Polar bears have long been the sacred cause of warmists, especially those at the BBC. This story from last year shows the ridiculous political lengths that they will go to to claim that despite abundant evidence to the contrary (most populations are actually rising), the species is at risk of extinction because of nasty emissions. Now BBC reporter Rajesh Mirchandani – who has secured a cushy beat with the BBC that allows him to pontificate freely about melting arctic ice, including this gem of a scare story – has filed this bellyaching piece bemoaning that the US government has shown a glimmer of sense for once and pulled back from declaring the bears as “endangered”. Such news perhaps could be seen as a sign for celebrations, especially for the biodiversity obsessives at the corporation; nice, cuddly polar bears aren’t going to leave us anytime soon. But no. Instead, it is used as a peg for Mr Mirchandani to give an airing to one of the most astonishing attacks on President Obama that I have seen in any BBC copy. He writes:
The Centre for Biological Diversity – one of the groups trying to get the polar bear listed as “endangered” – said the ruling showed that the administration of US President Barack Obama was continuing to defend Bush-era “anti-science decisions”.
Ouch! Not his words, admittedly, but he’s created the platform for them, and there’s no balancing copy. It shows in its rigid one-sidedness that greenies like Mr Mirchandani will savagely bare their ursine teeth and sink them into any target they want – no matter how venerated – if their inflexible religious view that the science must be obeyed is crossed. Come back McCarthy – all is forgiven.
To be fair to Rajesh, his quoted piece reads (to me) as a more or less straightforward report of some green loonies in the US. Whether or not this is worthwhile reporting is another matter altogether. Quite why the Centre for Biological Diversity – an unelected, effectively single issue pressure group – is so important that it merits consideration (and linking) by the BBC is unclear.
The CBD is the only organisation (apart from the villains of this eco-crime – the US Department of the Interior) to get a mention. Maybe Rajesh is taking a leaf out of Louise Gray’s book by recycling a press release from the CBD straight from his email client to the BBC website – beats work after all.
There are, of course, no organisations or actual scientists in the US which have comprehensively rubbished the claim about polar bear “extinction” worthy of Rajesh’s notice (except for this result of a 2 second google http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080508132549.htm ). Is this BBC bias? Whatever, it’s certainly the usual journalistic incompetence we have become used to.
Who the hell in America, where it really matters, cares what the bbc says about polar bears, Obama, Gaza distortions, or anything else? For that matter, who else anywhere cares? The media, shallow and stupid in the form of the licence-eating state propagandist, does not really have the power to shape anything. Witness this useless Biased BBC site. It has achieved precious little if anything. Al beeb is still there confusing news with editorial opinion, and fast losing respect and credibility everywhere!
Good luck to you. But I can’t spare any more energy wasting my time.
I sympathise, but at least it’s a forum for the like minded, and we can say virtually what we like, and, I gather, some of the Beeboids do read the comments. Whether or not anything written here gets through to them and makes them think, of course, is another story. It would, though, be nice to be able to DO something about it. One day…
Useless ?? sorry but this site serves a function for me beyond just the destruction of the evviill empire ! and that’s as a collecting place for info and evidence of BBC politicking and subversion that I would find difficult nay impossible to catch by my self,and any way until I can dance [or summat more inventive !!] on the BBC’S grave I’d rather annoy the bustards then sit and do nothing !
Burbette: >>Witness this useless Biased BBC site. It has achieved precious little if anything. Al beeb is still there confusing news with editorial opinion, and fast losing respect and credibility everywhere!<<
Is it me, or do I spot a contradiction there?
You have got yourself into a right old tangle of non sequiturs and confusion there. I don’t think anyone here will be calling on you for advice as to whether there is cause to care about what the BBC does. We managed to figure that out for ourselves anyway.
It could be argued that the ‘balancing side’ was the US Government itself, although response to criticism was lacking.
What this eco-fascist fails to appreciate it is that even the current President understands how wrong it is to expand the power of unelected federal bureaucrats to directly control people’s lives. The country is facing the same problem with the EPA, and the attempts to expand its power to control the law sof the land. Not going to go over well in Tea Party USA.
And if this eco-fascist wants to whine about the President continuing nasty Booooosh policies, when was the last time anyone heard the BBC making a peep about rendition or the targeting of private citizens for assassination or spying on US citizens?
…..or Guantanamo, now going to be kept indefinitely
I think ne’er in the annals of human history has the world seen so much moral masturbation as that expended over Gitmo. When you’re waging a counter-terrorist war you have TPOW’s (Terrorist Prisoners of War). It’s that simple and obvious and its been that simple and obvious to anyone from day one, but heck, who cares about playing politics at time of war, all it can do is aid and abett the enemy to an incalculable degree.
I’m sure very soon the BBC will be hosting discussion shows on whether Obama is the most disgusting hypocrit yet this century.
From that earlier Mirchandani article:
A 16ft (5m) sculpture of a polar bear and cub stranded on an iceberg has been pulled along the Thames to raise awareness of climate change…
The work has been commissioned by Eden, a new digital television channel devoted to natural history programming.
The stunt was actually part of a rebranding excercise for an existing channel, UKTV Documentary. Eden is co-owned by BBC Worldwide, the commercial subsiduary of the gentically impartial BBC.
http://www.fcpp.org/publication.php/2571
AGW and the polar bears – a story of two halves – the missing half:
“While melting ice seems likely to have a negative impact on most bear habitats, it is possible that warmer temperatures might open new areas for polar bears, says Milton Freeman, a senior research scholar with the Canadian Circumpolar Institute in Edmonton. Right now, parts of Canada’s high Arctic — the archipelago of islands in northern Nunavut — is locked in thick, year-round ice. “It’s not good habitat for polar bears, because it’s not good habitat for seals,” Freeman says. “It’s like reinforced concrete.” As that ice begins to thin, and eventually disappears in the summertime, polar bears might relocate further north, he argues. Amstrup of the USGS agrees that Canada’s high Arctic could provide a refuge for the species. “We forecast that polar bears will persist in the Canadian archipelago until the end of the century.”
http://www.macleans.ca/science/environment/article.jsp?content=20080123_5242_5242&page=3
Ursus maritimus has been migrating very successfully both North and South in response to natural climate change for millenia….a highly mobile animal capable of moving enormous distances in its feast ot famine life style (for which it is superbly adapted). Polar Bear extinction is highly unlikely, but sentimentality and the ‘aren’t the cubs sweet, poor things’ has been cynically marketed by the CAGW propagandists to support their socio-economic agenda.
The question is of couse, why are the ecomentalists so desperate to get the polar bear on the ‘list’?
It is of course a ‘pin up’ creature, it appeals to basic emotional kneejerk response in the ‘marks’. The ecofascists couldnt use a sea urchin or something without that cuddly appeal because it would fail to illicit the required ‘aaaaaah’ response. They need a pin up and the polar bear fits the bill perfectly, they lose the polar bear and they have no visual arm twister to push that particular button.
These scumbags are using the actics of the conman, they view us as the mark and use all the tactics that conmen use to bait and trap their prey. No polar bear pin up no kneejerk emotional ovderide of common sense and logic.
The polar bear is doing fine, it will do just fine in the future, the ecoloonies know this but they use them just as they use any tool they can. Cynical manipulative fraudsters abusing the trust of people? Thats political ecofascism for you.
It’s not that the BBC doesn’t know that Polar Bears swim well. The BBC doesn’t report what eventually happened to this bear. Perhaps he found employment as an artist’s model?
Ricahard Black has dug himself out of a snowdrift to actually post a new one over the school hols.
Sadly, more of the same, and not going well in the comments from the off as a consequence.
Plus a groupie has rather made the mistake of a) alluding to ‘inside’ BBC knowledge (rather missing the message that claim sends) and b) that this suggests the whole blog thing will be ‘looked at’ to, well, basically ensure ‘proper’ opinions are posted.
Good luck with that, Aunty. I predict a closing.
Bingo! 28 and out! I should try predicting weath… er.. climate trends.
Interesting (in a ‘if it suits their sorry agenda’ way) what the straw was that the irony camel decided upon this as Aunty errs ever more towards only ‘broadcasting’ here world view:
‘However there is one approach that the BBC may have to implement. Scrapping BBC comment threads altogether to save money and/or comply with competition laws. Perhaps that is what your “birdie” meant.’
Sorry… linkie…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/richardblack/2010/12/cancun_outcome_splits_opinion.html
The eco-marketeers use the polar bear as the beggar uses the dog on a string….and with less honesty.
HAPPY CHRISTMAS to all.
Thank you for this site.
A very merry Christmas to all my friends at B-BBC, may 2011 bring nothing but good things to you all.
Thankyou for the wisdom and knowledge you have offered and I hope to learn and contribute much in the coming year. God bless.
Yours
Cassie K.
“….may 2011 bring nothing but good things to you all…”
Fat chance, Cassie, but thanks for your good wishes, and a good Christmas to you, and everyone.