That GWPF “report” kicking the BBC was written by Christopher Booker, which means it enjoys junk status.

After all, Booker says passive smoking carries no danger, white asbestos is harmless, and Darwin was wrong.

As Cloughie might have said, “he’s a clown, young man”.

“After all, Booker says passive smoking carries no danger, white asbestos is harmless, and Darwin was wrong.”

No, Booker says that passive smoking carries very little danger, that white asbestos is not as harmful as brown and blue and that Darwin, well, yes, there he is a kook.

Two out of three ain’t bad for factual accuracy.You should hope to achieve that high a standard….

BTW, anyone care to explain to me why a private organisation should reveal its funding sources? Is there a law saying they must or something?

Lawson is a hypocritical waste of space. After fucking up the UK he has gone off to live in France where he likes the slower pace of life.

Sanctimonious hypocritical tosser.

The first half of this seems to be an unreasonable demand that a private organisation let organised radicals know who is giving them money – presumably for retaliation – while the second half explains the rationale – this Foundation is reporting things the author does not like and must therefore be stopped.

Not exactly liberal on either count.

Donations to political parties have to be disclosed when they reach £5,000 per year.
To do the same for pressure groups and think tanks seems entirely reasonable to me.

I think that ‘global warming’ is a bigger concern to the public than ‘climate change’
Words certainly do matter.

It was discovered over a century ago that carbon dioxide traps heat. This was in a laboratory. Consequently, it will trap heat in the atmosphere too.

Why is Venus so hot? Partly because it is nearer to the sun but also because its atmosphere is 96% carbon dioxide. The equivalent figure for earth is much less at around 0.039%—a truly enormous difference.

I hope this helps.

@2
Since when someone wanted to try to tell us what to do. A number of such organisations have a hidden agenda (maybe the GWPF dont). Some of them are funded by businesses which would have to change their behaviour. But their lobbying is then portrayed as somehow neutral or divorced from the vested interest.

So lets see who does fund this group.

The Global Warming Policy Foundation is facing a Freedom of Information request this Friday to reveal its sources of funding, reported to be £500,000 a year. The GWPF declined to open its books to the Request Initiative, which is leading the FOI appeal.

One of us is missing something fairly fundamental. The Freedom of Information Act applies to public authorities and publically owned bodies. The GWPF isn’t either and therefore isn’t subject to FOI requests. So it’ll hardly be trembling at ‘facing a FOI request’, because they can just tell you to sod off and you’ll have no recourse other than whinging about how unfair it is.

Donations to political parties have to be disclosed when they reach £5,000 per year. To do the same for pressure groups and think tanks seems entirely reasonable to me.

Which would be a good point if the law were decided on the basis of whatever felt reasonable to you.

What is that usual tory mantra? Oh yes, i remember……………”if you got nothing to hide then you got nothing to fear.”

This astro turf group obviosly has something to hide. Probaby it is that they get funded by the fossil fuel industry, and cranks. No wonder they want to keep it secret.

8 – I seem to remember hearing that a lot more often during the ID card debate than anywhere else. Not from Tories either.

@2

More yet again means Worstall.

Booker, July 2007: “The scientific evidence … that inhaling other peoples’ smoke causes cancer simply does not exist”.

One to me there.

Booker, December 2005: “‘White Asbestos’, a … mineral posing no medical risk”.

Make that two.

In fact, make that three, unless you can come up with the odd factual debunking of The Origin Of Species.

Seriously TW, I do wonder why you persist with this BS. Or does ideology and dogma mean you have to keep on with it?

Sad.

Headline misses the mark

This is an FOI request to the Charities Commission not the GWPF. The GWPF is not subject to FOI requests (as Worstall for once, not entirely incorrectly hints at). But as a ‘charity’ (yes read it and weep) it is governed by the Charities Commission, which apparently has access to bank records.

So the GWPF is not ‘facing questions over funding’ it is ignoring questions . The modus operandi of climate deniers everywhere when their absurd position is pointed out.

10. Tim Fenton

You have made a basic error Tim Fenton – Tim Worstofall unfortunately finds reasoned argument an inconvenience, and facts are even more distateful. Classic tactics he uses are Irrelevent Conclusion, Straw Man and Ipse Dixit. I believe he is more interested in the friction of debate than its outcome.

GWPF and Lawson however should be facing questions, because they believe they can ask it of others. The problem is that 11 Hengist – you are right – the modus operandi is to duck questions, since their position is not supported by evidence (Eppur si muove). Like Worstofall, reason does not work, so you are left with a Python argument sketch.

A key question for Lawson is is he a fool who is not able to look at evidence or is he being belligerent in rubbishing climate change, as he wants to make just a few more £££ before it all goes tits up?

@12 hd.

I often wonder along the same lines. Do people like Lawson think that their wealth will somehow protect them? It goes a long way towards understanding the minds of money fetishists like him.

GWPF and Lawson however should be facing questions, because they believe they can ask it of others.

Sure, but there’s no particular reason why they should answer them. It’s not actually required for charities to know the identity of who is funding them; nor is it required that charities disclose the source of their funding to the charities commission. As such, I doubt that the CC even has the information requested. I doubt still more that they’d be entitled to disclose it.

good old Hengist…always ready to go barking up the wrong tree. So the Charities Commission has access to bank statements of all UK charities? Really? And even if it did, what would the bank statement say? You are so amusing, Hengist. You are wasted on blogs when you could be writing gags for Russell Howard.

sally,

This astro turf group obviosly has something to hide. Probaby it is that they get funded by the fossil fuel industry, and cranks. No wonder they want to keep it secret.

Well, the GWPF has a covenant not to take money from the oil industry and those closely associated with it (and that can be checked by the Charities Commission). So I think it may be limited to cranks…

I expect you’ll do your normal rational thing and claim this is all a lie (because it does not fit your worldview). Fair enough, but my understanding is that the GWPF decided they would not take funding from those with interest in the outcome of their work. Which seems sensible enough, even if you regard the work itself as that of cranks (and to be fair, Mr Booker is a crank, even if he can be right – but then so can you, Sally, on the odd occassion).

This is an FOI request to the Charities Commission not the GWPF. The GWPF is not subject to FOI requests (as Worstall for once, not entirely incorrectly hints at). But as a ‘charity’ (yes read it and weep) it is governed by the Charities Commission, which apparently has access to bank records.

It is worth pointing out however that a charitable donation is an act by a private individual or company, whose identity would have to be redacted by the Charities Commission under data protection laws – there is a clear legal precedent that charitable donation is a private matter (whether political pressure groups should have charitable status is a different question). So this entire FOI request seems very hopeful, to put it mildly. At best they would get one bank statement (the initial one, which the Charities Commission will hold, detailing the fact the charity has funds) which will show a certain amount of money (believed to be £5 000 I think) donated by one indiviudal or company, but nothing that could be used to identify them.

@ 2”No, Booker says that passive smoking carries very little danger, that white asbestos is not as harmful as brown and blue and that Darwin, well, yes, there he is a kook.”

Passive smoking killed my mum so caring sharing Tory boy remember statistics are human beings- something the right appears to forgot.

Booker has no idea what he is talking about. He is not a scientist, has never studied science and appears to be a bit thick.

@ 7 One of us is missing something fairly fundamental. The Freedom of Information Act applies to public authorities and publically owned bodies. The GWPF isn’t either and therefore isn’t subject to FOI requests. So it’ll hardly be trembling at ‘facing a FOI request’, because they can just tell you to sod off and you’ll have no recourse other than whinging about how unfair it is.

So it is OK for organisations that are having a significant effect on govt policy eg Migration watch, the Taxpayer’s alliance, the idiotic GWPF etc to be secretive.

How very democratic that is.

No the rationale should be if you are involved in advising govt , even as a pressure group then you should be up front.

So it is OK for organisations that are having a significant effect on govt policy eg Migration watch, the Taxpayer’s alliance, the idiotic GWPF etc to be secretive.

About their funding? Yup, just the same as Demos, IPPR, Compass and all the rest. Charities aren’t public bodies. What does it matter anyway? It’s just the ad hominem fallacy on a grand scale. If their arguments are weak, attack them on their merits. If they’re strong, it doesn’t really matter why they are making them.