Tuesday
Apr242012
by Bishop Hill
Another CSA moves on
Apr 24, 2012 Bureaucrats
Hot on the heels of the announcement that Sir John Beddington is stepping down as government chief scientific adviser comes the news that Bob Watson is to depart from the CSA role at DEFRA.
His replacement is Professor Ian Boyd, who researches mammals at St Andrews and appears to be, well, a scientist rather than an activist.
This looks like some welcome depoliticisation of the top echelons of the scientific civil service to me.
Reader Comments (33)
Two bad beards gone! Hoo - effin - Ray!
Sorry, that was childish.....
"Bad Beards" - fantastic.
clearing the stables?
I wrote to Caroline Spelman in June 2010 asking her to get rid of Watson. I got no reply. This action is a case of better late than never. Here are extracts from my letter.
Could one dare hope there is writing on the wall whispering abandon hype all ye who have entered here?
with a
p.s. Seek cover! (aka hide).
My unpublished monograph entitled " The Role of the Bad Beard in Politically Active Climate Science" (Savage, Cutt, Mrs.Savage et al.2012) is presently undergoing beard review.
Bound in hand tooled polar bear hide , It is lavishly illustrated with full-colour art plates of Gleick, Mann, Schmidt, Serezze, Richard Black, the young Wm Connolley , Suzanne Goldenberg and countless others so it is not for the faint of heart.
They can leave with their heads hung low.
Hmm, top end Civil Servants have smelt the Shale and are clearing decks for a new dash for gas.
Wonder when they'll tell the politicians :D:D
It has just occurred to me that we sceptics severely risk becoming popular!
What a conundrum. Do we then reject the "consensus", that we were right?
We've already seen the sport of warmist bating go the way of dodo cooking as the only dodos/warmists that are left are stuck behind bars getting fat for the entertainment of the crowds.
What happens when the crowd want to superglue us to a pedestal and pretend they wanted to put us there all along?
Great news, well spotted Bish. Roger Carr asks the important question:
One has to allow for the possibility that our coalition government may just be boxing smart in not confronting the global warming science-policy nexus head on before first removing its most egregious acolytes. And Watson didn't have a bit part in the story. Here's Ian Castles on Collide-a-Scape in June 2010, six weeks before the great Australian economist died:
So a crucial cheerleader for the illusion that was the hockey stick. Two years later, in 2002, his reward was to be mixing with the Hollywood glitterati in the company of Stephen Schneider, as this hilarious picture and story show. John Shade's "They can leave with their heads hung low" is right.
Mike Haseler: I believe dodos are now all behind glass, Mike, not bars, therefore to compare them to warmists... Ah! Yes, of course...
@Mike Haseler
Once the tide has turned we will have to try and make sure that the environmental baby is not thrown out with the climate catastrophe bathwater. They will be a huge danger that all concern for the environment will be tarred with the same brush in the backlash.
Not something anyone here would like, I am sure.
Sixpence says one or both of them will be in the House of Lords within a year.
Don't expect an outbreak of common sense at government level any time soon...
CL
It will be Lord John, Lord Bob and Sir Ian. A pound to a penny
@ Jack Savage
"@Mike Haseler
Once the tide has turned we will have to try and make sure that the environmental baby is not thrown out with the climate catastrophe bathwater. They will be a huge danger that all concern for the environment will be tarred with the same brush in the backlash.
Not something anyone here would like, I am sure.
Apr 24, 2012 at 1:02 PM | Jack Savage
---------------------
How right you are Jack. This is by far the biggest possible danger and fallout from "alarmism".
@Philip Bratby
You consistently make excellent points, so please don't let your grammar undermine them.
You are not Secretary of State -- she is.
You must write "As you are Secretary of State, I urge you to use your position.."
"I urge you to use your position.." would have done. I'm sure she knew what it was. :-)
James P -
Seated, surely, when reading her mail. ;-)
"Another CSA moves on"
How many have we got?
How many do we want?
No doubt that Watson will be rewarded on his departure with yet another gong to add to his collection.
Watson turned up at the Guardian's public Climategate debate and started by breezily stating that it was all a storm in a teacup, nothing to see here, move along please. But was quickly forced to admit that he hadn't read them and was relying on what his chums at UEA had told him.
Had I had any respect for him initially it would have evaporated at that point. He clearly though that his 'status' and 'authority' would allow him to wing it. He had a rude awakening in front of a highly informed audience.
Banker! (sp)
I presume Watson is leaving to chair the new UN scaremongering outfit IPBES. Probably many more air miles available to exotic locations than provided by DEFRA.
Could this be related to this interesting bit of news about a Green speech that David Cameron isn't going to make after all! I really hope so - I might even vote Tory next time if this is true!
http://thegwpf.org/uk-news/5539-david-cameron-cancels-hyped-green-speech.html
David: the Tories want your vote and the sceptic vote generally, no doubt about that. But they want the warmist vote too, hence the facing two opposite directions. But I think they're realising the sceptic vote matters more, in terms of numbers and commitment to the issue, hency the general trend we've been seeing for a little while now.
That's a real-politik view. A more charitable view is that Steve Hilton really was convinced by sceptic arguments before jetting off to California and he persuaded Cameron and Osborne to think again, with Nigel Lawson's help. It's a principled move.
Take your choice: cynical or principled. Either way, the departures of Beddington and Watson are very good news.
Latimer
The Guardian audio didn't catch it (ref Watson saying he had only read a few emails.)
Audience member shouted out. 'do you often forget to do your homework'..
Big laugh from most people there..
Richard,
If politicians start doing things that the majority wish for, it will be a big step forward! I find most ordinary people have a gut feeling that AGW was hype! I'll vote for any party that will keep the lights on!
Mammals, eh? Did anyone mention Tim Flannery?
James P and HaroldW, surely her position was missionary as she is clearly an evangelist for CAGW.
David, it was always going to be a hard sell, given that most people, like you, are pretty keen for the lights to stay on. Then came Climategate, which convinced many ordinary voters there was something dodgy in the science. (They weren't wrong, as growing numbers of readers of HSI have found out.) Then came shale gas, promising both cheap energy and energy security, with a lower carbon footprint to boot, for the dwindling numbers caring. In this way so-called climate policy has become a monumentally hard sell in a democracy - which is why the EU has to be the main driver of it around here and some activists have proposed forms of totalitarianism to 'save the planet' from man himself. There'll still be a battle but the enlightened majority will I believe win out. Exciting days.
Jack Savage sorry to late for that , the silence over the actions of 'the Team ' etc from those that should have acted as gatekeepers has probable condemn the lot . Once you abuse the peoples trust on such a scale and worse you seen very public to have done it , you little chance of getting it back .
Indeed I consider that is why some in science protect 'the cause ' , their like a gambler that has gone all in so they either win or lose the lot .
We at Farmers Weekly are going to take full credit for the Great Sir John's sudden departure. Although that's not quite fair: I blame many of you lot who went over to his article on the Farmers Weely webpage , and blew his arguments out of the water!
http://www.fwi.co.uk/Articles/10/04/2012/132339/Chief-scientist-blasts-climate-change-sceptics.htm
Good work.
Billy Liar: re IPBES and Watson, I fear you may be right.
Watson is Al Gore's favourite scientist, (after Hansen), having worked for him in the White House in charge of the "Mission to Planet Earth." and he was upset at Watson being replaced by Pachauri as head of IPCC. Founder of the Tyndall Centre, Mike Hulme, supported Pachauri, because he had secured support from Pacahuri's Teri organisation for his new Social Studies and Climate Centre. (It's in the e-mails).
Gore was visiting Gordon Brown and selling his Inconvenient Truth around the country, only a couple of months before Watson got his jobs at Defra and Tyndall. Presumably Watson will still be Director of Strategy at Tyndall?