Category Archives: Richard Black

Richard Black is getting pretty desperate. The reality is that nothing but hot air is emerging from the Durban climate boondoggle – showing maybe (though I am not so sure as Richard North) that the alarmist propaganda camapign is a busted flush – so overnight, he’s posted a crassly-manufactured story in an effort to give fresh momentum to his scare campaign. He tells us with wearisome predictability that “the science” has now found the only reason we are not roasting from greenhouse gases is because of aerosol emissions (a great double whammy, that); that the Himalayan glaciers are melting fast than ever (on a new sample size of 10 out of 54,000, the IPCC was right after all); and that even though we have had an economic recession, nasty carbon emissions are continuing to belch out of our filthy capitalist backsides almost as fast as before.

Mr Black presents all these theories for one reason only – the Durban talks are as disastrously divided as were Copenhagen and Cancun, and he is scraping the barrel to find something that will tell us otherwise. My guess is his latest scare stories will be as reliable as the rest of the outpourings from the alarmist camp. What’s Up With That has started the assault – to put it mildly, the glacier research looks – as I suspected – to be pure alarmist drivel. As I said: wearisome predictability. He is beyond parody.

Did you see that BBC climate change activist Richard Black has concluded that there is little demand for  nuclear energy?

“There is little public appetite across the world for building new nuclear reactors, a poll for the BBC indicates. In countries with nuclear programmes, people are significantly more opposed than they were in 2005, with only the UK and US bucking the trend. Most believe that boosting efficiency and renewables can meet their needs. Just 22% agreed that “nuclear power is relatively safe and an important source of electricity, and we should build more nuclear power plants”.”

It’s interesting to see the BBC take such an active interest in this and I am sure the fact that the poll results facilitate the eco-wacko agenda is purely coincidental.

A couple of days ago he was getting his panties in a bunch about those evil Koch Brothers, today it’s the Anglo-Saxon world in general:

To those who despair of the success of sceptical lobbying, the message is clear: learn one of the languages of Brazil, China or India.

Even French might do at a pinch.

Black’s article – which bemoans the apparent undue influence of climate scepticism in English-speaking countries – is based on a report by a former BBC journalist (naturally) from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. The RISJ is funded in part by George Soros – a good-guy evil capitalist who uses his money to promote the sort of left-wing propaganda approved of by BBC journalists. Other funding for the RISJ comes from the BBC, the BBC World Service and the British Council, which means we pay for it at least three times over. And one of the ubiquitous Joseph Rowntree trusts is involved too, of course.

Anyway, I hope it’s all true. Altogether now (to the tune of U-S-A! U-S-A!): AN-GLO-SAX’N! AN-GLO-SAX’N! AN-GLO-SAX’N!

To all of those cynics out there who consider the EU a black-hearted tyranny, chill. Richard Black, BBC Environment correspondent brings us good news…

The European Commission will not call for tougher targets on carbon emmissions despite analysis showing doing so would be cost-effective.

If you read the item he has posted, there is a distinct sense of disappointment that the noble Eurocrats have not imposed even stiffer targets on carbon emissions, thus implying that the 20% targets already in place are reaonable and sensible – when nothing could be further from the truth!

Fellow B-BBC writer Robin Horbury has done a great job exposing the activist role played by Black and others even as they posture as models of journalistic impartiality. I simply take the view that everything Black says is just…well, so much hot air. Can we cap that?

Subject: your New Year message

I know sharks are very, very important to you and I concur with you that it is not right that we still treat them so cruelly and wastefully. It is strange – to me at least – that you write about this topic without mentioning that the EU’s common fisheries policy is the world’s most damaging rat’s nest of rules affecting fish stocks and sea conservation. But no matter, I know that the BBC rather likes the EU and regularly worships at its altar, so I understand why you brush that under the carpet and point the finger of blame in other directions.

May I respectfully raise other queries about your New Year Encyclical on the environment? First I wonder why you dismiss so disdainfully the concerns of Spanglerboy and JackHughes that in your environment beat, you are still a little obsessed with climate change and “emissions”? I know that like me, you are not a scientist, but there is accumulating evidence that is not hard to find that perhaps the AGW curve is not as uninterrupted as you have regularly made out. The Arctic Sea ice has not gone (in fact, according to the BBC’s own report, normally open sea lanes in the Arctic are, as I write, somewhat clogged by ice), ski resorts are not without snow, there is record snow, even in Japan, and, oh yes, despite firm predictions by the Met office back in 2000 that snow would become a rare event, we have had three consecutive winters of arctic temperatures far removed from what the Met Office’s £33m supercomputer predicted and we have just experienced the coldest UK December in 120 years. Some are calling for an inquiry, but I know you and your BBC colleagues don’t think that such views are important enough to report. I could go on, but I don’t want to give you too much to digest. I know you probably view all this as just “weather” and further evidence that AGW is about to kill us all, but I still think that – given the highly influential save-the-world role that you believe you have – you might just think for one moment that the BBC-supported “consensus” on this topic is looking increasingly creaky, and you might at least occasionally break the habits of a lifetime and mention maybe a smidgeon of the rather interesting and persuasive evidence that does not agree with your own views.

After all, you do claim to be a journalist. When I was trained by the BBC, in what is now the Langham Hotel in a very different era, we were taught to cast our net more widely than speaking to people who agreed with us. Instead, you come out with strangely confrontational platitudes like this:

I’m still seriously writing about global warming – do you seriously doing (sic, I think he missed out “think”) otherwise is an option, given the importance of the issue?

I’m writing this because – with the greatest respect – this seems to me to be prima facie evidence that you yourself seem to be elephantinely incapable of absorbing any other perspectives but those of greenie change-the-world activism. Could 2011 be the year that you change?

Yours sincerely,
Robin Horbury (the man you sought to sue)