Author Archives: Robin Horbury

Even the BBC’s coverage of bias is biased when it comes to the climate change debate. This, posted today, is the BBC’s attempt to create “balance” in the debate about AGW. I haven’t the time now to go into detail about why this is a blatant, pathetic whitewash. I am sure others will in due course. But how about for starters, the words devoted to the AGW case are far more than those on the “sceptic” side? Why are the “sceptic” points so crudely put? And why are the vast majority of linked sites pro-AGW? Dozens of climate realist sites are missed out, including Bishop Hill and Harmless Sky – those that have done most to expose the gross BBC bias.

I listened carefully in BBC bulletins last night and this morning to David Shukman spreading AGW panic about melting glaciers in Bolivia, which he left no doubt were because of “climate change”. Poor, hapless Bolivians were dying of thirst because of Western greed, etc.

I decided to do a bit of google-digging to find if this, indeed, was the “consensus”. It turned out to be like wading through treacle because the topic is dominated by NGOs and other propagandists, who are as fanatical as Shukman. But without too much difficulty, I came across this(you need to scroll down a bit to get to the relevant entry):

It is ironic that the melting Chacaltaya glacier has become such an important symbol of the AGW theory, when in fact the evidence from Chacaltaya seems to refute this theory. (In contrast, the evidence from Chacaltaya is fully consistent with Svensmark’s cosmic ray theory (5), but that is another story).

At the very least, what this shows is that the science behind Shukman’s melting glaciers is highly complex and the subject of debate. To suggest that there is “consensus” or agreement is nonsense.

Yet again, the BBC’s so-called “experts” on this topic are found to be pushing in the crudest way questionable theories in the hyping up of the need for more taxes in Copenhagen. No doubt Mr Shukman had a nice trip to Bolivia (at our expense) and enjoyed speaking with activists who agreed with him. The Bolivians themselves obviously want to press the “we’re doomed” button because they want cash from Gordon Brown. But pushing their views in this unfiltered, unbalanced way is not journalism. It’s propaganda.

The BBC positively ejaculates at the thought of “climate change” demonstrations. You can tell by the reverential tone in which it reports the sorry sight of government ministers, the primate of England and sundry law-breaking thugs telling us that we must spend billions on doing a King Canute.

The BBC is still giving massive prominence to those who, against all the evidence, dismiss Climategate as inconsequential. Have they not read this, which shows that the CRU records were based on the crudest of computer programmes? Meanwhile, as our economy collapses, the jerk Ed Miliband is conspiring to give away billions of our money in the Copenhagen Treaty, not just this year, but forever. Our leaders are about to commit to the largest blank cheque in history, as well as to send us back to the dark ages. What have we told about this by the BBC in all its hot air about AGW? Nothing.

Update: Steven Mitchell, the BBC’s deputy director of news, told Ray Snoddy on the BBC’s Newswatch programme this morning that the BBC has not made a collective decision about the science of ‘climate change’. Minutes later, Richard Black, his environment correspondent, said on the same programme that the way the BBC covered said ‘climate change’ was dictated by the BBC Trustees (he was referring here, I think, to the improbably named ‘From See-saw to Wagon Wheel’), which categorically ruled that the science that proved AGW was “overwhelming”. So put a different way, the man who dictates most aspects of the BBC’s news coverage has not got a clue how his correspondents operate.

Meanwhile, back on Newswatch, Richard Black continued to argue that black was white, by claiming that it is an “urban myth” that the BBC’s coverage of ‘climate’ change’ has been one-sided. If it wasn’t all so serious, you’d have to laugh. The killer fact to emerge (from a disgruntled viewer who was a studio guest) was that one week after the CRU scandal broke, the BBC website search engine found just four mentions of the word Climategate.

(Thanks to several Biased BBC readers for spotting the Newswatch exchange. You can see it here)

You’ve got to laugh. Or cry. For two weeks, the internet has been smoking hot with thousands of reports about Climategate and its implications. EU Referendum has a very interesting post this morning showing that, according to an ingenious new method of measuring interest in a particular topic, the public are very interested, too.

What about the BBC? Well, of course, they have virtually ignored it, preferring to concentrate instead on putting their £750m news resources into reporting subjects they like, such as the embarrassment of Tiger Woods and whether we should withdraw from Afghanistan. It’s only when their revered UN weighs in with a promised inquiry – that will no doubt be as much of a whitewash and a charade as everything else the UN does – that the BBC deigns to elevate the matter to lead item. Written, of course, from the UN’s perspective.

Proving yet again, that where the UN leads, the BBC slavishly follows.

Update: the discussion at 8.10am on Today, featuring green fanatic Jonathan Porritt and – miracle of miracles – a “sceptic”, Philip Stott, was an indication of how far on the ropes the warmists are. Porritt admitted through gritted teeth that there was something to investigate in Climategate (though of course still maintaining that “most scientists” say there is a consensus), while Stott skifully painted the picture of why there are major doubts about the causation of warming, and that taxation of CO2 would not in any case solve the problem.

But, and there was a big but, John Humphrys still accepted far too easily that “glaciers melting” was a definite sign that catastrophe was upon us. Who briefs these people? Laughable.

How ostrich-like is Roger Harrabin? Very, is the answer. His latest post on ClimateGate discusses the veracity or otherwise of the IPCC. Yet again, he deals with the topic without reference to a single climate realist. And throughout, he assumes that the IPCC is, and has been, a legitimate scientific undertaking.

He also asserts that irrespetive of what happened at CRU:

Other scientists tell me they doubt the inquiry will affect the main course of scientific opinion, as the CRU temperature data set is very similar to the two other global sets, both in the US.

Does he read anything but that which confirms his own views? Bishop Hill has this about GISS (the main US equivalent of CRU):

Since about 1990, there has been a reduction in thermometer counts globally. In the USA, the number has dropped from 1850 at peak (in the year 1968) to 136 now (in the year 2009). As you might guess, this has presented some “issues” for our thermal quilt. But do not fear, GIStemp will fill in what it needs, guessing as needed, stretching and fabricating until it has a result.

Who do you believe? A snake-oil salesman from the BBC or someone who actually researches and writes honestly about a topic which he knows about?