Wednesday
Apr182012
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Channel Four on fracking
Apr 18, 2012 Energy: gas Media Channel Four TV covered the fracking story last night, but rather managed to blot its copybook by including the "flaming faucet" clip from the movie "Gasland".
Since this has long since been shown to be a fraud - there was methane present in the water long before fracking commenced - I queried the station's science editor, Tom Clarke, via Twitter. He didn't object:
Agreed. Included to show heated opposition to fracking in US. Which there is. Should have mentioned it was a campaign film.
To which I responded that they should have mentioned that it was misleading. I actually think this is a sufficiently big mistake that they should issue a correction, but I don't suppose this will be forthcoming.
Reader Comments (67)
I thought most Americans were happy that the cost of natural gas had fallen as a result of shale gas? I also thought they are not happy that the price of oil based products (petrol/gasoline) was rising. Is it Clarkson's ecomentalists that are doing the shouting?
A similar clip was used in TVNZ's Sunday-night magazine format programme a few weeks ago. The govt has said that they will 'hold an enquiry' into Frakking, but are very up-beat about utilising our shale gas reserves and it seems the outcome will be favourable to Frakking.
Our Greens are as virulent (and as misdirected and misdirecting) as any on the planet. They hate farms and farmers too and seem blissfully unaware that NZ lives from the agricultural, horticultural and viticultural exports which are sold overseas, all absolutely free of any direct or indirect subsidy by NZ taxpayers.
Our Greens are currently annoyed as our Government has decided to defer the application of our mad ETS, which cannot do anything to mitigate the rise of the miniscule portion of CO2 in the atmosphere, to farm products!
Wow! So he agrees he should have mentioned it was a campaign film - but what the hell - we are left with an emotive visual alarmist propaganda point left unmodified and helpfully transmitted by a supposed factual news program.
I'm surprised he didn't add "(Ho, Ho)" at the end of that tweet, there were enough characters left ;)
Like the BBC, C4 News are sadly fully signed up to the thermogeddonist cause. Increasingly shocked by their alarmism, I sent a couple of emails to them in the run up to Copenhagen, which must have made an impression because they invited me down to the studio to be part of the audience with Milliband - I was led to believe it was going to be about the science of AGW, but glad I couldn't make it as I would have been the token sceptic and the rest of the audience gave Milliband a hard time for not being green enough. I concluded that Jon Snow and his team are a lost cause; twice I have heard Jon say that the Cumbria floods were evidence of AGW, and I also heard another anchor state that Arctic ice could be gone by 'next summer' - though this embarrassing segment was quickly removed form their website.
I don't watch their news output anymore.
I watched the same piece and setting aside the flames coming out of the taps, the piece was biased from beginning to end. No balance, their main funder the BBC will be pleased?
It's not only the BBC a Channel 4. This morning's Telegraph has a major article by Michael Hanlon with the unenthusiastic title, " Can we be sure of shale?
The content is largely negative - "Earthquakes and tales of flame-spewing bath taps ...", "One tremor of magnitude 2.3 shook the Fylde countryside ... residents claimed that they were woken in their shaking beds". [Hmm - seems unlikely.] And (especially - groan) this:
And this:
Yesterday, I posted a link to a Reuters article that suggested "UK offshore reserves of shale gas could exceed one thousand trillion cubic feet (tcf) ... in the same league as estimates for China, the United States and Argentina, top dogs in global shale potential."
If only partly true, that would really be the proverbial "game changer". Surely the UK can overcome all this negativity and get behind what may be a most extraordinary opportunity?
Apologies, I'm wrong about Channel 4's funding. My point stands that it is still biased on its News programme. They of course should be commended for allowing The great global warming conspiracy to be broadcast.
Sky also ran the "blazing taps" scene - just too visually appealing for meejah monkeys to ignore I guess.
They also said on Sky News yesterday AM - "..as the shuttle leaves for it final journey to a museum in Washington- mounted on the Boeing 747 normally used to launch it into space".
I think their "researchers" must be work experience kids from the local comp.
CAGW became boring but catastrophic anthropogenic global earthquakes begin with boring.
Was this groundbreaking technology the result of a word association (football) test (cricket)?
Mike Giggler
Here's a suggestion to CH4, show that clip as often as you like but then always show the clip of the director getting questioned by Phelim McAleer, and the director admitting he knew about the reports of fire coming from the taps in 1936 and 1976 and deliberately deciding not to tell anyone in the film.
Mmmm, 'Spins' of omission - they probably teach that at CH4 journalism school ;)
"Benny Peiser: It’s True - There’s A Real Danger That Fracking Will Cause A Major Boom"
"The impact of the government’s shale gas endorsement could be dramatic for Britain’s energy policy"
http://thegwpf.org/opinion-pros-a-cons/5488-benny-peiser-its-true-theres-a-real-danger-that-fracking-will-cause-a-major-boom.html
.
The shale gas industry may be the first beneficiary of a growing public awareness that political decisions that touch on environmental issues cannot be settled by green activists, whether or not they are wearing their white coats. I certainly hope so.
The Matt Ridley article on shale gas is at the GWPF http://thegwpf.org/opinion-pros-a-cons/5489-matt-ridley-opposition-to-shale-gas-is-a-storm-in-a-teacup.html
"There’s A Real Danger That Fracking Will Cause A Major Boom"
He might have phrased that better...
READY WITH THE SICK BUCKET
Sunday is United Nations Earthday
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2130976/Thats-bright-idea-The-revolutionary-new-light-bulb-lasts-20-years--costs-60.html
Just have surface mount LED lighting built into a ceiling tile instead of concealed Halogens
Fit over excisting ceiling rose .Got LED Xmas tree lights already Take my idea on Dragon Den
We got Halogen lamps at work But problem low voltage high current they get boiling hot dont last
Re: Foxgoose
I'm not surprised that Sky broadcast the flaming taps.
WWF-UK spent £11.4 million pounds in generating membership and donations from the public in 2011. Since they seem to have a continuous stream of adverts on Sky News I'm assuming that a significant chunk of this £11.4 million went to Sky.
@nicholas hallam
'cannot be settled by green activists, whether or not they are wearing their white coats. I certainly hope so'
I thought it was the green activists' carers/warders who wear the white coats........
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YD22a4APsCg&feature=related
"theres gas in dem there hills smelly money that is"
According to a Radical Islamic Cleric in Iran too much extra marital sex causes Earthquakes
Must be true written in the Daily Telegraph
The CAGW community is about to drop everything to fight fracking. They realise it is the end for them.
They have to convince Joe Public that it is dangerous. They've spent the last fifteen years (and hundreds of millions) trying to convince him/her that we need an energy that is less polluting than oil and coal, emits less CO2, but is cheaper than any renewables. And here it is!
They have nothing else left. If shale is adopted, it is game over for the CAGW/subsidy industry.
@stuck-record
'The CAGW community is about to drop everything to fight fracking'
Oh dear. The prospect of them dropping everything is quite putting me off my elevenses.
Personal hygiene and grooming has never been one of their notable achievements even when completely clothed. What it may be like when not so modestly covered is quite revolting.......
CH4 (news), it will always go down with a bang, it's methane fellas! Rather appropriate!
Yes - I believe Murdoch does it to keep on the right side of his greenie missus.
I've often wondered what the average Sky viewer does with their adopted jaguar though - do they keep it on the sofa next to them and feed it on Stella & pizza?
Stuck-record:
For the subsidy industry, yes, thank God. But fracking also has great potential to uncover deep fault lines within those till now united in a woolly belief in CAGW. May the earthquakes in that area be big ones.
Shale gas is a gift to the greens in the same way as a banana is a gift to the homeless-and-hungry. It answers their specified concerns but is nevertheless profoundly unwanted.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-stoke-staffordshire-16527068
Check out the date on this story
Google Earthquake Stories in England before and after Fracking
Normal background Siessmic Activity in the UK
These two Earth Quakes near the Drilling site got to be coincedence
Now i can stop joking about Sex and the the Earth moving during Earthquakes
Not as good as a Tornado when we blow the roof off
Channel 4 are crooks - read all abaht it! No surprise, though, is it?
Obama has just put the sword to fracking in the US:
http://times247.com/articles/obama-s-fracking-power-grab-goes-full-steam-ahead
A legal rule in the US is once the Fed enters a field, it drives out State activity. All in all, Obama is out to do to the "frackingers" what he's done to the drillers in the Gulf, the coal miners and just about every energy area except the swindlers of the renewables and slime folks.
Hi, read the next articles:
'Frack nation' Will the truth get out?
on:
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/frack_nation_W2iEGTptkM0ciT5EjyZJHO
and:
FrackNation; A Documentary project in Los Angeles, CA by Ann and Phelim Media LLC
on:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1009530098/fracknation
In the meantime they raised all the money to make the film.
The film wil be ready by June.
There's an interesting perspective on shale gas in The Economist - link. It points out that the debate re fracking in the UK "could turn out to have an international twist, and one that makes it edgier than most." It seems that senior officials, recently asked to brief prime minister, believe that shale gas "could be pretty important. And that makes them worry about what some big cheeses in Whitehall see as an irrational European nervousness about science, technology and the environment". It continues:
I think that the first time I've seen The Economist refer to EU attitudes to science and the environment as "irrational". Hmm ...
cedarhill
You might hope that Obama's sense of geography remains as accurate as his recent utterances on Argentina's claim to the Maldives.
He'll ban frakking thorughout the United Arab Emirates.
Robin: an interesting analysis. The issue in the EU is that the windmills are in integral part of the EU/Euro project, as they were to be to the Amero project. These were to join as the new World currency based on carbon as a new, tradeable commodity thereby making Enron, Gore, Hansen, Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, Schroeder et. al. immensely rich. Also the forestry companies involved in the neo-colonialist exploitation of the third World for the carbon offsets.
So the EU bureaucracy will, with their Common Purpose hidden UK government, fight shale gas tooth and nail because otherwise, they are out of a job
Yep - it was on Sky as well (several times). Its EXACTLY the sort of bad shock-horror visual journalism that ruins what could be the best news for this country for years...
And that, mdgnn, is where — I'm afraid — you and I part company.
Challenges to "accepted" science I understand especially where they are convincingly argued.
Conspiracy theory I have no time for. The obsession in certain quarters with the idea that Common Purpose is some international left-wing conspiracy might possibly make sense if those who bleat about it would provide one single shred of verifiable evidence.
It is like the hypotheses surrounding the catastrophic aspect of AGW in that both depend on assertion, handwaving, dubious data and scaremongering with what objective in mind, precisely?
Like the American TV show that condemnedc irradiation of food on the grounds that gamma rays created the incredible Hulk.
Only somewhat honest jouranlists have an objection to lying to promote scare stories & Mr Clarke has said C4 is not encumbered by such.
Hi, read the next articles:
'Frack nation' Will the truth get out?
on:
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/frack_nation_W2iEGTptkM0ciT5EjyZJHO
and:
FrackNation; A Documentary project in Los Angeles, CA by Ann and Phelim Media LLC
on:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1009530098/fracknation
In the meantime they raised all the money to make the film.
The film wil be ready by June.
Well said, Mike. I too have no time for conspiracy theories. mdgnn's "Common Purpose" is no more credible than the alarmists' claim that evil fossil fuel interests are behind a well-funded, highly-organised "climate denial machine".
The expressions of support for shale gas production - versus the hysterical nonsense put out by opponents who want to us returned to the dark ages - is pathetic. Right now I am quite ashamed to be a fellow of one of the main professional engineering institutions. The basic facts are not being pulled together to explain the issue. The "earthquakes" are not - they are tremors, of insignificant magnitude. The shale lies at around 10,000 feet below ground. Coal lies at a few hundre feet, but explosive mining of coal has been used for decades without damage - subsidence is another matter altogether which does not pose a threat from shale. Water levels, again, are at hundreds of feet down, not thousands. The flames from the famous tap, just like the "hockey stick", has been proven to be fake - the methane was present before fracking was even thought of. The scare about carcinogous chemicals is an invention. All naturally occuring hydro-carbons contain traces of numerous nasties - all can be removed by chemistry as they always have been (nothing in civilisation's history produced more nasties than coal based town gas production - but we lived with it for a hundred years without too many ill effects, other than its poisonous CO content which was its essential component). Another concern is that attention has been drawn away from the essential technical issues. I can find no component analysis anywhere for UK shale gas, but I found some for the US sources - and they vary greatly. Apart from the usuals ( CO2, H2S, C2-C5+ etc) there can be a lot of nitrogen. To remove that requires expensive and long lead cryogenic processing; does our gas have any? Due to the lack of any semblence of a coherent energy policy from any of our politicians over three decades we are now drinking in the last chance saloon so come on, stand aside, and let the engineers get on with it.
Vernon E
Robin:
Exactly the kind of fault line I was referring to earlier. Good news - and there should be plenty more to come.
The BBC's Newsround (for children) had a report yesterday - link. Headed 'Fracking' for gas to carry on, leaving people angry, it opened with this:
Groan.
Good report here:
http://www.igem.org.uk/media/107958/IGEM-Shale_Gas-A_UK_energy_miracle-September_2011.pdf
hmmm...don't watch Ch 4 any more, have not for years. Got banned from thier forum during the Danish cartoons malarky....I pointed out a couple of Egyption bloggers who were showing the very same cartoons were printed in Arab press a year previously to averse effect. My comment was deleted. I pointed it out again - I got banned.
Ch4, BBC, Guardian.....3 cheeks of the same mutant a*se.
(btw...Hello Chaiman Al...good to see you here at BH)
Did they mention th danger of Cthulhu?
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/science-%26-technology/only-a-30%25-chance-of-cthulhu%2c-say-fracking-experts-201204185135/
...... and if these evil men are allowed to carry on fracking it might cause earthquakes - and remember children earthquakes can cause tsunamis like the one in Japan last year which swept whole towns and thousands of people to their deaths - goodnight children and sweet dreams.
Foxgoose: And where has the chief prig from Newsround, John Craven, ended up? On BBC's Countryfile, AKA Green Peter. So the propaganda continues through the age groups relentlessly.
BTW: I'm currently having a go at Michael Hanlon's disgraceful piece in the DT (he preys in aid the Gasland film!). Unfortunately, he seems to have the moderators on side as a perfectly gentle piece of dissention I had with his article was 'edited by moderator'.
Fortunately - media studies grads are unaware of the fact that their audience is abandoning them.
I wonder whether Prof. Phil Jones could help the journos out with an Excel based regression analysis, combined with Mike's Nature trick?
(Or has the person that knew how to start Excel now left the UEA?)
[Off topic]
Look......They have a point.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHtZ6Ixeqvs
Re: Tom Clarke's response
This shows once again how weak and confused many "science journalists" are... It's inadequate to point out the item is from a "campaign" (I.e., propaganda) film. That would merely suggest to viewers that the info is a bit "one sided" when in reality the factoid and inference being suggested by the inflammatory image are 100% wildly dishonest. The filmmaker (and now Channel 4) seek to leave the viewers with the belief that the flammable methane gas was introduced into that plumbing system by "fracking"....
Mentioning a "campaign" film source would simply be a way to pretend to be accurate while ignoring the utterly inaccurate substance presented.
Apr 18, 2012 at 10:45 PM | jones
Did you notice the comment in your link?
My bad. I thought this was a documentary on Detroit.
:)
Apr 18, 2012 at 4:25 PM | Mactheknife
Interesting document referenced in your link; worth a read:
http://cogcc.state.co.us/library/GASLAND%20DOC.pdf