writes Jason Deans in yesterday’s MediaGrauniad, reporting on an article by Jeremy Paxman in the BBC’s internal magazine Ariel (known satirically inside and outside the Corporation as Pravda!). Some excerpts:
Jeremy Paxman has accused the BBC of hypocrisy over climate change, saying it takes a “high moral tone” in its reporting of the issue while at the same time pursuing environmentally irresponsible policies…
“I have neither the learning nor the experience to know whether the doomsayers are right about the human causes of climate change. But I am willing to acknowledge that people who know a lot more than I do may be right when they claim that it is the consequence of our own behaviour,” Paxman said, writing in this week’s edition of in-house BBC magazine Ariel.
“I assume that this is why the BBC’s coverage of the issue abandoned the pretence of impartiality long ago. But it strikes me as very odd indeed that an organisation which affects such a high moral tone cannot be more environmentally responsible,” he added.
Emphasis added above, and:
He added that when he asked Yogesh Chauhan, the BBC’s chief advisor, corporate responsibility, why the corporation did not practice what it preaches in its climate change coverage, the reply was: “The biggest impact we can make is through our programmes”.
“The problem is that no one has yet worked out how to generate electricity by hand
wringing,” Paxman added.
Do read the whole thing. It looks like Jeremy is very much sold on the idea of man made global warming, and, more significantly, that he recognises and acknowledges the BBC’s lack of impartiality in pursuing and promoting that agenda.
It’d be really great if Jeremy and the rest of the BBC would recognise that, to paraphrase Jeremy, there are also “people who know a lot more than [the BBC] do [who] may be right when they claim that it is [not, or substantially not, a] consequence of our own behaviour”.
The greatest service the BBC can do for mankind in this debate to actually ensure that there is a full and proper debate and a full and ongoing exploration of all the issues from all rational viewpoints, rather than their current, virtually unchallenged, wholesale promotion of the views of a) those involved in the climate change industry; and, b) those with a political axe to grind (e.g. sundry anti-capitalist greens, wishy-washy lefties etc.).
As for piddling away the licence fee on ‘offsetting’, in itself a controversial ‘solution’ to the alleged problem, if the BBC feels it needs to address the problem, it’d be better just to minimise their carbon footprint, rather than waste tellytaxpayers money as a way of salving their troubled consciences.
Update: More on Paxo in The Times. (Is that how you spell ‘moron’? 🙂
P.S. For his honesty Jeremy has gained a coveted spot on our sidebar!
Hat tip for the links to commenters dmatr & will.
So, lets see. Jeremy has noticed that his bosses have taken a high moral tone on an issue whilst not living up to it. Although he admits he’s not bright enough to know whether anything said about that issue is right or wrong, but he feels uneasy, so he has to pontificate about the practices used by his company about that issue.
Scientology? Islam? Catholosism? Global warming?
Take your pick.
“The biggest impact we can make is through our programmes”.
would someone care to spin – er, um , explain exactly what this remark means, and how it answers paxman’s question?
and once again we have a bbc insider recognizing – indeed, complaining – that the bbc is NOT impartial.
how many ‘outsider’ complaints does it take to equal one insider’s complaint(s)?
i expect that ‘some’ will now say that this is paxman’s opinion, and he’s welcome to it. but they of course will disagree, and since they hold the microphone, and everyone’s cheque book, that will be the end of that!
finally, perhaps paxman is a lurker here, as several commenters have already commented on the bbc’s own ‘carbon footprint’ especially when compared to other media.
Bearing in mind how much electricity is used in the making, broadcasting and watching of television programmes, the biggest ‘green’ step the BBC could take would be to start shutting itself down.
Perhaps a return to the old days of TV starting at 4.10pm, and shutting down at midnight would be a good compromise. Think of all the money to be saved. Cull the vast output to the quality minimum.
Yup. They could play the national anthem at the close-down as well. Inclusive, that.
“The biggest impact we can make is through our programmes”.
would someone care to spin – er, um , explain exactly what this remark means, and how it answers paxman’s question?
amimissingsomething | 01.02.07 – 4:38 am ”
The BBC make incredibly crap programs so viewers turn off – so saving electricity. It’s a cunning plan.
“The biggest impact we can make is through our programmes”.
I think, in a nutshell, what this means is…..er…… do as I say and not as I do. It’s sheer hypocrisy, but what else would you expect from the liberal-left?
Lets remember that climate change doomsaying is an industry worth 4 billion a year to a relatively small cabal of “researchers”.
I wonder is the amount of vested interest per employee in the eco-fear industry more than that in the oil industry?
Paxo’s right on this:
The BBC has spearheaded the switch to Digital.
DAB radios accross the country use more power than analog.
Freeview, Saterlite and Cable digi boxes use 20w/hour, 24/7, if left on.
Arround 4w/hour on standby.
The BBC wants all households to convert (and the govt is to force this by 2011).
Therefore, assuming 1 box per household in 30m households ALL left on = 600 million watts/hour EXTRA total power useage in the UK down to the BBC and its “vision” of the future. Then they lecture us!
If average UK household consumption is 3,880KW/h per household.
see
http://www.esru.strath.ac.uk/EandE/Web_sites/01-02/RE_info/Standby.htm
A single digi box left on 24/7 will use 175 KW/h per year.
Therefore a BBC vision of “digital” britain will increase household electricity consumption by an average 5%!!!!!
How many people put their box on standby?
How many households have more than one digi box?
there are also “people who know a lot more than [the BBC] do [who] may be right when they claim that it is [not, or substantially not, a] consequence of our own behaviour”.
which people? david bellamy perhaps? jeezuz, even your beloved gwbush has accepted there’s no point in arguing about that anymore.
is this just sophistry on biasedbbc? perhaps tailoring your own opinions to shoe-horn in another dig at the bbc?
or do you really believe that chinese industry belching out millions of tonnes of co2 has had no effect on the environment??
Well, the Chinese, of course, have not the slightest intention of signing any agreements or improving their factories to the point when they do not belch out the smoke. Remember, we were all there once and better technology can help.
Secondly, there is no such thing as “no point in arguing about” any scientific point. In fact, there is a great deal of arguing going on, though you may not have noticed jb. Most people will conform and most scientists will go along with the consensus while it lasts but that is not how science develops. Consensus is no proof of anything and scientists who conform do not achieve anything.
Oh yes, quite a few are making ever more audible noises to show that no, they do not conform.
jb: “which people? david bellamy perhaps? jeezuz, even your beloved gwbush has accepted there’s no point in arguing about that anymore”
Funny you should mention Bellamy – he’s a rare figure on the Beeb these days. I wonder why. He was on Breakfast briefly a couple of months back, but funnily enough they avoided this topic. N.B. gwbush is not ‘my beloved’!
jb: “is this just sophistry on biasedbbc? perhaps tailoring your own opinions to shoe-horn in another dig at the bbc? or do you really believe that chinese industry belching out millions of tonnes of co2 has had no effect on the environment??”
Well, I am allowed an opinion, but funnily enough, I haven’t expressed one on this topic! If you’re interested though, I do think that global warming is happening, but how much of that is down to human activity and how much is down to natural variability does seem to be a legitimate question at the current time.
All I’m asking, based on Paxo’s confession, is that the BBC conduct a proper ongoing debate on the various issues and viewpoints, rather than simply mounting a one-sided campaign that Jeremy seems be accepting as an article of faith from people who he believes know more than him.
That debate would of course include the effects of growth and industrialisation in China, India, etc., in contrast with how much the UK could do to ameliorate this (not much it seems) and at what cost to the people of the UK (huge it seems).
Andrew,
There are dozens of debates that need to happen – for example even if you accept the whole shebang, there are lots of alternatives such as adapting to the new climate and cherry-picking the good bits rather than trying to hold back the tide.
The most depressing thing is that the BBC has a party line on all aspects of this from whether its happening, whether its good or bad or a mixture, whose fault, can we prevent it, how to prevent it, how to adapt and so on.
It truly is the 21st century religion.
When I was a lad, all the enviro talk was about deforestation, mainly in the Amazon.
John Craven would bang on about it on Newsround, every nature programme would have a depressing little coda about the destruction of habitats, it was regularly mentioned on the News, etc. We were repeatedly told that an area the size of Wales was disappearing every year (IIRC).
Surely deforestation should be a common topic in the current AGW debate? I don’t think I’ve ever heard it mentioned in that context. Has it stopped? Is it negligible?
It hardly gets a mention on the Wikipedia page.
“Carbon Footprint” – if I hear this stupid pseudo-scientific media phrase once more I’ll scream!!!!!!
JohnOfBorg – apparently this deforestation must have something to do with climate change, because every time our beloved leader goes on a aeroplane he is going to plant a tree. This just shows the stupidity of it all.
“Carbon Footprint” – if I hear this stupid pseudo-scientific media phrase once more I’ll scream!!!!!!
Jon | 01.02.07 – 8:24 pm |
d’accord, jon, d’accord – that’s why i put it in quotes. was going to try to think up something pithy and dismissive while using it, but couldn’t be bothered
Mr Paxman is of the left, but I really do like him – he is clever and cynical, so an ideal candidate for seeing the light and moving to the right of centre. I wish the left had more people like him, instead of the bleating sheep which most of them are. He doesn’t strike me as someone who blindly follows the herd, and God knows this country needs people like him, whether left or right.
I might be wrong of course!
It’s not all grim. It seems the Hole in the Ozone Layer is no longer a worry, nor is Acid Rain.
How long before Climate Change is yesterday’s news?
An interesting post on the Royal Society web site.
“Re: A Castle of Lies
Harry Kennard, 29 Jan 2007
Anyone who willingly pays a carbon tax thinking they are helping to save the planet, when it can look after itself, is a misguided fool and has been brainwashed by Environmental groups like Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace, whose careers depend on conning the more gullible of the public.
The EU carbon trading scheme is a con trick which allows a factory owner with a dirty chimney to buy credits and continue to pollute because the credits are cheaper than fixing his emission and the only people to win are the City wide boys who have seen a lucrative business oportunity and set themselves up as Carbon Traders.
Offsetting ones Carbon Footprint is similar. Anyone with any doubts of this latest fashionable scam should carry out an Internet search and find, as I did, that there are people out there willing to plant 21 trees in Sri Lanka on my behalf if I send £27!!
Yeah! Right!
Millions of tonnes of CO2 are reputed to be emitted into the atmosphere every day and newspapers who spread the propaganda gleefully report these figures as fact, and Joe public takes it on board as Gospel.
In my quest for the truth, I have tried in vain to find a source of these figures or at least a formula to show how they are compiled, even requesting this information from Hadley Research Centre, the Met Office and the Carbon Trust.
As I have never received a reply, I assume they dont know and would be reluctant to admit this because the whole thrust of their global warming theories revolves around the damage done by these alleged vast quantities of greenhouse gasses.
Starting this year, anyone selling a house will need an Energy Efficiency Certificate,
so that will be another nice little earner for Council jobsworths and the Government.”
Sorry the link to the above
http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/discussion.asp?id=4982
The sad thing is, deforestation was, and still is, a genuine problem in the tropics and sub-tropics. Unlike up here, where most of an arbitrary area’s biomas is in the soil, tropica forests “store” almost all their biomass in the canopy. The consequence is that when these trees are cleared, the biomass – the nutrients – go with them, and very quickly any nutrients in the soil disappear, leaving it virtually barren. I’ve been down to places where this is happening and you can see how much destruction it causes. Often the cause is government intervention restricting logging to small areas that end up being completely stripped, and the application of incorrect farming techniques in other areas that don’t replace the lost nutrients in the soil.
The greeny solution was more government intervention without really studying the means to alter the biomass balance to favour more soil storage, as that would be some sort of rape of the pristine land. So instead of land where the soil remains fertile and people are able to feed themselves in a relatively small area, reducing their overall impact on the environment, we get mile after mile of forest stripped and burned to replace farmland that isn’t productive anymore.
The real disaster is that the current AGW hype takes attention away from genuine problems. People are starving because charities and NGOs have become obsessed with stopping “climate change” at all costs – even if it means a few people die for the cause. It’s the same problem. These people don’t actually care about the environment, they only care about foisting their world view on everyone else. That’s why they’re so adamnantly opposed to the use of technological research to mitigate the possible effects of global warming. The fact that they raise taxes and increase their ability to intrude in your everyday life should tell you everything you need to know about the reasons behind the AGW scam.
Subject: In tonight’s programme
From: Newsnight
Date: Thu, 1 Feb 2007 16:59:24 +0000 (GMT)
================================================
NEWSNIGHT – THURSDAY 1 FEBRUARY 22:30 GMT – BBC TWO
================================================
————————————————————
FROM GAVIN ESLER
————————————————————
Hello,
Imagine my surprise this morning opening my copy of The Times to read that my esteemed colleague Jeremy Paxman has offered a devastating critique of the BBC’s failures to be Green enough, failures on recycling, failures to cut power consumption, failures to help save the planet.
Great stuff, I thought. Then imagine my surprise because in the BBC office Jeremy and I share with Kirsty and Emily, the computer and monitor (which we also share) were left switched on all night. The culprit? Hmmm. Who could it possibly be wasting all that electricity? Well, the last log-in that I could discover was “Paxmanj.” Any ideas?
Chaired any debates recently Gavin?
Yes global warming is happening and at least part of that is due to human activity, maybe most of it.
We do need to examine what we are doing.
I will say that I think we are mad if we do not embark on a massive project of developing wind farms and wave power because that is our natural resource and we do not want to be beholden on dubious regimes and countries for our power needs, but that is not for any green reason.
On the same basis I cannot understand why countries with large sunny deserts are not massively investing in solar power.
I look forward to a proper combined study of the positives and the negatives and then informed decisions to go forward with, trouble is the likes of Al Beeb seem to think we are all too stupid to be able to consider our options for ourselves.
However let us consider this, we are actually in a respite of a long term ice age.
Just a few thousand years ago most of the UK was under more than a mile of ice, the remainder was arctic tundra.
There have been several ice ages with milder periods in between.
If the global warming ends this cycle it will probably be good rather than bad certainy for northern hemisphere countries like the UK.
As for sea levels and ice melt, the sea rose three hundred feet as the ice melted, any talk of a few feet is comparatively as nought.
Strangely these facts seem to constantly slip out of the BBC coverage of global warming, they would rather make their mind and then only report what goes in line with that.
BaggieJonathan “any talk of a few feet is comparatively as nought.”
Quite, a living planet will continue to orbit the sun. So why must we be constantly told that we must “save the planet”?
e.g.
But what simple things can we all do to save the Earth?
And if you know of an invention that could help save the planet get in touch
And is it really possible that small changes in our own lifestyles could help save the planet?
The BBC takes a wholly uncritical view of the global warming doomsayers, indeed it is very much a propagandist for this particular position. If they really believe this why don’t they cut their payroll. A few thousand sackings and a wage cut for the rest would certainly leave their staff with less cash to spend on destroying the planet.
It would be welcomed by many if he also criticised his employers for paying exorbitant salaries to BBC staff. Starting with the £1 million a year they pay the permanently sneering Paxman.
Funny how the destruction of the ozone layer was going to kill us all. Just a few years back, I heard if we banned all CFCs, it would take 100 years at minimum to repair the hole. Somehow ozone depletion quietly faded into near obscurity when the “problem” largely disappeared on its own accord. Now global warming is going to kill us. In fact, our trashing of the atmosphere is so horrendous that even Mars has been warming. That is some impressive influence we have! Naturally this should make one wonder if maybe, just maybe, the sun might have some influence in warming.