Ok, first off I’ll admit that I’m a luddite sceptic when it comes to the global environmental debate that seems to have been foisted on us for an indefinite period from around the mid-eighties. I’ve heard little except grave warnings, and deep grave warnings, throughout my life about what a mess we’ve made/are making of the world’s environment. My feeling about this statement has always been that it’s a shame to lose animals but people come first. To think I thought I had done my bit when I raised 30 quid for the WWF in ’89!
So, I’m posting because I have to, because other people have been telling me to get my finger out and say something about the BBC’s enviromania.
I’ll start with something I can be sure of: the BBC’s Evan Davies (often among the more balanced BBC types) made an exaggeration in an otherwise interesting article when he compared a peasant who was watching a road being built in economically upsurgent China to a Tiennamen Square protestor:
‘The scene was reminiscent of that famous image of the man in front of the tanks at Tiananmen Square. Here, there were no tanks, just earth-moving equipment.
The farmer was not exactly obstructing them, he was just gazing, but you could imagine him taking a forlorn stand against an anonymous power.’
To me this is demeaning to everyone involved in the analogy, and evidence not only of a complacent cultural ignorance, but the typical BBC dreamy mentality that what we see under capitalism is no better than what we saw under communism. Ok, China is a special case in a way, but needless to say, Davies finds that his assumption (his own word) about the peasant’s feelings about the road development was incorrect.
As for the BBC’s attitude to environmental warming issues, I suspect their prejudices are similarly entrenched. Wizbang has a couple of posts which help illustrate this. (thanks to reader Mike). Facile, trusting, picture-based journalism might summarise these instances nicely.
Unlike me and my support for the WWF, the BBC just can’t give up the causes they’ve espoused. I suspect the real reason for this is ignorance and fear of the unknown, which makes them more similar to me than they’d care to admit (hang on, aren’t you admitting that you and the BBC are similar?-ed Yes, I suppose so. Just that I know when to quit).
Ignorance and fear of the unknown aren’t enough, however, to explain the BBC’s many manias, the enviro one included. For that you need hubris and an inability to hear themselves. That’s why they should listen to people who dissent from their viewpoints, like Melanie Phillips (who no doubt has the effect on many Leftists of searing their eardrums tightly closed), who says
‘Some readers may have heard me on Wednesday night’s Moral Maze on BBC Radio Four on the subject of Kyoto (repeated on Saturday night at 2215). I was battling vainly against a green witness, my three fellow panellists and the chairman to get them to acknowledge not just that there was a division of scientific opinion about global warming but that, one by one, the key claims supporting the theory wwre being demolished.’
See, they can put her on a show but they can’t hear what she’s saying. The rest is must-read, btw.
There! I managed to post without mentioning any factual reasons at all why I disagree with both the BBC and their warming mantra. They have something to do with extensive vineyards in Roman England, skating on the Thames and a visit I made to the Orkney’s ancient settlement, Skara Brae. Ain’t Scotland ace? A good summary of this viewpoint here. For the BBC’s views on English vineyards, and some startling certainty about global warming, see here.
This is off-thread but it is the only thread I can use.
Just watched Jeremy Vine interview Michael Howard on “the Politics Show” BBC1 – the trite outputv with the trite interviewer.
He focused only on putting Labour propaganda points about the 1990s to Howard who handled it well. Every time Howard talked about police, Vine went back to the 1990s as a reason Conservatives should be ashamed to contest the election. Every single answer Howard gave was followed with a new question from Vine about Black Wednesday, 1990s, Poll Tax etc. It was so funny to see how Vine was stuck in a time-warp as he carried out his party obligations to Tony Blair.
I wish Howard had dropped into the conversation the £2.5 bn tax cut financed by abolishing the BBC licence fee……that was give Vine a new topic !
To me, the way BBC bias regarding the environment works is the way they put stories in the top of the hour news bulletins. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard bulletins where one of the final stories begins something like, “An environmental group says xyz,” treating what the environmental group says as the gospel truth, and invariably taking the worst end of their prediction as making that the key part of the story. If a report said that the earth’s temperature could rise anywhere between 0.1 and 5.0 Celsius degrees over the next century, the BBC would report it as, “The earth’s temperature could rise five degrees in the next century.”
Rick
We can expect a lot more of this back-to-the-eighties stuff. That decade was a golden age for the BBC, left-wing stand-up comedians and Guardian columnists. In those days they could posture as anti-establishment. These days, of course, they ARE the establishment.
On the usually excellent Food Programme today (BBC R4) they were discussing school dinners. It seems that state schools are giving children what they WANT to eat rather than what they SHOULD eat. This discussion provided an excellent opportunity to remind us all about how evil the Tories are. Sure enough, the old “Thatcher Thatcher Milk Snatcher” story came out. Memo to BBC: “Chaps, that was three decades ago”.
After that we were treated to an uninterrupted rant from Jamie Oliver. According to Oliver, parents cannot be trusted to bring up their children properly. Parents, he says, don’t care what their children eat. The solution, therefore, is for the government to take over responsibility for chil
…for children’s diets.
Why on earth should we be interested in the political opinions of Jamie Oliver?
Ah yes, I see. Young Jamie’s opinions happen to coincide with the statist mind-set of the BBC.
OT
Article by Iain Duncan-Smith in the Guardian on how blogging can help correct media errors and bias and has already taken off in the US
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1417983,00.html
“An environmental group says xyz,” treating what the environmental group says as the gospel truth”
If you recall Brent Spar and the activism against Shell you will also know that Greenpeace et al have their own TV production units who produce videos for the BBC etc to drop into their machines and have ready-made “packages”…..this is how “News” is subverted for free-to-air advertising
http://www.greenpeace.org/international_en/multimedia/media-view?type=gp_video&start_row=31&campaign_id=
http://www.greenpeace.org/international_en/press/
http://archive.greenpeace.org/feeds/
VIDEO CONTACTS
Video Production
Martin Atkin (Features Producer)
video.production@int.greenpeace.org
Tel: +31 (0) 20 718 2056
Hester van Meurs (Assistant Producer)
video.production@int.greenpeace.org
Tel: +31 (0)20 718 2090
Video Library
Bryonie Baxter
video.library@int.greenpeace.org
Tel: +31 (0)20 718 2118
O/T
Not BBC bias exactly but an example of how lazy and sloppy they are. They were one of the news organizations taken in by the Sri Lankan ‘Baby 81’ story.
A story which turns out to be made-up and has been comprehensively debunked by Lanka Business.
“If there is a Pulitzer award for embellishing, exaggerating, and outright lying and misleading in print, the coverage of “Baby 81″ would merit top billing. District judge, M.P. Moahaidein, on Wednesday (Feb 16) made it clear that there never, repeat never, were nine couples claiming the child as their own and only Junita and Murugpillai Jeyarajah had said they were the parents.”
OK that doesn’t show the BBC to be biased but it does demonstrate just how easily ‘the world’s greatest news organisation’ is taken in by agenc
On topic. A few months back Radio 5 did a 2 hour special on global warming during the afternoon ‘Drive’ programme. The programme ran with the underlying assumption that man-made global warming is a proven scientific fact – there was never any mention of a sceptical viewpoint. The programme could have consulted Professor Stott – a regular radio 4 contributor. There was no mention, for example, that there are serious doubts about the hockey stick theory on which this whole sorry business has been based. The programme nicely encapsulated the problem with BBC bias – since all BBC staff think the same way, the reporters’ viewpoints are never tested. There is but one viewpoint expressed with no dissenting voices to be heard.
David H
More than there being serious doubts about the famous hockey stick theory of global warming, it has been utterly trashed. The hockey stick was the scientific basis of the Intergovernmental Conference on Getting Snouts in the Trough in Some Exotic Locale, the fruit of which is the Kyoto Treaty. Since then the theory has been the subject of five peer reviews and has been trashed five times. The data used has been proven inaccurate and inadequate and the methodology employed declared full of holes. That’s beside the point of Kyoto though.
Scientists with sceptical viewpoints are very much in the minority, there’s an extremely large consensus that human actions are contributing to climate change. That’s not to say that there shouldn’t be coverage of the minority viewpoint.
As usual the problem with the BBC’s coverage is that its just not very intellectually rigorous. It generally reflects the dreadlocked, abysmally dressed viewpoint that we’re all ruining the world and should instead be living in mud huts and eating acorns. Clearly this is about as sophisticated an argument as Kyoto being a plot against America.
What we should be seeing is examination of the costs of implementation against the potential costs of self induced climate change, examination of alternative strategies and energy sources, looking specifically at whether China and India should have more onerous obligations etc etc. Obviously this is more expensive to the Beeb than someone knocking out the usual crap off the top of their head but if
they spend money on the silly game that people were getting excited about in another post (and reporting Beckham’s ridicuously named brat) then why not.
Propmted to this item by Ceefax
“Unicef argues the only way to end child labour is to end poverty and it calls on rich industrialised nations to give far more in development aid.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4282715.stm
That’s as far as Ceefax goes, & in fairness the online item ends –
“The BBC’s Jannat Jalil says … some observers argue the solution does not just lie in giving more money.
They say action must also be taken to tackle the widespread corruption and lack of democracy that exists in many countries.”
But couldn’t the BBC get a quote the UN (rather than “unnamed observers”)why they don’t consider suspending the membership of nations that allow this abuse?
David H –
You say that the BBC was taken in by the Baby 81 story; ie; that lots of couples had claimed the child was theirs.
However, I don’t remember the BBC’s reporting that way.
The BBC story you link to report it the same way I remember it: “..Eight other couples had wanted to take the child..” NOT claimed the child.
The problem here is your prejudice against the BBC.
REGARDING MELANIE PHILLIPS: this woman is not an expert on the climate. No wonder noone was listening. There is a scientific consensus that human activity is causing climate change: read here: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=86
key quotes:
“The skeptic attitude to consensus usually starts with “there is no consensus”. That’s wrong, and they usually retreat from it to “but consensus science is meaningless”, and/or “consensus has nothing to do with science”. The latter is largely true but irrelevant.”
The fact that ESSO do not agree does not affect the consensus. Nor creat
Ape, it’s also a fact that the human caused global warming theory doesn’t take account of:
a) Water Vapur
b) Normal climatic change
c) Solar activity
More than enough for anyone savy to distrust the momentum that has built up behind an unproven theory.
Do bear in mind that realclimate.org is contributed to by the IPCC members who produced the “hockey stick” in the first place. It is by no means the accepted view of a majority of climate scientists either.
There is a greater scientific consensus that even if human activity is contributing to warming the planet we should be spending research on countering it rather than trying to fix it, because even if we do fix it then the planet could warm naturally anyway.
This whole idea of winding down capitalism and getting rid of SUVs has a suspiciously anarchic feel to it, and coming from the same people who told us of an impending ice age and a “population bomb” back in the 70s I can’t help but distrust them as much as I do Esso et al.
Ape
Of course Malanie Phillips is no climate change expert. She doesn’t claim to be. That’s why her articles on the subject are based on those who are more knowledgable in that field. Duh.
So we really have a consensus on the causes of climate change? Well stop being a willing dupe for a minute and have a look at a list of those who oppose Kyoto and the junk science it’s based on:
http://www.envirotruth.org/myth_experts.cfm
Cockney doesn’t need to bother. No doubt he’ll regard Dr. Richard S. Lindzen, the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology, Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a as a dodgy and unsophisticated source.
Not at all mate, but there are a greater number of equally undodgy and sophisticated sources who think that this is a real danger that we should attempt to address.
I appreciate that this isn’t universally accepted, but cherry picking experts who agree with your position and quoting them as sole irrefutable proof isn’t a particularly ‘sophisticated’ argument in my book.
Any reasonably professional manager looks to identify risk and hedge against it. Is human induced climate change scientifically proven? No. Is there a risk that human induced climate change will have calamitous consequences in the mid to long term? Yes. The management of that risk is then what needs to be discussed.
If you don’t think that things should be managed until they’re ‘proven’ then I assume that you were against invading Iraq, and I sure as hell wouldn’t fancy investing in any company that you’re in charge of.
Sorry that was me. I do actually have a name.
And any sensible analysis of managing risk makes it clear that Kyoto is nout but a huge waste of money. Unfortunately Kyoto appeals to many people who prefer good intentions to reality.
Cockney
You and others have repeated the point in here (on other threads) that there is a consensus on the causes of global warming. At least now you have conceded that their is no consensus. Cherry-picking scientists may not be ‘sophisticated’ but as the point was simply to demonstrate that their is no consensus it hardly matters how I do it. Frankly, is there another way?
Please feel free not to invest in my company. In my libertarian world you are welcome to do as you please, but as you are someone who is willing to break the bank, bet the mortgage and lay everything on an unproven, speculative hypothesis then don’t expect me to invest in yours.
Bjorn Lomborg is a good place to start in the area of managing climate change. He’s a greeny who changed sides. Go check him out.
Ahem. If 95% of experts agree with a certain position and 5% disagree with it, then it still makes sense to talk about a consensus…
I always though a consensus was a general view reached by a group as a whole which hardly infers unanimity, but that’s beside the point. I’ve heard of Bjorn and respect his opinion but I also respect the opinion of the greater number of scientists taking the opposing point of view.
I’d personally suggest that you’d be the one ‘betting the mortgage’ if you chose to do nothing in the face of a consensus (or not) of scientific opinion suggesting vast future economic consequences of inaction. Having said that, as Andrew says, Kyoto isn’t necessarily the best response.
There is certainly a conensus that man-induced climate change is occuring. Bjorn Lomborg doesn’t disagree, and as I understand it he’s a bit fed up that he’s always referred to as some sort of global warming sceptic. His contention is 1)that climate change may not necessarily be a bad thing, and 2) if it is, whether the benefits of the Kyoto protocol are going to be worth the huge costs. Which is fair enough. The way I see it, the effects of Kyoto will indeed be neglgible. It is a symbolic first step rather than the answer to all our troubles.
Ah but it’s a symbolic first step down a route that those such as Bjorn Lomborg deem to be flawed in it’s entire concept.
Of course. As I said, that particular point is still up for healthy debate. I just happen to believe that it’s much wiser to play it safe, since it’s the long-term future of the entire planet we’re dealing with here and everything.
Dylan
Don’t worry, we’ll be quite safe.
Dr Pete_London.
My last word on this can be found here:
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&lr=&oi=defmore&q=define:Consensus
It’s a list of definitions for the word ‘consensus’. I must have searched high and low for all of 3 seconds for it. Consensus = unanimity.
john b
A majority in favour of a proposition is known as a … majority. BTW, 95% seems suspiciously arbitrary.
From the Oxford english dictionary, not some dubious online fiasco:
‘Consensus’=general agreement.
‘General’=involving only the main features or elements and disregarding exceptions.
Dylan, as John nearly says we’re safer than we might be due to the happy fact that our government and most others have chosen to take action, rather than scour the scientific community looking for opinions that fit with their own political ideology.
Safer? No cost-benefit analysis suggest we’re going to be in any way better off under Kyoto, moreover it’s the poorest countries who stand to suffer the most. Enforcing poverty on the poorest people on the planet in order to embrace an abstract notion of safety is morally dubious to say the least. Of course to those Kyoto advocates who reject the reality of capitalism hugely benefiting nations this doesn’t enter the equation.
Andrew,
We’re back into theory again I think. Will Kyoto slow or halt the rate of man made climate change (if it existed in the first place)? Will this actually make much difference in the overall context? Will this be cost efficient? I don’t think anyone has an answer to those questions at this point, but I am relatively impressed that democratic governments (by nature discouraged from long term planning with high initial cost given the desire to be re-elected) have opted to do something.
I don’t accept that this is anti-capitalist. Whilst few would argue that the minimum necessary business regulation should be the aim, only a few zealots would argue that regulation is uneccesary in any circumstances – real life defeats all-encompassing economic philosophies from the right and well as the left wing.
Did you hear that Moral Maze thing with Mel Phillip cockney? Personally I didn’t find her performance too great, but the most telling thing was the consensus the other participants (and the chairman of the debate) formed: that capitalist, industrial ideals; the cornerstone of Western progress and advancement, were no long tenable thanks to climate change. Scary stuff, the one force that has the potential to do anything about such large problems (if indeed it is a problem), should according to our betters be dismantled in order to return to some sort of fantastical utopia, where technology isn’t king. As I said, truly scary stuff and it more than smacks of indoctrination.
No individual business is on its own going to assume responsibility for managing human induced climate change (other than for PR purposes). Recent attempts to impose ‘corporate social responsibility’ onto companies are clearly b*llocks in that they contradict the overriding purpose of making profits for shareholders. The best method is clearly to set limits (with the additional flexibility of the trading system) within which companies can operate how they like.
Poorer countries are excused onerous responsibilities under Kyoto which recognises the historical lesson that it’s not possible to magically materialise high skill, high tech, low emission sectors from a standing start. Whilst a global drop in growth will hit poorer countries within a globalised economy there is a purpose behind this. Bangladeshi’s and Maldivian’s prospects aren’t looking too rosy even in a libertarians dream economy once sea levels rise are they?
Sorry Andrew, that wasn’t a response to your email. I agree that there are some utterly idiotic left wingers out there who see this as a chance to get us all eating vegeburgers and living in tunnels near bypasses, but I think that the alternative view that capitalism will save us all without prompting is equally misguided.
Making sure emissions are reduced in as market friendly a way as possible is extremely desirable. To assume that this will happen unprompted given the way modern businesses work is to put your faith in grand, all encompassing utopian theory – presumably libertarianism or something. These don’t work.
I believe the best way to ensure the reduction of emissions, even though I also believe the actual effect of such human emmisions to be unproven at best, is through alternate energy sources, research of which is expanding massively and offers the only real hope of actually having real impact. As many have said, Kyoto is such ludicrously bad value that it should be near impossible to sensibly favour it over alternatives which haven’t been proven to be a waste of time and money.
I am allways astounded by the amazing abilities of raising the prices of goods(tax) and giving the money to beurocrats to remove C02 (airborne plant food) from the atmosphere!
/sarcasm!
Great blog :). I found my way here via a free-wheeling web surf tonight :D.
re: Global warming. Is it happening? I dunno.
Is it man-made? One volcanic eruption produces more greenhouse gasses than have been made in the entire history of the human race.
Possible other source of global warming? Yes… solar activity. And in support of that view, it has been reported that there is global warming on Mars and Jupiter as well.
http://tinyurl.com/4bpk7 Jupiter warming
This is a link to University of S. California, Berkeley.
http://tinyurl.com/69ju3 Mars warming
This is a link sponsored jointly by NASA and Nature magazine.
Unless we’ve got aliens building their UFO’s in coal-fired plants, we’ve got something other than man-made global warming happening ;).
BTW, here’s a great resource,
http://www.co2andclimate.org/index.html
CO2 and Climate is a website sponsored by the Greening Earth Society, who hold that increasing CO2 is a blessing in disguise. They regard CO2 in the atmosphere as basically airborne plant food, and cite evidence of the past when CO2 has been much higher than today. They’re a great resource for “global warming” in general, having an enormous archive of scientific papers disputing virtually all aspects of the topic.
Lots of interesting debate. The more important issue as regards the BBC, was simply the atrocious way that she was treated on air.
It was simply disgusting.
She had to fight the entire panel and the chairman just to frame her question. The chairman actually tried to stop her revealing the fact – yes, it is a fact – that the “hockey stick” curve, upon which the whole Kyoto edifice is founded, has been completely discredited.
This is not just bias: it is active, concious suppression of the truth.
For those who might wish to comment: The producer’s email address is: david.coomes@bbc.co.uk
I believe there are 2 main reasons why the BBC & other media are so biased towards the enviro position:
1) That almost any proposed “solutions” involve more government power. I think it was Clive Pontin who said that the Civil Service is neither left nor right wing but merely supports a larger state & Civil Service. If we consider the BBC (& state regulated ITV) as part of the civil service this explains their position. It also explains their obvious support for the EU.
2) That the enviromental & anti-technology movement is a conservative (small c) entity. Their objection is the same as that of the Duke of Wellington to trains – that it allows the working classes to move about the country. Basically being wealthy or middle-class is less fun when the bin man can afford to fly to Paris for the weekend. This explains why this, nominally leftist, movement is so well funded by the American super rich http://undueinfluence.com, comes out with complaints about “cockney barrow boys”
‘Basically being wealthy or middle-class is less fun when the bin man can afford to fly to Paris for the weekend.’
YES! Two motivations seem to dominate the Enviromental movement: Limiting individual autonomy and reducing the standard of living. Both aims make a lot of sense when you realize that most ‘enviromentalist’ activists are upper class leftist elite.
It isn’t just environmentalists: Most lefties actually seem to heartily despise “the little people” they claim to love so much. Life was perfect when most of the little people lived on idyllic feudal estates as serfs and yeoman, tugging their forelocks and bowing deeply when the Great Lord and his entourage passed by them as they happily scythed their lovely organically grown wheat.
And then the evil KKKapitalists and Industrialists came along and ruined it all by giving the serfs and the yeoman a chance to become whatever they wanted to become, including Great Lords.
And the socialists (whoops! I mean fuedalists!) have not been happy since.