Today’s a bit of a red-letter day in that the Royal Society – the BBC’s favourite bunch of warmist zealots – has been forced by its members to modify its predictions about climate change so that it now says, according to today’s Times:
“The size of future temperature increases and other aspects of climate change, especially at the regional scale, are still subject to uncertainty.”
Nothing so far on the BBC website about this, but Richard Black ploughs on relentlessly in his warmist furrow. This morning, he reports another of the endless stream of alarmist features in Nature, this one about “water security”, another greenie obsession. From my reading, the article itself does not mention much about climate change, concentrating instead on pollution. But have no fear, our non-scientist Richard is determined to put his own spin on things, so he turns to the world’s most alarmist organisation, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, despite the fact that – as he himself acknowledges – they had nothing to do with the report or the research it is allegedly based upon. This is what they say, with wearying predictability:
“Climate change is going to affect the amount of water that comes in as precipitation; and if you overlay that on an already stressed population, we’re rolling the dice.”
With Alice in Wonderland erudition and sophistication like that, you can really tell where the BBC’s £1bn a year expenditure on broadcast journalism is going.
Just popped over to his blog, too, which I visit occasionally. He seems now to be punting out the propaganda elsewhere on broadcast only mode, with this now for more anodyne fare.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/richardblack/2010/09/the_great_bear_and_the_big_sna.html
It’s like a funny little club, with a clique of Black groupies (probably Shuckman, Harrabin, Minbiot, etc) who feel it is their exclusive preserve, plus what used to be a bevvy of persistent thorns in their side. Often entertaining.
Now it seems that there is a move to turn it into some eco version of Nick R’s, where anything even mildly questioning is modded out or, now, the whole thing shuts down until awkward stuff goes away.
Once the process is complete, I’d suggest a change to ‘Richard Black & Chums’ Navel Gaze’.
Bizarre.
Water managment and the employment of irrigation and water supply technologies, its so simple and there is no problem whatsover.
Two thirds of the planet is water, there is no shortage that cannot be overcome with technology sometimes as old as civilisation. The native civilisations of south America had irrigation technologies beyond that availible in many third world nations today so what is the barrier to progress?
Its just another in a long line of cynical scare mongering stories meant to instill fear and uncertainty.
There is no problem today that decent cost effective technology cannot deal with and water is perhaps the easist to deal with, you create mass water storage and use irrigation methods and water useage management technologies.
All it takes is the will and most of the improvements are very cheap to implement. The fact that the BBC continues to wilfully engage in the worst kind of cynical exploitation of this kind scaremongering is a testement to how morally bankrupt the BBC and its eco industry bedfellows have become.
The water scare stories are in fact nothing more than fund raising scams for the eco industry fraudsters.
Water shortages are a product of stone age subsitance farming of the kind the eco industry champions, its time for the self appointed champions of stone age culture to move into at least the iron age.
If a poor nation has land that floods the simple answer is to dig drainage ditches, the labour is very cheap and plentiful.
If land is dry then water channels can be dug from areas with plentiful rain and again the labour is there and very cheap to employ.
Take an area of land and employ methods that were in use two thousand years ago and yet again the labour to dig is plentiful and no skill is needed other than the skill to use a shovel.
Stop food dumping and encourage farmers to use basic technologies available to anyone with the will to use them.
There is enough viable land in Africa alone to feed the world, what is missing is the will to use the above methods, it seems the will to extract the poor from their circumstances is missing for some reason.
Stone age tribal subsitance farming is not a valid choice anymore, it is not to be admired and protected and its certainly not to be encouraged, stop the latter day moral relativists who believe that giving the poor the means to thrive is somehow a bad thing.
Give a man a bag of bread and he feeds his family for a day, give a man a tractor and the knowledge to irrigate and rotate and he feeds his whole tribe.
That bag of bread given out so freely is nothing more than the chains of enslavement.
A couple of weeks ago the scare was that ‘alien species’ were over-running Europe. I took some time out from work to write to the BBC pointing out the absurdities in that article and in particular that the supposed ‘cost’ of ‘alien species’ to the European taxpayer that they quoted, as if it was a fact, was nonsensical. They haven’t bothered to respond. Inseat we get another unrelated, but equally nonsensical, scare – that the ‘blue planet’ is going to run out of water. Doubtless the only cure will turn out to be to raise taxation….
Stop paying the TV licence. I refuse to pay £12 a month for the privilege of being fed Leftist propaganda.
Did you see the programme about the Iraq war on BBC2 last night? Totally anti-military and anti-American, just as you’d expect. And muslims are peace-loving, of course.
I don’t see why this is good news.
The corporation’s attitudes are still stuck in a curious combination of the authoritarian 1930s and the trendy lefty ideas of the 1960s.
Even if global warming was disproved conclusively tomorrow the BBC would still cling for decades to its outdated opinions on the subject. When you get a vast guaranted income you can afford to indulge your cranky and bossy theories despite any inconvenient facts.
Will the BBC ever give the game up on this?
Nope. Too much at stake – pensions, pensions, and, er pensions. Not to mention the political will of their masters…
I all those who have devoted their emotions to Warmism as a means to assuage their guilt about technology and mankind’s use of the earth chose instead to focus their energies on actual pollution, and acted locally instead of dreaming universally, they might actually accomplish something useful.
Unfortunately, this wouldn’t be the kind of sexy, emotionally story that would interest the elite at the BBC.
Professor John Pethica of the Royal Society, the writer of the Royal Society re-write, was given the usual soft ride on Today. Before this love-in Tom Fielden [why not one of the usual “climate change” propagandists? Has Fielden got more credibility? If he has, I don’t know where it comes from – maybe his mother wrote a note to the Director-General] tells us that the new guidelines from the RS confirm that the “science” is sound – what a surprise! – but maybe some of the forecasts for the future should have been a little less dogmatic. However, Professor Pethica (not a climate scientist – he’s a metallurgist and microscopist) denies that this new report differs in any significant way from the one 3 years ago. He failed to answer Justin’s only good question to the effect that if there’s no change in the circumstances concerning the subject matter of the report why re-write the thing?
Even so, this being Today Justin failed to ask the key question: why does the RS – in this one area – seek to define what is the authorised (and unquestionable) version of “climate science”. This isn’t the job of the RS: AFAIAA there is no authorised RS version issued concerning the theory of relativity or quantum theory – or even the phlogiston theory. The RS has never told us that Heisenberg was wrong and is thus his work and predictions are unacceptable or that, say, Einstein was right. The RS is there to see that “science” – real science – is a respectable and respected activity in the UK – and that those who practice “science” are not guilty of charlatanry. The RS was not established to choose which versions of a theory are right or wrong and who should or should not be cast into the outer darkness. Naturally, Justin failed to ask who the f**k Pethica thinks he is to opine on AGW scepticism. What could have been an interesting – even enlightening – discussion became an excuse for the BBC and a RS apparatchik to say that “of course the science is sound, there’s a consensus you know”.
‘.. an excuse for the BBC and a RS apparatchik to say that “of course the science is sound, there’s a consensus you know”.’
Well it is settled,. as their new best bud, Blank Stare… Slate Ed was wont to opine when doing that Minister stuff we don’t mention now ‘cos that would bind him to old, discredited things.
The BBC creche must be a hoot… ‘.. and if you hear Mummy or Daddy saying anything different to what we’ve told you, just mention it to the nice man with the clipboard over there. He’ll know what to do’
Nice piece Robin
CP meets PC via BBC
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/sep/30/chris-packham-bbc-gulls-scilly
I found it funny, if ironic.
That’s the second time this year a BBC presenter has been busted for provoking an animal’s behavior with the express intent of creating a scene that fits the story he’s trying to tell.
It’s getting so you can’t even trust the most innocuous BBC reports.
I’m getting sick and tired of the BBC’s obsession with “global warming”.
So I have a suggestion :
The ENTIRE BBC newsroom should be put in a Rocket and sent to report live from Gliese 581g.
Now I know it may take some time for the intrepid BBC newshounds to get there, but I am sure it will be well worth the wait for the Guardian.
“No Gliese warming here, nothing to see, we were right all along that the Conservatives are to blame for everything”.
Sad that most of us will have been burnt to death by then.
Oh, David in the USA, could you have a word with the Kennedy Space Centre and tell them to take the right wing off the BBC Scaremonger Spaceship 1 ?
And let’s hope it doesn’t affect the trajectory too much !
A delight to hear Professor Justin Webb on Toady today!
He manages to spend an age to try and get some old DNA scientist from the 50s to admit that his Professor was a sexist.
He then is unable to skewer some mealy mouthed gobshite from the Global warming industry who is allowed to say that his rewrite of the line on Global Warming is no such thing…indeed it is more certain than ever although we have now to say the opposite for public consumption.
Finally he has Oliver James on a phoneline being harried for saying that ADHD is a myth…whereas the “expert” who James has exposed as a sham is allowed to top and tail her spin that this naughty boy syndrome is genetic.
No doubt the crime gene is soon to be revealed…presumably there is a bankers gene and a Beeboid gene-certainly enough nepotism and inbreeding for a research study!
Here’s a bit of fun from the ‘when in hole, bring out celeb mates with collective IQ of a sea cucumber’ to make an ‘awareness’ film:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2010/sep/30/10-10-no-pressure-film
As it is a Richard Curtis, I am guessing wall to wall sofa action chez Aunty shortly.
Actually encouraged by most comments, from folk who see the environment as bit more than a means to get a quick award from the luvvie community at the expense of actually grasping the issues and effecting sensible changes.