Guest essay by Jim Steele, Director emeritus Sierra Nevada Field Campus, San Francisco State University.
On July 29, 2013 the BBC’s Hardtalk journalist Stephen Sackur wrote “The Alaskan village set to disappear under water in a decade.” He opened the story with “within a decade Kivalina is likely to be under water. Gone, forever. Remembered – if at all – as the birthplace of America’s first climate change refugees.” He then quotes a local who laments, “The US government imposed this Western lifestyle on us, gave us their burdens and now they expect us to pick everything up and move it ourselves. What kind of government does that?”
Given the context, such a statement sounds like the locals were feeling abandoned by global warming. But the tone also reminded me of the complaints by many native Arctic people who were relocated by the US, Canadian and Russian governments in a 20th century battle to secure claims to Arctic territory. Such a vulnerable location seemed odd for a permanent settlement.. Sure enough Wikipedia supported my suspicions Kitvalina. The original village was located at the north end of the Kivalina Lagoon but was relocated to its present location in about 1900. Reindeer were brought to the area and some people were trained as reindeer herders, suggesting there as a government attempt to force a permanent settlement. From the history I can glean on the internet “the people of Kivalina, like the Ipiutak before them, utilized the barrier reef only as seasonal hunting grounds, making camp there in warm-weather months.” Their recent plans to relocate due to erosion and an expanding population are opportunistically blamed on global warming.
The Arctic people have long been victimized by “southern people’s” politics. Relocation of indigenous families became a tactic employed by all the “polar bear countries” in an international chess match to stake claims on Arctic resources. In 1925, Denmark relocated families in Greenland to counter any Norwegian claims to the island. The following year the Soviet government moved a small Eskimo community to Wrangel Island in order to replace an occupation of Alaskan Eskimos that had been established there by American interests. The relocation of families was also a crucial cold-war tactic by Canada to insure their claims on the Arctic, but not just against any Russian threats, but more so from perceived encroachments by the United States.631
In 1944, Henry Larsen, a staff sergeant in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, became the first to navigate the Northwest Passage from the west to east and back again. This celebrated feat greatly strengthened Canada’s claims to Arctic lands, and offset any potential Scandinavian claims based on Norway’s Roald Amundsen’s successful crossing of Canada’s Northwest Passage in 1903-06. However the US military bases built during World War II were now perceived as a threatening foothold. So in the 1950s Larsen was put in charge of relocating several Inuit families to Grise Fiord and Resolute Bay in the far northern reaches of the Canadian Arctic. Grise Fiord is known by its Inuit name that means “the place that never thaws.” Although these were strategic places in ongoing international maneuverings, it was a region long abandoned by the Inuit’s ancestors. Government stories of an unspoiled land where hunting was more bountiful enticed Inuit families to leave the milder climates of their villages along the central Hudson Bay. Government officials sealed the deal by suggesting there was absolutely no risk and promised a swift return passage if the families found their new settlement unsatisfactory.
But it was a promise that Canadian officials never intended to keep. Ironically, the woman who played Nanook’s wife in the popular 1930s documentary “Nanook of the North” and her son (who was fathered by the documentary’s producer) were among the families relocated to Grise Ford. Although “Nanook of the North” had enthralled Americans and Europeans with a glamorized depiction of Inuit resilience and adaptability, their new settlements doled out such incredible hardships their resilience was severely tested. The struggles of those families have now been well documented in the book, The Long Exile: A Tale of Inuit Betrayal and Survival. It was the film producer’s granddaughter, daughter of his half-Inuit, half-Caucasian son, who finally forced the Canadian government to own up to their betrayal. The Canadian government finally made a public apology in 2008 and paid reparations to the offended families.
Sackur’s article continues the long tradition of half-truths. To indict climate change he wrote:
- “Kivalina’s story is not unique. Temperature records show the Arctic region of Alaska is warming twice as fast as the rest of the United States.”
- “Retreating ice, slowly rising sea levels and increased coastal erosion have left three Inuit settlements facing imminent destruction, and at least eight more at serious risk.”
- “No longer does thick ice protect their shoreline from the destructive power of autumn and winter storms.”
However his story relies on zombie data. It was indeed true that Alaska had been warming twice as fast as elsewhere. In a 2012 paper climate scientists from Alaska Climate Research Center, University of Alaska reported, “a sudden temperature increase in Alaska was recorded starting in 1977, seemingly driven by the change in polarity of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) Index, which went from dominantly negative before 1977 to dominantly positive values after that year” However unlike Sackur they also reported for the 21st century ” The mean cooling of the average of all stations was 1.3°C for the decade”1 Alaska is now one the most rapidly cooling areas on earth.
Sackur’s reference to “slowly rising sea levels” are also questionable. Go to the Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level website and view the 2 stations nearest to Kitvalina. At Nome Alaska the sea level is rising so slow it appears to be dropping over the last decade.
http://www.psmsl.org/data/obtaining/rlr.monthly.plots/1800_high.png
Or look at Prudhoe Bay .
http://www.psmsl.org/data/obtaining/rlr.monthly.plots/1857_high.png
Except for a brief surge for a few months in late 2013, Prudhoe Bay sea level has been dropping there as well. The shifting PDO is also known to change sea level across the Pacific Ocean.
Finally it is hard to understand Sackur’s claim, “No longer does thick ice protect their shoreline.” In 2012 the National Snow and Ice Data Center reported “ice extent in the Bering Sea was much greater than average, reaching the second-highest levels for January in the satellite record.” NASA’s Earth Observatory wrote, “For most of the winter of 2011–2012, the Bering Sea has been choking with sea ice… NSIDC data indicate that ice extent in the Bering Sea for most of this winter has been between 20 to 30 percent above the 1979 to 2000 average. February 2012 had the highest ice extent for the area since satellite records started.” And in 2013 Bering Sea ice was again above normal as seen in National Snow and Ice Data Center picture.
So why has the BBC published this story filled with references to zombie data and half-truths? The region’s temperatures are cooling, sea level is dropping and sea ice is above average. The story about Kivalina has been published many times before and residents sued Exxon six years ago. Are they trying to rekindle global fear in a time of paused global warming? Are they now tools of the IPCC? Climategate emails revealed Michael Mann’s distress at a BBC’s story that the PDO could delay global warming, and he told his fellow advocates he would have a talk with their “science” writers. Did Michael Mann and the fellow IPCC warming advocates successfully pressure the BBC to present such a biased and unsupported story that does not educate the public about the complexities of climate change but instead attempts to instill gloom and climate fear? I once saw the BBC as a trusted source, but count me as a climate war casualty. I will never again trust another BBC climate article.
1. Wendler,G., et al. (2012) The First Decade of the New Century: A Cooling Trend for Most of Alaska. The Open Atmospheric Science Journal, 2012, 6, 111-116
Mr. Steele is author of Landscapes & Cycles: An Environmentalist’s Journey to Climate Skepticism
A strong complaint to the BBC would seem to be in order!
The BBC have been serial offenders in this respect, this is nothing new to us in the UK. There has been a small (sea) change recently, but there are still the odd weird alarmist stories like this, to keep the troops happy I expect. Supertankers don’t suddenly turn around, they do a wide circle.
” I once saw the BBC as a trusted source, but count me as a climate war casualty. I will never again trust another BBC climate article.”
Given that the BBC has had such a bias for some time e.g. programmes like “Meltdown”,and “Climate Wars”, how could anyone have trusted the BBC to be impartial about climate!
The Beeb has not been trusted on its climate-related stories for a long time.
The 28-gate affair proved that.
Relevant articles by its ‘science’ team and Harrabin are frequently illustrated by photos showing steam or flue gases back-lit to imply ‘visible-particulates’ to the uninitiated.
It’s no longer about science for the nutters. It’s all zombie apocalypse, all the time.
“Will the Cost of the Climate Wars be the BBC’s Integrity?”
A null question. It’s integrity was destroyed years ago.
In Their Own Words
When people ask for evidence of an institutional Left-wing bias at the BBC, this is the place to go for evidence. Out of the mouths of Beeboids….
http://biasedbbc.org/quotes-of-shame/
The BBC has been on a climate crusade for over a decade, and rational, impartial reporting has gone out of the window. Their crew of ‘science’ reporters are all press release and PC merchants. The best science journalist they ever had was Dr David Whitehouse (who writes much common sense about climate science – what the BBC should have been doing all along) who, as far as I know, left in circumstances that have never been fully explained. I was a fan of his at the BBC as he seemed to be trying to push them in the right direction. Now what does the know nothing about climate science Stephen Sackur phone when he wants to know about climate science – Roger Harrabin or David Shukman – say no more.
Oh,and…
Bring back David Bellamy!!!!!!
I went to the Beeb’s website hoping to be able to leave a comment and a link to your article, but none allowed. I noted that they said they were also broadcasting another programme on Climate Change at the same times today. It looks like the BBC’s assault on promulgating the warmist meme is ‘hotting’ up, while temperatures remain static.
” I once saw the BBC as a trusted source, but count me as a climate war casualty. I will never again trust another BBC climate article.”
The BBC has always been a propaganda arm of the state and it has served its master well over the years. The thing is … the internet now allows people to research many different sources very fast and see for themselves what is going on. An alternative site like WUWT gives people a chance to read real science and to check out another view other than the hysterical media’s myth of impending doom.
The internet may someday be credited with saving humanity by breaking the choke-hold of the information gatekeepers. (well, it is at least possible)
Reblogged this on Climate Ponderings.
I wonder if the Beeb is even aware how far their credibility has fallen?
The Beeb has been compromised for a long time, and not just on climate, it no longer provides real fourth estate journalism on any subject at all. I now view it as a propaganda outlet with occasional current events reporting (disasters, royal births, test cricket, etc).
If the BBC was a person it would be a jaded, alcoholic, sixties feminist. It has campaigned for free love and drugs all its life and is dismayed to discover nobody respects it now it’s middle aged. It still jumps on every hippy band wagon, but it gets to the demos by flying first class. It firmly places it’s politics on the left but it’s really just champagne socialism and enjoys the high life on other people’s money. It tells everyone how to live better lives but gets sulky and spiteful when others point to its own failed lifestyle. It despises traditional values and paints a road to ruin as progress. It’s a national embarrassment that fawns over good looking youngsters that find the attention a bit creepy. Aunty Beeb is a complete slapper that has never lived up to the respect it earned when it was at least fresh and original.
And don’t forget how they treated Benny Hill. Disgraceful.
I’m ashamed to say that the integrity of the bbc is shot to pieces. I was brought up on a diet of the ‘Horizon’ program which induced me take up a science career. In those days the science was the centre of the program. There was no presenter, just a voice over and this held one’s attention.
All we get now is close up shots of ‘attractive presenters’ often gazing wistfully into the distance, or some flashy useless graphic to bedazzle the watcher.
Its about the presenter and not the subject matter. I don’t think the current crop of producers understand how to communicate science or engineering.
Its a shame
Well they did push this out back in 2007 but i suppose they like many others hope people have short memories http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7139797.stm
Limey here. The BBC is long past its best. having been taken over by the Left Liberal class. Everything that goes with that is thrust down our throats, and the fact that people have to pay £140 a year to listen to or watch this crap makes many very angry. Yes, they do some great stuff – their sports coverage, for example, is excellent (especially the radio), however the current affairs is appalling, because of their in-built bias. And their coverage of Israel/Palestine is sickening. This is utterly against their charter, but nothing ever happens about it.
If you don’t have a TV, you don’t have to pay the BBC Poll Tax.
We don’t have a TV.
Join the club. If you live in the UK and you know the truth about global warming, you will be sickened by the BBC’s biased reporting.
Much nearer to home, last evening, they were reporting on the stand off between ultra left wing hippies protesting in the village of Balcombe and Quadrilla, an exploration company attempting to test drill the area. The local community in Balcombe who had initially objected, had disowned the hippies and did not wish to be associated with these criminals. Yet the BBC reported the dispute as if Quadrilla were in the dock. And to reinforce the legitimacy of the protesting hippies, they even showed multiple images taken from U Tube videos of flames shooting out from water taps. They knew there was no substance to such reports and even said that the videos had been largely disproved of being genuine, so what can have been their reason for showing these images, other than to reinforce the myth and add justification to the protests?
Mr Steele, Mod or Anthony. there is a typo that needs correcting:-
“Except for a brief surge for a few months in late 2013, Prudhoe Bay sea level has been dropping there as well. The shifting PDO is also known to change sea level across the Pacific Ocean.”
The brief surge was for a few months in late 2012 (and not 2013, since we aren’t there yet).
Here’s how the BBC is protected by the BBC Trust. A perfect example
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2381603/DAILY-MAIL-COMMENT-Proof-positive-BBC-biased.html
“markstoval says:
July 31, 2013 at 2:42 am
The internet may someday be credited with saving humanity by breaking the choke-hold of the information gatekeepers. (well, it is at least possible)”
I don’t see that happening at all, in fact quite the opposite. The NSA in the US, the UK has plans to “protect internet users” from “inappropriate material”, New Zealand is about to pass a bill to expand surveillance powers of their GCSB and similar policies planned for Australia too. Anyone would think we all live in China or N.Korea.
As a Brit, I tend to be proud of the BBC; but that is based on its historical record (WWII, the World Service, its reporters in the 70s and 80s); however, when I was In Britain in October last year, I was appalled by the general parochialism of reporting in the main BBC news programmes (not its dedicated news channel). It was as if nothing was happening in the rest of the world. But, as in my post on The Grauniad, I don’t give up. The BBC is an institution which forms part of the strange democracy that exists in the UK, and it has a commitment to objectivity. If it fails in that respect, well, let’s criticise and correct it. After all, that’s what democracy and freedom are about, aren’t they?
“jeremyp99 says:
July 31, 2013 at 3:01 am
If you don’t have a TV, you don’t have to pay the BBC Poll Tax.”
I am sure that is not correct. If you watch a broadcast, either live or recorded, on, it seems these days, any device, mobiles, computers etc, you need a license. I recall when I lived in the UK, before smart phones, a PC in each home and tape recorders etc, the fee covered mains powered radio sets.
The BBC has produced some great documentaries such as Orbit: Earths Extraordinary Journey. Not one bit of aCO2 driven climate catastrophe mentioned.
Even though the BBC is a pioneer in this regard – none of the media in the entire EU have any integrity. They are actually forced to lie by EU legislation. And my guess is that about 95% of the journalists actually like it that way.
Trust media in the EU at your own peril. We are the USSR redux.
Unsurprising, as the actual prime determinant of and variation in sea level rise rates is as illustrated here (for global average sea level rise rather than that specific location and a smoothed curve but related):
http://s18.postimg.org/l3973i6hk/moreadded.jpg
(enlarging on further click)
What integrity?
the ignorance in the BBC article is breathtaking. For a start a school kid studying geography can tell anyone what will happen to a “spit” if nature has its way. many natural cycles lead to errosion patterns over years and decades. One of the most precious examples in the UK of such a feature (albeit) markedly different in size and shape is chessel beach which is a world renowned nature site BUT takes MILLIONS of GB pounds each year to maintain. Otherwise the result would be the same. Only people completely ignorant of basic geography would build a ssettlement in such a place without precautions. The “climate” only has any thing to do with this story with regards natural variations and its general effect on errosion. But then again what would the BBC know….
You would be shocked at what the state of Alaska and the U.S. government spend each year so that a scattering of Alaska’s “indigenous people” can have it both ways; living in their remote ancestral villages AND enjoying modern conveniences, education and medical care. Taxpayers would be stunned at the air freight and passenger bills alone. The only thing stopping those natives from living exactly as they once lived on vast lands that have been essentially unchanged over thousands of years are the indigenous peoples’ insistence on having it both ways while living in a wilderness and the white man’s guilty conscience. I once lived in an Athabaskan Indian village and I know whereof I speak.
MSM will question no statement, however ridiculous, when it comes to CAGW:
31 July: Politico: Erica Martinson: Gina McCarthy: Climate change poses economic threat
“Hello. Climate change isn’t an environmental issue. It is a fundamental economic challenge for us,” the Boston native said during Tuesday’s address at Harvard Law School. “It is a fundamental economic challenge internationally.”
Nobody looked at Hurricane Sandy as an environmental problem, McCarthy said. “They looked at it as economic devastation.”
She said the limits on natural resources are real; the threats of climate change are real; and the country should embrace cutting carbon emissions as a way to spark innovation…
“The president even had the courage and the vision” during her long confirmation fight “to stand up in 100-plus degree weather” and give the “most compelling … speech on climate change that any American president has ever delivered,” she said, referring to Obama’s address June 25 at Georgetown University…
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/07/gina-mccarthy-climate-change-poses-economic-threat-94945.html
30 July: WaPo: Julie Eilperin: As new EPA chief, Gina McCarthy vows to act on climate change
But she vowed to “continue to work with the administration as difficult decisions are made” and compared charting national environmental policy to reconciling interests in a noisy family.
“It’s not supposed to be easy. It’s supposed to be hard. It’s supposed to be all the different voices coming together screaming at the top of their lungs like three children,” she said, adding that she would work to allow “all those voices to be heard and to listen to them. And it’s my obligation to keep peace in the family, whether it’s my EPA one or my little one.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/as-new-epa-head-gina-mccarthy-vows-to-act-on-climate-change/2013/07/30/dea868e0-f86b-11e2-8e84-c56731a202fb_story.html
The trustworthiness of the BBC is an urban legend.
You need not pay the bbc poll tax if you do not watch ‘live’ tv, wonderful saved £140 a year and happy that I’m not paying some short-sighted treehuggers wages anymore!
That picture is stunning. Who could put their hand on their heart and say that this was a prime piece of real estate? (Other than a real estate agent).
Thanks very much for adding the geopolitical dimension to this discussion – another piece of the puzzle.
What a farce! the BBC has been deemed to top the 10 best science news websites compiled by RealClearScience.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23503694
Kivalina is a barrier island. Unless Arctic barrier islands are very different from the east coast barrier islands, they are subject to erosion primarily from storms. According to Wikipedia the village is 3.9 square miles (2.0 of it water). Although barrier islands may not change rapidly without storm erosion, you’d hardly consider them permanent living sites.
The creeping malaise that is CAGW has infected every public organisation in the UK, as has Political Correctness, Helath and Safety, etc, etc.
The BBC is no exception and has followed their own promotive agenda for some time, along with the Metoffice, they are jointly responsible for the majority of disinformation to the public.
Articles like this post need to be constantly put ‘out there’ to try and educate the public to see how they are being mislead. Unless a major backlash is forthcoming from the TV licence payers, these manipulators will continue – and the only way to gain support and understanding is through publicity and open discussion/explanation to the public via friends, relatives, workmates, etc.. If we all educate just two people, and they pass it on to two people, etc – it is possible to bring open minds and real education/truth to the mass public in time.
Patrick says:
July 31, 2013 at 3:29 am
“The BBC has produced some great documentaries such as Orbit: Earths Extraordinary Journey. Not one bit of aCO2 driven climate catastrophe mentioned.”
Not quite true. The obligatory piece of climate alarmism came at the end of the last program. Staring out at the sea, she stated that the world was getting warmer and it was caused by mankind.
This was quite ironic, as they had spent most of the program showing how brutally cold it was in those parts, for example showing how hot coffee was frozen before it hit the ground. She had also described how recent storms had cleared away the local ice cover. In other words, the lack of ice there was noting to do with global warming but everything to do with winds and ocean currents.
To answer the question: no. That’s because the BBC has no integrity to lose.
Chris
I do not trust the BBC on anything since the 70s. I live in N Ireland and the lies, half-truths and implied falsehoods was breathtaking. The BBC picks a side to support and sticks with it spinning it to deceive. They did this with Sri Lanka until Channel 4 broke ranks and told us the truth. A shocked BBC was forced to tell the truth after harrowing pictures from Ch 4. Nevertheless they are trying to return to their own agenda. Their bias on Global Warming is something they are proud of and have said so on radio and TV. I believe nothing they say on the news now. Mann would have an open door and a welcome mat. (sorry about the rant).
On BBC radio 5 Live there was a recent interview / discusion between Rachel Burden and (I think) David Shukman, on the lack of global warming these last 15 years or so. They tried to smooth it over without a serious question being asked of the science.
Normally Rachel Burden is an inquisitive and probing interviewer, yet on this occassion she soft-soaped Shukman to within an inch of his life.
“If the science was settled, how come scientists are baffled by the current pause”?
“If the models failed to predict this pause then they’re falsified, are they not”?
“That in turn raises serious questions about the integrity of climate science and the claims of coming catastrophe, yes”?
Ha! No chance were such questions asked. Goes against the Holy Writ, that.
That’s just one example of blatant BBC bias. Theere loads more. And they were also at it again this morning on the shale gas / fracking ‘debate’. They’re a joke and have long-since blown their credibility.
According to the BBC, “Four hundred indigenous Inuit people currently live in Kivalina’s collection of single-storey cabins.”
Have a close look at this (zoom in to full screen)
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/69002000/jpg/_69002528_kivalina-976.jpg
Exactly where are the 400 people living?
When I see this report I will certainly complain but the BBC ignore complaints about climate inaccuracies.
“Except for a brief surge for a few months in late 2013, Prudhoe Bay sea level has been dropping there as well.”
Typo? – Late 2013, we’re not there yet. Shouldn’t it be late 2012. That’s what it looks like on the graph anyway.
Ha!! He used “BBC” and the word “Integrity” in the same sentence!!!! That’s funny!
okay, it’s more sad than funny.
The BBC has about as much integrity as Anthony Weiner.
Living on a sand bar exposed to the ocean is, well, you know…
Stan says:
July 31, 2013 at 2:57 am
And don’t forget how they treated Benny Hill. Disgraceful.
——————————————————————————-
The BBC has much to answer for, in regard to it’s appalling climate reporting and otherwise, but let’s get our facts straight while criticizing the BBC for getting theirs wrong.
Benny Hill was dropped by ITV (for which whom had been working for years) NOT the BBC.
To be fair to ITV, Hill had been doing basically the same thing for decades, his schtick was looking tired (regardless of political fashions) and his shows were very expensive in light entertainment terms. For someone who was smart he should have evolved more to keep fresh or give him more of an alternative career in something like comic acting, but didn’t.
Much the same thing happened to Stanley Baxter and Baxter never had anything like the “PC problem” that Benny Hill was supposed to have.
I no longer watch BBC news broadcasts. Even the documentaries now have a ‘global warming’ message just before the end.
I watch CCTV for a more balanced global news coverage.
I forgot… anybody seen Brian Cox lately?
I agree with those who question whether the BBC has any integrity left to lose. They have produced reports over the years that proclaim that they were left-biased but it’s all different now……until the next report saying the same thing. The BBC Trust have just condemned the excellent John Humphries for producing a report agreeing that the Government has plenty of scope to cut the welfare bill we can’t afford. His crime is going against the party line that any cuts to free-loading shirkers is outrageous. Same as trumpet the evil of ‘cuts’ to public spending without mentioning that the cuts hardly scratch the surface of public spending waste or that we will slowly go bankrupt with reducing spending. From an organisation that has just been found to have made huge excessive pay-offs to managers that would embarrass a banker.
The BBC’s time is over – they can’t be reformed so closure is the only option.
if you look at the bloated bureaucracy of the BBC, its largely incompetent (and overpaid) management, its recent financial disasters, then it becomes clear that the BBC’s left wing bias and departure from high scientific ideals was inevitable in this rotten-to-the-core organisation.
Cleaning out this Augean Stable is long overdue.
The BBC is obsessed about global warming and includes mention of it in almost every programme genre, including TV for children.
They imply in their nature programmes that global warming is the likely cause of all manner of problems even when they must be aware that the evidence points at other causes.
Complaints to the BBC on specific points receive non-specific replies that waffle about how they strive for balanced reporting whilst reflecting the strong consensus of scientific opinion that global warming is an established fact, etc.
The BBC Trust is not fit for purpose and commissioned the well documented report into their impartiality in reporting science. The report concluded that the BBC gave too much coverage to climate change deniers.
The BBC, is funded by a compulsory licence fee and dominates news output to about 80% in the UK. It is largely staffed by left wing liberals. These people are normally Guardian readers and are usually recruited through that media. They really do not seem to have any awareness of their bias since it is so universal and engrained within the culture of the organisation. They exhibit similar left wing bias in politics. For example, they are obsessed about welfare cuts, they are strongly Europhile and they dislike the monarchy.
They must have a huge influence on public opinion by frequently pouring out material in support of their agendas. However, an even greater but more subtle influence is their complete silence on matters which they would prefer to conceal from the public. Thus, they give massive coverage to alarmist headlines but never report subsequent retractions. They avoid informing the public that the EU is the originator of most of the unpopular legislation applied in the UK.
The BBC trust should be disbanded. The Corporation should be broken up and privatised. However, it remains effectively unaccountable to anyone. The Government does not wish to be seen to be interfering with BBC’s independence and no political party wants to upset a body with such attitude shaping influence.
It has campaigned for free love and drugs ” homosexuality, lesbian, minority groups, handicaped you name it ” all its life.
It’s integrity is still in place among the uneducated brits who make up 97% of the population.
I just wish the BBC would tell who the next Doctor Who will be.
btw, what else do they produce ???
I hope Dellers is all over this..!
It’s been decades since the BBC had any integrity.
I’m afraid it is the BBC’s coverage of Climate that made me question everything that they had told me was ‘true’. The ‘Murray Gell-mann’ effect then comes into play and you realise, “If they don’t know what they’re talking about on this subject…?
BBC workers read, by a vast majority, the Guardian (a left of centre non-tabloid newspaper); so much so that the two are almost interchangeable.
Here is a typical Guardian piece on deniers, with WUWT featuring.
http://www.theguardian.com/science/political-science/2013/jul/30/climate-sceptics-scientific-method#start-of-comments
Is it any wonder that the BBC is not completely impartial?
There are no trained scientists on the BBC reporting staff – not one, so such BBC drivel is quite normal. Half truths are simply what the BBC believes is ‘balanced’ reporting!
perhaps some of you twitter literate folk could remonstrate with him on twitter!
https://twitter.com/stephensackurCachedThe latest from stephen sackur (@stephensackur). My day job on @ BBCHARDtalk is focused on in-depth, interviews with public figures. Here’s where I get to …
Some years ago Jeremy Paxman, one of the BBC’s most feared (by politicians) and respected journalists/presenters, said on the matter of the BBC’s attitude to global-warming:
I think the t.v. science and history programme ‘attractive presenter’ problem stemmed from Michael Woods’ jean clad arse. He was and is a fine presenter and had not a bad arse. But those bits of boys who came after take centre stage, elbowing the subject into the wings, and go on a personal journey of discovery. Sad to say, they come back.
Kivalina is built on a sand spit. A naturally and continuously changing geomorphic feature. The America’s ‘first’ climate refugees, huh? What about all those Canuckleheads living in Florida?
Bloody Hell, what tripe.
‘Will the cost of the climate wars be the BBC’s integrity?’
I just love that question: it suggests (laughingly, I presume) that the BBC has some!
The Beeb has integrity to lose?
Look on the bright side:
You can’t lose what you haven’t got.
Looks to me that they are not going anywhere anytime soon. It appears they are in the process of building a seawall to protect their village from high tide storm surges.
“The US Army Corps of Engineers built a defensive wall along the beach in 2008, but it was never more than a stop-gap measure.”
(from the BBC)
Over a quarter century, the BBC’s ultra-partisan/political prevarications, uniformly in lockstep ideological mode, have sunk to prima facie Goebel-esque pronunciamentos. Anyone respecting this Ministry of Truth as a news-gathering organization will get the hey-rube coverage his little heart desires.
Stephen Richards says:
July 31, 2013 at 5:56 am
“It has campaigned for free love and drugs ” homosexuality, lesbian, minority groups, handicaped you name it ” all its life. It’s integrity is still in place among the uneducated brits who make up 97% of the population.”
And what’s it’s policy on peadophilia, ageism, sexism, value for money, accountability, hypocrisy, obscenity, bullying, regional snobbery? The BBC picks and choses where it takes a moral stand and then pretends it’s balanced.
I rather pity revolving Lord Reith! We need someone of his integrity to work the BBC over.
Mike Bromley the Canucklehead says:
July 31, 2013 at 6:44 am
America’s ‘first’ climate refugees, huh? What about all those Canuckleheads living in Florida?
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perfect.
If global warming is bad, why is the US population in general moving southward rather than northward? A big city in Alaska would hardly make it as a small town in the South. Towns in Alaska are offering rewards for doctors to come and live there.
Why do most Canadians live within 100 miles of Canada’s southern border? With all this global warming you would think they would be flocking northward to escape the heat. Instead, given the chance they are flocking to the USA’s southern border, with large populations of retired Canadians moving even further south to Mexico and Central America.
In contrast, we find almost no Canadians moving north to retire. Tuktoyaktuk is not the retirement capital of Canada.
Willis already did an article which the BBC could have used and been more accurate, only it was about a nearby village Shishmaref also on a western AK barrier island:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/07/02/the-sixth-first-climate-refugees/
When will the BBC or the NY Times do an actual investigative report on the “global warming scam”? Where are the true journalists in the MSM? The Guardian wrote an article claiming that Anthony Watts wasn’t such a bad guy…big deal. Where’s their article about the CAGW scam ? You don’t see that one.
The drowning of Kivalina appears also being pushed by Huffington Post, International Business Times, Mail Online. The advocates must be in dire need of an alarming story.
Jim Steele
Recommend that you submit a formal “Complaint” to the Chairman of BBC, BBC’s Board of Governors, the BBC Trust, and to the former chairman Lord Grade.
“complaints about bias, inaccuracy and some commercial issues . . .are the BBC Trust’s responsibility”
BBC Complaints
PO Box 1922
Darlington DL3 0UR UK
or OnLine
See: BBC ‘needs complaints ombudsman’
“The BBC needs an independent ombudsman to deal with complaints against it, the corporation’s former chairman Lord Grade said today.”
A great article. You have just done the job that the ‘journalist’ Stephen Sackur should have done. As soon as I started reading this post I thought that they are to be America’s ‘firstsecond’ climate refugees. Susan Goldenberg has beaten him to it. 🙂
Secondly, you do have to wonder how much the BBC really cares about
global warmingclimate change. Why can’t the chaps at the top of the BBC put pressure on their pension trustees to do something to tackle climate change? LOL.BBC Pension – Top equity Investments at 31 March 2012
British American Tobacco
BG Group [Oil & natural gas]
BP [Oil & natural gas]
Royal Dutch Shell [Oil & natural gas]
Imperial Tobacco
Centrica [Natural gas & electricity]
Reynolds American [Tobacco]
Petrofac [Oilfield services]
Oao Gazprom [Natural gas]
International Power [Electricity generaton]
Apache
Total SA [Oil & natural gas]
Occidental Petroleum [Oil & natural gas]
Altria Group [Tobacco]
Drax Group [Electricity generation]
Philip Morris International [Tobacco]
The above list “Does not include any assets held in pooled funds.”
Other_Andy says: July 31, 2013 at 2:30 am
Oh,and… Bring back David Bellamy!!!!!!
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For our US readers, David Bellamy was a well-loved ecologist with a passion for nature, who made more than 400 programs for the BBC and others. Then he denounced Global Warming as a fraud and *** POW *** he disappeared. And so sudden and so complete was his disappearance, that some did wonder if the KGB had taken him to a Gulag.
But Bellamy’s disappearance gives the lie to the “97% of scientists” claim, because if a scientist refused to back the scam, the KGB came and abducted them. How can any old ‘bog-standard’ scientist stand up to the Climate Scam, when someone as famous as David Bellamy can be ‘abducted’ and ‘imprisoned’ for speaking his mind?
David Bellamy:
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Just like PBS and NPR, the BBC doesn’t have to pay attention to viewer complaints because it is tax funded, and even its opponents have to pay. That needs to change.
How does winter ice disprove falling summer ice levels? I don’t understand how someone in academia can make such an obvious error.
markstoval says: “The BBC has always been a propaganda arm of the state.”
Exactly. Many here hasn’t grasped the full magnitude of the problem.
CAGW is a symptom of a much greater problem.
The internet is a double edge sword for the government. They need it to watch us and they hate sites like this. As long as the propaganda is going their way they will will leave it alone if not they will figure out a way of protecting us.
*** Will the Cost of the Climate Wars be the BBC’s Integrity? ***
Sorry, but the Biased Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has not had any integrity for years. It is merely the Court Jester to the Grauniad, and plays the fool to keep the left-wing & liberal ‘intelligentsia’** happy and spread their propaganda. Its reporters are brain-dead media-studies students, who have never had to do a real job in their lives, and hate the nation that has educated them and paid for their nice safe and secure lives. To the BBC, the only good and virtuous people in the country are immigrants, while the native working class who generate Britain’s wealth can go to hell.
I am surprised there has not been a people’s revolt, with a mass refusal to pay the BBC licence fee. I have not paid for 6 years, and have no intention of doing so.
** Note that ‘intelligentsia’ now has the complete opposite meaning of what it had 30 years ago. It now refers to dreamers who live in a looking-glass world and have absolutely no idea what is going on in the real world.
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The BBC, once known as the gold standard for news, is now mostly recognized as the TV station that hosts the Top Gear, Sherlock and Dr. Who programmes as their journalistic reputation has been falling into disrepair in the last two decades.
How does the BBC have even a smidgen of respectability after several decades of covering for Jimmy Savile? Close them down.
I very much doubt that the people of Newtok or Kivalina can ever be called “America’s first climate change refugees.” Then we have the dustbowl of the 1930s. I thought the BBC was there to educate.
USA mega droughts during the Holocene.
Dustbowl refugees of the 1930s.
And for a discussion of the recent high levels of ice in the Bering Sea, see this post of mine from December 2012: http://polarbearscience.com/2012/12/10/now-that-bering-sea-ice-cover-is-high-again-variability-is-normal/
I concluded:
“However, 2009 is now three years ago. Bering Sea ice is not only still above average but the NSIDC says that last year’s maximum extent for the Bering Sea exceeded the highest amount recorded in the satellite record period. The May 2012 extent (presumably the annual maximum) was 350,000 km2, considerably more than the previous annual high of 256,000 km2 and almost 3x more than the lowest extent reported by Brown et al.”.
Sackur is not even consistent. Back in 2009 he interviewed Leipold of Greenpeace. This is from a piece written by Phelim McAleer & Ann McElhinney (who they? Don’t know) and found on Yahoo Answers; http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090820100119AAIDxtc
Under close questioning by BBC reporter Stephen Sackur on the “Hardtalk” program, Gerd Leipold, the retiring leader of Greenpeace, said the claim was wrong.
“I don’t think it will be melting by 2030. … That may have been a mistake,” he said.
Sackur said the claim was inaccurate on two fronts, pointing out that the Arctic ice is a mass of 1.6 million square kilometers with a thickness of 3 km in the middle, and that it had survived much warmer periods in history than the present.
The BBC reporter accused Leipold and Greenpeace of releasing “misleading information” and using “exaggeration and alarmism.”
Ah! The irony…
JMT says: July 31, 2013 at 2:05 am
A strong complaint to the BBC would seem to be in order!
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Here is the BBC online complaint form – please do make a complaint:
https://ssl.bbc.co.uk/complaints/forms/?reset=#anchor
You will need the first 3 letters of a UK postcode. Here is a list of post codes – just add a single number to any of these letter pairs. A postcode will look like ‘LE7’ or ‘CT3’.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_postcode_areas_in_the_United_Kingdom
The programme was ‘Hardtalk’ on July 29, 2013 at 12:30 hrs.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b038h3yn/HARDtalk_Alaska_Part_1
(will not play outside the UK)
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The fundamental question about the BBC is why, if you live in the UK, you are obliged to subscribe to it in order to be legally permitted to watch TV.
Why? You don’t have to subscribe to Tesco to be allowed to buy groceries. You don’t have to subscribe to the Guardian in order to be legally allowed to read a newspaper. You don’t have to subscribe to Foyles in order to be allowed to read.
Let everyone pick the broadcaster of their choice.
michel says: July 31, 2013 at 8:50 am
Let everyone pick the broadcaster of their choice.
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That would be a better system – just tick the box of the broadcaster you want the money to go to. Now that would scare the Biased Broadcasting Corporation witless.
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Peter Hannan says: ” If it fails in that respect, well, let’s criticise and correct it. After all, that’s what democracy and freedom are about, aren’t they??”
In the US when I was growing up (60’s) both of the two major parties had a conservative majority (should be called classic liberal) today there isn’t one person that can be rightly called a conservative in either the house or Senate. Statistically when i was growing up conservatives made up of about 75% of the population today it is still around 60% that call themselves conservative in the US.
In other words representative democracy has completely and utterly failed in the US. I am not sure about other western countries how they have fared the quite revolution. This should bother even hard core socialists once it is checked.
This is what the people of Kivalina use for heating. Tip: see the tanks at the top of the WUWT post. I wonder why they don’t use wind turbines and solar panels.
http://www.usa.com/kivalina-ak-housing–historical-house-heating-fuel-data.htm
I must admit I am starting to find the climate wars to be fascinating. Do the BCC understanding what they are fighting for?
There appears to be a change happening in the war. The BCC and liberal media have been pushing (telling fibs to promote the belief that climate change is so very important any expense is justifiable) and hence directly and indirectly promoting very expensive green scams that do not work.
There is now discussion of capitulation – Why are we fighting to promote green scams? – on the green scam front. Liberal think tanks and senior officials in governments are just starting to understand there are consequences to pushing green scam energy and that there will be unavoidable significant consequences/pain/sacrifices to achieve a real reduction in carbon dioxide emissions of lets say 60%.
The fantasy that has been promoted and it is a fantasy, is Western countries can get to 60% real carbon dioxide emission reduction without nuclear power, without a wartime like reduction in standard of living (this point is key), and without super high taxation on the estimated carbon content to manufacture and transport the goods and services we purchase. The cost to achieve 60% carbon dioxide reduction using green scam energy increases by a factor of three to four times as energy storage is required. There is no viable energy storage system. Green scam energy can only reduce CO2 emissions by 10% to 20% without storage. That is a fact not an opinion.
The importance of the answer to the scientific questions concerning is there or is there not a warming problem to solve changes if one accepts the reality of what it would take to get to 60% carbon dioxide emission reduction.
The BBC lost their integrity years before AGW became popular with their still lasting profound anti-semitic agenda in their ‘journalism’. This only proves it’s a systemic lack of integrity.
What Americans will find amazing is the sheer dominance of the BBC in UK “news” delivery. The UK has a vigorous daily press, commercial channels and Sky TV – but the BBC accounts for over 50% of news delivery – that is, people take over 50% from the BBC’s TV and radio channels and its huge website.
No organisation should have such a large role in the “news market” Especially when it has been skewed to the left for decades now. Its science reporting is a disgrace, especially on climate issues. Endless deliberate bias towards the warmists – which we find was planned by a special summit meeting comprising mostly eco-activists. And virtual complete suppression of views or evidence that cuts against the warmists’ case.
And we are forced under threat of fines or eventual imprisonment to fund this dinosaur, $200 per household per annum. Over $6 billion a year. BBC TV programmes these days are mostly rubbish – but its news services are pernicious. It is way past the point of reform. Itb needs to be abolished or put on a voluntary subscription basis with no more of the harshly-regressive TV tax.
@Ryan Spear “Ryan says: How does winter ice disprove falling summer ice levels? I don’t understand how someone in academia can make such an obvious error.”
First of all it was Sackur who blamed the lack of protection from winter storms so you should ask him why. “No longer does thick ice protect their shoreline from the destructive power of autumn and winter storms.”
Second the Bering Sea and the Alaskan coast are always been ice free by the end of summer. You seem to be confusing the loss of ice in the Arctic Basin with ice that could protect Kivalina.
Your attempt to denigrate my, simply reflects your own lack of knowledge.
I think the BBC lost all respect and their reputation when 28 gate took place. I am sure that the more they continue to peddle CAGW, the more viewers will also lose any respect they may once have had for the BBC.
@ Jim Steele you said “Second the Bering Sea and the Alaskan coast are always been ice free by the end of summer. “
Where can we expect to see the first signs of an ice age beginning, in the Bering Sea perhaps.
I’ll believe BBC integrity has at least been partially restored when this professional doom monger no longer graces our screens:
It is incorrect to regard the BBC as an agent of the British Government. The BBC has its own agenda, set by itself and accountable to no-one. Also, it is not helpful to use the expression “left-wing” in this context. That’s 1960s talk. The BBC takes up positions on subjects and everything they report on that subject serves to support that position. Global Warming is their favourite topic just now.
It was actually Steven Sackur BBC Newsnight report (BBC late night flagship current affairs show in the UK)Still available on the BBC iplayer. Funny thing is they conveniently filmed it in the middle of the Alaskan Summer.24 Hour day light when the sea ice has slowly melted .Makes great TV Climate Change watery ice footage.Unfortunately go to the Arctic in the middle of the Alaskan winter 24 darkness contiuous for 6 months and 60 degrees below zero .You wont find many Climate Scientists or any help if you fall down a hole or a polar sniffs you out from three miles away. Too dangerous for humans to be out there. Or rescue pilots to navigate .But plenty of ice
Unfortunately pitch black with no flood lighting does not make for great TV.
Sorry about the swearing.But night and day periods is the great plot hole of John Carpenters classic Horror Film.
I first became suspicious of the BBC when I saw how global warming politics transformed their video representation of polar bears and walruses. Google “Polar bear vs walrus – BBC wildlife “ or go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yk-BE4Vxny4. In what appears to be an older BBC video from decades ago, several polar bears are shown attacking a walrus herd. In the final scene, the narrator explains that in a time where bears are believed to lack food, the walrus have provided a feast with plenty of left overs. From this video it would seem attacking walruses was quite normal. In fact ipre 1970s accounts by Russian biologists in the Laptev Sea bears have observed bears making pits and hiding behind driftwood to attack walrus, and researchers on Wrangel Island report bears waiting at traditional spots where walrus haul out each summer.
What a difference a video makes. Google “Polar Bear Versus Walrus Colony – BBC Planet Earth” or go to
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6iDtvGbIOU . This is a more recent BBC video, narrated by David Attenborough It starts with walruses on a sand bar. What appears to be a young male polar bear who are known to have difficulties attacking walrus, approaches and Attenborough tells us that the bear, after “several days at sea”, serendipitously arrives where they are filming the walrus. The bear is shown to be too tired to attack until the next day. The bear not only fails to capture a walrus but is injured as well. Attenborough then tells us that bear hasn’t eaten in months, and “only in the height of summer will polar bears attack such dangerous prey.” (Of course it is well documented bears attack walruses at polynya in the winter but that is not shared.) The final scene overlaid with sad music, has the injured bear lying down in defeat, with the warning that continued global warming and melting ice will undoubtedly lead to more tragic polar bears deaths by walruses as bears are driven by desperation
I think the article is taking the BBC a little bit too seriously. I am one of many in the UK who no longer pay the BBC licence fee. In 10 years time, there will be no BBC. It will die a slow, lingering death. Giving it free publicity in this way should not be encouraged. I would simply advise Wattsupwiththat.com to ignore it. No comment required.
The BBC lost all credibility here in the UK about 10 years ago. It’s a left-wing dinosaur, mostly staffed by people who went to private schools and then university – there are few comprehensive-educated staff. It is obsessed with climate change and sport. That and skewing the current governments attempts at welfare reform. If you talk to the staff there they say that it’s such a large organisation that it simply can’t change. Things get done a certain way because they’ve always been done that way – correctly or not. It’s a great shame. What many people here are now doing is to refusing to pay the licence fee. This is waiting to blow up. In the next five years it will begin to affect their revenue in a serious way. Tick, tick, tick…
Kevin do you remember Mr Tully from Stevenage.
Americans wont quite get the British sense of humour.
Sad news last week about Mel Smith RIP.
The BBC is fairly immune to criticism, even if it is from senior politicians.
However, I do think it is afraid of bad publicity. Widespread criticism in newspapers and other media does concern the BBC because what it fears most is a threat to its funding. Widespread loss of trust or public anger could give some politicians enough backbone to call for cuts in the BBC budget. Sadly, most of the public are quite happy with the BBC because unless you deliberately seek out alternative sources of news and information you have nothing to make you realise how much your awareness of news and public affairs is being manipulated.
What is needed is that the above story and every one like it is launched as a press release with sufficient headline sensationalism to stimulate even the most disinterested of newspaper journalists. This, after all, is what the alarmists do on a regular basis. After about a dozen of such disclosures, the trend may just become noticeable, even to the BBC.
Oh!? The BBC? They’re already paid that and done that. Sadly, they’re more than happy to dig their embarrassment hole deeper, much deeper.
Patrick (at 3.29 a.m.) Licence Fee:
“You do not need a TV Licence if you are watching TV after it has been shown on television, eg TV programmes downloaded or streamed after broadcast.”
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/keyfacts/stories/licencefee2.shtml
Google it and you’ll see VERY many people are not renewing their licence (we plane not to renew in February 2014). This is a time bomb that will seriously affect the BBC, and no one is saying anything about it!
Oh no, in the above post you’ll see I have (mis)typed ‘plane’ and ‘time-bomb’. Can I expect a knock at my doo
@Ghost of Big Jim Cooley – only if you live in the US.
Jim Steele’s pieces are a delight. More, please.
Just as bad as the BBC’s Green Propaganda, is the BBC’s daytime programming, which is so out of touch with modern Britain it is nothing short of further deliberate propaganda. Here is a list of program titles for daytime viewing:
BBC title …………………… (My title)
Countryfile ………………… (Original Britons on farms)
Escape to the Country … (Original Britons Flight from the Cities)
Homes under the Hammer .. (Original Britons selling Houses)
Cash in the Attic ………… (Original Briton’s bric-a-brac)
Antiques Roadshow ……. (Original Britons with more expensive bric-a-brac)
Bargain Hunt ……………… (Original Britons at auctions)
Flog it ……………………….. (More Original Britons at auctions)
Money where your mouth (More Original Britons at auctions)
Gastronauts ………………. (Original Britons as chefs)
Masterchef ………………… (Original Britons as chefs)
Hairy Bikers ………………. (Original Britons as chefs on bikes)
Great Railway Journeys .. (Original Britons on Trains)
Great Walks ………………. (Original Britons with tracksuits and trainers)
Country Tracks ………….. (Original Britons in the countryside)
Coast ……………………….. (Original Britons on the beaches)
Songs of Praise ………….. (Original Britons in church)
Land Girls …………………. (When England was all Original Britons)
Britain’s Secret Sea ……. (Original Britons on a boat)
Now we all know that this is not the reality of Britain today, so why are the BBC producing programming that pretends that the nation is still composed of 100% Original Britons?
In truth, the political ploy here is to try and convince people that nothing has changed in Britain over the last 20 years, when in reality nothing could be further from the truth. It is like boiling a lobster – if you do it slowly, they don’t notice. Indeed, within the BBC this is known as ‘Lobster Programming’.
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I have lambasted the BBC many times for biased reporting – not that I could hope to keep up with Biased BBC. Comments that it is a propaganda organ for the state seem simply candid observations which are consistent with reports that ‘enviro’ groups hijacked ‘climate’ reporting so badly that the government was caught flat footed at a need for snowplows in winter. Here’s a quick return on a query about biased reporting http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1350206/BBC-propaganda-machine-climate-change-says-Peter-Sissons.html
WHAT INTEGRITY???
[Self-snip rest of comment, I do not want to insult the ‘ladies’]
Did BBC had any integrity?
BBC is an organization that makes leftist propaganda while at same time with the State Violence Monopoly forces everyone to pay them.
The Guardian and the BBC. Two cheeks of the same arse. Same message, same effluent output.
Both do science by press release. Neither care to follow it to review or report on subsequent failures, and they never bother to follow the money train on scientific studies that are an obvious attempt to do nothing more than further ‘the cause’. The idea is to get the message out, not to report on facts. Which once upon a time was what journalists were paid to do. It’s no wonder so many politicians would like to see more rules on internet bloggers as they are outside the same rules that govern other media, i’m shocked Ed Davey hasn’t called for a block on search terms pertaining to climate like Cameron has to adult related search terms.
The BBC didn’t report on 28gate, and the amount of licence fee money they spent defending their breach of their charter yet they spent hours of live coverage to the enquiry into phone hacking. An enquiry largely driven by the BBC and the Guardian. Why no government enquiry into 28gate? Oh, I forgot, because HMGOV who hold the purse strings share the same message. Together they can feed us all the crap they want. If the BBC did report on it, viewers would be exposed to the realities of the official policies of institutional bias that runs down the yellow streak of the BBC backbone.
BBC=CBC=ABC=questionable and biased reporting by taxpayer funded organizations that no longer serve the purpose for which they were created – they are adrift.
Andrew says: “The BBC has its own agenda, set by itself and accountable to no-one.”
You are absolutely correct that BBC has it’s ‘own agenda.’
It is very important on what that means. Here is Tony Hall General Director of the BBC: Notice if you are not a team player you are out of the loop you will not be making any shows for the BBC.
In other words it is the authority over Galileo complex(don’t know if there is an official term.) Where only the established ideas will be presented for the BBC other wise you are not a team player. That is what BBC director says over and over again in that video.
Established ideas means government accepted ideas or their interpretation of academia accepted ideas.
Britain is essentially a centrist, socially-liberal/tolerant democracy and the BBC fairly-well represents that. It also makes some excellent TV and radio. Given it’s statist and tax-funded it’s always going to have its critics.
The BBC is, and has Always been, the Propaganda service of HM Government. It is a valid reflection that the late Herr Doktor Goebbels was required to actually tell his state controlled media what to say, whereas the BBC requires no instruction, it merely recognises the hand that feeds it 🙂
Well, looks like many wishes might yet be realised …
UK Government May Curb BBC Media Dominance
http://www.thegwpf.org/uk-government-curb-bbc%e2%80%88media-dominance/
“THE BBC could see its powers curbed as part of a review of the rules on media plurality, the government announced yesterday.
Investigations into excessive dominance of the media market do not currently look at the role of the public broadcaster. But the review, unveiled by culture secretary Maria Miller, will consider changing this on the basis that BBC spends more on current affairs than all other UK broadcasters combined.
Existing media ownership rules – which aim to limit the dominance of one media group – still focus on measures such as newspaper sales while completely ignoring the popularity of news websites.”
ferd berple says:
July 31, 2013 at 7:50 am
With all this global warming you would think they would be flocking northward to escape the heat.
Perfect indeed. This is the most irritating rub of all of the AGW alarm machine. The entire juggernaut feeds off the imperceptible uptick in global average temperatures. An uptick that must be calculated, and alarm based on ….wait for it….models. Oh, and lots of sheeple to drink of the font of conventional 97% wisdom. Oh, wait, Cook said 97.1%, didn’t he?
Democracy or truth is not an integral part of the Left!
I was very pleased indeed to see this picked up and covered at WUWT.
I saw the BBC HARDtalk programme with Stephen Sackur the other evening and I was utterly appalled – both by the agressive, arrogant, rude presentation style and by the fact that the programme was chock-full of errors, factual inaccuracies and biased assertions about global warming. That this sort of rubbish is broadcast on a ‘news channel’ is even worse.
I have submitted a formal and strongly-worded complaint via the BBC’s Complaint Website. I have requested that they make corrections to the errors in the programme, and I have requested a reply to my complaint. We shall see what comes of it.
BTW, I note that the programme in question is entitled Alaska Part 1. I think we need to keep a very close eye on Part 2 when it is broadcast….
Fanakapan says: July 31, 2013 at 10:14 pm
The BBC is, and has Always been, the Propaganda service of HM Government.
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Not true. The Biased Broadcasting Corporation has always been at the service of the left-wing/communist intelligentsia, and very rarely tows the Conservative government line.
If you remember, the BBC even wrote Dr Who episodes to be anti-Thatcher:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/doctor-who/7235547/Doctor-Who-had-anti-Thatcher-agenda.html
And ITV was no better. If you remember, they created the Spitting Image satire, during the Thatcher years, which was very subversively critical. Was there any such satire of Tony Blair? No…
The Thatcher puppet:
http://ihatehate.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/thatcher-spitting-image.jpeg
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I’d have said Spitting Image was more than overtly critical of anyone and was considerably more balanced than a lot of the news that the show followed on Sunday night. Everybody was either dislikeable, or dislikeable and an idiot.
It’s bizarre, I watched a programme on BBC yesterday called Europe : A Natural History. It spoke of how after that last ice age, Mediterranean plants spread northwards at a rate of 500m per year. It spoke of lions as far north as London due to the warm climate and spoke of the rapidly changing fauna and flora across the whole of Europe.
Yet today, such events which are nowhere near as fast or extreme as shown in the past, can only be explained by man-made changes.
The BBC are a disgrace.
The BBC was established to inform. More than twenty-five years ago a left of centre Chairman, suported by his left of centre Director General, decided to replace the word “inform” with “educate.” Thus hoi poloi should be “educated” to understand the perils posed by climate change/global warming, war-mongering Republicans, eurosceptics, Conservatives, Israel and heterosexuals (particluarly if they happen to be Christian). If inconvenient facts got in the way of education they should either be ignored or, if that proved impossible, derided with scorn.
Any expert who did not conform to the producer’s directive would have/his her contribution either edited in such a manner as to reverse the opinion or, if that was not possible, edited out altogether. If the broadcast was live and the contribution could not be deleted, the expert would never be invited back. The best-known case is Professor Bellamy but it has happened to friends of mine as well.
The BBC regularly employs a cunning ploy to promulgate its bias. If you have a view that can be considered “minority” it will chose to exclude it on the basis of it being a minority view – AGW skepticism, anti-immigration, radical nationalist etc.However, if it happens that they support a minority view then they will promote it regularly. Vegetarianism is a minority lifestyle choice but never ignored by the BBC, yet if they employed the same rules as they do for AGW-skpeticism vegetarianism would never be heard of on the BBC.
Actually, the fate of the BBC is entirely dependent on the horse trading of aspirant Prime Ministers and the unaccountable shady interests that control who gets elected in this pseudo-democracy of ours.
Mr Murdoch always pays a keen interest and he will vigorously back anyone who seeks to destroy, weaken or curb the wings of the BBC. He will use full spectrum dominance surveillance to destroy anyone who looks too closely at his own behaviour, be that adultery (2nd and 3rd marriages immediately the 1st and 2nd divorces came through: crass hypocrisy for a man whose newspapers end careers in public service for anyone caught playing away from home), hacking (industrial level hacking across swathes of British industry is carried out by his ‘organisation’: trust me, I worked for a management consultancy whose computers were all hacked by News Corporation); funding wars (Mr Murdoch saying that Britons must fund a war is unacceptable as he is a tax avoiding non-com US citizen, not a UK subject) etc etc.
Mr Murdoch’s loyal acolytes in the current Govt are Michael Gove, Jeremy Hunt and David Cameron (courtesy of whatever he was getting up to with Rebekah Wade, formerly CEO of News Corporation). He wishes to make money in the UK education sector, which is why an acolyte has t be in the Dept of Education. Jeremy Hunt was placed where he was to ensure that the competition review on News Corporation had an appropriate result.
The BBC has never had any integrity over global warming. It would be fined hundreds of millions in a court of law if a case were ever brought concerning the wilful breaking of its own charter of neutrality where global warming is concerned.
The real question about the BBC is whether it is being cannibalised by BT and others, which as a private organisation is no doubt more acceptable to the Right Wing. BT Sport launches today, which will provide a stiff challenge to the future of BBC sport (indeed it is poaching several BBC staff, just as ITV did for the French Open tennis coverage).
I’m sure the ‘free market’ solution would be to buy it up, sell off its constituent parts and walk off with the loot.
What gets lost in all of this is whether the UK public want that to happen or not.
Did anybody happen to notice the awesome, peeling left that is freight-training off at the the lower left corner of the top picture? That thing looks epic.
Agree with all this, except it’s wrong to think the BBC has only recently become a leftist mouthpiece. In ‘Island of Sheep’, written in the 1930s, John Buchan describes a terribly knowing, cynical, anti-British leftism (more recently we might call this ‘radical chic’) as reducible to the culture of the BBC.
Perhaps a modest bias in comparison to today, but appearances can be deceptive. Many of the educated classes both before and after WW2 thought the USSR a very good thing, as Buchan knew. The BBC was always the educated classes explaining the world to the rest of us, in that condescending way they have. Why education should lead leftwards is not fully clear to me, but it just does. As Ronald Reagan said once, the problem with our liberal friends is not that they’re ignorant, it’s that they know so many things that are not so.
the BBC like all non-private independent organizations has become its own mafia, where the inner Greats milk as much as they can and everything rotates around sustaining their privileges.
Remember, many who had to step aside because of the Savile child sex scandal were in the 28gate list. Coincidence of course :-/
I suspect they ‘ramp’ up the bias during a Hot spell in the UK to add weight to their alarmist material .. PSYOPS is now part of the BBC’s Climate Change strategy I think??
The use of the future tense in the title is surely grammar and logical error.
And a more recent 1st person account is “Confessions of a BBC Liberal”: http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?118107-Confessions-of-a-BBC-liberal
Birds of a feather, squawking together.
Or toes, even.
The BBC seems to regard the Gov’t as one of its divisions, if anything, whether Labour or Conservative.
There has long been a struggle between science practitioners (i.e. those like Engineers) and science academics in the UK. You can trace this whole “class warfare” right back to the “new rich” who made vast wealth in the industrial revolution. These “Engineering” upstarts were hated by the landed gentry who were still largely living off the wealth stolen by William the Bastard in 1066 by effectively enslaving the indigenous population.
As the Universities were the education institutes for the landed gentry … and because societies like the Royal society were formed as a welfare scheme to landed gentry “scientists” who couldn’t or wouldn’t make a living in the “dirty” industry (far cleaner than grovelling about in cow shit). Science, so academia has maintained this snooty nosed attitude to practical science.
And the BBC are just continuing the tradition of a class society where the nice upper class “science” is practised by the nice people like academics and the Royal society, and the nasty horrible people who make money for the country through science and contribute so much to WUWT … they continue to be the scum of the earth who shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near the polite society of “Scientists”.
And yes, This is all a terrible stereotype that doesn’t exist in real science … but the BBC don’t have real scientists. Their science is all the make believe fiction of the media which is itself just a stereotype of real life. So, the BBC are largely devoid from the reality of modern science and engineering.
… or perhaps more accurately (as I turned on the radio to listen to the BBC for the first time in a month (it used to be several times a day) … we in the real world are divorced from the BBC. It is now largely an untrusted irrelevance.
Brian H,
Good link to Antony Jay, I knew of him but well worth reading again.
He’s balanced in his view, being able to remember when Britain was an authoritarian country. For those of us only paying attention since the 60’s, the libtards at the Beeb are incomprehensible, from another world. But there’s always a reason, even if now defunct.
This story has a video post on weather.com and the reporter says “Town Will Disappear by 2025!”
-not it might or could but, “will disappear”
This from your friendly weather channel…
Here’s the link:
http://www.weather.com/news/science/environment/alaska-on-the-edge-climate-refugees-20130515
I’m ROFL at the complaint of tribal people in AK about having to move due sea level rise.
Many people had to relocate in the past. For example, at the bottom of Esquimalt Lagoon in Colwood BC is a tribal village that was submerged thousands of years ago as sea level rose on the mid-west-coast of North America.
(I don’t remember why it did, I recall it was widespread but one has to check that plate tilting was not a factor. Some geologists today suspect that the uneven sea level change in recent years in the BC lower mainland, southern VI, and Olympic Peninsula area is due to plate tilting. Changes are small, some positive and some negative, IIRC the general pattern matches plate location and expected tilt direction.)
Today anyone can get much help, if allowed – North Korea would refuse – though if they want to cry CAGW they shouldn’t get help from modern fossil-fuel-burning transportation.