RICHARD BLACK - THE NEW HERACLITUS?

It's not often a BBC correspondent invites comparison to figures from Greek antiquity but B-BBC contributor Alan notes;


"There will come a time when we have an answer to the climate change question. When that time comes somebody may well sit down and write the history of this period in time...the history of the media coverage in particular. If they did what might they find?

They would find a world respected media organisation with a duty to provide news regardless of vested interests which has had its name and reputation dragged into the gutter by a cluster of senior journalists and presenters who failed to uphold the high standards of impartiality and truthfulness that the BBC demanded of them. Climate change alone would be enough to tarnish the BBC's reputation but add onto that its coverage of Europe, immigration, the Labour Party, Islam, terrorism and the Middle East and there is hardly an area of world events that the BBC has not mislead the British and world audience on.

It is unfortunate that no one can trust the BBC to give them the absolute truth....any report from the BBC now has to be double checked and cross referenced...preferably with the original source material or with other news organisations or expert commentators. A recent example of this comes appropriately enough from their environment correspondent Richard Black.

Here he tweets an attack on Bush....
@BBCRBlack via Twitter
Canada accused of 'muzzling scientists' http://t.co/I8iq2AO1 @BBCPallab - another echo of US under George W Bush?

Bush was fully prepared to believe in man made climate change...he just wanted definitive proof...which we still don't have. Read the Bush clean air speech below from 2002.

Black then goes onto attack the 'new' attempt to reduce emissions of other gases as short term .....
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17073186
'The US is leading a new six-nation initiative aimed at curbing climate change by tackling short-lived warming agents including methane, black carbon and hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs).
(but)...according to the science, tackling short-lived climate pollutants doesn't prevent global warming - it just delays it..... emphasising short-term warmers in the absence of meaningful action on CO2, to some observers, smacks of short-term politics and an unwillingness to get to grips with the main issue.'

 The 'main issue'?

Here he is clearly still pushing hard for CO2 reduction policies as more effective...despite methane being a more powerful greenhouse gas....but note....although global warming is such an urgent priority Black tells us that CO2 reduction will only be effective from 2060....'tackling CO2 and not doing anything about the short-lived substances sees more warming in the next few decades - but beyond about 2060, it's more effective than tackling the short-lived agents.'

Logical incoherence?

Black's logic fails spectacularly....because although methane may disappear from the atmosphere relatively quickly...it only disappears if you stop putting more up there....you don't cut the grass once every summer....you have to keep cutting....keep putting methane into the air and its effects continue....it is different methane but with the same effect.Guess you shouldn't ask that old riddle of Black...is a river the same river as water flows through it? 


According to both Plato and Aristotle, Heraclitus held extreme views that led to logical incoherence.....“Heraclitus, I believe, says that all things go and nothing stays, and comparing existents to the flow of a river, he says you could not step twice into the same river”

Black, the new Heraclitus? ....'from the riddling nature of his philosophy and his contempt for humankind in general, he was called "The Obscure" and the "Weeping Philosopher".'

Compare that to this from Geoffrey Lean in the Telegraph who is a convinced climate change advocate himself:

Then you may want to look at what George W. Bush actually said and did rather than the cheap jibes from Black and Co.

In 2004 Bush started the Methane reduction plan....and it carries on today....
'Writer Rod Dreher laments that the media has not given Bush credit for pushing the 2004 Methane to Markets initiative through Congress. Dreher stated that methane is "twenty-three times more potent a contributor to global warming than the carbon dioxide emissions the Kyoto treaty aimed at cutting". The initiative plans to reduce global methane emissions, the second largest contributor to atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, in order to enhance economic growth, promote energy security, improve the environment, and reduce greenhouse gases. Other expected benefits include improving mine safety, reducing waste, and improving local air quality.

This is the up to date website for this programme:
http://www.epa.gov/globalmethane/basicinfo.htm
Then look at this from 2002:
http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2002/02/20020214-5.html