Preparing the ground
Mar 22, 2011
Bishop Hill in BBC, Climate: other

Thanks to readers who have been pointing to Bob Watson's interview on the Today programme this morning, in which he spoke about the difficulty of convincing a sceptical public of the horrors of climate change in the wake of Climategate.

Audio here, starting at 51:20.

This was a boilerplate interview, reiterating a series of standard AGW talking points. To me, what was interesting about was not the content but the timing - there was no obvious newsworthiness, with Climategate having slipped off the news schedules now.

I think the reason for Watson being given airtime now is that at some point in the near future we are going to get the BBC's review of science coverage published. For some time now the BBC has been sending out signals that the report will recommend hobbling anyone who might criticise the increasingly thin case for CAGW - what Brian Cox called the "Orwellian" solution. This is quite an important departure, and it is therefore likely that Watson's appearance is the first step in a softening-up exercise.

Expect more of the same.

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