Talk:Ronald Oxburgh, Baron Oxburgh

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Ronald Oxburgh, Baron Oxburgh article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Article policies

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

This article is written in British English, which has its own spelling conventions (colour, travelled, centre, defence, artefact, analyse) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

This article must adhere to the biographies of living persons (BLP) policy, even if it is not a biography, because it contains material about living persons. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately from the article and its talk page, especially if potentially libellous. If such material is repeatedly inserted, or if you have other concerns, please report the issue to this noticeboard.

If you are a subject of this article, or acting on behalf of one, and you need help, please see this help page.

Biography: Peerage and Baronetage

	Biography portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography, a collaborative effort to create, develop and organize Wikipedia's articles about people. All interested editors are invited to join the project and contribute to the discussion. For instructions on how to use this banner, please refer to the documentation.BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Biographybiography articles
	This article is supported by WikiProject Peerage and Baronetage (assessed as Low-importance).

University of Oxford Mid‑importance

	University of Oxford portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject University of Oxford, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the University of Oxford on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.University of OxfordWikipedia:WikiProject University of OxfordTemplate:WikiProject University of OxfordUniversity of Oxford articles
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

Politics of the United Kingdom Low‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Politics of the United Kingdom, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Politics of the United Kingdom on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Politics of the United KingdomWikipedia:WikiProject Politics of the United KingdomTemplate:WikiProject Politics of the United KingdomPolitics of the United Kingdom articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

The contentious topics procedure applies to this page. This page is related to climate change, which has been designated as a contentious topic.

Editors who repeatedly or seriously fail to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, any expected standards of behaviour, or any normal editorial process may be blocked or restricted by an administrator. Editors are advised to familiarise themselves with the contentious topics procedures before editing this page.

Untitled

Added some information on Oxburgh from: http://www.iit.edu/business/seminars/2006/oxburgh/.

I think the title should be just Ronald Oxburgh - it's simpler. Kayau Voting IS evil 05:02, 14 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The title is correct. See [[1]] for usage. Yopienso (talk) 15:44, 15 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Balance

I notice that the paragraph on the CRU inquiry devotes just one brief sentence to the result but two sentences to a quite detailed account of alleged conflict of interest. These charges (according to the sources cited) come from climate skeptics, and were not taken seriously and had no adverse effect on the outcome of the report or its reception by the mainstream. Indeed one of our sources for the accusations is an article by Christopher Booker, who has pushed the false accusations hard in his own writings. I think editors of this article should examine the presentation and, if they find it to be unbalanced, fix it. Tasty monster (=TS ) 12:09, 18 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, the paragraph is incomplete; if anyone wants to fill out more details on the report before I get around to it, please do. Meanwhile, I can use a stopgap measure and put Oxburgh's affiliations in a paragraph about his achievements and positions. We cannot write climate skeptics out of the picture; there would be no controversy nor investigation without them. I gave the Booker article not as a source for criticism, but for membership in GLOBE. Here is an excellent bio written well before any of this came up: http://www.ljmu.ac.uk/Graduation/82477.htm

And here is a good article about the report: http://www.economist.com/science-technology/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15905891 Note the importance it gives to the criticism.

I had intended a sentence testifying to Oxburgh's eminent credentials and knowledge of the situation. Again, anyone may please continue this "start" article. Yopienso (talk) 17:33, 18 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The Economist piece mentions the skeptic accusations up front but makes light of them. We don't have room for that line of subtlety in an encyclopedia but we must be faithful to our sources (and no source with much credibility seriously doubts Ron Oxburgh's fitness).

I don't want to write the skeptics out of the picture--I hope that was plain from my first comments. I want the comments of skeptics to be identified as such and not given undue attention. I thought there was a tendency to make a meal out of the accusations in this article which has been absent from mainstream coverage. Tasty monster (=TS ) 20:18, 18 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No worry, Tony--I've no axe to grind. I think we both envision the same article.

The Economist devotes 7.5/20 lines of its opening paragraph (as displayed on my computer--if yours displays differently, the ratio will be the same--about two fifths) to critics. Paragraph 5 deals exclusively with bloggers, critics, and skeptics, noting Dr. Hand's admiration for Steve McIntyre's "meticulous work." The 6th paragraph mentions critics again and offer Hand's remedy: knock their heads together! :D The final line quite amusingly makes light of criticism of sloppiness. None of this criticism, however, mentions Oxburgh's alleged conflict of interest, so I don't see it belongs in an article about him.

I've added a footnote from The Times about the COI. May add a few more feathers to his cap soon. Yopienso (talk) 00:49, 19 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've added quite a bit and done some rearranging. Re. the CRU report, I left "The report,[11] released 14 April, 2010, exonerated the CRU scientists of malpractice," as it was, except for providing a footnote to the PFD of the report. Since the article is about Oxburgh and not the report, I felt it best not to go into its details. The alleged COI is about the man, so I felt it did belong in the article. East Anglia's statement should deflect any undue weight from Oxburgh. All reference to the CRU controversy is contained in 6 lines, which I consider fair in the light of his history and current events. What do you think? Yopienso (talk) 07:01, 19 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

May, 2010

I've put the quote from the Oxburgh report inside quotation marks rather than leaving it italicized. Also, I removed "(for example, he is an ex-chair of Shell)" since that is not one of the businesses that stand to profit from climate change legislation. Proper examples are Carbon Capture and Storage Association, Falck Renewables, Climate Change Capital, and D1 Oils. I didn't feel it necessary to explain that in the article. Yopienso (talk) 23:14, 10 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If you can't cope with the obvious counter, don't put the charge in William M. Connolley (talk) 07:55, 11 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm afraid I don't understand your point. Here are mine:

Your parenthetical addition was awkward.
Oxburgh left Shell five years ago, or at least left his post as chairman.
The businesses that "stand to profit" are not in oil, but in alternative energy, i.e., the wind and biodiesel businesses he is actively engaged in. [2] "Oxburgh has links to groups that will profit from policies to tackle global warming, which critics argue is a conflict of interest." [3]
The concluding quote from the UEA wrt the selection of Oxburgh to the panel is essential to balance the charge of COI. Yopienso (talk) 13:33, 11 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Among Lord Oxburgh's other involvements that are profiting from climate policy is the fact that he sits on the board of Deutsche Bank [4]. This bank has a Green portfolio in excess of 60 billion dollars. This bank also profits from carbon trading. Clearly, he has a vested interest in AGW and only gives fuel to the skeptics that were not at all surprised by the results of his "investigation" nor the casual treatment of the destruction of taxpayer funded raw data after repeated FOI request. You will note that Dr. R. K. Pachauri Chairman, Intergovernment Panel on Climate Change also sits on this same board along with others in a position to influence government policy. These facts along with ideological collusion from information sources that refuse to give time and space to them, "self-investigating" institutions that also control what is peer-reviewed and recieve grant funding along with the fear in scientist from career devastating instant personal attack by questioning status quo only give fodder to AGW skeptics. I doubt the skepticism will subside until extensive, undeniably independent studies. But funding for such from governments or any other source would instantly come under attack from one camp or another. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Multiperspective (talk • contribs) 18:10, 5 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 4 external links on Ronald Oxburgh, Baron Oxburgh. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 00:39, 4 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]