Bishop Hill Not tired of climate change
As readers here are aware, Joe Smith's chief claim to fame is that in the first years of the 21st century he managed to pervert the BBC's environmental output, ensuring that the green political agenda was adhered to across the corporation's output, from comedy to current affairs.
During today's BBC World Service show Are We Tired of Talking About Climate Change?, Smith seemed to admit that this had been a "tactical error" with the narrative of gloom and doom apparently switching the public away from the desired political programme and inducing little more than an extreme case of apathy. You have to admire his chutzpah.
There was something almost entirely otherworldly about this programme, with the collapse of interest in global warming after 2009 discussed without even a peep about Climategate and related scandals, climate psychologists interviewed as if they were credible academics and the whole show presented as if the world's only concern was to get back to the stone age as quickly as possible. It was all quite odd.
I wonder if the producers of the show could get their heads around the idea that we are not actually tired of talking about climate change. We are, however, tired of being lectured about it, misled about it, lied to about it and subjected to an endless stream of propaganda about it by homicidal environmentalists and closet authoritarians and all with the blessing of the BBC and the political classes.
Apart from that we're really quite interested.
Reader Comments (99)
Pssst.... I think you mean 21st century, Bish.
Okay. You spotted it, too. Delete the above - and this!
Dang! Just discovered while I can revise, I cannot delete. It's all yours!
The answer is no, the producers of the show and BBC do not get what the problem is becasue they start from the position that they cannot be wrong and therefore its only a question of getting the message across 'in the right way '
The idea that it is the message itself which is the problem never enters their heads , as dogmatic certainty in their own 'perfection' has long been a BBC weakness.
Yes, me too .... oh sorry, were you talking about the BBC?
"Still waiting for greenhouse"
"Yes, me too .... oh sorry, were you talking about the BBC?"
Tanglefoot.
I agree entirely and still prescribe thr RUC-treatment for the Bigotry Broadcasting Corporation.
I'm tired of getting fined the same as a bus (that drives around nearly empty for the majority of the day plying their trade) in road tax (least they do where I live), but Ed Davey just wont listen to reason
In future years graduates with degrees in 'Climate Science' and 'Earth Studies', are going to be unemployable. Apart from the Grauniad, BBC or Houses of Parliament, a bit like Oxbridge PPE is now. It is a depressing legacy, from the billions spent.
aTTP will still be insisting that the earth is wrong, for not behaving in accordance with the computer models.
Job titles have certainly been exploited by Greens, Joe Smith was introduced as a "Lecturer in Geography at the OU", conveying way too much respectability to someone who is basically a Green Activist.
His thinking is similar to what happens when lefties lose elections, there just has to be dark forces at work, there cannot possibly be anything wrong with us or our policies.
You have to admire his chutzpah.
I'd be inclined to describe intellectually maniacal ideologues in less generous terms.
Systematically pulverising the public crania and habituating the societal cortex to the stream of alarmist diarrhoea may indeed render the intended recipient senseless. On the other hand, under-estimating the wider intelligence could be a grave mistake. Very many see through the propaganda, have long since grown weary and intelligently choose to completely ignore both the relentless Green diatribe and the BBC spigot from which it issues.
WUWT had a piece on the results of a Gallup poll which clearly shows the US public's concern over environmental issues has dropped dramatically between 2000-2014
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/03/26/climate-fail-gallup-poll-shows-global-warming-concerns-dead-last/
Also, an aside has Robert Wyndham's fantastic letter to the BBC cc'd to the PM and others been noticed by the UK MSM ?? It needs to be circulated as widely as possible.
Jo Nova has included it in this thread
http://joannenova.com.au/2015/03/big-government-propaganda-abc-bbc-are-aggressive-political-participants-sell-or-split/
I am looking at all this waffle from ATTP and wonder if there is a warmish site where you can comment without fully being vetted on name facebookid telephone doubleidentified text based messaging etc etc ?
One wonders why they need all that institutionalized protection?? Are exm smoking lobbiers and big oil executives so "evil" ???
When multiple BBC employees, past and present, publicly humble themselves before a global-warming Science & Reconciliation Committee, then I will return to them the benefit of the doubt.
Sorry that should have been Rupert Wyndham in my post above.
George Monbiot - highlights from pre 2009 insanity
##
When we turn our kettle on in Birmingham, we are helping to flood Bangladesh
Global warming means that flying across the Atlantic is now as unacceptable as child abuse
Climate change is perhaps the gravest calamity our species has ever encountered. Its impact dwarfs that of any war, any plague, any famine we have confronted so far. It makes genocide and ethnic cleansing look like sideshows at the circus of human suffering
It was fishing that cemented my love of the natural world.
We need to put climate change right at the top of the political agenda — it is by far the biggest threat to humanity.
The idea of resurrecting woolly mammoths fires the imagination on all cylinders. Last week interest in this marvellous notion was reignited by Professor Ian Wilmut, the man who cloned Dolly the sheep, ruminated about how it might be done. The answer, in brief, is that it pushes at the very limits of plausibility, but there's a tiny chance that, within 50 years or so, it could just happen.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/06/resurrecting-woolly-mammoths-exciting-but-fantasy?CMP=twt_fd
The media lost interest because by 2009, the trillions of dollars of free carbon credits to big business had ended.
What also ended in 2009 was any remote possibility of a global climate deal as Climategate gave the Americans the excuse to walk away from Copenhagen.
Nobody actually cares about global warming. Otherwise, they would do something about it. Something other than useless wind farms. Green technology is an economic boost but it is no cure for fictional runaway global warming.
It's long past time for us all to ignore the diversionary tactics of aTTP, who clearly adds nothing of any worth.
There's a transcript of "Are We Tired of Talking About Climate Change?" now here:
https://sites.google.com/site/mytranscriptbox/2015/20150331_ws
BBC Radio 4 tonight at 21h00
Climate Change: Inconvenient Facts?
Costing the Earth
With arctic sea ice shrinking and Antarctic sea ice growing, Tom Heap asks what is happening to the climate.
Despite the consensus of scientists around the world, there are still some anomalies in the computer models of the future climate. Tom Heap is joined by a panel of experts to tackle some of the difficult questions that lead to uncertainties in our understanding of the changing climate.
Tom is joined by BBC and Met office weather presenter John Hammond to put these 'difficult' climate scenarios to a team of experts: Mark Lynas is an author and environmental campaigner, Mike Hulme is professor of Climate and Culture at Kings College London and Dr Helen Czerski is a broadcaster and 'bubble physicist' at UCL.
I wonder what the conclusion will be (/sarc)
Yes, me too .... oh sorry, were you talking about the BBC?
Mar 31, 2015 at 10:40 PM | Unregistered Commenter...and Then There's Physics
Is that meant to be witty?
As somebody said, Ken displays a profound lack of self awareness.
aTTP,
I think that most readers of this blog do not mind if you don't expose yourself to its content.
slightly o/t but I wondered if anyone at bh who has complained to the bbc has ever had repsonse which upheld their complaint? or does everyone always get the "tyou are wrong" answer?
The article starts off with "there is a consensus that we are causing warming" - so doesn't bode well.
Followed by pages of claptrap and backtracking in equal measure.
Hilarious.
@thinkingscientist by coincidence I was just about to post this
: Hey Exposing BBC Bias (Twitterfeed & blog) got a BBC prog corrected !
They also just posted a classic photo : Another perfectly balanced panel on #bbcqt
eg1 BBC filtered out immigration concerns when reporting its own survey
The Spectator : What’s the point of the BBC if we no longer share common cultural values?
@Ross
That's a superb letter. I hope it gets more airing. It should be published in its entirety at the GWPF as well - everywhere.
Interesting that Twitterspehere didn't even wake up to talking about "Tired of Talking About Climate Change?
when I scanned twitter on that title, bbctheinquiry & on BBC "climate change" I found 50 tweets only ONE of which led to a conversation here , 18 of those tweets were between @BarryJWoods and JoeSmith
one tweet - "No, #BBC, we're not tired of climate change, we're tired of the cronyist, socialist, luddite politics it comes with"
checking the BBC World Service FB page ..no they didn't have time to debate it
but did put a video
"Antarctic Ice Shelves Melting : 18 years of satellite data reveal the big jump in ice loss from the floating shelves around Antarctica"
I got the sense that some at least did not entirely believe in the AGW mantra and what they were saying .... and there were, self-evidently a lot of half-truths being trotted out.
But then in the section on CO2 and plant growth was the comment that there would be 'winners and losers' and although it would be fine if you wanted 'to grow pineapples in the polar regions by 2080' that the equator would be a different matter.
Plus ca change.
thinkingscientist:
I did once. I complained that they had introduced Lord Oxburgh as a former Chairman of Shell when he was actually currently Chairman of Falck Renewables a wind energy company, and had other interests in bio-fuel and carbon capture and storage, which they failed to note in the introduction.
Here are the guidelines
3.4.12
We should normally identify on-air and online sources of information and significant contributors, and provide their credentials, so that our audiences can judge their status.
Clear cut case no?
Well the programme producer Dominic Graves, I believe, that he didn't have time to check the background of every person who came on the programme in a generally dismissive and very rude email.
I complained to his boss about the response emphasising the narrowness of my complaint which was 3.2.14 of their charter. So they passed it to the ECU who similarly dismissed the complaint, I responded:
The guidelines were clearly breached, and as a first time complainant, it's coming across to me that the BBC Complaints Department is actually the second line of defence. Please prove me wrong."
They didn't, prove me wrong that is, they dismissed the complaint.
So here they were, quite clearly breaking the guidelines of their charter but able to tell a member of the public to get lost. So I complained to the trust who, after around 4 months telling me my complaint had been upheld, but that a complaint of bias, which I'd scrupulously avoided making because it's too hard to prove and to easy to dismiss, was dismissed.
No actions, or follow ups were outlined, and Ron Oxburgh, who I'd informed the Trust in no uncertain terms, had no expertise whatsoever in the generation of electricity appeared again on Radio 4 pontificating of electricity generation with the usual sidelong reference to the upcoming benefits of CCS.
Regretfully, I now think the BBC should be disbanded altogether, it's the mouthpiece for the worst type of progressive political policies that would get no credence in the MSM, other than in the unread Guardian, but are given heavy weight credence because they're on the "politically impartial" BBC.
Flippin Heck the BBC just created a campaign web page 3 hours ago ! to accompany the prog ...why do that 4 days after the prog was broadcast ?
H/T a Leo Hickman tweet
Hey look how the prog intro pulls a trick
"We ask whether our hunter-gatherer brains simply aren't wired to think long-term. And we find out why climate change has all the hallmarks of a story likely to make newspaper editors groan. It could be – as one of our expert witnesses tells us – time to "change the narrative"
ie they use the trick of asking a question as an excuse to EVANGELISE a narrative excuse for us not joining their religion "our hunter-gatherer brains simply aren't wired to think long-term" ...which is probably not proper science.
not wired to think long term ..whatlike billions thinking about the afterlife and coming of Christ ..that BBC narrative doesnt stand a second glance
Thanks Alex for the transcription. Only when this stuff is written down can it be analysed and refuted.
Note the “I represent us” which could be the slogan of every green activist, and also the “millions of hours” which equals hundreds of years. Of course, she'd argue, and the BBC would argue, that this is permissible hyperbole. Exaggerating figures by several magnitudes is absolutely normal in environmentalism.In the programme Jennifer Morgan of the WRI boasts of having a staff of 50 working under her on climate change and says:
We're never going to get these people (green activists, BBC programme makers, Prime Ministers, presidents of the Royal Society) for being fools. They must be nailed as liars.
Thank you, Alex.
Hmmm… PhD for this? What next? Why is the Pope a Catholic? I wonder what conclusion he reached – one thing is most likely: it will have little to do with Honduras being in a hurricane alley, and all to do with man-made emissions.But no – he heads off on a completely different tack, concentrating on the amount of media coverage given to “climate change”, as if that somehow has any relevance to real life. Oh, Lord, please give us strength.
Sadly, this approach is all too typical of the World Service, which does its propaganda work largely unseen by those who pay for it. In fact it appears to do llittle else.
For those who feel too many national BBC programmes are little more that envrio-Leftist publicity vehicles, be prepared for a nasty shock if you hear the full strength brew that is served-up for export!
...and Then There's Physics
Time to ban him Bish. He's banned everywhere else. Just a pillock and a nuisance.
Whether it is the BBC or the ABC, we are up to our back teeth listening to their puerile propaganda ... "science" as such hasn't even come into consideration.
OT The election
Of all the UK political leaders the one that i cant stand is Leanne Wood from Plaid Cymru
Smug sanctimonious cow she makes Harriot Harman look like Lucy Pinder (ex page 3 girl)
Caught her on Question time and every other sentence out of her mouth was "our friends the SNP" and "our friends the greens"
Her obvious game plan is to form up with Alex Salmond and trade away her sudden found opposition to Renewing Trident for more regional public spending.
Apparently according to Andrew Neal unlike the Greens in london the Greens in Wales are far from friends with Plaid Cymru hustling in on their turf.
Imagine a more manipulative dangerous version of idiotic Natelie Bennett not hard obviously and that is Leanne Wood.
Really is sad state of British politics that Nigel Farage is considered the best of a very bad bunch.
Gonna be controversial but in some ways i hope Labour and the Conservatives totally wipe out these puny small parties on May 15 and finally halt the political love in between all the scheming politicians scrambling around as to whose getting into the coalition bed with whom.Get back to proper strong government which is what our electorate deserve.
Best way to get rid of the non issue Climate Change too.
aTTP over to you.
So, it could be
any bod' - someone just dragged in off the street- activist extremist left wind up merchant - choose from WWF, Greenpi55, lunatics of the earth, sand bag, the labour partylibCON and 99% of the HoL, Unite, SWP, UAF, 10:10, anyone in the DECC - civil service in toto, local council et bloody cetera.Communist propaganda? Look no further -
Biased Bu77s&*t Corporationthe BBC is it.Neither will he engage nor is he engaging. So why fling rice around if there is no vow?
===============
When Lefty Scum gets "tired" of speaking about something , that is an euphemism for: Having completely
lost the argument in all spects , over and over again, in every minute detail, for all to see and obvious to all except some old wimmin with an AlQ'uardian subscription..
So, the Scum Left is tired speaking about Vietnam
They are tired speaking about wonderful multiculturalism
They are tired speaking about bad plastics
they are tired speaking about all that wonderful life in Mao's China and behind the Iron Curtain
They are tired speaking about the benefit of unionized labour being you know, the fundament of selfishness
So today they got tired speaking about gerbil worming..A new bandwagon is needed to enthusiastically jump on
Something with vague concepts easily discernible white hetero christian male evil-doers, and easy to drive the limousines
to with their "aspiring" young. Think Hariette Harperson.
Does Reddi Twokitchens have aspiring young ?? He does not like the big 100k kitchen you know, he prefers the Ikea kitchenette of the underpaid maid where you cannot sit. He is a sympathic Commoner , Reddi. Doncha know.
VenusNotWarmer ~ I've had several people tell me where I post, that they are 'getting tired' of talking about climate change.
I just keep right on pounding them with Reality.
Today on my Bing headlines "Antarctica hottest day ever!" They got to 63.3°F (17.4°C) at an Argentinian base on the very tip of the Peninnsula.
Get set for another Weekend At Bernie’s resurrection of the climate change hoax, dug up out of it’s box for a spin around the parking lot.
First thing to do is locate this never before heard of Hope Bay, Trinity Peninsula. Google is useless for coordinates. Ditto Bing.
Wikipedia tries to keep the secret by hiding the information behind an external link.
But as luck would have it Hope Bay is a protected historical site. Ed Shackelton took a dump there once or something, so there’s a monument.
The location is 63°24’S 56°59′ W at the very tippy top of what is the Antarctic Peninsula. http://www.ats.aq/devPH/apa/ep_protected_detail.aspx?type=1&id=116&lang=e
That puts it at roughly the same latitude as the High Coast/Kvarken Archipelago UNESCO World Heritage site of Finland.
http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/898
Why doesn’t Hope Bay have trees and farming like Kvarken?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=135&v=Hf-wIulmYKQ
Stephen Richards: leave aTTP alone – he’s always good for a larf, even if it is usually with a following exasperated sigh.
I found Alex's awesome transcript to be a fascinating - and to my mind quite telling - read. Here are some interesting word counts that I found:
climate change 40 (notwithstanding the fact that "we are tired of talking about climate change" ... I cannot imagine why.Can you?!)
science 12
Copenhagen 10
global* 8 (of which "global warming" =1)
UN* 4
energy 3
temperature 2
polar bear 2
consensus 1
disast* 1
carbon * 0
doom 0
gloom 0
transform* 0
sustain* 0
greenhouse 0
danger* 0
United Na* 0
weather 0
And it's only taken them five and a half years - and Gaia knows how many gazillion $$ - to get from the "[fairly recently acknowledged] disastrous Copenhagen summit" to where we are now! This has the potential to be the "turning point" we've been waiting for! Perhaps we should circulate far and wide!
The UN's and/or EU's "jargonizers" certainly seem to have their work cut out for them between now and December;-) Although we may need a translation of Joe Smith's:
"As somebody said, Ken displays a profound lack of self awareness."
[snip - manners]
Spitting image had an amusing song......
Do governments really and honestly not understand that the CO2 "targets" they are talking about are impossible to achieve without destroying the whole world's economy and that even if that were possible the effect on the global climate would be infinitesimal?
Ooohh! Oooh! I can answer that question, MJ:
No.
[snip - response to snipped comment]
@thinkingscientist: I have placed sevceral complaints to the BBC about it's biased & misleading reporting, or presentations on various "shows", & never had a complaint upheld. However, I did place two complaints about Lucie Seigle from the Grauniad, who had weaved her way onto the "One Show" magazine programme, about the way she was given free reign to spoutr her greenalist clap-trap on the show at peak times. This seemed to result in her temporary removal from the show, but returned to do much less green nonsense presentations. I also complained about an article the show presented on the anniversary of a fire that broke out at Windscale Nuclear plant in the 50s. The complaint was for Matt Baker's statement at the end of it where he stated that (I forget the exact figure) "that could explain up to 167 cancer deaths in the area!". The irony in this was that all the interviewees who were living in the area at the time, were all healthy individuals in their 70s-80s, & no mention was made of anyone who had died from "cancer" was made in the presentation. My complaint wasn't upheld, I just got the usual contrite bland statement about facts correct at the time of broadcast, etc. I gave up after that! Having said that, to my knowledge, all studies of incidences of cancer near nuclear plants, whether in adults or children, showed no significant levels above background cases.
@Hilary
deni* 1 mention : "Eight years ago, he started compiling a list of these psychological barriers...... #21 denial ..."
"people being pissed with the being defamed by being called deniers" : zero mentions
- Why are we doing massive analysis of these idiots ?
- If the BBC handed over the airwaves to Jehovahs Witnesses for a prog would we analyse it ?
I am worried for Joe Smith's mental health. Do the BBC hand over the airwaves to any nutcase off the street who comes up with these mad almost "conspiracy type theories" ? That is negligent by enabling to build up his delusion they are setting him up for a bigger fall down in the end.
- FFS The prog begins like a pantomime
- "Now, Inquiry regulars will know that we normally start this programme with a story. This week, we can't - and that's because our question is about a story that's gone missing. We've noticed that the world's media seems to have dropped something - climate change. Yes, there's the odd story here and there. But a subject that dominated the news five years ago seems to have largely disappeared. "
- Jesus - Find a BBC World Service where they don't have 5 climate change stories in a week in the progs or news.
- I don't normally make predictions, but I think if I did a line by line anaylsis of the rest of the prog, hardly any lines will stand up to criticsm.
PS You'd think BBC would put story of a UKIP candidate fired yesterday on it's front UK news page, but no : by coincidence he has a Muslim name
And Then There's Pish.