Bishop Hill has unearthed this gem, a presentation to the Cambridge Science and Policy Group by Sarah Mukherjee, the BBC’s former environment correspondent, who in her time at the corporation filed hundreds of alarmist, hell-in-a-handcart reports. Admittedly the delivery was some time ago, but her lecture is a major statement of the BBC’s green creed, and an insight into the madcap and deeply biased thought processes that are involved. It therefore deserves further airing.
The main contentions across 76 minutes of unrestrained greenie bias are that, without a doubt, the science of climate change is proved; that Climategate was a load of nonsense perpetrated by the tabloid press (and the scientists involved have been fully absolved), that we are not doing enough to counter the climate threats facing us, that politicians – despite having passed the climate change act (which commits to 80% CO2 reductions by 2050) – have shamefully reneged on their commitment and – horror of horrors – they will dare to start mining coal again soon. She clearly wants us to go back to the stone age. It’s exactly the same agitprop fervour that permeates the work of Roger Harrabin, Richard Black and the whole phalanx of other BBC activists, the difference being that she has left the corporation and lets rip with a splenetic stream-of-consciousness prejudice that surpasses almost anything I have heard on this topic to date.
BBC prejudice is also writ large in that there’s no doubt of her main targets, identified by the contempt in her voice and her braying, annoying, stoccato laugh. One by one in the firing line are the Tories, the Daily Mail, and Boris Johnson (the latter, I concede, a pretty easy target on this topic).
Actually, having listened to Ms Mukherjee, what alarms me most is that this presentation is so substandard that it defies belief that she was allowed to present to such a supposedly august body. Her homily is both deeply condescending and contains not a shred of hard evidence that climate change (whatever it is) is a genuine threat. Instead, she makes vacuous assertions such as “climate change….it takes 30 years for something to happen”. Shame on Cambridge that – no doubt because of its own prejudices about climate change – it has abandoned its normal intellectual high standards.
Nonsense like that characterises all the outpourings of Black and his cohorts; but still the BBC ploughs relentlessly on.
“Environmentalism as a Surrogate Religion”
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.9376/pub_detail.asp
Great link George.
I was not surprised in the least that last Friday was deemed “Earth Day” by Google-none of that Good Friday nonsense if you don`t mind!
These earth apocalypse types would have stood outside football matches with a sandwich board a couple of generationa ago. Much easier now to get a commission from the BBC or a puff piece from the Guardian than risk a chill or passive smoke from an oik.
Because they believe in nothing -they fear anything. That their science stopped at STD slides back in sex education should not mean that we need listen to them.
Truly a faux religion, but running out of steam-which is why the political and media elite are so keen for us to be told it is a danger!
As Phil said “Don`t believe a word!” Better still-let`s patronise them the way that they do to us-“Jesus died for you Sarah…and we hope one day you`ll join us “type of thing! They`ll see sense!
I checked out her science qualifications. According to Wikipedia it is
” Diploma in Journalism at the Polytechnic of Central London “
Crikey, potential lead author material at the dodgy IPCC…
Wow!
Armed with a fistfull of honorary doctorates from places like the UEA she could be the head huckster at the IPCC.
“It takes 30 years for something to happen” – first Earth Day was 40+ years ago and just look at how those predictions have turned out – http://notasheepmaybeagoat.blogspot.com/2011/04/eco-loons-always-predict-doom-and.html – Here’s my two favourites: “Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions….By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine.”
• Peter Gunter, professor, North Texas State University
“Scientists have solid experimental and theoretical evidence to support…the following predictions: In a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution…by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half….”
• Life Magazine, January 1970
It doesn’t matter how many times the enviromentalists predict disaster and how many times that disaster never happens, the BBC will always report the predictions and ignore the reality.
It’s what they do best…
Nota,
How funny. Looks like China and SE Asia including India , as well as S. America are doing pretty well. It seems Europe and N. America are in decline. At least that’s what the financial markets seem to think ! Maybe they know something the scientists don’t. Mind you a lot of fund managers are scientists !
Regent Polytechnic eh? Commanding heights of the intellectual establishment. All part of Blair’s joke expansion of education, in the hope of growing more Labour voters. Third rate minds taught by third rate lecturers, finding jobs in the Third sector – fake charities, NGOs, and the media. Education Education Education?
It’s not just environmental scares.
The Millennium (Y2K) Bug turned out to be nothing but an expensive, manufactured scare. A lot of people allowed the Y2K Bug to scare them half to death (me included). We’d been told, with such certainty, by reputable sounding experts, politicians and journalists that this was a deadly serious problem and huge amounts of money were spent – in some countries – to try and protect ourselves from catastrophe.
If you click on this link you’ll see that the BBC went into overdrive to help spread the scare – huge numbers of scepticism-free reports piled in during the two years leading up to New Year’s Day 2000. Then, when the apocalypse failed to happen, it just shrugged it’s shoulders and moved on as if nothing had happened.
The BBC’s scare campaign warned of disaster, chaos and catastrophe. They scared us about everything from the failure of video recorders and vacuum cleaners to the possibility that the lights would go out. Planes would become unsafe to fly. Many articles warned of widespread deaths in hospitals here and abroad. We were repeatedly warned of a complete collapse in essential services, a national emergency “the same magnitude as a war”, with
a potential collapse in the emergency services, including 999. Repeated predictions of civil disorder and injunctions to stock emergency supplies of food sat alongside scares about nuclear reactor disasters, accidental nuclear missile launches and a collapse in UK defences. They told us the Millennium Bug could lead to war in Korea, traffic accidents, pollution, hyperthermia, the collapse of Russia, chaos in the developing world, the collapse of the GPS system, major disruption to tax collection and the closure of schools. We were also told to avoid Italy. No wonder people feared for their personal safety!
Then came New Year’s Day 2000 and the Millennial apocalypse failed to turn up.
The BBC website for the first few days of 2000 contained a whole string of articles, beginning cautiously with Minor bug problems arise, that told the truth, including:
Y2K bug fails to bite
Computer bug fails to bite
Problem-free millennium in Middle East
Business as usual as bug is ‘beaten’
Bug absent as world parties
Banks unscathed by century switch
America survives millennium bug
UK relief over bug
The stories then began very quickly to fizzle out. No mea culpas from all the responsible BBC journalists, just on to the next scare without a backwards glance. How did they get away with it then? More to the point, how do they get away with it now?
The BBC and journalists generally hate good news !
But don’t you see, it’s because so much money was thrown at dealing with Y2K that it was neutralised. You’re just a Y2K denier.
I’m still angry about this Y2k thing as the BBC have still to answer my enquiry about who I see about getting some money back for all the tinned food and dehydrated toilet rolls and all the shotgun shells I got to deal with the neighbours and zombies that I still have in the bunker ! I mean they wont last for ever and I’m getting fed up of sitting here in me army coat and tin hat if this AGW/CC doesn’t kick in soon I many become sceptic !
The beeb is failing in it’s duty to scare us enough!
Matthew,
I don’t want to get too personal, but what is a “dehydrated toilet roll” ?
Ah Grant it’s a top secret project by the U.S.military/C.I.A [honest it said it on the Ebay listing !] to design something that works faster then the explosive results off all the tinned food !
The science establishment HATE to be reminded of this-therefore,well done Craig for reminding us all to use it ceaselessly in putting ballbearings under the merry band of bandwagons that comprise “the consensus” on all things scientific and political.
These two sets of third raters obviously inhaled passively way too much back in the 70s.
Heard Chris Huhne on Any Questions tonight-utter drivel on the beauty of wind turbines and their uselessness when its a bit nippy. If this is the kind of glove puppet that has to sift out scientific shit from shite on our behalf, then we`re in trouble.
All science seems to want to do is put bats up auntie Beebs nightie-and if only she`d get off her high horse and read a book or two we might do a little better. Not much chance of that though! She seems to crave the thrill too much for my liking!
Bats up a nightie, that’s a new one on me !
Hi Grant-comes from the wondrous “Fawlty Towers” where Basil threatens the same to Mrs Richards-the template for a BBC Womans Hour editor as far as I can tell!
cj,
I have the complete DVD set of Fawlty Towers. Guess I’ll just have to force myself to look at them again !
According to Wikipedia, Chris Huhne’s full name is “Christopher Murray Paul-Huhne “. Looks like the “Paul-” bit got lost somewhere.
To his credit he has a First from Oxford in PPE, but no science qualifications so far as I can see.
Which goes to show how smart people can be the stupidest of all.
Roland,
It is funny, I remember my late father saying that when I was a little boy and that wasn’t yesterday !
“In the first full year of the Oldbury White Elephant’s 20-year life it generated a gratifying 209 kilowatt-hours of electricity – enough to power a single 100-Watt reading-lamp for less than three months. The rest of the year you’ll have to find something else to do in bed.”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/04/30/why-windmills-won%E2%80%99t-wash/
You know the sad thing is that Huhne is not a idiot, he is an intelligent human being. Yet I have always wondered why people can defend an obvious lie. It seems that politicians always want to be right and they will defend the lie rather than accept the damage being done by the lie.
There is an interesting article here that explains the mindset of “smart people”.
http://www.scottberkun.com/essays/40-why-smart-people-defend-bad-ideas/
If the BBC stood by its charter and took the devil advocates’ role when interviewing people like Huhne – he may in time see how much his defence of the lie is illogical.
JHT,
Thanks for that link. I just skim read it and will try and return to it another time.
I like the idea of clever people defending a bad idea. I guess the question about Huhne is does he really believe what he is saying ?
The question I would ask him is ” What evidence would it take to make you change your mind ? “. That tends to put people on the spot.
If, as many believe, Global Warming is a religion the answer must be ” none “.
If it is a science , he has to specify the evidence required.
‘She suggested that the UK should be investing more in the brightest children either through grammar schools or other selective mechanisms’
I went to a selective grammar school, one of the few which still exists in the state sector. It taught me to think for myself, not to accept without question the bizarre pseudo-news propaganda of a government funded broadcaster which specialises in the mass manufacture of junk entertainment.
Unlike Sarah, I’ve got a science degree.
Phil,
So have I !
‘It taught me to think for myself’ – and that is why the left must destroy them. The youf must be taught only what is approved for them to know…
When I went to University in the Sixties it was on the premise it taught you how to think, not what to think. Which is why I think the greenie alarmist cult is a load of toss. Sadly it doesn’t do it any more – it tells you what to think.
Well, at least the majority of people use their names on this site, unlike bishop hill, where people seemed far more interested in hurling (occasionally violent) abuse than engaging in rational debate. However, some of the contributors here also seem quite keen on unnecessary personal remarks – perhaps you would like to post a recording of your laugh, Robin Horbury, so we could judge whether that was more or less annoying than mine?
I’ve said most of what I want to on the Bishop Hill pages. London Calling (another of these popular noms de plume people seem fond of hiding behind) – I also have a law degree from Oxford, but I am sure that is also unacceptable for some reason or the other. For someone who appears to be fond of scientific method, you give very little empirical evidence that someone without a degree of which you approve is incapable of cogent thought.
As I have already said on bishop hill, I would not call someone sub-standard, fatuous or stupid because I did not like what they said. That’s not engaging in debate, that’s simply discourteous.
I also suggested in the talk that politicians are led by the media, that the Climate Change Act could soon be dead in the water, that the Copenhagen talks were a waste of time, and that future governments could be using British coal to plug the alarming energy gap. I assume you thought all that was rubbish as well.