Thought Provoking words for the BBC and the Guardian – from a Podcast by the BBC's Michael Buerk

Guest Post by Barry Woods

The respected BBC journalist, Michael Buerk has a short podcast entitled Michael Buerk on the Climate Summit at a new blog that I have just come across called The Fifth Column. It has some thought-provoking and challenging concerns for the BBC Trust, the Guardian, media and politicians with respect to the reporting of ‘climate change’. Some extracts below, with thoughts very rarely heard from the BBC:

And actually there has been no significant rise in global temperatures for more than a decade now.” – Michael Buerk, 16 December 2011

“What gets up my nose is being infantilized by governments, by the BBC, by the Guardian that there is no argument, that all scientists who aren’t cranks and charlatans are agreed on all this, that the consequences are uniformly negative, the issues beyond doubt and the steps to be taken beyond dispute.” – Michael Buerk, 16 December 2011

“You’re not necessarily a crank to point out that global temperatures change a great deal anyway. A thousand years ago we had a Mediterranean climate in this country; 200 years ago we were skating every winter on the Thames.

I would just like to highlight and comment on a couple of extracts from the podcast.  A full transcript of the podcast is included at the end of this article. I would hope that it reaches a wider audience, so that the public, media and politicians may consider a respected BBC broadcasters concerns about reporting of climate change. Which seems to many people to be more about driving an environmental cause, to the detriment of serious critical journalistic analysis of the more catastrophic AGW environmentalist claims.

“I want a genuine debate about the assumptions behind the more apocalyptic forecasts.

As recently as 2005, for instance, the UN said there would be 50 million climate refugees by 2010.

That was last year.

OK – so where are they?

I would like to hear a clash of informed opinion about what would actually be better if it got warmer as well as worse.” – Michael Buerk, 16 December 2011

So who is Michael Buerk

Michael Buerk is a very well know figure in the UK, a senior BBC journalist and currently the chair of the BBC Radio 4 program – The Moral Maze and arguably one of the most respected BBC broadcasters of his generation.

He is perhaps most well-known for his series of reports of the Ethiopian famine in Africa 25 years ago and as the main presenter of the BBC’s flagship evening news program (BBC Nine O’clock News 1976 – 2000, BBC Ten O’clock News  2000 – 2010). Earlier this year Michael Buerk expressed a number of concerns about the BBC, whilst reviewing the memoirs of a fellow BBC journalist Peter Sissons.

“The veteran presenter accuses staff at the Corporation of an inbuilt ‘institutional bias’ and warns that they read the left-wing Guardian newspaper as if it is ‘their Bible’.

Reviewing a memoir by his former colleague Peter Sissons, Buerk endorses his view that the BBC is warped by the prejudices of its staff.”

“… This year Michael Buerk in his review of a fellow BBC journalists Buerk also accuses BBC reporters of an ‘uncritical love affair with environmentalism’.  – Daily Mail, April 2011

Anyone who has followed the debate about climate change for any length of time, will have come across the argument put forward, that the older generation don’t care about ‘climate change’, because they are selfishly in denial of the damage their lifestyle will cause future generations. Michael Buerk expresses his resentment of this accusation in his Fifth Column podcast.

“I resent the implication that the exercise of my reason is “inappropriate”, an act of generational selfishness, a heresy.

I want a genuine debate about the assumptions behind the more apocalyptic forecasts.” – Michael Buerk, 16th December 2011

It is very much my personal opinion that anyone expressing these thoughts of  ‘generational selfishness’ to Michael for his concerns, should take a moment’s pause and ask themselves why he is saying this, what are his motivations.  A quarter of a century ago (1984), Michael Buerk made a series of groundbreaking reports about the famines in Ethiopia for the BBC, one of those video reports inspired Bob Geldof to start the Band Aid and Live Aid Campaigns for famine relief. Those readers in the USA, of a certain generation may remember the CBC ‘The Famine Video’ using video footage from Ethiopia, forever now associated by the Cars song ‘Drive’.

Michael Buerk has reported first hand on famine, death and suffering on a truly biblical scale caused by droughts in Africa and man actions (war, drought, politics not climate change) In light of this, the following extracts from Michael’s podcast that refer to droughts and Africa particularly drew my attention.

“….Droughts aren’t increasing. There are fewer of them, and less severe, than a hundred years ago….”

“….Where do you see reported the extraordinary greening of the Sahel, and shrinking of the Sahara that’s been going on for 30 years now – the regeneration of vegetation across a huge, formerly arid swathe of dirt poor Africa….”

I can only imagine Michael’s thoughts on those that would accuse him and others of ‘generational selfishness’ for raising concerns about the media reporting of climate change and would perhaps seek to label him as some sort of uncaring old climate sceptic for expressing his concerns about his perception of the BBC’s ‘culture of environmentalism’.

I wonder what Michael Buerk’s thoughts are, for those in the media, or politicians, or media climate scientists who advocate for the ‘climate change cause’, that seize on any natural disaster, drought, famine, flood. Then instantly pronounce it as proof of man-made climate change, then seek to use these disasters to push for climate policies, despite expert opinion that it is not possible to attribute these current extreme weather and climate events to man-made climate change.

It is perhaps a sad reflection on the BBC the fact that he is broadcasting these thoughts at a new media blog – The Fifth Column – and not at the BBC. As I would think it a perfect topic for the BBC’s –  The Moral Maze.

The Fifth Column – About

Welcome to The Fifth Column

The name implies a spirit of subversion.. .

Yes, but not in the predictable, ultimately tiresome, sense of arguing with everything and everybody.

Rather in what will be the refreshing sense of saying the un-sayable or asking the un-askable when nobody is saying it or asking it because of behind-the-scenes’ deals, old pals’ agreements, eyebrow-raising scruples, or an unwillingness to offend or to be offended.

Our business will be stories, issues, controversies in the public consciousness. Which deserve more, sometimes deeper, investigation. Truth, after all, is hard to find – it’s usually subjective, and always complex.”

The Fifth Column Blog is apparently only a couple of months old, and at time of writing has only a 113 Twitter followers:

“Thought provoking podcasts on topical & controversial issues, with contributions from some of the most respected names in UK journalism as well as new talents.”  Twitter Bio:

I wrote an article recently at WUWT – ‘Climategate 2.0 – Impartiality at the BBC’ explaining how I believed that the culture of environmentalism has perhaps taken hold at the BBC. It is easy for the BBC to dismiss a sceptical blogger (writing at an obviously easily perceived partisan sceptical blog) concerns about the impartiality of the BBC’s reporting on climate change.

I would just hope that The BBC Trust and the senior management at the BBC would seriously reflect on the concerns expressed about the BBC reporting on climate change, from such an experienced and respected journalist as Michael Buerk.

Podcast – Michael Buerk on the Climate Summit

Podcast Transcript – The Fifth Column –

 Michael Buerk on the Climate Summit

The latest so-called Climate Summit, that’s been taking place in Durban, hasn’t made many waves. It could be because global warming seems less daunting if you can no longer afford heating bills. It could also be that we’re getting fed up with the bogus certainties and quasi-religious tone of the great climate change non-debate.

Now, I don’t know for certain that man’s activities are causing the planet to heat up. Nobody does. We simply cannot construct a theoretical model that can cope with all the variables.

For what it’s worth, I think anthropogenic warming is taking place, and, anyway, it would be a good thing to stop chucking so much bad stuff into the atmosphere.

What gets up my nose is being infantilized by governments, by the BBC, by the Guardian that there is no argument, that all scientists who aren’t cranks and charlatans are agreed on all this, that the consequences are uniformly negative, the issues beyond doubt and the steps to be taken beyond dispute.

You’re not necessarily a crank to point out that global temperatures change a great deal anyway. A thousand years ago we had a Mediterranean climate in this country; 200 years ago we were skating every winter on the Thames.

And actually there has been no significant rise in global temperatures for more than a decade now.

We hear a lot about how the Arctic is shrinking, but scarcely anything about how the Antarctic is spreading, and the South Pole is getting colder.

Droughts aren’t increasing. There are fewer of them, and less severe, than a hundred years ago. The number of hurricanes hasn’t changed, the number of cyclones and typhoons has actually fallen over the last 30 years.

And so on.

There may be answers, I think there probably are – to all these quibbles – I would like to hear them.

I don’t want the media to make up my mind up for me.

I don’t need to be told things by officialdom in all its forms, that are not true, or not the whole truth, for my own good.

I resent the implication that the exercise of my reason is “inappropriate”, an act of generational selfishness, a heresy.

I want a genuine debate about the assumptions behind the more apocalyptic forecasts.

As recently as 2005, for instance, the UN said there would be 50 million climate refugees by 2010.

That was last year.

OK – so where are they?

I would like to hear a clash of informed opinion about what would actually be better if it got warmer as well as worse.

Where do you see reported the extraordinary greening of the Sahel, and shrinking of the Sahara that’s been going on for 30 years now – the regeneration of vegetation across a huge, formerly arid swathe of dirt poor Africa. More warming means more rainfall. More CO2 means plants grow bigger, stronger, faster.

I would like a real argument over climate change policy, if only to rid myself of the nagging feeling that sometimes it’s a really good excuse for banging up taxes and public-sector job creation.

It’s not happening. It’s a secular issue but skepticism is heresy.

They talk the language of science, but it is really a post-God religion that rejects relativist materialism.

Its imperative is moral.

It looks to a society where some choices are obviously, and universally held to be, better than others.

A life where having what we want is not a right and nature puts constraints on the free play of desires.

To reinvent, in short, a life where there is good and bad, right and wrong.

As with all religions, whether the underlying narrative is true, has become beside the point.” – Michael Buerk, 16 Dec 2011 Transcript