The BBC Seminar & Andrew Simms
By Paul Homewood
One of the “scientific experts” who attended the BBC seminar in 2006 was Andrew Simms, who wrote this for the Guardian in 2008:
If you shout "fire" in a crowded theatre, when there is none, you understand that you might be arrested for irresponsible behaviour and breach of the peace. But from today, I smell smoke, I see flames and I think it is time to shout. I don’t want you to panic, but I do think it would be a good idea to form an orderly queue to leave the building.
Because in just 100 months’ time, if we are lucky, and based on a quite conservative estimate, we could reach a tipping point for the beginnings of runaway climate change.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2008/aug/01/climatechange.carbonemissions
It’s the same sort of tired, unscientific drivel we’ve read times many in the past.
Simms, of course, is entitled to his views, no matter how wrong they may be.
But it says everything about the BBC’s approach to climate change that they should prefer the views of cranks.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
From memory, there was just one scientist among the 28 invitees, a marine ecologist from Plymouth with no special knowledge of climate. It would be worth going back over the list to see where they are now. One, a Harvard PhD student at the time, is now director of her daddy’s Greek hotel chain. She won’t like the 4 air trips in a lifetime rule.
Yes, a Where are they now? would be very interesting.
So here we are, 36 months or so beyond this man’s silly chicken-liken charade and not much is happening.
Where is he pleading for forgiveness? I see no sackcloth or ashes. These fools should be very publicly shamed, as you are doing Paul. They are costing us billions, all for nothing, and they are still getting paid. Worst of all, they are discrediting our most precious possession: real science. If we lose that we are ruined.
“So here we are, 36 months or so beyond this man’s silly chicken-liken charade and not much is happening.” Not 36 months – I make it more like 84 months. And what did we expect to ‘happen’? Exactly nothing. All the doom-mongering climate change fanatics/zealots should be held up to ridicule at every turn.
Luc1ozade, you emphasise exactly, with your welcome reply, my point exactly. Why are these priests of the new religion not begging forgiveness? Or are they claiming that the almost nothing that the rest of the world has done is actually working? Yes they are, poor fools.
Do they not see that in fact they have wrecked our economy along with some of Europe and greatly increased poverty? No of course they don’t.
There was no way it was a ‘conservative estimate’ – it was more likely a WEF estimate: You have to frighten today’s children if you want to control tomorrow’s voters. Fortunately, some of us grew up with Independent minds and long memories. Those responsible should be sent to live somewhere where warming would not be thought of as a problem: Iceland and Greenland come to mind.
He’s a liar – that was not a “conservative estimate”. They lie and lie and lie.
and lie again
” You have to frighten today’s children if you want to control tomorrow’s voters ”
My (limited) understanding is that this is part of the UK school curriculum.
Simms was indeed at the seminar and the following incident is revealing:
“A Sunday Times columnist, Rachel Johnson, mentioned meeting that big beast of environmental activism, Andrew Simms, at a book launch. She asked him when he thought ‘that the greens had finally started preaching to the choir?’ He said he thought that a recent BBC Newsnight report by Susan Watts, questioning whether economic growth was good for the planet, was encouraging, but that the real conversion had taken place at the BBC’s climate change seminar. (The Times 27th Jan 2008) The is no doubt that he was referring to the 2006 BBC seminar.”
See my comment here for context: https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2023/10/01/the-bbc-seminar-that-banned-discussion-of-climate-change/#comment-263371
Tony Newbery
2008 +100 months so 8 years or so, 2016. It’s gone then. We are on that slippery slope.
When I used to watch Rugby League on Sunday in the’70s, there were always a couple of guys with placards saying “The World will end on Thursday” or similar. Being a stroppy kid, I interrupted one of them and asked, “How long have you had that sign mistah?”
None …. as in NOT ONE …. of the assorted climatic or neo-Malthusian predictions from the mid-70s onwards supposed guaranteed to come to pass before 2020 has as yet been realised and yet still they persist and still the gullible infants believe them.
One day. Surely?!
Just go to the web and look at ‘The Extinction Clock’ – marvellous therapy for us!
I am a Malthusian through and through – and fiercely anti-green.
Malthus said that eventually population would outstrip food production. One growing exponentially the other linearly. OK, food production grew faster than that, as it did in his other example with Irish potatoes. A balanced and careful reading of his brilliant book shows he was right. There are now at least twice too many people on earth and we must address that problem by every moral and humane method possible. Best of all would be the 2.5 billion there were when I was born.
But cheer up, if we do nothing voluntarily then we will collapse anyway from starvation, disease, war and invasion. The four horsemen, remember? It will be alright for the earth, its other living inhabitants and the few of us who will survive.
Was that at the Boulevard? I well remember seeing the likes there then (though I was in my twenties) and wondered what on earth they thought they were achieving. Preaching at a League match in Hull had to be the height of futility!
I’m not sure about that. With a close match I’m sure that a lot of fans would be praying for a late score.
Climate science has been corrupted by religious zealots, grant chasers, greedy self servers, globalist elites and useful idiots
The West desperately needs something to believe in, the globalists desperately need even more money & power – climate is their new religion, their new cash cow – the other useful idiots who have been captured to push the mission cannot see they are cannon fodder in the new world order
Make no mistake, this is an attack on the living standards of the western aligned masses – the other 84% of the world do not subscribe to climate alarmism or nut zero
Not just ‘religious zealots’, but the mainstream churches’ hierarchies, including CofE. You would think that Christ’s statement “I tell you the truth” would underpin all the churches’ socio-political output.
“…based on quite a conservative estimate…”
So 180 months later, no sign whatsoever of any tipping point and all these idiots are saying we’ve only got 100 months…
How wrong, how many times, until everybody wakes up to this?
None of the apocalyptic prognostications from the original Earth Day 1970 have happened. It makes no difference.
‘My brother’s a slum missionary
Out saving young lassies from sin
For a shilling, he’ll save you a redhead
And oh, how the money rolls in’
Makes one wonder what the estimate would have been if not Conservative. Either way.
I wonder what he really meant when he qualified with “if we are lucky”? The whole sentence doesn’t really make much sense.
So the great seer, Andrew Simms, didn’t twig that his catastrophic forecast was a complete load of bovine faeces in January 2017?? He’s about as much use at forecasting as Pantsdown Ferguson and our current Monarch.
Perhaps Simms should be locked up for shouting fire in a crowded building. 100 months from 2006 only takes us to 2014!
Perhaps he should be locked away until his forecast does come true…..
As I repeatedly challenge the greenies such as JSO, go somewhere isolated and live entirely 100% without hydrocarbon fuels and their derivative materials and products for a year, then come back and report on how you got on.
Ilma…I recall the BBC did a ‘castaway’ program years ago when the young Ben Fogle came to our screens. Contestants had to live for (I think) a couple of months with nothing. They had to make a shelter and live off the land. There was one person who wanted to stay.
Can’t be much fun for Simms to look forward to years of disappointments and diminishing status. Just the type that attracts the doomsayers in The Guardian’s editorial team…….see Guardian archive via Simms’ Wikipedia entry.
Wonder what he’s up to now..
To Harry Passfield, – back in the very pleasant summer of 1975 (a forerunner to 1976) a friend and I (with our two partners pillion) went on a motorbike road trip (Ariel Arrow for me, Triumph Trophy 250 for my mate) taking in mid Wales.
Getting somewhat lost up an almost unmade road we came across a group of very dishevelled drop out looking types rough camping who were clearly distressed and wary of us. Apparently they were the remnant of a group established for “A World In Action” ITV documentary on alternative lifestyles. It was pretty obvious that most hated their experience and were only staying there under duress from fear of a couple of evil thugs in “control”.
We went back to a nearby village, recruited a few of the biker fraternity in the local boozer and returned to escort those who wanted to leave safely. All but four came with us with the “minders” noticeable by their absence.
Highly instructive indeed.
I heard Sir David King yesterday say that we have to move faster and he was very worried about sea level rising which would diminish the size of Britain very soon it seems.
These alarmists have lost all hold on reason as they get ever more desperate.
And yet the tidal gauges show no acceleration of sea level rise around Britain.
Granted, the sea level IS increasing in most locations, but it has been for 150 years at least.
There is no evidence that we are not simply coming out of the little ice age, which would happen whatever we do with CO2 emissions.
Instead of making up arbitrary net zero targets which inevitably will be missed, we should be putting resources into flood control and coastal defences.
Exactly what is being done at Lowestoft (UK) with the installation of a sea lock to act as a flood barrier to counter that very rare tidal surge
Somebody should ask King what predictions he has ever got correct.
Oh no, we might only be as successful as the Venetians and Dutch.
According to his Wikipedia page, Andrew Simms is:
“A political economist and environmentalist, Simms studied at the London School of Economics for a master’s degree in development and international political economy”
No sign of a scientific qualification then ?
‘A major in international political economy from Carthage can open the door to many professions. Carthage students develop a wide array of problem-solving skills. They learn how to identify the causes of why things are happening, which allows them to conduct “what-if” analyses. They do this by developing a strong modelling toolkit and using data analysis to inform their models and conclusions.’
Yet more models….
Are you saying Carthage College, Wisconsin, is where he was educated ?
It does not say that, it says LSE. However that was for a masters degree. Where was he an undergraduate and what did he study?
Always remember, kb.., the word ‘environmentalist’ splits into two — ‘environ’ which is sort of round about where you are at any point in time and ‘mentalist’ which loosely means someone who thinks reality only exists in the mind or alternatively a nutcase. Cf – ecomaniac.
kzbkzb “Simms studied at the London School of Economics”
Ah! Communist Head Office, where they teach all the benefits of communism and carefully avoid mentioning the 100m dead.
He doesn’t appear to have published any science papers, so I’d say not. Quite how he is then a “climate change expert” is beyond me.
He doesn’t appear to have published any science papers, so I’d say not. Quite how he is then a “climate change expert” is beyond me.
Disasters please publishers but an extended series of “Where are they now” would make for interesting reading.
A reverse “Desmog” site would be interesting.
I used to comment regularly on Andrew’s pieces. They were always hysterical exaggerations of what ‘could’, ‘might’ or ‘may’ occur.
Lots of modelled simulations and projections, very little in the way of facts.
All these years later his predictions of doom haven’t exactly aged very well, have they?
That was what turned me off Climate “Science” in 2004 when I read 2 IPCC Reports scientific section. There was a recent book then called Weasel Words which fitted exactly.
On the subject of the BBC I had this response to a complaint about one of their articles.
“Thank you for getting in touch about our article Climate change: World’s hottest day since records began.
It appears you never received a response to your complaint from July and we would like to apologise for the very long and regrettable delay in writing back to you.
The sentence in question is a quote from a researcher, following the news that the World Meteorological Organization and the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service had said that July 2023 was due to be the hottest month on record, highlighted here.
It may be that you wish to take it up with the researchers directly, as quite a lot has been written about the subject, but the quotes appear in context and as you know there is also a strong scientific consensus that carbon dioxide emissions are warming the planet, directly contributing to climate change.”
My complaint was that the BBC was repeating unchecked things said by researchers. In this case the 120,000 years contained here.
The global average temperature for July 2023 was the highest on record and likely for at least 120,000 years, the UN weather agency and partners said on Tuesday.
I’ve no great desire to deal with somone whose livelihood depends on there being a climate crisis. The BBC did not supply the researchers name or email so the only contact that is named is Chris Hewitt, Director of Climate Services.
I feel an appeal coming on tomorrow. Their reply is a cop-out you sort it out yourself.
That meeting had wide ranging ripple effects. Here in Bozeman Montana the local paper quit printing letters to the editor that disagreed with the “Settled Science” right after BBC announced it as their policy.
Do excuse my sense of humour, but the editor of the local paper in Bozeman Montana; is he called Bozo by any chance?
Gamecock has been to Bozeman. It’s a cool town.
The dinosaur displays at The Museum of the Rockies are world class.
Home to IES Structural Software, excellent, intuitive, good value, top people.
This from Steve Milloy in 2019 is a collection of failed predictions, mostly highlighted by Tony Heller
https://cei.org/blog/wrong-again-50-years-of-failed-eco-pocalyptic-predictions/
Who can forget Gordon Brown’s 50 days to save the planet in 2009, Oh I had…
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/gordon-brown-we-have-fewer-than-fifty-days-to-save-our-planet-from-catastrophe-1805648.html
“There are now fewer than 50 days to set the course of the next 50 years and more. So, as we convene here, we carry great responsibilities, and the world is watching. If we do not reach a deal at this time, let us be in no doubt: once the damage from unchecked emissions growth is done, no retrospective global agreement, in some future period, can undo that choice. By then it will be irretrievably too late.”
Many thanks for the lead to Milloy’s collection. Continued up-dating of this list should shake the conceit of the experts – eventually – or at least encourage them to shut up.
There should be a “blog-pool” regarding who will be the next well-known person(s) to make fools of their parents for raising a nitwit. Prior nitwits are not to be included. The world needs new fools.
Warmest September on record according to the BBC.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/features/66957427
Here in Latvia we have also had the warmest September on record. Last September was the coldest in the 15 years I have been here.
We have really enjoyed the extra warmth this year, so what is all the fuss about? From what I hear, the British summer was nothing special, so I guess most of the population enjoyed their ‘Indian summer’. If the BBC think it is bad, they must be losing popularity with the populace.
Yes, the UAH satellite anomaly is the highest its been. This year has undoubtedly been warming.
Note that the “100 months” fizzled out long before the 100 months ended.
Did anyone actually read the pure bullshit this guy came out with?
From the full article above, “The concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere today, the most prevalent greenhouse gas,”…really? never heard of H2O?
“Greenhouse gases trap incoming solar radiation,” ????Really?
“Other dynamics include the decreasing ability of oceans to absorb CO2 due to higher wind strengths linked to climate change.”
Does this guy have an effing clue or just make up bollocks (Right Whale scale
for the cognoscenti of new unit definitions) to fill pages of crap publications like the Graun?
No, he’s not a scientist. From what I can see he’s a pretty dim activist who has sought out qualifications that agree with his opinions. His economic ideas are complete dross.
So, just how do his pontifications achieve such publicity?
Someone posted on here recently that in a Geography A-level book they were reading, it was stated that carbon dioxide was the most abundant greenhouse gas. Clearly wrong and very worrying that this is being taught in schools.
Carbon dioxide is a gas. There is nowhere on Earth where it is cold enough to freeze out of the atmosphere.
Water vapour is precisely that, a VAPOUR. It’s concentration at all places on Earth’s surface zone is controlled by an equilibrium between its solid, liquid and gas phases.
So technically, the statement that CO2 is the most abundant greenhouse GAS is correct. However I am not sure it is correct because the people writing this stuff actually understand the point.
Water vapour is the most abundant greenhouse gas in the atmosphere .https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/global-maps/MYDAL2_M_SKY_WV
Even NASA admits that .
But in does vary a lot in different regions . In warmer places it can be about 4% of the atmosphere . Which is 100 times more than CO2.
In the real world:
Yes but water vapour isn’t a gas. Therefore CO2 is the most abundant greenhouse gas.
But you are correct, that in practice there is generally far more water in the atmosphere than CO2.
However, it could be worth checking what happens at very cold temperatures. In the very coldest regions of the planet (roughly minus 20 degrees and colder) it is possible there is more CO2 in the air than water.
‘Greenhouse gas’ is meaningless since greenhouses don’t work by absorbing IR (how do polytunnels work, polythene is transparent to IR?). The whole discussion is moot. Water vapour is as much a ‘greenhouse gas’ as anything else (zero).
Water comes in 3 forms . Solid , liquid and gas .Therefore it is correct to say water vapour is a gas
https://geo.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Geography_(Physical)/Physical_Geography_(Lenkeit-Meezan)/05%3A_Water_and_Water_Resources/5.02%3A_Forms_of_Water_on_Earth
You may have seen that several tanks of biogas exploded on allegedly being hit by lightning just out side Oxford yesterday. The articles I’ve read take care not to explain that biogas is a mixture of mainly methane and carbon dioxide, with some other admixtures depending on the digested biomass.
Quite a few comments do point out that it’s another green boondoggle going up in smoke.
You can increase the percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere at will, right up to 100%. You can do this at any temperature experienced near the surface of Earth.
You cannot do this with water. The percentage of water in the atmosphere has a strict limit, and attempting to exceed that limit leads to water precipitating out as aerosol, rain or snow.
So CO2 and H2O are very different in that regard.
But because the co2 wave lengths are already nearly saturated, that would make virtually no difference at all
It seems to be true that the CO2 bands are close to being saturated at the current CO2 concentration. However increasing CO2 still leads to the mean path length of an IR photon being reduced further, so that on average photons are absorbed closer to the surface of Earth.
This means the near-surface atmosphere is warmed and the atmosphere at altitude is cooled. This has been confirmed by measurements.
Yet the % of CO2 (total and change) is so small, I doubt any temperature difference due to that could be measured.
Here we go again with this myth. Just because the concentration of CO2 is small does not mean that it cannot have a significant effect. I don’t understand how this idea has taken hold so easily amongst the sceptical community.
It does not do this side of the debate any favours to keep trotting out this myth.
Paul, the CO2 may be already nearly saturated, but that is at the top of the atmosphere. Have you considered that the reactions involved happen closer to the Earth’s surface as GHG concentrations increase, and the temperature therefore rises closer to the surface, and becomes cooler at higher altitudes?
Norman Paul Weldon:
If the CO2 increases at the top of the atmosphere then its radiation to space increases.
And if the temperature rises closer to the surface (as it has happen in the past) then there is a correction e.g. the late Jurassic time when the CO2 was about 2700 p.p.m. but the world was cooler.
If your figures are correct (and how reliable can they be?), it was obviously a very different world back in the Jurassic. So maybe other effects take over when conditions are altered as radically as that. Who knows.
Graeme No.3 –
If the CO2 increases at the top of the atmosphere, then it will have also increased at the surface. As the back-radiation has taken place near the surface, there will be no wavelengths left in which it will radiate.
With reference to the Jurassic period, the break up of Pangea will have drastically altered the oceanic and atmospheric circulation, so it is not possible to make any comparison.
When I mention GHGs, I also include water vapour which probably has the greatest effect. I cannot understand why only CO2 is mentioned as the burning of fossil fuels also releases a lot of water vapour, which tends to stay closer to the surface.
The very point I was trying to make is that you cannot arbitrarily increase the concentration of water in the atmosphere. If you reach its saturated vapour pressure at a certain temperature you cannot increase it further. This is just basic physics which you can look up. So outputting water vapour (“steam”) into the atmosphere can have only very local effects at best.
Apart from all of the propaganda , real scientific evidence shows that CO2 , as a very minor trace GAS in the atmosphere , can have almost no effect on climate .
https://notrickszone.com/2023/10/02/more-real-world-evidence-indicates-trace-gases-such-as-co2-dont-have-any-influenceon-climate/
I’ve had a look at that No Tricks link. The paper is very complex and I can’t be bothered to read it all now, especially after reading the comments which say it is junk science.
I did notice the figure of <5% difference. That might not sound much but 5% of an absolute temperature of 287K is 14K, a VERY significant temperature global temperature change !
Yes , that ” No Tricks Zone ” scientific paper has got a comment which tries to demean it .
But every thing that comes out showing up the Global Warming fraud gets attacked .
There are even things said like ” water vapour is not a gas ” when it is shown to be the most prolific GHG in the atmosphere .
kb You claim that small changes in the levels of COc can have a disproportionate effect on atmospheric temperature. The classic experiment conducted by Foote in 1856 (replicated a few years ago) demonstrated that a glass cylinder filled with 100% CO2 and exposed to direct sunlight only registered a +8C differential compared with a cylinder containing air with just 300ppm of CO2. This differential was reduced to a mere +2C when shaded from direct sunlight. So please provide the evidence that supports your assertion.
Talking of deliberately frightening children, who remembers the exploding children scandal in the UK?
Watch the video to the end – it is truly shocking in all kinds of ways. This is how evil these people are.
Exploding children.
Ralph
Mentions of unsuccessful predictions by the alarmists, and the report of September being the equal hottest on record: As I understand it, it was claimed, according to computer models, that September would not have been as hot had it not been for the release of MM CO2 into the atmosphere. It made me wonder: if it was just the UK that had the hottest month was it just UK’s emissions or the whole world’s, and, if the computer model is so accurate (cough), has the self-same program been used to determine why previous months were unseasonably cold?
Nearly all of the temperatures used by the Green Loonies / media nowadays are from computer models or fake readings from unsuitable sites , [airfields etc ]. .
This site uses readings from long established weather stations around the world , thousands every day , and tells the real World temperature .
https://temperature.global/
But they try to ignore it as it shows that the last 8 years have all been below the 30 year world average temperature .
I looked him up on Wikipedia.
“Simms studied at the London School of Economics for a master’s degree in development and international political economy”.