But you’d be wrong.  Could it be that the first report below about the high cost of wind farms reveals Labour to have made an enormous, expensive error…maybe an ‘omnishambles’…and that the green agenda is going to cost everyone an absolute fortune with no guarantee that we will see any elecricity at the end of it all…..two of the BBC’s pet projects…the Labour Party and the Green agenda…..both failing miserably.

From a different perspective the BBC should be showing interest in this story…they chase down ‘tax avoiding’ companies with great relish…and yet those companies bring in thousands of jobs……just as do the companies that get government tax breaks in ‘enterprise zones’…or as in this case massive subsidies to persuade them to bring jobs here……what’s the difference between these green companies and Starbucks?  The BBC seems quite happy to accept the tax avoidance or subsidy of some companies but not others.

Here we are told of the high cost of wind but not by the BBC…..

Households will see their electricity bills soar to cover the £17 billion cost of bringing energy from offshore wind farms, MPs are expected to warn this week.

Labour announced in 2010 that to meet its target of producing 15 per cent of Britain’s energy from renewable sources within a decade, a huge drive to build wind farms around the coast was being launched.
As part of the project, bids were invited from companies for licences to lay cables and set up transmission routes from the offshore wind farms to the National Grid on the mainland.

But when the first six licences granted were examined in detail by the Committee last October, one MP described them as ‘a licence to print money’. For while consumers could see their bills rise by about seven per cent – about £33 a year on average – the transmission companies’ revenue is not only guaranteed but protected against inflation.

And how about this….yet another politican with vested interests in stoking the climate change ‘crisis’…..and even if Gummer gave up his corporate positions,  when he leaves the Committe on Climate Change he will without fail be back in the boardroom of those companies…benefitting from the legislation that he helped put in place.

The BBC have no interest in this it seems..nor in Tim Yeo.

Golden windfall of UK’s Green guru: Firm owned by ex-Tory Minister John Gummer connects up wind turbine power – and it paid him £1,750 PER HOUR
As Committee on Climate Change chief, Lord Deben issued a report last month claiming generating power from natural gas would in the long run prove much more expensive than wind farms – despite the multi-billion pound subsidies wind receives from consumers and taxpayers.
His committee advises the Government on energy levies and subsidies under the 2008 Climate Change Act. Thanks in part to its recommendations, the number of onshore wind farms like that at Dalswinton is set at least to double by 2020 – a potentially lucrative source of business.
Graham Stringer, Labour MP for Blackley and Broughton, said the whole field of energy and environmental policy seemed to be dominated by individuals who had commercial interests – for example, Tim Yeo, the Select Committee chairman, is a director of several renewable energy firms.
‘They all seem to have major interests in renewables and declaring them is not enough,’ said Mr Stringer. ‘Some of these people, such as Lord Deben, have more influence over policy than Ministers: either they should not have those jobs, or they should resign from those interests.
‘If Lord Deben is found to have misled the Select Committee, he should be sacked or forced to resign.’

Sounds pretty serious and news worthy to me.

You may often come to the conclusion that BBC presenters are ignorant of the subjects on which they are interviewing  and have undue reliance on, or respect for, the interviewee ‘expert’ and subsequently fail to challenge him or her on  their statements…either out of lack of subject knowledge, too much deference or all too often a set of beliefs which are in line with those being stated and so the presenter is disinclined to question them.

It seems that at least one person in the BBC itself has noticed this propensity for sitting back and accepting any old guff as insightful and knowledgeable comment.

 
William Dalrymple, it should be noted, is an English writer gone ‘native’ in India..one who has an affinity for the Muslim world view…and is inclined to make excuses for the Muslim terrorist….and as he himself says he is…‘an anti-colonial Scot, who has written fiercely critically of the Raj for a quarter of a century. ‘  No wonder perhaps that the BBC asks for his opinion on events so frequently.

This is a letter from a BBC employee to Ariel Magazine concerning an interview with Dalrymple…
‘Historian William Dalrymple was interviewed on Saturday, December 29 on the India rape story.
Twice he made derogatory, inflammatory comments about ‘Jatts’ – the community of North-west region (Punjab) – leaving the listener with an impression it’s this community that is a problem (if not to blame).
At no time was he challenged. Presumably, none of the PM team had heard of Jatts, so had no idea to whom the historian was referring – hence took his ‘expert’ view.
Like me, the majority of Jatts are Sikhs, not Hindus. They’re a minority community in India, mostly farmers, regularly caricatured in Bollywood films as uncouth country bumpkins.
Mr Dalrymple played on this prejudice at what is a highly emotive time in India. We have yet to know more about the accused – who they are, where they come from – but for him to use his interview to demean the Jatts was irresponsible and dangerously misleading.
More importantly, it was also lazy journalism on the part of Saturday PM. It may have been a quiet period during the festive season, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to get a guest who was ‘best fit’ for this sensitive story. Mr Dalrymple was not.
All the team needed to do was to contact the WS Hindi team (London or Delhi) who’d have given good guidance and even suggested the right guest – one or two of the correspondents specialise in women-related issues and guested on World News on the story. All that rich resource at PM’s fingertips – unused. What a waste.
Guess WS Language teams still have a job to register on the radar of ‘big’ national programmes, be they radio or TV. ‘One BBC’ still has a way to go.’
Jat Dhillon, senior producer, BBC Global India TV and World News

The BBC’s environment correspondent Matt McGrath reveals that when the science doesn’t match his beliefs he doesn’t bother with the science:

I don’t know about you, but the recent row about Met Office climate predictions and a slowdown in global warming has left me shrugging my shoulders.

Yes, obviously the science is important and the issue is critical to our survival as species etc etc, but arguments about experimental models and degrees of difference seem really far removed from the concerns and interests of many people.

Get to the bottom of the article and you see he changes his mind about the importance of science…when it supports his argument…whilst ‘appearing’ to present a sceptical viewpoint he in fact presses the man-made global warming view…..

Meanwhile, despite the supposition in the UK that global warming may actually be stuck on pause over the past two decades, new figures from the US suggest that 2012 was the warmest year ever recorded.

The article is about the bushfires in Australia which the Greens are overjoyed to see occurring as they believe they point to God scourging the Earth of evil CO2 polluters and climate change deniers.

McGrath again attempts a subtle sleight of hand….making you believe that scientists are cautious about claiming a link with global warming…only for him to add that ‘the connection has become a bit more  certain’…..so, yes, they’re  ‘cautious’…but you know what…global warming is man-made:

‘Politicians are often quick to point the finger at a vague notion of global warming.

“Whilst you would not put any one event down to climate change,” said Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, “We do know over time that as a result of climate change we are going to see more extreme weather events and conditions.”

Scientists, though, have been remarkably silent on the connection.

The connection between climate change and wildfires has become a bit more certain. In a paper published last year, leading Australian experts predicted an increased risk of fire in some of the areas now suffering the worst affects, including Tasmania and South Australia.

But the report couldn’t clearly identify the source of that change.’

In the article he is quick to list ‘record’ temperatures and severity of the bushfires…however just as with the BBC’s report of ‘record’ rainfall in the UK he fails, conveniently, to look back in history.

Bushfires are not new to Australia.

Extraordinarily extreme bushfires are not new to Australia.

‘Bushfires in Australia are frequently occurring events during the hotter months of the year due to Australia’s mostly hot, dry climate. Large areas of land are ravaged every year by bushfires, which also cause property damage and loss of life.
Certain native flora in Australia have evolved to rely on bushfires as a means of reproduction and fire events are an interwoven and an essential part of the ecology of the continent
In some eucalypt and banksia species, for example, fire causes seed pods to open, which allows them to germinate.  Fire also encourages the growth of new grassland plants. Other species have adapted to recover quickly from fire.’

In 1851 there were the Black Thursday bushfires in Victoria with 5 million hectares burnt    and  1 million sheep and thousands of cattle killed.

In 1938-39 there were the Black Friday bushfires in Victoria in which 2 million hectares  were burnt.

In 1944 the bushfires  in Victoria burnt 1 million hectares.

In 1961 the  Western Australian bushfires burnt  1.8 million hectares.

We have this alarming report from the BBC:

Academies could ‘fuel social segregation’

The rising number of schools in England with academy status could fuel rather than improve social segregation, says a report by the Academies Commission.

The report says some academies may “covertly” select pupils by using extra information on families or holding social events with prospective parents.

I heard an interview on the radio about this and what was immediately clear  was that it was unclear just where the evidence came from to support the claims…..the person from the Academies Commission (so called…it is entirely unconnected with government….and is a private initiative) was very coy….only saying some parents and schools had complained.

Well we know the reaction of the NUT and other teacher unions to academies….and who were the parents?  You may think hardly a disinterested bunch in undermining academies and Michael Gove.

And just what is the ‘Pearson Think Tank‘ which set up the Academies Commission as the BBC tells us, but without revealing any more…..

The Academies Commission was set up by the Pearson Think Tank and the RSA charity to examine the implications of the “mass academisation” of state schools.

Having read the below you might have thought the BBC, well  known for its determined efforts not to allow a right wing think tank or ‘pressure group’ to go unlabelled as such in the interests of balance, would have something to say about what turns out to be an enormous corporation that has its fingers in many educational pies….and may have an interest in stirring up discontent about school standards…so that it can then provide the ‘solution’….all at a reasonable cost of course…….

I guess the BBC are happy to look the other way when one of the Coalition’s flag ship, and most successful policies, is under attack….or perhaps it doesn’t want to attack a company that it works closely with in its BBC Active capacity….

Pearson’s core education publishing business includes, in this country, the brands of Heinemann, Longman, BBC Active and the Edexcel publishing label.

The Guardian reveals many doubts about Pearson:

Stephen Ball, professor of the sociology of education at London University’s Institute of Education and an expert on education business, sees Pearson’s school-improvement model, alongside its policy work, as particularly interesting. He says: “I think it’s related to an overall strategy: they want to offer products and services in all areas of school practice: assessment, pedagogy, curriculum and management, and they want to create the possibility for that through policy work.

“They want to have indirect influence in policy to create opportunities for business expansion. It’s a very well thought-out business strategy. I think we should be thinking about it, because a lot of it is going unnoticed.“

Or maybe noticed but ignored at least whilst it attacks Coalition policies.

“Current Media was built based on a few key goals: to give voice to those who are not typically heard; to speak truth to power; to provide independent and diverse points of view; and to tell the stories that no one else is telling. Al-Jazeera, like Current, believes that facts and truth lead to a better understanding of the world around us.”

That was Al Gore explaining away his sale of his media company to Al-Jazeera …whose reputation for truth might make Gore think they are a perfect match judging by his climate film ‘The Inconvenient Truth’….which was anything but the truth being a one sided, highly political polemic jammed packed full of  ‘errors‘.

It is a shame that just like the BBC these fine words are no more than just that, elegantly expressed sentiments with little evidence of any attempt to fulfil them in the real world….or as Christopher Booker puts it…. ‘the BBC’s support for the embattled orthodoxy has been so one-sided that it came to be seen as a scandal in its own right.’

However it seems that even the BBC’s own concrete belief in man made global warming has been shaken.

Here Roger Harriban has more hedges than the Grand National whilst the BBC’s David Shukman looks decidedly like a man preparing the ground for a future possible ‘reappraisal’ of the ‘settled science’ in this latest article….Climate model forecast is revised

Despite the possibility that by 2017 there will have been no rise in temperature for two decades Shukman still presses the Met Office belief that the trend is upward and will continue so….whilst managing to stress how uncertain the science is.

Interesting to see how the ‘Sceptics’ are labelled…dismissed as mere ’Bloggers’ with suggestions of ‘conspiracy theorist’ about them.  So despite the computer models failing utterly to predict the climate,  even on a relatively short term basis never mind over 100 years, the BBC still denies any dissenters a serious voice.

In this, a pro AGW  and anti-sceptic article, the importance of good reporting is stressed…..it is of course right about that if nothing else…..suggesting a well informed Public is essential for government policy making in a Democracy….

Is journalism failing on climate?
Stefan Rahmstorf discusses the latest study in ERL on “Cross-national comparison of the presence of climate scepticism in the print media in six countries, 2007”.

The media are the most important means by which lay people obtain their information about science. Good science journalism is therefore a decisive factor for the long-term success of modern society. Good science journalism clearly must be critical journalism, and it requires journalists who know what is what, who can put things into a perspective, and who are able to make well-informed judgements.

Here are some highlights from Shukman’s article:

‘The UK Met Office has revised one of its forecasts for how much the world may warm in the next few years.
It says that the average temperature is likely to rise by 0.43 C by 2017 – as opposed to an earlier forecast that suggested a warming of 0.54C.
The explanation is that a new kind of computer model using different parameters has been used…..it still stands by its longer-term projections.
These forecast significant warming over the course of this century.

If the forecast is accurate, the result would be that the global average temperature would have remained relatively static for about two decades.
Blog suspicions
An apparent standstill in global temperatures is used by critics of efforts to tackle climate change as evidence that the threat has been exaggerated.

The most obvious explanation is natural variability – the cycles of changes in solar activity and the movements and temperatures of the oceans.
The fact that the revised projection was posted on the Met Office website without any notice on December 24 last year has fuelled suspicions among bloggers.

This is an emerging and highly complex area of science because of the interplay of natural factors and manmade greenhouse gases at a time when a key set of temperatures – in the deep ocean – is still relatively unknown.
A paper published last month in the journal Climate Dynamics, authored by scientists from the Met Office and 12 other international research centres, combined different models to produce a forecast for the next decade.
It said: “Decadal climate prediction is immature, and uncertainties in future forcings, model responses to forcings, or initialisation shocks could easily cause large errors in forecasts.”
Scrutiny of Met Office forecasts and climate science generally is set to increase in the build-up to the publication of the next assessment by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in September.’

The BBC’s tame scientist, Prof. Steve Jones, a geneticist, also has great disdain for the sceptics and is avidly pro AGW claiming….the sheer nastiness and clear prejudice of his comments should have precluded him from having any place in a review of bias in the BBC‘s science reporting…:

‘‘Global warming is a myth.” Type that into a search engine and you get thousands of hits….The subject has, alas, become the home of boring rants by obsessives. ‘

However it seems ‘myths’ can be used to support AGW when it suits……

‘Gods, floods – and global warming
The new science of geomythology links ancient legends and natural disasters – and supports climate change , writes Steve Jones.

Ice ages come in slowly, but go out with a bang.

The collapse came when climate reached a tipping point.

Then came the end.

A slight increase in the Sun’s output was matched by the disruption of deep ocean currents caused by cold fresh water sinking from the melting floes above. As the glaciers began to dissolve, their waters roared towards the sea.

Most of those ingredients are evident today, but millions insist that the warming story is made up. It’s enough to make a frog laugh.’

Whilst Jones and Co seek to use myths to back up their science back in the real world the truth is out there if the hard working and integrity driven journalists of the BBC would care to look.

Here is a small but telling comment from an environmental report which says that it is not wind farms that will save the world but a drive to make energy use more efficient….

‘How much energy the world consumes going forward turns out to be a much bigger swing factor for climate change than the availability of technologies like solar and wind power, biofuels, and so on,” said IIASA researcher David McCollum, another co-author.”Energy efficiency, improved urban planning, lifestyle changes – these things on the demand side of the energy equation are so important; yet they receive relatively little attention compared to the supply side.” ’

There is also this inconvenient fact about wind power….
‘Just before Christmas, the Renewable Energy Foundation published The Performance of Wind Farms in the United Kingdom and Denmark, showing that the economic life of onshore wind turbines is between 10 and 15 years, not the 20 to 25 years projected by the wind industry itself, and used for government projections.
“Bluntly, wind turbines onshore and offshore still cost too much and wear out far too quickly to offer the developing world a realistic alternative to coal.”
As a consequence, the lifetime cost per unit (MWh) of electricity generated by wind power will be considerably higher than official estimates.’

Perhaps this report explains partially the BBC’s failure to report the full breadth of the climate debate:

‘A new report into science and the media has found that in some respects specialist science news reporting in the UK is in relatively good health.

But the research also warns about the serious threat to the quality and independence of science reporting posed by the wider crisis in journalism.

“Most of the journalists we interviewed complain about severe workload increases, almost half say they’re mainly passive recipients of news rather than uncovering original stories themselves, a fifth say they don’t have enough time to fact-check stories they publish, and around the same number say they rely too much on PR material. These are all serious problems for the quality and independence of science news.”

This article on pro sceptic newspapers can be turned on its head to give us an insight into the BBC’s attitude towards ‘Sceptics’, an attitude not so much based upon attempting a real balance in science reporting but on the BBC’s  own political leanings:

‘There is some evidence for arguing that there is a strong correspondence between the political leaning of a newspaper and its willingness to quote or use uncontested sceptical voices in opinion pieces. ‘

Whilst newspapers can do as they like and support what they like the BBC is by law supposed to be impartial and balanced in its reporting….it is anything but in many fields, climate just being one of them in which it shows a distinct bias towards one side of the argument.

Should the present stalling of global warming continue there are going to be a lot of red faces and a great deal of back tracking and explaining to do.

It might seem fortuitous that Richard Black jumped ship, or was pushed, before the reckoning comes.  Harrabin must already be making room in his phone book for the hated ‘bloggers’ numbers just in case.

Addendum:  Anyone with time on their hands might want to have a look at this site which gathers together all the climate articles from around the world on a daily basis.

‘The Carbon Capture Report (http://www.carboncapturereport.org/) is a free and open service of the University of Illinois devoted to being the preeminent global resource for tracking worldwide perception and developments in Climate Change, Carbon Capture, Carbon Credits, Alternative Energy, Renewable Energy, Green Energy, Biofuels, Geothermal, Hydroelectric, Natural Gas, Nuclear, Solar, Wind, Coal, and Oil. With subscribers in more than 100 countries the Report has become the go-to resource for daily insight into the global media discourse.’

The above is a graph (hopefully now showing…apologies, but was OK when posted originally) plotted using rainfall data from as far back as 1766 by Doug Keenan(via Bishop Hill).  It doesn’t show any particular change in present rainfall patterns from those experienced since 1766.

The Data is from the Met. Office’s Hadley climate centre...which boasts….

An independent review of the Met Office Hadley Centre commissioned by Defra and the MoD in 2007 concluded that:
‘It is beyond dispute that the Met Office Hadley Centre occupies a position at the pinnacle of world climate science and in translating that science into policy advice.’

Looking at the graph it is apparent that there is a pattern to the rainfall….every 50 years or so the rain falls more frequently in the middle range…starting at the beginning of the century, building up slowly and then dying away towards the end of the 50 year period…..anyone looking at that might speculate that we are now in a period when the rain should be getting heavier…..if it followed a pattern shown over two centuries or more.

Funnily enough that seems to be the case.

What is confusing is that the Met Office has another data set for rainfall….which I presume is the one they used in press releases recently as it dates only from 1910….the rainfall recorded is different to the Hadley data.

The BBC quote these figures from the Met. Office:

Met Office: 2012 was UK’s second wettest year on record

Top five wettest years in the UK
1. 2000 – 1,337.3mm
2. 2012 – 1,330.7mm
3. 1954 – 1,309.1mm
4. 2008 – 1,295.0mm
5. 2002 – 1,283.7mm
(Source: Met Office)

I’m not certain how the Met. Office calculate the UK totals...or even which data set they actually use but using the Hadley data for England and Wales I can show you how easy it is to cherry pick ‘record rainfall’ figures to emphasise any assertion about climate change that you fancy.

The BBC report that April and June have been the wettest April and June on record…indeed they have.

But what about the rest of the months in England and Wales?

When was the wettest January ?  1948.  February? 1833.  March?  1947.  May? 1782.   July? 1828.  August?  1912.  September?  1918.  October? 2000.  November?  1852.  December?  1876.

When was the wettest month on record?  November…1852.

Wettest month in Scotland?  January 1993.

Wettest month in Northern Ireland?  December 1999.

When was the wettest year on record?  1872,  followed by 1768.

Which decade was the wettest on record?  It was not 2001-2010…it was in fact 1871-1880.   1991-2000 was wetter than 2001-2010.  (I haven’t calculated every decade…..merely picked what looked as if it would be high totalling and calculated from there….so there may be an even wetter decade….point being …the wettest decade is definitely not 2001-2010)

So you can see just throwing up ‘record’ figures is highly misleading….it certainly is slightly wetter than average at the moment but look again at that graph….and that might be entirely ‘normal’ in that pattern….we might in fact be due even heavier rainfall in the next decade or so. …only for it to dry up again.

So when the BBC busy themselves quoting these ‘scare’ figure which are designed to convince us that the world is about to end just consider that the records show things were just as bad, if not worse over a century ago…well before the IPCC claim our use of fossil fuels etc resulted in a change of climate, mostly in the last 50 years.

The Mayans predicted 2012 would finish with the end of the World…the BBC predict a similarly dire end.

The Mayans were wrong…..The BBC seem similarly to be in the sway of a religious fervour that clouds their judgement and prevents their journalism from functioning properly, stopping them digging out the truth rather than just accepting press releases from groups and organisations with vested interests…..  The BBC are happy to suggest that because April and June were the wettest on record  we can conclude that unusual and disasterous climate change is upon us…whilst the figures suggest otherwise…..any climate change might be entirely normal…and even beneficial for many.

Whatever the truth of the figures it might do to question them a bit more and look back into history for a few lessons and a broader perspective.

I assume this has an entirely innocent explanation:

Right click on the area of screen playing a video and click on ‘Global Settings’, then click on the ‘Camera and Microphone’ tab and open  ‘Camera and Microphone settings by site’  and this is what you might see…..

s.ytmg.com is apparently Youtube allowing for interactive video games but why does the BBC need to request  access to my camera and microphone?….though I don’t have any connected for precisely that reason.

If you haven’t blocked BBC access….

Whilst you are watching the BBC is the BBC watching you?

The BBC ignored the oncoming US ‘Fiscal Cliff’ for a long time but has now got the recent deal that at least initially puts the brakes on marked down as one of Obama’s magical successes….something we in Britain, George Osborne in particular, could learn from.

However what the BBC aren’t telling us is that the deal imposes more ‘Austerity’ on the US than Osborne has imposed upon us (or should I say the Labour Party has imposed upon us?)…..

Brad Plumer in the Washington Post explains……

For years now, economists like Paul Krugman [mostly on the BBC!]  have been criticizing countries in Europe for engaging in too much austerity during the downturn — that is, enacting tax increases and spending cuts while their economies were still weak.

But after this week’s fiscal cliff deal, the United States is now on pace to engage in about as much fiscal consolidation in 2013 as many European nations have been doing in recent years — and more than countries like Britain and Spain.

So how does the sheer scale of the U.S. austerity program for 2013 compare to what European countries have been doing over the past few years?

Britain has earned a lot of criticism for its austerity programs in the past two years. But at a total size of 1.5 and 1.6 percent of GDP, each of those two deficit-reduction years were smaller than what the United States is planning this year. The United States is also planning to cut and tax more heavily this year than Spain did in 2010 and 2011. Or France. That said, we’re nowhere near Greek or Portuguese or Irish levels of austerity.

A back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests Congress has enacted around $304 billion in tax hikes and spending cuts for the coming year, an austerity package that comes to about 1.9 percent of GDP.

The BBC in the shape of Stephanie Flanders gives us a completely different picture..…

Investors are right to be grateful to Congress for not plunging the US into an entirely avoidable downturn.

If the global economy is going to thrive in 2013, it needs all the forward momentum it can get from the US, especially in the first few months. US fiscal policy will tighten by about 1% of GDP this year, but that’s similar to the tightening that occurred in 2012.

It won’t tank the economy.

Note that a 1% ‘tightening’   ‘Won’t tank the economy’.

Funny how Osborne’s 1.5% fiscal tightening is presented by the BBC as the death knell of our economy.

The BBC is happily stoking a New Year revolution reporting with glee every claim by Labour, the Unions, charities and interest groups that they can lay their hands on which attack the government in any way possible.

It seems that anybody with an anti-government message can have their say on the BBC…but what is more telling is what the BBC is not telling……

Today the BBC are having a field day with the newly released Service Sector economic figures using the Purchasing Manager’s Index which show a downturn in sales……
UK service sector activity falls in December
Activity in the UK’s services sector fell for the first time in two years in December, a survey has suggested, raising fears of yet another recession.
The PMI services index from Markit/CIPS fell to 48.9 in December, down from 50.2 in November. Any score below 50 indicates the sector is shrinking.

In November they used the same PMI to show a slow down in manufacturing…..

Weak demand shrinks UK manufacturing sector in November
The UK’s manufacturing sector shrank in November at its fastest pace in 18 months as global demand weakened, a survey has indicated.
The Markit/CIPS Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) fell to 47.6 in November, its lowest level since June 2009, from 47.8 in October.

 
Today the BBC give us figures from Germany showing they are growing…

Germany retail sales higher in 2012
Retail sales in Germany rose as much as 2.1% last year as Europe’s largest economy took the eurozone debt crisis in its stride, according to the Federal Statistical Office.

In December the BBC gave us figures showing Chinese manufacturing was growing….

China manufacturing picks up momentum, data shows
Manufacturing activity in China has continued to rebound in November as two sets of figures have shown the industry is now expanding.
HSBC said its Purchasing Managers’ Index hit a 13-month high, while on Saturday the government’s version of the same index touched a 7-month high.

What is missing?  What is missing is any reports of economic good news from the BBC….

A couple of days ago the same Markit company released PMI figures showing British manufacturing was growing….. the Guardian reported that…even the Economic Times in India reported it…but as far as I can see our very own British Broadcasting Corporation didn’t…not on the website nor on the radio……

UK manufacturing activity hits 15-month high
Manufacturing PMI rise takes it above the 50-mark that separates growth from contraction for the first time since March

UK manufacturing PMI hits 15-month high in December: Markit
LONDON: British factory activity jumped unexpectedly in December to grow at its fastest pace since September 2011, a survey showed on Wednesday, raising the chance that the economy eked out growth at the end of 2012.
The Markit/CIPS Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) rose to a 15-month high of 51.4 in December from an upwardly revised 49.2 in November – a far stronger increase than any predicted in a Reuters poll of 24 economists.

No Good News is, er, Good News for the BBC.

What else has the BBC failed to reveal to us which coincidentally fits in with their own political agenda?

On Wednesday we had a report on the potential conflict of interest (1 hr 7 mins) when MPs take money from industry lobbyists…..apparently they are vulnerable to being manipulated by lobby groups.

Today we had a report on Hundreds of GPs who could have possible financial conflicts of interest with the new ways of working and controlling budgets.

Odd then how the BBC fails to examine the extensive Green Industry interests of MP Tim Yeo who is the ‘The conflicted chairman of the Energy and Climate Change select committee’  as revealed in great detail by Guido Fawkes.

Someone who is so powerful and influential in guiding government green policy and industry direction and yet is also deeply involved in that industry.  And yet the BBC ignores that.

Just as it brushed under the carpet Roger Harrabin’s small matter of £15,000 gifted to his CMEP group by the Tyndall Centre, not to mention his ‘vulnerability to manipulation by lobbyists’…..’This week, campaigner Jo Abbess is boasting about how she browbeat the BBC into modifying a story about Global Warming’.….Harrabin bowed before her might…“Have a look in 10 minutes and tell me you are happier. We have changed headline and more.”

What else has the BBC recently ignored?

A year or so ago the BBC told us that Christianity was ‘flourishing’ in the Middle East, even stating that Christians in Gaza were getting on famously with the Islamic extremists Hamas.

Things must have changed drastically since then but the BBC seem not to want to look too closely at what Muslims are doing to Christians:

Christianity at risk of wipe-out in the Middle East, warns new Civitas study
Christianity is in serious danger of being wiped out in its biblical heartlands because of Islamic oppression, according to a new report from a leading independent think-tank.
 
But Western politicians and media largely ignore the widespread persecution of Christians in the Middle East and the wider world because they are afraid they will be accused of racism.

Another recent Civitas report  that slams Cameron for doling out billions in foreign aid money purely to fund his Party’s new ‘not nasty’ image was ignored by the BBC….the BBC of course love handing over money to third world countries and so regardless of a chance to bash the Tories they look to the ‘greater good’ in their opinion and ignore the bad…..

 
The 250-page Civitas publication, Aiding and Abetting, written by foreign correspondent Jonathan Foreman
“The powerful momentum behind current aid policy seems to have much to do with the Conservative Party leadership’s ongoing drive to ‘detoxify’ its ‘brand’ and market itself as ‘compassionate’. To the extent that an increase in foreign development aid serves this public relations purpose, its effectiveness or lack thereof at delivering a better life and future for various poor peoples around the world is presumably beside the point, although at $11 billion per annum it amounts to one of the most expensive marketing campaigns in history.”
“To ‘rebrand’ his party and cement the Coalition with the Lib Dems, David Cameron is apparently willing to take advantage of the real generosity of British people and simultaneously make life more miserable for the handicapped, the elderly and the otherwise vulnerable.
“It means that a set of policies trumpeted as manifesting generosity is in fact a cynical, ruthless and morally reprehensible con-job pushed by marketing gurus for whom their real-world effects in the underdeveloped world are largely irrelevant.”

The BBC normally leaps at any chance to repeat lurid criticisms of Cameron or the Tories such as May’s ‘Nasty  Party’ comment, Mitchell’s supposed ‘Pleb’ comment and Nadine Dorries’ ‘Arrogant Posh boys’ comment.  All quiet here though.

No News is Good News if it would otherwise conflict with the BBC’s own interests.

Fascinated listening to Roger Harrabin talking through his hat about the rainfall records (2 hrs 49 mins 20 secs).

He wraps up his report in a vast number of equivocations…..so many that you might start to believe that he didn’t really believe his own report….it’s quite clear that the man made global warming advocates have had their fingers burnt so many times with failed predictions that they now refuse to state anything absolutely categorically…except that global warming is defintitely man made.

Some useful hedging phrases:

– Massive variablity from year to year (in weather)

– Figures are preliminary

–There is a trend of increasing episodes of extreme rain…but it could just stop

–Predicting climate in the UK is particularly difficult

– Weather in the UK is much more unpredictable

… he isn’t even sure about his ‘scientific consensus’….‘I think that one thing underpins this, and there are a lot of caveats around this, the Earth has got warmer.’

Ah of course…global warming.

What is it about the rain that means we get more floods now?

‘The issue is the way it falls in sudden bursts not the amount of rain.‘

Not where I live……lots of floods around here and yet no ‘extreme rain’ falling in awesomely heavy bursts…..it floods because the rain falls over a long period of time rather than in one deluge….the ground is sodden and eventually cannot soak up anymore water…then it floods.

It would be interestig, sort of, to sit down and check the Met Office stats…..but life is too short…however a quick perusal might raise a few questions when you look at historic data for rainfall and sunshine levels in various locations.

Looking back over 100 years  and you might see that  some places have become cooler and have less rain…or stayed very similar.

These so called ‘record’ weather events must be based upon very slim margins or increases in whichever data is selected.

Bradford’s worst rainfall year was 2007 but otherwise is fairly average with 2012 being lower than average by a long way for rain.

Lowestoft looks to have less rain…..in 1915  123 mm and 2012  109 mm.

Eskdalemuir had 313 mm in 1921 but only 246 mm in 2012.

Heathrow seems to have remained fairly static weather wise…whilst Oxford has had more rain.

Which all raises the question…just which figures does the Met Office use to judge a ‘record’ year?

I’m no expert but it is apparent that selective data can easily be used to massage figures….just limiting the period that is examined from 1960 onwards limits the credibility of any claimed record.

This does seem to be a non-story in the scale of things and not based on anything really concrete….yes it has rained for long periods…but is that really so unusual?  Look back over 100 years and it doesn’t seem at all unusual….isn’t Britain famous for its rain?

Even Harrabin admits…it could just stop.

Inconvenient facts I guess…just like that one about ‘no warming for the last 16 years’.

More Met Office historic data here