Snowy Brazil, Again… « Musings from the Chiefio

“We’ve had snow before but never this cold factor. Some schools opened but by 10:00 in the morning everybody was gone because of the intense cold, nobody could stand it”, said the mayor of Sao Jose, Erivetto Sinval Velho.
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(As I type this, I’ve turned on my heater. It is raining in “Sunny” California on the cusp of July, quite cold, and the garden is Waayyy behind schedule. It’s not just a local weather thing, it’s cold all over…)

- Bishop Hill blog - Barker

So why were McIntyre and McKitrick not heard at any of the inquiries? Does Mr Barker agree that the inquiries were inadequate? And why do none of the ministers at DECC ever seem to speak to anyone who is not either in the energy industry or an environmentalist? Why no sceptics? Why no representatives of consumers?

It's hard to equate Mr Barker's actions with his words.

- Bishop Hill blog - Scientific advisers are lobbyists

We know that David King is a man who has an idiosyncratic approach to factual accuracy, so in the absence of any supporting evidence I think I will take that last part with a pinch of salt. But the wider question that King's 2004 remarks raise is at what point a scientific advisor just becomes a paid lobbyist. Advisors are traditionally imagined as quietly telling people in power what's what - they are the leader's way of tapping into a network of expertise and specialised knowledge. Their work is done discreetly, unseen by the general public. But someone who makes noisy public demands for political action and tries to press political leaders into a particular course of action is not an adviser, but a lobbyist. Now of course, King is now performing his lobbying from a position in a university rather than from within the government machine, but I'm not sure that this makes much of a difference.