Energy companies, thank God, are not consumed with green lunacy to the extent that they have stopped exploring for new resources. Cairn Energy, for example, is a UK success story which is making £1bn a year pre-tax profits drilling for oil in areas such as Greenland and India in some of the harshest environments on earth. The annual report shows that company operations pay sensible respect to environmental issues – but at the same time, Cairn gets on with its difficult and routinely dangerous business without kow-towing to greenie pressure.
Richard Black, though, is not happy. He’s launched a major assault on new fossil fuel exploration, couched in lefty-speak; Denmark (elsewhere a hero of windfarm development) is here a “quasi-colonial power”. And his main aims in this piece about the exciting news that there are abundant new fossil fuel resources in the Arctic, are to peddle Greenpeace poison propaganda that such fossil-fuel exploration should not be going on at all, to hero-worship Greenpeace efforts to disrupt legal drilling operations, and to suggest – by implying that deep water drilling is beyond-the-pale dangerous – that Cairn don’t know what they are doing. Of course BP made mistakes in the Gulf of Mexico, but they have learned by them; nevertheless our Richard clearly believes that all such activities should cease, in line with Greenpeace’s eco-fascism. Here’s his BBC-creed sermon:
Basic science tells you that in colder water, oil products are going to remain intact for much longer before being broken down. Rescue and clean-up operations will be more difficult in the roiling Arctic than in the relative calm of the gulf. The second reason is that in an era when virtually all governments say they’re committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, how is it sensible to be investing money in finding new stocks of fossil fuels to exploit?
Presumably, he wants instead companies like Cairn to start investing in windpower and other renewables. But the reality of “renewables” impact on the environment is beyond his analysis. Matt Ridley – as I also pointed out yesterday – spells out here that BBC-approved “renewables” are causing the first large-scale deforestation of Britain in centuries, by generating demand for “biomass” (note the greenie doublespeak – it’s actually mostly wood they mean)to burn. And even the BBC can’t ignore that windfarms are not only hugely inefficient, they are also hated with a passion – and their frenzied construction is blighting our landscape on an unprecedented scale. Yet our political class (here the Welsh Assembly) pig-headedly don’t give a damn. And Richard Black doesn’t have the brainpower, honesty or will to make the connections.
His remit is “write and speak about how dreadful it is that we continue to dare to depend upon the fruits of our discovery and exploration for ways to keep ourselves alive and economically stable” and “deeclare that we miserable humans should shrink quietly back into the earth and let, er, something else inherit the planet, for we are not worthy”…
He and the Harrabin idiot make quite a good fist of that. don’t they?
Look at the headline: Fears in Arctic Over Rigged Energy Choices. Yes, I know it’s a play on “oilrigs” but it immediately makes the reader think that Mr Black disapproves.
Which I have no doubt he does, with this thinly disguised puff piece for Greenpeace.
Whilst not disputing the fact, I am interested in the provenance chain that leads to this statement, given Mr. Black’s, historical grasp of the subject: ‘Basic science tells you’.
I am rather betting that someone told him and, as always, he faithfully trotted it out to ‘tell’ the UK public.
Given the BBC and its employees mystifying reputation for objective competence, that remains a worry.
My site,
I was just about to post similar. Richard Black “Basic science”.
Can someone remind me of his science qualifications ?
Interesting that it is ‘basic science’ that the lower temperatures will slow the oil breaking up, yet he misses the obvious point that the ‘roiling’ Arctic will have the opposite effect – and somehow, I don’t remember the BBC rushing to tell us that the warmer Gulf waters would mitigate the impact of the Deepwater Horizon spill. Moreover, of course, the Deepwater Horizon cleanup was also impaired by rough weather in the Gulf.
Why, it’s almost as if he’d latched onto a quarter of the truth to peddle an agenda while ignoring the big picture which didn’t fit … surely not.
The luvvies who campaigned against selling off the forests (and were given much BBC airtime to do so) are silent on this new wave of eco-inspired deforestation. No surprises there.
By using the temperature of the arctic to suggest the oil will take longer to break down, Black ignores the fact spilt oil dispersal is greatly enhanced by the mechanical action of waves. This despite pointing out in the article that the Arctic is very rough. This is unscientific scaremongering and I will be making a complaint.
Which is exactly what happened in the Braer disaster.
“Basic science” tells us that Black is a greenpiss stooge, if it walks like a stooge and talks like a stooge then it probably is a bought off stooge. But then again so many in the MSM are bought off stooges whether for political vermin or NGO vermin or common purpose vermin, it seems sometimes that almost every hack has their own special ‘sponsors’ who feed them propaganda and cash.
Basic common sense tells us that scum like BlackHarrabinladenShukman have been bought off, whether they get their just desserts in the end is still open to question but I certainly hope they live to regret it.
Speaking of CO2 (were we?), this link rather highlights the quantity of misinformation whcih is directed our way by the BBC…
http://drtimball.com/2011/did-you-know-a-handy-list-of-facts/
Nice on, Robin. The BBC should really just drop all pretense of impartiality and change the “Science/Environment” section heading to a Greenpeace newsfeed. Probably save a few jobs and hundreds of thousands of pounds of the license fee as well.
The hook,line and sinker way in which the BBC/MSM were caught over IPCC/UEA lies and deceits a couple of years back just makes whatever they say a complete irrelevance… and warns us to believe only the complete opposite!
Thank God for the Black Stars like Bowen and Mason-makes that moral compass so easy to set…180 degrees to whatever line that is hooked to their mouths and to the “Rainbow Pedalo”
“With the right subsidies, wind could become a viable energy source. And, with the right subsidies, gasoline could be made free, and 2-carat diamonds could be given away in cereal boxes. How is it that wind, with a 4000-year head start, is such a small player in the energy scene? Could it be — just possibly — that the answer has something to do with physics instead of economics and politics?“__ Dr. Howard Hayden, Professor Emeritus of Physics, University of Connecticut