Friday
Feb202015
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Building up to Paris
Feb 20, 2015 BBC Climate: other No sooner do we learn of the BBC's Climate by Numbers, than climate change makes another appearance on the airwaves, this time Philomena Cunk's short slot in the Charlie Brooker show. Climate scientists on Twitter seem to like it. See what you think (from 25 mins).
I wonder if this is the start of the BBC's big push for Paris.
Reader Comments (43)
Brooker worked for the Guardian, but I think that this piece is rather innocuous. Hs caustic brand of humour means everyone cops it and Ms Cunk is the epitome of stupidity on every subject. She did not give the expert an opportunity to say anything and "snappy", was very effective in portraying the fact that it is a complex subject which environmental groups have debased to a soundbite.
It is a big BBC push indeed...most every (early) morning on BBC World Service. Never a day without a punch broadcast to the world of the term...Climate Change. This morning was a long dribble about pathogens, virus jumping species and humans ...and as much BS as possible to scare one sh8tless. An american Professor from somewhere there laid it all bare. A Brit researcher(?) wanted modalling of bug migration and jump overs..I mean modelling, or just wants money for his cr*p work.
It is truly an embarrassing broadcast service
I tend to find Charlie Brooker's comedy not so much off the wall, as out the door. Some bits work and others really don't. This piece of BBC climate flooding was much the same. I liked the bit about the world running out of climate footage. I suspect the whole skit was a laugh at sceptics but more resembles the Russell Brand generation who 'care' but know sod all about the issue.
On the plus side, by December everyone is going to be pig sick of climate change. In fact, they may be sick of it by the election and would vote for any party that promises to lock up anyone with a microphone who mentions it.
The bbc has almost become an open door for scientists to express their need for more money (grants) from the government and by letting the alarmist claims go unchallenged (presumably because the journalists have zero knowledge on the subject) the scientists can maximise their propaganda to get what they want - more state funding.
The bbc were recently part of a coordinated 'communication' push by mental health experts recently to get more funding in the area. Maybe it is a worthy cause, but the coordinated approach of it all is not really what the bbc should be partaking of it is truly neutral.
Jonathan Renouf is just of many diehard believers within the BBC, so we can expect a lot of licence money being poured into alarmist propaganda for Paris!
Given that Renouf was a great supporter of the pretend Nobel Prize winner Michael Mann and his hockey stick, be prepared for the BBC cheerleading the hockey stick again in time for Paris.
Nice to see the BBC wasting public money again!
Based on Copenhagen, Cancun, Durban, Doha , Warsaw and Lima, the forecast for Paris and future climate conferences is all talk and no action. Too much champagne can do that to even the most serious delegate.
Brooker did as well as can be expected, pretty funny. That sad little guy Watson was the UEA professor who was eaten by Marc Morano live on television.
Using their own metric;
The controversial BBC.
The build up has started down at grass-roots level, too. See this, from the Hampshire Chronicle:
http://www.hampshirechronicle.co.uk/news/11778732.Businesses_failing_to_cut_pollution__green_campaigners_say/
Spot our favourite photoshopped power station chimney photo making another appearance!
Winchester Action on Climate Change are an interesting bunch - almost entirely funded (according to their accounts) by the tax payer, via local government and university hand outs. I wouldn't normally mind, but they seem to get over £100k!
Yes Bishop,
Our taxpayer funded propaganda BBC is really revving up the MMGW meme.
Ex-expat Colin above, I too was unfortunate enough to listen to that drivel this morning on the BBC world service.
For any one with a bit of time on their hands, the link is
Http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/science/scia
If Paul Reiter was to hear the crapspeak from some nutty professor from a British uni (Liverpool?) he would do his nut.
This prof was telling us how malaria was about to return to Europe due to global warming.
He has a model which is proof positive!
And we pay for this.
Charlie Findt,
There is nothing "grass roots" about climate hype. It is at best astroturf - phony paid for movements dressed up like authentic local ground swelling.
I seem to remember some years ago, that the BBC really hyped "......we only have 100 days/months to save the earth".
I completely forgot to put it in my diary.
Does anyone know if our time is up, or if anything significant happened?
The BBC would not want to be accused of spreading false panic, and repeating it, again, and again, and again.
The BBC does show repeats, but this is a "News Story", allegedly.
patrick healy, you could have double posted the same message, about the same repeated story, quite a few times, every year, for years.
patrick healy, you could have double posted the same ........
The BBC climate team must work in an echo chamber
GC
I seem to remember Gordon Broon saying that we only had 100 days (or possibly only 50) to save the world a few years ago, in which case there seems to be little point in trying to save it now. We're obviously far too late, although the ship seems to taking a very long time to sink...
Lest we forget. Philomena Cunk gave Prof Andrew Watson plenty enough time judging by the following video from 2009.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALVx_NYsS_M
The plonker price gave us 3 mths to save the planet just before another of the taxpayer funded climate fests.
They have been wrong, wrong wrong wr........................................................
100 months and counting started in August 2008 and Andrew Simms wrote about it on 1st of every month I don't know if he still does, he must feel a right toss pot now anyway because were in the 86th month.
The plain truth is that if there had been no global warming scare nobody would have noticed anything. We even had Centrica saying their profits were down because of the warm year. I don't know about anyone else but Mrs. Geronimo seldom tells me to switch the heating off because it's 0.5C above the 1961 -1990 anomaly.
I'm in Canuckistan. As a rule, whenever I open a link to anything from BBC I get a message that the content of the video/audio clip is only available in the UK. Does anyone know how to get around that little problem?
So this is what the £22 million from the EU was given to the BBC for. Not a very good use of taxpayers money.
The National Association of Tea Leaf Readers, never foresaw how the invention of the teabag, would impact their profession.
Climate science scaremongers are demonstrating more foresight. They are not running away scared, if they can hold their ground, (and overheated salaries) by running scares.
Climate Change just didn't sit happily at the top of that list of 40 concerns, did it? We know US voters put climate change near last in a recent Gallup poll, and DECC polling shows the same thing:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/03/12/new-gallup-poll-shows-climate-change-near-the-bottom-of-things-worth-worrying-about/
What a damp squib to end an otherwise amusing show (I particularly liked the Milliband 'Uh' poster).
jamesp -
Judith Curry listed some "only X time left to save the world" statements here. Prince Charles gave us 96 months in July 2009, so he's a little more conservative than Andrew Simms who (as Geronimo mentions above) had 100 months a year earlier.
As far as I can tell, nobody whose deadline has passed has said, "Well that's it then. No sense doing anything about it now." Mainly because noone really believes that 2 deg C is the edge of the cliff, a threshold beyond which there be dragons, despite all the dire talk.
Thanks Bish. complaint has winged its way to them as I type this.
Well we have an idea of the plans of the Eurocentric community for the Party in Paris. Pretty sure the BRICS and the rest of the third world will be doing their anti-capitalism rants, putting a finer line on the fact that Global Warming policy has nothing to do with the climate or science.
HaroldW
It has long been known (by those who take an interest in these things) that 2C is a figure plucked out of the air because politicians and PR people (and guess who in the UK is both — yes, Dave, I'm looking at you!) like simple sound bites because the sheeple only have a limited number of brain cells (they think) with which to grasp these complexities.
It's on a par with "five-a-day" and "21 units a week" and other similar inane ideas, like "only X months to save the planet.
I haven't yet come across a scientist, other than the likes of Hansen who is more activist than genuine scientist anyway, who really believes that 2C is in any way meaningful.
And even Hansen admitted that Average Global Temperature was not a useful metric, which has to tell you something!
Randizzle, try this: http://www.uk-proxy.co.uk/
Performance may suck ;(
Climate alarmists are the big bad wolf of modern society.
They'll Huff, bluff and puff, and blow their own house down.
I'm surprised that climate scientists like it so much and that people here are complaining. You can interpret it in different ways - it can be seen as ridiculing the climate scare and the media coverage of it.
"To hear both sides of this debate once and for all, I found one climate scientist..."
The way Charlie Brooker introduces it gives the impression he's fed up with hearing about it.
Controversially funded by a compulsory levy that falls disproportionately on the poor. Where's the "fairness" in that, BBC/Guardian prattlers?
#controversialBBClicencefee
I expect Pachauri will also be hoping for a big push in Paris.
kellydown, the BBC/Grauniadista fairness justification for their overinflated salaries, is that they would not get them anywhere else, and they require parity with each other, for producing material, that isn't wanted.
They are working models, for how the Green Economy, won't work.
Charlie Flindt
"Spot our favourite photoshopped power station chimney photo making another appearance!"
-----------------
The reason that many news sources can show deceptive shots like this, even if they restrict themselves in the amount of photo manipulation they allow, is because it isn't necessary to photoshop to get the effect.
All you have to do is shoot the steam with the sun behind it and expose for the sky. The steam will then naturally look dark. You can often see the effect with your own eyes, especially if you squint or wear sunglasses (just don't go staring into the sun!).
Randizzle
whenever I open a link to anything from BBC I get a message that the content of the video/audio clip is only available in the UK. Does anyone know how to get around that little problem?
----------------------------------
A proxy server. There are some free ones. You will need one which allows you to choose the UK as the place your computer appears to be.
Alternatively with popular programmes or clips someone will often put up a copy on Youtube or other, ahem, unofficial sites.
Harold
>nobody whose deadline has passed has said, "Well that's it then. No sense doing anything about it now."
It's strange, isn't it? You'd think there might even be some relief expressed (similarly for religions that foretell the end of the world on a particular date) when the moment passes and the sky does not fall in. I can only assume that they don't really believe it and are therefore quite happy to ignore the non-event and carry on lecturing the rest of us.
BTW, I look forward to hearing Philomena Cunk introduced by Jim Naughtie...
@Geronimo it's actually 86 months from Jan 2008, so 78 months since Aug 2008, Remaining 22 Months and Counting
- But last year Greeniewatch reported that he made the original "100 months" prophecy at the BBC Climate meeting in early January 2006 so he's actually already reset the counter once.
- Currys list
Golf Charlie and jamesp above.
It was 50 days before the Copenhagen thing.
Just prior to that he was off to save the world from financial disaster at a G20(plus2) conference. This entailed our great saviour embarking on a 3 continent trip in a jumbo jet at our expense. At the time 1998? i was moved to write a little bit of doggerel.
MESSIAH
I am to to save the planet
I leave behind an empty vault,
I'll show to those less fortunate
How to avoid accepting fault;
For the economic meltdown
By stoking up the fires of greed,
Never mind my carbon footprint
I'll be their saviour in their need.
I have asked Mister O'Bama
If I could be his special friend,
But he told me to be 'Prudent'
Lest by asking I offend;
He said there is just one answer
For the trans-national credit mess,
You can pay for it in taxes
And with the banknote printing press.
I was sad to leave my Darling
Charged with the empty corner shop,
Journeying to south America
I'm too busy now to stop;
With shelves full of toxic assets
Owed by my Banking bosom pals,
I will claim 'I do not know them'
Due to a bout of Petit Malls.
I need to curtail my mission
There's some disturbing news by phone,
One of my brightest prodigies
Says he wants to usurp my throne;
First he aims for Chancellor
That young ambitioud man Ed Balls,
As for him being Prime Minister
Seems to me a load of - cobblers.
Patrick Healy
Should someone tell the BBC that they are, again, repeating the same psuedo science, with the same dire warnings, about the same overhyped theories.
If they could repeat the "Skateboarding Ducks" exclusive from 1970's BBC Nationwide, they might understand how ridiculous some stories are, the first time they were aired, without boring the licence fee paying public, into cancelling the Licence Fee.
Ivan, if you want to know why the BBC is funded by the EU you need to look at the schedules for CBBC.
And if you're really brave, look at the way they reach toddlers on CBeebies.
So what Carbon Reductions will bankrupt Greece be making.
That is if the 200 strong Greek delegation can afford the Business Class Return Airfare from Athens to Paris .
Patrick
"50 days"
I knew I'd heard it somewhere!
I like your poem. Any mention of 'messiah' in this house is greeted by the usual quotation from 'Life of Brian' - "He's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy", which seems to fit both Blair and Broon.
Funny what power does to people; Blair is still drunk with it.
I saw the P Cunk pieces in general as a p***-take of the BBC's dumbed-down spoon-feeding science programming. Her pieces brilliantly send up the tendency, epitomised by Brian Cox, to turn science into a wide-eyed wonderous narrative, which only serves to baffle with nonsense rather than explain material phenomena. On that basis, I didn't see her piece on climate change as taking a position as such, and her flippant treatment might equally be a reflection of the glib treatment of the issue by many BBC staff as it could be speaking to a partial mock 'denialist' perspective.
Guardians writers and all have made a special website : www.roadtoparis.info
Strangely 7 out of the 9 writers are young women
whereas the average skeptic here on BH is a professional male engineer
I found it mildly amusing - but not his best work. I also found the whole tone to be tongue-in-cheek - like he just wants to laugh about the subject instead of angst and hand-wringing.