Author Archives: Robin Horbury

Those who the BBC labels climate deniers have been saying it along: we do not have enough accurate data to decide with certainty whether recent low levels of arctic summer ice are unusual. Richard Black, though, the BBC’s environment correspondent, has been a cheerleader (and here, and here) for alarmist models that say a “tipping point” will soon be reached and the summer ice will vanish forever because of nasty CO2 emissions. He’s been encouraged of course in the framing of his political diatribes by his masters, who have decreed through the Steve Jones report that there is a consensus on such matters so it must be true. That’s meant that the BBC has routinely ignored evidence like this, which suggests completely the reverse.

Now, however, there is a paper that even the BBC can’t ignore. It’s based, for once, on real data rather than doomwatch models (miracles never cease!), and the researchers simply point out that past higher temperatures on the coasts of Greenland did not lead to the hallowed “tipping point”. Of course, that’s not the whole story. It never is with the BBC. There’s still a quote in there about runaway temperatures (never let the facts get in the way of real alarmist purpose of the BBC’s journalism)- and the reporter fails to note the glaringly obvious point that the new survey tends to undermine at a stroke most of the corporation’s past chronicling of this topic, as well as its approach to climate change coverage in general.

That’s because the trustees have declared the topic is settled. There’s an excellent summary of the utter absurdity of the trust’s position here. And of course, because of this, the BBC won’t be reporting any time soon thisrather inconvenient new paper suggesting that recent rises in atmospheric CO2 are not signficantly caused by man.

Alison Hastings, ex editor of the Newcastle Chronicle and former member of the Press Complaints Commission, is BBC trustee for England. She is also chairman of the BBC Trust’s editorial standards committee, and as such arguably holds the corporation’s most important position in the adjudication of complaints about BBC bias – in effect she is the final arbiter. One of her most significant tasks over the past fortnight was in the publication of the Steve Jones report into the BBC’s science coverage, the key finding of which by the political activist author was that BBC journalists must work a lot harder in excluding or banishing to the absolute margins the views of those who do not accept that “climate change” has been primarily caused or made worse by the burning of fossil fuels.

In effect, this was a landmark paper, in that it was aimed deliberately at shutting down free speech and honest debate so that those political activists who want a green revolution can have open mike. So how has Ms Hastings – who from her CV casts herself as being robust and fair minded – responded? The deeply disturbing answer is here. First, she tells us patronisingly and confrontationally in her intro that according to the “influential” IPCC’s 1997 report, it is 90% certain that “climate change” is caused by humans (it did not say that, actually, but she is clearly following the “never let the facts get in the way” school of journalism). Then, in the key section of her argument, she states:

He (Steve Jones)identified a real challenge for broadcasters in accurately reflecting the latest scientific thinking, thanks to the peculiarities of scientific debate. That of keeping pace with the evidence, and in particular in taking care when reporting to distinguish between opinion and well-established fact or consensus. This doesn’t mean that BBC reports will not feature people who do not believe climate change exists. And it is emphatically still the case that the BBC must rigorously scrutinise any issues it reports – after all, scientists can get it wrong. But when something moves from opinion to well-established fact, viewers should be aware of this, and the broadcaster must adjust its coverage and its approach to achieving impartiality accordingly. Both facts and opinions have their place in science – indeed any – reporting, but the audience must be clear which is which.

High-sounding words, probably drafted by Ms Hastings herself; but they are an utter disgrace, more so because they have been written by someone who is the key guardian of the standards a taxpayer-funded £3.5bn operation supposedly aimed at generating balanced, impartial journalism. In effect, she has thus sanctioned an intensification of the efforts by Richard Black and his cronies to stifle dissent (exemplified in agitprop such as this); she has elevated the utterances of the IPCC to unassailability, despite evidence like this, which shows the IPCC writers to be nothing more than second-rate agitators; and she has said the opinions of at least 50% of those who fund the corporation (according to the BBC’s own poll!) are those of the madhouse.

BBC accountability? It’s a sick joke.

The BBC has been giving acres of space today to that nice Vince Cable in his quest to get rid of red tape. Of course, as usual, he has uttered not a peep about the biggest source of the deluge – the EU, and Martha Kearney did not even mention this when she interviewed him on WATO.

Shame, too, that BBC reporters missed the irony of this. Even while the bonfire under regulations was allegedly being lit, Mark Kinver tells us of new labyrinthine government “guidance” for organisations on “reporting greenhouse gas removals and emissions from domestic woodland creation” as part of the sacred climate change battle. The spanking new, 10-page, red tape extravaganza opens:

This annex provides guidance on reporting greenhouse gas removals and emissions from domestic woodland creation and should be consulted when investing in, and/or maintaining, any UK-based woodland project for carbon purposes, as an additional option to overseas projects that comply with DECC’s Quality Assurance Standard for Voluntary Carbon Offsetting. This annex sets out who should report on woodland emissions/removals and how you should report them. This guidance does not cover how to report removals or emissions associated with ongoing management of existing woodland.

Of course, Mr Kinver, reporting the new rules in the context of even more new insane bureaucracy from climate change fanatics the Woodland Trust, does not spot the irony, and is instead much more keen to push the RSPB’s perspective that – wonderful as the new red tape is – far more drastic measures are needed to save us all from the perils of temperature rises. As usual, you could not make it up.

There are 2,000 electric cars on the road. They have a range of less than 90 miles – half that if you need to put the heater on – and they cost around £28,000, almost four times a petrol equivalent. They have been given a whacking great government subsidy of £5,000 – effectively taking from the poor to give to the rich eco-loons that can afford them. Despite this, people aren’t buying them and they don’t want them because, compared to conventional cars, they are a sick joke that aren’t even ‘green’. But the BBC greenies are determined to tell us they are the future. Here, Rory Cellan-Jones, who is married to BBC trustee Diane Coyle – one of those who sanctioned the publication of the BBC’eco bible, by Steve Jones – reports on plans to open a network of charging points that, he claims, will allow us to drive such cars to London to Edinburgh despite their limited range.

As usual, it’s a total travesty of journalism. First he allows the man who will benefit financially from the new charging points to make ludicrous claims about them without any real challenge. And second, he doesn’t ask the key, blindingly obvious question. This is a report about driving between London to Edinburgh, so how long will it take? I used to do it from Hackney to Princes Street in six hours with one fuelling stop, an average of just over 60mph.

I will do the math for him. The electric car has a maximum range of 90 miles. That means it will need four or five fuelling stops of two hours each (to achieve maximum charge). So let’s see, that’s eight or 10 hours plus six hours…I make that 14-16 hours, with at least eight of those spent in motorway service areas. And if it was cold you could add double the number of fuel stops, making 26 hours. As Christopher Booker has pointed out, it used to take a stage coach only 20 hours longer.

The alternatives? Well a train takes four hours, and a plane, door to door, just a tad less. In other words, the electic car is light years away from viability and only a masochistic loony would buy one, but Mr Cellan-Jones does not want to say so. He disguises this by being midly adversarial in his tone. But in truth this is yet another BBC green-creed homily.

Many BBC presenters not only deliver their masters’ Pravda-style pronouncements about climate change,the EU, the middle-east and immigration, they are also – it seems – corporate whores, available to hire from anyone who will stump up the fees of £5,000+ that are the going rate for their services. The Mail on Sunday reveals today that not only that – and despite their right-on trendy liberalism – they will work even for arms dealers if the cash is right, as well as for their favourite peddlers of climate lies such as KPMG.

Prominent among these fee-guzzlers is, of course, the BBC’s environment “analyst”, Roger Harrabin. whose credentials are oleagenously paraded here. The Steve Jones’s report has no doubt given him the licence to push his services even harder, but I note that he’s already as busy as ever. In June, for example, he chaired the “UK energy summit”, at which a key question was:

It is not easy to persuade consumers to do things that are inconvenient or selfless. How can energy companies get their customers to use less energy and accept rising energy costs? The panel will reveal how it is possible to persuade people to want to do things that are not easy or convenient.

Our Roger was also recently at the guest speaker at the green Bromley awards (no task too small?)and in February, he was at Jesus College Cambridge as a guest speaker at a climate change history group.
I have nothing against people making money for their skills. But in Mr Harrabin’s case, his BBC platform is used to spread climate change propaganda. In turn, this is the bait that will lead climate change fanatics who want to hear such messages to hire him.

The Steve Jones report, excellently analysed here by James Delingpole, is nothing more than a licence from the eco-loons who run the BBC to allow its reporters to continue their torrent of climate change lies. What’s happened is an immediate ratcheting up of the invective, and the unrestrained use of warmist so-called “consensus” to back it up. Here, for example, as a taster of what’s in store, Richard Black invokes lefty “comedian” Bill Maher (a natural favourite of the corporation)as part of the evidence to show that the nasty, ignorant US population are idiots for being doubtful about climate change, that the current heatwaves in the US are the result of out of control “feedback loops” in escalating warming, and the Arctic ice is melting. Where have I heard that before…? Oh, yes, here. And then as a platform for the main political point – to argue that US use of coal for energy must stop and be replaced by those nice, clean, windfarms.

AS usual, he ignores, cocks a snook at, doesn’t give a fig about, balancing information such as this, which shows that such heatwaves are not unprecedented or unusual in America, and that deaths from cold weather far outweigh those from heat.

It’s a textbook example of what – as I said in my previous posting on the Jones travesty – has been going on at the corporation for years, so what Mr Black is doing here is effectively gloating – and warning that much, much more is in store. For that reason, I don’t see the point in continuing to analyse the output of the BBC. If people think the Corporation is biased, and garner evidence for it, the so-called trustees hire an “expert” who agrees with their worldview and sanction him to pour bile and vitriol on opponents. Then, fingers in ears and in unison, they chant: “We’re right, your are wrong…na,na,na,na, na”. The BBC is now our very own version of the Pravda of old – no more, no less.

I wrote yesterday that the BBC Trustee’s report into science coverage is a travesty. It is worse. Professor Steve Jones says that too much space is given to climate “deniers”. Yet at least five years ago the BBC gave up all pretence at balance in climate reporting. It wrote:

The BBC has held a high level seminar with some of the best scientific experts (on whose and what measurement) and has come to the view that the weight of evidence no longer justifies equal space being given to the opponents of consensus.

That was justification for a propaganda mountain, which I have chronicled. Richard Black and his cohorts have been following that approach with relish. Their hated “deniers” are routinely ignored – or if they are mentioned – misrepresented and denigrated. So Professor Jones in his “inquiry” could not even spot what was blatantly obvious and instead unleashed another series of hate lies against those who dare to disagree with the BBC worldview.

The man who sanctioned this travesty is BBC trustee Richard Ayre, who has a pivotal role among the trustees because he is on the Editorial Standards Committee – he is one of only two professional journalists on the body and in charge (on our behalf!) of journalistic integrity.

He’s supposed to be independent, but of course isn’t – for a start, he’s a BBC pensioner (reliant on funds derived from a climate change investment portfolio)- and he worked for the corporation for almost 30 years before taking “early retirement” and going to work for Ofcom, that other arm of so-called regulation that perpetuates liberal-left media bias.

I know Mr Ayre reasonably well from contact with him during the 1990s when when he was controller of editorial policy. He believes without question he is fair minded and balanced, but it’s simply not true. He’s totally infected with the BBC mindset and it’s obvious from the moment he opens his mouth.

External evidence is easy to come by to support this, although Richard himself won’t and can’t see it. First he deliberately flaunts that his partner is the homo-eroticist artist Guy Burch, a militant “humanist” and contributor to the Pink Paper. Not part of the right-wing establishment, then. Second he himself is a highly active member of the Article 19 human rights and press freedom group. Such evocative touchy-feely, conscience touching words!In reality, it’s a worldwide militant force camapigning for…wait for it, climate change activism. Look at this from its website:

People living at risk of climate change or environmental degradation need to understand what is happening and take part in deciding how best to cope. ARTICLE 19 is working to ensure that people are informed and governments are held accountable for their environmental policies.

So let’s get this straight. The man who is jointly in charge of a so-called objective journalistic review into the BBC’s scientific coverage endorsed findings from a so-called independent “expert” (used regularly by the BBC for contributions) who could not even see what the corporation had being doing in terms of partisanship for years, and then went on to have the effrontery to call for overt increased censorship. Not only that, this “trustee” himself is a major supporter – it says so on the BBC trustee website -of an organisation that is camapaigning for…climate change activism.

You couldn’t make it up, could you?

NB – I wrongly stated in earlier versions of this report that Richard Ayre is the sole journalist on the ESC. It’s actually chaired by trustee Alison Hastings, who worked for many years in regional newspapers, and is a former editor of the Evening Chronicle in Newscastle. But that doesn’t alter the main point about Richard Ayre. And Ms Hastings it was who vigorously defended in April a Panorama documentary about the Israeli boarding of the Mavi Marmara as “accurate and impartial” overall. She may once have been a good editor…but BBC arrogance addles even the best of brains.

I have often wondered about the tone to adopt in writing posts here about the BBC’s reporting of climate change. Are my thoughts about Richard Black and Roger Harrabin too waspish, and should they be toned down? I need not have worried. So-called “independent scientist” Steve Jones, whose so-called report about BBC science reporting is published today, is a first-class Millwall-terraces-of-old thug in the downright nasty, vindicative and partisan remarks he chooses to hurl at those who dare to challenge his “consensus” views about climate alarmism. On the day that Lord Monckton showed vividly – yet again – that when alarmists dare to engage in public debate their arguments are annihilated,the BBC’s trustees have given their blessing to an inquiry that is so tendentious, vicious and narrow that it lowers the tone of public debate to unprecedented depths of partisanship and shallowness.

How does the BBC choose to report this travesty? With the revoltingly complacent “BBC praised for science reporting”. Which is exactly as Professor Jones intended and exactly in line with the Pravda stylebook.

The trustees should be hauled to account, every man jack of them, but such is the poverty and depravity of what the BBC has become that they cannot see their bigoted, blinkered nastiness. I will leave the last word for now to Melanie Phillips:

The BBC Trust is supposed to be the guardian of the public interest. Its role is to ensure that the BBC adheres to the high standards of its charter. But with this recommendation, the Trust has shown that it will destroy the BBC’s duty of fairness and impartiality and replace it by an Orwellian double-speak on the grounds that there are certain ideas which cannot be challenged. This is not guarding the sacred flame of journalistic integrity. It is a secular Inquisition.

I was away yesterday and have just caught up with the news that the BBC Trustees are due to publish their long-delayed report on science coverage today. The Mail says that geneticist Steve Jones – who believes that private schools are a “cancer” (no clue to his politics and worldview there, then)and that those who dare to disagree with his views on evolution should not be allowed to practise medicine – has found no evidence of bias in the BBC’s climate change coverage and also says there is a “consensus” on the subject, so scepticism can be ignored. Pardon me while I quietly guffaw. More when I have seen the report…

But in the meantime, it is an utter disgrace if true. Science does not, never has and never will, work by consensus, much as climate liars tell us otherwise. See why, here and here. How wearyingly but obscenely predictable if an intolerant, bigoted, right-on BBC-appointed eco-loon finds that it does.

Robert Peston, as the Mail on Sunday pointed out today, is a media whore, happy to quaff the champagne and extensive private hospitality of Elisabeth Murdoch, and huddle conspiratorially there with his long-time buddy Will Lewis, the group general manager of News International. At the same time he has broken a strong of so-called revelations about the hacking affair, the latest of which has been posted this afternoon. Despite this clear concern about his position, the BBC are continuing to flaunt his works. He comments that the arrest of Rebekah Brooks is very bad news indeed for News Corp. Any journalistic organisation worth its salt and with any integrity would have quietly pushed him to the sidelines because of the clear conflict of interest. But not, of course, the BBC – it’s pretending as usual that because this story was in the Mail, it is left-wing garbage.

Meanwhile, Autonomous Mind, as ever with a very interesting slant on developments, spells out that back in 2003, the US journalist Michael Gonzalez, visiting the UK to report the aftermath of the David Kelly affair, spotted the real Guardian-BBC agenda: to smash forever News Corp so it would be free to dominate the UK with its liberal-left agenda. Nothing has changed, except now the BBC scents real blood and all its dogs – including Mr Peston – have been slipped from their leashes and are out to savage the Murdoch domain until the bitter end. Make no mistake, this is a battle for press freedom – and the BBC are not the good guys, blurred as some moral boundaries may be.