BBC backing climate change alarmism - official

The Harmless Sky blog has discovered that support for the catastrophic global warming case is official BBC policy. Tony quotes a BBC report as follows:

The BBC has held a high-level seminar with some of the best scientific experts, and has come to the view that the weight of evidence no longer justifies equal space being given to the opponents of the consensus [on anthropogenic climate change].

The details of the seminar are, as one might expect from an organisation like the BBC which holds the public in such contempt, a secret. An FoI request has revealed that uber-warmer, Lord May, was the driver behind the decision, but the rest of the details are only going to be revealed if the Information Commissioner can force them to toe the line.

Update: Interesting also to remind ourselves that as recently as a year ago, the head of BBC news was claiming that the Corporation had no line on climate change. Well, what did you expect from a BBC man? The truth?

Petition to abandon the Lisbon Treaty

Richard North of EU Referendum fame is calling for people to sign up to a petition, demanding that the government abandon the Lisbon Treaty. They've signed up a very impressive seven thousand people in four hours.

Add your name here. 

Priorities

The BBC reveals an interesting set of priorities for its headlines right now. The headlines and "top stories" (in the BBC's opinion at least) are:

Youth anti-drink plans criticized
Police uncover body in suitcase
Blaze ravages Universal Studios
Stabbing woman detained under act
Israel sends back Hezbollah spy
MPs 'will support terror plans'
Bradford & Bingley chief resigns
Kampusch making chat show debut
McCartney set for Liverpool show

The story you don't find on their front page, or even on the front of the World section, but buried in the Middle East pages is this:

US Iraq deaths 'at four-year low'

I don't know about you, but I'd think this might be slightly more important than even "Beatles set for Liverpool show", but maybe I'm a bit old-fashioned about these things.

Ice sheet breakup - a biologist's view

One of the most prominent of the harrabinieri at the BBC (apart from Roger himself) is David Shukman,  the environment correspondent who seems to spend most of his life flying off to exotic locations to promote the green cause.

His most recent article is about some Canadian scientists who have found evidence that the Ward Hunt ice shelf is breaking up. He quotes Dr Derek Mueller of the Trent University, Ontario:

"I was astonished to see these new cracks. It means the ice shelf is disintegrating, the pieces are pinned together like a jigsaw but could float away."

Pretty frightening stuff then. And just in case we don't understand the point that he's making, David Shukman tells us

The fate of the vast ice blocks is seen as a key indicator of climate change.

I'm certainly terrified.

Let's find out some more about the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf then. Wikipedia has a page dedicated to Ward Hunt, which is "the largest ice shelf in the Arctic". It was discovered in 1875, although at that time it formed part of a larger ice shelf which broke up during the twentieth century. No doubt that was itself a portent of global warming to come.

And what's this?

The Ward Hunt ice sheet began breaking up approximately 100 years ago.

David? Why doesn't your article mention this?  Isn't this relevant? 

Let's be charitable though. Maybe Dr Mueller didn't tell you. Maybe he forgot, although let's face it, it's odd for a scientist to forget such a simple fact about his specialism.

Except it isn't really his specialism. After obtaining his bachelor's degree in biology, he studied polar algae for eight years and only recently has he switched to studying the effect of climate change on ice shelves. He's not even faculty at Trent University - he's a post-doctoral researcher. So to describe him as an expert on ice shelves would appear to be pushing a point. Perhaps this is why he was astonished by the cracks he found.

It may be that David Shukman just reckons he reliably toes the environmentalist party line. How else to explain the fact that this post-doctoral researcher has now been honoured with two Shukman reports on his work in the Arctic?

Keep on knocking

Ok, so the BBC won't let me see the emails. Information held for journalistic purposes is exempt, it seems.

This isn't the end of the world though, because all I want is some confirmation that there were some emails, and if there were, when they arrived at the BBC.

I've gone back to the Beeb and asked if I can see the dates and times of email correspondence between Roger Harrabin and the WMO.  Surely the dates and times of the emails isn't information held for journalistic purposes.

BBC says Harrabin emails stay secret

The BBC have now responded to my request to see the email exchange which Roger Harrabin claims took place between himself and the World Meteorological Organisation at the time of the Jo Abbess "change the report or else" story.

It will probably come as no surprise to anyone that the Beeb is refusing to release the emails.

At the end of the day then, we have the word of one man, Roger Harrabin that the email exchange took place and what its contents were.

If he were a blogger, we would not accept this lack of any evidence. If you don't present evidence, the blogosphere isn't going to take your word for it.

This same principle applies to the BBC too. But more so. 

Time's up!

Twenty working days have now elapsed since I put in my FoI request asking for the email correspondence between the BBC's Roger Harrabin and the WMO. Twenty days is the maximum time period that they say the request should take to process. It goes without saying that I've had no word from the BBC since their acknowledgement of the receipt of the request.

Time to start digging again.... 

BBC keeps the green flag flying

The BBC has announced that it is going to start a season of environmentally themed programmes for children on the CBeebies channel. This follows hot on the heels of their hasty retreat over a BBC Global Warming Day called Planet Relief. When this show was cancelled one of the BBC bigwigs said:

It is not the BBC's job to lead opinion or proselytise on this or any other subject

It would appear that he has since been overruled.

Let's just remember that CBeebies is aimed at the under sixes. Preschoolers. Babes in arms.

I'm trying to imagine the sort of sick mind that thinks that broadcasting wall-to-wall propaganda to pre-schoolers is acceptable in a liberal society. (We are a liberal society still...aren't we?) And I just can't fathom it. Are there really people with such corrupt minds commissioning programmes at the BBC?

It would seem so: Ms Alison Stewart, executive producer. Mr Michael Carrington, head of CBeebies.

Sick, sick people.  

Dig for victory

Deltoid has picked up on my article about Roger Harrabin's response to the Jo Abbess affair. He says I'm accusing Harrabin of lying. What I said was I'm not convinced by his arguments, which is not the same thing. At the moment, I'm reserving judgement. As Mr Deltoid says, it is possible that Roger H received an email from the WMO in the half hour during which he made such an astonishing volte-face, but IMHO it's a tad unlikely.

I tried to ask Roger to publish the WMO correspondence via a comment on the Editors Blog thread, but it doesn't seem to be accepting any input at the moment. So to shortcut the process I've sent in a Freedom of Information request to the BBC to get all the correspondence between them and the WMO on this article.

Let's see what happens. 

An opportunity for Roger Harrabin

Leading hurricane expert Kerry Emmanuel has published a new paper in which he reports that his models suggest that global warming will cause a reduction in the number of hurricanes (with a slight rise in hurricane intensity in some regions).

Steve McIntyre notes that the results have been strangely ignored by the mainstream media, and wonders if this is because Emmanuel's university - MIT- has failed to publish a press release. This is odd, because as Steve M notes, they weren't so reticent for an earlier Emmanuel paper which predicted an increase in hurricanes.

This should be a great opportunity for the BBC's Roger Harrabin to redeem his reputation by telling the world about the Emmanuel paper. Come on Roger, show us that you're not actually a mouthpiece for the green movement......