Bishop Hill In BBC world, only anti-capitalist opinions are valued
Sep 4, 2015 BBC Climate: WG3 Ethics ;)
The BBC's new logoThe BBC's love of anticapitalist campaigners knows few bounds and there's a smashing example this morning in the shape of Matt McGrath's article about the UN climate talks. McGrath is riffing on the developing world's demands for "compensation for extreme weather events that they link to large scale carbon emissions".
Demonstrating an almost heroic ability to ignore the elephant in the room, McGrath manages to overlook the almost complete absence of any increase in extreme weather than might affect the developing world. East Pacific hurricanes for example. Or drought. Or flood.
But if McGrath cannot bring himself to note such inconvenient facts, he can always bring himself to find out what anticapitalist campaigners have to say. In his article, there are quotes from two of them:
- Julie-Ann Richards is a climate campaigner for Oxfam, whose campaigners are generally anti-capitalists, according to this insider.
- Harjeet Singh is from Action Aid, described here as "the most anti-capitalist of all the major development charities".
No other opinions seem to have been sought.
Reader Comments (17)
I trust that nobody who has ever listened to or watched the BBC is surprised by this revelation.
We also have Emma Thompson's classic performance on Newsnight last night:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGzLn7LpvAs
"4 degrees by 2030"
"huge swathes uninhabitable"
Balance, anyone?
When ,at least in recent eras, have natural (and some unnatural - i.e. real man made disasters) not resulted in aid and assistance from the developed world - well at least from the "capitalist" world which had resources to do it. I think the beef of McGrath and his contributors is that the Warsaw Mechanism of 2013 formalises this assistance without labelling it "compensation", presumably for our industrial sins. How they imagine a deindustrialised, impoverished annexe one nation is going to be of much help to the afflicted I cannot guess. If it is clear that a disaster like the Tsunami of 2004 was not a consequent of "climate change I take it no aid or "compensation" should be forthcoming.
The nuance that is always lost is that the academic argument was always about whether global warming - manmade or not - may increase their strength by a mere 5% or reduce them. Models cannot tell you anything that you didn't pre-program into them and if you take land-falling storms as a proxy for the total then clearly you have to conclude that tropical storms - like all other storms - depend on temperature differences rather than absolute temperatures. What is never mentioned is that the only consistent and IPCC-endorsed position about tropical storms is that they would reduce in frequency in a warming world. Every other argument is 50/50. So it isn't about the legalities of compensation claims at all. Alas McGrath, like all enviro-journalists, just ignores the IPCC consensus when it suits his preferred polemic.
Time for sceptics and pro-capitalists to get in on this charity lark, there are enormous amounts of taxpayer and charity donor money that can be skimmed (nobody seems to check on where it all goes). The BBC will of course ignore such charities completely, or will refer to them as Right Wing Think Tanks, but speaking of tanks, it is time some sceptic ones were parked on the pristine (GM and pesticide free) lawns of the BBC and other Green groups.
Phillip Bratby@10:34
quite... the sheer extent of the dishonesty and the deeply ingrained sense of invulnerability that obviously reinforces the BBC's consistent and persistent efforts show them to be still stuck in the "broadcaster mindset" - handing down manufactured opinion with absolutely zero intention of defending same in a fair fight.
The BBC is a farce with pH at the acid end - reminiscent of Tom Sharpe or Carl Hiaasen at their most savage - but it plainly isn't fiction..... as in you couldn't make it up.
Why do anti-capitalists need to work for charities obtaining money from other peoples generosity?
They choose not to lead by example, when they could choose to live in North Korea.
tomo:
I don't think that Tom Sharpe is acceptable at the BBC, although he might well have used them in their current shape as something undesirable, or the stuff of nightmares.
McGrath was well-chosen by the BBC. He's a fine successor to the equally frantic Richard Black.
Btw, Emilly Maitliss on Newsnight gave Emma Thompson perhaps the easiest ride she's given anyone since her university days.
The salaries "earned" by BBC presenters and managers would suggest that the BBC is not all that opposed to capitalism.
Mikky, parking a tank in the BBC might be extreme, but sending a police drug sniffer dog through the buildings, particularly the washrooms would make a great live action documentary.
It would combine drama, crime, whodunnit, whosniffedit, animals, celebrity party wildlife, suspense, etc. It amazes me why no TV company has thought of it before. The tabloid press would pay a fortune for exclusives.
Graeme No.3
the farce isn't down to the individual author I think - but the extreme behavior of the characters involved and their bizarre antics.
The BBC has been so long somewhere that outlandish behaviour is tolerated as long as the guzzler at the next trough isn't disturbed - that anything goes.
I think my Damascene moment was discovering that the BBC's online environmental correspondent was a career religious affairs journo who believed that African Grey parrots could read human minds.
Ruby, the famous African Grey parrot, actually has some rather terse opinions about BBC climate reporting. (Not for children.)
michael hart, Ruby demonstrates how the BBC trains its staff to deal with requests from Climate Sceptics for any airtime.
What is not clear, is whether the BBC trained Ruby, or the other way round.
More reasons to welcome the end of the Licence Fee.
Why is it they never notice that truly non-capitalist countries don't have such a nice channel as the BBC and either live in the dark (North Korea) or are sliding into anarchy (Venezuela). Do they lack the ability to compare things, list things, observe? Why, yes, yes they do. All they see is their ideology.
I have said this before, here at Bishop Hill, but NZ chucked the Broadcast Licence fee some years ago: the move has not in any way reduced the numbers of the loony Left or True Believers in CAGW in broadcasting here, but at least we don't have to pay to listen. And we do have a number of polished and popular broadcasting personalities who DO understand science and take a very firm sceptical line on climate change.
When I were a lad at school, the BBC was sold to us as the most wonderful broadcasting service on earth. How sad that a once-great institution has sunk to the current depths. But then, The Empire is not what it once was.