Is the BBC a political pressure group? Many, such as Booker, say it is; and I increasingly agree. Today, for example, 101 Conservative MPs – almost half the parliamentary party – have signed a letter suggesting that the government’s subsidy commitment to onshore windfarms is basically bonkers. Autonomous Mind explains why these monstrosities are a shameful waste of taxpayers’ money here – despite the billions spent on wind energy, in times of cold weather, such as now, they contribute only 1% of our power needs. But, damn democracy, ignore the evidence, call in the greenie cavalry, Richard Black is on the case. He’s already made up his mind – backed with quotes from eco-nutter Tony Juniper, the boss of Friends of the Earth – that, in the wake of the tragic departure of “feisty” (BBCspeak for wonderful) Chris Huhne, pressure must be kept up to make sure that the renewables revolution continues. Did he plan his piece as a pre-emptive strike? My guess is that he did. But even if he did not, it shows the BBC up as precisely what it is – a campaigning organisation that is hard-set against the vile ‘Tories’ and in favour of environmental revolution.
BBC: POLITICAL PRESSURE GROUP
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Maybe the tide is on the turn. The more publicity for these dissentions from the greenie ideology, the better.
It can’t be that much longer, after persistent bashing by Booker, Delingpole, B-BBC and all the other anti-AGW websites, that the public and politicians alike awake from their torpor and suddenly realise how they’re being shafted by these shameful people.
It’s all falling apart, and they know it, so they latch onto anything they can to push the alarmism meme for all they’re worth, but we are just not buying it any more.
Life is the greatest renewable, and if they had their evil way, that would be compromised big time by their daft ideas.
The BBC are under scrutiny at the moment, and it is well accepted that they have swallowed the green agenda hook, line and sinker, and that they have strong and obvious leftist prejudices, so their once great charisma is rapidly fading – nobody takes them seriously any more, and most resent having to pay to listen to their partisan drivel.
I thought you put that very eloquently Natsman. An indication of your point, ‘but we are just not buying it any more’ is now very evident in my humble home. The boss lady and my son, who used to tell me not to get worked up at the BBC political Bias and Global Warming propaganda (that is in just every programme they can stuff it in), now jump on the very same blatant and obvious points as I and tell me to turn over to Sky or Aljazeera, without me having to ask! Now that is progress and all done without having to beat them up with the remote.
Well said, Natsman. The myth of climate alarmism is coming home to roost for these snake-oil salesmen in the ‘green’ movement. Whilst their Malthusian tendencies sees everyone but themselvces, of course, having to forgo a comfortable material existence (and their very fat salaries ‘working’ for a tax-payer-subsidised NGO) to meet their wretched ‘carbon targets’ (especially those in less developed nations who would be catapulted right back to the stonage if militant greens had their way), the rest of us can be quietly satisfied that the actual science consistently refuses to bear out ANY of their hysterical claims about the climate and mankind’s alleged influence over it and puts paid – well and truly – to any duplicitous claims of a so-called ‘consensus’.
Consensus is NOT science. Science is NOT consensus.
My dream is that by the end of this year we will have seen the IPCC buried under a total lack of public confidence in it’s ropey practices and it’s completely inaccurate predictions, that it’s funding (hundreds of $millions of taxpayer money) is cut off and the whole sorry lot of them packed off unceremoniously and told never bother the public purse ever again.
One of Michale Mann’s emails showed him saying he can’t reproduce his own results. That’s not science by any consensus.
When I hear of Mr Juniper, I’m always reminded of the Donovan song (showing my music vintage, I know) – Jennifer Juniper, lives upon a hill. Jennifer Juniper, sitting very still. Apropos nothing, I just think it’s quite funny, really; just as Jonathon Porritt always reminds me of thick, lumpy porridge.
Anyone able to tell me how much wind turbine energy we`re getting to deal with this cold snap?…no wind,very cold…and so I`m guessing that they`re useless when we actually need them!
Still-if only we could use those windmills of the BBCs minds eh?…been providing tumbleweed solutions now since bloody Rachel Carson.
Steve Jones?…Richard Black?…science is busy eating itself and belching sulphur.
Booker has long had Huhne shown for the crapcreep that he is…and that the BBC have lost their seedy Prius gonk is going to be a good thing.
BBC detector vans should maybe have a sail or turbine on the roof-and go about Salford estates fanning the flames of liberal discontent…at the very least it might blow over onto a Guardian reader!
You can see here that today’s maximum generation by wind is forecast at 28% of installed capacity (at 1:00 pm). Not wonderful and, luckily, most of the UK is not freezing. However, whether 101 Conservatives signed this letter or not will not make a blind bit of difference. If it came to a vote, the payroll vote (ie those Conservatives in government), + the LbDems + most of Labour will negate this kind of thing – and the signatories know it. Hearrtwarming in a way, but, let’s face it, this is gesture politics.
Until the 1922 Committee starts asserting itself against the government nothing will happen. However, these MPs can now go back to their constituents and say “well, we tried” and say simultaneously to Conservative Party HQ “We knew it wouldn’t work – thank God – but we’ve retained the vote of the idiots who voted for us last time”.
. . . and, as RH posts, the BBC propaganda grinds on regardless.
Actually that forecast wind maximum was for 1:00 am today – you know when most people are asleep. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that another shedload of cash went to the windies to turn off the turbines.
Yes those Tory dickheads would be better off protesting at the BBC which is the chief cheerleader for this greenie bollocks.
But they won’t.
Every snowflake that falls is another kick for the theory of global warming, rightly or wrongly. The problem is that for 10 years, they pushed their argument on those hot days, the 2003 heatwave and others and now that the weather has changed again, they have lost credibility. People now realise it is not a sure thing and they want to know the truth, they have heard all the lies.
Why is Black’s article written entirely from one side? He’s an advocate, not a “science journalist”. Not a single word from someone wondering if Huhne’s replacement will ease the policies which have driven up fuel prices unnaturally. Of course, Black has advocated for those policies in the past, so it wouldn’t occur to him. Instead, it’s all about how this is an opportunity for things to run even further down the Warmist path.
When he says that Davey has signed on to “endorsing the reality of man-made global warming”, you know where his beliefs lie. I seriously hope the Thames freezes over while he’s still working for the BBC.
Black with his subsidized income will not be suffering from the effects of the freezing winters , which have become the norm within the last few years . To these zealots people do not matter only the cause .
The mortlality rate is 15% higher in the winter than the summer and with Huhne and his half witted friends in the “conservative” party making the population pay a very high price to keep warm this figure, I’m sure, can only rise in the coming years.
Black should be putting views from all sides of a debate, but as we know with the BBC they hate the people who pay their wages.
“We must not campaign, or allow ourselves to be used to campaign.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/editorialguidelines/page/guidelines-politics-principles/
Forgot to ask: what are “rumbustious shoes”? Can Black be any more gushing?
Everytime I hear Black it reminds me of this :
“You never get it right, do you. You’re either crawling all over them licking their boots, or spitting poison at them like some benzedrine puff-adder. ”
Sybil Faulty
Lord Monckton has a post on Huhne at WattsUpWithThat:
Huhne is no loss
When I visited the House of Lords’ minister, Lord Marland, at the Climate Change Department a couple of years ago, I asked him and the Department’s chief number-cruncher, Professor David Mackay (neither a climate scientist nor an economist, of course) to show me the Department’s calculations detailing just how much “global warming” that might otherwise occur this century would be prevented by the $30 billion per year that the Department was committed to spend between 2011 and 2050 – $1.2 trillion in all.
There was a horrified silence. The birds stopped singing. The Minister adjusted his tie. The Permanent Secretary looked at his watch. Professor Mackay looked as though he wished the plush sofa into which he was disappearing would swallow him up entirely.
Eventually, in a very small voice, the Professor said, “Er, ah, mphm, that is, oof, arghh, we’ve never done any such calculation.” The biggest tax increase in human history had been based not upon a mature scientific assessment followed by a careful economic appraisal, but solely upon blind faith. I said as much. “Well,” said the Professor, “maybe we’ll get around to doing the calculations next October.”
They still haven’t done the calculations – or, rather, I suspect they have done them but have kept the results very quiet indeed.
Funny how this is one instance where the BBC isn’t making a fuss about a Conservative-led Coalition policy which hits the poorest and most vulnerable hardest.
Ah, David Mackay the liar:
“And that, in the end, is where the lie really is. In the attempt to sell us renewables the assumption is made that energy usage will halve. But energy usage halving has nothing at all to do with renewables, it has to do with energy efficiency. And when we compare energy efficiency plus fossil fuels with energy efficiency plus renewables we find that the renewables are twice the price of the fossil fuels.”
http://owsblog.blogspot.com/2011/12/onshore-offshore-over-sure.html
Good one David. Also hitting the “poorest and most vulnerable hardest” – like the elderly – is the TV poll tax. If pensioners have the legal “right to life” then maybe they should stop paying it, so that they can afford enough gas central heating to stay alive this winter.
I thought 75+ got free BBC? Although, judging from statistics I’ve read, the Scottish don’t benifit from it (apologies to all Scots here). Which begs the question: If Alex Salmond gets his way (or what he acts like is his way for television – I’m still not sure), and Scotland goes rogue, will that result in a serious drop in license fee revenue? Somebody’s self-interest might conflict with certain Narratives…..
Still, now that i think about it, seems like if it’s Green, it’s regressive. Weird how the BBC never notices.
I make no claims to be a scientist, especially concerning the cost-effectiveness or otherwise of wind farms. Though I‘ve read various reports from those that do, showing them to be highly undependable and not cost-efficient at all.
Simple logic tells me that if you have to invest more energy to achieve less then it is not worthwhile and cannot be ‘green’. So anybody genuinely concerned about the future of our planet would not be advocating them at all. The only ones that would, are those who are totally unconcerned about the planet, but see investment in them as a get rich quick scheme for themselves. This theme is the topic of James Delingpole’s latest book, the synopsis of which can be read here
How green zealots are destroying the planet: The provocative claim from a writer vilified for denying global warming
It is because the wind farms are so inefficient and not fit for purpose that it highlights the corruption and immoral mindset of their proponents. Especially that of the BBC who receive their license fee on the basis that they will be balanced and fair throughout their reportage on any topic, unlike private individuals or companies. The fact that people can be sentenced to jail for not paying this licence fee, makes LEGALITY the real issue about whether the BBC fulfils their charter or not.
As we’ve shown on numerous consistent areas, the BBC fail to do this, which in my book makes their actions criminal. Any government that continues to force the public to pay for this criminal organisation is also criminal. No different than the despots and tyrants we see in many regimes throughout the world, except ours are still able to masquerade as democratic.
Today’s clear example of BBC criminality concerns the story that over 100 MP’s, mostly Tory, have written to the Prime Minister demanding that the £400 million-a-year subsidies paid to the “inefficient” onshore wind turbine industry are “dramatically cut”.
Before we examine how the BBC have covered this story, take a moment to consider what points you would expect to be covered on it from a genuine unbiased balanced broadcaster. Would they detail the reasons given by these MP’s? Would they relate the actual facts and figures concerning their claims to judge whether the MP’s are right or wrong?
So what does the BBC do?
First let’s see what reasons do they give for the MP’s actions.
More than 100 Conservative MPs have written to the prime minister urging him to cut subsidies for wind turbines. They also want planning rules changed to make it easier for local people to object to their construction.
The Tory MPs – joined by some backbenchers from other parties – questioned the amount of money going to the sector during “straitened times”.
The exact figure of Conservative MP’s who signed up to this is 101. but ‘More than 100’ makes it appear like there were more. This in itself tells you from the outset how the BBC are going to present their protest.
So all we get from the BBC opening lines is that the MP’s want Cameron to cut subsidies, because of straitened times, and make it easier for people to object to their construction.
The BBC then tells us But the government said wind farms were a “cost-effective and valuable part of the UK’s diverse energy mix”.
‘The government said’? Over a 100 MP’s are part of that government, and they’re certainly not saying that. A government doesn’t speak, so who in the government is making that assertion? Could it have been the outgoing energy minister Chris Huhne, the same ‘government’ that said it was his wife driving when he got the speeding ticket? Clearly if it was, the BBC would hardly want to use his name as the source – so ‘government’ will do.
As for being ‘cost-effective’, I would like those working at the BBC and the government to receive a salary that is as cost-effective as a wind-farm. That way they would actually have to pay us to work. But politicians can claim what they like when they know that the propaganda machine will not challenge them when it’s also part of their agenda.
Then the article goes into an area seemingly designed to make most readers ‘tune out’ and move on with this;
The challenge to the coalition’s policy presents an immediate problem for the new Energy and Climate Change Secretary, Ed Davey. He was promoted to the job following the resignation of fellow Liberal Democrat Chris Huhne last Friday. Lib Dem president Tim Farron told BBC’s Andrew Marr Show that Mr Davey was a “very, very capable man” and an “outstanding environmentalist” who would take projects forward.
Till we get back to this
‘Straitened times’
The government wants renewable sources, such as wind, to provide 15% of the UK’s energy supply by 2015. It admits that this is “currently more costly” than using fossil fuels, with hundreds of millions of pounds spent on subsidizing wind farms each year.
So if the government admits that it’s ‘currently more costly than using fossil fuels’, just explain how is it more cost-effective. Am I missing something? I have to wonder just what type of brain does somebody need to believe this shit? Would they buy a car from a second hand dealer making similar claims. “It costs more to run than a petrol driven car, but it’s more cost effective”.
Now we get to the next part of the article where you can really see that the attempt by the BBC to distort the facts is completely conscious.
State help is being cut under plans set out by ministers last year, but MPs have demanded an acceleration. “In these financially straitened times, we think it is unwise to make consumers pay, through taxpayer subsidy, for inefficient and intermittent energy production that typifies onshore wind turbines,” they wrote in the letter, seen by the Sunday Telegraph.
The politicians also expressed concerns that the proposed National Planning Policy Framework “diminishes the chances of local people defeating onshore wind farm proposals through the planning system”. Organised by backbencher Chris Heaton-Harris, the letter’s 101 Tory signatories include senior figures such as David Davis, Bernard Jenkin and Nicholas Soames. Another is Tory MP Matthew Hancock, a close ally of Chancellor George Osborne. Mr Heaton-Harris said two Liberal Democrats, two Labour PMs and one Democratic Unionist were also among his backers.
Now why didn’t the crux of the argument for these MPs about ‘inefficient and intermittent energy production that typifies wind turbines’ go into the opening paragraphs of the article? Because this way the BBC could first tell us how cost effective they were, despite the illogical thesis of this claim. Notice they also mention the 101 Tory MP’s here, but considering the majority of readers will have expected the juice of the story to be run in the opening lines, how many will still be reading at this point?
Notice too, having mentioned the REAL objection to wind-farms by these MP’s they don’t address it at all. Instead they go on to say;
‘Party divided’
BBC chief political correspondent Gary O’Donoghue said the signatories were not against renewable energy per se, but believe onshore wind got far too much money.
For Labour, shadow energy and climate change secretary Caroline Flint said: “Britain should be a world leader in wind energy. We need to put jobs, growth and reducing energy bills first, but David Cameron is failing to do this. We just get a Tory party divided amongst itself…
“If Tory MPs want to turn the clock back on renewable energy, it will be the public who pay the price through higher energy bills, as we become more reliant on volatile fossil fuel prices.”
But a Downing Street spokeswoman said: “We need a low-carbon infrastructure and onshore wind is a cost effective and valuable part of the UK’s diverse energy mix.” She added: “We are committed to giving local communities the power to shape the spaces in which they live and are getting rid of regional targets introduced by the last government.
“The draft framework also aims to strengthen local decision making and reinforce the importance of local plans.” Mr Huhne resigned as Energy and Climate Change Secretary on Friday after hearing he faced a charge of perverting the course of justice over a 2003 speeding case, a claim he denies.
So how did the BBC chief political correspondent Gary O’Donoghue get the information that the signatories were not against renewable energy per se? Well for the answer to that you’d have to read the story from another source, the Telegraph, where we are told that this was stated by the signatories themselves. Putting it this way, the BBC make it look like they are really in the know to privy information.
Also, as you can see, they not only skip addressing the ‘inefficient and intermittent’ aspects of this type of energy supply, they again repeat from another source, and another anonymous ‘government’ spokesperson, ‘onshore wind is a cost effective and valuable part of the UK’s diverse energy mix’.
Somebody is telling porkys. Just judging from the criteria that the BBC is supposed to be upholding, and comparing it to the job they’ve done here, I know who my money is on.
‘another anonymous ‘government’ spokesperson, ‘onshore wind is a cost effective and valuable part of the UK’s diverse energy mix’.
In other news, ‘the BBC has a worldwide reputation as a trusted and impartial broadcaster’.
Then there is ‘the cheque is in the mail, etc’
Is Britain the only country in the world to have a “Minister for Climate Change”? The French and Germans don’t. The title seems like something out of a Orwell novel.
We may as well have a “Minister of Sun Spots” or A “Minister of Cloud Formation”.
Even The Maldives does not have a “Minister for Climate Change”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabinet_of_the_Maldives
Or a “Minister for Sinking”
It does indeed sound Orwellian – and for good reason. As CoP-17 in Durban (that’s ‘Conference of the Parties’) revealed, the militant Greens had a policy paper doing the rounds which clearly mandates their pressing need for both ‘Global Climate Courts’ (presumably to punish heretical deniers) and a ‘Global Climate Task Force’ – a sort of UN-funded climate enforcement army which would parachute in and ‘correct’ off-message governments around the world.
None of this is a joke. These people are very, very serious. The truly worrying thing is that the BBC never reports any of it, which is what allows these dangerous extremists to sneak their manifestos into EU law. We have had to winess the spectacle of unelected green NGOs (Friends of the Earth) lecturing the CoP-17 delegates on the need for shipping taxation as a measure to combat carbon emissions.
Since when is an unelected NGO in charge of deciding binding, legal tax law?
We shouyld never – ever – underestimate the sneaky, underhand ways climate zealots will seek to lobby and influence the legal agenda around spurious (and wholly unproven) AGW issues in order to profit from increasing hand-outs from the public purse by supine, uninformed politicians, who are all guilty of eroding our civil liberties and our finances to serve the lie of ‘man-made climate change’.
At 9pm today on Radio 4, Material World will be asking what caused the little ice age. I expect the answer given will be only part of the jigsaw that also explains Global Warming. But it is a remarkable change for the BBC, as this and the Medieval warm period have been taboo since the Hockey Stick fraud.
The simple answer extracted from the Mensa International Science forum is:.
The speed of the centre of the Sun relative to the centre of mass or barycentre of the Solar System determines the length of the solar cycle, this in turn is caused by the orbits of the Planets. Long Solar Cycles have higher Solar Magnetic activity and therefore a larger number of Sun spots. Short Solar Cycles have lower Solar Magnetic activity and therefore a low number of Sun spots. When Solar magnetic activity is low, Cosmic Ray levels are able to rise, this causes an increase in the Earths Cloud Albedo, which in turn reflects more Solar radiation, and therefore causes a cooling, and when Solar magnetic activity increases this in turn causes Global Warming.
That explains the Global Warming in the last quarter of the 20th century, and how the next few Solar Cycles are predicted to bring a new mini ice age.
Really interesting. Connects a lot of dots. Thanks.