date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 09:53:53 +0100 from: Nick Brooks subject: Piers Corbin on R4 to: cru.all@uea,tyn.all@uea This is a Piers alert; he's just been on Radio 4 on a programme called "The Long View", about storms and floods, comparing present concerns about these events with people's perceptions of storms in the past. The programme is repeated tonight at 9:30 pm. I was listening on the web, which was a bit quiet and flaky, but from what I heard he was doing his usual thing of saying that there isn't a climate change trend, and that climate variations are due to solar variability. He suggested that the notion that potentially climate-change related events today are associated with CO2 is analogous to past perceptions that climate extremes were a result of the wrath of God - in both cases the explanation is due to our need to blame ourselves. There was someone on to point out that climate "skeptics" are in the minority. The good old Beeb seem to be doing their duty in ensuring that every view is balanced by an opposing view in the interests of fair reporting (could make for interesting programmes on infanticide and racism...). Nick Dr Nick Brooks Centre for Social and Economic Research in the Global Environment (CSERGE) and Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research School of Environmental Sciences University of East Anglia Norwich NR4 7TJ Tel: +44 (0)1603 593904 (direct line) Fax: +44 (0)1603 593901 Email: n.brooks@uea.ac.uk Personal web pages http://www.uea.ac.uk/~e118 Tyndall Centre website: http://www.tyndall.ac.uk/ Fezzan Project: http://www.rdg.ac.uk/~sgs99npb/Fezzan_new/fezzan_home.html