Bishop Hill How can the BBC help you advertise your wares better, Mr Green Blob?
Jan 11, 2016 BBC Energy: solar Greens 
BBC preparations for the arrival of the Green BlobMy thanks to Stewgreen for pointing me to this excerpt from Jeremy Leggett's new book, describing a meeting with Roger Harrabin:
In the headquarters of the Britsh Broadcasting Corporation, I sit talking with veteran environment correspondent, Roger Harrabin. I am accompanied by my Solarcentury colleagues Frans van den Heuvel and Sarah Allison. We want to explore with Roger whether there are ways that solar energy can be better covered on television.
Hundreds of journalists and producers sit at long tables in an open-plan hall, staring at screens and tapping at keyboards. There are other floors just like this, visible through the glass that the whole building seems to be made of. All the BBC’s many outlets are based here: 166 television and radio, national and international.
We are crammed in a small soundproof bubble where meetings can presumably be held without disturbing the long rows of people. I wonder how much shouting BBC journalists and producers do at each other, under the stress of their deadlines and storylines. I imagine it is not inconsiderable. Hence the bubble, maybe.
Roger opens our meeting. I am very aware that there is an immense economic upheaval underway in society, he says, a complete energy transition, and that we are not covering it at all well. I read a lot of things about how clean energy is exploding, and I get it about the crossover into storage and transport. I accept that there is a major running story around the carbon bubble too, as yet largely untold on television. But to tell these stories on the news, I need moving pictures. It can’t be solar farms or solar lanterns. It can’t be rooms full of investment bankers.
You seem to be saying that we are at a newsworthiness disadvantage, I say, because we can’t do stuff like exploding oil rigs, burning oil trains, and oil-caked pelicans.
I can sense Sarah wincing beside me. She is Solarcentury’s head of press. But I have known Roger for a long tme. We have a frank relationship. And so we brainstorm, searching as hard as we can for things that will look interesting as they move.
I was in this building yesterday, on a different foor, talking about the solar revolution on radio, for a business programme on the BBC World Service. They wanted to explore my idea that a solar revolution is inevitable. The interviewer was sceptical to the point of hostility, which I always welcome: antipathy, fake or otherwise, helps me get my points out.
With the recording complete, she showed me a different face. I hope you’re right, she said.
So do I. But whatever, when it comes to the news, it looks worryingly as though solar, with its lack of moving parts, will be confined to the radio.
So there you have it. Roger Harrabin invited a businessman to a meeting to discuss how the BBC could better advertise his wares for him.
Astonishing.
Reader Comments (42)
"Astonishing" ... not really, when one is afflicted with the indefatigably believe that the sun shines out of your nether regions.
Clearly the BBC is not biased.
I know this because it has told me so on several occasions (when I have written in to complain about its coverage of "Climate Change").
Oh would that were the case! Just imagine a world without the chatter of the eco-elites, their horrible imaginings, and their fearful schemings. A world with more time and energy to devote to better things, and to more pressing problems.
The document you link to is the first 25 chapters of a book called “the Winning of the Carbon War”. It starts
and early chapters are titled:Shanghai, Balcombe, The Weald, UK, Korea, Oslo, Amsterdam, Istanbul, Berlin, Washington, Davos, Switzerland, Kenya, Mayfair, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, New York, Park Lane Intercontinental, London, Lima, Peru, The Guardian, London, Copenhagen, Paris, Abu Dhabi, Kefalonia, Greece and so on an' onan onan on...
Leggett by name, leg it by nature as Derek said to Clive.
Response from the BBC about my complaint about an interview with Dr Jeremy Leggett
I complained that they never mentioned he was a "founding director of Solarcentury, the UK’s largest independent solar electric company" even though he was pushing for more renewables during the interview. A clear conflict of interest.
geoffchambers quoted a line from the book:
a safe future fuelled by endless sunlight ...
Will global warming give us endless sunlight? If so I will vote for it!
It would seem that they think that, by switching to solar pv panels, we will be living in a world of eternal sunshine. That alone makes me suspect their grasp on reality. Also: “Believers…"? It seems that even the alarmists are latching onto my own term for them, apparently unaware of its full import. As for exploding oil rigs or burning oil trains, how many have there been in the past, say, 50 years? Apart from those deliberately set alight by Saddam Husssein, I would say very few, which is remarkable, considering the number that there are – and even the massive pollution in the Arabian Gulf caused by Hussein has had some environmental advantages, as happened after the Exxon Valdez grounding – the only areas where there was long-term damage was where it had been cleaned up. Somehow, I doubt there will be much demand at the BBC to show the square miles of abandoned wind- and solar-farms that we do know exist.
However: astonishing? Well, it should be… but, depressingly, it isn’t.
If it is 'moving pictures' that the BBC require, what about footage of container ships bringing panels in from China?
Or graphs showing income conjured out of Fresh Air, whilst the sun isn't shining?
Or back up diesel generators chuntering away, to make up for solar's guaranteed unreliability?
Or people's rocketing bills, as they pay to subsidise people basking in Green Limelight?
Or just bulldozers, demonstrating the lack of sustainability of useless technology?
Leggett has a BBC studios season pass
... and half the time they just introduce him as an environmentalist etc. failing to mention his business connection conflict of interest
.. I'll give you a list in a while
"I read a lot of things about how clean energy is exploding"
Yes. Windmills, and batteries in electric cars.
Who dictates the BBC's Energy & Climate policy ? ....................... Rajah Harrabin
and who are Leggett's team talking to ?
..... The Rajah himself ! Indeed Leggett mentions how he has a special relationship with The Rajah.
BTW This 'Science" Rajah's wife is an acupuncturist ! at a Women's Acupuncture Clinic "Over 25 years experience treating acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine."
I was in this building yesterday, on a different foor, talking about the solar revolution on radio, for a business programme on the BBC World Service. They wanted to explore my idea that a solar revolution is inevitable. The interviewer was sceptical to the point of hostility, which I always welcome: antipathy, fake or otherwise, helps me get my points out.
Seriously!! Is he sure it was the BBC?
Is a transcript available?
When will people realise and accept that Mother Nature is way, way ahead of us? She has been capturing and storing solar energy for us for millennia – no, eons! – keeping it discretely stored in all three forms – solid, liquid and gas – until we have advanced far enough to be able to use it effectively. Now, THAT is astonishing!
The BBC, of course, has an enormous carbon footprint. I for one will be convinced of the seriousness of global warming when the BBC decides, in the interest of the planet, to close itself down.
Is the BBC subject to FOI requests or is it above such accountability?
They aren't mere Prime Minsters after all.
I ask as Harrabin's meeting with industry lobbyists in BBC meeting rooms is interesting.
How many such meetings has he had?
And has he had meetings with the big players (oil, coal and gas) too?
One would expect the time devoted to the special interests to be proportional to their impact on the economy and environment.
It would be nice to know.
I will not have a solarPV panel on my roof. Why? Read this 'Telegraph' report and look at the photographs.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/energy/solarpower/12092562/Solar-panel-malfunction-sparks-blaze-in-family-home.html
Also the Fire-brigade are loathe to interfere as they do not want to be electrocuted.
'Nuff said.
M Courtney, the BBC is subject to FOI requests but is no stranger to invoking exemptions to thwart the enquiry.
JohnM beat me to it with the Telegraph story. Another point to note is "The panels were installed by Cardiff-based PV Solar which went bust months later."
In the rush to go green, how much work has been done to protect the consumer from cowboys?
Leggett has been at it a long time: http://www.greenpeace.org/international/Global/international/planet-2/report/2006/3/leggett-insurance-climate.pdf
Dr Jeremy Leggett
Scientific Director
Climate Campaign
Greenpeace international
Is human-induced climate change a real threat?
How will it affect the world's biggest industry?
What can the insurance business do to safeguard its future markets?
Second edition, 24 May 1993.
"The threat posed by the human-enhanced greenhouse effect to economies and ecosystems has led to more than 150 governments signing a Climate Convention setting the international community on track for limitation of greenhouse-gas emissions to the atmosphere.
The world's major climate-forecasting centres now predict that if current rates of greenhouse-gas emission are maintained, dangerous rates of warming - unprecedented during human history - will occur in the decades ahead.
Furthermore, there are worrying indications that some of the kinds of climatic phenomena to be expected if these forecasts are correct may already be occurring.
1990 was the hottest year since records began more than a century ago. 1991 was the second hottest, despite the significant cooling effect of the Mt Pinatubo eruption.
The seven hottest years have all been since 1980. Coral reefs are beginning to bleach and die, in waters of unprecedented warmth in the Caribbean, Pacific and Indian oceans. Hurricanes of record strength are hitting the Caribbean. Cyclones of record strength are hitting the Pacific.
Anomalously intense droughts have struck southern Africa, northern Brazil, California, SE England, and other places."
He also predicted Peak Oil for this year:
The Independent & The Independent on Sunday
"Bracing the world for the day when the oil runs out"
By Michael Harrison, Business Editor: 18 January 2006
"As the oil price nudged above $64 a barrel yesterday on heightened concerns about disruption to supplies from Iran and Nigeria, a small group of geologists, economists and commodity traders was meeting in London to consider a more fundamental question: when will the world begin to run out of oil?"
"Dr Jeremy Leggett, an oil industry geologist turned environmental campaigner turned chief executive of a solar energy company, paints an even more apocalyptic scene. He believes that peak oil will occur some time this decade. That will not only produce "horrible economic pain" as oil prices rise to choke off demand but it will also precipitate environmental disaster as oil-consuming countries switch to coal and hasten global warming.
"The shortfall between current expectations of oil supply and actual availability will be such that neither gas, nor renewables, nor liquids from gas and coal, nor nuclear, nor any combination thereof will be able to plug the gap in time to head off economic trauma," he warns."
Ah, well....
Well, when Black (Dick) left to form his own lobby group, Woger must have wondered about his future. By stroking Legget he probably hopes to ease the way into his new future. Such blatant conflicts of interest should be stamped on. I wonder who Woger's boss is....(seriously, 'cos I don't know)
Good old Harrabin. I still remember the episode of the Daily Politics during the last election where Andrew Neil was chairing a debate between the 4 shadow energy ministers. Humiliatingly for Neil, the BBC insisted Harrabin sit next to him to make sure he didn't veer too far from the BBC-approved line of green thought. Needn't have bothered though because Neil successfully torpedo'd UKIP's attempts to criticise insane LibLabCon energy policy by reading back some seemingly hypocritical things Roger Helmer said about the money a family member was making from solar subsidy farming - even though he was only commenting on the insanity of the solar subsidies available at the time. Muck successfully flung. Criticism of energy policy deflected and discussion time wasted on the irrelevance of Helmer's home solar panels. Harrabin's job done for him by Neil.
No news of Noor-1 postponed opening in Morocco.
Stew asks on unthreaded:
Cheers @Paul ..note the quotation marks I put in as I just substituted "Climate Skepticism" for "solar energy" in the opening paragraph that Leggett wrote.
'clean energy is exploding'
Film at 11.
Paul Matthews, perhaps we should. A little delegation of Bishop Hillers at the BBC might open a few eyes. It doesn't have to be televised (don't want to 'confuse' the public) but I don't think that it's unreasonable that after all this time the sceptical public got to explain our viewpoint. With a la Nina on the way it might be time for the BBC to be more inclusive.
@Martyn Yes looked this morning on Twitter still no news so Noor Solar is 2 weeks late now, with Al Beeb saying nothing of the delay, despite all the hype it made before.
I've keeping an eye on that news since Harra had given it such a hyperbolic advert, that Bish mentioned Harra had made a big error in it.
But to Harra it seems like for him it's 'JOB DONE : public get super rosy picture of solar/wind'
- CBBC video report on Noor1 makes FALSE claim still not corrected
- Harra video report on Noor1
- Harra's long report on Noor1 makes FALSE claim half corrected in a stealth way
- 29/12/2015 Whole radio prog about panelling the whole of the Sahara... With a long news article featuring Noor1 photo hyping solar.
However the prog itself is well made : allowing Dogmatists to just believe it's in favour, but to clever people after setting out the dream the actual radio prog gives clear info to dismantle those arguments ...So it did allow neutrals to see reality, rather than just being pure propaganda.
- 28/12/2015 radio prog Future of Energy was the normal BBC line of 'it is quite simple for us to go 100% renewable almost tomorrow , for almost free '
In that episode the greendreamer Prof Jim Skea from UCL actually said 'well we should stop making out 100% is so easy , cos really it's not that easy ..so say 90% instead' !!
..is there any wonder the public get suckered in ?
Asked to say "what iare renewables ?" the EXPERT said "solar, wind, biomass"..and then way down the list said "hydro",
which of course is probably the biggest renewable actually in use today.
There are some completely different Jeremy Leggetts :
#1 One has been head of the UK's largest solar biz fo many many years
and .. #2 Completely different Jeremy Leggetts that appear on the BBC
- 29/09/2015 - "Dr. Jeremy Leggett is chair of the Carbon Tracker Initiative" BBC Radio 4 - Today
- 13 April 2014 - "Dr Jeremy Leggett, Oxford University's Environmental Change Institute" Science & Environment :Viewpoints
- Sep 26, 2013 "environmentalist and businessman Jeremy Leggett, who claims that the fossil fuel deposits boasted by these companies are worthless"
- May 30, 2011 - "Nuclear power advocate Malcolm Grimston argues with green energy campaigner Jeremy Leggett on the impact of Germany's decision to close nuclear ... " web BBC News * (also clip)
- 12 October 2007 : JEREMY LEGGETT, OXFORD UNIVERSITY ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE INSTITUTE
- May 29, 2007 "environmental authors Jeremy Leggett and Mark Lynas." *
- Jun 9, 2010 "Jeremy Leggett, author of Half Gone" (Newsnight blog previews the guests)
- Apr 25, 2005 \\Dr Jeremy Leggett, a member of the UK government's Renewables Advisory Board, predicted: "Most of us who are worried about this issue would say definitely it will happen some time this decade. ...2008 might be the best guess, plus or minus two years."// Hilarious #FAIL
.... (also on BbcPolska.com !! )
- 24 March 2002 "Jeremy Leggett, of the Environmental Change Institute"
- 27 March, 2002 " Former director of Greenpeace Jeremy Leggett" (actually they mean "Director of Science at Greenpeace" **
Oh hangon maybe they are the same man.
- Mar 16, 2015 - Jeremy Leggett, a solar entrepreneur and Oxford alumnus
- Mar 15, 2015- "Jeremy Leggett, chairman of the research group Carbon Tracker Initiative, and founder of the British solar energy company Solar Century, makes the financial case for energy companies to start turning their backs on fossil fuels."
- Mar 18, 2011 "Dr. Jeremy Leggett, executive chairman of Solar Century..Dr Leggett thinks a nuclear renaissance is now unlikely, so oil prices will be forced up" (2011 prediction)
- Nov 10, 2005 \\Jeremy Leggett of the solar power company solarcentury...."Too many senior officials just don't believe that you can get energy this way," he said.//
* They sometimes mention later he's from a solar corp. Leggett also appears on the BBC about another 15 times when they do mention the Solar Century connection or it's not about green issues.
He has also had many free rides from ABC Australia.. and probably other broadcasters.
- BBC ADVERT ? May 27, 1999 "Solar roof means toast for free" : BBC News Sci-Tech : with handy link to Solar Century.
** A fact STRANGELY left off his Wikipedia page.
- Mind you it also leaves of the fact that he's a founder director of a Swiss corp "the world's first private equity fund for renewable energy", which has also 'chosen' to go into liquidation (Bank Sarasin's New Energies Invest ...no news found)
The BBC has no problem giving free advertising to its preferred causes.
Possibly even more flagrant than global-warming promotion [*] is the case of the listed New York Stock Exchange company that goes by the name of Twitter (Traded as NYSE: TWTR) . Why did the BBC promote them so hard, so long, and so loud, when there were other companies in the market place of social media? It's not like the BBC are media-virgins.
We will probably never find out. Or, at least, not until certain people at the BBC write their memoirs.
[* Yes, difficult to believe, but if you think about it, it is possibly the biggest and widest single promotion of a privately owned corporation in the BBC's history. Companies like Microsoft and Google had already achieved critical mass before they could not be ignored by the BBC. What made Twitter so deserving?]
And there's many more radio appearances as well that are not recorded on the BBC website. Some examples
And TerryS above mentioned above the useless reply he got from the bBC about that Today prog in September 2015 that M Courtney mentioned on Sep 29, 2015 In September 2006, on CNBC's Global Players program, Jeremy Leggett, CEO of a solar power company, called for fellow guest Fred Smith, president of the CEI to be locked up for expressing his views..How do you suppose these "believers" will respond to news of new energy sources that are truly cheap, clean and abundant? When Brilliant Light Power demonstrates their near market system later this month and the New Energy World Symposium is held in June to showcase Low Energy Nuclear Fusion and Rossi's one year industrial test of his 1MW plant that will be done next month, will they cover it? I'm afraid with their conflict of interest they are only interested in the solar and wind industries they have their wagons hitched to. It will be interesting to watch.
Morocco’s ambitious Noor-Quarzazate project has received financial backing from the European Union.
The European Union (EU) has granted a $47.8 million loan to the Moroccan Agency for Solar Energy (MASEN) for the 150 MW Noor III concentrated solar power project. According to media reports, the agreement was signed by EU Commissioner for Energy and Climate Action Miguel, Arias Cañete, and the President of the MASEN, Mustapha Bakkoury.
This is not the first time the Noor-Ouarzazate project has received funding from international lenders. In December last year the African Development Bank (AfDB) granted a $250 million loan to support construction and operation of both Noor II and Noor III. The Noor I project has also received funding from various institutions, including the World Bank, African Development Bank, European Investment Bank, as well as German development bank KfW.
http://cleantechnica.com/2015/05/20/eu-funds-moroccos-largest-solar-power-project/
You seem to be saying that we are at a newsworthiness disadvantage, I say, because we can’t do stuff like exploding oil rigs, burning oil trains, and oil-caked pelicans.
They could always show these. http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=burning+wind+turbine&&view=detail&mid=1F2A1A231330097E3D081F2A1A231330097E3D08
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=burning+wind+turbine&&view=detail&mid=7206B3041576278C64FD7206B3041576278C64FD
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=wind+turbines+self+destructs&&view=detail&mid=47870B71C056BFB0CED147870B71C056BFB0CED1
@ JohnM
I will not have a solarPV panel on my roof. Why? Read this 'Telegraph' report and look at the photographs.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/energy/solarpower/12092562/Solar-panel-malfunction-sparks-blaze-in-family-home.html
Also the Fire-brigade are loathe to interfere as they do not want to be electrocuted.
'Nuff said.
Jan 11, 2016 at 12:32 PM | JohnM
Total nonsense JohnM
In fact the article even says:-
And despite the fire Mr McIntyre said he will still have solar panels fitted again.
He added: "I'm having them put back on.
"All the electrical work will be in the garage and it will have heat detectors and smoke detectors.
"It's made the wife and children a bit worried about having them back but they are coming round to the idea."
Avon and Fire Rescue Service said fires involving solar panels are rare and people should make sure qualified installers are hired."
I am a HUGE Global warming sceptic but I also know a good thing when i see it.
If the Government was stupid enough to give money away I will take it from them - i pay far too much tax so getting some back makes sense to me!
last summer my Solar Panels paid me enough FIT and offset my energy use such that despite my Phone Broadband Gas and Electric all being supplied from the same provider (Utility Warehouse) I paid no utility bills at all from May through to September - and in the winter months so far my bills are shaping up to be circa half of what I paid last year.
They are one of the best £6500 investments i ever made. The return in the first year equates to 17.6% - this means I get my £6500 back in less than 5 years.
The Fire Brigade do not see a problem with Solar Panels. This is an urban myth not backed up by facts.
In the same way as the Fire Brigade will isolate the power to a house on fire - so to will this isolation of power supply cut off the solar panels.
Solar panels are not the answer however - they are an interim solution that should not have been given the subsidies that the were.
But to say what you do is wrong - your stray into falsehood and lies that should remain solely the questionable tactics of those that see AGW as a cause for redistribution of wealth.
Jeremy Leggett is nothing more than a useful idiot who every time he opens his mouth he makes people question why someone who sells Solar Panels as his business is being paraded by the BBC as some sort of green guru.
The firm that installed my panels were electricians first and solar installers second - they said they had had to sort out quite a few cowboy installations. The Cowboys (we had quotes from a few!) were twice as expensive and were clearly double glazing sales firms.
Only stupid people would be taken in by their con artistry.
Technology WILL be a HUGE part of our future.
Apologies for the pun - but we genuine sceptics - those of us that want TRUE SCIENTIFIC METHOD rather than dogma should not stoop so low as the like of Leggett who is one of the Solar Panel Salesmen savvy enough to recognise that the likes of Harrabin and the BBC will fawn over you whatever you are if you make the right noises.
"What made Twitter so deserving?" --michael hart
You might check the ownership of Twitter. As of 2013, owners included Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Alsaud.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanmac/2013/10/04/who-owns-twitter-a-look-at-jack-dorsey-evan-williams-and-the-companys-largest-shareholders/
DougUK-
You may have taken advantage of the stupidity of the government to offer incentives for people to have solar installed, and may be very pleased with yourself for 'knowing a good thing when you see it', but that does not make it right. That money isn't 'government money' has to be paid for by all of us, many who struggle to heat and light their homes.
An industry, like most green crapola, that survives on government hand-outs will invariably be the preserve of con-artists and dubious sales techniques, and that tells everybody all they need to know on the morality of the venture.
In the same way that Roger Helmer made a complete a* se of himself during an energy debate prior to the election by admitting he had solar installed, you cannot take a position, and then go against it as you're getting a pecuniary advantage. It is smaller scale than those benefitting from wind farms, but the principle is the same, and both stink, in my humble..
"It would seem that they think that, by switching to solar pv panels, we will be living in a world of eternal sunshine. That alone makes me suspect their grasp on reality." --Radical Rodent
Ah, the eternal sunshine of the witless mind of the trougherati.
So if someone makes money by snatching up solar subsidies and getting beneficial laws that skew the market, that would make them ..a green JACKAL
..If they were then frequently invited on the BBC to push GREEN, but their green biz interests were not mentioned or played down, then that would be a HIDE
So a BBC green Jackal & Hide personality.
BTW Do vote for Leggett in the Marbles (The green Oscars) : UK Sustainability Personality of the Year
....Then no one can say "he's lost his Marbles" .
Roger Harrabin is just a human. Humans need money. What's wrong with that?
1993
2015
Wow, those Green elites sure move quickly.
A reminder @Rick Bradford's first paragraph comes from a Greenpeace PDF document Leggett wrote in 1993, which is quoted by @Dennisa above
Roger Harrabin has a Facebook site, but he does not dare debate on it in case he is shot down in flames. Quite funny, really.
https://www.facebook.com/roger.harrabin/?fref=nf
R