The BBC is facing criticism for hypocrisy as a Panorama reporter, Richard Bilton, traveled 20,000 air miles to investigate climate change. The Telegraph has more.
The BBC has been accused of “rank hypocrisy” after a reporter racked up an estimated 20,000 air miles to ask why “despite all the green promises, we’re using more fossil fuels than ever before”.
London-based Richard Bilton travelled to Europe, the Middle East and the United States for an episode of BBC One’s Panorama in which he claimed “the world is saying one thing and doing another” on climate change.
Analysis by the Telegraph suggests that he could have racked up around 20,000 air miles, taking flights to Dubai, Alaska, California and Berlin for the programme, which was aired on November 13th.
At the most conservative estimate, this would have produced around 5.4 tonnes of CO₂ – more than the average person produces in a year and the equivalent to driving an average car for 18 months.
The air miles estimates are based on one scenario, which involved Mr. Bilton taking return flights from Berlin and Dubai back to London, and going from the U.K. to California and then onto Alaska before returning across the Atlantic. …
The BBC, which has pledged to reduce its operational greenhouse gas emissions by 46% by 2030, said all the flights were in economy class and were “required” for “on-the-ground reporting”.
But critics have pointed out that the corporation has local teams of reporters in each location, meaning the “one-man jolly” was “rank hypocrisy”. …
Dame Andrea Jenkyns, the Conservative MP for Morley and Outwood, said: “If the BBC feels it necessary to lecture the public about fossil fuels, they should practise what they preach first.
“BBC Panorama ought to do an episode on itself, namely how its reporter is globe-trotting on flights at the licence-fee-payers’ expense.”
Worth reading in full.
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It’s deja vu all over agin.
In order to arrive at an accurate prediction of the future, we’ll consult astrologers, haruspexes and augurs for input and then pick-and-chose from their predictions in whatever way we want until a consenus on how the future will become has emerged!
In modern pseudo-tech speak Modelling is considerably more robust when more than one model (ideally a minimum of three) is considered and a consensus is built and agreed across a broad community.
When trying to predict the future in three different ways leads to three different results, at least two of them must be wrong. As nobody knows which two are wrong, the only sensible course of action is to discard all three as there’s no point in basing decisions on information that’s at least 2/3 wrong.
Sometimes, I yearn for the times when superstitious people trying to influence others with their gobbleygook ended up being burnt by the church.
The climate change liars carefully selected 187 models predicting ‘global warming’ versus CO2 emissions from the many which came out of their modelling apparatus.
They were all wrong by some margin when compared with observation from the real World.
What I find puzzling, is that no matter how many times the ‘experts’ and their prediction are wrong, the nitwits in charge and other useful idiots still believe whatever else they come up with.
I think what you mean JXB, is that the nitwits in charge are perfectly happy to have a set of results that they can use to fill their pockets with for absolutely no benefit to the citizens.
If there are at least 187 substantially different ways to do the same, namely, simulate the weather in the future, this clearly communicates that the people who came up with all of these have absolutely no clue how what they’re trying to simulate actually works.
They were alll wrong by some margin is nothing but pseudo-learnt sounding way of saying They’re all wrong.
In fairness, one set of model results produced a curve below all the others, although still generally higher than recorded temperatures (themselves manipulated to exaggerate warming).
Which set of results, then, have been least infected by GangGreen lunacy?Why, those from a big Country with lots of coal, oil, gas to sell.
The Russian model. Go figure.
“When trying to predict the future in three different ways leads to three different results, at least two of them must be wrong.”
Why aren’t all three wrong?
It’s perfectly possible and actually, even very probable that all three are wrong. But that’s a tangential point when trying to highlight the complete idiocy of this statement: When three different computer programs generate three different answers to the same question, two of them must necessarily be wrong. Hence, using all three to come up with a meta-result which is then used for actual decision making has – at the very best – garbled the one accurate result.
That’s a classic example of throwing sand into people’s eyes by making something more complicated despite this exact process actually guarantees that the combined output won’t make any sense.
And if all three are wrong?
“All models are wrong, some are useful.” George Box
Exactly so
Mathematical models are easily demolished by one inconvenient problem.
If mathematical models have any predictive power then some bright spark would have applied them to the stockmarket and, he or she, would have quickly become the richest person on planet earth.
The fact that this has not been done tells you everything you need to know about the ‘power’ of these models.
As I already wrote last time: People are applying this to the stock market all the time and fool themselves into believing that the outputs make sense despite they’re nowadays even forced to include warnings to the contrary when advertising stuff like investment funds.
Have you not heard of Long-Term Capital Management with its Nobel prize winners?
Meanwhile…I like this graph of Joel Smalley’s. It looks nothing whatsoever like lockdown-fanboy Ferguson’s predictions either;
”In England & Wales during spring 2020, over a thirteen-week period, there were almost:
52,000 ‘COVID’ deaths
Mainstream Media reported each and every death daily as justification for the most illegitimate denial of British civilian liberties in history.
In England & Wales during winter 2021, after the introduction of a miracle “vaccine” and after such a massive depletion of the vulnerable/susceptible population, over a thirteen-week period, there were almost:
70,000 ‘COVID’ deaths
In winter 2023, with conspicuously few ‘COVID’ deaths, over a thirteen-week period, there were almost:
55,000 ‘winter’ excess deaths”
https://metatron.substack.com/p/all-deaths-are-equal-but-some-deaths
And the true number is about 10% and people who were going to die anyway.
Non-deterministic models are as useful as tits on a bull.
Arguably if the variations are not significant then it’s not a huge issue. The bigger issue, IMO, is that the models are not re-checked against reality and revised/ditched when it turns out that they are rubbish at predicting what actually happens.
Arguably if the variations are not significant then it’s not a huge issue.
I think you’re misunderstanding the term. Non-deterministic means the output cannot be predicted based on the input, ie, that this is essentially a random process driven by its inputs in an unknown (and unknowable) way. This means one can as well resort to guessing or rolling dice to generate outputs.
But you can keep running them until the “required results” are delivered.
I know what deterministic means. My point was that if the result each time is within a small margin of the other results, the randomness is arguably not that important. I just think that it’s not the most glaring problem with modelling – the bigger issues are not sufficiently questioning the assumptions around the inputs and most damningly not revising the model based on its abject failure to predict anything.
I know what deterministic means. My point was that if the result each time is within a small margin of the other results, the randomness is arguably not that important.
That’s Ferguson’s point: Run it mutiple times and average the results, it’s meant to be stochastic, anyway! And this doesn’t make any sense because non-deterministic means the output cannot be predicted based on the input. This is literally the equivalent of rolling a dice three times to ‘predict’ an unknown number between 3 and 18 and then boldy claiming that this is a valid method for predicing numbers because The average error is only about 1/3!
Let’s not forget that one thing modellers can do well, is to buy bigger, much more expensive computers to run their fanciful programmes (based on multiplying wild assed guesses together and applying lots of tweaks and fudges).
These huge increasingly fancy and expensive supercomputers, paid for by you, dear readers, and using more and more fossil fuels to run ’em, have been very effective in getting completely false results much faster.
The MET Office loves them.
They are perhaps the reason why the forecast for tomorrow is doubtful, that for four days is almost certainly wrong. Selwyn Froggatt with his pinecone and piece of seaweed did better.
The standards of the computer are irrelevant when the code is written by rank amateurs
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2020/05/16/coding-led-lockdown-totally-unreliable-buggy-mess-say-experts/
GIGO
I find stochastic models very useful. After all they should contain all your deterministic models, each with their own probability of occurring.
“…the impact of public health measures, including border measures,..”
I don’t think birds can read.
Ha Ha. Good point. Well, they”ll keep out the birds that travel by lorry, plane and ship. Any measure that reduces the opportunities for the virus to spread has got to be worth it. Isn’t that what we’re told by public health ‘experts’?
Can someone please permanently unplug Ferguson’s computer.
I suggest unplugging the guy himself. He’s probably just an AI chatbot.
That doesn’t seem to be the attraction for his married ‘friend’. They don’t call him Professor Pantsdown for nothing.
Next time the Guvmint wants a ‘projection’ from him, it should be strictly on the ‘cock on the block’ basis. Guvmint with (for once) hatchet in hand.
IMHO, the attraction for his married ‘friend’ is that he’s one of her business contacts. Practically, the difference between incel and professor of something having a fullfilling albeit somewhat limited private life is one of spending power.
:->
[This is a conjecture based on absolutely no real information save my general distrust in people.]
Neil Ferguson – paid to lie
Stand in the Park
Make friends & keep sane
Sundays 10.30am to 11.30am
Elms Field
near Everyman Cinema & play area
Wokingham RG40 2FE
Hi LS just one question why 10:30 ours starts at 10:00? I’m always getting flak for being late!!!
If computer modelling had been used in Salem to determine who was a witch, I’m pretty sure all the women and half the men in town would have been burnt at the stake.
Plagiarising J K Galbraith – there are only 2 types of computer modellers, those who are wrong and those who don’t know they are wrong
That’s why they should my “suggestion” above.
Exactly
Two words for this lot of fear mongering clowns….
…. OFF!!!!
As a retired dairy farmer, I find it incomprehensible that this numbskull Ferguson should be ever believed. What he cost dairy farmers in anxiety and reputation with BSE and the deaths of 100s of thousand of perfectly healthy cattle with the F&M debacle. This was followed by the Bird Flu and Sine Fever which was believed by Bliar and then Brown and since then 5 more PMs beggars belief that Governments are so stupid.
One has to wonder why the Governments believed Imperial College predictions over the Oxford University and people like Prof Sunetra Gupta who had been the forerunners of the unit that was created at Imperial College.
As soon as I knew on 3rd week of March 2020, that Ferguson was involved then I emailed my Tory MP and gave him lenthy reasons as to why this was a mistake and it would costly and wrong. The base figure Ferguson used was wrong which means that the outcomes become extrapolated to an advanced and ridiculous degree which is what happened in all his previous predictions and sure enough, it happened again.
This man ought to be charged with fraud but treachery would be a good charge for which he so richly deserves.