ABC’s Managing Director, Mark Scott appears to backtrack on Wendy Carlisle’s embarrassing Climate science errors she made while wrongfully ridiculing Lord Monckton as “misconstruing the scientific evidence”, by claiming the program was actually not about science, so no need to talk about her errors.
A thumbnail summary of the Wendy Carlisle’s attempt to ridicule Lord Monckton on his lecture series in her Background Briefing:
Wendy Carlisle: haha Monckton got these two science facts wrong in his lecture and here are the specific scientific quotes to prove it and in fact his whole lecture was scientific rubbish and he is an idiot.
Climate Sceptics complain: Wendy, you made elementary mistakes of science fact in your two examples, here is the evidence, one ruled on by no less that a High Court Judge in the UK.
Complaint is answered by no less than the Managing Director of ABC: No no, the program was not about science, we can’t delve into climate science, her program was more about ….more about the vibe, more about the speaker’s lecturing style.
Eh?
Now the details:
Wendy Carlisle’s errors in her rancorous program were explained in detail in a previous post.
Briefly, on ABC’s Background Briefing of 17th July, Wendy Carlisle viciously but incorrectly ridiculed Lord Monckton’s lecture series on the basis of his allegedly misconstruing science – not once or twice, but “the show continued like this for another 50 minutes, with Lord Monckton repeatedly misconstruing the scientific evidence”. Her critique was based largely on several allegations of his misrepresentation of specific scientific papers, using direct quotes from the studies he referred to regarding polar bears and rising sea levels in the form of authoritative scientific rebuttal, which, unfortunately she got very wrong.
Ms Carlisle claimed polar bears in one study did not drown due to a storm as Lord Monckton claimed but due to climate related factors, despite a High Court judge in the UK ruling on this specific issue that the study did state the bears drowned due storm.
Ms Carlisle then claimed sea is expected to rise by between 20 and 50 cm this century according to IPCC, not the 6 cm claimed by Lord Monckton, but she amateurishly was referring to IPCC data on all cause sea rises, while Lord Monckton was explicitly referring to IPCC data on rises from melting of Greenland and West Antarctic only. A blunder.
Ms Carlisle then used these erroneous examples of scientific errors to launch into an extraordinary attack on Lord Monckton’s scientific competence, stating:
“Lord Monckton’s assertion …is pure fiction”
“Lord Monckton is not one to let the facts stand in the way of a show.”
“the show continued like this for another 50 minutes, with Lord Monckton repeatedly misconstruing the scientific evidence”
abcnewswatch.com.au complained about above errors and received a judgment from a high, from Mark Scott, the Managing Director of ABC himself (my complaint sent by mail has yet to receive a response). Based on the reproduced response at abcnewswatch, incredibly, Mr Scott the “Managing Director took the view that the [Carlisle] program was not an occasion for detailed enquiry into the science of climate change. It follows that it would be disproportionate for the handling of complaints received about the program to become such an occasion. Apparently, Ms Carlisle’s program was actually not about detailed inquiry of science, it was about Lord Monckton’s lecture style, so he will not talk about the erroneous detailed inquiry of two specific science facts on which she based her entire vilification of Lord Monckton. Mr Scott then digressed into a number of irrelevant straw men arguments which are no credit to him.
Let me make it clear for even Mr Scott. The complainant clearly does not want a detailed enquiry into the science of all climate change, no, the complainant wants an inquiry only into that detailed enquiry into the science, that Ms Carlisle herself made, got wrong and then on which she based her ridicule of Lord Monckton.
Why someone as accomplished as Mr Scott would not understand such a simple request is difficult to fathom, unless he can not defend the wrong science and Ms Carlisle’s reporting and is having a lend of us.
But such backtracking and side-stepping hard science when pinned down and circling the wagons around the insiders is the Alarmist’s standard fare. This is similar to the NIWA backtrack on their NZ temperature record – when facing a litigation case in court for inaccuracy, they simply said the data was not an official record and did not need to be accurate.
When you ask for their data to verify it, they say – it’s mine, it’s private, they fight FOI’s and refuse to give it because you just want to find errors in it.
Earlier this year, the ABC staff were told by the Chairman of the ABC, Maurice Newman that they displayed “group-think” on the issue of climate change. This circling of the wagons around Ms Carlisle by the CEO, Mark Scott, is yet another example of this, as is the latest ridiculous politicised episode of Catalyst: Science Under Siege.
Science is under siege not by climate sceptics like Lord Monckton, but by climate insiders and seemingly uninformed or misguided fellow travelers like Ms Carlisle and Mr Scott.
UPDATE:
For the avoidance of any doubt on the Managing Director’s weasle words:
Polar Bears:
Ms Carlisle: The scientific paper Lord Monckton cites does not say that the polar bears drowned because of a big storm. The paper suggests that the polar bears most likely drowned because of there was less sea ice for them to rest on because of climate change. And that the drowned polar bears could be statistically significant. Voice reading from the scientific paper: “We further suggest that drowning related deaths of polar bears may increase in the future if the observed trend of regression of pack ice and longer open water periods continues.”
Ms Carlisle: “Lord Monckton is not one to let the facts stand in the way of a show.”
Facts – 2007 UK High Court case Justice Burton: Mr Gore says: “A new scientific study shows that for the first time they are finding polar bears that have actually drowned swimming long distances up to 60 miles to find the ice. They did not find that before.” The only scientific study that either side before me can find is one which indicates that four polar bears have recently been found drowned because of a storm. That is not to say that there may not in the future be drowning-related deaths of polar bears if the trend continues.
ABC response: In relation to the various references by Al Gore, Lord Monckton and Background Briefing to the issue of drowned polar bears, the Managing Director did not regard it as proportionate in the circumstances to go into the detail. Noting that specialist literature is open to varying interpretations by specialists and non-specialists, and that - both in public presentations such as Lord Monckton’s and in journalism such as Background Briefing – specialist literature must necessarily be tightly compressed
Comment: Mr ABC Managing Director, if specialist literature is open to interpretation, what gave Ms Carlisle the right to ridicule Lord Monckton over his interpretation, shared by a High Court Judge?
Sea level rise:
Ms Carlisle: “On this occasion, …..Lord Monckton’s assertion that the UN’s Climate Change panel that the sea will rise by 6 cm this century is pure fiction, According to Chapter 5 of its report on sea levels the sea is expected to rise by between 20 and 50 cm this century”.
Facts- Ms Carlisle claims the IPCC AR4 report states a much higher sea level rise of 20 to 50cm, yes, but this figure is from all causes of seal level rise, namely thermal expansion (17-28 cm), the melting of glaciers and ice caps (10-12 cm), in addition to the loss of ice from the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets. Lord Monckton was clearly referring to contribution from Greenland and West Antarctic sheet alone, as Al Gore did. Ms Carlisle clearly missed the distinction and wrongly concluded Lord Monckton’s figure as ‘pure fiction’.
ABC respose: On the issue of sea level rise, the Managing Director concluded that the difference between Lord Monckton’s account of Al Gore’s treatment of the matter and the program’s account was one of degree. Both thought Al Gore had overstated his case. Their different calculations of the degree to which he had done so were based on different readings of work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published in 2007. The Managing Director concluded that the program acted reasonably in citing the IPCC in the way it did.
Comment: Mr ABC Managing Director, no, it’s not a matter of degree. Ms Carlisle stated Lord Monckton’s quoting of IPCC figures was pure fiction but she was clearly and completely wrong. Ms Carlisle then went on to ridicule the science of Lord Monckton’s entire lecture based on her two errors. That is what you should have considered.
The Australiian Communications Authority has cleared my program of the complaints alleged against us. I suppose it’s too much to expect a retraction?