From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
h/t Ralfellis
Hardly a week goes by without yet another glaring example of BBC bias, misinformation or just outright lies on climate issues.
Arguably the roots of this lay in a notorious seminar organised by the BBC in 2006. Some of us may remember this, others may not have been aware of it. Either way, it’s worth re-telling the story.
The high level seminar was held on 26th January 2006 for the purpose of deciding how the BBC should cover reporting and discussion of climate change in the future. According to a BBC Trust report (P40) on impartiality the following year:
“The BBC has held a high-level seminar with some of the best scientific experts, and has come to the view that the weight of evidence no longer justifies equal space being given to the opponents of the consensus”
Ever since this policy has continued to be followed, with the virtual exclusion of anybody not signed up the BBC’s idea of a consensus, no matter how highly qualified they might be.
However, some began to be a little bit suspicious about who these “best scientific experts were”. After all, science should never be about consensus, and proper scientists should always welcome debate.
It was a blogger named Tony Newberry who decided to file a FOI asking for the list of names of those who attended. Little did he know that he would end up in court in 2012, still trying to force the BBC to release the information. With the help of a team of lawyers, the BBC won the case.
But it was a hollow victory, because just days later another blogger, Mauricio Morabito, used his initiative and found the list of attendees anyway with the help of the Wayback Machine.
This is the list he published at the time:
January 26th 2006,
BBC Television Centre, London
Specialists:
Robert May, Oxford University and Imperial College London
Mike Hulme, Director, Tyndall Centre, UEA
Blake Lee-Harwood, Head of Campaigns, Greenpeace
Dorthe Dahl-Jensen, Niels Bohr Institute, Copenhagen
Michael Bravo, Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge
Andrew Dlugolecki, Insurance industry consultant
Trevor Evans, US Embassy
Colin Challen MP, Chair, All Party Group on Climate Change
Anuradha Vittachi, Director, Oneworld.net
Andrew Simms, Policy Director, New Economics Foundation
Claire Foster, Church of England
Saleemul Huq, IIED
Poshendra Satyal Pravat, Open University
Li Moxuan, Climate campaigner, Greenpeace China
Tadesse Dadi, Tearfund Ethiopia
Iain Wright, CO2 Project Manager, BP International
Ashok Sinha, Stop Climate Chaos
Andy Atkins, Advocacy Director, Tearfund
Matthew Farrow, CBI
Rafael Hidalgo, TV/multimedia producer
Cheryl Campbell, Executive Director, Television for the Environment
Kevin McCullough, Director, Npower Renewables
Richard D North, Institute of Economic Affairs
Steve Widdicombe, Plymouth Marine Labs
Joe Smith, The Open University
Mark Galloway, Director, IBT
Anita Neville, E3G
Eleni Andreadis, Harvard University
Jos Wheatley, Global Environment Assets Team, DFID
Tessa Tennant, Chair, AsRia
BBC attendees:
Jana Bennett, Director of Television
Sacha Baveystock, Executive Producer, Science
Helen Boaden, Director of News
Andrew Lane, Manager, Weather, TV News
Anne Gilchrist, Executive Editor Indies & Events, CBBC
Dominic Vallely, Executive Editor, Entertainment
Eleanor Moran, Development Executive, Drama Commissioning
Elizabeth McKay, Project Executive, Education
Emma Swain, Commissioning Editor, Specialist Factual
Fergal Keane, (Chair), Foreign Affairs Correspondent
Fran Unsworth, Head of Newsgathering
George Entwistle, Head of TV Current Affairs
Glenwyn Benson, Controller, Factual TV
John Lynch, Creative Director, Specialist Factual
Jon Plowman, Head of Comedy
Jon Williams, TV Editor Newsgathering
Karen O’Connor, Editor, This World, Current Affairs
Catriona McKenzie, Tightrope Pictures catriona@tightropepictures.comLiz Molyneux, Editorial Executive, Factual Commissioning
Matt Morris, Head of News, Radio Five Live
Neil Nightingale, Head of Natural History Unit
Paul Brannan, Deputy Head of News Interactive
Peter Horrocks, Head of Television News
Peter Rippon, Duty Editor, World at One/PM/The World this Weekend
Phil Harding, Director, English Networks & Nations
Steve Mitchell, Head Of Radio News
Sue Inglish, Head Of Political Programmes
Frances Weil, Editor of News Special Events
,
The army of BBC bosses who attended tells us just how significant the seminar was to them. It clearly was not just a talking shop, but a major milestone in their editorial policy.
But more important was the list of “best scientific experts”.
It included two Greenpeace campaigners, several other environmentalist activists, representatives of business, charities, the Church of England, BP and Npower Renewables, economists, media people and politicians.
As for climate scientists they were very thin on the ground.
There clearly could have been very little, if any, debate on the actual science.
The very real suspicion is that the event was deliberately designed from the very outset to come up with the result that it did– ie that “the weight of evidence no longer justifies equal space being given to the opponents of the consensus”
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Substitute “BBC” with “NPR” and the article still reads true.
It doesn’t matter the country, but government run radio always descends into a belief that only the governments position should be tolerated.
Here is some related news at the WSJ today on ‘preapproved narratives’ corrupting science.
story tip
How ‘Preapproved Narratives’ Corrupt Science – WSJ
It only takes one committed activist to organise a seminar like this, and average-type folk (without any real background in climate or even science in general) who make up the audience, and might prefer a balanced approach, find it impossible to even discuss the subject in the face of rigid, assertive, domineering certainty from the “settled science” gang. Then climate activism becomes cemented into the corporate structure.
It’s not just the BBC, the orthodoxy has taken over most public institutions and most large corporations. We just notice BBC and other media because they control so much of the airwaves and the digital world.
Fortunately, the BBC’s unremitting attempts to make us think we’re all racists, our history is nothing but shameful oppression of non-Europeans, and we’re all transphobes or far-right xenophobes, is starting to turn a lot of normal people off. I.e., those who sense that there’s something wrong with the climate agenda, but don’t have the background to be overtly sceptical.
We should use lists like this. List every individual on every committee or council deciding to turn life upside down for the rest of us and how they voted. It would be especially helpful isolating the monsters in the Netherlands who want to shut down farming or the monsters in New York who want to eliminate fossil fuels.
I actually heard the BBC on radio 4 one morning boast about either this or similarly attended BBC meeting & its declaration of ClimateEmotives. Also found same list some months ago at:
https://www.theregister.com/2012/11/13/climate28_named_wtf/
https://www.theregister.com/2012/11/13/climate28_named_wtf/?page=2
Those links don’t work; they take you to a page to edit a post on blogger.com
Try these: https://www.theregister.com/2012/11/13/climate28_named_wtf/ and
https://www.theregister.com/2012/11/13/climate28_named_wtf/?page=2
Their solution is simple: when you’re losing the game, simply change the rules. In the climate credibility game, the BBC and other leftist organizations simply ban or exclude any facts that refute the manmade warming theories, something that’s easily done when government funding and environmental group donations are dependent on such slanting of information.
The list of ‘specialists’ is very helpful. Beware of any of the organisations they represented.
As for the list of BBC attendees, it is noticeable that the Head of Comedy was present. The whole thing could have been classified as a farce.
However, some began to be a little bit suspicious about who these “best scientific experts were”
Don’y you worry about that as Oz Aunty’s favourite climate scientists are still hanging about the place keeping the planet boiling-
Climate Council ought to concentrate on ‘science’ rather than ‘scaring’ people (msn.com)
Naturally you have to contextualise touchy feely wokeness with Bambi’s mum not dying vs scaring the living daylights out of kiddies with exploding schoolkids and chucking poley bears off skyscrapers in order to impress upon them they’re doomed-
‘Everything that they do wrecks society’: Piers Morgan takes aim at ‘woke left’ (msn.com)
You’ve got break a few eggs to achieve Nirvana here on earth and fix the weather.