One of the constant idiocies of the BBC’s reporting of climate change is the misleading choice of pictures used in stories. Power stations are picked, for example, to show hazardous “smoke” – the reality is that what is shown is steam. Then there’s endless pictures of ice shelves, icebergs, cracks in the ice, not to mention stormy seas, or the aftermath of mudslides, hurricanes, monsoons and the like. All of which are perfectly natural, though not in the BBC’s book; they are the harbingers of doom.
Heatwaves are a bit more tricky of course, because it’s difficult to represent “heat” as such. Have no fear, though, Richard Black has come to the rescue in his latest one-sided alarmist nonsense, a warning from lunatic Cleggeron and Friends of the Earth spokesmen that power stations should in future be built to avoid rising seas (even though they haven’t risen yet). The heat dimension is cunningly illustrated with a glass of wine, with the caption that a consolation of us all frying in the heat will be that it will at least be possible to cultivate home-grown wine.
Well I have news for Richard. Although the British climate is not ideal, English wine-producing grapes have been grown in the UK since Roman times, and in Norman England, there were 39 vineyards. By Henry VIII’s reign, the number had grown to 139. What reduced wine production in the nineteenth century was not climate but a switch to free trade and a reduction of duties on wine imports which meant that British producers could not match the prices of their more intensive French competitors. A further twist in the knife came during the first world war with sugar rationing. The actual number of vineyards in production today is 381, which is 50 less than in 1988 when the current phase of warming is supposed to have started. In 1991, there were about 1,000 hectares of vineyards, roughly the same as now (although the figure went up by 200 hectares in 2009, no doubt fuelled by the warmist propaganda about better growing conditions). And the year of the highest amount of wine produced was 1988, when temperatures were supposedly one degree less than now.
A picture is worth a thousand words…of BBC propaganda.
Excellent research. If I ever have a chance to meet you I will be delighted to buy you a glass of wine!
Seconded!
Surely the prospect of Britain becoming a wine-growing area would be welcomed by all the wine-swilling bien pensants and metro-intellectuals that abound in the BBC?
So what happened to all the flooding this summer? Remember last year how the four eyed camp one was telling us to get used to the regular floods?
No one takes Harrabin or Black seriously these days. They make the chimps at Twycross zoo look like intellectual giants.
You’ve gotta love this story from Richard Black, the key point of which seems to be that previous reports of an ice-free Arctic by the summer 2013 (a date arrived at by those ever so reliable computer models) look “increasingly wrong”. But for some reason Richard twists the story to be about “rapid” ice-melt in 2010 – and so the alarmism continues.
The know-nothings at the BBC are only capable of corrupting science and history — they have a pitiful grasp of both
I find myself insulted by the BBC every time I turn it on. As a Catholic, a conservative, a white male, anti AGW …. you name it, the BBC is lying about me and to me.
I am not surprised to have become aware recently of a tsunami of complaints from friends and colleagues about the thoroughly biased BBC and its lying propaganda about everything in our world. Their position has become a major point of debate amongst the common people. When will it show up in their viewing figures – or do they make them up as well?
I must say that that particular article didn’t get me raging (for a change). It seems to be lessening “the sky is falling” routine and even mentioned adaptation, which would probably prove useful whichever way the climate moves hot or cold.
The comment about building Nuclear Power stations is also heartening and not building them on areas likely to flood or erode off cliffs should be obvious to the proposers.
It even ends with a benefit of warming rather than some dire prediction.
Don’t be fooled – stay on your guard. The LBC message remains, it’s just ‘couched in terms’. They’ll NEVER let go…
David: The first time your cat poo’s on the floor you probably go mental. When it does it for the 50th time you just shrug your shoulders and clean it up.
That’s what it’s like with the three warmist chimps at the BBC and their climate change nonsense, after 50 stories we’ve got used to it.
I work in the power station business. We don’t need any lectures from left wing envirofascists on how and where to build our nuclear power plants. Our designers are well experienced and far ahead of the arts graduates who frame the debate for the BBC. We would never build in any location that has unsuitable geology or which is prone to flooding. The whole article is alarmist nonsense.
Talking about food and drink, Islam Not BBC (INBBC) shows no interest in reporting the stealth expansion in the provision of HALAL meat to British people:
“Britain goes halal… but no-one tells the public: How famous institutions serve ritually slaughtered meat with no warning”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1313303/Britain-goes-halal—tells-public.html
What is interesting is how quiet the usual unwashed leftist animal rights activists are to this increasing use of halal meat.
We might as well scrap the animal welfare legislation as all a meat producer has to do is shout “allar ackbar” before slicing off the head of a cow.
Supposedly most halal butchers stun the animals first. Supposedly.
There should be no exception for animal welfare on the grounds of religion. If the animal is treated as per the law I don’t care what words are said as it’s slotted.
As you say I wonder how much enforcement of ‘stunning’ takes place?
When I was in school we learned about Vinland and Greenland, and why they were called that. I wonder what children are taught to think about that now?
They’ll have heard of neither. Geography, like history, English and arithmetic are out of the window, in favour of greenie brainwashing and instruction in spying on parents and friends.
‘Power stations are picked, for example, to show hazardous “smoke” – the reality is that what is shown is steam.’
Thats not the only way the BBC misuses pictures of condensing towers (though to be fair, they’re not the only ones that do this). There are far too many people in the UK that think a nuclear power station is characterised by condensing towers.
When people see them, they immediately think there’s a nuclear power station there. Why? Because the BBC (and other media) show them when a news item about nuclear power is on.
For anyone who doesn’t know what a condensing tower is, or why its not limited to nuclear power stations, allow me to explain.
Nearly all power stations (except for “highly efficient” wind turbines) use pressurised steam to drive the turbine. This steam is heated by the coal, oil, nuclear reaction, etc. To recycle as much water as possible the “used” steam is sent into the familiarly shaped condensing towers to become water again. It is then reused in power generation.
Its not smoke. Its not nuclear. Its not harmful. Unless you work for the BBC.
— Richard