By John O’ Sullivan
The BBC serves Freedom of Information request (FOIA) on UK Government over weather forecast failures secrecy in worst winter for 100 years.
In an almighty battle to salvage credibility three British government institutions are embroiled in a new global warming scandal with the BBC mounting a legal challenge to force ministers to admit the truth. Sceptics ask: Is the UK government’s climate propaganda machine finally falling apart?
Last week the weather service caused a sensation by making the startling claim that it was gagged by government ministers from issuing a cold winter forecast. Instead, a milder than average prediction was made that has been resoundingly ridiculed in one of the worst winters in a century.
With the BBC appearing to take the side of the Met Office by seeking to force the government to give honest answers, untold harm will likely befall Prime Minister Cameron’s global warming policies on energy, taxation and the environment.
Rift between BBC, Met Office and UK Government Grows
Speculation in newspapers and the blogosphere has festered for the past week as Chris Huhne, minister in charge of the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) stubbornly remain silent. I contacted the BBC’s Environment Analyst Roger Harrabin, one of the world’s senior journalists on such matters to ascertain if the Beeb had a better handle on the story.
Harrabin advised me, “I phoned the Met Office about this statement and the Met Office press office told me they’d given information to the Cabinet Office that we were facing an early cold winter.”
Mention of the ‘secret’ cold winter forecast appears in the Quarmby Report (Section 2.4) which states, “The Met Office gave ‘early indications of the onset of a cold spell from late November’ at the end of October.”
Giving a strong hint that a major rift appears to have opened up between Met Office chief executive, John Hirst and Climate Minister, Huhne, Harrabin further revealed, “The Beeb now has an FoI [freedom of information request] to Cabinet Office requesting verbatim info from [the] Met Office.”
In what may well be an orchestrated manoeuvre between the Met Office and Mark Thompson, Director-General of the BBC the freedom of information demand will heap huge embarrassment on David Cameron’s gaffe-prone coalition government.
Ministers Facing Accusations of Malfeasance of Public Office
If the Beeb succeeds in forcing Cameron’s government to come clean it looks probable hat government ministers intentionally conspired to withhold vital severe weather forecast information placing both lives and jobs at risk. So far losses to the UK economy linked to this year’s severe winter weather are estimated to be above £10 billion.
MP’s Call for Official Parliamentary Probe
Dr. Benny Peiser of Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF ) reports (January 10, 2011) that Liverpool MP Louise Ellman, chairman of the Transport Select committee, is angling to be appointed to head such an official parliamentary probe.
“The current winter fiasco is no longer a joke as the economic damage to the British economy as a result of the country’s ill-preparedness is running at £1bn a day and could reach more than £15 billion,” said Dr Peiser, the GWPF’s Director.
But if the coalition government gives in to demands for a full inquiry, which is as likely as turkeys voting for Christmas, then no doubt heads will roll in high places.
While most eyes here are focussed on the political side, the decision not to inform the public would still have been done by the Met office.
So if this story is true, I would really be interested to know who made this decision, the former WWF boss himself, the Slingo woman or whoever.
To Mike Haseler says:
January 11, 2011 at 8:54 am
Mike, nothing stopped the Regional Governments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland getting their own weather forecasts from the Met Office. Indeed even county councils in England do that.
Please stop trying to “spin” this into a separatist issue, if the regional governments didn’t care enough to ask they are the ones to blame for the concequences.
EW says: “British Conservatives pride themselves to be very green. Not much difference from Labour.”
As they say, “two cheeks of the same arse.”
>>Stacey
>>The following link to Paul Hudson’s web site shows a great graphic
>>of power generation from wind during the severe cold weather.
>> http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/paulhudson/
Wow! A BBC correspondent saying that wind power does not work? I’m amazed. Was he found hanging from a lamp post the next day?
.
Ahh, but what if the gov’t. told them, “Mum’s the word”?
That contention has been rebutted on a prior thread.
Regarding the balance of power at Westminster on the issue of climate change, it is safe to say that the tide is definitely turning – and it’s being led by Tory backbenchers. Tim Montgomerie of http://conservativehome.blogs.com/ (no Party poodle, he), himself a sceptic, said the following in an interview with the left-wing Sunday paper, The Observer:
“Tim Montgomerie, founder and editor of the ConservativeHome website, said climate change had the potential to be as divisive for the party as Europe once was. “You have got 80% or 90% of the party just not signed up to this. No one minded at the beginning, but people are starting to realise this could be quite expensive, so opinion is hardening.””
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/feb/07/climate-scepticism-grows-tories
On his own blog, more recently, he announced the following:
“By massive margins, Tory members have long believed that energy prices, not climate change, will be voters’ top priority. They have been vindicated. There is going to be no progress on combating climate change for the foreseeable future. The climate change lobby was badly wounded at Copenhagen, late last year. Last week, because of the US mid-terms and the election of a sceptical Republican Congress, the lobby is close to death. Yes, we should continue to do green things that have other benefits (eg energy conservation). Yes, we should invest in clean technologies (but Dalibor Rohac sounds a warning on this). But no, we should not be doing anything that pointlessly hurts energy consumers, handicaps UK manufacturing and which does nothing to stop China, India and other energy-poor countries from increasing the world’s carbon footprint.
“We need to do what Lord Lawson has long recommended. Get richer so we can afford to adapt. A richer world can then afford to invest in resilience against extreme weather events. In the meantime Chris Huhne should [be] worried about warming Aunt Mabel’s house. He can’t do anything about global warming.”
http://conservativehome.blogs.com/thetorydiary/energy/
What we now need is for some of these Parliamentarians to show some backbone and begin to challenge government policies, such as energy, which are driven by the ‘green’ agenda on the floor of the House of Commons.
Scotty 12:26:
Hi, Scotty; So your money’s on Corbyn then? But then, even in an average Scottish winter it’s wise to stock up on coal and have a 4WD; me, I’m down the end of Cornwall so it’s not so bad. Best wishes, Dave.
Let me get this straight: the Beeb is actually investigating something related, however tangentially, to the climate-change exaggeration? Like, they’re actually rooting out facts, and stuff?
My head just asploded.
Mike C says: “Let me get this straight: the Beeb is actually investigating something related, however tangentially, to the climate-change exaggeration? Like, they’re actually rooting out facts, and stuff?”
Come on – it’s man-made doomsday created by the evil people who drive cars (BBC staff exempt because belonging to such a eco-good organisation sends you direct to eco-heaven) – so it’s man-made by disbelievers in global warming … QED the severe weather is a consequence of those disbelievers QED the severe weather was caused by the eco-gods bringing down their raff against the “heretic” in the Met Office that didn’t tow the “it’s will be another mild winter”.
Therefore they must root out the heritics in the Met Office to ensure the eco-gods don’t punish us by bad forecasts!
How outraged is the UK public, any poll results? If the Met actually did predict a long, cold winter, was the announcement of this prediction suppressed to avoid casting a pall on the climate conference in Cancun?
I dont agree with the anti Cameron tone of the article, as I think his government is actually pretty good on most issues. However I do agree that his government has been very wrong in coddling the global warming propogandists, and those idiots need to be purged. If the climate office did indeed suppress a Met office prediction that correctly predicted a record cold winter, then the head of the climate office should be fired, and replaced by somebody who is at least neutral on the subject of global warming.
Like others, I am a bit surprised that the BBC is investigating this. In the past, they had been very leftist, and tended to favor the pro global warming propogandists. If even they are changing, and want to find out the truth, that is a good sign that the global warming propogandists are in trouble.
upset Someone’s the to trying apple-cart.
Rearrange the above into a well known saying:-))
Just another sign of the times.
What fun! Brits getting to watch their government broadcaster take on their government weather prophets and their government government, all funded by the decreasing number of citizens who still have jobs and pay taxes. To the barricades, anyone?
RetiredDave has not long posted on Bishop Hill that Paul Hudson has put up a graphic which supports their assertion that they did predict a colder than average winter:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/paulhudson/2011/01/the-met-office-winter-forecast.shtml
Personally I think there’s a political war going on in the MO between the meteorologists and the climate modelling warmists.
This is new — The Met on the side of the good guys?
Don’t be fooled! the bbc & other “Pain stream media” don’t have scores of psychologists, sociologists and anthropologists etc.. On their pay roll for your benefit.