28-Gate: BBC Crisis Deepens in Exposure of Rigged and Unlawful Climate Policy

The shocking revelations are thanks to sleuthing blogger Maurizio Morabito (omnologos) who found the list in old internet archives left after the meeting of January 26, 2006 at BBC Television Centre, London. Thereafter, that fateful policy decision re-shaped BBC programming but it has now left the corporation exposed in serious breach of the BBC’s Charter.

The latest revelations are despite the loss last week for North Wales pensioner,Tony Newbery of Harmless Sky who had fought his own six-year battle under Freedom of Information laws at an Information Rights Tribunal to bring an end to the secrecy.

In the list (reproduced below) we see that the BBC’s so-called “specialist” panel was no more than a hotch-potch of pro-green activists or sympathizers for the BBC’s agenda. By deceit and subterfuge broadcasting policy was altered to exclude climate skeptics. As another analyst noted: “This was an unprecedented decision for the BBC in peacetime.”

Already dubbed “28Gate” the list of names offers powerful new evidence for a legal challenge against the BBC showing that the megalithic broadcaster intentionally and illegally maintained it’s deception to fool the recent public tribunal headed by David Marks QC, as presiding judge.

Evidence for a conspiracy began as early as June 2007 when the BBC Trust published it’s report  From Seesaw to Wagon Wheel [PDF] in which it declared the get together was to have been:

“a high-level seminar with some of the best scientific experts, and has come to the view that the weight of evidence no longer justifies equal space being given to the opponents of the consensus [on anthropogenic climate change].”

But now we know only two climate scientists sat among the 28 participants. First was Mike Hulme of the discredited University of East Anglia (UEA). Readers may recall that the UEA was the center of controversy during the Climategate scandal. Second, Dahl-Jensen of the Niels Bohr Institute; the only “boots on the ground” climate expert. Dr. Dahl-Jensen is currently researching glaciers in Greenland. Among the other “scientific experts” were BBC’s Head of Comedy, Jon Plowman and Claire Foster from the Church of England.

During the recent tribunal the director of BBC News, Helen Boaden, took the stand to declare that the 2006 secret panel was comprised of “scientists with contrasting views.” But as the list proves, all present were solidly in the alarmist camp. Boaden appears to have further misled the tribunal by claiming there was no record of the meeting. But the facts tell a different story. Boaden is already being pilloried for her part in the Jimmy Saville pedophile scandal.  But as we now see, her deceit is only matched or exceeded by her self-serving corporate colleagues.

Prominent at the seminar were Greenpeace big hitters Andy Atkins, Advocacy Director Blake Lee-Harwood, Head of Campaigns and Li Moxuan, Climate campaigner, Greenpeace Chinawell. Also there was George Entwistle, the BBC Director General who resigned on Saturday in the furor over the BBC’s libeling of Tory peer, Lord McAlpine on false charges of pedophilia. Entwistle,  to great public anger, immediately pocketed a cool £450,000 lump sum after just 54 days in the job.

Other eco-zealots in attendance were Robert May (a zoologist) who is on record declaring the world was on a “calamitous trajectory” due to global warming. The BBC was recently forced to admit that the seminar was organised by the Cambridge Media and Environment Programme (CMEP), established by pro-green activist Joe Smith and BBC reporter Roger Harrabin (co-founder of CMEP). Harrabin is also on the UEA’s Advisory board of the Tyndall Centre – raising serious conflict of interest issues. Pointedly,  not one of the attendees deals with attribution science, the physics of global warming.

No surprises to learn that the CMEP gets its money from the hardline green organisation WWF and the UK government’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Recently it was revealed that £15,000 was also donated by the very dodgy University of East Anglia. Such is the measure of this “impartial” panel. What is so outrageous is that this willful deception is such an utter betrayal of those millions of Brit households that each pays a compulsory £147 (US$235) a year to fund the BBC, and all for the privilege of possessing a television.

Blogging sleuth Morabito insists there was nothing illegal about how he obtained the list. “It is available for all to see in the Wayback Machine [the Internet archive service].” A ‘Wayback’ search reveals that other academics in attendance (Bravo, Widdicombe, Smith) have no formal science training whatsoever. Also among the climate activists groups and self-serving green appointees is Ashok Sinha of Stop Climate Chaos.

Incongruously, also in attendance was Trevor Evans, a  member of the US embassy serving as ECON/EST Officer and a true dyed in the wool greenie. Also in on the Big Green love-in was Tadesse Dadi whose only apparent qualification is as a charity worker for Tearfund, a UK Christian relief agency. Beside her sat Mark Galloway, Director, IBT and Andy Atkins, Advocacy Director, Tearfund, both also “specialists” in charity work and lobbying on climate causes.

Meanwhile fellow panellist Dr Poshendra Satyal has ties to UNEP and the Society of Environmental Journalists. Rafael Hidalgo is “specialist” not in climate but in TV/multimedia production and is a former Business Consultant at Television Trust for the Environment. While Dr Joe Smith, of the Open University boasts on his online bio that he’s been in “collaboration with the BBC“ on the “experimental reframings of environmental change.” Smith’s credentials as a zealot on climate broadcasting are impeccably revealed in his 2005 paper where he specifically addresses the issue of “shaping public understanding” his way.

With a body so loaded with one-sided opinions the only meaningful discussion among these “Specialists” would have been how best the BBC could “sell” it’s message on global warming. Critics could be forgiven for inferring that the few scientists there were only to advise how far the panel could go before any such “message” went deep into the realms of climate propaganda and meeting the bounds of any legal challenge under the BBC Charter.

we now see that “28Gate” exposes the lie that the BBC has a  “balanced”  policy on climate change. For six years the BBC has pursued a cynical corporate strategy to withhold from the public a wide range of material when all the people wanted to know was whether the BBC is fulfilling its statutory obligations as per it’s royal charter. In fact, the national broadcaster is shown to have misused public funds and abused its code on impartiality. Expect heads to roll and lawsuits to fly – may be even prosecutions for perjury.

UPDATE: Morabito has updated his “why the list matters” with new key points:

Since 2006 the four BBC representatives: Peter Rippon, Steve Mitchell, Helen Boaden, George Enwistle have all risen to senior office. ‘Coincidentally’ this same four have resigned or ‘stepped aside’ this week over the false pedophilia accusations against Lord McAlpine. (h/t Bruce Hoult in a Bishop Hill comment)

The “28Gate” List:
Robert May, Oxford University and Imperial College London
Mike Hulme, Director, Tyndall Centre, UEA
Blake Lee-Harwood, Head of Campaigns, Greenpeace
Dorthe Dahl-Jensen, Niels Bohr Institute, Copenhagen
Michael Bravo, Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge
Andrew Dlugolecki, Insurance industry consultant
Trevor Evans, US Embassy
Colin Challen MP, Chair, All Party Group on Climate Change
Anuradha Vittachi, Director, Oneworld.net
Andrew Simms, Policy Director, New Economics Foundation
Claire Foster, Church of England
Saleemul Huq, IIED
Poshendra Satyal Pravat, Open University
Li Moxuan, Climate campaigner, Greenpeace China
Tadesse Dadi, Tearfund Ethiopia
Iain Wright, CO2 Project Manager, BP International
Ashok Sinha, Stop Climate Chaos
Andy Atkins, Advocacy Director, Tearfund
Matthew Farrow, CBI
Rafael Hidalgo, TV/multimedia producer
Cheryl Campbell, Executive Director, Television for the Environment
Kevin McCullough, Director, Npower Renewables
Richard D North, Institute of Economic Affairs
Steve Widdicombe, Plymouth Marine Labs
Joe Smith, The Open University
Mark Galloway, Director, IBT
Anita Neville, E3G
Eleni Andreadis, Harvard University
Jos Wheatley, Global Environment Assets Team, DFID
Tessa Tennant, Chair, AsRia

BBC attendees:
Jana Bennett, Director of Television
Sacha Baveystock, Executive Producer, Science
Helen Boaden, Director of News
Andrew Lane, Manager, Weather, TV News
Anne Gilchrist, Executive Editor Indies & Events, CBBC
Dominic Vallely, Executive Editor, Entertainment
Eleanor Moran, Development Executive, Drama Commissioning
Elizabeth McKay, Project Executive, Education
Emma Swain, Commissioning Editor, Specialist Factual
Fergal Keane, (Chair), Foreign Affairs Correspondent
Fran Unsworth, Head of Newsgathering
George Entwistle, Head of TV Current Affairs
Glenwyn Benson, Controller, Factual TV
John Lynch, Creative Director, Specialist Factual
Jon Plowman, Head of Comedy
Jon Williams, TV Editor Newsgathering
Karen O’Connor, Editor, This World, Current Affairs
Catriona McKenzie, Tightrope Pictures [email protected]

BBC Television Centre, London (cont)
Liz Molyneux, Editorial Executive, Factual Commissioning
Matt Morris, Head of News, Radio Five Live
Neil Nightingale, Head of Natural History Unit
Paul Brannan, Deputy Head of News Interactive
Peter Horrocks, Head of Television News
Peter Rippon, Duty Editor, World at One/PM/The World this Weekend
Phil Harding, Director, English Networks & Nations
Steve Mitchell, Head Of Radio News
Sue Inglish, Head Of Political Programmes
Frances Weil, Editor of News Special Events