Guest essay by Eric Worrall
James Murdoch has publicly rebuked his family for continuing to provide a platform for “climate deniers” on Murdoch media outlets like Fox News and News Corp during Australia’s bushfires.
James Murdoch Slams Fox News and News Corp Over Climate-Change Denial
FIDDLING WHILE OZ BURNS
Rupert Murdoch’s younger son and his wife issued a rare public rebuke of the family’s media empire and its promotion of climate-change skeptics during Australia’s bushfire crisis.
Lachlan Cartwright Senior Reporter Updated Jan. 14, 2020 5:24AM ET
In a long-simmering rift between factions of the Murdoch family over climate change, Rupert’s younger son, James, and his activist wife, Kathryn, are attacking the climate denialism promoted by News Corporation, the global media group, and also by the Fox News Channel overseen by James’ older brother, Lachlan.
“Kathryn and James’ views on climate are well established and their frustration with some of the News Corp and Fox coverage of the topic is also well known,” a spokesperson for the couple exclusively told The Daily Beast as wildfires rage in Australia.
“They are particularly disappointed with the ongoing denial among the news outlets in Australia given obvious evidence to the contrary.”
The extraordinary public rebuke from Kathryn and James—who is the CEO of Lupa Systems, a private investment company he founded—comes as Australia has been ravaged by the worst fires seen in decades. The blazes have claimed 27 lives and destroyed thousands of properties across multiple states, with an estimated 1 billion animals feared dead. News Corp Australia dominates the country’s media landscape, publishing more than 140 newspapers and employing 3,000 journalists in print, broadcast, and online.
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Read more: https://www.thedailybeast.com/james-murdoch-slams-fox-news-and-news-corp-over-climate-change-denial
James, I hope you get your head straight about climate change.
Australia’s bushfires have nothing to do with climate change, and everything to do with the catastrophic buildup of flammable material which our spineless politicians have allowed on their watch.
People who claim the fires are caused by climate change in my opinion are promoting a dangerous untruth, which if accepted would put many lives at risk, by distracting attention from the real cause of the problem. Pushing back against this politically convenient untruth is part of the valuable service your family’s media empire provides.
Building wind turbines or solar panels will not prevent fuel load from building in the Australian bush. Nothing can prevent the pyrophoric Australian bush from burning, all we can hope to control is when it burns, and how intense the fire is. If we do nothing, the result is a catastrophe like that which we are currently experiencing, as nature does what we should have taken care of ourselves in a more controlled manner.
But don’t take my word for it – come and see for yourself. Despite the scale of this year’s fires, Australia is a vast country. An enormous area of bush like the bushland I photographed above has not been touched by this year’s fire.
Bushland bristling with fuel load soaked in volatile, highly flammable Eucalyptus oil is not difficult to find; all you need to do is drive along any major motorway between the capital cities, stop where it is safe to do so, and see for yourself what our spineless politicians and out of touch academics have allowed to happen to our beautiful country.
Come and see for yourself – because once you catch the climate establishment telling one big untruth, it becomes easier to accept there are many other things they say which are also untrue.
Update (EW): Nick Stokes posted an interesting link about more infighting about climate change in Murdoch Media.
Nick Stokes,
I’d be very interested to know (in your educated opinion) what bad thing will occur in 10-years then 50-years then 200-years from now if the CO2 concentration continues to increase at roughly the current rate?
OR
What bad thing will likely occur when we get to 500 ppm?
What bad thing will likely occur when we get to 800 ppm?
Will anything good likely occur at any of the above junctures?
Warren,
Generally in what I write here, my position is that AGW is really happening, and we need to come to terms with that. I write less on the bad things, and what should be done in mitigation, because I think that is something for governments to work out, once the facts of AGW are accepted. The key thing is, IMO, that unless we do get our act together, GHGs will go on increasing. We could burn ten times as much as we have already. So the difficulties we are seeing a little of now, will get a whole lot worse.
I do think that fires will be the first really bad thing, and yes, will be a lot worse at 500 ppm. I think there will be difficulties for agriculture in places like India. Plus, of course, sheer heat. I think there will be problems with storms and flooding. Sea level rise should at that stage be manageable.
800 ppm, I don’t know. But it will come, if not avoided. It requires us burning 4-5 times as much C as we have to date. There is enough available for us to do that.
Of course there could be benefits too. Northward expansion of agriculture (but also fires in what we now see as cold forests). There will be winners and losers.
You are certainly all in.
Might even ward off the next Ice Age glaciation, with luck. Or do you deny we are due one, Nick, in the next 3000 years?
Facts of AGW… stop it, I’ll crack a rib.
CO2 doesn’t have enough affect to ward off the next glaciation. The best we can hope for is delaying it by a few centuries.
“… that is something for governments to work out, once the facts of AGW are accepted.”
Is this an honest response. Do you really think that the government(s) should hold off on mitigation (that will change and maybe even cripple economies) until the facts are clear and accepted?
I think the facts are clear and should be accepted. Policies, even expensive ones, are never made on the basis of proof beyond reasonable doubt. It is expensive to act; it will be expensive not to act. And soon enough (as Au is finding) something just has to be done..
Thanks Nick.
Don’t agree with most of what you believe; however, it’s interesting you see 800 ppm as a reality.
It’s a certainty to anyone familiar with population and energy projections.
Adaption is the only solution and always has been (although no serious problem will arise in my opinion).
But Nick that’s not the game and I believe you know it. The game and fanatical aim of the green masters (the monetizers) is ‘a price on carbon’.
They’re scrambling to downplay adaption as a solution. You just needed to watch The Drum (ABC) last night to see that . . .
I always considered the Murdoch media empire as evil. It is now in danger of becoming double evil.
So, what ever the U.N Followers say is right? The earth is dying, ice is melting, polar bears are all gone, etc etc, Greta is the new jesus and she will save the planet herself while she enjoys all the finer things in life, But if you go against they say, We are deniers and fools and we need to be shut up 😐 Are the greens the new nazis?
And WHAT a paragon of virtue James Murdoch is.
Murdoch would not survive a proper investigation of his behaviour and would be presented as the worst of the Trust Fund Baby wastrels were the media actually interested in reporting the truth.
Why should we listen to one word of that sleazebag??
And what in God’s name was Harvard doing allowing him to study there??
It’s not just the media where we have minimal sceptical coverage but all big businesses, institutions, the public service and all educational facilities are infiltrated with alarmists. Its
infuriating that we had the climate election last year and the alarmists lost . They are just becoming more and more feral and manipulative. It is similar to Brexit and Trumps election. The left behave like spoiled brats who don’t accept the umpires decision. They throw tantrums so incessantly until they get their way. The way governments and corporations give into the demands only emboldens them. Alarmists look at the fires as if they represent some sort of proof. My understanding of the scientific theory as they claim it , Is that burning fossil fuels releases CO2 which causes warming , which causes drought , which causes fires to be more intense. When Andy Pitman , probably the most eminent expert on droughts explains that despite what you don’t expect to hear there appears to be no indication that CO2 causes drought you should listen to him. Rather than accept the science the warmists intimidate and embarrass Pitman ( an author on drought for the IPCC ) to retract his comments such that he suggested he was taken out of context and should’ve said there was just no direct influence ( presumably there is some indirect influence which he didn’t really bother to explain). If as there own expert testifies ( before his attempted retraction) there is no link from CO2 to drought , the link to fire falls at the first hurdle. Like with the data from the BOM ,when the science is inconvenient to their narrative just change it, no one bothers to quote anything scientific anyway. It’s just a belief system. It’s actualLy been quite interesting that amongst there host of experts on climate change Andy Pitman seems to have been excluded from commentaries as a go to expert at the ABC.
It’s off-topic, but in Nottingham, England, the city council is planning to make the city ‘carbon neutral’ by 2028.
Here’s a link to their current document on the subject (it’s a pdf) on the subject:
file:///C:/Users/User/Downloads/Nottingham’s%202028%20Carbon%20Neutral%20Charter%20(1).pdf
I’ve only just had had a quick look through it. There’s a lot of corporate waffle, but I intend to take a closer look at their claims. I’d welcome any comments and links to data contradicting what they say.
Are any other cities in other countries coming up with this sort of thing?
Sorry everyone – the Nottingham council pdf link doesn’t work. Try this and follow the on-site directions:
https://www.nottinghamcity.gov.uk/cn2028
If they can become carbon neutral by 2028 (and remain so for another 30 years … long enough to have needed to replace road surfaces) while still remaining ‘sustainable’, I’ll jump on the bandwagon as well.
I don’t think that there is any way community can do it without regressing, or somehow acquiring a large influx of some type of resource that can be converted to mitigation activities.
Having been an NWS shareholder for a bloody long time, I’ll have Rupert and the rest of you can have piss weak Lachlan.
It is a race between Lachlan and James Packer to the bottom – it’s a tight race at present.
John I think that everyone here gets that none of this really has anything to do with CAGW. Isn’t it after all an abstract concept that is difficult to prove and in the minds of believers disprove? At least for those who have fallen for the propaganda, and sadly that number is growing. Therefore it is the perfect vehicle to create new and outrageous scenarios for as long as it takes to establish a new world order.
Trying to simplify it down to the haves and have nots doesn’t really work. Wealth can be inherited, gifted, stolen, scammed. The majority of ordinary people who have achieved a level of wealth that enables them to enjoy a level of independence are educated and have worked hard for it, and some of those came from a place of poverty.
On the other hand, people can be born into crushing poverty, or may be robbed of what little they have. They may have been wealthy at some point but gambled it all away. They may have experienced divorce or separation and lost most all they had worked for in the settlement.
There are of course those who choose to take a handout when they don’t really need too, who feel that it’s their right. But worse than that are the idealists who stand next to them demanding that right or wrong the handouts continue.
It’s complicated, the climate change agenda is about redistribution of wealth. If you liken it to a pyramid scheme then the people who benefit most are those at the top. Of course those people at the top promise fabulous wealth to those who sign up, insisting it’s a win win for everyone. All they have to do is buy into the scheme. Pyramid schemes have been around for a long time and as we know they eventually collapse. But the people at the top know that if they can just persevere for long enough then they can make a lot of money.
The people at the top of the CC pyramid have to promote their product, they need to travel, they need to organise conferences to reassure each other that they are on the right track, they get used to a particular lifestyle and the money just doesn’t seem to end up helping the people it was intended to. The longer it drags on the more likely they are to lose sight of their original intention, they need a marketing tool to reignite the sense of urgency to reinforce the scheme. The Australian bushfires were a gift, the money and the emotional investment is right on track again, for the moment. MSM make sure of that.
Hopefully this pyramid scheme will collapse in the not to distant future. Some of the things they have been coming up with recently to bide time have been nothing short of ridiculous.
The people who were promised benefits still don’t have any reliable power. We need to go back to basics, teach people what they need to do to empower themselves. There has already been more than enough money spent trying to prop up the pyramid scheme. It could have been spent on educating people, improving their basic living situations with reliable power. Knowledge and hard work will get you what you need. The person who lives off others wealth will never expect anything to be any different. They don’t know how.
Of course in reality the people at the top of dubious pyramid schemes, socialist regimes or totalitarianism don’t care about the bottom feeders. The only real interest they have is in themselves.
James will hve a nice pile of green investments hes out to boost id say.
always look for the money trail;-)
Even if you’re a true believer James what if we in Oz went back to the ancestor’s or aboriginal’s ways to scratch out a living how would that make any difference to China causing ever more of our devastating bushfires supposedly?
https://www.asiatimes.com/2020/01/article/old-king-coal-fuels-chinas-new-tech-revolution/
Are we going to pull Furphys around with horses and throw buckets of water on them?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Furphy
What Furphys are you spreading James and why would that be?
https://www.afr.com/technology/teslas-appointment-of-james-murdoch-was-a-surprise-but-heres-why-it-did-it-20170718-gxdd9b
It would seem that like ex UK PM David Cameron, and Bank of England chief Mark Carney, cherchez la femme.
Actually, I don’t necessarily think it’s anything to do with gender. We all love cuddly baby polar bears, penguins, and koala bears. It’s probably just “the other half” realizing they are in a position of power and feeling the need to be seen to be doing something useful. The bigger problem is that so many people still see environmentalism as a ‘safe’ non-political topic where they can safely mouth-off without consequences. Hence the BBC…
Quick scotch the red tape and we don’t want no trailer trash around here-
https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/state-caravan-law-an-obstacle-for-homeless-bushfire-victims/ar-BBYY03F
You gotta love the Iranian plumber offer. LOL.
Meanwhile in Melbourne running the Australian Open Tennis with players having to pull out due to bushfire smoke the weather turns-
https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/melbourne-lashed-by-torrential-rain-and-damaging-hail/ar-BBYYpzh
But naturally now we have to fear flash flooding and landslides in the burnt out areas. Doomed I tell ya. We’re all doomed!
“James, and his activist wife…”
And there’s the clue. A whipped little trust fund boy.
OT…
I really do hope that younger Murdochs will decide to educate themselves.
I was further convinced that this is all a scam when I looked up the glaciers studies. They use 40 glaciers out of 100000 to proclaim we, the human species, are causing death and destruction to the Earth and to damn our actions as vile and evil. Glaciers are one of Earth’s most life destroying objects. Why in the hell would we want to keep them around. It also tells me we never fully came out of the last ice age, we are only in an interglacial pause. I hope they also look at some before and after photos of where some glaciers have disappeared. Life returned to those places. Not that glaciers are devoid of life but more life for more species when they are gone.
Addendum, the only constant about the environment and climate is CHANGE. The Change is not to be feared. It is to be welcomed as it helps us and all life evolve.
Could it be that 180 arsonists have been nabbed setting the fires in oz. That would have a serious impact on the existence of fires; don’t you know:
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/01/07/australian-police-arrest-180-arsonists-over-bush-fires/
Do arsonists get bail during high fire warning days?
I’ll have Rupert.
You guys can have James and Lachlan – the dumb, lazy loafers.
Spoiled little prince.
Here in the U.K. we’re going to get a year of propaganda. Starting with this gem https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-51123638
The average used is from the 1951-1980 land temperature data.
And this, I bet the debate in the summer doesn’t include anyone other than the extreme warmists https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-51104776
An off topic question and possibly been asked before… what was Michael Mann doing in Australia?
Who funded the trip? Who organised the interview on our ABC? Who decided he should be brought over here and why? When was the plan hatched, it seemed very much impromptu, opportunistic even.
After losing the Federal election the left wing loonies went very quiet, plunged into a state of depression for some months. Crikey, The Conversation, Our ABC, CSIRO the Labor Party, Greens, all melancholy. Then they sparked up and unleashed an avalanche of ongoing propaganda. The bushfires have filled them with self righteous glee. Or are they nearing their end, revving up like a blowfly with a lungful of mortein before flaming out, plummeting and hopefully a final and very permanent death spin?
Wouldn’t it be great if Fox News were to host a legitimately scientific debate on climate change. Take a leaf from the BBC and spread it out over several weeks or months and cover a wide variety of topics.
Make each debate genuine with appropriate moderators who don’t have an agenda.
It would be a huge benefit for society, could generate a great series of monograms for use as educational tools, and shift the tone away from the angry blind statements of faith that consume so much of climate change oxygen.
Perhaps James Murdoch and his wife might learn something along the way. If nothing else, it might force him to engage with the science instead of just preaching at Fox.
Under the leadership of the Murdoch brats, Fox News is descending to the levels of CNN, MSNBC, WaPo, NYT, PBS, etc. Increasingly FNC is focusing on important news such as the Kardashian Bikini and Butt Battle or the plight of Harry and Meghan. The best part of Rupert Murdoch dribbled down his leg.
There are plenty of places to get information these days, FNC is increasingly not one of them. Anymore I spend almost as much time checking sources on FNC stories as I do with the NYT or Alex Jones.