Im Februar 2014 nahm Lord Nigel Lawson, ehemaliger britischer Schatzkanzler unter Margaret Thatcher, an einer Klimadebatte im BBC Radio teil. Darin vertrat er klimarealistische Positionen, während sein Diskussionpartner Sir Brian Hoskins die klimaalarmistische Richtung verteidigte. Moderiert wurde die Sendung von Justin Webb von der BBC. Hier ein Auszug (via GWPF):
Lord Lawson: No measured warming, exactly. Well that measurement is not unimportant. But even if there is some problem, it is not going to affect any of the dangers except marginally. What we want to do is focus with the problems there are with climate – drought, floods and so on. These have happened in the past – they’re not new. As for emissions, this country is responsible for less than 2% of global emissions. Even if we cut our emissions to 0 – which would put us back to the pre-industrial revolution and the poverty that that gave – even if we did that, it would be outweighed by China’s increase in emissions in a single year. So it is absolutely crazy this policy. It cannot make sense at all.
Sir Brian Hoskins: I think we have to learn two lessons from this. The first one is that by increasing the greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere, particularly carbon dioxide, to levels not seen for millions of years on this planet, we are performing a very risky experiment. We’re pretty confident that that means if we go on like we are the temperatures are going to rise somewhere between 3-5 degrees by the end of this Century, sea levels up to half to 1 metre rise.
Justin Webb: Lord Lawson was saying there that there had been a pause – which you hear a lot about – a pause of 10 / 15 years in measured rising of temperature. That is the case isn’t it?
Sir Brian Hoskins: It hasn’t risen very much over the last 10-15 years. If you measure the climate from the globally averaged surface temperature, during that time the excess energy has still been absorbed by the climate system and is being absorbed by the oceans.
Justin Webb: So it’s there somewhere?
Sir Brian Hoskins: Oh yes, it’s there in the oceans.
Lord Lawson: That is pure speculation.
Sir Brian Hoskins: No, it’s a measurement.
Lord Lawson: No, it’s not. It’s speculation.
In der Folge beschwerten sich Hörer bei der BBC, dass man niemals einen Klimarealisten zu der Sendung hätte einladen dürfen. Vermutlich hatte man Angst bekommen, als man bemerkte, dass Lawsons Argumentation viel überzeugender herüberkam als Hoskins. In einem Rückblick auf die Ereignisse in der Daily Mail kommentierte Lawson am 9. Juli 2014:
The BBC was overwhelmed by a well-organised deluge of complaints — many of them, inevitably, from those with a commercial interest in renewable energy, as well as from the Green Party — arguing that, since I was not myself a scientist, I should never have been allowed to appear.
Die Beschwerden wurden in den Folgemonaten von der BBC-Beschwerdestelle geprüft. Im Juni 2014 geschah dann das Ungeheuerliche: Die Beschwerden wurden für rechtmäßig erklärt. Man behauptete kurzerhand, dass Lawson fehlerhaft argumentiert hätte. In Wirklichkeit ein fehlerhafter Vorwurf, wie Lawson in seinem Daily Mail-Beitrag erklärt:
In fact, there was nothing I said in the entire Today programme discussion that was incorrect, nor, indeed, did Sir Brian Hoskins suggest otherwise. This can be confirmed by reading the full transcript, still available on my foundation’s website at thegwpf.org/Hoskins-vs-lawson-the-climate-debate-the-bbc-wants-to-censor, and possibly also on the BBC’s website, if they have not removed it out of embarrassment. The only untruth came from the unreliable Mr Chong of the Green Party who accused me of claiming on the programme that climate change ‘was all a conspiracy’. Needless to say, I said nothing of the sort, as the transcript makes clear.
Es sieht so aus als wenn die BBC in Zukunft der klimarealistischen Seite keine weitere Sendezeit zur Verfügung stellen wird. Man hört die Vertreter des klimaalarmistischen Gedankenguts bereits jubeln: Endlich keine lästigen Diskussionen mehr! Schluss mit der demokratischen Zeitverschwendung, es lebe die IPCC-Diktatur! Lawson erläutert in seinem Daily Mail-Artikel:
The head of the BBC’s Editorial Complaints Unit, a Mr Fraser Steel, whose qualifications for the job are unclear and whose knowledge of the complex climate change issue is virtually non-existent, has written to a little-known but active Green Party politician called Chit Chong to apologise for the fact I was allowed to appear on the programme and to make clear this will not happen again. Among the reasons given in Mr Steel’s letter for upholding Mr Chong’s complaint and over-ruling the BBC’s head of news programmes is the mind-boggling statement that: ‘As you have pointed out, Lord Lawson’s views are not supported by the evidence from computer modelling.’ Evidence? However useful computer models may be, the one thing they cannot be is evidence. Computer climate models are simply conjectures, expressed in the form of mathematical equations (the language of computers), which lead to forecasts of future global temperatures, which can then be compared with the evidence on the ground.
Der Direktor der Global Warming Policy Foundation, Benny Peiser, kritisierte daraufhin die BBC in einem Interview auf iai news die Entscheidung der BBC (Auszug):
IAI: So do you think that, when it comes to the media, it is a one-sided kind of alarmist perception of risk that comes into question?
PEISER: Of course, because they are well-known for pointing out everything that is alarming and being silent on reports that show it is not as alarming. So you have a bias in favour of alarm, and a kind of ignoring any evidence that suggests that it might not be that alarming.
It’s about people who think we are facing doomsday, and people who are thinking that the issue of climate change is exaggerated. And if you deny anyone sceptical of the apocalyptic doomsday prophecies, then you get in a position where the BBC is so biased that MPs are beginning to consider cutting the license fee, or abolishing the license fee altogether, because people are beginning to be upset by the BBC’s bias.
This is a self-defeating policy; the BBC is digging its own grave by annoying half of the population who are known to be sceptical about the alarmist claims which are not substantiated, which are not founded on any evidence. They are only based on on some kinds of computer modelling, which is not scientific evidence.
IAI: So scientific evidence, such as computer modelling and research, is being used as an instrument in the rhetoric?
PEISER: Well there is a big difference between observation, what you actually observe in reality – that’s what I would call evidence – and computer models that try to model the climate in 50 or 100 years time. I wouldn’t call that evidence. There is a difference between evidence and people saying, “if we don’t act now then in 50 or a 100 years time we will face mega catastrophe”. That’s not evidence, it is speculation.
Ganzes Interview auf iai news lesen.
