The BBC’s Roger Harrabin gives the impression of working with the Guardian newspaper to intimidate businesses and other institutions into ridding themselves of their fossil fuel investments.
The Guardian’s editor, Alan Rusbridger, demands that Scientists must speak up on fossil-fuel divestment in a recent article in Nature which attacked the Wellcome Trust and the Bill And Melinda Gates Foundation for not offloading their shares in fossil fuel businesses saying ‘ these wonderful progressive foundations are failing to show the kind of leadership that could be transformative in shifting policy arguments and influencing others. The voices that will resonate loudest with the Wellcome and the Gates are those of scientists. I urge you to make them heard.’
The very next day Harrabin published this Are energy companies sitting on unburnable reserves? saying:
‘Are we approaching the twilight of the fossil fuel era?
The oil price remains stubbornly low. Renewables are becoming more affordable and moving into the mainstream.
On top of that, some investment managers are now beginning to question the value of their holdings in carbon fuels as the pressure builds for the world to limit climate change by reducing carbon emissions.
Some observers believe energy is at a potential tipping point.’
A pressure group, 350.org, began urging faith organisations, foundations and pension funds to withdraw funds from fossil fuels, arguing it is morally wrong to put your money in carbon fuels. So far, more than 220 institutions have taken the decision to divest.
Why did Harrabin feel the need to run this piece now when it is based upon a story run months ago?…
‘Vast amounts of oil in the Middle East, coal in the US, Australia and China and many other fossil fuel reserves will have to be left in the ground to prevent dangerous climate change, according to the first analysis to identify which existing reserves cannot be burned.’
Harrabin for some reason makes no mention that the Guardian is at the lead of the campaign to force investors to divest their shares….the Guardian which is in partnership with that ‘pressure group’ 350.Org on this campaign.
The whole article is entirely one sided, guess which side. Only at the end do we get a hint of any opposition and then Harrabin only quotes the Shell oil company’s CEO..
“With an exceptional effort, as much as 25% of the world’s energy could come from renewables by 2050,” said Ben van Beurden. “But non-renewable forms of energy will have to make up the rest.”
However that is dismissed by the following comment to finish the article:
‘The UK’s former climate change ambassador John Ashton has condemned his comments. The oil giants, he says, will have to choose which side of history they are on.’
Hardly an argument based upon facts, science or reason….more like the Inquisition….believe!
Funny thing about the Guardian’s Rusbridger, whilst urging these companies and businesses to divest themselves of some of their investments that many pension funds rely upon he and his paper don’t follow that advice.
He himself is heading off to Oxford University (and will be chairman of the Scott Media Trust, owners of the Guardian)…the same university that ‘is believed to have the largest investments in fossil fuel companies of any UK university.’ but is coming under pressure to ‘divest’.
Rusbridger has a mini fleet of cars, and like Cameron in his green phase sometimes cycled to work…with a taxi following with his paperwork. Many of your pensions will be heavily reliant upon the investments in the fuel companies that Rusbridger seeks to vilify…that’s OK for Rusbridger because the Guardian tops up his pension with large annual bonuses as he told Piers Morgan in an interview in 2012…one in which he is incredibly reluctant to answer any questions:
What’s your current salary?
It’s, er, about £350,000.What was your bonus last year?
I got about £170,000 which was a way of addressing my pension.
The Guardian itself, no doubt printing off its paper using ethically sourced, planet friendly fairy dust was financed by the profits made by its car magazine, now sold, tax free for £619 million.…to ‘secure its future’…so still living off the wages of sin…petrol powered sin….and it wasn’t an ethically driven sale but one driven by financial necessity…“The situation was not sustainable as a business could not have this lingering over it and the Guardian needed the cash to survive.”
The Guardian itself says it has divested its own fossil fuel investments…but its thinking is more business than green…..
‘Fossil fuel assets had performed relatively poorly in recent years and were threatened by future climate change action, while an ethical fund already held by GMG had been a “stellar” performer and renewable energy was growing strongly. “This means we can adopt socially responsible investment criteria without putting at risk the core purpose of GMG’s investment funds: to generate long-term returns that guarantee the financial future and editorial independence of the Guardian in perpetuity.”
In other words the Guardian has off-loaded fossil fuels because they were performing badly and their green investments were doing better…..profits all paid for by huge subsidies from the UK tax payer…so just how ethical is that…the Guardian padding out its profits from high energy costs imposed upon consumers rich and poor…forced into fuel poverty by Rusbridger and Harrabin? Heat or Eat anybody?
The Guardian though has an investment fund abroad that it doesn’t seem to keen to reveal exactly what it invests in….I’m sure those hedge funds are green hedges….
‘The portfolio of assets in the investment fund is designed to spread Group asset risk over a wider base than the Group’s historical UK media sector focus. Investments are in a diversified range of assets, which are managed by anumber of specialist fund managers, including global and emerging market equity, fixed income, real assets and hedge funds. The investments are denominated in Sterling and overseas currencies, principally the US Dollar.’
‘Green’ hedge funds just as green propagandist Bob Ward’s paymaster runs…or doesn’t….
This is what Jeremy Grantham, Bob‘s ultimate boss and paymaster said about how he makes money:
‘Our first responsibility is to make money for our clients….and nothing is more important than oil.’
His first responsibility?…not to save the Planet…but to make money…from oil.
The simplicity, the Machiavellian naivety, the pious posturing from Rusbridger is astonishing….he grandstands with sanctimonious ‘ethical’ statements about the evils of fossil fuels, the Guardian ridding itself of their own investments knowing full well that the world cannot run without fossil fuels and their derivatives and that the Guardian’s stance is pure posturing as others will invest in energy companies and the oil will keep flowing and being used and that Rusbridger and Co will still be running their businesses on the back of that however much of a headline grabbing firewall they pretend to put between them and fossil fuel industry.
For instance they attack the Wellcome Trust and the Gates Foundation…and yet the Gates Foundation funds the Guardian….so the Guardian should divest itself of that funding…to avoid accusations of hypocrisy.
The Guardian is also funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation which has a huge variety of investments….all of which in some form or other are dependent upon fossil fuels from energy and pharmaceutical companies, mining and banking, Royal Mail with all its thousands of vans racing around the country belching out diesel fumes, and even Domino’s Pizzas…cooking on solar energy and delivering your pizza by pedal power…I’m sure.
The JRF says ‘In July 2014 trustees agreed that the Trust should be divested from all fossil fuels by 2020.’…but of course that is only companies that have an obvious fossil fuel connection.
Showboating about the obvious energy companies is pure hypocrisy when there is no business in the world that doesn’t rely upon fossil fuel in some shape or form however hidden that reliance is.
The benefits of fossil fuels far outways the disadvantages, the costs of stopping the use of fossil fuels is enormous, not just financially but in human terms. Rusbridger is condemning millions to lives of poverty and misery if not war, death and famine on a scale unknown before….but then again he has a track record there having recklessly published the Snowden material that has put lives in danger and meant that the fight against terrorism and gangsters like Putin has been made very much harder.
So does Rusbridger really put ethics at the forefront of his journalism and business or is he more interested, like Peston, in getting to the front of the pack whatever the consequences and whoever he treads upon on the way?
Is he, and Harrabin, more concerned about the environment than people? Is he one of those who hates people?
His next campaign? Save the planet….shoot yourself! The ultimate divestment!
Is it just me or can I see smug self-righteousness oozing from him?
I wonder what such certitude must feel like?
Re: Roger Harabin
In the UK, the normal educational requirement for a job in Climate Change etc, is a degree in E.Lit.
If Roger H has such a degree, then I see no impediment in him being an expert on Climate Chage etc.
Check this site to get an idea of just how secure electricity supplies will be in our bright green future:
http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/
Look at the output from windmills, not only is it pitiful but it also doesn’t follow demand. Have a look at which energy sources ramp up and down to match demand.
Harrabin is a scientifically illiterate left-wing student agitator. Would he write an objective article on the actual performance of renewables, of course he wouldn’t. There is an easy living to be had merely regurgitating press releases from UK Renewables etc. He is a classic example of why the BBC should be scrapped.
https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/end-the-bbc-licence-fee
Stop its unjust TAX
Thanks for that link – very useful!
I don’t agree with your stance on the ‘pitiful’ supply from wind power. There is no way wind power can compete with demand, but that doesn’t mean we should take down all the turbines and import more coal from Russia!
As I read those very interesting meters, wind power is providing about 3% of the UK’s electric supply overnight. And that’s on a calm night. It will be interesting to see how that output increases as the wind speeds up.
There is no class more contemptuous of the little people and their pathetic, unimportant lives, than right-on North London intellectuals. Rusbridger just embodies the type.
1. Knowing what you do about Mr Rusbridger, would you give him a job, any job?
2. 360.org sounds like something Mr Soros set up. As does that other troublemaking group, change.org
3. I doubt if Mr Rusbridger’s muslim mates will be too happy about his advocacy for leaving oil and gas in the ground.
My advice: Wait till the Guardian divests its investments in fossil fuel businesses. This will lower the share price. Therefore an excellent time to invest especially in India and China. I might put a bit of my Pension lump sum in myself. But hurry up before the share price rises again.
Jeremy Grantham is a bright lad surrounded by useful idiots, he diverts investments towards renewables for everyone else but himself, making sure he receives all the profits while the Grantham Institute diverts the useful idiots into investing in dud investments.
For some reason the BBC have three one hour programs about the politics and environmentalist ideology of Climate Change tomorrow, with Roger Harrabin. I think its about the politics of fuel policy, so I doubt any causational Climate Scientist have been invited.
Also just read that “Any day now, the BBC is going to disappear up its own fundament”
Richard, that happened years ago; probably about the time ‘Fatcher came to power. We are all familiar with the BBC’s constant ‘progressive’ echo chamber effect, originating from the fact that the BBC speaks ONLY from the pre digested material within its own collective* rectum – where its thoughts originate and bounce around uninfected with any extraneous influences – in the intellectual sewerage that is stuffed up there, eventually venting as utterances to the public from its fundament. The link below provides some illustrations of the BBC in action – showing how the BBC deals with someone not on the narrative.
http://www.tofugu.com/2012/02/18/japanese-fart-scrolls/
Anyway, just to prove how far up its own arse the BBC is, the BBC has been pimping its ‘self love’ site:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/47pxcQH6vbDGMVSwV4HLBD7/what-youre-loving-on-the-bbc
“We want you to tell us what you love across the BBC”
Whatever the f**k that means in English.
*As in Kholkhoz
“Anyway, just to prove how far up its own arse the BBC is, the BBC has been pimping its ‘self love’ site:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/47pxcQH6vbDGMVSwV4HLBD7/what-youre-loving-on-the-bbc
“We want you to tell us what you love across the BBC” ”
Thank you for the link. After a quick look it seems only “positive” votes can be made by participants, only what you “luuurrve”, yet not a single place to mention what you *hate* – or maybe even just slightly dislike, to be more polite.
This is the type of questionnaire drawn up by totalitarian regimes across the world since time began.
Well I just learnt on The Vote Now Show (yes, they’ve managed to make a programme that’s even worse than The Now Show) that today’s young won’t live to see old age if UKIP get in to power, due to their lack of commitment to windmills.
Will Welsh eels scupper the craziest ‘green’ project ever?
The absurd Swansea tidal lagoon would cost a fortune to build and would produce the most expensive electricity in the world
Booker in the Telegraph;
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/11547082/Will-Welsh-eels-scupper-the-craziest-green-project-ever.html
Absolutely typical of his type. Even looks the part. Contempt for the flyover people of the West oozes from them all.
Wrong side of history indeed. There is no wrong or right side
All these parasites reward them selves very well. Feigning concern when in receipt of such riches is a bit too much for most of us to take.
Make him DG of the BBC. Just made for each other.
Typical socialists, paratising on capiltalism. If one accuses them of being parasites on capitalism, they take it as a compliment, cause they are weakening the filthy capitalist.
Ditto Muslims. If one accuses them of being parasites on Christendom, they too take it as a compliment, as they are weakening the filthy Kuffar.