Lying to Parliament

The news yesterday was that some of Rupert Murdoch's minions in News International are to be investigated by the House of Commons Standards and Privileges Committee.

The Commons agreed without a vote to refer the phone-hacking report's conclusions to the Standards and Privileges Committee, which has the power to recommend sanctions against the trio and News International.

Although there is the possibility of the three men being summoned to the Commons for a public dressing-down, Labour MP Chris Bryant said the Standards and Privileges Committee should also consider fines or imprisonment as possible penalties.

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The despair of energy policy

Simon Jenkins despairs of UK energy policy:

[T]he government wants to commit a staggering £100bn to wind farm subsidies over the next decade, almost all to rich landowners. Northamptonshire, with England's most planned wind farms per acre (and least wind), will probably have turbines visible from horizon to horizon. Will this really so impress China and India as to persuade them to change their emissions policies? It is like a primitive tribe burning its wives and treasure to awe an enemy into submission.

More entrepreneurs

A few months ago, I told the story of how the EU's biofuels policy was put in place through the activities of a "policy entrepreneur" - a senior bureaucrat with producer interests at heart.

Today, the Register carries the story of how UK bureaucrats in the Intellectual Property Office seem to be up to something similar, trying to rework IP law in favour of the Googles of this world.

We also heard evidence of bureaucrats taking an activist role, possibly misleading their ministers.

“Some evidence was not fed through to ministers,” said Andrew Yeates of the Educational Recording Agency.

And the consultation also heard that IPO bureaucrats had been attempting to change international policy before proposals had been discussed, let alone decided, in the UK. This state-within-a-state had its own very active Foreign Office, it seems.

Wicked Wikipedia

Alex Harvey takes a look at the 2010 banning of several Wikipedia editors and events since that time - William Connolley has apparently been unbanned, while a more sceptical editor, Cla68, has had his ban extended.

In the case of William Connolley, the [Arbitration] Committee is shown to be extremely lenient, compared to treatment of skeptical editors. William's ban was recently repealed despite obvious signs that nothing much had changed. In the case of Cla68, however, who was perceived to be a climate change skeptic, it is shown that he was banned on the basis of entirely fraudulent claims, and has just now had his ban extended by another six months on the basis of a single frank, out of context remark made in an internet forum.

This double standard - even in Wikipedia - has rarely been so stark. In my view, it challenges the image of Wikipedia as a neutral, dispassionate broker of facts. We see that Wikipedia is, in fact, run by activists who drive away the neutral, objective people who would otherwise contribute.

That should set the cat among the pigeons.

Cuadrilla were not at No 10 seminar

As we saw yesterday, some details of those of those invited to the Downing Street seminar on prospects for shale gas in the UK have now been revealed. The involvement of only the oil and gas majors, whose investments in conventional gas are threatened by shale developments made the seminar look decidedly dodgy.

No Hot Air blog has now obtained a comment from Cuadrilla Resources, the company that is at the forefront of efforts to develop a shale gas industry in the UK.

No, we were not invited. Nor were we consulted about potential shale gas production in the future. I was surprised to see negative statements from people who have never seen our core data or open hole log data. They may consider getting their facts in line next time since this is such an important issue to the country.

This makes the the seminar look like a sham. I wonder which civil servants were responsible for issuing the invitations?

A difference of opinion

Australian Climate Madness notes the Australian National University's amusing impression of Baghdad Bob. With the statement by the Australian Information Commissioner and John Coochey's statement having conclusively shown that there were no death threats issued to university staff, ANU has nevertheless stood its ground, as ABC reports in a surreptitious update to its original story:

The release of these emails under Freedom of Information followed reports last year (see related stories above) that ANU scientists had received death threats. Climate change sceptics have claimed that the released emails contradict suggestions that any death threats were received, but a spokesperson for the ANU says the university is standing by its claims that death threats were received. Questions have also been raised about whether one of the released emails did, in fact, constitute a threat to use a gun, with a person involved in the kangaroo culling program claiming the comments were made by him, and were in no way intended as a threat.

There is no hint of a correction in the Guardian's story on the subject.

The world gas market

In Ed Davey's interview on the Sunday Politics yesterday, UK Energy Secretary Ed Davey said that high energy prices in the UK were driven by world gas prices.

However, this is not actually true. As was pointed out to me some time ago, there is not actually a global market for natural gas, it being rather difficult to transport.

The following graph (source) demonstrates the point.

The difference between the low gas prices in the US and the higher prices in Europe seems to be due to the US having exploited its shale reserves while in Europe we haven't.

I think Mr Davey wants to keep it that way.

Gleick uncleared

Further to my article noting  that Peter Gleick has been cleared by an internal investigation into the Fakegate affair, the original source - the Guardian - has pulled the story.

How strange.

The original is still on Google's cache for anyone who wants it.

[Update: I've attached a copy for posterity]

Original Guardian article

Update on May 21, 2012 by Bishop Hill

Now he's cleared again!

Link

They have inserted a line saying "it is not entirely clear what the investigation entailed".

(H/T HK)

Gleick "cleared"

The Guardian is reporting that Peter Gleick has been cleared of forging the Heartland documents.

A review has cleared the scientist Peter Gleick of forging any documents in his exposé of the rightwing Heartland Institute's strategy and finances, the Guardian has learned.

Which is odd, because they then say this...

Gleick, founder of the Pacific Institute and a well-regarded water expert, admitted and apologised for using deception to obtain internal Heartland documents last February.

Swords at dawn

There is an important FOI story (or, more precisely, an EIR one) at WUWT. It concerns the compliance of the Irish government with the Aarhus Convention, an international agreement to involve the public in formulation of environmental policy, which, at the same time, requires disclosure of environmental information to the public. The convention is the reason we have the Environmental Information Regulations in the UK.

According to anti-windfarm campaigner, Pat Swords:

[T]his is an important decision, because the EU’s renewable energy programme as it currently stands is now proceeding without ‘proper authority’. The public’s right to be informed and to participate in its development and implementation has been by-passed. A process will now be started to ensure that the Committee’s recommendations are addressed; if ultimately they are not, then UNECE has the option of requiring the EU to withdraw from the UN Convention on Human and Environmental Rights.

I wonder what the implications are for the UK?

More thoughts here, where Richard Tol is active in the comments threads.

Shale gas dropped?

Updated on May 20, 2012 by Bishop Hill

The Independent is reporting that shale gas is not seen as a solution to the UK's energy crisis.

The Government has rejected shale gas technology as a solution to Britain's energy crisis, conceding it will do little to cut bills or keep the lights on.

Supporters of the fracking technology – which blasts water, sand and chemicals at extreme pressures to release gas trapped deep in rock – argue it could be the single greatest factor in transforming Britain's energy market, reducing our reliance on foreign imports and dramatically reducing costs.

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Myles Allen on Berlin's two concepts of liberty

Simon Anthony sends this report of Myles Allen's recent lecture at Oxford.

Myles (I think he'd prefer I call him "Myles" rather than Prof Allen as most people in the audience seemed to refer to him thus) is prof of geo-system science in the school of geography and the environment and heads the climate dynamics group in physics dept, both in Oxford. His main interest has been in attribution of aspects of climate, particularly "extreme events" to human activities. Recently he's been working on how to use scientific evidence to "inform" climate policy.

The lecture's title comes from Isaiah Berlin's contrast between "negative" and "positive" liberty. These can be (slightly) caricatured as, respectively (and perhaps contrarily) freedom from constraints (eg tyranny) and freedom to do particular things (eg vote for the tyrant). Amongst other things, Berlin was concerned about the possible abuse of positive liberty in which the state prescribes what is permitted rather than ensuring the conditions in which inpiduals were free to make their own choices.

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Is it or ain't it Rashit?

There is an interesting exchange in the comments to Steve McIntyre's recent post on the updated Yamal data he has recently received from Rashit Hantemirov, the Russian climatologist who originally sampled the Yamal trees.

The new data, which now extends right up to 2005, does not have a hockey stick shape - yet another extraordinary turn in this most extraordinary story.

In the comments, there is what purports to be a comment from Hantemirov himself:

Steve, I’m horrified by your slipshod work. You did not define what you compare, what dataset used in each case, how data were processed, and what was the reason for that, what limitation there are, what kind of additional information you need to know. Why didn’t you ask me for all the details? You even aren’t ashamed of using information from stolen letters.

Do carelessness, grubbiness, dishonourableness are the
necessary concomitants of your job?

With disrespect…

Readers were rather taken aback by this comment and there appears to be some doubt over its authenticity - Anthony Watts noted that it was posted from a proxy server. Nevertheless Steve M seems convinced that it is genuine.

The question is, what on Earth has brought this rush of blood to Hantermirov's head (if indeed it is him). Has he been got at?

Jeff Masters on Mann and PCA

Jeff Masters, the meteorologist who blogs at wunderground.com, has written the standard-issue five star review of Mann's Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars.

I thought I'd highlight something Masters wrote about the infamous short-centred principal components analysis used in Mann's paper.

[Mann] takes the reader on a 5-page college-level discussion of the main technique used, Principal Component Analysis (PCA), and shows how his famed "hockey stick" graph came about. It's one of the best descriptions I've seen on how PCA works (though it will be too technical for some.)

Click to read more ...

Number 10 discusses shale gas

This exchange from the House of Commons yesterday on the subject of shale gas is quite interesting.

Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton, Labour): Will not the biggest impact on reducing domestic energy bills be achieved by bringing shale gas online as quickly as possible?

Edward Davey (Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Employment Relations, Consumer and Postal Affairs), Business, Innovation and Skills; Kingston and Surbiton, Liberal Democrat): I do not think so. We had a seminar at No. 10 recently, which the Prime Minister participated in, along with myself and the Business Secretary. We heard from experts in the shale gas industry who had been working in America and looking at the major opportunities in places such as Ukraine and China. They were clear that it would take some time for shale gas to be exploited in the UK. They were also clear that we needed strong regulation to proceed and that the shale gas reserves in this country are not quite as large as some people have been speculating.

I'm intrigued by a group of shale gas experts who would be demanding strong regulation and who claim that it will take a long time to do anything and that reserves are not as large as thought. This sounds rather like the Deutsche Bank report on shale. I've glanced at this report in the past and I must say I raised my eyebrows at the suggestion that there would be delays caused by lack of equipment. I mean, can't more equipment be manufactured?

I wonder who Number Ten's experts were?