Monthly Archives: January 2011

I was very struck by this blog this morning, by Joseph D’Aleo, in which he relates that many diligent scientists – even thoose previously blinded by climate change fervour – are having doubts about the ozone hole scare. This, you may recall was the 1990-or-so sprinbgboard for the whole AGW industry, and showed the greenies how they could taste blood, make politicians jump and win their prized goal of new laws, if they yelled loudly enough on the save-the-world theme.

So I started digging into what the BBC has broadcast on this topic. It proved a fascinating and horrifying voyage. First, it was not long before I found the propagandist fingerprints of Richard Black. Here, he proclaims that it’s nasty capitalists who have made the hole worse, but also that AGW is in on the act, too. And here, in April 2010 – despite the fact that, as Joseph D’Aleo points out, those diligent scientists had been providing evidence since 2007 that the ozone scare was overblown – he now maintains that the threat is getting worse.

But this was all very predictable and is not what really caught my eye. I next found “My Risks”, a huge area of the BBC website previously unknown to me. The page I first came across explained that CFCs (the chemicals that greenies fingered as being responsible for ozone depletion) are being progessively banned by the EU towards a total ban in 2015. It makes very sure that the 18,000 boys and girls on the BBC payroll do not transgress. Here is what it says:

A refrigerant register is maintained at all BBC premises detailing: equipment containing ozone-depleting substances (e.g. air conditioning equipment, chillers, fire protection systems); type and quantity of gas used; any losses/replacements to demonstrate if losses have occurred.

Well blow me, so that’s where my licence fee goes; on tracking the minutest trace of CFCs.

I dug deeper into the environment section of“My Risks”. What I found is astonishing; it’s nothing less than a how-to-do, how-to-act manual on AGW fanaticism. It shows that every BBC employee is indoctrinated in the religion in literally a whole catalogue of greenie-infused regulations and instructions. I quote one page in full to show the full horror of what I am talking about and then you can dig for yourself.

All Managers should:

* Identify all environmental impacts associated with your activity
* Understand and keep up to date with BBC environmental management requirements associated with your work activity and communicate these to your staff.
* Ensure that your environmental impacts are reflected in your Division’s Environmental Risk Register
* Set local environmental objectives and targets in line with corporate and divisional environmental objectives and targets.
* Review activities that have an environmental impact to see whether they can be changed, if practicable, to stop or reduce the impact
* Plan environmental controls and measures in advance of activities. Obtain specialist advice at the early stages of planning activities if required.
* Ensure compliance monitoring is undertaken to ensure that the BBC’s environmental requirements are being met and control measures are being implemented effectively. If monitoring shows that controls are inadequate or could be improved, take action accordingly. Ensure any issues raised are logged and tracked through to completion.
* Ensure performance monitoring, including monitoring progress against objectives and targets, is undertaken in your area where applicable.
* Ensure the environmental training requirements of your staff are identified and implemented.
* Ensure emergency response plans are documented and tested for your area.
* Cooperate with the Management Review process as required.

There is much, much more, but I think I have made the point. It leads me to ask what the hell is the BBC? Is it a broadcasting organisation? I fear not. It seems that far more important are the rules for inculcating at every level the green creed.

Something for the weekend…

I feel like a cracked record here but I am not going to let go. Another dime, another day, and Richard Black is at it again, illustrating that the climate alarmists are anxious for any new straw they can clutch. This time, it’s our old friend, the farting cow syndrome – if that nasty CO2 doesn’t get us, say dial-a-scare scientists, then methane will because billions of tons of it are trapped on the arctic sea bed and are about to be released by our grasping, capitalist ways. As usual, Mr Black doesn’t deign to bring us any contrasting views to his own fanaticism. He also glosses over somewhat what seems to me to be the real story, that microbes seem to absorb methane at an astonishing rate. It’s not scary, so let’s not draw too much attention to it. For the cracked-record record, here’s the in-proportion judgment about the importance of methane by a genuine scientist who hasn’t got a greenie scare agenda.

Update: There’s nothing a greenie likes more than the idea of a new tax, and Mr Black and assorted chums from the WWF and other zealot organisations are demanding one with menaces here. He really is in overdrive. I’m all for sensible conservation, and maintaining so-called natural habits up to a point (though spare me from any form of ludicrous back-to-nature idealism – there are 7bn of us), but I guarantee that anything adminstered by the UN (as he advocates) or the EU will end up as a corrupt, stand-and-deliver monstrosity. Isn’t it simply astonishing how greenies think the solution to everything involves handing powers to faceless, unelected, power-hungry, often corrupt bureaucrats? Actually, I think the wonderful Jo Nova could have been writing about Richard Black when she filed this. Enjoy.

I see Roger Harrabin and Richard Black – both main environment reporters at the BBC – as a rather sinister version of a modern-day Box and Cox act. Roger does his bit, then up pops Richard, spouting from the same hymn sheet. And here, in type, and on time, is Richard Black – aided by BBC weatherman Darren Bett (and Met Office slave), who, in his own words, became an “environmental scientist” because he didn’t have the grades to become a doctor – softening us up to tell us that despite December being the coldest for a century, we are at the end of the warmest year on record. Actually, Mr Black and Mr Bett, despite your certainty that cold swallows don’t make summers, that’s not as open and shut as you so strongly claim. Try here, here, , here and here. Of course, reporters such as Mr Black and so-called scientists like Mr Bett don’t do such humble research or mention such doubts; they already know – in their greenie fervour and lofty towers – what the narrative is and will invariably be. A ray of hope, though, is here. Climate scare stories are on the decline. Could our very own Box and Cox be for the chop?

(Picture of a production of C19 production of Box and Cox from Wikipedia)