Bishop Hill Redwood on the BBC
Dec 1, 2012 BBC Climate: other John Redwood MP is mightily annoyed at the BBC's coverage of climate change and the EU.
They just cannot leave it alone. Yesterday morning on Radio 4 the early religious slot was taken by Alison Twaddle. She did an uncritical advert for global warming theory, with of course no balance or questions allowed. She told us that the latest US great storm was the kind of event you could expect to be more frequent in an age of high CO2 output, and asked us to thank God for the climate change scientists who have revealed this truth. The link to religion was tenuous and attenuated.
As readers here know, the BBC is operating to an agenda formulated by environmentalists and their lobbists. Redwood says he is going to write to Chris Patten about it. I think he'd be better getting Parliament to take a look at what is going on within the rotten corporation.
Reader Comments (52)
Personally, I think Redwood would be better off writing a letter to Santa Claus! You really think Parliament would do anything about the BBC? {Where was the Climate Change Act passed, exactly?}
I'd like to be the first to point out how appropriate the name 'Twaddle' is!
Is there any evidence that there is more balanced coverage to be had on any other UK TV news channel? Seems a pretty basic question if one wants to avoid any charge of political prejudice.
I certainly see no balance on Channel 4 News, which is as partisan as it is ill-informed on AGW, claiming the other night e.g. that both ice caps were melting at an unprecedented rate. To be fair, I may have missed some of the details as I reached for the mute so fast I strained my back. (It's OK; I'm talking to the lawyers . . . ) Anyone would have thought there was a climate-related shindig taking place at some vulgar holiday resort.
Ian E is right. Until and unless the Climate Change Act is repealed, nothing fundamental will change. Expect more grandstanding from Has-Beens like Redwood who have no credibility left to lose and threaten nobody - he's never going to get a ministerial job again - but don't read too much into it and don't hold your breath either.
Having lived in Wales - when Redwood was Secretary of State and then having lived for twelve years in Wokingham District (where he was my MP), I have yet to witness any true achievement by the man. Still, there's always a first time.
On the other hand Redwood and Patten are part of the same generation of ministers. I don't know what their relationship is like but I would guess that the best chance of forcing Patten to take a serious look at what his organisation is up to would be to have an old colleague bend his ear about it.
It works in most areas of life and I feel that this is the way that the institutional support for CAGW will finally be undermined.
It just needs a couple of people in the right places (Patten, Nurse at the RS, perhaps) to take a dispassionate look at the whole argument, even "simply to please an old pal", for the seismic shift to get set in motion.
Maybe!
DaveB. That would be the report that I saw on Channel 4 news by "science" correspondent Tom Clarke. John Snow and Tom Clarke are the most alarmist of warmists you come across.
There's hardly a programme on the BBC that doesn't mention "climate change" somewhere. It was on Material World again this week (and will be next week I believe). Farming Today this morning was about this year's drought and floods and featured Clare Goodess from CRU talking about the climate models predictions of climate change and the effect on future farming practices. Last evening's David Attenborough series ended with his dire predictions of the effect on wildlife of the growing population and climate change.
On this very subject even the General Secretary of UN is doing it. I sent a copy of this letter, signed by 125 scientist etc with some very high profile names, to George Osbourne and Peter Lilley asking them to publicly set the record straight.
http://opinion.financialpost.com/2012/11/29/open-climate-letter-to-un-secretary-general-current-scientific-knowledge-does-not-substantiate-ban-ki-moon-assertions-on-weather-and-climate-say-125-scientists/
don't hold your breath.
Lord Patten being interviewed by the Select Committee especially Phil Davies is entertaining, in a bizarre sort of way. There was no indication that he listens to anybody at all these days, they're all rather beneath him.
Yes, the BBC has been as biased as ever recently, you would think that after being caught with their pants down with their attempted coverup of Harrabin's 2006 seminar, they would be more circumspect, but Shukman went to town on the 11mm sea level rise in 20 years, attributed to the 'melting' of the GIS and WAIS. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20543483
DaveB,
C4 can be as biased as it wants since I'm not forced by the threat of imprisonment to fund them through a tv tax.
Mailman
Redwood talks sense every time. Redwood for Lord Protector!
An alternative point of view is to feel very sympathetic to these poor deluded people. Just now on News 24 there was an item about the early start to skiing in the Cairngorms where, just in case there wasn't much snow, they have installed snow making machines.
The commentator asked an instructor about global warming but it was just shrugged off. The fact is, skiing has started early across the whole of the Northern hemisphere as it did in the Southern Winter.
I suspect there is a sea change in the BBC as the younger staff, who have been indoctrinated with the fake 'consensus' but haven't made their careers on it, compare theory with reality. Come 2015 that will be painfully obvious when we get the power cuts.
@I'd like to be the first to point out how appropriate the name 'Twaddle' is!
I assumed it was a joke.
The names could be worse. With Alison Twaddle and Gaia Vince in the news, we could have had somebody called Gaia Twaddle. That really would have made sense.
@ lapogus
Shukmans BBC 'report' was indeed a joke. Pure hysteria for a 'rise' of 11mm over fully 20 years! That's not even half an inch. It would be all of 55 mm if it continued over a full century, which in old money is less than 2 1/2 inches. Terrifying! Simply insane scaremongering, but entirely in-keeping with the scare roll-out before the shove it all on expenses Doha climate shin dig.
btw, Redwood seems to be getting a raw deal again - whenever I've seen him on Question Time he always seemed to talk a lot of sense and at least he's raising his concerns on the fraud that is AGW, which is more than most MP's will do. It's just a shame he looks like Dr Spock.
Thought for the Day, whereby the nation hears from the high priests of divers religions, provided they incant the creed of the BBC.
Some of us farmers are trying our best to balance Farming Today's output!
http://www.fwi.co.uk/Articles/01/11/2012/136330/Dream-conference-shame-about-the-wind-and-waffle.htm
This just reflects what the infamous '28 ' meeting was about , the setting of cross broadcasting agenda with the idea of pushing one unified message and sticking it in ever chance they get . I would take a healthy bet somewhere someone at the BBC is asking question has to what each department is doing to 'help' this object for once these 'policies' get fixed in they very quickly breed a bureaucracy to feed off them .
I have given up on Attenborough. He's a trained geologist for god's sake so should know a little paleohistory and sequence stratigraphy teaches us about past environments and climates. So he has really gone over to the ''dark side'' of climate alarmism. I turn him off now as not worth using the electricity to run the old TV.
KnR: "...what each department is doing to 'help'...
With the current level of debate in mind, the BBC decided a game might be a good introductory route into climate change and some of the issues this creates for governments around the world.
All they can dream up is the answer.
Charlie Flindt
Thanks for the link. Good to see you here . How have you been getting on with building your new reservoir? Are you on the third one by now?? Have they had a new conference yet to cope with all the floods? They would probably just dig out the Powerpoint slides from 2001 !!!
For those that didn't seen Charlie's article early in the year and don't understand the comments above - .
http://www.fwi.co.uk/Articles/12/03/2012/131835/Climate-change-predictions-are-drying-up.htm
You will see that Charlie's article was published on the 10th March 2012. On the 23rd March the Met Office issued
http://www.thegwpf.org/met-office-computer-says-april-drier-than-average/
It says it all
It would be funny if it wasn't so bloody serious.
Mailman:
C4 can be as biased as it wants since I'm not forced by the threat of imprisonment to fund them through a tv tax.
Well, no-one's forced to buy The Guardian either (for which concession, much thanks) but that doesn't seem to inhibit most folk round here from (rightly) pitching into The Moonbat. However, if you don't mind being lied to or think it's OK to lie to the rest of us, I suppose that's your perfect right. I don't, regardless of the liar's business model.
On a more serious note, your suggestion that Channel 4 is a purely commercial (and thus by implication, commercially pure) body is, I respectfully suggest, a little wide of the mark. See e.g.:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channel_4
esp the sections headed "Future" and "Funding".
Jon Snow is, as PB noted, prejudiced about AGW to the point of bigotry and has IIRC already appeared on the fringes of the 28-Gate debate. It seems reasonable to ask if Channel 4 has not been lobbied in much the same way and by much the same people as the BBC was. We're unlikely to get to know in a hurry but I wouldn't bet the farm it wasn't.
For anyone who missed it, there's an excellent piece on 28-Gate by a name familiar here, Andrew Orlowski, at:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/11/19/the_virus_that_ate_the_bbc/
Thanks Charlie Flindt. I enjoyed your piece, glad you're reading here. Alfasud eh? What a jewel; a pint of car with a quart of heart.
It was the 1st reading on the Energy Act this week but little effective coverage from the press. One of the really interesting unnoticed points is that the government appears to be backtracking on its 2030 commitment to reduce UK carbon emissions by 50%. The target is to be reviewed after the next election.
David Attenborough is an old man in a worry.
More Twaddle transcribed here.
The BBC's crimes against reason were compounded this week when Harrabin (yes, Harrabin - they still employ him, despite the 28Gate revelations) was wheeled-out on Radio Four to interpret the Energy Act and spun it in a Marx-friendly way as: 'ordinary people having to subsidise rich industrial polluters'.
There was no mention, of course, that had he and his fellow conspirators not propagated the myth of CO2 as 'pollution' nobody would be paying anything extra at all.
He is a very sinister, not to say dangerous, man and the BBC is beneath contempt for allowing him to propagandise this nonsense unchallenged,
My dear Brock, for all we know, Mr Hassabeen may be a very nice person sorely misled by those norty clemate sceantrysts at the Clemate Restarch Unite. After all, dem and der Common Porpoise masters appear to have been slinging a lot of fake sceantry about!
As I've mentioned in a post at WUWT, the one bright spot is that we only have to wait the alarmists out. They have been making dire predictions for decades now, none of which, to my knowledge, have come true. I know that they keep changing their story, a factor that has given the UK the wettest drought in history, but the longer the scaremongering goes on, the more ridiculous they will appear.
Charlie Flindt
Good article. Did you know someone once wrote a whole book about the A272?
'The A272 is the epitome of England, crossing the heartland of the southern Home Counties from Poundford in East Sussex to Winchester. It runs through some of the most beautiful and historical landscapes in the country. Pieter Boogaart travels the length of the A272 exploring, probing, commenting, meeting extraordinary buildings, people, history, and follies. His book covers the road itself, as well as everything of interest ten miles north and ten miles south. It a practical and easy to use guidebook, ideal for any journey, however short, along this beautiful road. Lavishly illustrated in color, this is a book for anyone who loves exploring England, either on the road or from home.'
http://www.amazon.co.uk/A272-Ode-Road-Pieter-Boogaart/dp/1873429290
DaveB,
You miss the whole point. I couldn't give a rats arse about C4 as they aren't publicly funded to the tune of nearly FOUR BILLION POUNDS a year NOR to they have a royal charter that supposedly guarantees impartiality in everything they do.
Secondly, the Guardian IS the print version of the BBC. Not only that but it seems their reporters are interchangeable, managing done how to work for both organisations without any concerns over conflicts of interests.
Thirdly, the BBC IS a broadcasting monopoly and they above all other broadcasters MUST be impartial because of their influence...which makes the BBC's catastrophilia for Mann Made Global Warming (tm) all the more worse.
Msilman
Kind words, everyone thanks!
I've just been watching coverage of the anti-fracking demo in central London. Organisers claim 300, but it looked a lot fewer. Still, enough for plenty of minutes of airtime on BBC News Channel.
Dr. Clare Goodess, Senior Researcher, Climatic Research Unit, UEA:
More incredibly useful Goodess goodness transcribed here.
John Marshall
Attenborough is a eugenicist like a lot of extreme right wing, elite Greens.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1379376/Population-growth-stop-says-Sir-David-Attenborough.html
These are the people who fund Greenpeace. The ones who believe there are just too many peasants in the world. Monbiot is descended from French aristocracy. His family fled the terror.
Prince Charles, Prince Philip (Nazi family and supporter), Prince Bernhardt (Nazi SS officer), Viscount Porrtt, Lord Melchitt, Oliver Tickell, George Monbiot, Zak Goldsmith, David de Rothschild, Julian Huxley, James Lovelock, Edward Goldsmith , John Aspinall. Lord Lucan. In America, the Pews, Rothschilds, Rockefellers,Henry Kissinger, Dave Foreman, Henry Paulson, Mikhail Gorbachev, Ted Turner, Jacques Cousteau.
Sir Crispin Tickell
He is also a patron of the Optimum Population Trust, and told Radio 4's Today programme that the ideal population for Britain could be around 20 million
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crispin_Tickell
Sir Crispin was .. Warden of Green College, Oxford between 1990 and 1997, where he appointed George Monbiot and Norman Myers as Visiting Fellows.
http://tripatlas.com/Sir_Crispin_Tickell
Dec 1, 2012 at 10:23 AM | Mailman
"C4 can be as biased as it wants since I'm not forced by the threat of imprisonment to fund them through a tv tax."
C4 is a Quango, so basically sort of a BBC with adverts. I'd guess it would be run in a similar manner to the commercial arm of the BBC. I'm sure it also gets a chunk of the TV license give to it or similar funding that a publically owned body would normally get.
Copy of letter I sent to the BBC Trust complaining (still no reply) about "28 Gate" sent to John Redwood.
Let's see what happens here.
Joanne Nova had the story of who BBC asked for advice to drive their 'consensus adjenda'
http://joannenova.com.au/2010/11/how-the-bbc-became-a-propaganda-arm-of-the-uk
In their report ‘Warm words How are we telling the climate story and can we tell it better?’
http://www.ippr.org/images/media/files/publication/2011/05/warm_words_1529.pdf
Linguistics consultant Gill Ereaut and writer Nat Segnit advised the ‘how to’ for the BBC’s “new editorial policy –that the scientific and political “consensus” on climate change was now so overwhelming that it should be actively promoted, while climate sceptics, or “deniers” as the BBC calls them, should be kept off the airwaves.” http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/8901365/The-BBCs-hidden-warmist-agenda-is-rapidly-unravelling.html
Ereaut and Segnit advised the problem facing the BBC in telling the ‘global warming story’ was that “For every argument or perspective, whether on the scale of the problem, its nature, seriousness, causation or reversibility, there is a voice declaring its opposite.” (My interpretation: there was/is no consensus) “that the overarching message for the lay public is that in fact, nobody really knows” and that this problem could be solved by:
“Treating climate change as beyond argument:
Much of the noise in the climate change discourse comes from argument and counter-argument, and it is our recommendation that, at least for popular communications, interested agencies now need to treat the argument as having been won. This means simply behaving as if climate change exists and is real, and that individual actions are effective. This must be done by stepping away from the ‘advocates debate’ described earlier, rather than by stating and re-stating these things as fact.
The ‘facts’ need to be treated as being so taken-for-granted that they need not be spoken. The certainty of the Government’s new climate-change slogan – ‘Together this generation will tackle climate change’ (Defra 2006) – gives an example of this approach. It constructs, rather than claims, its own factuality.”
No wonder people believe anthropogenic produced CO2 causes global warming, and they can't be blamed. We have been expertly lied to by a (formerly) trusted agency. The BBC is clearly sticking to this deliberate and cynical policy to 'construct its own truth', even though the secret 28 have been revealed.
Charlie's words are always enjoyable. Remind us to look you up on a regular basis. (Please).
"I'm sure it also gets a chunk of the TV license...."
Just to correct my own post, but C4 don't receive any funding via the license fee.
http://www.channel4.com/4viewers/faq/name/does-channel-4-get-any-of-the-licence-fee/id/400286880
With the Met Office admitting no warming in 15 years...and as we know CO2 has increased then end of the nonsense please. Game over.
Rob Burton,
This us from C4 itself;
"Unlike the BBC, Channel 4 receives no public funding. It is funded entirely by its own commercial activities.
Most of our income comes from advertising revenue. You can find out more about advertising sales on Channel 4's dedicated advertising sales website.
Channel 4's financial statements are set out in our Annual Report, which is available online."
Mailman
Sorry Rob, missed your post just a couple up.
Regards
Mailman
If you never watched Star Trek because you weren't partial to space opera (as opposed to SF) the resemblance of John Redwood to one of the characters becomes less important than the fact he is one of the few Tories who ever talks anything remotely resembling sense.
Don Keiller "Copy of letter I sent to the BBC Trust complaining (still no reply) about "28 Gate" sent to John Redwood".
Ditto in all respects for me, have had reply from MP though.
I would very much like John Redwood and the few other climate sceptic MPs, across all parties, to get together and work for government funding of a truly independent scientific review of the 'science' behind CAGW.
It is interesting in the comments above how the lefties seem to have a similar agenda to the far righties, and they both want a small world population. Are all of us in-betweenies due for termination? Don't these both lead to totalitarianism? Hasn't it been done before and failed? Is this where social darwinism inevitably leads to?
I have written to my MP on several occasions, but all I get in response is the usual party line and preset texts as though they came from a DECC script. On one occasion, I'm pretty sure it did as the opening paragraphs were nearly word for word identical to a published response on a blog from another MP.
Apart from the known few, don't expect any sense from an MP, after all, they didn't show any sense when voting for the Climaye Change Act.
They are basically intellectually lazy and follow the script in order to look good and get voted for. No more Conservative votes from me though (& have never voted LibDem or Labour).
I stumbled onto a BBC programme earlier which was talking about the "worst ever storm". I expected more claptrap about Sandy in the US but it turned out to be a storm which hit Britain in the early 1700s, killing approx 8000 in coastal Somerset and many more across the country.
I was mildly surprised they were allowed to show it as there was no link to climate change and it begs the obvious question of how such a disaster could occur before man had ruined the atmosphere...!!
Could this be a very small shift in editorial policy?
We call it the Bigotry Broadcasting Corporation. Where would we get our bigotry from otherwise?