“BBC Seduced by Tale of ‘al Qaeda Diamond Trade,’ Now Being Sued”

The Guardian – December 10, 2001

http://www.blythe.org/nytransfer-subs/Race_and_Class/BBC,_Seduced_by_‘al_Qaeda_Diamonds,’_Now_Being_Sued_

The Second Climate Consensus

would be a catchy name?

Well that works up to a point. The downside is that people at green, in trying to build understanding, end up frowning upon those who don’t want to join the group. Like, we’d get world peace if only you’d stop being so awkward with your disagreeable opinions. It is political correctness, smothering (with gentleness) feel-good causes. And the people who don’t want to agree, well, they suffer the shadow side of green, namely accusations that they’re greedy selfish people.

Anyway, with the caveat that this is my reading of the book, I think we can recognise this as quite pervasive now in our western culture.

Now not all of environmentalism fits the green values stage, but at a place like the BBC, there’s more likelihood of finding green values culture, and hence their ethical decision that it is actually better to suppress different opinions (even scientific ones) in the cause of serving the people by moving them towards consensus and world harmony.

Unfortunately, at the end of the day, whatever your values, the scientific method is about reality.

While I was sorting out some old magazines last night I stumbled on a 1999 editorial in New Scientist. It started by stating a properly scientific aversion to scientific consensus.

‘Consensus is a dangerous thing in science. The notion that researchers can ever prove their theories is long gone – they can only wait for others to knock them down. This means that to be healthy, science needs an opposition, and when politicians ask scientists to reach a common view, it pays to be wary.’

But that was just for form’s sake. The rest of the editorial argued for the exact opposite: ‘the IPCC has turned consensus into a virtue’; the only danger is that it still ‘makes a point of drawing sometimes hostile sceptics into its deliberations’; politicians must show us ‘that they can act as one to halt the coming nightmare’. In other words, forget what we just told you about proper science. When it comes to global warming, sickness is a virtue, safety is danger and wary is scary.

Heroic doublethink from Britain’s leading popular science mag!

(Perhaps the writer was drunk. The editorial was in an ‘End of the Millennium Special Edition’ devoted to alcohol.)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1199006/PETER-SISSONS-I-drove-Television-Centre-final-time-month–I-dont-pang-regret.html

Under normal circumstances, faced with evidence that conflicts with a theory (or in this case a model), one would seek to improve the theory, thus increasing our knowledge and understanding. However, a more accurate description of the human effect on climate – ie. one that fits better with the facts, might also destroy a pillar of environmentalism, and a great deal of political credibility. It is far easier psychologically to deny reality than it is to change your mind.