Harrabin the denier

How wonderful it is that my debut post here on Biased BBC times perfectly with a nugget of a post over at Bishop Hill, which underlines the BBC’s reputation for telling half the story all the time.

The subject is climate change, so once again our eyes turn towards the Socratic wonder that is the BBC Environment Analyst, Roger Harrabin. Speaking as a member of what appears to have been a panel of prestige-laden experts in front of an invited audience a few months ago, Harrabin had this to say:

What we appear to have constructed in climate change is a bunch of people who say, ‘I’m really worried about the future. I’m really worried about climate change’; a small group of people who say, ‘I don’t give a damn. It’s not going to happen. Humans can’t change the planet’; and quite a lot of people in the middle who say, ‘Well actually, I don’t know. I hear these competing voices and I don’t know’.

Biased to his rent seeking, vested interest heavy core, one notices how Harrabin is yet again distorting reality. Where in his analysis is any mention of the overwhelming of climate change sceptics who say, ‘The climate is changing and always has; and scientific evidence shows it has been both warmer and cooler in the past as a result of natural factors we aren’t even close to understanding, therefore mankind’s influence could very well be grossly overstated’?

Harrabin has deliberately set out yet again to paint what passes for debate about climate change as warmists on one side and ‘deniers’ on the other, while airbrushing mainstream scepticism out of the story. This is another example of the bias at the heart of our public sector broadcaster, which consistently abuses its monopoly on ‘news’ reporting to condition the mindset of those compelled to pay for such output.

Far from climate change sceptics being deniers, the real deniers are the likes of Roger Harrabin, who load their reportage with bias and distortions and ‘educate’ fellow Beeboids to adopt the same narrative.

The BBC, it’s what they do.

MELTING ICE – AGAIN…

Since the IPCC admitted last year telling huge porkies about the dangers from Himalayan glaciers, dozens of greenies have clearly been sent there to prove that they were right after all. Last month, for example, Richard Black faithfully reported, on a sample size of 10 out of 54,000 glaciers, that ‘ice loss was accelerating’, underlining the need for massive new taxes at the Durban climate talks. It was rubbish, of course. Now Mr Black’s colleague-in-arms, Jonathan Amos, has filed a Boxing Day tale of woe as part of the IPCC’s continuing campaign. His worry is that near the Cho Oyo peak, a new ‘enormous’ meltwater lake called Spillway (who called it that, I wonder?) could – because of undoubted warming – bring menace:

The concern is that this great mass of water could eventually breach the debris dam and hurtle down the valley, sweeping away the Sherpa villages in its path. The threat is not immediate, but it’s a situation that needs monitoring, say scientists.

As usual, despite the uncertainty that he clearly acknowledges, it’s a onesided rant about impending peril. The source of it appears to be mainly Ulyana Horodyskyj, from the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at the University of Colorado in Boulder, US. And her qualifications? She’s reading for her doctorate in geological sciences. Well golly gosh, our future is in safe hands.

The rest of the piece is larded with claims such as that that the region is like Swiss cheese and that this is an ‘exponential (meltwater) growth area’.

Put alarmist greenies guzzling on fat research grants into an area, and they will find a problem. And the BBC will be faithfully there to report it.

Myth-Spinning From Detroit

There’s yet another BBC North America correspondent pushing an agenda these days. Ian Pannell has gone to Detroit to spin a tale of woe and misery, blaming all of it on the current economic situation. He even clearly articulates the message one is meant to take away:

“The gap between the rich and poor in America is now bigger than it’s been for 30 years.”

Pannell closes the piece with this line, followed by a statement that “what we’ve seen” all over the US is a similar problem.  In case anyone didn’t bother watching all the way through, the message is spelled out equally clearly in the blurb accompanying the video.

Now, before we get into the problems of Detroit, let me just say that I’m in no way denying that there’s a severe economic problem in the US right now. I’m on record here many times complaining about exactly that. In fact, I believe we’ve been in a Depression for the last 18 months or so, and will continue to be unless there’s a drastic change nationwide. So this post is not meant to challenge Pannell’s last sentence. Instead, I mean to challenge the agenda being pushed and the myth being spun specifically from Detroit.

Detroit, of course, is definitely a problem city. Unemployment in the Detroit-Livonia-Dearborn region is the worst in the nation  among what we call “greater metropolitan areas”. As of May 2010, Detroit had about 90,000 (!) abandoned homes or residential lots, and the city has had to spend money demolishing them. If that seems like an awful lot of homes emptying over a relatively short period of time (we’re meant to assume that this is all about the “downturn” since 2008), you’d be right to be suspicious. Yet Pannell wants you to believe that Detroit is just like the rest of the country, a victim of economic inequality thrust upon it by outside forces. Well-trained BBC audiences will already know the approved causes: greedy bankers and the evil rich appropriating more than their fare share of wealth.

Except it’s simply not true. Detroit has been going down the tubes for years and years. Here’s what Pannell and the BBC don’t want you to know, because it detracts from their agenda:
First of all, Detroit suffers from relying far, far too much on a single workhorse: the automotive industry. The fact that the industry has been in decline for a couple of decades or more – so bad that the President had to bail out the unions out GM and sell Chrysler off – is an inconvenient truth which interferes with Pannell’s tale, so he leaves it out. White flight and urban blight have been a problem for decades. How could Detroit’s struggles as portrayed by the BBC be largely due to a recent phenomenon if a site like “The Fabulous Ruins of Detroit” won a local award in 1998?  There were 12,000 abandoned homes as of 2005.  In 2008 – at the beginning of the economic crisis, mind – unemployment was at 21% in some areas, and criminals were re-offending to stay in the safety and comfort of prison rather than trying to get by in a disaster area.

Detroit’s population has declined by 25% over the last decade. This has very little to do with the “downturn” (it’s only a recession when conservatives are in charge, right?). Pannell provides none of this context. The problems of the last three years have obviously made things tougher, but to portray Detroit purely as a victim of the recent economic crisis is false. But it does help feed the class war mythology which the BBC loves to push.

Another Detroit problem Pannell doesn’t want you to know about is that Detroit was on the brink of insolvency by 2005. It was driven there by powerful unions and poor management from a series of economic denialist Democrat mayors, and capped off by a Democrat mayor who ended up in prison over a sex scandal. To be fair, I’m pretty sure Republican mayors in that area wouldn’t have done much better, considering the corruption and cronyism that went on, and that precious few Republicans over the last decade have been fiscal conservatives. Regardless of who was in charge, though, the city lost 39% of its manufacturing jobs – mostly in the auto industry – in the 1980s. Unemployment ten years ago was among the worst in the nation. This has nothing to do with the current economic situation.

As of 2002, five of the ten largest employers in the area were state-run organizations. Indeed, the top two employers were the public school system and the City government itself. Does that sound familiar? This is never a recipe for growth and success. The Post Office was the #7 employer, and I think we can all guess how that works out after the city loses a quarter of its population. Even a media studies graduate can do the math here.

But none of this context is provided to the BBC audience. All you see is a tale of woe, people struggling to survive in tough economic times. The struggle is real, but the direct cause presented to you by Pannell is false. Using Detroit like this to highlight the current economic crisis in the US is like using Grimethorpe to highlight what Tory Cuts have done over the last couple years without telling you about the closing of the mines.

This is the result of agenda-driven newsgathering and reporting. It’s a dishonest report, pushing a specific agenda, intended to support the BBC’s Narrative about income inequality. Don’t trust the BBC on US issues.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Just wanting to take a quiet moment from a hectic schedule to wish ALL Biased BBC writers and readers a very Merry Christmas and best wishes for 2012. It’s been a very busy year on the site as we go from strength to strength, with more people than ever regularly visiting Biased BBC. I really do need a few days of a break so let me wish you and yours Seasonal salutations and I will return shortly!

WHILST SHEPHERDS WATCHED…

Bang on cue, the BBC couldn’t let Christmas arrive without having yet ANOTHER go at the pesky Jews. Check out this outrageous item ran on Today this morning. It seems that Israeli security restrictions are causing no end of hassle for Palestinian Shepherds seeking to attend festivities in Bethlehem. (No mention as to why these security restrictions are needed, but then this is the BBC..). Also note the repeated use of the “Occupied” land meme plus the “illegal under International Law” trope. Pure Palestinian propaganda brought to you from Jew hatred central.

ICE, BABY

Propagating AGW cultism is an essential element of BBC broadcasting, as Biased BBC’s Alan points out here…

“The BBC have beenbusy recently pumping out the propaganda to support their belief in man madeglobal warming. Many programmes have suddenly appeared about the Arctic andAntarctic….surely no coincidence.Many of the conclusionss are highly questionable and some outright misleading.

Apart from the ‘Frozen Planet’ advert for AGW we have these other programmesbombarding us with the ‘science’ or not…..

Natural World – 2008-2009 – 9. Polar Bears and Grizzlies – Bears on Top of theWorld
Documentary following a mother polar bear, a mother grizzly bear and theirnewborn cubs as they adapt to a warming world. (R) The shrinking Arctic ice may be making life much tougher for polar bears, butit is offering new opportunities for grizzly bears to the south.

Rowing the Arctic – Mark Beaumont and Jock Wishart head an expedition to row a boat to the 1996north magnetic pole, a point only now accessible due to the recent dramaticretreat of arctic sea ice.
Nobody has ever rowed so far into the Canadian high Arctic – a first in theworld of exploration and adventure, only made possible by the dramatic retreatof arctic sea ice in recent decades.

The Secret Life of Ice – Dr Gabrielle Walker looks deep within the ice crystal to try to discover howsomething so ephemeral has the power to sculpt landscapes, preserve our pastand inform our future. (R)
….’the records of ice and CO2 have moved in tandem for 800,000 years,scientists say this supports their theories of man made global warming….awarning difficult to ignore.’

Timeshift – Series 11 – 7. Antarctica: Of Ice and Men. Documentary which looks at why the most inhospitable place on the planet hasexerted such a powerful hold on the imagination of explorers, scientists,writers and photographers. (R) ….’The Antarctic needs protection…a fragile frontline of global warmingwhere the effects of global warming are most keenly felt.’

The 1996 magnetic north pole is far further south than the present MNP now asthe magnetic pole moves northwest about 37 miles per year….is ice melt due toyou driving your car to Tescos or is it more to do with the sun and perhaps thetilt of the Earth as it becomes more upright on its axis making the Arctic more’sunny’ and hot?

Does the link between temperature rises and CO2 as shown in ice records meanCO2 drives temperature rises? No…even Phil Jones from the CRU has had toadmit that temperatures show a rise 800 years before CO2 rises. So slightlydisingenuous of the BBC to make that link.

And is the Antarctic at the frontline of global warming? No….the Antarctichas seen increased ice for 30 years….who says so? http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/

‘In recent years, the sea ice cover that surrounds the Antarctic continent hasbeen higher than average, even reaching near-record highs. Antarctic sea ice varies much more from year to year than Arctic sea ice, butoverall, ice extent around Antarctica has been growing slightly over the past30 years.’

and also snow cover is up…though moving around the world…..’overallNorthern Hemisphere snow cover was more extensive than normal this November,with most of the extra snow cover found in Canada and Russia. Snow covered anaverage of 36.2 million square kilometers (14.0 million square miles) ofNorthern Hemisphere land. This is 2.79 million square kilometers (1.08 millionsquare miles) above the 1971 to 2000 mean, and ranks as the fourth mostextensive cover in the past 46 years of satellite-derived snow cover records.’

DON’T START ME TALKING….

The bias of the BBC is often accompanied by the sheer inanity. Next week, the Today programme will have “guest editors” and one of these is the “comedian” Stewart Lee. Clearly the BBC are so excited about Stewart’s forthcoming editorial debut that they felt inclined to allow him to do an item on Today this morning. (7.42am) Stewart did not disappoint and gave us his curious opinions as to what Oliver Cromwell would think of the modern Christmas. This turned out to be a less than cloaked onslaught on how “commercialism” has killed Christmas, although last time I checked, I can’t recall Mr Lee urging a celebration of Christianity? The only good thing about this trash is that it used several excerpts from my favourite song. Sorry I have no link, nothing put up on the site yet by the BBC – have they already cleared off on holiday?

WHEN GOOD NEWS IS NO NEWS!

Good to see the Daily Mail following in our humble footsteps and getting stuck in to the State Broadcaster;

“Two hours before Britain’s economic figures were released yesterday, the BBC enthusiastically predicted that growth would be ‘even worse than we thought’. The potential economic slowdown was discussed at length in grave tones for three and a half minutes on Radio 4’s flagship Today programme. The issue was considered important enough to be placed third on the programme’s news bulletins at 7.30am and 8am. 

Unfortunately, their pessimistic predictions were wrong. Instead of growth being worse than forecast, it was better. But rather than injecting a more optimistic tone into their analysis, they simply relegated the story to being an also-ran. 

Indeed it dropped off some later bulletins altogether. The World at One on Radio 4 did not include it in its headlines, neither did BBC1’s 1pm news. Earlier on the Today programme, the normally scrupulously impartial John Humphrys introduced the economy story with a dose of doom. He said: ‘We know the economy is slowing down, which is another way of saying the nation won’t be getting much richer, if at all. But today the latest revised growth figures will be published and everyone seems to think they will show it’s even worse than we thought.’

If only the Mail would get with the BBC view of economics and accept that we need to follow the received wisdom of Stepahnie “Two Eds” Flanders and resort to Plan B ….more unfunded spending.


DISASTER!

My sources tell me that there is weeping and wailing in BBC newsrooms, black ties may be worn and solemn music should be played…..at this breaking news…..

The UK economy grew by 0.6% between July and September, official figures have shown, faster than previous estimates of 0.5%. The rise was driven by strong performance in the service sector and construction, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said.