Monday
Apr272015
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Another unthinking BBC correspondent
Helen Briggs, the BBC's latest environmentalist recruit has decided to throw herself - and the thus the corporation's considerable weight - behind the greens' divestment campaign. Her advertorial today appears to have been written for her by someone in Greenpeace or the Guardian, without even the pretence of having any news value.
The "pros and cons" section has to be seen to be believed. If you can credit it, the BBC has an employee who doesn't seem to realise that people in Africa are dying in their hundreds of thousands for lack of access to fossil fuels. Does Ms Briggs think that dead Africans are not a "con" of her campaign?
Reader Comments (41)
This is the media we get when the media live in the 'bubble'. Everyone they know thinks like them, and the only contrary opinions are, "You aren't a true enough believer."
Comrade Lysenko announced record grain harvests, and that rumours of famine in the Ukraine are the work of evil genetics-deniers funded by Western governments.
Full of greenalist rhetoric, & very little else. They live in a fantasy world, but a very dangerous fantasy world. They truly are mad!
Surely no matter what the issue, when a reporter collects some viewpoints their job is to challenge them on as a kind of consumer-help service on behalf of the public. Like if one expert opinion calls for change one would seek out to see if another expert opinion disagreed.
The fact that this article shows no indication of looking for alternative view points makes it negligent.
Surely a breach of charter ..but BBC management consistently show they don't give a 'flying' about it's charter obligations.
She wrote a paper for the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism called "The badgers moved the goalposts – reporting science in the British media"
Whatever it is, she is still stuck in the groove that it is CO2, and only CO2 – or, more specifically, human-produced CO2 (Shock! Horror!) – that is the cause of “climate change”. It is difficult to believe that so many people, many of whom are purported to be extremely intelligent, cannot see the dissonance between their beliefs and reality; surely, there has to be some other motivation behind their strict adherence to such a barmy mantra?
Thoughtless eugenics/Malthusian/CO2 obsessed spewing from a self-declared progressive.
"barmy mantra"
It's a manifestation of the Great Loyalty Oath. Where is a Major —— de Coverley when we need one?
We all remember the Kremlin, at the peak of the Cold War, when the leaders of the USSR lied through their teeth. We knew they were lying, and they knew, we knew they were lying: but it mattered not. Now we have the green blob doing exactly the same. They know the earth has not warmed significantly for years, but the still insist on saying that it is, they also know that we know they are telling porkies. But it does not matter to them.
.
Truthful environmental journalism seems incompatible with the BBC. Their unwavering zealotry for CAGW seems unbelievably stupid - but that is the publically funded BBC for you!
Who needs 3 billion pounds when we can waste it on highly baised programming.
Unusually for a BBC science correspondent, she may actaully know some science.
She holds a Master of Philosophy (medical faculty) and Bachelor of Science degree (Biochemistry and Genetics) from Newcastle University.
Fine: I'm buying.
'Her advertorial today appears to have been written for her by someone in Greenpeace or the Guardian, without even the pretence of having any news value.'
So normal pratice for the BBC then ?
environmental journalism , the process of lying with green mouth.
A brave new world of endarkenment.
The BBC/Grauniad, are putting a lot of energy into this. I wonder where they get it from?
RR
Being extremely intelligent is no bar to being extremely thick.
The other half of the adage "There are none so blind as those who will not see" is (in Yorkshire anyway) "... and none so thick as them as wants to be."
Thankyou for Alt248. I don't know how I missed that one; I've cracked most of the others. Alt0176 - ° - works as well as does Alt1 for ☺!
"NGOs are already upping their rhetoric"
She's right about that, at least.
BBC Pension Fund:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/mypension/aboutthescheme/topinvestments
Top 20 investments
(so goodbye to Sjhell, BP, Rio Tino - and goodness gracious, TOBACCO companies
Baidu 41.5
Royal Dutch Shell 40.8
Illumina 39.4
Amazon 39.1
Tencent Holdings 37.8
Imperial Tobacco 31.7
Google 29.1
FaceBook 27.9
Novartis 24.0
AstraZeneca 23.6
Vodafone Group 21.5
Industria De Diseno Textil 21.3
Intuitive Surgical 20.0
Tesla Motors 19.6
BP 19.0
Sanofi 18.4
Barclays 18.0
Lloyds Banking Group 17.4
Rio Tinto 16.9
HSBC
I'd rather they faffed around with this than something more effective.
The sooner the Telly Tax is abolished, the better. Let users who want to buy their propaganda, pay for it themselves; and those who don't, can cease subsidising it.
MJ: the result of procrastination while writing yet another report. One of my common “What happens if…?” moments; I had tried Ctrl+others, Fn+others, reached the Alt key and spent the afternoon going through all 250 combos. Forgot the Alt+1, though ☺. (Expect more!)
It is true that there is a difference between intelligent and clever. One is having the basic tools, even if kept safe and unsullied; the other is knowing how to put what you do have to the most effective use.
When it comes to religion, being clever is no protection from being stupid. Just look at Ronald Knox or the Webbs.
Thus whether it be catholicism, socialism or environmentalism one so very often observes conduct that conforms to the adage The Brighter the Dimmer.
If anyone has Helen Briggs' email address please send her this quote:
Source: http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/bj-rn-lomborg-says-that-the-un-climate-panel-s-latest-report-tells-a-story-that-politicians-would-prefer-to-ignoreOr ask her to watch this enlightening (and very amusing) short talk by Prof ans Rosling - the Magic Washing Machine
That's a good link, Lapogus. I'll confess to being a person who enjoys watching washing machines doing work.
The "dirty stuff" is a hugely pejorative and reprehensible description to begin any supposedly balanced discussion. As a result of this kind of language being bandied about, an acquaintance of mine has the impression that the vehicle tax for cars is based on their carbon dioxide emissions, because it is somehow more polluting than natural carbon dioxide. That carbon dioxide is an essential ingredient of plant photosynthesis and food growth is never mentioned. It is not even considered that our food chain depends on that small, 0.04%, amount of carbon dioxide in the air. It is never mentioned that burning coal, oil and gas must undeniably promote global plant growth and food production, in addition to its invaluable benefit of providing safe cheap reliable energy on demand.
@BarryWoods yes that's not irrelevant, but I think in the past we established that the direct equity part is something like $4bn out of 50bn and that the bulk of BBC green investments are hidden inside other investment vehicles the BBC pension fund uses ..I have not seen a good deconstruction of it yet
Oil is in an over-supply and hence soiled based company share prices are down. However, once the Saudis stop oversupplying in an attempt to punish Iran, it will make oil prices rise and of course so will thise share prices.
So her campaign support is ultimately going to hurt the pension fund "owners" by having them accept either a loss, or to forgo a price increase.
It seems at least they're entirely consistent with their campaigns - everyone suffers all the time. Should be their logo.
Alt 248 and the other suggestions for getting the degree thing up don't work for me. Never have. I've tried all sorts of suggestions, but can't make it happen. :(
One place to vent your disapproval https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/end-the-bbc-licence-fee
I thought BBC radio 5 live had redeemed itself this morning, with a theme of manufacturing, but the presenter burst my bubble when he said to a guest "the economy is now 80% services, so do we really need manufacturing?", kind of like asking "the atmosphere is 80% nitrogen, so do we really need oxygen?".
Johanna, you can cut and paste it from elsewhere.
I know, michael, but it's a PITA doing that every time. Until a workable shortcut appears, I'll stick to putting C or F after the number, even though it makes me look like a pleb on climate sites. :)
Johanna -
Use K rather than °C. It's proper usage and avoids the special character. Too cumbersome to use when talking about (common) temperatures, but a lot of the time we're talking about temperature changes, e.g. ECS range of 1.5 to 4.5 K/doubling.
"I thought BBC radio 5 live had redeemed itself this morning, with a theme of manufacturing, but the presenter burst my bubble when he said to a guest "the economy is now 80% services, so do we really need manufacturing?", kind of like asking "the atmosphere is 80% nitrogen, so do we really need oxygen?"
True, but even that doesn't adequately capture the stupidity of divestment, since the service sector of the economy is utterly reliant of fossil fuel power as well. This green stuff really does make me despair for the future of humanity.
Apr 27, 2015 at 3:34 PM | johanna
Alt 248 and the other suggestions for getting the degree thing up don't work for me. Never have. I've tried all sorts of suggestions, but can't make it happen. :(
You have to be using Windows and the numbers have to be typed on the number pad.
Gaia Fawkes is on the case - http://order-order.com/2015/04/27/bbc-jumps-on-guardians-fossil-fuel-divestment-bandwagon/#_@/eF04px8mf8jlIA
'A brave new world of endarkenment.'
Golf Charlie,
That is a most apt word you have used there.
SJ
Alt+248 on my ThinkPad after Shift+NmLk = ◘
?
As a public service to help people use their computers better (and hopefully last of this "off topic" topic), to input special characters like "degrees" symbol
For Apple OSX, use the Character Viewer. See https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201586
For Windows, use Character Map. See http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/using-special-characters-character-map-faq#1TC=windows-7
Linux probably has something like this, but I'm not familiar.
But when using these special characters, you need to be aware that sometimes the place these figures go are not supported by the viewing program, web page, or program. Has to do with Character Sets and a lot of complexity. Use with care.
On my linux box, ° is AltGr+Shift+0.
The html entity is °
I have used character map but it is slow. I have since discovered when using Word 2013 that keying on Insert then Symbol allows a quick insertion of these unusual characters.
clipe: that should force you to think outside the box.
(okay, okay... I'll go...)
Helen Briggs is not a special ◘ character?
h/t Radical Rodent