Stern Report: Doubters and deceivers

The Grauniad excels itself with a piece about dissent on the ridiculous Stern Report.

Even before the government's comprehensive report on the global economic impact of climate change is published later today, rightwing commentators and bloggers on both sides of the Atlantic have already begun rubbishing its contents.

Ah, the dastardly right wing. This is, of course, an implicit admittance that climate change is driven more by the left wing ideologues than any real science. When they talk about "consensus" on climate change, they mean political consensus rather than scientific consensus.

It doesn't get any better from the Guardian.

Under the headline Bad Climate Science Yields Worse Economics, Stephen Milloy, who is a scholar with the rightwing thinktank the Cato Institute, wrote on his "junkscience" blog:

And later ......

Climate change sceptics in the UK had a pop at Stern in January when he released three papers that served as a preliminary report into the review's progress. A critique by a group of nine rightwing economists, including the former chancellor Nigel Lawson, described the Stern review as a "misdirected exercise".

All these references to right wing this and right wing that is intended to give the reader a clear view that these people have vested interests. And in the interests of balance and fairness, you'd expect the Guardian to do the same for supporters of Stern, right?

Wrong.

But Neil Adger, an economist at the Tyndall Centre for climate change research, said: "The sceptics have been trying to rubbish the Stern report from the start because they know that it is so important who is actually saying these things.

Would Neil Adger be a right wing or left wing economist. The Guardian omits to tell us. Suddenly, the politics of the person isn't important for the Guardian. Notice also that the Guardian has put "the Tyndall Centre" capitalised, but "climate change research" stays in lower case. The actual title - according to their own web site is "The Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research" - all capitalised except for the word "for". In other words - it is a group with a blatantly vested interest in climate change. The Guardian deliberately attempts to tone this obvious bias down by removing the capital letters from the latter part of the name.

And what about Mr Adger himself. Mr Adger works for CSERGE. Which sounds like the sort of group James Bond might be working against, but is actually "The Centre for Social and Economic Research on the Global Environment". Here's some fluff from their website.

The Centre's interdisciplinary programme is based around a number of research areas and is funded from a range of sources including the UK research councils, government departments and agencies, the European Commission, NGO's and the private sector.

Hmmm - perhaps Mr Adger may be the teensy weensy bit biased himself. Not that the Guardian would let you know. And I wonder just how much of their funding comes from the private sector. It's clear that most of it comes from parties who clearly have a vested interest in convincing the world that climate change is anthropogenic.

The Guardian isn't done yet, though. next up on the list of unbiased supporters of Stern comes Ben Stewart of Greenpeace.

"We've been told that it will cost too much to do something," said Ben Stewart of Greenpeace. "Stern gives us the evidence that it will cost too much not to do something. It really is a knockout blow."

"[Sceptics] have long exposed themselves as being scientifically illiterate. It is quite interesting that people on the extreme right are economically illiterate as well," he added.

There's that right wing tag again - only it's now the extreme right. That should give Nigel Lawson pause for thought. Greenpeace is about as far left as you can go without being an outright Communist. Does the Guardian mention that Greenpeace is an extreme left wing NGO? No. Of course not. Does The Guardian mention Mr Stewart and Greenpeace are biased in their reaction to Stern.

No.

Mr Stewart also asserts that Stern provides "evidence". It does not - it is speculation.

People who read the Guardian are fed this tripe day in day out. Their heads are filled with fears about the "right wing" while the real dangers are underplayed or even ignored. It's nothing but a left wing scandal sheet.

Bird cage liner.

And what do all our media luvvies and public sector darlings read? No wonder their heads are so full of rocks.