Sadly, I missed this response from Roger Harrabin on April 7. It deserves a wider airing for its surprise value (to put it mildy). At least he has not so far resorted to BBC lawyers, as one of his sensitive colleagues has:
Here is the official BBC comment: “It is well known that BBC correspondents are often invited to act as an independent moderator for events, sometimes for a fee. Our Editorial Guidelines allow correspondents to do so, as long as they do not undermine the impartiality of the BBC. There is no evidence here suggesting this expectation has been breached.
“To give more context: Roger Harrabin also undertook a chairing role at a lecture by the climate sceptic Vaclav Klaus; the RSA meeting mentioned in this blog featured a proponent of GM crops as well as the Soil Association, and for the recent Economist meeting Mr Harrabin requested a climate sceptic speaker on the panel.”
Personally I find some of the comments in this blog objectionable. I do not have a fixed view on climate change, and have always tried to depict it as a Risk issue rather than a case of rigid scientific fact. This will have been clear in my recent interview with Prof Phil Jones which was widely appreciated by both sides of the debate.
I note that this blog does not complain about bias from those high-profile BBC presenters who also chair conferences and who regularly make on-air remarks ridiculing climate change.
Just as sceptics attack the BBC for being biased on climate change, so greens attack the BBC for giving to much prominence to climate sceptics. In a very complex debate we’re trying to get it right.
First – “objectionable”. The reason why remarks on this blog (from this writer at least) are robust and at times pungent is that the BBC is reporting climate change with “due impartiality”, that is, it has assumed that there is a consensus on the subject and is affording warmists very significantly more airtime than so-called sceptics. No matter what is said or missed, or established to the contrary, BBC reporters pough on like the Triffids.
Almost every day, the BBC website posts another warmist alarmist story; the occasions when balance is given to these ludicrously one-sided reports are extremely rare. Worse, sceptical sites such as WUWT, Bishop Hill, EU Referendum, Icecap and dozens more are routinely and deliberately ignored. Thus, in Mr Harrabin’s own report of the International Conference on Climate Change, he suggested that the hockey stick was disbelieved by sceptics; nowhere has he analysed why people like Andrew Montford have comprehensively demolished the assumptions made in its compilation. This is at best lazy disregard of the truth; at worst, extremely poor journalism.
Second: greenies complain that Mr Harrabin’s coverage is not greenie enough. That’s an old nonsense that the BBC has used at least since I was a BBC publicity officer. It didn’t wash then and it doesn’t now; the existence of complaints from both sides of a debate does not mean that what is complained about is balanced. The facts that matter in this connection are that, as I posted earlier this week, when people like Richard Black write a story about climate change, in 99 cases out of hundred the only people quoted are from the eco-freak side. Harrabin, Black&co. ignore sceptics in a systematic, unprofessional way. They are thus on a mission of agitprop, not journalism. I have reported dozens of examples where simple attention to the other side of a debate would have created balance. But it doesn’t happen.
Third: The meetings and conferences which Mr Harrabin chairs or presents at are also attended by sceptics. The evidence speaks otherwise. If this is genuinely the case, I’d like to know from him the balance of sceptics to warmists at the events he has chaired over the past two years. I’d like to know how much he has earned from chairing the events; and to see the briefing letters and notes he has prepared. Has he put the sceptics’ case at any of them them? Has he told people why the hockey stick has been comprehensively demolished, about the work of Anthony Watts, of Andrew Montford, and of all the thousands of sceptics round the world? I expect not, though if I am wrong, I will happily say so.
Finally, I can think of only Jeremy Clarkson and Andrew Neil who have ever said anything against climate change on the BBC. If there are more examples,as Mr Harrabin asserts, I would be delighted to know who they are, when they expressed their scepticism; and how this balances out with the thousands of biased reports that Mr Harrabin and his cohorts have filed.
I look forward tio your reply, Mr Harrabin. And rest assured, anything you furnish that proves my perception of the way you operate is wrong will be properly aired.
You know that loony “green” economy all the chattering morons agree on (as much by ‘Dave’, God help us) — especially at the BBC?
Well as everyone with a functioning brain told them… IT DON’T WORK.
Don’t expect any “investigations” from the BBC’s Owarmer Harrabin-Laden and The Hockey Dick any year soon.
Emulate Spain’s Green Economy? No Thanks, Mr. President
May 21, 2010 2:45 PM By Chris Horner
“Spain admits that the green economy sold to Obama is a ruin.”
The story goes on to note that President Obama has cited Spain as an exemplar of an ecologically sound energy economy no fewer than eight times. As I have repeatedly noted in this space — with the able assistance of Spanish economist Gabriel Calzada – for every green job created by the Iberian nation’s massive investment in renewable energy, that transfer of wealth to uneconomic activities cost the economy 2.2 jobs in opportunity cost, as well as direct job losses thanks to the increased cost of electricity (like sending steel jobs to Kentucky, as I’m told Rand Paul noted in one victory speech or another). And as I noted yesterday, even the president of Spain’s National Commission of Energy, socialist Maite Costa, calls Spain’s energy regime “insostenible.“
http://www.nationalreview.com/planet-gore/55913/emulate-spains-green-economy-no-thanks-mr-president/chris-horner
Another excellent post, Mr Horbury (but you might see a couple of typos on checking).
I too had not seen the earlier post by Harrabin. I too find it laughable. Who is he trying to kid ?
I had also raised the question of Harrabin’s total failure to explain WHY people challenge the infamous Hockey Stick graph. It is comprehemsively discredited – yet he still shows it in his latest article.
In his comments he claims to focus on “risk”. I assume he means – “even if the Warmists are alarmist/plain wrong, we should not take risks with the planet and should adopt as a matter of prudent insurance all the onerous economic policies IPCC and mainstream UK parties wish”
But he NEVER discusses the risks that such policies will cause huge damage, he is of course economically ignorant so presumably has not been able to understand the cogent arguments that it is better to let economies adjust (as they always have) to any climate change that may occur, rather than mandating deaths in underdeveloped countries and ravaging of developed countries.
For Harrabin to even pretend to be balanced in his reporting is an insult.
Spot on !
Harrabin is an expensive, pompous , arrogant, joke.
He has no qualifications in science or economics , therefore he has no right to comment on these matters.
As a journalist he is totally unprofessional.
He is a typical, third rate, overpaid Beeboid.
The OLD BBC had the Reithian mission to “inform, educate and entertain”. I believe this is still enshrined in the latest Royal Charter.
Last night I listened to an hour on Radio 3 – a repeat from 2008 – on King Oliver and his music in the 1920s. Very informative, educative, and entertaining. (check it out on iPlayer)
By contrast, Harrabin FAILS to inform in a balanced manner. He FAILS to educate on all aspects of the climate change debate.
But I suppose that now he is a figure of much fun, he has entertainment value. And his comment in the earlier B-BBC post is a hoot.
Is he beginning to squirm ? He damn well ought to be.
What an utter load of crap from Harrabin. How about all those endless pointless stories he does about Polar Bears in Moscow zoo under threat because of no snow yet days later Moscow is 6 feet deep in snow?
Or Harrabin reporting from Kew gardens telling us that as some Tulips have flowered early this is another example of dangerous climate change?
I can’t think of the last time I heard an anti warmist getting air time on the BBC.
As we’ve pointed out here before the BBC happily run factually incorrect stories about climate change without subjecting them to any independent scrutiny. Some that come to mind straight off, the Himilayas nonsense and the one about Seal in the south atlantic moving because of climate change, or the one about a city in Spain needing a water pipe because of a drought.
Those stories were shown to be bollocks yet the BBC stuck with them for ages before having to corect them, but even then they never gave the same prominence to the retractions as they did with the original stories.
I also have strong objections to Harrabin not having a scientific background that means he personally is incapable of any form of independent evaluation of data, instead he simply peddles IPCC and CRU distortions.
All branches of government push the hysterical global warming theory as if it is a proven fact. We can’t really expect anything different from the government funded and controlled broadcaster. An income of £3.5 billion per year and the use of the criminal law to ensure it is paid buys obedience from the BBC on this matter.
The other point Harrabin doesn’t understand is that in science it has always been the place to challenge any ‘theory and through the generations many great ideas have had to be tested and proved time and again. Yet Harrabin thinks this is wrong and that once some over paid lefty at CRU has spouted some crap based on ‘his own evidence’ often hid from public and scientific scrutiny.
That is NOT how true science works, which is why so called climate science is not a science just as Astrology is not a science. Even today I hear idiots on the BBC confusing Astronomy (a science) with Astrology (total nonsense)
You only have to look at people who give themselves ‘climate titles’ like Mr Harrabin himself to see the lack of a decent scientific background but one politically and ideologically motivated.
When was the last time the BBC said “OK let’s get some scientists on TV from both sides and put up the evidence and let them argue their case” based on SCIENCE not left wing politics?
SKEPTICISM is the DEFAULT position for any scientific progress.
Harrabin in his report this week on the Heartland Inst. conference failed to report Lord Monkton’s challenge – “We – the sceptics – are now the consensus”.
And he fails to report how many distinguished scientists are ranged against the Warmist alarmism he has sedulously promoted
“So used are greens to sycophancy in the television studios that when they occasionally encounter even slightly hard questions they are outraged. Peter Sissons of the BBC: ‘I pointed out to [Caroline Lucas of the Green party] that the climate didn’t seem to be playing ball at the moment. We were having a particularly cold winter, even though carbon emissions were increasing. Indeed, there had been no warming for ten years, contradicting all the alarming computer predictions… Miss Lucas told me angrily that it was disgraceful that the BBC — the BBC! — should be giving any kind of publicity to those sort of views.’ ”
http://www.spectator.co.uk/spectator/thisweek/5749853/the-global-warming-guerrillas.thtml
If the Hon Caroline Lucas MP is anything to go by – or Carol Screwloose’ as she was then – it appears that warmists dont complain that too many sceptics get airtime on the BBC but that merely putting a sceptic question is completely intolerable. It seems one side complains if the BBC doesn’t have a complete bias towards fascism, the other if it doesn’t have a balance towards democracy.
Biased BBC journalists play the Clintonesque ‘wounded innocence’ routine very well – they need to, its an essential tool in their bias kit – but for anyone who looks at the facts it’s easy to see just what ludicrous humbug Harrabin’s wounded innocence is, the sort that Lord Gnome would be immensely proud of.
It is commendable that Harrabin hasn’t resorted to de facto embezzlement of license payer money by using BBC lawyers against you like Black, but this may just be tactical as unlike Black he knows what it will say about his and the BBC’s abject lack of professional integrity if he did. Fortunately Black was far too stupid or blinded by hate to recognise this.
Leaving aside his lack of qualifications in science, he cannot even express himself with clarity in English: “I do not have a fixed view on climate change and have always tried to depict it as a Risk issue rather than a case of rigid scientific fact”.
That statement is a mixture of the vague and the woolly, with lazy, off-the-shelf phrases and management jargon (“climate change”, “a risk issue”) and it is capable of several meanings and interpretations. I still don’t know what he does believe, what he considers are the implications of that belief and what he says he is trying to portray it as.
Does he mean that he believes the climate is changing, has changed, will change or that there is a risk of it changing in some unspecified way at some unspecified time for some unspecified reason and with some unspecified consequences?
A hundred and one other questions arise but…trying to pin down a dope and get some sense out of him…who has the patience? It’s like trying to get blood out of a stone or sense out of one of those people who turn up on the doorstep trying to recruit you to the Moonies.
But Harrabin’s participation in these various conferences and forums really does violate the BBC’s rules on impartiality. For example, last year he chaired the following panel at the 6th World Conference of Science Journalists:
A drought or a flood? Climate change reporting around the world
(#15, about half way down the page)
The panelists:
Paddy Coulter, Green College, Oxford, former Director of the International Broadcasting Trust, which produced programmes for the BBC and others, and advocates better media coverate of developing countries. Its sister organization is the Third World and Environment Broadcasting Project.
Rod Harbison, Head of the Environment Program for Panos, and has been involved in UN Warmist stuff for years.
Saleemul Hug, Senior Fellow in Climate Change at the IIEC.
Esther Nakkazi, Ugandan business and science journalist and author of the text for the OneWorld Uganda Guide, in which she states the disasterous effects of AGW/ACC on Africa as fact.
All committed Warmists, discussing how better to teach the messengers of the Word to preach to the masses. Harriban’s participation in this is aiding and abetting the promoters of Warmism as fact. His position at the BBC gives him the prominence in his field which gets him invited to do these things. There can be no suggestion of impartiality here.
Addendum to my above comment:
Here’s an example of the kind of work Paddy Coulter’s International Broadcasting Trust does with the BBC:
(Sorry the link goes to some unformatted text. It’s the only thing I can find in the BBC’s ‘Outreach’ section which talks about what they do with the IBT. This was done after Coulter left the organization, but it’s typical fare for them.)
“‘New Home, New Life’ is a perfect illustration of how the media can use drama and entertainment to advance the cause of peace and development.” Kofi Annan, Secretary General of the United Nations.
(The above is funded by the FO.)
Serving Audiences: A MIRROR ON THE WORLD AND THE UK
We want to use our global presence to enrich international coverage for UK audiences. At the same time we aim to showcase British culture and creativity around the world. One of the BBC’s public value aims is to help the people of multicultural Britain to connect to their international roots. That means striving to reflect as fairly and accurately as we can the lives of people around the world, as they are lived day to day, not just in the context of that day’s headlines. The developing world – Our coverage of the developing world carries special responsibilities to look beyond the clichés of famine, corruption and despair. In the autumn of 2004, in partnership with the International Broadcasting Trust, 30 BBC executives met with experts and activists from 15 developing countries to explore ways in which the BBC could do more to reflect the diversity of ordinary life. There was criticism that the BBC and other broadcasters too often present a stereotypical image of developing nations that can influence views around the world, including among donor governments. The BBC is committed to continuing this debate and held follow-up meetings with participants to develop programme ideas, including a drama series set in China. “How does the world recognise who we are? By a couple of BBC programmes on honour killing or child labour. For us the BBC is crucial. You are defining our personality and we want you to be fair.” Huma Beg, Serendip TV Productions, Pakistan
This goes a long way to explain why the BBC reports – or doesn’t report – certain issues the way it does.
So we seem to have arrived, after much hunting on Mr. Harrabin’s behalf, a total of two current BBC employees who might be deemed not active supporters of uncritical AGW advocacy: a politics interviewer and a car programme presenter.
David Bellamy was purged a while ago, and I believe Peter Sissons only became critical of certain things Aunty holds dear after being shafted and left with little to lose. Terry Wogan is retired and, ‘ditto’.
Personally, I do have concerns at the direction the ‘climate’ is taking, and am prepared to pay attention to any well-articulated explanations, especially where the influence of man can be shown (and not conflating global atmospherics with local depredations). However, my interest is more in contingency planning than pouring vast sums down green holes to try and ‘correct’ nature.
What really puts me offside is being preached to or propagandised by a collection of numpties who wouldn’t know a bit of real science even if they went on yet another multi-gazzillion ‘course’ to try and get them less embarrassing on yet another topic they are meant to ‘report’ upon.
Much as I deplore Harrabin and other Oxbridge English graduates relaying press handouts by Greenpeace and WWF or any statement by a 2-year old vox-pop interviewee who can mouth the words “climate change denier”, this doesn’t mean that scientists have to report science or economists have to report finance. All that’s required are individuals who are able to understand and/or ask intelligent layman’s questions of the “experts”. Steve Mcintyre is not a climate change scientist nor a climate change expert. All he really knows about is statistics. It was his interest in statistics that first got him to ask – AFAIAA purely as a matter of personal interest – how the models used by the warmists had been constructed, what the algorithms were and where the data had come from. This was something any half-way decent journalist at the BBC (statistician, economist or English graduate) specialising in news about climate change should have been able to do: indeed, this should be a primary qualification for the job. That Harrabin, Black, and Shukman (to name 3) have been unable or, worse, unwilling, to do this speaks volumes for their journalistic ability and the cosy world of “consensus” science presented as “the whole truth and nothing but the truth” by the BBC.
For instance, I have never heard any of the BBC climate journalists mention (although it might have got a mention in one of the rarely visited attic rooms of the BBC website) that Stern’s calculations use an unusual (although not entirely unprecedented) “social” discount rate of 1.4%. This, to many laymen means nothing: to an intelligent and experienced journalist – even an English graduate – it means that the cost of AGW in 2100 is considered as having similar values to us now as damage inflicted in 2010. It might be, perish the thought, that using a conspicuously low discount rate is necessary to skew the calculations to make the effects of AGW worse and more immediate than they might actually be (that’s even if you accept all the other assumptions that Stern used). But don’t expect Harrabin to raise the question, let alone explore it.
So do not condemn Harrabin for reading English at university. Condemn him rather for the 5th rate journalism and associated propaganda with which he and his BBC colleagues pollute the airwaves.
take your point but non the less Harrabin doesn’t have the intelligence to review even some of the most ridiculous ‘climate change’ stories with any degree of authority.
And I disagree, far too many BBC hacks have nothing more than a degree in history or art and yet comment on subjects that require specialist knowledge.
Far too few beeboids have a background in science or even engineering. The mindset of the typical beeboid is an arty farty left of centre view of the world. Very few beeboids ask deep probing questions, they simply ask standard hack crap trying to trip the person being interviewed up or get a nice 30 second sound bite for their producer.
I cringe when camp male beeboids talk about the armed forces, the god awful Kate Silverton reporting from Afghanistan a while back and getting the names wrong of the most basic military equipment was just hopeless. I expect all hacks to get basic facts right.
Yeah, ideally you would want someone in Harrabin’s position to have science qualifications, but there is a case for someone with Harrabin’s qualifications occupying the post if not someone like Harrabin. As Umbungo states, if he asks intelligent layman’s questions looking for answers from both sides of the ‘debate’ there’s no reason why he couldn’t do a good job. All it needs is professional integrity and competence.
Martin
Harrabin is not unintelligent. It’s the application of that intelligence which is my concern. Concerning AGW, Harrabin’s mind is evidently closed. This would (or should) be fatal were he a scientist (which he isn’t) but just as fatal for any pretence he has to being a journalist.
Don’t kid yourself that if the BBC happened to find a science graduate to comment on climate change issues that such a person would not act as just as much as an uncritical transmission belt for warmist propaganda as Harrabin, Black and Shukman. After all, the crowd at East Anglia Tech are supposed to be “scientists” and Lord Oxburgh is a “scientist” but their output and conduct are hardly unbiased.
The problem at the BBC is people like Harrabin – they have their Harrabins for every topic you can imagine. They have a Middle – East Harrabin, a Political Editor Harrrabin, in fact there are usually 3 Harrabins per subject.
We do not need Harrabins, we do not want their opinions and political rants. We want the people who make the news to inform us in their own words and we will make of it what we will.
Anyone notice the exhaustive and impartial BBC’s coverage of the following current environmental stories.
1. Spanish govt. admits that the Emperors new clothes of the “green economy” have played a part in wrecking their economy.
2. Electric cars are an economic no no – unless you are on a grotesque Beeboid salary
3. Solar panels have a 100 year payback period – about sixty more than their lifespan!
Hey Roger, if you have covered these stories please let me know, and if you have not maybe you could tell me why not. I looking forward to eharing from you.
Top Gear have been pointing out for years that the electric car is crap, I’ve used one, they are crap and totally impractical for anything other than city centre driving.
This is the sort of issue I’m on about, Harrabin doesn’t have the mental brain power to see the huge drawbacks of electric vehicles.
Same applies to the so called ‘green economy’. the only jobs created are either Government ones which are pointless or minimal private sector jobs, after all how often do we change a gas boiler? You only lag your loft once and windows only get replaced once as well.
Most of us have sufficient common sense to see through the “Green” garbage, and to realise that the BBC mouthpieces are just that, toeing the party line. It’s also interesting to comprehend the amount of sheer hate that exists within the warmist movement for those who don’t agree with that particular religion. How dare we? Yet all the arguments against AGW appear to be proffered in a considered, scientific, peaceable, and non-confrontational way – you only have to look at the many sceptical blogs, most of which have the grace to post comments from both sides of the debate, whilst others which support AGW tend to censor comments which don’t comply with the ideology. James Delingpole wrote of this animosity in his blog.
In the meantime, we are being dragged kicking and screaming in the opposite direction to that in which we need to go, by eco greenie politicians who don’t appear to be able to see beyond the ends of their collective noses, and who manifestly ignore the will of the people, most of whom have begun to see the light, at last, and no longer believe that we are warming (or even having an effect on) the planet, and who no longer believe that carbon dioxide is the villain it’s portrayed to be.
What opportunity will ever present itself to enable this nonsense to be stopped in its tracks, short of financial meltdown (which appears to be happening anyway). What the hell can we do? When the money’s been spent, we are reduced to candles and logs for light and heat, and the climate inevitably continues to change, it’ll be too late for “told-you-so”.
I too missed Mr Harrabin’s comment here. It can only be good that this blog is read by the people it criticises and I would encourage Mr Harrabin to reply to criticism here more often.
However he won’t reply if commenters here are offensive to him, so could I urge all here to reply to any points forcefully but politely should he return. We might all learn a bit more about each other’s position if a civil discussion can take place.
I’d like to learn a bit more about Mr Harrabin’s position but he has to communicate it. If he comes on here I shall certainly ask him to make his position clear and I will listen to what he has to say. Hope he does come here and engage in honest discussion. I think everyone appreciates and respects honesty.
It is precisely because of Harrabin and his ilk that Professor David Bellamy has been shunned by the BBC for so long. All for expressing the opinion that wind farms are ineffective and that the earth has been cooling slightly.
Harrabin’s articles are enlightening only for the way he steadfastly refuses to counter the specific arguments against anthropogenic global warming with evidence, but instead resorts to a strange kind of victim mentality.
Hundreds of kosher scientists agree the case for AGM is bad science. Why has Harrabin for so long presented this as a ‘case closed’?
“I note that this blog does not complain about bias from those high-profile BBC presenters who also chair conferences and who regularly make on-air remarks ridiculing climate change. ”
Where??
“Just as sceptics attack the BBC for being biased on climate change, so greens attack the BBC for giving to much prominence to climate sceptics. In a very complex debate we’re trying to get it right”
Harrabin doesn’t have an honest bone does he? There is nothing complex about this. All we are asking is for is the ever-elusive alternative point of view. All too often it is just ONE person’s viewpoint, or two people both singing from the same hymn sheet.
“those high-profile BBC presenters who also chair conferences and who regularly make on-air remarks ridiculing climate change. ”
I think he’s talking about Jeremy Clarkson. You know, the guy the BBC has named as its “environment” correspondent: oh no it hasn’t – instead its named Harrabin to this role. So the authoritative alternative commentator chosen by the BBC to counter Jeremy’s view on the latest BMW is Harrabin is it? So, according to Harrabin, a few off-the-cuff anti-AGW remarks by the BBC’s motoring correspondent is sufficient to prove the “balance” and “impartiality” on warmism which the BBC is legally required to provide. Harrabin’s argument is so weak it’s embarrassing that he even had the gall to make it. It only highlights the weakness of his position overall.
“Just as sceptics attack the BBC for being biased on climate change, so greens attack the BBC for giving to much prominence to climate sceptics. In a very complex debate we’re trying to get it right.”
Notice how “the greens” are not attacking the BBC because of the BBC’s views on climate change, they are attacking the BBC for giving to much attention to skeptics. Very telling.