The BBC Is Rotten To The Core
There has been a longstanding concern about blatant bias at the BBC, not least in matters of climate change. This certainly dates back at least to January 2006, when they held a seminar of “top scientific experts” to advise them on climate change. The BBC fought tooth and nail to conceal the identity of these ‘experts’, but it was subsequently discovered that they were not experts at all, but the usual collection of green lobbyists.
Ever since, the BBC’s coverage of global warming has been woefully one sided and often inaccurate.
This year they have been publishing a monthly feature; Then and Now, purportedly showing how the climate has been changing in a warming world.
One article looked at the recent drought in California, while another claimed that the Victoria Falls had dried up. Both implied that climate change was to blame, with the usual weasel words that while one weather event cannot be linked to climate change, “scientists” say that such events are likely to get worse with global warming.
However both stories omitted crucial information, which would have shown such claims to be nonsensical and untruthful.
California, for instance, has had droughts in the 20th Century every bit as bad as the current one. Moreover the official data clearly shows megadroughts there were much worse for much of the last thousand years or so.
In short, California is a land of drought. The modest amount of warming there since the Little Ice Age has altered nothing.
The BBC claims about the Victoria Falls were even more absurd. For a start, the Falls did not run dry; every dry season lake levels drop. As the Zambian side is at a higher elevation, the Falls there dry up, while continuing at the other end.
This happens every year, but the BBC deceitfully misled readers by showing a split image comparing Jan 2019 with Dec 2019. In January every year water levels rise sharply, and Jan 2020 was no exception.
It is certainly true that there was a drought in the region in 2019, and water levels were lower than average. But the Zambesi River Authority say that there have been six occasions since 1914 when water levels were lower, the worst being in 1995.
Just as with California, the BBC have picked on a drought, but ignored all of the data showing that they are both natural events, with no evidence that droughts are getting more severe or common.
This sort of misreporting of the Victoria Falls is of extreme concern to Zambia’s tourist industry and local businesses, who are naturally worried that tourists may stop visiting if they think the Falls are no longer there.
Which brings us to the point of the story. I complained to the BBC that both stories were grossly misleading and omitted crucial information.
Complaints to the BBC go through three stages. The first response appears to be written by the office junior, who tries to fob you off with a few bland statements.
If you are unhappy, you can resubmit the complaint, which usually gets the same response, though dressed up in sciency sounding language.
Finally you can appeal to the Executive Complaints Unit.
As is usually the case, I effectively received the same reply at all three stages, viz:
- There was a drought
- “Scientists say” climate change is making droughts worse
None of the replies actually addressed my complaint, that the actual data shows droughts are not unusual or getting worse at either location.
The real issue here of course is that the BBC Complaints Dept is all in house, even the ECU. In effect the BBC is marking its own homework.
In theory it is possible to appeal to OFCOM. In practice however they have no obligation to investigate, and would only consider doing so for substantive cases.
Clearly BBC bias will never be addressed until they are subject to a fully independent process, just as the press is.
In the meantime, if Tim Davie is serious about cleaning the stables, he should start by taking his axe to the bloated, fourteen strong Environmental Dept, which is now clearly out of control.
Instances of bias and misinformation, such as these two, are now commonplace in their output, and they seem to believe that they don’t even have to pay lip service to editorial guidelines anymore.
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RT
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The BBE (Beeb) does it’s homework? HaH. Lucky if it can get any facts in any report on the CC. Just GIGO all the time. Hype is all it is. Gotta carry the line of BS.
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tom0mason
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When people exclaim some climate or COVID stupidity at me, I usually ask “Are you deliberately lying, or are you just quoting the BBC?” If they persist I explain “The BBC just lies!”
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Jerry Krause
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Hi TomO and PSI Readers,
I scanned the recent comments to select where I wanted to paste the following and to ask the question: Are we maybe winning the war because all the people of USA are not stupid and the ‘ELITES are having to RECONIZE this???
New York Times”
July 21, 2021
Author Headshot
By David Leonhardt
Good morning. Why is the F.D.A. encouraging people to receive a Covid-19 vaccine — but hasn’t formally approved those vaccines?”
You PSI Readers have to find this article and PONDER it because I do not have the link handy and would have to do what you have to do to read what David Leonhardt wrote in the New York Times this morning.
Have a good day, Jerry
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Jerry Krause
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Hi TomO and PSI Readers,
I specifically address comment to TomO because as a PSI Commenter he has most consistently been on target in MY OPINION!!!
(https://principia-scientific.com/two-dams-in-chinas-inner-mongolia-collapse-after-heavy-rain/)
(https://principia-scientific.com/germanys-floods-caused-by-monumental-failure-of-the-warning-system/)
(https://wildfiretoday.com/2021/07/18/quick-summary-of-wildfires-in-washington-and-oregon/)
There is no such thing as a GLOBAL CLIMATE but there certainly is LOCAL WEATHER which changes from one day to the next, or from one year to the next, or from one, or more, decades to the next decades.
We lost a cabin and a 20 x 30ft shed (which shedi I had single-handedly built, to the ‘bootleg’ wildfire in southern Oregon. Whose smoke is said to have reached New York City now. What tragedy but what a NATURAL LABORATORY finally with many sites having great instrumentation funded by the USA Government which didn’t exist a Century ago, or even 4 decades ago, to study WEATHER and CLIMATE CHANGES!!!
Have a good day, Jerry
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Jerry Krause
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Hi TomO and PSI Readers,
If one seriously wants to understand WEATHER AND CLIMATE one needs to purchase an IR Thermometer and routinely point it at the walls of your homes, at the outside walls of your home, at the ground, at bushes and most importantly at the atmosphere of the SKY and the Clouds of the SKY. With these common observations (surface temperature measurements) one might stop writing some your common arguments which I too often read here at PSI.
Have a good day, Jerry
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tom0mason
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“IR Thermometer … at the atmosphere of the SKY and the Clouds of the SKY. “
Jerry it appears you do not understand and compensate for an IR Thermometer’s limitation. I may be wrong on this but I doubt it, as so many people are.
From https://www.fluke.com/en-us/learn/blog/temperature/how-to-get-great-results-with-an-infrared-thermometer
To get the best results possible, remember to:
‣ Know your IR thermometer’s distance-to-spot ratio, and get close enough to the target so your thermometer reads only the area that you want it to measure.
‣ Watch out for (and compensate for) shiny, “low emissivity” objects.
‣ Remember that steam or dust can affect the accuracy of IR thermometers.
‣ Keep the lens of your thermometer clean and free of scratches.
‣ To get the most accurate results, allow some time for the thermometer to come to the temperature of its surroundings.
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Jerry Krause
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Hi TomO,
I read your link. And I have to conclude that the author of the link and you have not routinely used an IR Thermometer
Just went into our bathroom and immediately took a reading of its mirror’s surface temperature and of the surface of the paint on the wall just beside the mirror. The temperature with these two surfaces were with tenths a degree F which was also within tenths of degree of the room’s air temperature conventionally measured with so common temperature measuring instrument.
This because the air and other two surface were in thermal equilibrium with each other. In this case, because of the thermal equilibrium condition is suspect that the wall or the glass of the mirror, a millimeter, or two, is approximately the near the same temperature measure for the surfaces.
However, when I go out on the street at midday on a cloudless day, I believe that the temperature of, say, 150F is not the temperature of the payment 1mm beneath its surface. And when I point the IRT straight up and read a temperature of, say, 0F; I understand it capturing the IR photons from a huge volume of atmosphere is would be the equivalent of those same photons being emitted toward my IRT from a surface whose temperature is 0F.
This morning, before I read your comment, I had gone outside: pointed the IRT down at the payment and read the same temperature (60F) as my outside weather station was reporting. And it was easy to see that the sky was partly cloudy with clouds of variable thickness and/or density of cloud droplets. In this case depending where I pointed the IRT up its readings ranged between, say, 20F and 40F. I do not consider these temperatures are necessary those of an average cloud drople for I understand the cloud droplets are scattering the IR photons being emitted outward by the surface of the payment back downward just as at the top of the cloud are scattering solar radiation upward toward space.
When I addressed you I did not know how you would respond to my comments, but I and reader of what we both wrote do know what we wrote. And I addressed you because I am confident that you will SEE (understand) what I am now writing. For we generally Trust each other’s understanding.
So Thank You, Thank You for the opportunity you have given me to further explain what I have observed. For also believe that the observations I have reported are FACTS which cannot be questioned.
Have a good day, Jerry
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sir_isO
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I’m just here to comment on the amusing element of there being a BBC article regarding “science” just below this article on the main page.
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aido
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On January 6th 2006, the BBC held a meeting of ‘leading scientists’ to decide on its future policy on reporting Climate Change.
Present were:
28 BBC employees
17 Environmentalists
10 Others (politicians, civil servants, aid workers)
3 Scientists Mike Hulme, climatologist
Dorthe Dahl-Jensen, Danish ice climatologist
Robert McCredie, physicist, zoology
The meeting decided that since there was a worldwide ‘consensus’ that Climate Change is largely man-made and dangerous, the BBC should no longer provide any airtime to people with dissenting views.
In their 2015 report, the BBC Trust reported that 200 BBC journalists had gone through training on how not to give “undue attention to marginal opinion” when covering scientific issues including global warming.
Lord Reith, the founder of the BBC must be spinning in his grave.
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