BBC debunks the skeptics
If there was any doubt about the mainstream media’s agenda, this piece from the BBC should lay them to rest. It cites ten global warming skeptic arguments, and provides counter-arguments. Note the image caption: Unravelling the skeptics, which links to an article by the BBC’s environment correspondent who claims he’s not entirely sure what the arguments against the political consensus on global warming actually are.
This is not reporting. This is nothing less than partisan advocacy.
For its rebuttals, it relies on information supplied by Gavin Schmidt, who calls a significant correction of the most relied-upon temperature data — maintained by the organisation that employs him — “another ado about nothing“, who is a co-contributor at RealClimate.org with Michael Mann (he of the broken hockey-stick), and who claims to welcome openness in the debate but refuses to admit Steve McIntyre to the same debate.
The arguments are notable only for their vagueness, and for the patchy nature (at best) of the rebuttals. Worse, it omits the biggest and best of the skeptics’ arguments: that the direct and indirect costs of government programmes to curb global warming will exceed any claimed benefits even if they were to accrue, alternatively that the cost-benefit of spending resources on climate change is considerably worse than the cost-benefit of directing those same resources towards any number of other global problems.
I’ve considered most of the specific arguments in previous posts on the subject. Check under the climate change category for a selection. One day, should I find myself casting about for some productive procrastination, I may fisk the “news” in this article in particular.
But whatever you do, whether or not the BBC is right, and whether or not you believe them, do not mistake it for “news”. It’s BBC News, which is a different animal altogether.
I’ll throw in my contributions to the debate by replying to the BBC’s Richard Black Propaganda at http://things.auditblogs.com/2007/11/13/bbc-black-propaganda-1/ and http://things.auditblogs.com/2007/11/14/bbc-black-propaganda-2/
Of course, the real take home message is that a BBC journalist’s output has no repercussions and no responsibility to justify their actions of sleaze and censorship. No retraction of “Climate Chaos” will ever happen.
When global warming finally gets debunked by reality, the BBC will “move on”
Naturally for “environmental journalists”, if their careers only came into existence because of the pervasive popularity of global warming then they have an archetypal responsibility to support the claims or lose their jobs. There’s no such thing as “conflict of interest” to the MSM…
Actually, that’s a good point. I’m a journalist. Some of my income depends on climate change alarmism, since it’s a subject I often argue against in my columns. The day nobody believes it anymore, I’ll have lost a topic that generates significant interest.
If, in addition, South Africa’s telecommunications policy gets fixed, and the government turns away from national socialism to adopt sensible free market policies, I’ll have nothing left to argue about. Except maybe the arrogance of cyclists who think they have a right to shut down our cities so they can invade our roads to amuse themselves with sweaty posturing in day-glo tights.
Now there’s a conflict of interest. ;-)
@ John A: Excellent work in those entries you posted. Thanks for linking to them here.