientists say that over a short period of time they don’t expect temperatures to always go up. Over a longer time period temperatures are definitely going up and Nigel Lawson shouldn't choose his period.

David Dimbleby then asked Ed Davey to explain why he says that Nigel Lawson tries to undermine scientific opinion, which suggests there is some ulterior motive. He asked what Ed Davey thought Nigel Lawson’s motive is.

Ed Davey deflected that question to Nigel Lawson but commented that Nigel Lawson wrote a good book about it (http://www.amazon.co.uk/An-Appeal-Reason-Global-Warming/dp/0715638416), although he disagrees with most of what’s in it. He then went on to say that Nigel Lawson denies the evidence not only from the international scientific community but also from the UK’s current and previous Chief Scientists that there is a huge issue, with scientists telling us that we’ve got to take this seriously.

Paul Kenny mentioned the Ozone scare in the 1970s with everyone moving from hair sprays, getting rid of fridges, etc. He acknowledged not having the scientific knowledge of other colleague on the panel, however he sees evidence that ocean acidity is rising, it is man-made, the polar ice caps are melting, asking what should we do about it, how do we adapt, what energy should we use and how. Many car manufacturers took the decision to move to really low car emissions, dual fuel, because they recognised that this was the way the markets were going to be. We have to force other people to do that. In some senses it is just good business to lower our carbon emissions. It is good business to  take the view that there is global warming and adjust our types of energy and its use. He is still waiting for carbon capture, which has been talked about for years.

David Dimbleby asked if he was for or against adding a little to fuel bills in order to develop green and other sources of energy. Paul Kenny commented that he was more in favour of using some of the profits that the energy companies make instead of taking it out of the pockets of the consumers.

Opinions were then invited from members of the audience, with one making the sensible comment that he thought they were slightly missing the point. He opined that the people of the Philippines affected by Typhoon Haiyan struggling to survive were not going to be talking about carbon tax and climate change but asking for help to build a house on proper foundations. Another member of the audience thought that green levies, etc. are just a drop in the ocean when you compare it to other parts of Asia and China and so on where they are having massive more impact on climate change and CO2 emissions.

Nigel Lawson considered that the whole unworkable policy which Ed Davey is promoting is immoral. The Philippines people want is to rebuild their country, get richer because they are poor, exacerbated by being the fastest growing population in the world (Appendix A, Note 9). He predicted that there would be no global agreement at COP{19 or in 2015. There was none in Copenhagen (COP15 in 2009). He explained his point about immorality by saying the reason why the world uses fossil fuel is that it’s far and away the cheapest form of energy and will be for the foreseeable future. Moving away from that meant moving to more expensive energy, which is causing enough problem in this country. The developing nations such as China are quite rightly not going to accept that. The increase in Chinese emissions in one year is bigger than the total emissions from the UK, so what we do is neither here nor there without this global agreement. The positive immorality is inhibiting their economic development by getting them to use expensive energy instead of cheaper energy. Hundreds of millions of people in China, India and the developing world would be condemned to premature death, unnecessary disease, unnecessary poverty and destitution. Economic growth will solve the problems in the Philippines and elsewhere and that means using the cheapest forms of energy.

Ed Davey countered that the developed world needs to make the biggest cut in carbon emissions and help the developing, poorer countries get a cleaner form of development than we had. China is investing more in low-carbon technology than any other country in the world. It has woken up to the problems of pollution and climate change and the appalling air pollution in places like Beijing (Appendix A, Note 10).

Nigel Lawson interjected that air pollution has nothing to do with climate change, to which Ed Davey responded was not what the Chinese think. They are tackling this seriously, now talking about what they call an ecological civilisation, pushing green growth in order to try and change their whole growth model so that it doesn’t damage the air, environment and climate. China, the USA and other countries are moving fast to try to reduce the carbon emissions which is why he thinks there will be a desperately needed global deal. We need to make sure that we enable our and developing economies to grow.

Nikki King commented that in her industry the Chinese are working on low-emission technology to sell to the rest of the world but mentioned that this is not actually happening in the remote villages and townships in China.

Nigel Lawson pointed out that the Chinese aim for electricity generation by 2020 is only 5% from wind and one half of 1% from solar. For several years they have been building about one coal-fired power station per month and are continuing with that and suggested (to loud applause) that Ed Davey was being taken for a ride.

Ed Davey responded that it is extremely exciting that the cost of solar has plummeted in recent years because China is manufacturing solar panels at a massive scale. He claimed that it is brilliant for villages in sub-Saharan Africa which can’t connect to the grid. They are going to have much cheaper power than some of the kerosene fossil fuels that they presently use, saving money, going green and benefiting their education and health facilities.

A materials scientist in the audience commented about being involved in developing materials that moved from CFCs etc. reducing greenhouse warming within the atmosphere. She opined that we had to reduce our need for fossil fuels, e.g. through greater efficiency. Following that comment the discussion turned to energy efficiency and preservation of resources, with David Dimbleby asking Stella Creasy if she agreed with Nigel Lawson on this. She commented that whether you think climate change is happening or not, being more efficient makes good business sense. She wants to see Britain leading in this because of all the jobs that will come from renewable energy and a different, more sustainable way of living because it is going to be better for our economy and better for Britain. She suggested that it was Nigel Lawson who is confused, thinking that we can carry on as we are now without there being any consequences. It is not just the people in the Philippines who are going to feel it but also those who have to deal with high levels of pollution (but see Appendix A, Note 10) or don’t get the jobs that could come from improved efficiency because we are not being able to compete with the Chinese who have the technology.

One member of the audience commented about the contribution made by farming of an enormous amount of greenhouse gases – sheep in New Zealand, cattle in America. She also considered that it is incredibly arrogant of human beings to think that there’s anything we can do that will destroy the planet, which would just have enough and say goodbye to us. Another member of the audience suggested that using renewable energy is also about energy security so we’re not affected by a new Gulf war cutting off all supplies. He also suggested that renewable energy is probably more stable in terms of its cost, as opposed to the volatility of oil prices.

The debate was then thrown open to anyone in the audience who agreed with Nigel Lawson about climate change. One member reflected on the ice cap in the Antarctic being as big as it’s ever been. He also mentioned that since the Big Bang the planet has been going in and out of cold, hot, wet, dry. Cleaning up the air is a great idea, renewables are a great idea but its arrogant to think that we can do anything to change the world. Stella Creasy suggested that if the scientists tell us though that there is a 95% possibility that we are responsible, it is right to look at what we can do to limit the damage.

After another member of the audience commented about Portsmouth being a coastal city so why take the risk David Dimbleby thankfully brought the debate to a close.

APPENDIX A – Notes


1) The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC) 19th Climate Change Conference of the Parties on Climate Change (COP19) started in Warsaw on 11th November 2013 (http://www.cop19.gov.pl/). This years annual shindig has attracted over 10,000 delegates from around the globe – for what? The prime objective of the developing economies represented at COP19 appears to be to get agreement and commitment from the developed economies to hand over money to them using the argument that our use of fossil fuels is causing catastrophic weather events like Typhoon Haiyan.

It looks less and less likely that they will achieve that objective. The Global Warming Policy Foundation’s bulletin of 21st November 2013 drew attention to the reluctance of developed economies to sign any such agreement, linking to an article in The Times “Britain rejects demands for climate disaster compensation ” which reported “ .. Britain sent a blunt message to developing countries yesterday that it would not give in to their demands for compensation for weather-related disasters, which, many scientists say, climate change has worsened. A group of 130 countries, including China, India and Brazil, are demanding that a new UN institution be created to measure “loss and damage” from storms, such as the typhoon in the Philippines that killed several thousand and destroyed or damaged more than 700,000 homes. Ed Davey, the Energy and Climate Change Secretary, said while countries such as the Philippines could expect help adapting to climate change, they would not get compensation for their losses. Speaking at the annual UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Warsaw, he said: “We don’t accept the argument on compensation. We never have and we are not intending to start now.” A British official said that it would be impossible to calculate how much storm damage was caused by man-made climate change, even if one accepted that there was a link ..  ” (http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/environment/article3927261.ece).

On the 21st November 2013 the Mail Online had a related article “Cut the green crap! Cameron reveals his private view of energy taxation and orders ministers to dump the eco-charges adding £110-a-year to bills” which it notes “ .. May 2010: 'We will be the greenest government ever' November 2013: 'We’ve got to get rid of all this green crap' - Prime Minister David Cameron .. ” (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2510936/Cut-green-c-p-Camerons-private-view-energy-taxation-horrify-environmental-campaigners.html). David Cameron’s pep-talk in 2010 to DECC employees can be seen at http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/may/14/cameron-wants-greenest-government-ever.

2) Ed Davy is the Liberal Democrat MP for Kingston and Surbiton and was appointed Secretary of State for Energy & Climate Change in February 2012. He was educated at Nottingham High School and Jesus College, Oxford, where he studied politics, philosophy and economics (https://www.gov.uk/government/people/edward-davey). 

CACC-sceptic Andrew Montford ran a short article on this under the title “Who is briefing Davey?” (http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2013/11/15/who-is-briefing-davey.html) and there were some interesting comments made afterwards.

3) Stella Creasy was elected as the Labour and Co-operative MP for Walthamstow in May 2010. Prior to that she was the Head of Campaigns at the Scout Association (http://www.workingforwalthamstow.org.uk/about-stella-creasy-mp/). She joined the Shadow Cabinet in October 2013 as a member of Labour’s BIS team. 
She studied psychology at the University of Cambridge, going on to gain a PhD from the London School of Economics and has said that climate change is the biggest progressive issue facing the world in the next 10 or 20 years .. ” (http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2009/aug/03/stella-creasy-labour). She recently wrote that “ .. The world that produced climate change is also one developing house paint that generates solar power .. ” (http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/09/bright-side-manifesto-why-labour-must-be-optimistic).

4) Nigel Lawson, Chairman of the trustees of the Global Warming Policy Foundation which he co-founded in 2009 (http://www.thegwpf.org/who-we-are/), is highly sceptical of the CACC hypothesis and scathing of the UN’s IPCC (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/10340408/Climate-change-this-is-not-science-its-mumbo-jumbo.html).

5) Paul Kenny, General Secretary of the GNB since November 2010, appears not to have strong views on the CACC issue.

6) Nikki King is Managing Director of Isuzu Trucks (http://www.isuzutruck.co.uk/contact.asp - see also http://www.gransnet.com/webchats/nikki-king).

7) Simon Frost is CEO of Parity Trust (http://www.paritytrust.org.uk/) which was “ .. Formerly known as South Coast Moneyline, Parity Trust is the new trading name of the Portsmouth Area Regeneration Trust .. ” (http://www.hampshirechamber.co.uk/docs/October%20Chamber%20p1-28.pdf - Oct. 2011). In his 15th November 2013 article Simon Frost talked about how “ .. Last night, I was fortunate to obtain a ticket for the recording of the BBC Question Time programme and indeed later on was even luckier to put a question to the panel! .. One of the questions I didn't get a chance to put to the panel was whether now is the right time to ask whether we need a new business model for shipbuilding .. ” (http://www.paritytrust.org.uk/simons-blog/item/social-enterprise-model-for-shipbuilding?category_id=50). The question that springs immediately to mind is why Simon Frost chose to put his question about CACC rather than the more obvious on-topic one about shipbuilding. Was he planted in the audience by the BBC and prompted to ask only about CACC?

The venue and panel for each “Question Time” program must be chosen well ahead of the event yet Typhoon Haiyan hit the Philippines on the 9th November, only 5 days before this one took place. How convenient for the BBC that with such short notice they were able to find someone who was prepared to attend the Portsmouth venue to ask specifically about it. It would be interesting to know more details of how Simon Frost came to be a member of the audience and whether there was any prompting from the BBC for him to ask this particular question.

 Simon Frost’s LinkedIN entry says that he is an “Experienced leader, focusing a business development and marketing, social enterprise .. ” with a Diploma in Health Services Management and an Advanced Certificate in Marketing (http://www.linkedin.com/pub/simon-frost/8/4a2/129). There is no mention of anything concerning climate change. His focus appears to be on the worthwhile business of lending money to asset-rich but cash-poor homeowners rather than on the futile mission of trying to stop global climate change.

Until he put his question about Typhoon Haiyan and climate change to the BBC’s “Question Time” panel the only climate that Simon Frost seems to have shown any significant interest in publicly is the economic one and its effect on the Parity Trust’s customers (e.g. see http://www.paritytrust.org.uk/news/latest-news/33-home-trust-loan-scheme-delivers-p15m-in-home-repair-finance). In his contribution to “Portsmouth Global Entrepreneurship Week 18th – 24th November 2013” (available via his LinkedIN page) he makes no mention of anything to do with climate change, the environment or natural weather events. On his Parity Trust blog there seems to have been only one reference to climate change, on 18th July 2013. On that occasion he simply said “ .. Quite a challenge for architects, especially with the impact of climate change thrown in! .. ” (http://www.paritytrust.org.uk/component/zoo/item/regenerating-homes-and-communities-is-rarely-an-easy-task-but-worthwhile#sthash.O7fbLNej.dpuf). He has shown an interest in energy efficiency and renewable energy, although it appears to be more from concern about fuel poverty that fighting climate change (http://www.paritytrust.org.uk/component/zoo/item/fuel-poverty-how-can-we-tackle-it).

Hopefully Simon Frost will make some time from his busy work schedule in order to enlighten us about his involvement on the BBC’s “Question Time” of 14th November 2013 and how he came to choose that particular question.

As Andrew Montford comments in his excellent booklet The Propaganda Bureau “ .. I don't know about you but I smell fish .. "

8) It seems that the CACC propagandists use horrendous but natural weather events at each of the COP shindigs and any other opportunity. Typhoon Bopha that hit the Philippines last year was used at COP18 in 2012 (http://www.cop18.qa/en-us/News/SingleStory.aspx?ID=263). No doubt they would have used the horrific 12th October typhoon that hit the Philippines if it hadn’t occurred 116 years ago (see Note 9)! According to the UK’s Met Office Hadley Centre, at that time the global mean temperature is claimed to have been about 0.7C cooler than it now is.

That small amount of warming as we came out of the Little Ice Age seems to have had virtually no impact upon such catastrophes.

9) What were not mentioned during this debate and have had little mention elsewhere are similar Philippines catastrophes over a century ago.

One was in October 1897, reported in The Barrier Miner newspaper 3 months later under the headline “TYPHOON AND TIDAL WAVE IN THE PHILLIPINES 7000 Lives Lost .. ”.It reported on “ .. the fearful destruction wrought in the Phillipine Islands by the typhoon and tidal wave during October.  It is estimated that 400 Europeans and 6000 natives lost their lives, many being drowned by the rush of water, while others were killed by the violence of the wind. Several towns have been swept or blown away .. The hurricane reached Leyte on October 12, and striking Tacloban, the capital, with terrific force, reduced it to ruins in less than half an hour .. ” (http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/44204307?searchTerm=typhoon+phillipines&searchLimits).

The other was on Tuesday 26th October 1912 “ .. 15,000 persons were probably killed or wounded in a typhoon that swept the Philippines .. practically destroyed Tacloban, the capital of Leyte .. a population of 12,000 .. ” (http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045433/1912-11-30/ed-1/seq-1/#date1=1836&index=7&rows=20&words=Tacloban&searchType=basic&sequence=0&state=&date2=1922&proxtext=tacloban&y=-221&x=-1060&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1).

Both of these typhoons brought catastrophe to the same area of the Philippines (the island of Leyte) where Typhoon Haiyan caused such havoc on 9th November 2013 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhoon_Haiyan).

If the reconstruction of past atmospheric CO2 levels from air “trapped” in ice is to be believed then the level of atmospheric CO2 by the end of the 19th century had risen from about 280ppm to just under 290ppm (see Fig. 2 in “Ice cores, CO2 concentration, and climate” by Geerts and Linacre http://www-das.uwyo.edu/~geerts/cwx/notes/chap01/icecore.html). The level in 2013 is claimed to be just under 400ppm so that 1897 catastrophe in the Philippines could not have been a consequence of our use of fossil fuels. There weren’t a lot of cars, aeroplanes, electricity generating stations, etc. in those days!

Since that horrendous typhoon in 1898 the population of Tacloban has increased from 15,000 to over 200,000. The population of the Philippines has increased exponentially from an estimated 1Million to over 80 millions, with massive land use and cover change taking place. The population is projected to double again by 2050 (http://iopscience.iop.org/1755-1315/6/34/342025/pdf/1755-1315_6_34_342025.pdf). Perhaps the horrendous impact of Typhoon Haiyan had more to do with population growth and the attendant change of land use than with any imagined increase in sea levels since 1898. That is much more likely cause than it arising from our burgeoning use of fossil fuels causing melting ice caps, as the UN and its supporters would have us believe.

Since that horrendous typhoon in 1898 the population of Tacloban has increased from 15,000 to over 200,000. The population of the Philippines has increased exponentially from an estimated 1Million to over 80 millions, with massive land use and cover change taking place. The population is projected to double again by 2050 (http://iopscience.iop.org/1755-1315/6/34/342025/pdf/1755-1315_6_34_342025.pdf). Perhaps the horrendous impact of Typhoon Haiyan had more to do with population growth and the attendant change of land use than with any imagined increase in sea levels since 1898. That is much more likely cause than it arising from our burgeoning use of fossil fuels causing melting ice caps, as the UN and its supporters would have us believe.

Those 1897 and 1912 disasters have been reported on at least one other blog. On the 15th November 2013 article “A history of storms: 1900s newspaper reveals devastating Leyte typhoon” (http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/335673/scitech/science/a-history-of-storms-1900s-newspaper-reveals-devastating-leyte-typhoon).

 10) It has to be remembered that the "greenhouse gas" CO2 is NOT a pollutant but an essential, life-supporting substance without which there would be no life as we know it - see "Greening the Globe with CO2"  (http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/greening-the-globe.pdf).


APPENDIX B – The BBC, Bias and CACC


Allegations abound about the BBC’s bias in favour of the CACC hypothesis, with possibly the most damning publication on the issue being that presented in Andrew Montford’s booklet “The Propaganda Bureau” (http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Propaganda-Bureau-Andrew-Montford-ebook/dp/B00AOLF5GY).
Other sources can be found at:

In “The Propaganda Bureau” Andrew Montford reveals how the BBC allowed itself to be influenced by environmental activist organisations such as The Cambridge Media and Environment Programme (CMEP)* and the International Broadcasting Trust IBT** (http://www.ibt.org.uk/). He also highlights the extreme effort that the BBC is prepared to put into remaining opaque about its activities relating to climate change and environmental programming.

Background information relating to the BBCs activities which Andrew Montford’s put under the spotlight in that essay events can be found in:
- “Abusing public trust: BBC, CBC and “the (climate change) cause” by Hilary Ostrov, December 9, 2011 (http://hro001.wordpress.com/2011/12/09/abusing-public-trust-bbc-cbc-and-the-climate-change-cause/), 
- “Untrustworthy CBC blindly follows in “Auntie Beeb’s” footsteps” by Hilary Ostrov, December 4, 2012 (https://hro001.wordpress.com/2012/12/04/untrustworthy-cbc-blindly-follows-in-auntie-beebs-footsteps/) and 
- “Read this about TwentyEightGate (28Gate)” by Maurizio Morabito on 18th nov. 2012 (http://omnologos.com/read-this-about-twentyeightgate-28gate/).

* Although the CMEP appears reluctant to disclose much about itself others have managed to unearth a fair bit about it, e.g. see:
- “BBC, CMEP, CRU, UEA, WTF” (http://biasedbbc.org/blog/2012/11/14/bbc-cmep-cru-wtf/),
- “How The Green Lobby Changed BBC Policy - Blogger Reveals Secret 28 Who Greened The BBC” (http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/51041).
- “More about the Cambridge Media and Environment Programme” (https://citizenjoesmith.wordpress.com/2011/11/21/more-about-the-cambridge-media-and-environment-programme/).

** “ .. The IBT is a membership based organisation. Our members determine our strategy, mission and vision. They come from a range of organisations who work in issues related to development, the environment and human rights .. ” (http://www.ibt.org.uk/members/).
Member organisations include:
All of these are CACC-supporting organisations.

APPENDIX C – Transcript from 34:39 minutes


This appendix presents a transcript of the Question Time exchanges from the time when the questions on Typhoon Haiyan and climate change were put (http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03hztph/Question_Time_14_11_2013/).

At 34:39 minutes – Simon Frost, a member of the audience, asked “Is Typhoon Haiyan further evidence of mankind creating climate change and what can we do to reduce the risk of further disasters?”

At 34:55 minutes - response from Nigel Lawson “There’s no connection at all between this typhoon and climate change. If you look at tropical storms you will find that there has been no increase in the strength of the tropical storms for the past 100 years and indeed this year .. Typhoon Haiyan is terrible, appalling, but these things happen in the tropics. In the Atlantic hurricane season this year has been the quietest season in the Atlantic within living memory – the quietist, least, although they predicted there would be more, for 30 years or more. If you look at what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says, which is recognised as an authority on this, they say there is absolutely no connection between so-called climate change and tropical storms of all kinds. It is I’m afraid a scare which people latch onto but there is absolutely no scientific merit in it. There is no statistical merit in it. There has been no increase in extreme weather events at all and this is fact”.

At 36:20 minutes - Ed Davey said “I’m glad to see that Lord Lawson is praying the IPCC in aid. He doesn’t normally do that. But on the question, I think that he’s actually right that there is no evidence that climate change is increasing the frequency of tropical storms. What there is evidence of is its increasing the impact of the intensity of those storms and this is how it is doing it. Sea levels are rising. That’s a fact and I hope that Nigel Lawson will agree. And that is happening because of climate change, because the ice caps are melting, the glaciers are melting. That means, with higher sea levels, islands like they have in the Philippines archipelago and low-lying coastal areas are far more vulnerable to these storms than they ever used to be.
And that’s the real danger of climate change. It isn’t always that its increasing in extreme events, although the IPCC says in some cases it is, but it’s making these areas far more vulnerable and that’s why in these disasters are on a scale that we’ve never seen before. So that’s why we have to take climate change extremely seriously.
This country, we have to lead by making sure that we are taking the measures, whether its investing in renewables or low-carbon or energy efficiency. We have to lead in the world and next week I’m going to the global climate change talks in Warsaw to hopefully work towards signing a global deal in 2015. The world has got to take action. All the evidence says it’s more urgent than ever before and I hope Nigel, when he looks at the evidence now that is coming out from the IPCC, which he’s now quoting in favour of, which he doesn’t normally, I hope that he will now actually realise that the world has to take action on climate change”.

At 38:05 minutes – Nikki King said “It’s all so confusing. One minute I’m told I’ve got to save my rubbish and the next minute I’m told that it all goes into the same landfill site. One minute I’m being told that if I don’t save the planet it’s going to die in 20 years and somebody else says no, it is just the natural life of the planet. I wish that somebody would tell me exactly what’s going on and then I could make a decision. It is so so difficult, so, I find it very confusing. I have to say, I’m in the truck business. I think that you’ll probably agree that the motor industry probably has been the industry that has done an awful lot for climate change – cleaned its own act up enormously. We’re now in the position that one of my trucks parked in Calcutta – the air coming out of the exhaust pipe will be cleaner than the air going in. But when I look round in Calcutta you’ll see thousands and thousands of vehicles 10 years old, 15 years old, 20 years old, pouring god knows what into the air. I’m not quite sure what this little Europe can do when there is so much of the rest of the world that needs to come up to speed”.

At 39:22 minutes - Stella Creasy said “ .. Nigel, I hope that you’ll take up the offer made by the Philippino delegate to the climate change conference. I don’t know if people saw today his impassioned speech, that made a lot of people cry, about his view that there was a connection, but I take the scientific evidence. Let’s look at the scientific evidence and that shows that there is a 95% chance that climate change is man-made and absolutely that means that there is a 5% chance that it is not and it’s right that we have a public policy debate about how we deal with that kind of risk ratio. My sense is that 95% is a pretty good standard to start thinking about what we can do to address that because that gentleman was talking about trying to take dead relatives out of the rubble of the buildings and trying to deal with the consequences of this. We are not immune to our own responsibilities about the things that we can do to create a more sustainable way of living and I don’t want to take the risk that we might be in that 5% when 95% evidence, and it is independent scientific evidence Nikki. I’m afraid, sometimes when I hear you talk Nigel, I hear it’s where opinion meets fact and the fact is that climate change is happening. We have to find ways to address it. We have different debates about how we address it but the idea that we can ignore it, that somehow we can make it go away - well, I say just go and talk to some of the people in the Philippines. I think you’ll hear a very different story”.

At 40:40 minutes - Nigel Lawson responded with “I think that you are very confused, if I may say so. First of all there is no connection - and this is accepted by the IPCC and accepted by a great majority of scientists -  between global warming and the hurricanes and typhoons, including this terrible one in the Philippines which is of course particularly bad. As for the 95%, what they are saying is that they are 95% certain that of the amount of global warming that there has been is largely due to carbon emissions but in fact there has been very little global warming. There has been none at all over the past 15 years. This is a fact. Go to the Met Office. They admitted it. everybody who knows about this admits it. The amount of global warming is very little .. ”.

At 41:38 minutes - Ed Davey commented that “Every decade for the last two decades it has been getting warmer. This year is going to be the 7th warmest on record and it’s not just global temperatures. It’s temperatures in the oceans. It’s not just temperatures, it’s the ice caps that are melting. It’s not just the ice caps that are melting, it’s the sea levels. It’s not just the sea levels, it’s the acidity in the sea. There is a huge, overwhelming evidence that climate change is happening and don’t believe me as a politician, believe the scientists. The IPCC has 259 scientists from 39 countries. They had 50,000 comments from peer review. It was the most peer-reviewed piece of science in human history”.

At 42:26 minutes – after being brought back by David Dimbleby to the point made by Nigel Lawson about no warming during the past 15 years, Ed Davey said “ .. No, its been slowing down. It is not flat, it’s been slowing down. When we are talking about climate change we are talking about long periods. What the Global Warming Foundation which Nigel chairs, which is trying to undermine the scientific consensus on climate change, they take this 15 years and because the increase in global temperatures has been slowing down they say that climate change isn’t happening. When you ask the scientists they say that over a short period of time we don’t expect temperatures to always go up. If you take a longer time period temperatures are definitely going up. I’m afraid he chooses his period and he shouldn’t do that”.

At 43:12 minutes - David Dimbleby challenged Ed Davey with “Why do you say that Nigel tries to undermine scientific opinion. What do you think his motive is? Undermining suggests there is some ulterior motive”.

At 43:24 minutes - Ed Davey responded “Nigel will have to answer that. What Nigel does continually – he does it in a very open way – he writes a good book about it. It’s worth a read, I just disagree with most of what’s in it. What he does is he puts his argument but he denies, as far as I can see, the evidence from the international scientific community and it’s not just the international scientific community. The current Chief Scientist of Gt. Britain believes that there is a problem. The previous Chief Scientist in Britain thought there was a huge issue here and his predecessor as well. Scientists are telling us that we’ve got to take this seriously”.

At 44:11 minutes - another member of the audience asked “On the second part of the question, what are we going to do about it?”

At 44:26 minutes - Paul Kenny said “I remember in the 70s the scientists were telling us that the ozone layer was being depleted .. I remember it well. Everyone was going around changing from hair sprays and getting rid of fridges and all sorts of things, so the idea that this has not been a long long run-in to where we are now is frankly not an honest position. The acidity of the oceans is rising and it is man-made and the polar ice caps are melting. Now someone didn’t leave the fridge door open. I mean they’re absolutely melting. Now that’s the evidence that I see. I don’t have the scientific knowledge of other colleague on the panel but that’s what I see. So what we need to do about it is – this is where the argument comes in about how we have to adapt, what energy we use, how we use it. And Nikki is dead right, a lot of the car manufacturers took the decision to move to much lower car emissions, really low emissions. We now see dual fuel issues. This was because they recognised that this was the way the markets were going to be and that is what we’ve got to force other people to do. In some senses it is just good business to lower our carbon emissions. It is good business to actually take the view that there is global warming and adjust our energy use, our types of energy. We’ve been talking about carbon capture for years but I’m still waiting to see it”.

At 45:56 minutes - David Dimbleby asked “What about adding to fuel bills a bit for development of green and other sources of energy - are you in favour of that?”. 

At 46:02 minutes - Paul Kenny continued “I am actually, but I’m actually more in favour of actually using some of the profits that the energy companies make instead of taking it out of the pockets of the consumers”. – LOUD APPLAUSE!

Opinions were then invited from the audience, with one making the sensible comment 
At 46:56 minutes - “I think we are slightly missing the point here. If you went to the Philippines and asked the people affected by this what is the single most significant thing that we can do to perhaps help them and their family members to survive they’re not going to be saying carbon tax and climate change. They’re going to be saying – help me build a house on proper foundations. Its a structural argument. I think it’s a lot more complicated than that.

At 47:21 minutes – another member of the audience commented “I think that in answer to the question of what can we do about it, really doing things like green levies and so on is just a drop in the ocean when you compare it to other parts of Asia and China and so on where they are having massive more impact on climate change and CO2 emissions.

At 47:36 minutes - Nigel Lawson commented “I think the whole policy which Ed Davey is promoting is positively immoral. It’s not going to work fortunately but it is positively immoral. The gentleman half-way up the back there who said what the Philippines people want is to rebuild their country. They want to get richer because they are a poor country that’s been exacerbated by the huge growth in population, the fastest growing population in the world ... Ed is going to go to Warsaw next week to try to get a global agreement. He’s not going to get a global agreement in Poland .. He’s not going to get an agreement in 2015. They didn’t get one in Copenhagen .. I’ll tell you what the positively immorality is. The reason we use in the world carbon-based energy, fossil fuels, is that it’s far and away the cheapest form of energy and will be for the foreseeable future. Not forever, technology and science is wonderful, but for the foreseeable future it is. If you move away from that you are moving from cheaper energy to more expensive energy. It’s causing enough problem in this country. The developing world – China is not going to buy that, quite rightly too and China is very important. The increase in Chinese emissions in one year is bigger than the total emissions from the UK, so what we do is neither here nor there unless there is this global agreement. The immorality is this. If you are inhibiting their economic development by forcing them or persuading them to use expensive energy instead of cheaper energy, which they’re not going to do, but if you do then you are going to condemn hundreds of millions of people in China and India and in the developing world to premature death, unnecessary disease, unnecessary poverty and destitution. That is what you are doing if you get them to do that. It is positively immoral. Economic growth, which will take them off, which will solve the problems in the Philippines and elsewhere and that means using the cheapest forms of energy.

At 50:09 minutes - Ed Davey responded “Well, we are not doing that. What we are saying is that the developed world needs to make the biggest cut in carbon emissions and we need to help the developing, poorer countries get a cleaner form of development than we had and if you go to China. Let’s take China. China is investing more in low-carbon technology than any other country in the world. It has woken up to the problems of pollution and climate change and I’ll tell you why. I’ve just been to China and if you go to its big cities the air pollution in places like Beijing is dramatic. It’s appalling and the Chinese .. ”
(interjection by Nigel Lawson “That’s nothing to do with climate change. Pollution in the air has nothing to do with climate change”).
Ed Davey continued “That’s not what they think. What they are doing is that they are going to tackle this seriously. They are now talking about what they call an ecological civilisation. They are moving very hard and fast on green growth in order to try and change their whole growth model so that it doesn’t damage the air and the environment and the climate .. If you look at China and other countries, even if you look at America, if you look at what Obama is now doing with Secretary Kerry, they are moving fast to try to reduce the carbon emissions from the US. That’s why I think that we can get a global deal. We desperately need it and I think that we need to make sure that we enable our economies to grow and developing economies to grow too”.

At 51:37 minutes - Nikki King jumped in with “In my industry the Chinese are working on low-emission technology to sell to the rest of the world. It is not actually happening in the remote villages and townships in China”.

At 51:48 minutes - Nigel Lawson commented “The Chinese plan is that by 2020 – how much do you think of their energy, their electricity, will be generated by wind power? – only 5%. That’s in their plan. Solar – how much do you think is solar – 1 half of 1%. They have been building coal-fired power stations ..  at the rate of pretty well one a month for several years and they are continuing with that. These are not being built for decoration, they’re being built for use and they’re doing it – it’s happening – your being taken for a ride” (LOUD APPLAUSE).

At 52:42 minutes - Ed Davey responded with “There’s a big change happening. Let me give you the example of solar. What is extremely exciting is the cost of solar has plummeted in recent years because China is manufacturing solar panels at a massive scale. That is brilliant for villages in sub-Saharan Africa which can’t connect to the grid. They’re going to have power much cheaper than some of the kerosene fossil fuels that they presently use. They’re going to save money and go green and that’s going to be brilliant for their education facilities and their health facilities”.

At 53:20 minutes - a member of the audience commented “I’m a materials scientist and I’ve been involved in developing materials that moved from CFCs and HSAs(?) which improved carbon – reduces greenhouse warming within the atmosphere and I would say that what we really need to look at, whether we’ve got warming or not – and I do really believe it’s happening – is that we reduce our need for fossil fuels - resource efficiency. Nikki will have been developing her cars to have low wasting in her vehicles and parts that are efficient and that’s what we should do. We should invest in technology and innovation and do that and that’s what China are doing. They’re doing it as fast as we are because they know that is the way to go”. This attracted lots of head-nodding from panellist Ed Davey (along with grunting) and from Nikki King. 

Following that comment the discussion turned to energy efficiency and preservation of resources, with David Dimbleby asking Stella Creasy if she agreed with Nigel Lawson on this.

At 53:58 minutes - Stella Creasy commented that “Unusually for me I find myself agreeing with Ed for the very simple principle. We’ve got scarce resources. Why would we encourage profligate use. Whether you think climate change is happening or not, surely being more efficient with what we’ve got is what makes good business sense. And as I say, when the evidence is there that there is 95% likelihood that climate change is man-made, actually I want to see Britain leading in this. I want to see Britain leading because of all the jobs that will come from renewable energy, from all the jobs that will come from that different way of living. I don’t just want Nikki to recycle more, I want her to have a different, more sustainable way of living because it is going to be better for our economy and better for Britain. I’m sorry Nigel. You’re the one that’s confused who thinks that we can carry on as we are now without there being any consequences. Of course there are consequences and it is not just the people in the Philippines who are going to feel it. It’s the people on the roads in my community who have to deal with high levels of pollution or people who don’t get the jobs that could come because we are not being as efficient because we are not being able to compete with the Chinese because they’ve got the technology .. We’ve got to keep doing that. We can’t pretend that nothing is happening, as Nigel is”. 

At 55:08 minutes - a member of the audience commented “Everybody talks about emissions and industry. Farming accounts for an enormous amount of greenhouse gases – sheep in New Zealand, cattle in America. I remember learning all about it in Geography GCSE. And also I think it is incredibly arrogant of human beings to think that there’s anything we can do that will destroy the planet. I hope that we do make changes fast enough that we are still here in generations to come but also, if it goes too far, the planets just going to have enough and just say goodbye to us”.

At 55:57 minutes - another member of the audience commented “Using renewable energy is not just the right thing to do about climate change, it’s also about energy security so we’re not affected by a new Gulf war cutting off all supplies. Oil prices rose massively a few years ago and then fell whereas renewable energy is probably more stable in terms of its cost”.

The debate was then thrown open to anyone in the audience who agreed with Nigel Lawson about climate change.

At 56:30 minutes - “I agree totally. If you think that at the moment the ice cap in the Antarctic is as big as it’s ever been and the planet, since the Big Bang, has been going in and out of cold, hot, wet, dry. It does what it does .. ” - interjection by Stella Creasy “We’re not the dinosaurs sir. Do we want to be extinct?” - “ .. We’ve got no choice. If we want to be extinct we’ll be extinct. If the planet or the Sun or whatever – it will do what it does and we will have no influence .. ” – interjection by David Dimbleby “So you would take no action on any front” – “ .. All those things that you talk about are great but what we are doing is we’re confusing the bigger issue. We can’t affect the climate. We can’t affect the change. Cleaning up the air is a great idea, renewables are a great idea. None of that’s wrong. It’s just – as the lady points out – its arrogant to think that we can do anything to change the world”.

At 57:21 minutes -  Stella Creasy said “If the scientists are tell us though that there is a good possibility that we are responsible so we could do things that would limit the damage, isn’t it the right thing to do to look at what we can do to do that. It’s not just good business but its that 95% risk ratio. Isn’t it a good idea that if it is – if the scientists are telling us that we are 95% likely that man is responsible for climate change so ergo we can do something about it – why would we not?

At 57:53 minutes – another member of the audience commented “We are a coastal city here in Portsmouth. Why risk the city?”.

AT THIS POINT DAVID DIMBLEBY ENDED THE DEBATE

NB: A full verbatim transcript - without any timing details - is available on the "My Transcript Box" web-site (https://sites.google.com/site/mytranscriptbox/home/20131114_qt) and a less-readable transcript of the entire program at http://tvguide.lastown.com/bbc/preview/question-time/14-11-2013.html.

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