I’m getting bored with keeping track of BBC greenie/environment/climate alarmism nonsense – there are so many stories, so much rubbish, so many inane, insane claims, that each report I file here is looking and sounding like more of the same. Black, Harrabin (though he has been keeping a low profile of late) Kinver & co seem to be under instructions to provide a torrent of one-sided propaganda, so much so that I have no doubt that this is being coordinated. They are like the Terminator androids, capable of self-repairing and continuing with their pre-programmed, lunatic mission no matter what happens. The latest is wearisomly here; it’s going to get warmer by 4 degrees C over the next century (the models say so), so a bunch of loony scientists have constructed 20 big saucers (sorry, “replicated ecosystems” in the language of the green religion) and have studied what happens at different temperatures. Why they need to do this, I do not know (or care), because I think any child would tell you that plant and animal life is different in a lake in tropical Africa from one in Canada. But hey-ho, this is science grant money, so it can be sprayed around like champagne on the Grand Prix winners’ podium.

As usual Mark Kinver reports the whole farce with reverential tones, ignoring obvious countervaling arguments such as this. Actually, in this case, those involved in this “research” acknowledge that they don’t know what they’ve proved with their saucers, but the irony is totally lost on Mr Kinver.

My question to myself (and you) this morning is whether I continue to write about this drivel. Part of me says that logging the lies is important, another that it’s like shooting ducks in a barrel, and that the nonsense has become so obvious and so absurd that it’s pointless to chronicle it. Nothing will stop it. It’s daily, it’s there, it’s relentless, it’s a campaign to indoctrinate us. I have come to see the BBC as a gigantic Trabant, trundling on but oblivious to the parody it has become. Yet the stuff it spews out is dangerous. Our political class and our schoolkids are totally on board (as the normally mild-mannered Harmless Sky blog testifies today). It’s a religion of divisiveness, of fascism and of hate (towards the human race); every bit as loathsome and cynical as Nazism.

Further to Robin’s post yesterday about this week’s Newswatch, here are the transcripts of the exchanges between presenter Raymond Snoddy and environment correspondent Richard Black.

First exchange:

Snoddy: Richard Black, as a journalist do you think the BBC really underplayed this story despite Today and Newsnight items?

Black: In quantitative terms I’m not sure that we have underplayed it. I don’t think that stands up. But there is another side to – certainly comments I’ve had in from the public – is that, which talk about the way we’ve treated it and whether we’ve asked the kinds of questions that Chris and Anthony [the guest viewers in the studio] are suggesting that need to be asked.

Snoddy: In science terms the Newsnight science correspondent said this was as bad as it gets in science. I mean, has the BBC really reflected the enormity of this controversy?

Black: Well there are different views about how enormous it really is. There are many in the scientific community who say that it actually doesn’t alter the scientific picture one jot. To start with the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia is just one of a number of institutions in the world that keep records of global temperatures so even if all the CRU interpretations and analysis turned out to be wrong it doesn’t invalidate all the other analyses. And they also point out the fact that the raw data is not something that’s gathered by CRU – it’s used by CRU and analysed by CRU, but the raw data is still out there.

Black admits that there was a failure to ask the questions that viewers wanted answered, but then in his response to Snoddy’s point about “the enormity of this controversy” he reveals the very mindset that made the asking of those challenging questions so unlikely. Clearly Black doesn’t think that this is a big deal at all.

Second exchange:

Snoddy: Richard Black, Steve Mitchell actually said that it’s the BBC’s aim to reflect the whole range of views on this issue. Here’s two viewers who don’t think the BBC does. What have you got to say to them?

Black: The guidelines, the sort of broadest guidelines in terms of our climate change coverage are set by the BBC Trust. They issued a document a couple of years ago on impartiality that dealt with many issues. On climate change they made it clear that in their view the sort of old balance that we used to have between two equally weighted sides of a debate were simply out of date. That doesn’t apply any more, and the sort of weight of the scientific evidence lies with the IPCC view. But they do also explicitly say that sceptical, contrarian views – whatever you want to call them – should not be absent from the coverage, that we cannot neglect them. I think it is a bit of an urban myth that we do neglect them.

As Robin pointed out, Black is referring to the guidelines laid down in the BBC Trust document From Seesaw to Wagon Wheel – Safeguarding impartiality in the 21st century (2007). From page 40:

“The BBC has held a high-level seminar with some of the best scientific experts, and has come to the view that the weight of evidence no longer justifies equal space being given to the opponents of the consensus.”

TonyN at Harmless Sky put in an FoI request to find out more about this seminar. He was told that it took place in January 2006, but the BBC refused to name the “scientific experts”, fobbing him off with the same “editorial policy” excuse used to hide the Balen Report:

In this case, the information you have requested is outside the scope of the Act because information relating to the seminar is held to help inform the arc’s editorial policy around reporting climate change.

I notice that at least one more FoI request concerning the January 2006 seminar has been made recently and is currently under consideration by the BBC. If the BBC once again fails to release the names of the scientific experts upon whose advice climate change editorial policy was determined then we will draw our own conclusions.

[Incidentally, Newswatch is worth seeing for no other reason than the amusing “nods” of Snoddy (Snods?) inserted into his interview with the BBC’s Steve Mitchell. What’s with all the licking of lips? Had Snoddy just eaten a sugared doughnut? Was it some sort of piss-take? Odd.]

One day, the story of how climate change hysteria took over the BBC will be told. Just like CRU, they have disgracefully refused FoI requests to reveal how they shadily arrived at the outrageous political decision to back the scam with every sinew and every resource at their disposal.

Meanwhile, their journalists continue to act like bigoted charlatans when they discuss anything to do with the topic. This morning, Today presenter Sarah Montague and political reporter James Landale discussed as if it were a serious topic a lunatic idea from the Department of Health that we should kill one in three cows in Britain to reduce methane emissions and thereby also improve the nation’s health by reducing meat intake. Landale betrayed his climate change fanatacism by saying admiringly that the idea was “courageous”. Montague tought the whole thing was a bit of a giggle because someone had pointed out that dairy and cattle farmers might be offended.

If the BBC were a true journalistic organisation, the story here would have been an investigation of what the hell the DoH is doing wasting our money by coming up with inane reports that are an insult to the intelligence of a three-year-old.

A couple of ‘compare and contrasts’. The discrepancies between this BBC report on Friday prayers at the Temple Mount/al-Haram al Sharif – and this Jeruslalem Post report.

BBC – Jerusalem prayers pass peacefully

Islamic prayers at Jerusalem’s holiest site ended peacefully on Friday, a week after clashes between Palestinians and Israeli police.

About 3,000 police were deployed around the Old City of East Jerusalem, and men under 50 were barred from entering the Temple Mount, or Haram al-Sharif.

Jerusalem Post – Muslims clash with police after Salah speech in east J’lem

Dozens of masked Muslim youths and children clashed with security forces and reporters in east Jerusalem’s Wadi Joz on Friday afternoon, throwing rocks, blocking streets and burning garbage bins.

He went on to say that Israel’s history was tainted with blood. “They want to build their temple at a time when our blood is on their clothes, on their doorsteps, in their food and in their drinks. Our blood has passed from one ‘General Terrorist’ to another ‘General Terrorist,'” exclaimed the Islamic Movement chief.

It’s true that the trouble was outside the Old City, so the BBC report is not untrue. It’s just our old friend suppressio veri in action. (hat-tip – Biodegradeable, who also notes the contrast between this story and this one)

He’s little known over here, but David Hicks is an Australian held in Guantanamo after being captured in Afghanistan. The Rottweiler Puppy fisks a somewhat anodyne BBC report which again features supressio veri.

Via commenter pounce, another ‘compare and contrast’.

The BBC and how the US is insensitive towards the needs of children.

Schools shun book over one word

A children’s author has said she is “horrified” after her book was banned from some US schools and libraries. Susan Patron’s award-winning The Higher Power of Lucky has run into trouble because it contains the word “scrotum”.

Patron, a librarian herself, condemned the idea of stopping families choosing reading material for themselves. “I was shocked and horrified to read that some school librarians, teachers, and media specialists are choosing not to include the 2007 Newbery Medal winner in their collections,” she wrote in Publishers Weekly.
Those people were afraid of parental objections or were uncomfortable with the word themselves, she said. “If I were a parent of a middle-grade child, I would want to make decisions about my child’s reading myself. “I’d be appalled that my school librarian had decided to take on the role of censor and deny my child access to a major award-winning book.”

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/enter…ent/ 6375501.stm

The BBC and how the UK is sensitive towards the needs of children.

School bans pigs stories

A West Yorkshire head teacher has banned books containing stories about pigs from the classroom in case they offend Muslim children.

Mrs Harris said in a statement: “Recently I have been aware of an occasion where young Muslim children in class were read stories about pigs. “We try to be sensitive to the fact that for Muslims talk of pigs is offensive.”

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_ne…and/ 2818809.stm

This seems to be a standard technique, albeit ‘unwitting and unconscious’. Some stories are ipso facto considered by the BBC to be ‘controversial’ – so opponents are wheeled out to give their views. The Today equivalent would be the ‘many people would argue that …’ or ‘but campaigners are saying …’. Another, ‘non-controversial’ story will beget no negative quotes.

An example – Two stories on immigration and asylum from 2003.

One – the Tory proposal that all immigrants to the UK should be screened for infectious diseases.

Two – an Industrial Society proposal that it should be made easier for asylum seekers to find work in the UK, as they are “skilled, willing and keen to work”.

Both of these stories could be seen as controversial. Pro-refugee and asylum groups would consider the first a disgraceful proposal. Organisations like Migrationwatch or journalists like Anthony Browne would take issue with the second.

But on the BBC, one story is considered so controversial that the reaction to it is played more prominently than the proposal itself. On Radio 4 the story is trailed – “the Conservatives have been defending their proposals”. On the BBC News web page there are four different reactions – all critical. I’m particularly impressed with the way Evan Harris remarks are inserted into a description of the report – as below.

Immigrants would have to pay for the tests and asylum seekers would be detained until it was clear the tests had been met, it said.

” This is an unnecessary, extremist, unethical and unworkable policy ” – Evan Harris, Liberal Democrat health spokesman

The document said more than 50% of TB in the UK now occurs in people born abroad, the majority of whom arrived in Britain within the last 10 years.

The other proposal ? Obviously entirely uncontroversial – no critical voices are present. And no mention of the fact that the report’s author, one Gill Sargeant, is a Labour councillor (in Barnet), nor that the Industrial Society, now rebranded as the Workplace Foundation, is headed up by one Will Hutton, Guardian journalist and New Labour guru.

And finally : 18 Doughty Street have a video interview with Robin Aitken, author of Can We Trust The BBC?.