Bishop Hill Orlowski - why 28gate matters
Nov 19, 2012 BBC This is a must-read article. Oh yes.
Besides the furore over bungled BBC journalism, 28 Gate - the Beeb's refusal to name the "scientific experts" who convinced the broadcaster to take a firmly warmist position when reporting climate change - is far more profoundly serious than the BBC and its critics yet realise.
What a humble freedom-of-information request has exposed, and called into the question, is the conduct and judgement of the BBC Trust itself. The trust is the BBC's governing body; it's essentially the old Board of Governors given a Strategy Boutique-style New Labour makeover when Auntie's royal charter was rewritten.
The trust is the BBC's firewall: when things go wrong at the Beeb, it could always promise to step in, with talk about new brooms and fresh starts. But when the trust is found wanting, there is no place to go except into the arms of the state or a regulator.
Reader Comments (70)
Backing up a little, whether any of us thinks the BBC can be fixed, in November 2012, is pretty irrelevant, for two reasons: influence and timing. We are going to have to wait and see what the various inquiries into the Savile situation bring, the reaction of the general public to those findings, and the reaction to that reaction from a political class fast approaching another general election.
But, having articulated all those uncertainties, I'm prepared to predict that Andrew Orlowski's article is going to stand the test of time and will be a force for good as reforms to the BBC, radical or otherwise, are considered. And that is the contribution of the climate component of the critique of the BBC - to stand the test of time, backed up by a genuine 'rainbow coalition' of those of many political hews who have come together on climate science and policy because of a deeper concern for truth and justice for the poorest in the world than has been evident in out state broadcaster, to its lasting shame.
Richard Drake:
Absolutely. And not one of them would qualify themselves as “sceptics” in the terms which the BBC uses as justification for refusing to debate. Read the Jones report, or Helen Boaden’s statements, or the anonymous reply from the BBC to Melanie Phillips, and it is evident that the BBC is refusing to debate, not only with those who disagree with the “scientific consensus”, but also with those who disagree with the BBC. That is the real extent of the scandal.So do I. All the time. You can engrave it on my tombstone (but not yet).
Richard Drake:
I like the idea of “political hews”. It conveys the idea of hard work and tough decisions absent from the programme of the Rainbow Coalition.We are going to have to wait and see what the various inquiries into the Savile situation bring, the reaction of the general public to those findings, and the reaction to that reaction from a political class fast approaching another general election.
What I think will not be affected at all by inquiries or reactions by the political classes unless they add to the information already available. Government Inquiries do not have much credibility at the moment and I would hazard a guess that a BBC Inquiry would be down a notch or two from there ^.^
Richard Drake (6.04PM) :
The Precautionary Principle would have that I answer “Yes” and “Yes”. But (throwing precaution to the winds) I’d say “No” and “No”.Dreadnought -
FCO: BBC World Service
It is funded by a grant-in-aid administered by the FCO, with a total budget of approximately £256m for 2010/11…
A separate Financial Agreement, following from the auspices of the Broadcasting Agreement, also exists…
2010 Settlement Round
The Foreign Secretary has repeatedly made clear the value he attaches to the World Service: it is a fundamentally important part of Britain’s presence in the world. The settlement maintains the FCO’s grant to the World Service, but at a reduced level. The transfer of BBC World Service funding to the Licence Fee in 2014-15 will enhance and safeguard the World Service’s vital role, allowing the BBC as a whole maximum scope to exploit efficiencies while also maintaining clear safeguards for BBC World Service funding and **impartiality. **The Foreign Secretary will continue to play a role agreeing the BBC World Service’s strategic direction and any closing of services.
http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/about-us/what-we-do/public-diplomacy/world-service
as for the possibility Boaden did not know Andrew Dlugolecki's affiliations, Dlugolecki is no stranger to BBC:
23 Nov 2000: BBC: Climate treaty 'almost irrelevant'
By BBC News Online's environment correspondent Alex Kirby in The Hague
As the UN climate conference here inches towards a deal, a UK expert has said it is going nowhere fast.
He is Dr Andrew Dlugolecki, director of general insurance development at CGNU, one of the world's six largest insurance groups...
Dr Dlugolecki has contributed to the report due out early in 2001 from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the group of several thousand scientists whose findings have prompted governments to take the issue so seriously...
Dr Dlugolecki told BBC News Online the European storms of December 1999 and the terrible wet weather in the UK over recent weeks were just two examples of what could happen.
"Both are absolutely typical of what we should expect. And I think we'll also get some surprises. Remember how Auckland in New Zealand was affected during a heatwave - the central district lost power for six weeks."
He said: "There's no way we can prevent things getting worse for at least the next 40 or 50 years. But we can prevent them getting far worse."...
"We meet the oil companies privately," he said.
"They know the oil is going to run out in 30 or 40 years. We will steer our investments in the future towards firms which are energy companies, not oil companies." ...
He said a concept known as contraction and convergence "has the potential to break the deadlock".
Radical approach
It is an idea promoted by a small London-based group, the Global Commons Institute.
It argues that while global emissions of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas caused by human activities, must be reduced drastically, everyone in the world should have an equal right to use the fuels which emit carbon.
That would mean reducing the amount of pollution caused by people in countries like the US and the UK by a huge amount, and allowing a corresponding rise to the people of developing countries.
The idea is so radical it is not even on the agenda at the climate conference. But it has some influential supporters.
The latest convert appears to be President Jacques Chirac, who told the conference on Monday:
"France proposes that we set as our ultimate objective the convergence of per capita emissions."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/1037152.stm
getting hold of David Whitehouse emails, should they exist, would be interesting.
While I do not presume to comment on the BBC, being a dang furriner, I can attest that much of what Orlowski has said applies to its little cousin in Australia. The ABC was modelled on the BBC, buys a lot of its content and has run a hard-line pro-CAGW program for many years now.
What particularly struck me from the article (and I suspect, looking at the content we see, it applies to the BBC as well) is that the climate issue is just one strand of a much broader ultra-green stance. The same over-simplification, goodies and baddies, evil humans screwing up the planet themes run through everything from the farming programs to kids shows about 'sustainability' and the desirability of organic foodstuffs. Greenpeace and the like receive uncritical coverage, to the point where their press releases are treated as factual news items. Conservation is always good, development and conventional agriculture are barely tolerated - and so on.
That this is a profoundly political and anti-scientific approach seems to have escaped both the news organisation itself and its governing bodies, including Parliament. When attempts are made to point this out, ironically they are howled down as political interference. The myths of independence and impartiality have been so powerfully cultivated and defended that the capacity for self-delusion within the organisation is almost limitless. Its notorious complaints department has refused to retract factual errors, or has done so in such a way that it is invisible to the public (eg 'disappearing' or changing material without mentioning it). Advocacy for the environmental movement, including on climate change, is regarded as merely imparting wisdom.
This is a profound structural and cultural issue which cannot be addressed by moving around the deckchairs, or even throwing some of them overboard.
The consequences for electoral politics are far-reaching also. By constant implication and inference, politicians who contest the received worldview are irresponsible planet-trashers.
I believe that in Australia at least, there is no longer a need for a full-service public broadcaster. For geographical reasons, the ABC still provides valuable services for rural and remote populations. However, for the 80%+ of us who have access to multiple radio and TV services, plus good internet connections, the original rationale for the ABC has vanished.
It would be a courageous government which undertook this task, as Sir Humphrey would say. But I cannot see any other way of dealing with a bias that is now so entrenched, pervasive and unconscious that it cannot be fixed by internal reform.
I'm afraid Scirus can't figure out whom Philip Bratby means by:
" those of us physicists who don't accept
It's a fact that greenhouse gases, predominantly water vapour, keep the Earth from being hostile and cold"
since that seraphic search engine finds no reference to his name among the authors of the millions of papers appearing in the thousands of peer reviwed journalsit surveys.
Nov 19, 2012 at 5:49 PM | Richard Drake
But, if Boaden did not know of the insurer's background, was she not grossly remiss in her duty as a journalist (if nothing else) to at least conduct a cursory investigation prior to accepting his claims?!
Then again, perhaps it is now part of the BBC "culture" that the further one moves up the ranks, the more one "forgets" the responsibility of a journalist to verify before accepting a claim, particularly a sweeping claim from an insurer who might (at the very least) be expected to have views that may be coloured by the bias of his commercial interests.
Nov 20, 2012 at 12:10 AM | johanna
And I can attest that the same applies to Canada's "national" (i.e. taxpayer-funded) broadcaster, the CBC. Ever since I stepped onto this "battlefield" three years ago, I have been quite conscious of the CBC's one-sided "coverage" - which to my mind mirrors the "coverage" they give to Israel's activities in the Disputed Territories. As ssat's source article noted:
In my view, this total and utter bias from the BBC is the rule, rather than the exception, as it is with the CBC.
But getting back to Orlowski's report ... the part that really resonated for me was his commentary on "You are being manipulated and will thank your masters for it".
This manipulation is, in effect, "product" placement of climate change/global warming across the programming spectrum of the CBC (including many of their overnight programs which emanate from the BBC); it is very pronounced and insidious.
So, putting all these pieces together, I am coming to the conclusion that anyone who has a modicum of critical thinking skills will - more often than not - learn far more from what the BBC (and CBC) do not report, than from that which they do.
And that's a very sad state of affairs, is it not? But Christopher Booker nailed it almost year ago (my how time flies!). As the GWPF's press release on the publication of his The BBC and Climate Change: A Triple Betrayal noted:
Can this broadcaster be saved? I honestly don't know. Considering all the changes that will be required to restore the trust of its audience, not unlike the proverbial light-bulb, first it has to want to change.
Don't know about you, but I haven't seen any signs of the BBC wanting to change.
First a malicious slash from Russell at Anthony Watts - now at Phillip Bratby, another person who has made his mark on the world, largely (perhaps wholly) at his own expense.
Russell, if you want to know about Dr Bratby, here is a good start:
http://www.windconf.co.uk/BratbyP.html
http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/ld200708/ldselect/ldeconaf/195/195we07.htm
I think it's time the Bish enforced the ad-hom policy around here.
johanna, russell's attitude does himself no favours. Makes me think of this snip from Ozymandias:
" whose frown and wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command"
No need for a policy.
johanna, rhoda: Thanks for the support. I find it best just to ignore these ad homs from trolls. They don't realise that there is more out there for scientists to work on than in academia and other Government-funded organisations, where scientists's sole objective seems to be to publish in the scientific literature. Very few of my scientific and engineering colleagues ever published in journals - we were too busy working in the real world.
Perhaps if Russell were to provide us with a list of those among the
that he is responsible for we might be better placed to assess his credibility in this matter.I am not holding my breath.
Phillip:
Thus crossing the divide Tom Sowell unpicks so devastatingly in Intellectuals and Society.
Geoff:
Never has a spelling error of mine put to such good use. How we need to cleave, in both (and opposite) senses.
This whole 28Gate thing makes me wonder if something similar might have happened at the Australian and Canadian Broadcasting Corporations. They both have been firmly on the climate alarmist side for several years now.
Back in 2008 to 2009 almost every night a climate alarmist news report was delivered to unsuspecting Canadians by their CBC, but that has now diminished somewhat. However the ABC is still full throttle climate alarmist.
Philip Bratby, have I understood correctly that you do reject the idea that greenhouse gases keep the earth warm? Would you be prepared to expand on that a little? Since you seem to be a highly knowledgable person, I am intrigued.
That might be best dealt with in a Discussion thread, if Phillip wants to respond to that. I'd further advise that such a thread focused of Mr Bratby's arguments, not those of other doubters of what is misleadingly called the greenhouse effect. Only suggestions, mind.
@klem:
If the Broadcasting Corporations that you refer to are being advised/lobbied by NGO's like IBT then I suspect they too are in 'conditioning' mode.
In one of the .pdf's from the Wayback machine link that omnologos pointed to, headed:
Not sure if that is meant as advice, recommendation or an instruction though, given that the IBT seems to have ties with the U.N. and it's also part-funded by one of our Government departments.
@Mike Jackson,
"Russell" (Seitz) is banned from Anthony Watts' site for endless eye-scratching comments.
He also seems to think he can save us all from 'global warming' by blowing bubbles in the sea:
http://inhabitat.com/injecting-tons-of-tiny-bubbles-into-the-sea-may-help-cool-planet/
On the final posting in his long-abandoned blog (2008) he declared the following:
Yes, Mr Seitz, the very same Pat Michaels. And as he predicted, temperatures are still flatling four years on.
I just noticed that this blog-site gets a mention in the Bibliography of the IBT's .pdf that I mentioned above, on page 19.