TRIAL BY BUSHFIRE

The BBC’s environment correspondent Matt McGrath reveals that when the science doesn’t match his beliefs he doesn’t bother with the science:

I don’t know about you, but the recent row about Met Office climate predictions and a slowdown in global warming has left me shrugging my shoulders.

Yes, obviously the science is important and the issue is critical to our survival as species etc etc, but arguments about experimental models and degrees of difference seem really far removed from the concerns and interests of many people.

 

Get to the bottom of the article and you see he changes his mind about the importance of science…when it supports his argument…whilst ‘appearing’ to present a sceptical viewpoint he in fact presses the man-made global warming view…..

Meanwhile, despite the supposition in the UK that global warming may actually be stuck on pause over the past two decades, new figures from the US suggest that 2012 was the warmest year ever recorded.

 

 

The article is about the bushfires in Australia which the Greens are overjoyed to see occurring as they believe they point to God scourging the Earth of evil CO2 polluters and climate change deniers.

 

McGrath again attempts a subtle sleight of hand….making you believe that scientists are cautious about claiming a link with global warming…only for him to add that ‘the connection has become a bit more  certain’…..so, yes, they’re  ‘cautious’…but you know what…global warming is man-made:

 

Politicians are often quick to point the finger at a vague notion of global warming.

“Whilst you would not put any one event down to climate change,” said Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, “We do know over time that as a result of climate change we are going to see more extreme weather events and conditions.”

Scientists, though, have been remarkably silent on the connection.

The connection between climate change and wildfires has become a bit more certain. In a paper published last year, leading Australian experts predicted an increased risk of fire in some of the areas now suffering the worst affects, including Tasmania and South Australia.

But the report couldn’t clearly identify the source of that change.’

 

In the article he is quick to list ‘record’ temperatures and severity of the bushfires…however just as with the BBC’s report of ‘record’ rainfall in the UK he fails, conveniently, to look back in history.

Bushfires are not new to Australia.

Extraordinarily extreme bushfires are not new to Australia.

‘Bushfires in Australia are frequently occurring events during the hotter months of the year due to Australia’s mostly hot, dry climate. Large areas of land are ravaged every year by bushfires, which also cause property damage and loss of life.
Certain native flora in Australia have evolved to rely on bushfires as a means of reproduction and fire events are an interwoven and an essential part of the ecology of the continent
In some eucalypt and banksia species, for example, fire causes seed pods to open, which allows them to germinate.  Fire also encourages the growth of new grassland plants. Other species have adapted to recover quickly from fire.’

 

In 1851 there were the Black Thursday bushfires in Victoria with 5 million hectares burnt    and  1 million sheep and thousands of cattle killed.

In 1938-39 there were the Black Friday bushfires in Victoria in which 2 million hectares  were burnt.

In 1944 the bushfires  in Victoria burnt 1 million hectares.

In 1961 the  Western Australian bushfires burnt  1.8 million hectares.

 

 

 

 

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12 Responses to TRIAL BY BUSHFIRE

  1. johnnythefish says:

    The BBC will continue to pursue its man-made global warming agenda regardless of what the Met Office, leaked IPCC reports, Climategate, scientific papers, sceptical scientists, real world evidence etc etc is telling them, because they can and because nobody is going to stop them.

    In the meantime, the unbelievable story of the Muir Russell inquiry into Climategate continues. More whitewash than a 1950’s Dulux factory…

    http://climateaudit.org/2013/01/09/more-tricks-from-east-anglia/#more-17322

       18 likes

  2. GCooper says:

    Strange how quiet the BBC remains about the 30 year record being set in China for lethally intense cold, isn’t it?

       22 likes

    • NotaSheep says:

      Or the very cold weather being experienced in Northern India this winter, or the smow in Israel. But the latter of those is probbaly a Jewish plot.

         8 likes

  3. chrisH says:

    “Yes obviously the science is important but….”
    Brilliant summary of all Beeb thinking…when it suits, it`s cast iron proof-when it doesn`t then we have to refit the facts, reset the narrative, just as Phil Jones “etal” did at the UEA in 2009.
    Maybe that`s why the Met Office put out their “revisions”, as the nation watched “The Snowman” on Channel 4.
    The first martyr of the global warming crisis…presumably its a silent cartoon, so we don`t hear his anguished gurgles as he melts.

       19 likes

  4. john in cheshire says:

    If only we could just shrug our shoulders about the bbc. But while it dominates our national new, information and to a great extent educational provision, we can’t. challenge, therefore, is to starve it of funding such that it becomes inconsequential. As I’ve said previously, once my tv licence expires this year, I am not renewing it. I don’t really watch much live tv so it won’t be a great loss. But, I can’t see any other way to actually weaken this behemoth.

       17 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      Interestingly, this topic seems to be registering in certain places that have ’til now seemed disinterested.
      Of course some still appear to feel propaganda, even on behalf of like-minded others is the best wagon to circle…
      Andrew Walmsley ‏@awalmsley11
      According to @Guardian if you own a PC you must pay a tv license, can anyone confirm this?

      TV Licensing Blog ‏@tvlicensingblog
      @awalmsley11 @guardian Unlikely, as that is bullshit. You do not need a licence to own any equipment. It is a licence for TV reception.

      Andrew Walmsley ‏@awalmsley11
      @tvlicensingblog @guardian Said paper may need to clarify then.

      Unless ‘said paper’ has previous.

         2 likes

  5. Michele says:

    The source of the Australian Brushfires is very easy to pinpoint. The CSIRO, instead of blaming AGW, is pointing the to the last two years of high summer rainfall. The simple equation is : increased rain = increased growth + normal summer high temperatures [none of which are really record breaking at the moment] + severe thunder storms with thousand of lightening strikes and voila it equals – bush fires.

    There is nothing unusual about it, the fires were predicted, not because of AGW but because of the conditions outlined above. The Greens continue to fight the proper fire management of state forests by controlled burn off to reduce the threat, and the consequent is increased severity of fires.

       10 likes

  6. Phil Ford says:

    Alan, I think your piece just illustrates what we all know: the BBC is intellectually, politically, objectively, subjectively and pathologically unable to report on matters of ‘climate’ with any measure of integrity at all. By its own admission, it has abandoned all pretence of impartiality in these matters and is now a publicly-funded CAGW propaganda machine for all intents and purposes. Just look at how it insists on polluting its science and natural history output with the CAGW meme. It’s truly very, very sad to see.

    Useful idiots like Matt McGrath are simply stooges; paid-for commentators expected to play the role of an ‘objective observer’ seeking some higher ‘truth’, but all the time unable (contractually and ideologically) to stray off the agreed party line on CAGW. His job is to appear skeptical only in order to confirm the bias. BBC ‘reporting’ at its finest – and what a filthy gutter of disingenuous misinformation it is.

    The BBC is broken. It is politically compromised, its ‘impartiality’ is now no more than a quaint, mutually reassuring notion in the minds of those too fatuously doctrinaire to see the obvious signs of the corrosion and rust eating away at the heart of the Corporation. All empires, no matter how mighty, eventually collapse to shadows and dust. And in most cases the rot that deals the killing blow usually comes from within.

       5 likes

  7. George R says:

    “Now even Pravda admits the ‘global warming’ jig is up”

    By James Delingpole.

    http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100197832/now-even-pravda-admits-the-global-warming-jig-is-up/

       3 likes

  8. George R says:

    “Climate change at the Met Office”

    By John Redwood.

    http://www.thecommentator.com/article/2428/climate_change_at_the_met_office

       2 likes