The BBC just can’t help themselves
A few days ago, the BBC carried an article on their website entitled ‘Then and now: Pandemic clears the air’, and it’s true, the pandemic has resulted in better air quality in many places. However, after just one paragraph, we got their usual fearmongering and virtue-signalling.
The article starts:
In our monthly feature, Then and Now, we reveal some of the ways that planet Earth has been changing against the backdrop of a warming world. Air pollution has long been one of the biggest killers, claiming an estimated seven million victims annually. However, the Covid-19 global pandemic showed how quickly we could clear the air once we cut the number of journeys we made…
A warming world. About one degree celsius since the Industrial Revolution. Wow.
The article continues with a before and after image of a street in New Delhi.
It then says:
Air pollution has long been one of the most severe forms of environmental damage.
Figures from the World Health Organization (WHO) estimate that air pollution kills seven million people worldwide every year.
Its data also shows that 9 out of 10 people breathe air that exceeds WHO guideline limits on high levels of pollutants.
It is quite true that places like New Delhi suffer from poor air quality. So do many places in the Far East, mainly because their emissions standards are much lower than in the West. So does Los Angeles, being built in perhaps the most notorious thermal inversion trap in the world.
The article then takes a sharp turn and states:
Emissions from fuel combustion account for almost a quarter of CO2 emissions from human activities.
So the impact of lockdowns on transport around the globe in the Covid-19 pandemic has been stark.
According to the International Energy Agency, average activity on the world’s roads fell by almost 50% compared with 2019.
The improvement in air quality was clear to see.
It then shows another before and after air pollution image.
We went from talking about air pollution to blaming carbon dioxide for causing pollution in one sentence.
It then states:
In a short space of time, urban areas were recording massive reductions in a range of pollutants associated with internal combustion engines.
Data collected by the UK’s National Centre for Atmospheric Science shows marked reductions in nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and in particulate matter (PM2.5) across 10 cities.
That is all quite correct and proper, but then the article descends into nonsense:
In India, people took to social media to post images of clear skies after an estimated 90% of road journeys stopped during the lockdown.
Speaking in April, Sunil Dahiya from the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air told BBC News: “The current crisis has shown us that clear skies and breathable air can be achieved very fast if concrete action is taken to reduce burning of fossil fuels.” (Emphasis added)
However, as quickly as air quality improved during lockdowns, so it appears to have returned to normal just as fast once lockdowns were eased or lifted.
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said the global response to the Covid-19 crisis has had little impact on the continued rise in atmospheric concentrations of CO2.
Carbon emissions did fall dramatically as lockdowns cut transport and industry sharply.
But data from the WMO showed that it had only marginally slowed the overall rise in concentrations.
The details were published in the WMO’s annual greenhouse gas bulletin.
During the lockdowns, there were widespread calls for the environmental benefits to be maintained.
Proponents said it was essential that economic growth after the pandemic focused on following a low emission, sustainable path.
Despite calls to build back greener, it seems as if the priority has been business as usual, regardless of cost.
The pandemic lockdowns had little impact on the level of atmospheric CO2 because human activity only contributes THREE PERCENT of the amount that goes into the atmosphere every year. The other 97 percent comes from natural processes, but as usual, the BBC did not report that very important fact.
They also continue to equate carbon dioxide with pollution, which is as we should all know, a barefaced lie.
Those wanting the ‘environmental benefits to be maintained’ are asking for lockdowns to become permanent, regardless of the cost to humanity. In fact, I would agrue they are actively seeking to destroy economies, minimise economic activity and travel of any kind, and force people to endure significantly reduced standards of living, with the attendant reduction in public health and lifespans, to ‘save the planet’.
Richard Lindzen said “What historians will definately wonder about in future centuries is how deeply flawed logic, obscured by shrewd and unrelenting propaganda, actually enabled a coalition of powerful special interests to convince nearly everyone in the world that CO2 from human industry was a dangerous, planet-destroying toxin. It will be remembered as the greatest mass delusion in the history of the world – that CO2, the life of plants, was considered for a time to be a deadly poison.”
The BBC are doing their level best to continue to promote this LIE as proven fact.
Even if we totally ‘decarbonised’ the entire world, we would only reduce the amount of CO2 going into the atmosphere each year by three percent, and we would have destroyed our civilisation in the process.
Yet, it seems there are some who are wanting exactly that outcome.
About the author: Andy Rowlands is a university graduate in space science and British Principia Scientific International researcher, writer and editor who co-edited the new climate science book, ‘The Sky Dragon Slayers: Victory Lap‘
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JaKo
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Hi Andy,
Please correct me if I’m wrong on this one: Re. the 97% — I think we should always think of the carbon cycle as a throughput process; if all humans and all our livestock, crops and gadgets instantly disappeared, the CO2 level would not drop to and stay at 97% of the current state, the planet would quickly compensate and bring the level to its “liking.”
Also, I don’t want to bet, but I think the MSM will soon claim that the recent and near future cooling is the result of all the world-wide-lock-downs, despite the rise of CO2 level “has not budged a degree” in its slope for 2020:
https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/gl_trend.html
Cheers, JaKo
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Andy
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Hi Jako, I would guess the mainstream media will continue to claim the temperature is increasing for some time yet, empowered by fabricated graphs and charts from the likes of Mann and GISS.
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NecktopPC
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Statements
11:02 AM EDT Sunday 06 June 2021
Special air quality statement in effect for:
City of Toronto
High levels of air pollution are expected today. A Special Air Quality Statement is in effect due to the possibility of deteriorating air quality. Hot and sunny conditions are expected to cause increasing ground-level ozone concentrations in the area. Moderate risk AQHI values are expected throughout the day with the potential of short-term high risk AQHI values in the afternoon.
Similar conditions may persist into Monday.
https://weather.gc.ca/warnings/report_e.html?on61#213757036340792090202106050503wo2080cwto
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