HARRABIN OBN - WITH BARS AND STARS!

>> Sunday, January 31, 2010

Harrabin's at it again. Damage limitation. The Sunday Times today contains another damning indictment of the IPCC, this one hinged on that it used WWF hype to reference claims that 40% of the Amazon rainforest will become savannah thanks to decreased rainfall caused by 'climate change'. But our Roger is not phased. His view is that the IPCC referencing might be wrong, but the 'science' is correct:

My guess is that NGO reports often offer an easy synthesis of already-published evidence. In my experience, NGO papers are often both accessible and accurate - though clearly written from a point of view.

Read it carefully. What I think he means - astonishingly, even by his standards - is that no matter what greenie fanatic NGOs say about decisions that involve billions of pounds, it's OK, because they mean well and they know what they are doing. Equally, that it's fine if the IPCC lifts such material to pressure governments into panicking about non-existent climate threats. Now we see what the whole lying BBC edifice aound 'climate change' is built upon. The 'experience' of a dough-brained BBC reporter (who doesn't even have a a science degree) and who admires greenie activists so much that in his book, whatever they publish is probably correct. For that, I think he deserves Private Eye's OBN - with double bars and stars.

Update:
Today's MSM - the Sunday Telegraph, Mail on Sunday, the Sunday Times - is awash with stories about the IPCC scandal. For the BBC's newspaper reviewer, however, the key story is rather different: it's Ed 'let's have a tax scam orgy' Miliband wailing in the Observer that the the sceptics are wrong, the science is settled and he'll go on imposing those taxes and building windfarms come what may.

20 comments:

hippiepooter 10:23 AM, January 31, 2010  

Great Post!  I'm sure questions will be asked in Parliament.  Oh, sorry, I was momentarily transported back in time then when we had politicians worth the salt.

Davieboy 10:37 AM, January 31, 2010  

Hi Robin,

Another fine post. This seems as good a time as any to say thanks for all the fine work you're doing here on behalf of many of us who are aghast at the woeful reporting from the "impartial" BBC.

ryan 10:43 AM, January 31, 2010  

Harrabins piece is _opinion_ why is it in the _news_ section?

Guest 12:01 PM, January 31, 2010  

I think the ship that divorces factual news from agenda dripping opinion has long since sailed from all BBC ports.

And the best part is... if even Aunty's finest market rate talents bottle out on being too overt from within, they can just wheel on the best talking head to make the necessary point at the tweak of an iPhone app...

<span>It is clear proxy agenda pushing. I find it very cowardly when they use a single 'guest' to say what they agree with but can't overtly support, or damn what they don't like but can't be 'seen' to be trying to influence.</span>

Not AGW, and I have no love for any involved, but getting Clare Short to 'review' Tony Blair's 'performance' last week, overseen by the mighty intellect of a blonde teleprompter reader, was choice.

Next... George Galloway on the Bush years. With Jezza Bowen on hand to ensure objectivity.

George R 1:23 PM, January 31, 2010  

BBC Radio 4's 'World this Weekend' dipped its foot into the 'climate change' debate by allowing on a scepitical scientist (wow, BBC, steady on!); but fear not, Gore fans:- via Peter Kellner,(husband of Labour's E.U Foreign Minister Baroness Ashton) and on to Ed Miliband, the BBC allows the science issue of climate change to be politicised into Milibands 'beliefs'.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qnz4

Damon 1:37 PM, January 31, 2010  

I noted that Milliband was alowed to get aweay with the 'its only the glacier' story while large chunks of the report are falling apart and there are huge conflicts of interest in the IPCC hierarchy and the base temperature data is being proved unreliable.......

Craig 3:29 PM, January 31, 2010  

Yes, and Jonny Dymond repeatedly talked of the 'consensus on climate change' or the 'scientific consensus'.
Miliband's distortions of what the sceptical Professor Stott (a biogeologist) had said were typical of the man. If you can't win an argument, distort it.

David Preiser (USA) 4:00 PM, January 31, 2010  

It gets funnier.  It seems that the UN's "expert" panel on climate change based claims about ice melting in the Andes and other mountain ranges in part on a student dissertation.

Note to the BBC, defenders of the indefensible, and Warmists everywhere:  This doesn't count as peer-reviewed science.  The claims that Warmism is based on peer-reviewed science are proven false yet again.  You've been misled by the UN, by the BBC, and by your own government.

The BBC, of course, will not treat this as another blow to the house of cards which is Man-Made Global Warming, but as another blow to their ability to convince people that Man-Made Global Warming is still real and we're all doomed.

John Anderson 4:37 PM, January 31, 2010  

The scientist interviewed on The World this Weekend on Radio 4 was Philip Stott,  an emeritus prof at London Uni.

Here again is his superb piece attacking the IPCC and the adulteration of science by the Warmists :

http://web.me.com/sinfonia1/Clamour_Of_The_Times/Clamour_Of_The_Times/Entries/2010/1/30_Global_Warming%3A_the_Collapse_of_a_Grand_Narrative.html

Gerald 4:44 PM, January 31, 2010  

A while ago on here someone was waiting for an FOI reply from the BBC about the MMGW (as it was before it suddenly changed to CC) science "having been decided" so the BBC wouldn't contenance sceptics on air. Any news of the reply?

Nice dig by the "sceptic" at the start of the World this weekend about the BBC being the last of the MSM to start to question the "science". Good point also about the inverted information pyramid.

I suspect Milliband well briefed in generalities but I don't think he would like to have a one to one with a sceptic scientist!

Guest 5:58 PM, January 31, 2010  

<p><span>Mr. Miliband seems to be on the 'warpath', if in somewhat selective locations designed more to either get an easy ride, preach to the converted or see PR re-broadcast as news to tick a box somewhere.</span>
</p><p><span> </span>
</p><p><span>Just got this via twitter from, surprise, CH4news;</span>
</p><p><span> </span>
</p><p><span>We have @<span>EdMilibandMP</span> on the show later. He says it wld be "devastating" if <span>#climate</span> change denial hinders carbon cuts.<span>http://bit.ly/cKrKPJ</span></span><span></span>
</p><p><span> </span>
</p><p><span>I have posted to ask if the word 'denial' was really used, and if so in context, as it surprised me that any savvy pol would hitch themselves to such a discredited banwagon.</span>
</p><p><span> </span>
</p><p> 
</p>

Guest 5:59 PM, January 31, 2010  

<p><span>Also not sure the outing in 'safe' media is working as he might have wished. Looking at the Observer piece the mood seems unsympathetic despite obvious tribal political loyalties. On BBC Newsnight's blog the memories of his 'kitchen cabinet' and the famous AGW in a bottle 'proof' are still fresh, raw and still being resliced like Carpaccio. His outing today has also perked up Andrew Neil's blog on the topic, too.</span>
</p><p><span> </span>
</p><p><span>Now I could care less if I am not being asked to co-fund the communication dissemination system, as in the case of the Graun.</span>
</p><p><span> </span>
</p><p><span>However, being served highly one-sided views of favoured brothers by my national broadcaster (mitigated only by niche blogs as like as not moderated to conform if not 'watertight oversight' friendly) is another matter.</span>
</p><p><span> </span>
</p>

Guest 5:59 PM, January 31, 2010  

<p><span>This piece of work is quite right, in part (IMHO); one, or the rather embarrassing series of swallows do not a summer make, but on top of his idiotic claims that 'the science is settled' as much was unravelling spectacularly, plus near MCarthyesque utterances on how any dissenting views must be treated, has won him very few converts to possibly valid thoughts on related matters. Shame most of what he comes out with does quickly err on 'give more money and we'll find places to blow...er.. spend it', which is not high on most voters' trust-o-meter any more.</span>
</p><p><span> </span>
</p><p><span>I'd say the sooner those who figure he is the green Messiah in government look for a new messenger, the better.</span>
</p><p><span> </span>
</p><p><span>The man is very damaged, tainted goods. And if they can find anyone who has done anything than 'study' PPC and 'work' all their lives as a pol's gofer before being promoted beyond their brain grade, that would be just spiffy.</span>
</p><p><span> </span>
<span>Not that I think Dave's little squabbling shambles are really the least bit more coherent, especially on this topic.</span></p>

The Beebinator 7:03 PM, January 31, 2010  

nice quote from an Andrew Carey in the Times comments to the article
"If the climate change debate were a criminal trial and the IPCC the prosecution, any judge would have thrown the case out months ago"
i can picture Harrabin the Horrible, at broadcasting house, just as he's about to be encased within glacier, holding up peer reviewedglobal warming paper from the CRU at the EA uni, screaming this is weather not climate change

George R 7:13 PM, January 31, 2010  

While Christopher Booker addresses the evidence on climate change

"Amazongate: new evidence of the IPCC's failures"

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/7113582/Amazongate-new-evidence-of-the-IPCCs-failures.html


-the BBC's latest is to merely regurgitate the political line of its Labour chum, E. Miliband:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8490251.stm

George R 7:22 PM, January 31, 2010  

Of course, Christopher Booker's colleague, Richard North  perennially has excellent material on this too at his blog, 'EU referendum', e.g.-

"Do as I say"

http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2010/01/do-as-i-say.html

John Horne Tooke 9:16 PM, January 31, 2010  

"Ed Miliband defends climate change science"

No he isn't - he is defending "some" climate change science.

Mr. Xyz 10:49 PM, January 31, 2010  

This spoof of  climate science may be of interest:

http://climaterealists.com/?id=4960 

Guest 7:38 AM, February 01, 2010  

I notice that,having thought it had even been conceded by insiders as an 'inside leak', the game is wide open again...er.. probably, as it has 'hallmarks' of foreign spooks:

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/climate-emails-hacked-by-spies-1885147.html

Some in the MSM must be so proud of the parts they play. I wonder who the broadcaster complement will be for this useful support to a Government Minister's latest paranoid ramblings?

Essemess 8:50 AM, February 01, 2010  

The BBC has a financial interest in pushing the ManBearPig lie...Their pension fund.

http://www.professionalpensions.com/professional-pensions/news/1440290/iigcc-calls-urgent-changes-encourage-institutional-investment

Antony Jay

"But we were not just anti-Macmillan; we were anti-industry, anti-capitalism, anti-advertising, anti-selling, anti-profit, anti-patriotism, anti-monarchy, anti-Empire, anti-police, anti-armed forces, anti-bomb, anti-authority. Almost anything that made the world a freer, safer and more prosperous place, you name it, we were anti it."
Antony Jay, Telegraph, July 2007

Andrew Marr

"..the final answer, frankly, is the vigorous use of state power to coerce and repress. It may be my Presbyterian background, but I firmly believe that repression can be a great, civilising instrument for good. Stamp hard on certain 'natural' beliefs for long enough and you can almost kill them off."
Andrew Marr, The Guardian Feb. 1999

Jeremy Paxman

"But the bigger question is whether the BBC itself has a future. Working for it has always been a bit like living in Stalin’s Russia, with one five-year-plan, one resoundingly empty slogan after another. One BBC, Making it Happen, Creative Futures, they all blur into one great vacuous blur. I can’t even recall what the current one is. Rather like Stalin’s Russia, they express a belief that the system will go on forever."
Jeremy Paxman, The James McTaggart Memorial, 24th August 2007

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