Am I just getting crusty and right-wing, or is this an outrageous piece of BBC bias? This graphic is on the main front page of the BBC website HERE. The headline "Sinking in" over the climate change story suggests that climate sceptics are getting the message at last, having been too stupid to "get it" before.
The various click throughs invite people to "take a look at the evidence and see what you think". Naturally enough the only evidence provided is to prove that man made global warming is about to cause the end of the planet. Nowhere is there any article posing any counter arguments, allowing the reader to take a balanced look at the evidence and then make up their own minds.
Why am I not surprised.
60 comments:
Presumably for similar reasons that, when they discuss dinosaurs, they don't include information about creationism so people can make up their minds in a balanced way.
Because when you've got a scientific consensus.
If only 79% of people accept the reality of human-caused climate change, then they are way behind scientific opinion - where you'll be hard pushed to find a meteologist, climatologist or biologist who disputes it.
Of course, what we do about it is another matter - prevention or adaptation. There's an interesting debate to be had there - unlike trotting out "climate skeptics" who generally don't have the scientific expertise.
Iain,
How the question posed has to make you laugh:
As you may know there has been an increase in the temperature of the earth, sometimes called global warming or climate change. Do you believe that human activity, including industry and transportation, is or is not a significant cause of climate change?
How can they phrase the question like that when it has been proved it was warmer in the 1930's?
Well played. Got to keep APCO onside.
Cos you are smarter than the average bear?
Backer.
sorry, that should be:
How the question was posed has to make you laugh:
You can't blame the BBC for not publishing contrary evidence when there is none. Should they invent some to keep everyone happy? They seem to be quite good at fraud at the moment. There is only the drumbeat of "global warming isn't man made" and nothing to back it up.
Shouldn't you really be taking all this up with a certain David Cameron, Mr Dale? A little ironic don't you think that' he's the party leader most readily identified with green issues by the electorate (I wonder if that was the real reason why the Beeb decided to drop their all day climate change bollocks broadcast?)?
I've often wondered about the forces that are behind this state sponsored environmental nonsense. I couldn't help noticing how quick off the mark the carbon footprint free nuclear lobby was recently in 'offering' to plug the energy gap that was supposed to be filled by renewable technologies (a measly 20% isn't it?) - a target that now inexplicably cannot be met by 'Politically Correct Industries PLC.'
I wonder if the newly worthy nuclear lobby is collectively creaming itself over all the plutonium enrichment that's required for the next generation of missiles for the Trident replacement? Oh silly me!- but the civilian nuclear programme has nothing to do with this of course! Any fool knows it's all manufactured under licence by 'Operation Thin Air' at Porton Down!
'Man Made Global Warming' is a BNF production...
"Why am I not surprised."
Because APCO pay your wages?
Funny, must have missed that one on my payslip. Idiot.
Finding themselves unable to correctly read the present, or accurately explain the past, the BBC have now decided to try asserting their authority over the future, to regain lost credibility.
As the future also fails to comply with their preset narrative, they will then have to move onto reporting a parallel universe, which will fit in perfectly with the imaginings of the unfortunate Beeboids.
It's lucky we have an organisation given over to getting everything wrong, otherwise where would we send all these preprogrammed minds which have never in their lives even once met the other side of the argument.
It's lucky that we keep them safely employed on the TV and radio. We can keep an eye on them there, and stop them from doing too much damage to the real world. It's the old adage - 'if you haven't got a clue, you can always teach - or, in the Beeboids' case, broadcast.'
"Why am I not surprised."
The surprise comes after you drop over the edge of the earth?
Peter - science doesn't work by consensus. It works by conflict between ideas and hypotheses that make predictions that are either proved or dis proven by observations.
The real question to ask is how many physical scientists ( lets leave the biologists out of this shall we ) have funding for developing theories and hypotheses that disagree with the green anti-human fascist movement (now incorporating the socialism franchise of confused thought) ?
Did you know that the largest "carbon footprint offset" trading company in the world is owned by Al Gore?
Did you know that the largest investor in the world in Occidental Petroleum is Al Gore?
Did you know that Mars is also undergoing global warming just now?
Interesting that not one reputable climatologist supports "man made global warming" agenda.
Interesting that when the Romans occupied England, there were producing vineyards north of York. I guess after than "man made global cooling" must have set in because we got the "mini Ice Age" for a couple of hundred years. Then things began to warm up again slowly.
Global warming and cooling has been going on for untold eons and will continue its majestic cycle long after mankind has ceased to exist. It's caused by changes on the surface of the Sun.
I hate the BBC and its One Worlder agenda.
What's all this about "APCO"? What is it and what does it have to do with climate change?
Iain, are you going to tell us that its the Sun which is the reason for climate change... or are you going to deny it is actually taking place?
Be interested to hear your scientifically backed views.
The CNLA are claiming responsibility for the fire at the Penhallow Hotel. Go to http://facebook.com/group.php?gid=2463456665 and scroll down to "Recent News".
Dear Peter,
If you dont look for the scientists(and there are many) who differ from the "consensus" then you will not find any! Open your eyes damn it! Go to "greenie watch" and learn something for Gods sake I am truly sick of people saying that there is only ONE view! WRONG! Instead of parroting the rubbish you soak in from the likes of Al Gore open your bloody eyes and find the hundreds of scientists who disagree(and have convincing proof) with the "consensus"!
People have been subject to the most one sided propaganda about natural climate variation that it is no wonder that people THINK what the propaganda artists tell them! They have created such a knowledge vacuum that the only information getting to people is a pile of lies and cynical manipulation!
Go away and at least LOOK at the other side of the climate debate thats all I ask!
Annon 18.42,
Are you mad? or just ignorant? Of course there is tons of counter evidence BUT because of the information black out you have to look outside the MSM! Hundreds of scientists are posting millions of words EVERY day on counter MMGW theories! Heres a clue, Stop gobbing off and talking ignorant rubbish and LOOK for real evidence from both sides!
I did have a look at the BBC site, but didn't make as far as the global warming link. I grew ill from the site's design before I could get that far.
ACPO is the Association for Chief Police Officers - although I am as perplexed as you as to its link to a climate change debate ?
What scientific qualifications does Al Gore have to back his assumptions?
Science is about consensus, but that consensus is not fixed. The consensus amongst the most respected scientists in 1500 was that the Sun is in orbit around the Earth. The consensus amongst the most respected scientists in 1700 was that the Earth is in orbit around the sun. What happened in the meantime was an extended debate.
In the end everybody was persuaded to accept the heliocentric view. This is not to say the evidence was straightforward. Some of what Copernicus and Galileo and Newton asserted turned out to be wrong, and some of the objections of their opponents were (within the context of what was known at that time) entirely reasonable.
The trouble with the BBC is that they do not give us the evidence, in all its diversity and complexity, they simply tell us what to think. If they do little more than promote what is fashionable amongst middle class leftists it is unfit to be a public service broadcaster – by which I mean they have no right to expect that everybody should pay for them
I have no idea if global warming is a consequence of human activity or not, nor do I have any idea if increasing taxes on carbon emissions is the best way forward, but I do recognise when I am being instructed by people who have made very little attempt to engage with the complexity of the world.
Iain, do you think its not taking place?
I'm confused.
Tried to buy a nice Australian dry white recently?
Like Sunny I'd be interested to hear your scientifically backed sources.
Will someone please explain to the BBC that impartiality is not difficult. You simply refrain from telling people what to think.
By that yardstick this BBC website stinks.
And, to anticipate the bogus argument which always surfaces in these discussions: The only reason we object is because we are compelled by law, under threat of imprisonment, to finance the BBC. Absent compulsion we should have no complain.
I think the BBC should be more neutral about all this "the world is round" rubbish. We flat Earthers and our opinions have a right to equal representation in the media, however mad!
You're not being crusty and right-wing, Iain, and this is half the problem: that while the BBC is not politically-biased it tends to see things through an issue-led prism that slots everything into convenient boxes.
That it feels the need to bring 'issues' to people's attention is one thing; that it then, as an organisation, engages in initiatives connected with those issues is something else entirely.
Put climate change to one side for a moment. What type of organisation do you imagine would run its own fully-fledged wildlife charity? Something zoological, anthropological, geographical, scientific perhaps? No. A broadcasting organisation, paid for out of taxes.
This is neither appropriate nor sustainable, because in the long run it tends to the view that an organisation that is meant to be neutral no longer has an independent voice in all things it does.
Peter began this thread by justifying the BBC's position because of a scientific consensus about climate change. Reporting that is fine, in the same way that the BBC properly took a neutral stance by referring to 'British' and 'Argentine' sides in the Flaklands conflict. Appearing to have accepted one side at a time when there are, still, those who dispute the evidence, is not.
A lot of people in BBC news are uncomfortable with the easiness with which certain parts of the BBC allow the edges between impartiality and the stylised coverage of popular issues to blur.
The Beeb really needs to nail this, because a reputation that has taken decades to establish is being burned in minutes.
The assertion that 79% of people believe there is a man made component to climate change is deeply misleading . Truer to say that nearly 90% of people believe exaggerated claims have been made by the climate change lobby. Its a matter of scale about which there is considerable disagreement although there is a consensus that scientists say whatever gets their book sold or their grant in. If you believe that man made change is relatively minor effect then this has an impact on the extent to which you will, accept such horrors as world government or the panoply of coercive Puritanism. I am a sceptic not a denier and that is , I suspect , the most common view. It is not the view of the \BBC who believe like a Baptist choir and proselytise at our expense
Peter- To believe in creationism is , in effect to deny the validity of all scientific method .. To doubt the strength of certain models which have already failed to materialise whenever they have reached the testing year ( sea level rises anyone ……remember the graphics!), is not in conflict with science .It is a minor shading of interpretation in this context smaller than , for example , the punctured equilibrium versus the gradualist versions of Darwinism.
I hope you understand and I would be grateful; if you would tell your friends to stop repeating this silly and poor comparison . It s thoroughly stupid and I am sick of hearing it
Got it ?
Chris Goodman...you do appreciate that the earth always was orbiting around the Sun...its worryingly unclear.
All,those appealing like peasants at the oracle for "Scientists " there was a debate in the Pro green new scientist a month or two ago in which I would say honours were even.
oh it's the new religion ..... people have to believe in some mumbo-jumbo or other.
The article is somewhat reminiscent of the BBC's "impartial" look at the proposed EU treaty in their Politics section - i.e. anything but!
The article is somewhat reminiscent of the BBC's "impartial" look at the proposed EU treaty in their Politics section - i.e. anything but!
Oh dear. The way that opening paragraph is phrased (A new BBC poll has revealed that an average of seventy-nine per cent) would appear to contravene some editorial guidelines about reporting opinion polls.
In BBC News (which is not responsible for the front page of bbc.co.uk), our style is to say that opinion polls "suggest". They do not "prove", "reveal", or anything else. Also, anyone reporting opinion polls is supposed to mention the sample size, and the name of the polling organisation -- or at least the method by which it was carried out -- at least once. I haven't seen the original on the page, but it doesn't appear to be there.
What should worry all of us more than the issue of whether so-called climate change is anthropogenic is the unintended consequences of this proposition on world food production.
Thanks to the Gore-induced panic crop production for human consumption (via animal feeds as well) is being switched to biofuel production. This is at the time when China and other rapidly developing countries are soaking up more and more of the world's wheat and dairy products - and paying top dollar too - while we too are reducing our staple food output.
Time for Great Britain to stop thinking we can affect changes in weather conditions by any kind of unilateral action and just concentrate on protecting our population's needs for the future.
We are used to relatively cheap food. The shock of 50% or 70% increases in our household food bills in the next few years will be worse than the rises in all the other taxes that Brown has imposed on us for the last 10 years.
Or is he going to nationalise Tesco as well as Northern Rock?
Newmania,
Point out where I said that truth is reducible to whatever we agree it is and I might credit you with making a relevant point.
Diablo says: "We are used to relatively cheap food."
WHAT?
Where is food more expensive than Britain and Europe? Name one place on earth where they pay more for food than you do. Russia? N America? Brazil? China? India?
WHERE?
"... relatively cheap food". Relative to where? Are you daft? (No offence, but have you ever been outside Britain/Europe?)
Typos rule OK
the Philosopher Carl Poper
Strip away the bbc, eco-fanatics with no scientific training at all, and other Marxist propagadists.
Exactly how many real scientists that actually believe in this man-made global warming scam are you left with? And how many of them are making money out of it?
Peter said:
"Presumably for similar reasons that, when they discuss dinosaurs, they don't include information about creationism so people can make up their minds in a balanced way."
It's amazing how flawed some of the thing here is. Here's what it amounts to:
Creationism/flat-earthism is a minority view.
Creationism/flat-earthism is bollocks.
Scepticism over man-made climate change is (supposedly) a minority view.
THEREFORE
Scepticism is bollocks.
"Am I just getting crusty and right-wing, or is this an outrageous piece of BBC bias?"
No, not at all Iain: this is outrageous.
However, when you say:
"Nowhere is there any article posing any counter arguments, allowing the reader to take a balanced look at the evidence and then make up their own minds."
... you do sound a bit like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at Columbia University yesterday, denying the holocaust.
Would you like them to present the arguments supporting the claim that the world is flat as well, Iain?
The only scientists claiming global warming is not the result of human activity appear to be funded by the oil industry. Hardly independent?
I'm sure you love your car, but I'd quite like a habitable planet long after you're pushing up the daisies (actually there probably won't be any daisies by then)...
I was shocked by this example of BBC bias. Nowhere do they put the (much more credible) case that these guys are completely unfunny.
Please can we ban the phrase "scientific consensus". Science deal with exprimentation and flasfication. It is not something driven by consensus. Consensus is ad populum fallacy.
By all means say you think the scientific understanding and exprieement are weighted in one way or other, but stop talking about bloody consensus please. There used to be a "scientfic consensus" that the sun went around the earth, that the earth was flat.
Dizzy said, 'There used to be a "scientfic consensus" that the sun went around the earth, that the earth was flat.'
Well, yes and no. The geocentric universe was the consensus at one time, of course. The flat-earth bit is rather a myth. No doubt there were some that believed it, but even the ancient Greeks knew the earth was round because of the shape of the earth's shadow on the moon.
A couple of more scientific consenses for you, though:
1) phlogiston
2) the impossibility of human habitation in N. American in the pre-Clovis period.
Sppedbird.
Imagine the jet-setter Iain with a little cosmetic skin darkener and false beardlet. Then ask yourself:
"Have the the two of them ever been photographed in the same space/time continiuum?"
...you'll be hard pushed to find a meteologist, climatologist or biologist who disputes it.
You are lying, Peter. Less Than Half of all Published Scientists Endorse Global Warming Theory:-
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=8641
Of 528 total papers on climate change, only 38 (7%) gave an explicit endorsement of the consensus...However, while only 32 papers (6%) reject the consensus outright, the largest category (48%) are neutral papers, refusing to either accept or reject the hypothesis... This is no 'consensus.'
NASA has now admitted it screwed up its climate data and that it was actually the 1930s that were the hottest decade. The "phenomenon" to which all these snake oil scientists they were trying to attribute effects, that of rising temperatures in the 1990s, didn't even exist to begin with.
"Climate scientist" is now an oxymoron. The views of astrologers are worth more. In fact "climate science" fits fits wikipedia's definition of "pseudoscience" rather well:-
"...any subject that appears superficially to be scientific or whose proponents state is scientific but nevertheless contravenes the testability requirement, or substantially deviates from other fundamental aspects of the scientific method...Pseudosciences may be characterised by the use of vague, exaggerated or untestable claims, over-reliance on confirmation rather than refutation, lack of openness to testing by other experts, and a lack of progress in theory development."
The BBC-MMGW lobby to a tee, wouldn't you say? Oh no, you wouldn't, I forgot - you're a liar.
Dizzy said... "Please can we ban the phrase "scientific consensus".
Nothing wrong with the phrase. As almost everyone else knows, it simply means that the vast majority of scientists who are qualified to express an opinion about the matter in question are in agreement with the particular statement.
There is nothing wrong with people who do not know what they are talking about (such as roughly speaking everybody who talks about climate change) appealing to (if it exists) whatever views are currently generally accepted by specialists, just so long as we do not imagine that something called the “scientific method” that puts all such claims beyond dispute – with the implication that anybody who questions it are heretics who ought to be and ought therefore to be persecuted.
Nor is it simply a case of refuting claims with experimental evidence, since all such evidence has to be interpreted. But this does not mean that all views ought to be given equal weight, as if we could settle if the moon is made of cheese by taking a vote, or that experimental evidence counts for nothing.
The problem with the BBC is that they are (as usual) taking what is fashionable amongst middle class Leftists, and taking it as the gospel truth – a dubious strategy given that Leftists are not (and as far as I can see never have been) interested in truth, only in saying and doing things that make them feel good, especially if it makes people they dislike suffer.
If the BBC exists simply to provide employment for such people then I do not see why tax serfs should be forced to pay for it; although I can see why that arrangement appeals to Leftists, just as the church in the Middle Ages was a keen supporter of the tithes.
I reassure myself that when London is under 3 metres of water form the melting Greenland glaciers and North Polar icecap (these are facts), then :
The BBC will be underwater
and the climate doubters will be proven wrong.
Perhaps someone wil explain to me why the Government is seriously talking about a new Thames Barrier cos the sea levels are rising much faster than predicted when the last one was designed?
Frankly I don't care what the cause is. It obvious to any halfwit who looks at the facts that the icecaps are melting.
Of course ther are halfwits who don't believe facts.. but hey who cares abot them?
It is therefore sensible to take precautions.
And Diablo is correct. food surpluses.. are vanishing. They are being eaten and not replaced. So food prices are going up.
And for the benefit of Verity, UK food costs are high vs the US because UK transport costs and land and building costs are high. Simple economics.
I don't pretend to understand climate change causes. Most people have neither the maths or the meteorological knowledge to.
But sea levels and winter temperatures and ice levels are facts.
I know Londoners and those in the South of ENgland are isolated from winter weather. But in the past 20 years I have seen winter snowfalls reduce from 2 metre drifts to virtually nothing. To suggest that the UK is not seeing warmer winters is ... rather like King Canute. (Bluetongue anyone? Impossible with normal winters).
Anyone who believes 100% anything they see on TV or reads in papers is a muppet. Full stop. Anyone with any intelligence knwos that. Believing the BBC is like trusting politicians.. stoopid.
@ Madasafish
It obvious to any halfwit who looks at the facts that the icecaps are melting.
http://www.libertymatters.org/newsservice/2002/faxback/2.14.02glblwarm.htm
Two studies of temperatures and ice-cap movements in Antarctica suggest that...key sections of the ice cap appear to be growing thicker, not thinner, as previously believed. And the continent's average temperature appears to have cooled slightly during the past 35 years, not warmed.
Oh dear!
You poor, ignorant twit. You are being conned, you stupid gullible man.
Now shut up and pay your green taxes.
Madasafish says British food costs are high (I'll say they are!) because of UK transport costs, etc. In the US, they take grapefruit from Florida and the Rio Grande Valley in the far south of Texas (Britain would fit into Texas more than three times), and oranges from southern California 2,000 miles to markets in Michigan, New Hampshire, Wisconsin, etc, and they still half the cost of what they are in Britain. In Britain, everything is just down the road. When I lived in France, strawberries grown in the next village and brought over to the shop in the farmer's own little truck cost twice what they would have cost in the US.
There is something wrong and I will tell you what it is: EU protectionism. If we let the African producers try their hand at marketing their produce in Britain and the EU, the prices would be halved.
Some of these posts remind me of Homer Simpson's triumphant cry when a meteour is hurtling towards Springfield: "You see! I was right! We ARE all doomed!!"
Madasafish - The climate's in flux all the time. It warms up a few degrees over a several decades and it cools down a few degrees over several decades. Throughout recorded history and the history of the earth as determined by geologists.
We'd be crazy to deny that; and why would we want to? It's the brand new "discovery" that the Earth's natural cycle is actually caused by man! The first Ice Age (that we know of) - the big one - must have given way to "man made global melting" by our ancestors' discovery of fire. It couldn't have been activity - despite the claims of scientists - what do they know anyway, when Al Gore has a different take on the universe? - on the surface of the Sun because that would ruin the green tax scam.
The Earth will be heating and cooling over periods of time long after mankind has died out.
verity, you're an idiot. Your line of thinking seems to be thus: climate change in the past has been proved to be natural, thus the current warming can not be down to man.
Congratualations, you've just failed a first year logic class.
Isn't there some kind of irony award here? All these Tories denying the gruesome realities in front of us (all)and their failedarty led by the greenest candidate of all the main arties in England.
Superb.
I appeal to you to offer up a credible scientific basis for your 'environmental scepticism'. One will do.
tjm - a.k.a. spiteful one-worlder in the New World Order:
I haven't "failed logic class" because I'm not in a "logic class", you see. Perhaps I could note, equally senselessly, that you have just failed your fighter jet training? Or perhaps that you have just failed your neurosurgery exams. Or your ice-skating try-outs.
Try not to be vicious and irrelevant, there's a good little spiteful socialist.
Are you suggesting that the earth (and Mars, which is also undergoing the same level of global warming as is the Earth), having been heated and cooled by activity on the Sun's surface for millions - probably hundreds of millions - of years, have now stopped being influenced by the Sun? Strange, I see that things are still growing. Photosynthesis is still happening ...
Our current round of warming up over a few decades is completely in accord with the history of the planet.
Congratulations! You have just failed your Geology for Infants exam. (Al Gore will be happy to accept a payment to offset the pointless emissions out of your mouth.)
Gus Abraham writes: I appeal to you to offer up a credible scientific basis for your 'environmental scepticism'.
No.
It's not up to us to disprove your moonbat theories. It's up to you to prove them. We're waiting. Tick, tick, tick. Just prove your point with irrefutable evidence that puny little mankind is having a bigger effect on the universe than the Sun. Tick, tick, tick.
gus abraham [12.05 AM] Yes, global warming sceptics tend to be Tories. But then Tories tend to be older than liberals, and have a longer perspective on public affairs. In short, we don't believe everything we read, even if it's in the Guardian.
Morever, for very good historical reasons the all-scientists-now-agree line of argument doesn't cut much ice with us.
Some examples have been quoted by earlier posters. Here's another: in the year 1849 every reputable scientist agreed that cholera was transmitted by misasma (foul air). And every one of them, all the eminent physicians, all the knights and baronets, all the learned professors, all the members of the Royal Society; every one of them was just plain WRONG.
So now, when we see how the man-made global warming lobby will not admit even the possiblity of error, we reserve judgment.
Gus,
I'll go for a few
- The evidence for warming is mainly based on models. If you put the data ino the models for past events they do not predict what has happened. If they can't do this why should they be right about the future
- Those who believe the warming is linked to sun spot activity predict that temperatures will rise until about 2012 and can account for any rise seen to date
The information into the models is flawed. Temperatures are frequently taken in cities which have micro climates warmer than surrounding countryside. Rising readings in the cities can therefore be due to the growth of industrialisation affecting the micro climate and not th overall climate
- The amount of man made CO2 is tiny compared to natural CO2
There is a start
There was prime example today on the One O'clock News. There was an item about President Bush (booo) having a climate change summit with American industrialists, with the coverage dominated by someone burning corn ethanol with no reference to any down sides to this practice and every "expert" interviewed complaining that Bush (booo) was not enforcing any changes, only asking for a voluntary code. There was not one piece of the coverage giving any sort of praise to Bush's efforts.
Next item was Hilary Benn (yeahhh)banning lightbulbs, with no gainsayers or any attempt at "balanced coverage".
It makes you feel like bringing down the BBC News helicopter - for the good of the environment only, of course!
The earth revolves around the sun?
Fools, the world revolves around Gordon Brown now. Keep up people!
Yours Britishly,
Cher d Values
Ahouy there Shipmates,
I see you've swallowed whole all the comfortable mythology of a 1970's childhood.
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr... that makes me angry! Have you no dignity and respect. My life of piracy means I fight for everything I believe in, or else my festering crew will make me walk the plank.
Scumbags who have never left their comfortable Island are not fit to mop the floor. There no a fighting man amongst you, I'll wager!
Remember, do me wrong and I'll slice you from ear to ear.
AaaahHaaar! Jim lad, hoist the main sail, the Saucy Sue sails at dawn, away from this landmass of rotting corpses!!!!
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