Saturday
Mar172012
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Black's Whitewash
BBC watchers might be interested in a new blog called Black's Whitewash, focusing on the activities of BH favourite, Richard Black.
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Reader Comments (47)
It can't be long until Private Eye does a Lookalike featuring Black and Michael Mann.
Not just Black and Mann, Rick.
I think we ought to be asking Ian Wilmut, of Dolly the Sheep fame, what else he has been up to in the last few years.
Unfortunately in the case of Private Eye, as I understand it Ian Hislop is good friends with George Monbiot and that's why Private Eye ignored Climategate as the editor believed the nothing to see here meme he got from Monbiot.
http://blackswhitewash.com/2012/03/14/richard-black-and-stakeholder-forum/
What is Richard and the BBC beimng nvolved with the one above!!
has gone totally native, imho
Very interested, thanks. A good one. I have a vision of a thousand terriers nipping at the heels of their chosen targets across the dismal, powerful, pervasive Church of CO2 Alarm. It is a house of many mansions, and although it is built on sand, it has nevertheless been turned into a huge, shambolic, ugly edifice that casts a shadow over us all. I have almost used up my daily ration of metaphors. Black's Whitewash promises to shine a light in and around the BBC Wing, and maybe dislodge a brick here, a lintel there, while carting away the odd bucketload of sand.
Thanks for the link I have never been to that blog before but will keep up with it now !
I note power of x or the pox has already dropped some pearls of wisdom on there LOL!
If you compare to the well-funded conspiracy blogs on the alarmist side like desmogblog, "Black's Whitewash" is way ahead on substantial evidence of conflicts of interest. Furthermore, the alarmist blogs concentrate on bit-part players, whereas Richard Black is right at the core of news coverage of climate. Christopher Booker's report last December for the GWPF will reveal how Black is consistently the source for the more extreme and lop-sided opinions emanating from an allegedly impartial institution.
http://thegwpf.org/gwpf-reports.html
Not as new as all that, your Grace. I've been visiting it for several years. It wasn't kept up to date very regularly and I was beginning to give up on it, although there has been considerable improvement of late.
Re: ManicBeancounter
Speaking of possible conflicts of interest. If it is the same person then Ms Philippa Catherine Drew CB MA is a director of Stakeholder Forum and also the Director of Global Issues, Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
Just noticed that Black's thermageddonism continues unabated: Climate 'tech fixes' urged for Arctic methane
There's even a new 'death spiral' graph of Arctic sea-ice volume, under which Black states: "Data for September suggests the Arctic Ocean could be free of sea ice in a few years". He is clearly going for broke.
Thanks for bringing this new blog to my attention Bishop. Collecting the evidence for BBC climate bias in one place will be a powerful new source of information for influencers everywhere. I can even suggest a blackwash anthem ...
Black is black
He wants his warming back
It's gray, it's gray
Since it went astray, Ooh-Ooh
What can he do
'Cause he...he...he.he.he ... he's feelin' blue
It's hard not to make ad hominem statements about people like Black -- there is absolutely nothing rational in what they say and all that is left are comments about their state of mind or intellect -- or lack there of.
Hi TerryS
Thanks for the link. However, conflicts of interest are more fundamental. For instance
- Climategate showed that peer review was carried out by interested parties. (check out the Hockey Stick Illusion)
- Carbon trading has had some dubious backers (Enron & Lehman).
- The many thousands of scientists, PR people etc. whose livelihoods and status is reliant on keeping the meme going.
Richard Black plays a key role in promoting the more extreme viewpoints, as well as denigrating the opponents and keeping newsworthy items out of the news.
Perhap's Black's Hogwash instead?
The warmists are getting desperate so they're trying two tactics. Black is upping the scare stakes. On another blog I have detected a serious attempt very cleverly to distort the basic physics.
The background is that if you look at the 1997 Trenberth-Kiehl diagram [ http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/papers/bams97/fig7.gif ], buried in it is the BIG LIE. The claimed 390 W/m^ IR radiation from the Earth's surface is the black body value for the average temperature of 15°C. To this is added convective heating of 26% of this level.
I trained as a process engineer. The claimed IR flux is baseless except for a black body in a vacuum. The real flux warming the atmosphere is 26 W/m^2 [66 - 40 through the atmospheric 'window']. So, they have arbitrarily magnified GHG warming by a factor of 13.5!
The argument I received was from 'authority': 'The physics is more complex than you think, but I can't tell you.'. Well, I have measured heat transfer in metallurgical plants and have made pyrometers of various types to replace the contact Land pyrometer we used to use. My phyysics is always tested by experiment.
We are dealing with a very dangerous conspiracy. The basic science has been corrupted for political reasons and many people have participated in this despite being high level scientists. Black is a pawn.
Just compared mug shots of Richard Black:
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/58415000/jpg/_58415195_123bf0f0-9cea-413f-b206-0aaa38d12c4a.jpg
and Michael Mann:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c2/Mann4.jpg/200px-Mann4.jpg
Might Richard Black be the CAGW equivalent of Dolly the Sheep?
The 2008 update to the above diagram shows a ratio of imaginary to real warming of the atmosphere of 15.3 [353/23].
Yes, sadly Private Eye's supine non-reaction to CAGW alarmism is one of several huge black holes in its coverage and black marks against its reputation. Since I started reading blogs Private Eye has seemed more and more out of touch, missing elephants in the room and fixating on the same Westminster/media bubble as the rest of the press. They have the same agenda but just make different scribbles in the margins.
Private Eye needs a broader view and an injection of adrenaline but unfortunately it's not going to get it while Hislop is there.
I've been reading PE since I was a teenager and still subscribe as it's very cheap but it goes unread for longer and longer by the issue and eventually I'm not going to bother at all.
@artwest
I used to subscribe to private eye but after 20 years as a reader junked it after CG1 or thereabouts. The, as you say, elephant in the room was studiously ignored and the magazine's bizarre decision not to cover one of the big scandals of the day was the final straw for me.
It's become increasingly irrelevant in the age of the blog anyway.
Thanks for the leg-up Bish. Not that new, but I decided to up the activity. Especially as something so juicy, so wonderful, has fallen into my computer, totally through chance, that will have Richard and his pals at Stakeholder Forum wriggling uncomfortably. Will sit on that though, as it's a few months yet until the Rio party....
Am totally against personalized anti-blogging. Usually behind it one finds strange nerds with personality issues. I remember once reading the garbage that is the anti-Curry site, something I'd rather be able to unsee if only I could.
As for PE I stopped my subscription around 3 years ago. It's always the same news and they wouldn't mention any climate-related scandal of any sort. Joke's got boring.
@richard black
i hope you didn't obtain infomation by impersonating a member of the bbc
@richard black: I hope you will publicise the numerous engineering reports that above a fairly low penetration level [wind energy/demand], ALL fossil-fuelled standby systems rapidly lose efficiency as the standby turbines start to hunt around the set point. These reports come from Ireland, Holland, Germany, Australia, Texas, Colorado and Denmark, but the latter hide it.
Here are Irish raw data: http://www.clepair.net/IerlandUdo.html
Figure 7 shows that at 30% penetration. CO2/kWhr has increased by ~35%. In other words, in the absence of intermediate storage, wind energy is negatively green above about ~10% penetration. The Germans are so desperate now Poland has stropped them dumping surges into the Polish grid, they are planning to convert Norwegian hydro to pump storage. The Danes have limited their wind penetration to <10% by dumping to hydro since 2004 but have kept quiet about it to keep wind turbine sales alive. Windmills are not a solution.
Phillipa Drew had special responsibilities for climate change at the Foreign Office - but retired in 2006.
She''s one of the Civil Service "great & good" who's cropped up over the years in all sorts of powerful positions - I believe she ran the prison service at one time.
She seems to be one of those "posh lefties" in the Harman and Benn mould who workout a lifetime of upper class guilt by inflicting their version of "progressive thinking" on the rest of us.
I found a speech she gave at her old Oxford college (preceded there by her great auntie natch) which gives a few clues to her wordview:-
www.st-annes.ox.ac.uk/.../Founders_Dinner_speech_PDrew_12_02_...
in the 1980s when I worked in the Prison Service we faced a serious
problem of racism - for example we found golliwogs in the offices of prison
officers on the wings
the line between protecting the liberty of the individual and protecting the public from terrorism gradually gets drawn further and further towards protecting the public, while the individual’s liberty is eroded.
..... and of course, last but not least.....
If we are to avoid or mitigate the effects of climate change we all have to change our lifestyles. We should drive and fly less, probably pay more for a lot of things, not
least our food. So we will be the losers today. But the gainers (i.e. those who
won’t suffer the ill effects of climate change because of the action we have taken)
either don’t have the vote yet or aren’t yet born.
Since she retired, she seems to spend most of her time campaigning on Climate Change and Gay & Lesbian Rights - sometimes simultaneously.
www.glli.org/files/conference2009/files/Conference_Speakers.pdf
There an awful lot of people like her in the upper echelons of the Civil Service.
Confident, privileged, powerful and absolutely sure that their views on any topic that crops up are the right ones.
"All right thinking people agree" etc.
People like that don't like looking stupid and it's going to be very hard to change their minds.
Sadly.
I don't think it's a black or white issue - depends on the position of the person being attacked and the level of integrity they apply to it.
In Black's case he abuses his privileged, publicly funded, position to spread disinformation and propaganda - so, in my book, he's fair game.
Seen this?
From a commenter at WUWT:-
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/ClimatePatchDolls.jpg
From the latest post at that blog: [Richard Black's] movements are tracked by the organised underworld of sceptic bloggers – if Richard Black shows up at your event, you’re tainted by association.
This smells of an unhealthy state of mind very similar to the Sky Dragon's. I urge the Bishop to reconsider associating himself with that blog.
Maurizio
I think the words you quote in italics were lifted verbatim by Blacks' Whitewash from the OneWorld site.
The sinister language is theirs - not his.
Richard Black is an environmental activist in a key position. An extension of the Team, no less. But just one of countless others. The BBC, providing him with his mouth organ, given its privileged national monopoly status and obligation for impartial balance, should be the target, not the man.
I have to agree with omnologos and Maurizio.
Maurizio - nothing to do with me or blackswhitewash.com - everything on my site has been gathered through using google searches and piecing things together.
Pharos - Richard Black is in a UNIQUE position. He also represents everything that is wrong with the reporting of climate issues in the UK. Blackswhitewash.com is about him and the BBC - they are one and the same in terms of editorial policy. The aim is to show just how far he/they stray, and how blatantly they stray from the rules laid out in the charter.
"they have formed a board of patrons, who include Sir John Beddington, Lord Turner and Sir Robert Watson, three men who feed heavily into UK enironmental (sic) policy thinking. So this is top table stuff, not some grubby little ecoloon group. “
Who on earth needs ecoloons when we have this coalition government? Thirty or forty years ago the Monster Raving Loony Party used to receive plenty of publicity; today they get virtually none because if you want lunacy you can get plenty of it from the mainstream parties. Even in his wildest imagination, Screaming Lord Sutch could not have dreamt of anything approaching the Climate Change Act.
Black is an alarmist activist thinly disguised as a churnalist first class. That the bbc continues to employ this ecoloon shows that aunty is well and truly off her rocker.
The BBC never hesitates to stoop to ad hominem against their hate figures.
Maggie Thatcher still gets a thrice daily crucifixion - even though she's been out of politics for twenty years.
George W Bush likewise.
They breach their legal charter obligation to impartiality on a range of topics on a daily basis.
The problem is not one of organised corporate misdirection - but rather the groupthink of the individuals they employ. To attack the bias it's necessary to attack the individual perpetrators.
Keep up the good work BW.
blackswhitewash
I understand the justification, and agree that he is grieviously culpable of preaching activist bias from his privileged platform. But as you said it is the unique POSITION, and that is provided by the BBC.
Yes, Private Eye is fixated on the Westminster/media bubble - that’s how it finds out things.
There must be someone at the BBC or the Graun disgusted by the antics of their environment correspondents. Their normal reaction would be to leak to Private Eye, whereupon (if PE was doing its job) it would become common knowledge to everyone else within the Westminster/media bubble - which means everyone who counts.
They could leak it here of course, and I hope they do. Whereupon it would become common knowledge to a few thousand of His Grace’s flock, and eventually to a few tens of thousands of Delingpole fans. And the story would stop there.
That’s why I think Maurizio is wrong to dismiss the ad hominem approach. Statistical skullduggery is never going to make it into the mainstream media. Journalistic skullduggery just might.
Pharos - I am Maurizio - sometimes I forget the re-login before commenting...
All - I guess time will tell, and I have a long list of posts myself at Omniclimate about Black's bias.
But as long as there is no "smoking gun" about Black's awful climate reporting, I'm afraid every post at BW will be seen as evidence of what a nasty bunch of people the skeptics are.
Think also of Seth Borenstein at AP. There is the not-so-unlikely possibility that we're dealing with fellows who have just been doing a lot of Earth Hours in-between their ears. Why would anybody risk been seen bullying the media village idiot(s), am not sure.
funny how this avoids mentioning the continuing decreases in circulation figures, but this is the future for the MSM everywhere, which is now almost unreadable/unlistenable/unwatchable...
16 March: Financial Times: Bleak outlook for US newspapers
In recent weeks, LinkedIn, the networking website, and the Council of Economic Advisers have reported that the press is “America’s fastest-shrinking industry”, measured by jobs lost...
“There’s no doubt we’re going out of business now,” one unnamed executive told Pew’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, which predicted a future of shrinking newsrooms, print deliveries only a few days of the week and more papers closing altogether. A USC Annenberg School study reached the stark conclusion that most printed US dailies would be gone in five years...
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/3eef0bc4-6f73-11e1-9c57-00144feab49a.html#axzz1pNQWDjEO
omnologos
Unforgivable, particularly as I think I knew that!
Tis quite amazing the amount of time that is being spent upon this present day Lord Haw-Haw!
Starve at source; do not disrupt their proven ability to self destruct
Maurizio
“Why would anybody risk been seen bullying the media village idiot(s)..”
Because the village idiots are in positions of power. Some of them are/have been presidents of the Royal Society. Others run the BBC. Like it or not, this is politics. And you won’t get rid of an incumbent by waiting for him to shoot himself with his own the smoking gun.
Tackle the men, not the balls.
Better still - tackle both.
Cuius testiculos habeas,habeas cardia et cerebellum
Foxgoose
..or as the Jesuits used to say (before they got found out): "Give me the balls, and I’ll show you the Mann”.
Our new "play the man not the ball" movement here should have a motto - and I think a quote from Shakespeare might raise the tone a bit.
How about - "What a piece of work is Mann!"
There's a piece about trolling today on the BBC site. I am sure BWW will be easily classified as yet another example.
If the trouble is with people in "positions of power" then we should be talking about people in "positions of power", not dedicating a blog to attack any specific individual. And what'd happen if Black published eg an article not containing any "whitewash"? Would it qualify for BWW or won't it?
Either way, BWW would be in the wrong.
Technical question...I'm not receiving comment updates when I post here after logging in..is that a shared problem by any chance?
Philippa Catherine Drew CB retired from the FCO some years ago, and became a director of the Stakeholder Forum only after her retirement. This could have been ascertained by more diligent searching on Google before making an unjustified allegation of conflict of interest.