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
With regard to Fifth Column’s Places We Like sidebar. Having looked at that short list I think I prefer to take whatever is being said on the website with a large pinch of salt even if Michael Buerk is speaking sense. There’s a lot of mainstream leftism represented on the list including New Statesman (an ailing Marxist rag), BBC and Guardian’s Comment is Free. RSA has a warmist bias as does the Frontline Club. The inclusion of the Spectator on the list might be for purposes of sceptical legitimacy. I can’t speak for the other two sites because I’m unfamiliar with them.
So, in my opinion, it’s less fifth column and more Trojan horse, A space to watch for sure but not for reasons they might expect.
Apologies for pedantry, but “…the public, media and politicians may consider a respected BBC broadcasters concerns about reporting of climate change.” has a missing apostrophe:
The concerns are those of respected ex-BBC reporter Michael Buerk, so it ought to read “…the public, media and politicians may consider a respected BBC broadcaster‘s concerns about reporting of climate change.” Please amend and then delete my pedantic little note.
Best wishes for 2012.
Michael Buerk is a formidale intellect and a much respected journalist. I was bowled over (though not surprised) by his words. They reflect pretty exactly what I have thought for many years. For the first time we hear a top BBC person speak out boldly. Does this presage the beginning of the end for AGW? I doubt it. But maybe we can expect a bit more honesty and openness in the debate. I doubt it!
One aspect Buerk does not directly address is the way the AGW ideology (religion) is used to promote the sinister agenda of the Global Governance and Post-national international elites and environmental activists.
This will never get on to mainstream BBC (Bolshevik Broadcasting Corporation)
Peter Sissons is of the Liverpool persuasion like myself and he would have thought the Guardian Newspaper a splendid platform for “fish and Chips”, but little use otherwise.
Well said Michael Buerk. It’s refreshing to be reminded that there are still real journalists at the BBC, despite everything they have become in recent years. And thank you Paul (11:49 pm) for that link to Buerk’s BBC report of a quarter century ago – a reminder of why we were as proud of the BBC then as we are ashamed of them now.
Just to make all the UK residents feel better that some sense maybe returning to the UK, try :-
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2012/01/carbon-democracy.html
Be warned that it’s 220 pages of crap, rolled up in civil servant speak.
CBC, our taxpayer funded environmental movement media supporter in Canada, has its curmudgeon, too. On WUWT we had a post on his views. He writes for the National Post but is a “contrarian” reporter on CBC on all kinds of issues.
http://bing.search.sympatico.ca/?q=Rex%20Murphy%20on%20global%20warming&mkt=en-ca&setLang=en-CA
Steve P is absolutely correct. Us sceptics and real scientists may win the odd battle but the war has already been won. In the UK a total blackout on anything other than the alarmist view in virtually all MSM (especially the BBC: one morning recently 4 programs – none to do with science – all peddled the AGW line) has already convinced the vast majority of the population that AGW is catastrophic.
I see no change to this scenario other than on blogs like this where delusion reigns supreme – not delusion about the science for here lies good sense but about the politics of knowing CAGW is false and the changes that will follow: we know but the rest don’t, they don’t care about Climategate, they believe in CAGW and won’t listen to us.
Buerk’s opinion is interesting and confirms what we all thought but is ultimately irrelevant: the war is over. Unless the politicians and MSM (not The Team) are tackled head on that will remain the status quo. The one promising chink in the curtain is Canada so let’s see what happens there (I’m not optimistic).
Chris says:
January 4, 2012 at 12:30 am
“Richard111 says:
January 4, 2012 at 12:11 am
I take my hat off to Michael Buerk.
I hope he doesn’t lose his pension.”
I have heard that the BBC pension fund relies on the global warming myth, and it tied up with environmental companies. If it was ever proved that man made climate change was junk, the BBC pension fund would follow, too. If it is indeed true. Can anyone confirm this?
I have also heard this for some time. I will see what I can find out but frankly if it true, Pension Fund Trustees have legal obligations in the UK to invest such monies in the interests of the Pension Fund members, NOT a political ideal or policies!
Michael Buerk is an heir to Raymond Baxter and his generation – the era in which the BBC (and the UK for that matter) did REAL science. It was the BBC generation after Burke’s (and mine) that lost the plot, and presumed that the world was made of candy, lions cuddles antelopes, money grew on trees, and consumer good arrived magically in metal containers, without anyone having to get their hands dirty.
If anyone has a hankering for the days when the BBC stood for everything that was virtuous, pioneering and preeminent about the UK (including its science and technology), here is a trip down memory lane (the Tomorrow’s World theme tune):
.
>>Paul says: January 3, 2012 at 11:49 pm”
>>Brings back painful memories for my wife. That region (Ethiopia)
>>has been long in dispute and is normally arid. It’s not too far from
>>the Afar region, which is very dry and hot.
And which has trebled its population in 35 years. Don’t complain to the West that your people are starving, if you simply use food-aid to treble your population.
The rational are under no moral duty to continually assist the terminally stupid.
.
>>John V. Wright says: January 4, 2012 at 1:50 am
>>Common sense showed that a unified Europe and democracy
>>could not co-exist together – and that a single currency for all
>>nations would end in disaster because individual countries would
>>not have the safety valve of being able to deflate their economies.
Well the Euro could have worked – just like the United States dollar does – but only if they had organised it correctly and had a controlling authority with real teeth and a will to use them. But NO, in their liberal dream-world they just presumed every nation would be honest and stick within their borrowing limits, and when they found out some were not so honest they just kicked the whole rotten can down the road a bit further. But the can has now met a brick wall, and is proving difficult to kick any further.
.
I knew the Euro would not work when they produced the coinage. Here was a brand new currency with 50 years of potential inflation ahead of it, and they produced a 1/2 cent coin and a 1 cent coin that were worthless on the day they were first minted. If you have a financial organisation that cannot even set the initial value of its new currency at the right level (to allow for inflation), there was no hope that that same organisation had the common sense and determination to make the system work.
It was only a matter of time.
And this is not 20:20 hindsight, I predicted this when the Euro was first coined, back in 2002. I also forecast that we would have a financial crash, back in 2005, and was told by a senior London economist that I was a defeatist twat with no understanding of economics. Unfortunately, our politicians and economist (and climate scientists) are not only cerebrally challenged, they are also very reticent to look critically and dispassionately at the system that they created, or the system that pays their wages.
.
B H says:
January 4, 2012 at 2:53 am
“Come on people. Haven’t you been paying attention? They’re hiding in the deep ocean.”
And they’re keeping warm from Trenberth’s heat…
Well, I think we have won this war when the BBC has turned on the church of Global Warming.
Unfortunately we now has “Ocean Acidification” and “Fracking Induced Earthquakes” as the new anti-oil, anti-industry narratives.
I have come to the conclusion that the Western nations, at their liberal core (in the good sense of the term) are suffering from a cultural version of Hypochondriasis. We are doing so well that we are convinced that we are sick.
Buerk is apostate. A true believer in AGW but not catastrophe.
DaveE.
DirkH says:
January 3, 2012 at 7:08 pm
“““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’.”
I’ve seen a similar phenomenon while working in Hamburg. For the Hamburgers, it is of course Der Spiegel and not The Guardian that is their bible.
In NYC, it would be the NYT.
It is something about these cities that drive the people there mad; I would assume that they develop a hyperactive amygdala, a tendency for panic attacks and an increased risk of shizophrenia.”
Harken back to Sodom and Gomorrah. Cities breed dependency and deviance, they always have. Just look at the left wing vote in the US and where it was strongest in recent elections. Europe is, in many areas and many ways, like a city due to its population density. In the old often quoted experiment, when rats are subjected to high density population situations they begin to kill and eat one and other. I have often wondered what form the act of gomorrahmy might take?
Regarding the eurozone, this line also seems appropriate if applied to the AGW meme… 🙂
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/8990067/The-Eurofanatics-should-join-the-Marxists-in-the-dustbin-of-history.html
When these fanatics are highly intellectual, the danger is compounded. If the facts appear to be against them, intellectuals have the self-confidence to club the errant data into a whimpering silence.
He must be a secret reader of WUWT ;>)
There must be others within newsrooms who think the same way as Buerk but know they have to tow the party line. Sissons made his views known (though after he left).
Sissons, Paxman, and now Buerk. All three highly respected and distinguished journalists. If Dimbleby were to also publicly express similar concerns, then that might start to cause others within the BBC to question their own spoon fed beliefs in co2 catastrophe.
RE: BBC Investments
Shortly after CG 1.0 there were numerous atricles written regarding BBC retirement investments in the ‘green agenda’. Look back 18 – 20 months. or so. It will likely be necessary to copy any relevant material found as it may soon ‘disappear’ if it hasn’t already done so. I will check to see if I saved any links or articles.
I would have no issues with the collaspe of the BBC retirement program as then the players for whom it would effect may then attack the perpetrators of the numerous schemes that have played out. They are hoping for a recovery from past mistakes / agendas and when it becomes obvious that no recovery is forthcoming then maybe there will be some truth come from the BBC rank and file. The way I see is that they were all part of a gamble in a scheme that they lost out on. Placed a bet, pitched an agenda, and lost. They should not be ‘too big to fail’. Their agenda has cost millions their retirement nest so why should they be protected, especially since it is the results of their own actions. They should not be protected but rather be subject to their abuse of ethics.
I hope that Mr Buerk has no need of his BBC income because publishing subversive material could mean that his coat will soon be hanging on a shugglie nail.
This will be a pity because the BBC badly needs journalists of Buerk’s calibre which he convincingly demonstrates in the insight he offers contained in the last 5 short sentences of this expertly crafted piece.
Mr Buerk is not alone in seeing that catastrophic anthropogenic global warming is a belief system rather than science but unlike most he has got a reasonable grip on the underlying reason. I expect that comes from his years of mind wrestling training on the Moral Maze.
Having said all that perhaps Mr Buerk has a fine sense of timing and thinks that expressing these views is no longer carreericide at the BBC. I really hope so.
UK Sceptic says: January 4, 2012 at 4:39 am
With regard to Fifth Column’s Places We Like sidebar. Having looked at that short list I think I prefer to take whatever is being said on the website with a large pinch of salt even if Michael Buerk is speaking sense. There’s a lot of mainstream leftism represented on the list including New Statesman (an ailing Marxist rag), BBC and Guardian’s Comment is Free… So, in my opinion, it’s less fifth column and more Trojan horse…
I see another option / possibility.
If Buerck had started off by putting anything remotely like WUWT in his sidebar at this stage, he’d have instantly frozen out all True Deniers. They’d get him moved out of his prominent position like they did David Bellamy. Anyone here seen the film A Very British Coup? Maybe Buerck has – or at least grasps its inherent truths.
Bursting the AGW bubble would make great news, much potential for witch hunting and politicians squirming in their seats as they try to pass the buck. The journalists must be straining at the leash, but not wanting to risk fat salary cheques at the moment. OTOH they must also be aware a juicy feeding frenzy could start at any moment and they will not want to miss out by being unprepared. You can’t tell me they didn’t update Prince Phillips obituary the moment he went to hospital with chest pain. The AGW dirt has probably been collected. It may get too tempting to resist, especially as it approaches it’s sell by date. Thanks to Anthony et. al. we see a big head of water behind a rather leaky dyke. The holes are currently plugged with innocent reputations and great wads of cash, but can this last? Maybe it can.
Lucy Skywalker you could be right. However, the UK politics scene is heading into V for Vendetta territory. The main difference is that the tyrants live outside our borders (Brussels) but control what is within with more powers being ceded to them on a daily basis even as our Prime Minister lies through his teeth about “repatriation of powers” from the EU. However, the movie’s ending doesn’t offer a solution. The actual destruction of the Houses of Parliament would be symbolic only because the real power now resides elsewhere thanks to the succession traitors and useful idiots (with one notable exception who fiercely battled the UK’s corner and who’s like will probably never see again for a long time) we’ve elected into office over the last four decades who have done their utmost to strip away our sovereignty without any mandate from us. The suicidal AGW agenda is but one of our worries. People are starting to become very angry as they finally wake up to what is happening :0(
It’s not just central government that is the problem. Local government is also dragging us deeper into an abyss of stupidity and authoritarianism. This story of a local council overstepping its authority and apparently threatening to criminalise someone over a tiny dog playing with a rubber duck in a garden is an all too familiar event these days. The final quote from the spokeswoman says it all. She carefully avoids any mention of the squeaky rubber duck incident. Perhaps even she was too embarrassed to admit that council lackeys tried to illegally ban a pensioner from giving his dog a toy that can’t possibly create a serious noise nuisance. What’s next? Banning babies rattles?
Sigh…
Steve P :-
the same con men who call for AGW deny the WMD, that 100% for sure did/ do exist in or near Iraq