Climate Audit
Conclusion
I have not parsed other issues in the interview: Australian
temperatures, global heavy precipitation extremes, Arctic sea ice, as
each involves its own issues, and because the focus of the interview was
on the linkage of heavy January 2014 precipitation and floods to global
warming.
But clearly, inspired at least in part by Hoskins’ fellow Grantham
Institute employee Bob Ward, the BBC has arrived at a factually
incorrect and unfair decision in respect to the complaint against Nigel
Lawson. Perhaps the person best placed to remedy the situation is
Hoskins himself. Hoskins surely knows that Lawson was correct in his
statement about the linkage between the floods and global warming ( the
issue is “marginal exacerbation”). And in his statement about tropical
cyclones. And about Chinese emissions. And that he has a legitimate
argument on wind turbines.
If Hoskins and the Grantham institutes want to persuade more people
of the seriousness of the issues, Hoskins’ obligation is to do a better
job, rather than have Lawson silenced by a Grantham apparatchik. I
think that Hoskins should write to the BBC Complaints Unit, separating
himself from Ward’s complaint and, at a minimum, conceding that Lawson’s
position on the (lack of) linkage of floods and global warming is
either correct or one that can be reasonably argued.
It is, of course, vanishingly unlikely that Hoskins would do anything
so gracious. Hoskins was the go-to person for the University of East
Anglia when the Royal Society laundered
the list of articles for the Oxburgh inquiry: although Hoskins himself
had no informed knowledge of the literature, he immediately endorsed the
UEA. Later, he acted as a supporting authority for refusing FOI
requests."
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