Monthly Archives: February 2011

One of the areas I have reported on recently is the extent to which established concerns (blue chip corporations, professional bodies and so on) are tied up in the climate change scam. Their senior executives are engaged in multi-dimensional strategies to work out how to the scare the public and the government into coughing up ever-greater amounts in subsidies and into developing crackpot schemes to deal with “climate change impacts” that the climate models ludicrously predict will happen. Thus big industry funds the alarmist Science Media Centre; there are consultancy companies who specialise in forcing the government’s hand; senior personnel of blue chip companies meet on a regular basis to work out how to scam yet more money; and, of course, senior former BBC executives have become “advisors” in the whole rotten, stinking enterprise.

I have said before that when I trained as a journalist, both at the BBC and on the now defunct excellent regional newspaper scheme, it was drummed into us relentlessly to be sceptical and cynical; and especially, where money was involved, to find out who benefitted and why before rushing into print. In those days, that led, for example, to the unearthing of the massive Poulson local authority corruption, and the demise, eventually, of ex-Tory Chancellor Reggie Maudling for his part in the fetid mess. I had a modest part in this.

Spool forward to today. All this seems to be forgotten. Richard Black instead acts as an unquestioning mouthpiece for a bunch of engineers who ought to be ashamed of themselves . Their logic beggars belief; first they accept unquestioningly Met Office model forecasts that temperatures are definitely going to rise by several degrees (disregarding evidence like this), then they say, that as that happens, new investors are going to be more likely to stump up cash in countries where there is a “secure infrastructure”. This is la-la land, the logic of the madhouse, though of course, it is a framework for getting out their begging bowls in the queue for subsidies to slay these imaginary dragons. Not so for Richard Black. As usual – while his colleague Roger Harrabin is with other eco-nutters in Oslo – he accepts the whole fantasy as gospel truth – and goes to town in his toadying scaremongering. It’s a travesty of journalism and the tragedy is that quite patently, he is not remotely aware of it.

Scratch the surface, and there lies yet another BBC climate change fanatic. They are everywhere; they are proliferating and they rule our lives. Yesterday, I reported that Roger Harrabin was off on a jolly to Norway to discuss how the media should be forced into reporting more climate change lies. One of his companions on the carbon dioxide guzzling fest will be Paddy Coulter, who is one of the three bosses of the modestly titled consultancy outfit, Oxford Global Media.

This company, I found with weary familiarity, specialises in guess what? Giving alarmist climate change advice to a whole range of government agencies and organisations, and was recently reponsible, for example, for organising a seminar on why Copenhagen went so wrong, spreading propaganda about climate change in China, and “sustainability” strategy for the developing world (codeword for ensuring that everyone involved follows the climate change agenda).

One of his fellow directors on this august and enterprising body is the chap above – David A.L. Levy. And surprise, surprise, he’s a former BBC senior manager – Controller of Public Policy, no less. In his own words:

…in charge of UK & EU policy, engagement with the converged communications regulator, Ofcom and government affairs. He successfully led the BBC’s Charter Review & Licence Fee policy through its most testing review to date and was responsible for the management dimensions of the pioneering Public Value Test as applied to new services. He has long experience of the regulatory framework for broadcasting, having led the BBC’s input to the 1996 Broadcasting Act, the 2003 Communications Act, the European Communications Framework review, and the first Ofcom Review of Public Service Television.

Phew! And not only that. He was also clearly a toady to Peter Mandelson, because during the last couple of years of of NuLabour, he was appointed to the Department of Business Innovation and Skills to their Science and Media Expert Group. This body was – again, surprise, surprise – packed with warmist acolytes including Bob Ward of the Grantham Research Institute, and Fran Unsworth, the head of newsgathering at the BBC. Oh, and it was chaired by none other than one Fiona Fox, of the Science Media Centre….who, as I said yesterday, is also off on the jolly jaunt to Norway with our friend Mr Harrabin.

The findings of the said Science and Media Group were very predictably that nasty influences are keeping the true reporting of the full horrors of climate change out of the media, and steps must be taken to counter this. Exactly the same as Carbonundrum this Tuesday. It’s the same people singing from the same zealot’s hymn sheet. What is truly worrying is the depth to which this disease has infected the BBC, the extent to which the BBC is connected to these groups (and works with them), and the amount of our resources they collectively squander.

Funny, isn’t it, that Roger Harrabin’s worries about climate change don’t preclude jet travel? And funny, too, that he mostly turns up to demonstrate his knowledge at climate events organised and run by warmist fanatics. Next Tuesday, he’s off to Carbonundrums (geddit? what a fabulous wheeze of a title) in Oslo with his chum Fiona Fox, she of the Science Media Centre, along with a chap called Paddy Coulter, who runs the equally eco-crazed Oxford Global Media group. As usual, there’s not a sceptic in sight; they are worried, poor dears, that the media is not doing enough to spread climate change lies. I wonder which of the organisers is paying our Roger’s CO2-fest fare? The BBC? the British Council? The Norwegian Government? Himself?…somehow I doubt the latter. I look forward to their conclusions – no doubt those nasty, evil, sceptics will get fingered again.