Bishop Hill The BBC: an advertising agency for greens
Mar 5, 2015 BBC Climate: WG2 Once again demonstrating the curious ability of environmental NGOs to get their press releases reported by the BBC, the corporation has today decided that the big news on the science front are claims issued by a US green group called the World Resources Institute. According to the BBC:
The number of people affected by river flooding worldwide could nearly triple in the next 15 years, analysis shows.
Climate change and population growth are driving the increase, according to the World Resources Institute (WRI).
In the UK, about 76,000 people a year could be at risk of being affected by flooding if defences aren't improved, it says.
Interestingly, there seems to be precious little on the WRI's website about these claims, but it seems that some sort of a press release has been issued, saying outlandish things about future flooding, in order to promote a whizzy new web tool that WRI has developed called Aqueduct.
Looked at this way, the BBC is merely providing advertising services - presumably free - to this particular green group. It wouldn't be the first time the corporation has done this.
Aqueduct turns out to be just an interactive map of river basins, which allows users to click on one and see some projections of how flood risk might (allegedly) change. The projections are of course based on GCMs and, as everyone outside the BBC knows, GCMs are nearly useless for anything to do with rainfall. It's therefore safe to say that this particular online gizmo is a PR tool rather than a scientific one.
This does seem to add weight to my "free advertising" point. Not that this will be of any concern to the BBC, who are, it seems, hard at work trying to ramp up the global warming alarm ahead of Paris. To our friends at the Corporation, a wild press release from a wild green NGO is what they call "a useful lead". Whether there is any science behind it is, frankly, neither here nor there.
Reader Comments (63)
Brute, correct, they have all underestimated the Greens. But I suspect they feel more confident having seen/heard Natalie Bennet. They will not want to undermine her, until it is to late for the Greens to do anything. But I suspect none of the others want to be seen as the one who threw the first hand grenade, unless it is in self defence.
" I didn't know it was in Wokingham DC! I do know that
the University campus straddles the boundary, such that students in one hall
of residence, vote for different councils depending on their room"
When I was there Wokingham (the side I lived on)had the 4th highest council tax, which needed be considered when 1 of the housemates student days were numbered.... Reading was much cheaper.
Substitute ABC for BBC and droughts for floods and you have the same problem in Australia.
Geoffrey Lean is at it again too. He's written a post claiming that Kew Gardens needs more subsidies because "we" need to find a way to protect the Arabica coffee bean, which cannot withstand high temperatures caused by global warming, apparently.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/environment/11448627/Why-cuts-might-force-Kew-Gardens-to-shut.html
As has been pointed out to him rather crushingly in various of the comments, first of all this sounds like a problem for coffee growing countries, not us; secondly, all such countries are already rather hot, so clearly the bean can in fact stand high temperatures; third, global production of coffee has never been higher, so to the extent that higher temperatures have an effect, it's a beneficial effect; and fourth, any concern that higher temperatures will make some areas less productive of coffee will, logically, make other currently colder areas more productive of it.
So it's a racket, basically.
Always look for 'could', 'might' or 'may'. It is the default position of this propaganda machine.
Vomit inducing the sycophantic BBC News coverage of the upcoming Green Party Conference in Liverpool.
Desperately hoping leader Natalie Bennett can bounce back after the disastrous Nick Ferrari LBC Interview.
Natalie,s bacon sandwich moment.
Natalie's bacon sandwich moment?
It's hardly the same.
She was exposed as ignorant of her policies and incapable of defending them. Not that knowing them would have helped much.
That's relevant to the political debate.
It's nothing like "Jew has trouble eating a bacon sandwich".
That's just typical Daily Mail regret over losing WW2.
Natalie,s Madonna at the Brits moment, both think they are acting "The Woman Caped Crusader" and both fall flat or boney arse.
It will not be long before this week's Ambridge floods will be rebroadcast as true.
MCourtney, remember that the Green party elected Natalie, because she was the best candidate.
Opinion polls suggest that the public are realising her true potential.
I think Cameron has realised this, which is why he wants the greens involved in any TV debate. With enemies like that, who needs friends?
michael hart, the election of Natalie will be exposed as an evil plot by Big Oil, involving hacking of her computer, and planting bio degradable evidence, which leaves no trace.
Some of her supporters are keen on leaves, that can be smoked, without trace, apart from a bluecloud.
dennisa, nice work on researching the personnel and their connections.
What a racket it all is. These people flit between NGOs, siphoning money from taxpayers at every opportunity. Said taxpayers have never been consulted, indeed are probably unaware that their hard-earned is going to these sanctimonious fat cats.
IMO, the only time taxpayer money should ever go to an NGO is for delivering an accountable package of actual services, like homeless shelters and so on.