BBC Promote Dishonest Christian Aid Climate Report
By Paul Homewood
h/t Philip Bratby
The BBC is getting more desperate to scare the public about climate change. They are now having to resort those famous climate scientists at Christian Aid, and a quote from rent-a-mouth Michael Mann!
Extreme weather events linked to climate change cost thousands of lives and caused huge damage throughout the world in 2018, say Christian Aid.
The charity’s report identified ten events that cost more than $1bn each, with four costing more than $7bn each.
Scientists have shown that the chances of heat waves in Europe were influenced directly by human-related warming.
Other events, say the authors, are due to shifts in weather patterns, said to be a consequence of climate change.
According to the report the most financially costly disasters linked to rising temperatures were Hurricanes Florence and Michael, with costs said to be around $17bn for the former, and $15bn for the latter.
Research published at the time showed that the rains accompanying Hurricane Florence were made 50% worse than they would have been without human influenced warming.
With Hurricane Michael, experts say that human activities drove the emissions that made the water warmer, adding fuel and speed to the storm.
In Japan, 2018 was the summer of extremes with flooding and heatwaves causing huge impacts.
The floods killed at least 230 people and caused $7bn worth of damage, which were then followed by Typhoon Jebi, the most powerful storm to hit the country for 25 years.
Europe also saw record heatwaves – with researchers showing that climate change likely doubled the chances of the events happening.
A separate study from the Met Office looking at the UK suggested that the extreme heat was made 30 times more likely because of rising temperatures.
The Christian Aid study says even where scientists have not done attribution studies linking events to climate change, they believe that warming is driving shifts in weather patterns that make droughts and wildfires more likely.
"Climate change is something still often talked about as a future problem, not least because we know the consequences of the warming climate are so devastating and don’t want to face up to what is already happening," said Dr Kat Kramer from Christian Aid.
"This report shows that for many people, climate change is having devastating impacts on their lives and livelihoods right now. The great injustice of climate breakdown is that the people that suffer first and worst, are the world’s poor that have done the least to contribute to the crisis."
The report says that while the headline events had immediate impacts on lives and economies throughout 2018, in many developing countries there are slow-moving disasters connected to climate change such as droughts and sea encroachment that are progressively hitting millions of people.
Commenting on the Christian Aid report, Dr Michael Mann from Penn State University said the impacts of climate change were no longer subtle.
"The unprecedented floods, droughts, heat waves, wildfires and super storms we’ve seen in recent years – they are the face of climate change. The world’s weather is becoming more extreme before our eyes – the only thing that can stop this destructive trend from escalating is a rapid fall in carbon emissions."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-46637102
It is of course the usual scam – take a few bad weather events and spin them as climate change.
Most of the examples in the Christian Aid report have already been thoroughly debunked on this site.
For instance, the Cape Town drought, that was far from being unprecedented.
Or the drought in Southeastern Australia, where they claim that “rainfall has fallen by 15 to 25% over recent decades, (omitting the fact that conditions have simply returned to those prior to the 1950s and 60s, which were unusually wet:
Then they inevitable mention Hurricane Florence, ignoring the fact that rainfall was so heavy because the hurricane stalled off the coast. Other hurricanes have had much more intense periods of rain than Florence.
And while mentioning Hurricane Michael, they also conveniently ignore the fact that major hurricane strikes on the US are decreasing.
Wildfires and floods are also wheeled in this utterly dishonest report, which contradicts even what the IPCC has said about the lack of trends in extreme weather.
Christian Aid has its own political agenda, and will continue to cheat and lie to achieve them, aided and abetted by the BBC and the rest of hangers on in the media.
Comments are closed.
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Another charity crossed off my list for potential donations.
A cousin of mine and her husband used to run a horse breeding business in Rhodesia. They had five families of locals working for them in what was a very happy set up. Then came the troubles and, just before they escaped to South Africa, my cousin sent me an urgent request. On no account must I contribute to Christian Aid as she knew they were actively supporting the supply of weapons to Mugabe. It is hard to trust any organisation which only exists by spending other peoples money.
Christian Aid are part of the Climate Coalition https://www.theclimatecoalition.org/our-members I find this rather surprising when I see some of their bedfellows…
Christian Aid’s aim is to end poverty. They will do this by stopping use of all fossil fuel and replacing it with renewable energy. There seems to be something of a dichotomy there. As well as not doing science, it seems they also don’t do engineering or economics. These people are a danger.
Yes far more dangerous than the Climate.
Christian Aid’s “aim”, Phillip, like Oxfam’s and CAFOD’s and its Scottish sister Sciaf (Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund), is to ensure that we feel good about giving it money while it does “good things” in disaster areas.
All these charities long since established just where the balance lies between how effective you need to be on the ground to keep the donations flowing and what is the point at which you might be in danger of solving the problem and being forced to go out and get a proper job.
For an object lesson, read the Heartland report on Greenpeace’s modus operandi. All,the major international charities operate in much the same way, regrettably. If you have cash to spare point it towards organisations like Mary’s Meals or Mercy Ships or Water Aid that have a specific remit and stick to it. (Admittedly the occasional nod to climate change creeps in these days but it’s hard to a avoid, I fear.)
Or you could just say – ‘Sorry, I have no spare cash due to the global warming taxes on my energy bills.’
What a wonderful anomaly: far from Christian, and Aiding nobody.
“Experts say” “The chances of” “Likely doubled” “Suggested” “They believe”
I think those quotes say all you need to know…
Yep that’s their “Science”. And of course, hot, cold, wet, dry anywhere on the planet is their proof. Why if it wasn’t for fossil fuel CO2 we would be living in the Garden of Eden.
The little sprout of grass in the picture is definitely a plant…
Christian charade. As I’ve said before, the little red envelopes go straight in the bin these days.
And the door to door reps of the eco-terrorist organisation dishonestly referencing peace in its name, they usually go away having had an education, not that they care for anything apart from their commission.
Sure, gave up on Christian Aid long ago – too much socialistic politicking. Try the Sally Army perhaps – they seem to plough a more honourable furrow – no histrionics, they just get on with it. Admirable.
One of the (dis)advantages of moving from town to country as we have done is we see far fewer door-to-door collectors to donate to/argue with/be rude to. The distance between front doors is too large to make it worth their effort. Still get the Witnesses though!
Paul – in 2011 I used your data to investigate delta sunshine vs delta temp. But it needed your skills to do it right.
I found the results robust.
Paul
Save me from all the comments being forwarded. I ticked the box asking for them – I did not expect the deluge
Thank you in anticipation.
If you click on “MANAGE” in the “You Are Following This Blog” sidebar. you should be able to change the settings there.
At worst, you may need to “UNFOLLOW”, and then reclick on “FOLLOW”
Let me know if that does not work
Paul
I find it amazing how easily Christians lie.
Lying is so easy when money is involved. You cannot find one without the other….
I do not imply that all Christians lie. The statement is about the charity Christian Aid. Their use of severe weather events as global warming is a lie.
True Christians do not lie. Just because you have “Christian” in your organization name does not mean you practice any Christianity.
As Robbie Burns put it in his poem, Death and Dr.Hornbrook:: ”
Ev’n Ministers they hae been kend,
In holy rapture,
A rousing whid at times to vend,
And Nail’t wi scripture”.
As true now as in the 18th Century.
Because…….THEY SEE THIS AS AN EASY WAY TO GET MONEEEEEEEEEE!
By the way does anyone know who or what is Dr Katherine Kramer? I have tried without success to find her on the Christian Aid Website or indeed anywhere on the internet to understand her background and in particular what her PhD is in. She is referred to as a climate expert and her grandiose CA job title is “Global Climate Lead” (I thought that was God’s job, but never mind). She is not cited as one of their leadership team. Anyway, she is listed as author of a Christian Aid report from October 2018. I notice that Climate Alarm propaganda rag The Guardian figures largely in her list of reference. https://www.christianaid.org.uk/sites/default/files/2018-10/Christian-Aid-Sinking-cities-rising-seas-report.pdf. Full title, “Sinking Cities,Rising Seas A perfect storm of climate change and bad development”. A better title would be “Sinking Cities examples of bad location, corrupt management and chronic over population” because points 2 and 3 are avoidable problems! To this she inserts fantasy. She does not differentiate between natural sea level rise and any which may be caused by man, she treats it as one and the same in the message to the ignorant prospective giving masses. I was laughing because she is actually reporting fact as of secondary importance to fantasy in each tail of woe. All the cities cited are subsiding because of geological reasons (isostasy) or badly managed groundwater extraction. In most cases they would still have a problem if sea level stood still! She strangely does not include Miami which is a classic example of no management let alone badly managed ground water extraction but OH she does get a dig in at Houston, that den of Satan because of its oil and gas link. She omitted the fact that Houston sits on the top of a delta and guess what deltas do folks…they subside! Did you know Houston is a “fossil producer” her words not mine. I ass-u-me she meant “fossil fuel” producer. Too frequently we are being treated to psudo scientific documents which contain shoddy unsubstantiated alarmist quoting alarmist babble and very poorly checked text, something increasingly common place in climate alarm documents as if the most important thing of all is inserting the words climate change as often as possible and hang the content. It actually reads like some Irish or Country music sounds. Take the penny whistle out of the irish tune and the slidy guitar our of the Country tune and it becomes an anyday tune. That is how this document reads. Take a bland report on subsiding cities and insert “climate change” into every paragraph. Anyway, her school project collation of readily available facts about a few cities and their over population and over extraction of groundwater is spun out in to a horror story based on unsubstantiated modeled worst case possible scenarios for sea level rise (fantasy eustasy). It is quite incredible to put real known facts on isostasy and ground water extraction in second place to fantasy eustasy and have it banded about as a serious work of science to be regurgitated by all the usual suspects!
According to a commenter at JoNova:
On LinkedIn: Kat (Watts) Kramer
Law student, Independent Consultant, Climate and Energy London, United Kingdom.
A law student, currently doing the conversion course with a view to practising in environmental law.
An experienced policy expert with a solid understanding of politics and policy formation, having worked within the EU institutions, and for nearly a decade within the UN climate negotiations. Has additionally worked on UK energy policy, the SDGs and ICAO’s development of a market-based mechanism to limit greenhouse emissions from the sector. Adept at liaising and collaborating with people from around the world to be able to develop and provide sound policy and political ideas and advice. A clear and coherent communicator, able to tailor information and messaging to the audience. Has a broad knowledge base, having Master’s degrees in chemistry, environmental technology and a PhD in carbon forestry and biodiversity. Pursued languages and other knowledge through adult continuing education classes. Highly adaptable, enjoying taking on new ideas and areas of work, being able to assimilate information quickly.
Hi. I found this profile also but surely this is another person with the same name who just sees cash on the global hysteria gravy train? Her linkedin profile while mentioning no comment of a doctorate or previous education or link to Christian Aid suggests this is a young and different person. Anyone able to shed more light on this?
Oh Phillip! Your piece just popped up negating my question. Ok, one of “those” experts
What is carbon forestry?
Carbon forestry = charcoal burners. An ancient trade which will be much needed after the environmentalist victory
Charcoal is to wood, as coke is to coal.
Charcoal is a niche product in most places. But, in Africa its production is a major contributor to deforestation.
“Carbon forestry” presumably is not very different from any other sort of forestry. I would bet that her “expertise” is not in the practical side of it; but, instead, is in waffle about making it “sustainable” and “empowering” locals.
Christian Aid were implicated in ‘twentyeightgate’…
http://joannenova.com.au/2012/11/bbc-secret-exposed-greenpeace-activists-bp-decide-what-sciencebrits-see-hello-twentyeightgate/#comment-1177404
The Charity Commission should fire a few warning shots across the bows of these charities which indulge in political propaganda. But i suspect the commission is well and truly infected with the CO2 Satanic Meme Virus; so not much hope there.
We really are running out of honest institutions these days.
Droughts floods and heatwaves?
Maybe they’ve been reading the NASA website on human caused climate change
https://tambonthongchai.com/2018/12/27/nasa/
Here’s a theory for you
#1 September a charity sits down to think about funding
#2 PR guy suggests they need an impetus
#3 Send the researcher to gather some alarmism
and he/she collates it as a “study”
#4 PR guy says for max-impact the study should be released on a quiet news day
say Dec 27th
#5 December charity takes its study to COP24 and hands it out to the “Useful idiot” journos in MSM with a Dec 27th embargo date
#6 Mid December the journos do their cutNpaste item & keep it on their PC
#7 Dec 26th Boxing Day 5pm the journos take a 10 minute break from their Xmas festivities to email the story to their newspaper.
#8 The subeditor stick a nutty click-bait headline on it, making it even more alarmist
#9 By 11pm on 26th it’s being printed in the Dec 27th newspaper
They have a full newspaper with relatively little work
So on Thursday is the journo actually going to get up early and actually work ?
Nah.. cos by coincidence he’s got a similar National Trust article to publish
‘our end of year report shows climate doom’
..ie NGO’s probably s coordinate on release dates.
\\ Extreme weather in the UK made 2018 a ‘rollercoaster’ year for wildlife says the National Trust
In its review of the year, the charity said this year’s ‘winners’ were many bats and butterflies, //
and seals and moths
https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/features/2018-weather-and-wildlife-review
The idea that you can take a single event – a few weeks of hot weather say – and claim it was “more likely” to have happened because of climate change is utter nonsense. Just totally meaningless. The heat wave was caused by known factors. It was not random. Either those factors were caused by climate change or they were not. Probability is about predicting future events, not past events where we know the causes. And the idea you can show that a single event had a meaningful increased probability is nonsense.
Exactly. Their assertions that the rains accompanying Hurricane Florence were made 50% worse, and that emissions made the water warmer, adding fuel and speed to Michael, are just too stupid to even comment on.
BBC quotes Christian Aid as climate news
..So which other British charity joins 2 French NGOs and multi-national Greenpeace in suing Macron for backing down on fuel taxes ?
… Did its donors put money into the collecting box for that ?
“This is like drug cartel sues Trump due to the wall.”
A further point. At “best” you can assign only part of the cost to climate change anyway. Say 10% of the cost a hurricane by decayed climate change made it a bit bigger, 15% of the cost of a heatwave because climate change made it a bithotter anlonger, and so on. Assigning the entire cost is totally dishonest.
Since when did honesty creep into the climate alarmists’ agenda? (rhetorical question)
I just pulled this from Wikipedia:
“Christian Aid is the official relief and development agency of 41 British and Irish churches, and works to support sustainable development, stop poverty, support civil society and provide disaster relief in South America, the Caribbean, Africa and Asia including the Middle East.
It works with hundreds of local partner organisations in some of the world’s most vulnerable communities in 37 countries. It is a founder member of the Disasters Emergency Committee, and a major member of the Stop Climate Chaos, The Fairtrade Foundation and Trade Justice Movement campaigns. Christian Aid’s headquarters are in London and it has regional teams across the UK and Ireland, plus country offices elsewhere around the world[6]. Christian Aid also organises the UK’s largest door-to-door collection, Christian Aid Week, which takes place in May each year.”
This is nothing more than your typical Marxist group commandeering the moniker “Christian” to fly under the radar. As my former pastor at 4th Presbyterian Church in Washington used to say: “Sitting in a pew doesn’t make you a Christian any more than sitting in a garage makes you a car.”
I believe that this “extreme weather = climate change” meme originated during the Obama years, when The Pause was depriving Big Green of warmest-evah headlines, and any extreme weather event would provide what was missing, in spades thanks to the ubiquitous MSM and their cameras.
Which fell somewhat flat when no major hurricanes struck the US for about ten years, including most if not all of the Obama presidency.
But oh the alarmist just jump for joy every time someone is killed or maimed. In fact they were vying witheachother a month ago as to how many the upcoming storm in the US would kill. When the body count was not going the way they wanted the item was dropped. Do they ever listen to themselves? All of the money should be going into reasearch and implementation of mitigation of the effects of weather and by inference, climate. Some serious work on the implications of the lunatic global population growth freeforall would not go amiss. Humans encroaching on unstable environments should not be surprised when WEATHER varies. As for celebrities building palaces in unkempt Califirnian forests, well….So far Trillions have been spent on what exactly?
True, Jon Scott. There has never be a tragedy too severe for the Left not to exploit it.
The joke is that they “did a study”. They were nominated by their climate strategy group as the next ones to push out a scare story, using the recent “scientific” papers that have, as Paul says, been de-bunked. However, that doesn’t matter, the headline is the thing, it grows legs and becomes “fact”, to be regurgitated in future.
Very pertinent is this paper from Professor Jamal Munshi:
https://www.academia.edu/36025745/CIRCULAR_REASONING_IN_CLIMATE_CHANGE_RESEARCH
“Circular reasoning is a logical fallacy in which research design and methodology as well as the interpretation of the data subsume the finding. This fallacy can be found in published research and it is more common in research areas such as archaeology, finance, economics, and climate change where the data are mostly time series of historical field data with no possibility for experimental verification of causation.
In biased research of this kind, researchers do not objectively seek the truth, whatever it may turn out to be, but rather seek to prove the truth of what they already know to be true or what needs to be true to support activism for a noble cause (Nickerson, 1998).
Such confirmation bias or yearning (Finkelstein, 2011) is found in research areas related to religion or to activism. Confirmation bias is thought to play a role in climate change particularly since climate science provides the rationale for environmental activism and the noble cause of saving humanity or perhaps the planet from climate cataclysm (Kaptchuk, 2003) (Nicholls, 1999).
This hidden hand of activism plays a role in the way climate research is carried out and in the way findings are interpreted and disseminated (Cooper, 2006) (Britt, 2001) (Bless, 2006) (Juhl, 2007) (Watkins, 2007) (VonStorch, 1995) (Enright, 1989) (Britt, 2001) (Hodges, 1992) (Curry, 2006).”
‘How much is Christian Aid’s CEO paid? Christian Aid’s former Chief Executive, Loretta Minghella OBE, earned £127,711 last year. We recognise that this is a large sum of money. Christian Aid makes every effort to avoid paying higher salaries than are necessary.’
Yet more bias from the BBC. But there’s the core of the problem. The BBC is front and centre in the green movement and hence we have the promotion of fault laden reports like this one. The BBC is totally unrepentant about its green bias and this will not end until the BBC is called to account for the way it deliberately misleads the British public and shuts out any and all voices of dissent on the subject of climate change. The big question is how to bring them to account and end the almost daily stream of biased items.