Category Archives: Roger Harrabin

HELL FREEZES OVER…

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I missed this and am indebted to the wonderful Ozzie blog Greenie Watch for pointing it out. Don’t faint, but the BBC Editorial Complaints Unit has actually upheld a complaint against Roger Harrabin. Here it is:

ECU Ruling: BBC News at 10, BBC1, 25 January 2010
Publication date: 19 July 2010

Complaint

In a report on calls for Dr Rajendra Pachauri to resign as Head of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the BBC’s Environment Correspondent referred to him as “the UN’s top climate scientist”. A viewer complained that this was inaccurate and misleading, as Dr Pachauri’s scientific qualifications and credentials were in a field unrelated to climate science.

Outcome

Although the phrase was intended as journalistic shorthand for the occupant of the most prominent international post connected with climate science, the implication that he was himself a climate scientist was materially misleading in the context of this report. Upheld

Further action

The Editor of BBC News at 10 is reiterating to his team the importance of accuracy in the introduction of our contributors.

What the complaint ruling doesn’t say of course, is that Mr Harrabin, along with Richard Black, worship at the altar of the IPCC and the execrable Dr Pachauri daily, and report his every utterance with the reverence that the BBC normally only shows to Islam. For a truer picture of the Indian railway engineer, see Richard North’s latest blog here.

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TIPPING POINT….

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I note that Roger Harrabin has not yet responded to my invitation to explain the BBC’s eco-freakery. Could it be that – like all his warmist colleagues – he is afraid to? Meanwhile, eco-nonsense pours incontinently out of every BBC orifice; this story about polar bears reaching ‘a tipping point’ (I’m pinching myself; you can’t believe some of the things you find yourself writing) has all the hallmarks of such a scare story, namely, overpaid so-called scientists with nothing better to do, inane handling of limited information, the use of modelling to ‘prove’ a dodgy hypothesis, and last but not least, no inclusion by the BBC reporter of any opinion to the contrary. WUWT sums the limitations in a paragraph:

After reading this BBC article on modeling the “tipping point” of polar bear populations, it seemed this photo summed it up well, especially since modeling was substituted in lieu of “nearly non-existent data”. I wonder how the bears survived the Roman Warm Period, or the Medieval Warm Period?

I know I drone on about this, but what does it actually take for the idiots who write this stuff to realise how stupid they are? Or are they so ideologically motivated that they have lost all reason?

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Excuses

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In Roger Harrabin’s latest article about what he calls the “hue and cry” surrounding the Rajendra Pachauri “manhunt” (not betraying your feelings much there, Roger) the BBC’s environment analyst says that he’s been having difficulty getting in touch with one of the co-chairs of the IPCC working group which oversaw the inclusion of the discredited Himalayan glacier info:

Professor Parry has repeatedly refused to answer my questions about the genesis of the errors, and his out-of-office assistant now says he is travelling for a month.

A lame excuse by Parry, and the fact that Harrabin mentions it suggests he’s not convinced.

When Andrew Montford of Bishop Hill fame tried to find out some fairly straightforward information about the BBC’s involvement in Harrabin’s Cambridge Media and Environment Programme, here’s how the BBC explained its tardy response to his FOI request:

I am writing to advise that unfortunately we are not in a position to provide you with a response to your requests for information made under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. This is due to the fact that Roger Harrabin has been abroad and then on leave for much of the last six weeks and is now tied up with pressing stories.

Well, it’s just so difficult keeping in touch these days isn’t it?

UPDATE. It’s unrelated to the above post but I can’t resist sharing this headline: Hackers Steal Millions in Carbon Credits

The madness of it all in six words.

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Harrabin’s Black and White World

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The indefatigable Richard North has a dismissive take on the BBC’s latest article about Pachauri and Glaciergate. His point that the Beeb’s bias comes as much from what it leaves out could also apply to the most recent of Roger Harrabin’s Notes.

For the second “note” running (see previous one here) Harrabin has expressed his anguished concern over recent developments in America. He says that Scott Brown’s election “certainly puts the nail in the coffin of Democrat hopes for a full climate bill this year” but once again fails to point out that some Democrat politicians oppose such legislation too. He states that the “fossil fuel industry is poised with banknotes at the ready” to take advantage of the recent Supreme Court ruling on political advertising, but neglects, as ever, to mention the huge sums of money swirling around the warmist lobby, much of it provided courtesy of Western taxpayers. And there’s certainly no mention of the money that flows into Pachauri-linked enterprises, some of it thanks directly to the false claims about Himalayan glaciers. Harrabin takes at face value the spin that the inclusion of this material in the IPCC report was just an unfortunate “inexplicable blunder”; heaven forbid that a BBC environment correspondent would dare to suggest that there could be a link between dodgy climate research and financial gain by leading warmists.

As with the BBC line that Obama’s woes are down to Fox News, Harrabin apportions similar blame for the problems facing the warmist cause:

Part of the answer lies with the media – particularly right-wing newspapers…

Mr Cameron has re-branded his party as “vote-blue-get-green”, but many of his back-benchers rank climate change as a very low priority. A couple of his Cabinet members are likely to be outright climate sceptics, and more may be driven that way if right wing newspapers continue chasing stories about the IPCC’s failings.

[Note to Harrabin – check BBC style re “right-wing newspapers” or “right wing newspapers”]

That last line seems to imply a lack of interest on Harrabin’s part in “chasing stories about the IPCC’s failings” – ie they’re the realm of the right-wing press. It’s worth remembering that some of the Conservative-supporting newspapers have often been slow to run stories critical of the AGW orthodoxy.

For Harrabin it’s all about good versus evil, with the scientists (incorruptible truth-seekers, noble of intent), the Democrats, and the NGOs on one side and the evil fossil fuel lobby, the Republicans, and the right-wing media on the other. It’s biased, simplistic and wrong, but it’s the sort of world-view that helps people like Harrabin get through the day.

Update. Andrew Neil goes where Harrabin fears to tread.

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Copenhagen Guest Blogger

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(This is a guest blog from BBC environment correspondent Richard Blackbin in Copenhagen.)

Why can’t more people be just like me?

The question first came to mind on the plane to Copenhagen as I caressed my cheek with my Guardian COP15 84-page pull-out supplement.

If more people were like BBC environment correspondents, I reflected, then the world would be a better place because people like me understand things so much better than ordinary folk.

Gazing out from the window at the frosty city landscape while we circled the airport, another thought struck me: perhaps I should have worn a little more than a Greenpeace T-shirt, Bermuda shorts and Birkenstock sandals.

I asked the stewardess if there was a clothes shop in the terminal building where I could purchase some sturdy boots and a reasonably priced winter coat made from sustainable natural products, but she didn’t seem to understand.

“Have you at least heard of Fair Trade in Denmark?” I asked, pointedly.

“Sir, I can’t understand a word you’re saying when you’ve got your thumb in your mouth,” she replied, rather too harshly for my liking. Maybe she was one of those “conservative women” one sometimes hears about. I was quite shaken, and decided not to press the issue. I would jolly well find a shop myself, I thought.

As things turned out, I didn’t have to.

There I was shivering by the baggage carousel waiting for my duffle bag (small size, made from sustainable Romanian hemp) when who should I see but Marmaduke Quimly-Farquharson, one of Oxfam’s go-getting young press officers. We have shared many thousands of air miles together travelling the world to exotic locations for various climate conferences. Indeed, we’d both been on the same flight just then but thanks to all this frightful recent scrutiny about BBC expenses I’m no longer able to travel up in first with all my pals from the NGOs.

In one of the many acts of kindness one often experiences at these events (populated as they are by caring planet-loving types and not old right-wing white men with their sceptical views) Marmaduke offered to lend me a coat on condition that I give Oxfam a bit of a mention now and then during my reports. I agreed, of course. “After all, we’re in this together!” I said.

“Indeed we are!” he replied. “Why quite can’t more people be just like you, Richard?”

My thoughts exactly.

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Harrabin: media wrong, science not settled!

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Make sure you’re sitting down for this one.

BBC environment correspondent Roger Harrabin on Radio Five Live Breakfast this morning:

“There is a sort of misapprehension here that we in the media have probably helped to perpetuate: that the science of climate change, all the details, are settled. In fact there’s a lot of uncertainty about big areas of the science as to what will happen.”

A frank admission from an unexpected quarter. The fallout from Climategate continues.

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Jo Abbess – Comedy Genius

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Eco-warrior Jo Abbess, occasional editor of Roger Harrabin articles, is now focusing her attention on another BBC environment correspondent. I would quote some snippets but you really have to read the whole thing to get the full hilarious impact of her authoritarian pomposity.

The question is – will Richard Black follow Harrabin and do as Jo demands?

Update. It seems like a lot of effort considering Black is pretty much on her side anyway.

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WRAP UP WARM….

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Good news for pensioners. We may be leaving summer behind and the days turn that little bit colder but why not just put on an extra jumper and turn the heating down! It might mean that you save the planet. Here is a treat for connoisseurs of global warming alarmism; It’s Roger “the science is settled” Harrabin talking to McDoom’s new energy adviser Prof David McKay. At one point during the interview, McKay berates the public for refusing to accept the need for change and then he makes the suggestion we should turn the thermostat down and wear more clothing. He suggests that “industrialising the countryside” is an option we may need to be looking at, in fact he suggests many things other than the blooming obvious – follow the example of the French and built new nuclear power stations. From week to week, this eco-quackery goes largely unchallenged as the BBC provides a bully pulpit for one global warming alarmist after another. It is a sustained bias.

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