Author Archives: Robin Horbury

As the BBC constantly reminds us, it’s an era of public spending cuts and these nasty right-wing policies are allegedly hurting us all. Not, however, when it comes to tipping money down the drain on green schemes. Here the BBC doesn’t discuss the cost or impact at all – it instead routinely gives platforms for greenie zealots to pontificate why even more of our cash should be wasted.

NuLabour decreed back in 2009 that, despite the recession, at least £30m should be spent on providing charging points for electric cars – those inefficient, ugly CO2-guzzling death traps that only zealous eco-fanatics actually want. They are only being made because of the availability of huge manufacturing subsidies. Green-nut Boris Johnson, however, thinks they are a good idea, and he’s spending every penny of the available government subsidies on wheeling out thousands more charging points. True to form, the BBC mentions nothing at all about the cost, doesn’t take the opportunity to discuss the important (and only relevant) news point about the embarassingly low take-up of electric cars, and quotes a Green party member who predictably bellyaches that the shiny new points don’t use electricity from renewable energy. You couldn’t make it up.

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.

To the BBC, the opening of Britain’s loony “green bank” – a new way to waste billions of our cash – is clearly a cause for unqualified celebration and cue for the usual carping greenie comment about the measures not being green enough. Meanwhile, in the real world, Matt Ridley tells us with masterly incision why greenie policies are literally costing us the earth.

A bit of a revolution is going on in Canada. The Conservatives won a thumping election majority on May 3, and new premier Stephen Harper has wasted no time in cutting taxes, asserting national sovereignty and boosting defence spending. His resolve puts the Cameron government to shame and shows how far we are from having a truly conservative administration. Top of Mr Harper’s agenda, too, was scrapping climate change legislation. Hallelujah! Unlike in the UK, there will be no suicidal carbon tax, and he’s also binned plans to phase out old-fashioned light bulbs – which may seem minor, but the imposition in the UK of mercury-filled monstrosity bulbs symbolises to me all that is insane and fascist about greenie zealotry.

The BBC, of course, has scarcely metioned this major outbreak of common sense – a tectonic shift, I would argue, in that it’s the first government to comprehensively disagree with climate change lunacy – saying instead only that Mr Harper has “avoided” climate change legislation. In BBC speak, that means he’s a right wing, shifty, denialist who is taking his country to hell in a hand cart.

Meanwhile, in sharp contrast, BBC climate change zealotry is in full sympathetic flow this morning in the reporting of Australia’s continued descent into climate change lunacy. Premier Julia Gillard has blatantly broken election pledges not to introduce carbon taxes, and now, crows the BBC, has induced – in true Pravda style – the Climate Change Commission to file a report that warns that sea levels will rise by one metre by the end of the century. Oh yes? These people are such shameless propagandists that they are beaneath contempt. Nothing ever dents or blunts greenie arrogance…as this report shows.

But as usual, the BBC reports the nonsense with only a nodding mention of scepticism, and of course, it’s emphasised that “Australians are one of the highest per capita carbon emitters in the world”. In the BBC’s creed, governments are always right if they support climate change lunacy; those that don’t are simply right-wing nutters.

The reason why Tata steel is cutting 1,500 jobs from its UK operations could not be clearer. According to this report, Karl-Ulrich Köhler, head of European operations for Tata, said:

“EU carbon legislation threatens to impose huge additional costs on the steel industry. Besides, there remains a great deal of uncertainty about the level of further unilateral carbon cost rises the UK Government is planning. These measures risk undermining our competitiveness and we must make ourselves stronger in preparation for them.”

In other words, lunatic EU greenie policies combined with dead-man-walking Chris Huhne’s newly-adopted turning of the screw (scroll down to the David Rose comment piece) – proudly putting the UK in the world lead as adopter-in-chief of suicidal eco-economic policies – are forcing lifeblood manufacturing industries out of the UK.

Surprise, surprise, the BBC’s reports on the job losses here and here barely mention this. When a union chief or Labour MP slams government policy for being Thatcherite or “Tory cuts”, the subs at the BBC routinely salivate and make it headline news. But because in this case Labour MP Nick Dakin dares to attack the BBC’s revered carbon taxes, it’s not emphasised or played up at all.

The headline I would have written for the story would have been “Carbon taxes lead to major job losses, says steel boss”. Never in a month of Sundays on the BBC.

Charlie Haden, an obscure jazz bassist whose hero is the murderous thug Che Guevara – to the extent that he has written whole albums in praise of him – is not widely known outside jazz circles. No matter, his hatred of Nixon, his opposition to the Vietnam war and his lifetime of “political causes” and “liberation” made him a perfect Today programme guest this morning. Reporter Nicola Standbridge virtually wet her knickers in admiration of the great man and opened it with his love of Che. Tough questions about why he idolised a mass murderer? Not on the agenda. News relevance? Zero. The exchange was, of course, nothing but a plug for his forthcoming concert – for the BBC, a perfect combo: a fawning reporter, left-wing fanatic, right-on music and free publicity. Only Bono could hope for better treatment.

I can remember vividly Britain’s last major sustained power cuts back in the 1970s, the consequence of maniac Ted Heath’s ham-fisted attempt to take on the all-powerful National Union of Mineworkers under the wily Joe Gormley. The three-day week created untold misery and inconvenience. Stumbling about by candlelight reinforced forever for me the benefits of modern technology. Today, our lunatic government seems totally determined to pursue “low carbon” policies that will bring about similar consequences, and nothing will stop them. Roger Harrabin, as usual – by one-sidedly supporting an attack on nuclear power – is aiding and abetting them in their zealous pursuit of high energy prices and the insane belief that renewables will meet our needs. He outlines his creed:

It is widely agreed that this (a shake-up of the energy market) is needed to meet the challenge of providing enough affordable electricity without compromising the UK’s climate change targets. The current structure was designed to supply plentiful cheap electricity, but not to ensure it was low-carbon.

Who the hell “widely agrees” that climate change targets must be adhered to? As far as I can tell it is only the idiot political class, the BBC, and snout-in-trough corporates who benefit from climate change subsidies. The rest of us are standing back in horror as – thanks to eco-loonery – fuel prices escalate and we face the first power cuts and the most dire fuel poverty in a generation. Energy derived from coal enabled us to escape from the miseries of the dark ages; Mr Harrabin is in the vanguard of those who are intent on us being dragged back there.

Chris Patten is now ensconced as BBC chairman, and – I know from sources – he has already shown that he will defend his new paymaster to the hilt, telling MPs at a briefing meeting on Thursday that he believes that the corporation’s EU coverage is perfectly balanced and does not need to change. Perhaps he should have read this before thus pontificating. The Tory MP Philip Davies, a member of the Commons culture committee (the only member of which opposed Patten’s appointment), has today set out why it was a disgrace:

“He was always going to be a safe pair of hands, he wasn’t going to pose anything radical, he wasn’t going to upset the cosy situtation the BBC finds itself in and he was going to be another cheerleader for the BBC, rather than someone who would be tough on them. Appointing him was a step backwards because whereas the BBC had started to acknowledge that in the past their impartiality on issues like Europe, climate change and the Middle East hasn’t been all it should have been, Lord Patten has made it perfectly clear that he thinks the BBC’s impartiality is beyond reproach…”

Mr Davies neatly sums up all that stinks about the Patten appointment. The Mail on Sunday article in which Mr Davies makes his claims outlines the rat’s nest of interests Lord Patten has, including being a member of the advisory panel of French global warming (let’s-get-as-many-subsidies- as-possible) energy company EDF. Oh, and lest we forget, porky snout-in-trough Patten also has an axe to grind with the EU in the shape of his £100,000 pension he has from his days as a commissioner.

The appointment of Lord Patten to this role confirms to me that the David Cameron administration is probably the most pro-EU ever elected, and that it has no intention whatsoever of reforming the fat, bloated disgracefully biased BBC.

I’ve been away in Italy, enjoying the spring sunshine. Meanwhile, in New Zealand, the government has seen through elements of green eco-thuggery as represented by the so-called charity Greenpeace (so often reported in hero-worship tones by the BBC). Said Greepeace has lost its charity status down under because – as is blindingly obvious – it is nakedly political. But at the BBC, nothing changes. As has been pointed out in site comments, Richard Black continues to peddle tendentious propaganda against shale gas – despite growing compelling evidence that it will revolutionise energy provision – and his greenie fellow-activist Mark Kinver has warned us of the dangers of flaming taps. This is greenie scaremongering at its rampant best – there’s not a scrap of evidence of any actual threat to health , but hey-ho this is greenieland, so let’s spice it up with a manufactured one. And not content with that, Mr Kinver – in a naked piece of eco agitprop – bemoans the fact that the Coalition (including, presumably, nutty Caroline Spelman) are not doing enough to wreck our economy. As usual, he quotes in support of his Greenpeace-style politicking only the BBC house charity-heroes such as Friends of the Earth and the wearisome, let’s-kill-everyone-because-we’re-over-populated eco-fascist Jonathan Porritt.

Strident eco-camapigner Sarah Mukherjee may have left the BBC, but Richard Black is carrying on her propaganda work, even over the holiday weekend. Here’s his latest offering – a largely uncritical re-cycling of a paper paid for by taxpayers’ money – that purports to show that 250 people living in the Himlayas somehow know the truth about global warming.

I was taught years ago – during my training as a journalist – that if you ask ten people about the weather, you get at least twenty different stories. But no matter, this is a cutting edge investigation by our top minds into our future, so anything goes.

The background to this nonsense, of course, is that the IPCC was caught making hugely exaggerated claims about the impact of climate change on the Himalayas. They alleged that glaciers were melting so fast that they would be gone in a matter of decades, putting the millions who depend on their annual release of meltwater in peril of drought.

Unabashed, and incapable of accepting that they were wrong, the Royal Society (grant from the UK taxpayer last year £46m) sanctioned two climate change zealots from the US – including a prominent member of one of India’s main greenie think-tanks – to ask the local farmers what they thought was going on. Rubbish in, rubbish out. I am not aware how it could possibly be imagined that a sample so small from a tiny micro-area of the Himalayas (most of whom have probably already been bombarded with climate change propaganda) could remotely have a meaningful or reliable grasp of the huge mixture of forces involved. I concede that it could be interesting sociology and testimony to human suggestibility – but reliable data about climate variability? What utter tosh.

That said, climate zealots increasingly believe that scientific truth is based on “consensus”, so perhaps this fits the new methodology. Let’s in future decide scientific validity on the basis of opinion polls.

In that vein, the farmers told the “researchers” that it’s getting warmer and drier, there are more mosquitoes and the glaciers are definitely melting more. So it’s been published and pushed round the world as a valid piece of climate change investigation, and evidence that despite the IPCC cock-up there is still much to be alarmed about.

And Richard Black has faithfully recycled it. You can tell by his tone that he knows that the so-called research has all the validity of the claims of a three-card-trick huckster, but hey-ho, this is climate activism, it’s been sanctioned by the Royal Society, and this is BBC science reporting, so it must be true, and it deserves bank holiday weekend prominence.