The BBC’s flagship Today programme featured an environmentalist presenter, John Humphrys, interviewing an environmentalist, Tony Juniper and an activist environmental scientist, Mike Hulme.
Nobody to put the sceptic point of view.
Again.
A point also made by borderglider in the comments.
And on last nights News at Ten on BBC1, Shukman lied (what’s new?) about Pachauri being an eminent “climate scientist”. Pachauri is a qualified engineer with a doctorate in economics as shown here
http://lifestyle.iloveindia.com/lounge/r-k-pachauri-1032.html
As Mr Eugenides puts it “the only thing [Pachauri is] qualified to lecture me on is the fucking price of rivets.”
While I’m on, this morning Today (in the person of Richard Feilden – the non-scientist science correspondent) also slipped in an eco-scare story about “acidification” of the oceans. Funny, not once did I hear anyone saying that the oceans are, in fact, alkaline and the so-called “elephant in the room” might be (repeat, might be) less alkaline seas: the impression given was that we’re all going to dissolve in a sea of carbolic acid.
Feilden lets the mask slip in this interview
http://www.senseaboutscience.org.uk/index.php/site/about/99
where he stated, for instance, his unbiased view concerning climate change science [my bold]:
“What I think you are probably getting at is a slightly different issue about fact and, for instance, the truth of the climate change issue. A problem that that kind of programming has a tendency to fall into is when it appears to challenge what is actually true or false in a particular assumption. Climate change is an obvious one there and I think that the BBC, along with a lot of other journalists, has to hold its hand up and say we’ve probably given too much air time to people who are just denying the science of climate change“
Richard Bacon doing what Richard Bacon does. Spouting his love for Obama to James Earl Jones who totally bitch slapped him for his ott Barry love.
I had the misfortunate to listen to this charade, too.
As regards the Tony Juniper interview, John Humphreys alloed Juniper to run away with the interview almost uninterruptd, so Juniper had the most to say, and the last word. the other participant, Mike Hu(l?)me from UEA had very little to say, and struck me as being very weak. Anyone form the general public listening to this, and unfamiliar with the sceptical views about AGW, would be none the wiser, and be led to believe that indeed, the “science is settled” and the “debate is over”. I can’t believe how the BBC are allowed to continually get away with this.
Just looking at the number of sceptical comments on this scam as a result of the few articles published in the press (Guardian excluded, of course), it must be obvious to all that the public don’t believe a word of it. It’s bad enough for politicians to totally ignore the people that vote for them, but the BBC and main-stream press? What are they so scared of?
Some quotes from Mike Hulme, they’re straight out of the Frankfurt School’s cultural Marxist playbook:
The idea of climate change should be seen as an intellectual resource around which our collective and personal identities and projects can form and take shape. We need to ask not what we can do for climate change, but to ask what climate change can do for us.
……
Because the idea of climate change is so plastic, it can be deployed across many of our human projects and can serve many of our psychological, ethical, and spiritual needs.
…….
We will continue to create and tell new stories about climate change and mobilize them in support of our projects.
…….
These myths transcend the scientific categories of ‘true’ and ‘false’.
Lifted from slide 4 of Richard Lindzen’s Cooler Heads presentation.
Unbelievable! His motivation is clearly self-serving rather than any burning zeal for scientific truth. He’s right about one thing though, they certainly do tell stories.
He should add “financial” to the list of “needs” that climate change serves.
Mike Hulme comes across as a pretentious pillock. Plenty of those in academia.
Two whole segments, paid for by you the taxpayer, for the IPCC to defend itself. Sure, the both Montague and Humphrys uttered at least one critical sentence each – and wow, each of them even raised their voice so you know they meant it – but it was basically the same criticism. As if this is the only IPCC blunder anyone is complaining about, and not the latest and worst in a series. And in each case they had defenders of the indefensible on to explain why the glacier incident ought to really make everyone trust the IPCC even more. They admitted they got this wrong – what could be more trustworthy, right? Oh, and scientists everywhere are feeling the need to adapt to this new world of social networking and “global scrutiny” of their work. “Any scrutiny”, you mean.
Pachauri didn’t want to hear the early warnings that his glacier story was wrong? I wonder why, BBC? Coud it possibly be because of something you refuse to tell everyone: Pachauri’s possibly criminal conflict of interest and milking the crisis for cash? Anyone on the crack Today staff heard of the Tata Group? Come on, don’t be shy.
What about revealing that the IPCC mavens were basing as much of their predictions on speculation from media reports as on real data collected properly? Or the fact that this massive hypocrite flew at least 443,243 miles in 19 months on IPCC business while simultaneously telling the rest of us to stay indoors with the lights off? But then of course, the Beeboids will be the last ones to call anyone out on carbon footprint hypocrisy.
Two whole segments on this and all you dopy Beeboids can do is provide air time for the defenders?
Here is another side from the BBC.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/dailypolitics/andrewneil/2010/01/the_dam_is_cracking.html
How long will Andrew Neil survive at the BBC?
Credit to Andrew Neil. Well done. I suggest you all read his blog. The BBC is slowly waking up. As I said on that blog after reading it
Thank god for Andrew Neil.
Fair, inquistive, balanced, reasoned.
This is journalism.
Something many of the wet-behind-the-ears-brainwashed-liberals in the journalism ranks at the BBC could do well to learn from.
Andrew, thank you for your thoughtful contributions on this subject, they are refreshingly grounded and free from the sensationalist propaganda we normally see from the BBC on this topic.
Too bad the BBC reporters whose job it actually is to report on this stuff won’t touch what Neil is talking about. The fact that this kind of commentary is on the Daily Politics blog and nowhere else shows just how widespread the bias is at the BBC.
Will he be silenced soon? Fired? Retired?
No they will keep him but on the minor shows he does. The BBC will then be able to point to Neil and say that they do provide alternative points of view.
I did hear this skewed discussion, but my eyebrows were raised even more by the 9am Radio 4 News that followed. The lead item (of course) was the British Social Attitudes Survey which showed that the British are apparently more socially liberal then ever. Then the wonderful BBC commentary; “but the Labour MEP Michael Cashman has warned that we must not become complacent”. Cue to him for a soundbite. Now I am actually a “socially liberal” Conservative, but even I could recognise the innate bias; it was one of those small but very revealing items showing the default BBC attitude.
Interesting also to note that the survey revealed that more people regard themselves as “Conservative” supporting rather than “Labour” supporting for the first time since 1989. This was not mentioned of course; and it is certainly nothing to be “complacent” about.
I wonder if Andrew Neil has had an email from Jo Abbess – I’m sure he would change his article. 😉