"We have trouble with all the Climate Denier reports in the Daily Mail and such .. but you know what whenever we invite skeptics to speak to the Climate Committee they always refuse to come"

- This seemed like devious clever politics to me as the sudden comment that seemed to come out of nowhere at the end of a session. A maximum impact statement that left the audience with the false impresssion skeptics arguments are so weak that we run away was slyly slotted in slotted in after the audience questions.
- I felt that statement was a lie as a few skeptics like the Bishop had spoken to the committee, but Bish also mentioned that here that time and time again almost all of the people invited to submit are climate panic activists and skeptics are rarely invited.

- Lord Krebs was there as Chair of the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee and Chair of the Adaptation Sub-Committee (of the Climate Committee)
- The thing was an hour earlier at the beginning of the talk I had written down a question "can you please explain how the science committee goes about selecting who will submit to it ..as most of the people invited seemed to be activists ?".

- The session was titled Big Ben meets Big Bang: How Parliament impacts on science

Parliament regularly examines the big scientific challenges facing our society. Find out how at this event.
Science is political, and Parliament plays a key role in examining the big scientific challenges facing our society. Find out how it does this, and debate some of the big issues facing scientists and politicians at this interactive event.

- But then Krebs had opened the session by stating that instead of questioning the politicians, the format would be a competion with the audience acting in the role of the select committee and listen to 3 scientists making submissions and at the end voting to which scientist the funding would go. So MY QUESTION WAS SCUPPERED as we weren't able to question the politicians on "how it does this"

- The 3 science peoples topics were
- a bloke saying more funds should be awarded to aging research
- A local Solar PV professor activist saying that renewables was a bigger priority.
- An economist saying that pure science research was the priority ..quoting that despite graphene being discovered in the UK other countries were getting far mor patents.

- So I reformatted my question.
1. Didn't the profs understand that there are good reasons why scientists don't go chasing patents, cos it is better for world science to leave things open instead of closing them down with patents ?
2. Didn't the speakers understand that there is a difference between "validated science" and just "scientists say" ? So where is the real data ?
3. Didn't the scientists think it was more effective to untax and allow the market to find innovations rather than tax and choose some field to subsidise ?

- After a stunned silence .. Krebs opened with yes the committe had recently asked scientist to come back with proper evidence and then the scientists responded Miss Solar PV replied that yes today she had not come with any real data today cos she was speaking in front of the general public , but if she would if was speaking in front of the real committee.
- Mr Aging Research did go onto quote evidence for a number of his topics. Mr Science Research flustered and no one tackled my free market question.

- I don't know if I had any influence, but in the end Miss Solar PV came last 21 votes, Mr Science Research got 25, and Mr Aging Research got 28. So instead of a victory for renewables research Lord Krebs declared "We have a split vote ..you can see how difficult the work of the committee is"

Afterwards I went up and questioned Lord Krebs directly "can I quote you on that statement that skeptics refuse to come to submit"
Krebs - "Ah I didn't say that what I meant is that people like the Mail & telegraph reuse to come .. and the GWPF ?"
- "what the GWPF ? and even Lawson"
Krebs - "yes they refuse to come"
.. I mumble "I can't believe that .. it's the Royal Society thet refuses to debate the GWPF"
"Can you please explain how your committe selects those to submit ?"
Krebs - "It's explained on the website"
- "Well it seems to us that time & time again they are inviting activists"
Krebs - "activists have a right to be heard"
"yes, but not disproportionately.. they should not be allowed to hijack science"

- We know Debden (John Selwyn Gummer) was both a renewables corp trougher & chairman of the Chair of the Adaptation Sub-Committee is Lord Krebs similarly connected ?

(The Bish nailed Krebs promoting PERILS in July )

- I previously listen on Unthreaded the Alarmist topics of some of the sessions at the British Science Festival as an invitation for skeptics to attend and put in a corrective voice. However when it came to it I found myself not doing that; rather than listen to more green dream propaganda I always found myself selecting another different sessions which ran at the same time.
- However that Thursday I found myself confronting speakers in 2 other lectures. One always expects geologists to be realistic, but in his lecture that geologist chose to be romantic about a carbon capturing green meadow project growing up on demolition rubble in central Newcastle. And he also moaned that the Africans were exporting all their potassium they put on their land inthe products they send to Europe ..and that one day when potassium runs out they will be left with meagre depleted soil to grow their own food.
- So I said "1. some kids going to set fire that meadow and the CO2 will all get released" and "2. Are you really sayin gthat most of the potassium ends up in the exported food ? I would have thought it's like water when we use it it doesn't just disappear it's still there in the ecosystem"

- Then in the president debate
Incoming President Lisa Jardine questions whether public engagement with science has stalled.
Lisa Jardine who in the past has complained that skeptics are confused opened by talking about how science authority loses control of the debate surprisingly by quoting a science report on fracking allaying the fears. And going onto say see this is what happens we are too weak in governemnt and science we need to push the science stronger. I made the point "Don't you think that it is not weakness in government, but rather that whatever media dynmaic is in control at the time. A|nd these days it's that the media is infected by GREEN DREAM RELIGION. And it doesn't matter how strongly the government pushes, since that morning the journalist will get 5 simpler reports from his green activists friends so will rather do the easier thing of copy and pasting one of them instead" ..another stunned silence

- oops that was the wrong link Correct link to Jardine's talk ..Blogged summary
- One bit of Jardine's talk was interesting ..She gave an example that when you sit people down they do get a a real view point and change their opinion instead of their first knee jerk reaction (which is often fear stirred up by activists). Emphasising again that it is not the problem of Evidence Based Science based science failing to get it's message across .. it is that PUBLIC ony see the world only through the media prism ..which is biased towards a green religion viewpoint.

- Oh there was one thing I forgot. There was a fourth person I had words with. Sitting at the front of the Lisa Jardine talk was a young civil servant from 10 Downing Street working on public engagement ..so I was able to bend his ear a bit and warn him about public open forums being hijacked by activists, cos they are often the only people who have time to show up whereas the rest of the public are busy working . He seemed to admit that they knew that often they (No 10) weren't getting the view of the real public, cos this was turning out to take a lot more time than they had expected.