Benny Peiser emails to tell me that there is a bit of a kerfuffle over the Irish Sea. Benny has been invited to appear on a TV show called 'Prime Time', opposite Professor John Sweeney, a geographer at the National University of Ireland who doubles as the President of An Taisce, the Irish National Trust.
However, it seems that Professor Sweeney is not sufficiently confident in the strength of his case to want to argue it in public, and An Taisce has issued the following press release.
Prime Time invited John Sweeney, Ireland’s leading Climate Scientist, onto the Panel and some members of An Taisce into the audience for next Tuesday’s show on ‘Climate Change’. We looked forward to contributing to the debate on how we should deal with the serious problems that ‘Climate Change’ will present to our children and grandchildren.
However, we have since learnt that Prime Time will be flying a ‘Climate Denier’ in from the UK for the night. We suppose that they have the idea that a ‘Punch and Judy’ show between opposing members of the panel will make ‘Good Television’, one which will certainly generate much heat but very little light.
John Sweeney has decided not to participate and An Taisce has decided to boycott this Prime Time show.
An Taisce is asking the Director General and the Programme’s Producers to explain if they understand ‘Climate Science’ and the difference between scientific balance and journalistic balance. Is Prime Time fulfilling its ‘Public Service Broadcasting’ remit? We are sure that it would be possible to find some expert that does not agree that smoking causes cancer but would RTE put them on a panel to discuss lung cancer?
The scientific debate on the validity of climate change has ended with the realisation that for the sake of future generations global warming must be restricted to 2oC.
Public deserves a debate that discusses how to achieve this and:
- Enables an honest discussion of Climate Change policy choices within the accepted bounds of peer-reviewed science.
- Encourages a national discussion on fair and independent annual Green House Gas (GHG) budgets and binding National and International targets
- Emphasises that Ireland must play its part in actually achieving real change.
The general public is largely unaware of the threats to their future and their children’s futures. For the public to have an honest picture of the nature of the climate change risks they face and an involvement in how they are tackled, the debate must move on to problem solving.
As to Benny's credentials as a "climate denier", readers might care to peruse this paper authored by Benny ahead of the meeting of sceptic scientists with Royal Society fellows last year. Item 1 reads:
The greenhouse effect is real and CO2 is a greenhouse gas.
Another day, another scientivist called out. Having thus established that Professor Sweeney and An Taisce are happy to release scurrilous and false press releases readers can draw their conclusions accordingly.
Is An Taisce, by any chance, the Gaelic for "No Integrity"?