Friday
May302014
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Settled science at the BBC
May 30, 2014 BBC Climate: sensitivity Greens The BBC is currently engaging in some intense navel-gazing, as part of which it has been considering the range of opinions to which it currently gives airtime. This process is documented in a paper on the BBC Trust website, which includes this interesting little snippet:
...the need for BBC journalists regularly and systematically to challenge the assumptions behind their own approach to a story, is...difficult to achieve. Even when good intentions lead to specific measures aimed at doing so, there can be inadvertent aberrations. Take, for example, the BBC College of Journalism online service, which includes a whole section on impartiality. First among the clips illustrating the need for impartiality in covering the subject of climate change is an illustrated lecture given by the BBC’s former Environment Correspondent Richard Black. The section of the lecture on the site is entirely devoted to sustaining the case that climate change is effectively “settled science” and that those who argue otherwise are simply wrong. What might have been helpful is for Richard’s talk about the scientific position, and David Shukman’s on the same site, to have included a line or two in which he reminded his audience of John Bridcut’s point, a point made also in the BBC’s Editorial Guidelines, that dissenters (or even sceptics) should still occasionally be heard because it is not the BBC’s role to close down this debate.
It is clear from the document that the author's objection is not to Richard Black trying to argue that the science is settled. The objection is a presentational one, namely that Black should have preempted criticism by stating in effect that "despite sceptics being wrong, they will still be heard from time to time".
How remarkable it is then to consider the BBC position in light of the evidence given by Michael Oppenheimer to the US House of Representatives yesterday:
Some things are more or less settled, some things are not. The question of whether carbon dioxide is 30 to 40 percent above pre-industrial times, that’s settled. The question of exactly how warm the Earth will become as a result, that’s not.’ Oppenheimer refused to defend the 97% claims. ‘Whether the 97% is defensible, I really don’t know.’
Oppenheimer, a former chief scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund, is about as green as you can get. If even he is saying that the science is not settled, the BBC's position is indefensible. Think about it: the BBC's position on climate change is even more fringe than the deepest of deep greens.
Reader Comments (59)
Since none of the BBC 'science' reporters, Black, Schukman etc have any science qualifications themselves, it is anyway simply a case of 'the blind leading the blind' and both 'falling into the ditch'.
The BBC should not have an opinion, it's charter says it must be neutral.
John Gibson
John Gibson: There is nothing neutral about the BBC. The Trust is not neutral either, having published a report on BBC science reporting that says that global warming sceptics are deniers and flat earth believers. They decided that it was not necessary for the BBC to report climate science in a neutral manner.
SC: Clegg is certainly one, Radio 4 almost in its entirety is of this belief system,. I've been trying to articulate my idea without much success, so I kinda put it out here to see if others can articulate it better. Almost everyone who likes the EU (not the EC) holds this belief system, they believe governments know better, so don't feel the need to tell them what to do. Mandelson, the Kinnocks, Michael Heseltine (it's not a left-right issue, more like religion). I'll have to try to think it through a little more.
BTW I've always thought that the conundrum set by Schrodinger was easily solved, if the cat wasn't in the box when he opened it. ~Glad you made your escape.
More propaganda on the BBC for the Betts Brigade. We are all going to die from global warming extreme climate. Must build porous carparks, moates round our factories. Their model is 100% correct (show pictures of supercomputer 775), Boscombe flooding etc.
The Lunies are coming to get us. Someone in the UK please shut down these clown before they do real, permanent damage.
AGW has never been about science and BBC is not a scientific organization.
AGW is a dysfunctional social movement and BBC leadership has bought into it.
May 31, 2014 at 12:46 PM | Unregistered Commenterhunter
The BBC and its news service are the ring masters. They perform no useful function for the audience but coordinate the acts and give them their public face.
The BBC is obviously incapable of knowing whether or not the science is settled - it is a news/media organisation, not a physics/climate lab.
That's why they took advice from 28 expert climate scientists (28 gate) from greenpiss, FoE, plonker prince, the local baker, misses wairight at the corner shop.
Stephen Richards,
What ever metaphor resonates best is the one you should go with. All metaphors/analogies are of course approximations, but if it helps high light the truth they are worthwhile Climate obsession is hurting the people, not solving problems. Climate policies are wasting huge amounts of money and wasting decision maker's energy on useless policy efforts.
When people realize that not one climate inspired policy has worked, they might get interested. When they realize it is hitting their pay check, wasting their taxes, hurting their job security, increasing their utility costs and insurance bills, they might do something about it. No wonder the cliamte obsessed are spending so much effort in "communicating the science" to the public. Only science is not what they are communicating at all.
The BBC: Masters of Black Propaganda
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-bbc-masters-of-black-propaganda/5384715