Category Archives: climate change

Sexy Danish Model Photos

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Hat tip to Deegee in the comments for drawing attention to the BBC slide show about an “Oxfam exhibition of photographs taken in Peru by model Helena Christensen to document climate change”.

Yesterday I noted that the BBC’s World Have Your Say blog was expressing despair over its failure to inspire interest in the topic of climate change. The WHYS team might consider that one reason so many people are turned off by the BBC’s approach to this subject is its readiness to promote the vacuous bullshit observations of hypocritical flyby celebrity eco-activists.

The Christensen photos highlighted by the BBC are mediocre at best (which is particularly disappointing given the huge potential of the subject matter) and furthermore, as Deegee points out, the captions seem to contradict the pictures. One reads, “These mountains were covered with snow years ago and they’re not anymore [sic]”, and yet we see snow-covered mountains in shot. Another says, “Obviously, the waterfalls are less frequent and the rivers are drying out because of the disappearing glaciers”, but there in front of us is an impressive looking river.

The caption for the final picture quotes Christensen as saying:

“The most important thing is to stop the huge emissions of carbon dioxide into the world.”

Well, that’s pretty rich to say the least. Last month she told the Times that she “divides her time between Copenhagen and New York, but has a soft spot for Essex” because her agent’s charming home is there:

The house is near Stansted airport, which is extremely convenient — you step off the flight and feel you can almost touch the house — but thankfully you can’t hear the planes because the landing strip goes the opposite way.

With those convenient carbon-spewing planes out of earshot it’s so much easier to keep the plight of those poor Peruvians out of mind.

(Follow the Times link for Helena’s amusing tale about a swimming rodent she once saw. The long winter evenings must just fly by.)

The message is clear – if your charity tin says “climate change” and has a picture of a celebrity on it, the BBC will help with your PR without a second thought.

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Hard not to laugh again

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“Are you selfish – or are we bad journalists?” asks the BBC’s Mark Sandell on the World Have Your Say blog. “Whatever we do, whatever debate we come up with, we can’t seem to interest you in the issue of climate change.”

What a shame, eh?

(A related item – last week on the Conan O’Brien show Al Gore stated that “the interior of the earth is extremely hot, several million degrees” [via John Derbyshire] . Do you think we might have heard a bit more about such an innumerate pronouncement if it had been made by a certain Republican VP candidate?)

(Update. The WHYS blog has bumped the original post – new link here.)

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Hard not to laugh

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Heh:

A Russian icebreaker carrying over 100 tourists, scientists and journalists on a cruise around Antarctica was struggling to free itself from sea ice but was not in any danger, a shipping company said Tuesday… Russian news agencies said a BBC camera crew filming a documentary about the Antarctic was also on board.

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Climate alert – hell freezes briefly

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Yesterday morning climate change sceptic Ian Plimer was interviewed on the Today programme. This stunning occurrence caused outrage among eco-activists. The Media Lens message board went nuclear wind turbine over the issue. Among the many who complained to the BBC was Green Party councillor Dr Rupert Read. The response he received from Today programme assistant editor Roger Hermiston included this admission:

We reflect the orthodoxy in the climate change debate, day in, day out, 300-365 days a year. Just every so often – and it is very rarely– we take a look at other opinions… And to talk about the “oxygen of publicity ” at 8.53 in the morning is, I would respectfully suggest, getting things a little out of proportion.

So even when they “very rarely” look at these other opinions, they do it well away from prime time. It’s not telling us anything we don’t know, but it’s nice to see it in writing.

Dr Read sent a follow-up email in which he stated pompously:

“I teach at the University of East Anglia, the world’s premier climate science institutions [sic]”

The email doesn’t mention his speciality, but his Wikipedia entry does:

Rupert Read is a Green Party of England and Wales politician, Reader in philosophy at the University of East Anglia

Ian Plimer, on the other hand, is merely the Professor of Mining Geology in the Geology and Geophysics department of the School of Earth & Environmental Sciences at the University of Adelaide. How dare the BBC interview him about the climate when there are philosophers on hand!

I note also the opening line of Read’s reply:

Dear Mr. Hermiston;
Thanks for writing back, and so swiftly.

Who else has ever received any kind of response from the Today programme, let alone a swift one?

Update. Via David Thompson, here’s a promo clip for a forthcoming edition of BBC World Service programme The Forum in which artist Antony Gormley “reflects the orthodoxy” (as Roger Hermiston might say):

Update 2. Rush Limbaugh has a new climate change related promo, too. Mmm mmm mmm. Heh heh heh.

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Some Updates

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Re Saturday’s blog post about Gavin Lee’s interview with Duane in Killeen. First Post reports today:

Questions were being asked in Texas this weekend about the friendship between the US Army psychiatrist Nidal Malik Hasan, who killed 13 people in a shooting spree at the Fort Hood military base last Thursday, and a young man called Duane Reasoner Jnr. Interviewed by the BBC on Friday, Reasoner said he felt no pity for Hasan’s victims because “they were troops who were going to Afghanistan and Iraq to kill Muslims”.

A tape of the interview, conducted by Gavin Lee of the BBC, has ended up on YouTube and other sites and is getting an angry response from Americans still shocked by Hasan’s deadly rampage.

The clip I posted is currently ranking 2 in Most Discussed (Today) – News and Politics on YouTube. A group of terrorist-supporting Islamic supremacist whackjobs who were featured by CNN on Friday have also put the clip on their website (no link for those arseholes). Needless to say, they’re very proud of young Duane.

It’s pleasing to note that Melanie Phillips linked to Friday’s post about Mark Mardell.

And I’d like to give a shout out (as President Obama might say) to Artists Against Wind Farms who linked to this post yesterday. Their noble endeavour is to stop our countryside being blighted by those monstrosities.

Oh yeah, there’s some more F-bombgate news in the Daily Mail today (scroll down – even I’m bored with the whole thing now and therefore can’t be bothered to give it a blog post of its own.)

This is a Some Updates Update. BBC North America editor Mark Mardell’s eagerness to dismiss an ideological motive for the Fort Hood killings looks ever more foolish:

U.S. intelligence agencies were aware months ago that Army Major Nidal Hasan was attempting to make contact with people associated with al Qaeda, two American officials briefed on classified material in the case told ABC News.

Further Update. Hasan’s calling card – “Soldier of Allah“.

Mark Mardell #fail.

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Trouble in Arcadia

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A documentary maker whose previous work for the BBC has included a film about a radical socialist Scottish republican has had his latest piece rejected by the Corporation because it takes a negative view of wind farms:

A BAFTA-nominated documentary maker has accused the BBC of banning his latest film about life in a remote Highland glen because it shows a lack of impartiality about wind farms.
BBC bosses part-funded the short film Arcadia by controversial Scots film producer David Graham Scott.
But the BBC has refused to broadcast the finished film, warning Scott that the documentary does not meet its strict rules on objectivity…

Scott said: “This was not meant to be a political film. It is more about the impact of modernity on an ancient landscape where people are having to cope with the modern world.
“I don’t have a problem with the BBC’s impartiality guidelines, but I think my film has been misinterpreted. I wouldn’t want to alter the film to get it broadcast as that might ruin it.”…

Protesters fighting the impact of wind farms in Scotland insist the film should be aired to highlight one of the biggest issues in rural Scotland amid the plight of communities where the farms are planned.
Bob Graham, who has fought a long-running campaign against wind farms across Scotland because of their visual impact, said: “The BBC has a duty to show realistic depictions of what wind farms can do to fragile environments and communities. They say the film is biased. I would say the BBC is biased in favour of wind farms, and that is why it will not show this documentary.”

Here’s Scott’s film about an ardent Scottish republican campaigner made as part of a series called The New Ten Commandments which was broadcast last year. This passed the BBC’s impartiality guidelines, but a film highlighting opposition to wind farms did not. Thou shalt not take the name of climate change in vain!

Scott’s wind farm film was “one of seven films shot through the Bridging The Gap programme, which seeks to promote work by young Scots directors.” It will be interesting to see the subject matter and “impartiality” of the films the BBC does broadcast.

(By the by – the Scottish republican seen in the above film has left this comment, among others, at YouTube:

If the Queen or any royalist successor is banned from Scotland’s roads and rivers, and shot on sight for defying a ban then Scotland SHALL be free of monarchy from its veins.

Pleasant chap.)

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Ethical Comparison Drawn

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The BBC’s Ethical Man attends a FreedomWorks meeting:

In the US state of Virginia the talk is of revolution. In the basement of a restaurant in Richmond we met 100 or so American patriots -ordinary people who claim to be the vanguard of a great new movement, a movement for American liberty.
“Lower taxes, less government, more freedom”, is their rallying cry…

Their call to arms focuses on two issues: healthcare reform and – you guessed it – President Barack Obama’s plan for a cap and trade system to regulate greenhouse gas emissions…

Most of the people I spoke at the Richmond meeting did not believe climate change is something they need worry about…

Bastards! They’re no better than the murderous defenders of slavery:

As the meeting broke up one man took me aside to say he was not persuaded by the arguments he had heard.
“You are in a state that fought for the freedom to keep people in slavery,” Phil told me.
Indeed, Patrick Henry, who demanded liberty or death as he helped launch the revolt against British tyranny, subsequently worked to defend the slave trade as an attorney.
Phil told me the story of Gabriel, a slave who, 24 years after the Declaration of Independence, attempted to lead a rebellion against the slave owners here in Richmond Virginia…
Gabriel was hanged just a couple of blocks away from the cellar where the FreedomWorks meeting was held.
“Freedom means different things to different people,” Phil said as he left the meeting.

They even held their meeting “just a couple of blocks away” from where a slave was hanged! The comparisons are spooky, aren’t they?

Coming soon – Ethical Man visits the Holocaust Museum in Washington and writes some nonsense about “deniers”.

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BBC Once More Open to Climate Change Doubts…

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It was a magical moment and, of course, the BBC captured it.

A 13-year-old Indian school girl has addressed world leaders during the inaugural session at the UN Climate Change Summit in New York.
During her speech, Yugratna Srivastava from Lucknow appealed to the world’s leaders to do more to combat the effects of climate change, asking “is this what we are going to give to our future generations?”

But later the BBC, wishing to be balanced, reported that not all the leaders were impressed…

Czech President Vaclav Klaus sharply criticized a U.N. meeting on climate change on Tuesday at which U.S. President Barack Obama was among the top speakers, describing it as propagandistic and undignified.
“It was sad and it was frustrating,” said Klaus, one of the world’s most vocal skeptics on the topic of global warming.
“It’s a propagandistic exercise where 13-year-old girls from some far-away country perform a pre-rehearsed poem,” he said. “It’s simply not dignified.”
……
Klaus said there were increasing doubts in the scientific community about whether humans are causing changes in the climate or whether the changes are simply naturally occurring phenomena.
But politicians, he said, seem to be moving closer to a consensus on climate change.
“The train can’t be stopped and I consider that a huge mistake,” Klaus said.

Whoops – sorry! That comment from the Czech President came from Reuters…couldn’t find it on the BBC – I wonder why?

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PREZZA: MORE HOT AIR

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As a Biased BBC reader for at least five years, I know that its essence is variety. My second post as a new contributor, therefore, was going to be about something other than the wretched BBC obsession with climate change. However, that was before I heard the unspeakable John Prescott lecturing me on R4’s World at One this lunchtime. He, a jumped-up, thuggish shop steward with no scientific training whatsoever, told me that he knew beyond doubt that the science of global warming is settled. His rant – as a bonus – also included a major attack on the US, the nasty industrialists of which he regards as the villains responsible for impending global catastrophe.

Martha Kearney, his so-called interrogator, rolled over like an admiring puppy dog in the face of his onslaught, and was concerned only to ask him how bad the situation really was.

It goes without saying that Prescott was never much known for his intellect; this item showed exactly why. This was a former (or maybe current) trade unionist arguing for steps that will progressively de-industralise and impoverish not just Britain, but also much of the Western world; at the same time, his measures, on the government’s own admission, would lead to increases in the cost of heating that will put millions of pensioners and our least well-off into fuel poverty.

On these topics, Kearney was strangely – eerily – silent.

As a lesson in pig-ignorant biased propaganda it was not bad (Goebbels would have approved – the science of racial superiority is ‘settled’ don’t you know?), as an exercise in balanced journalism, it was simply appalling.

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