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BBC Programme Criticised For Giving Platform To Climate Sceptic Lord Lawson

Data Deleted From UN Climate Report Highlight Politicization Of Climate Science



When the United Nations’ last major climate change report was released in April, it omitted some country-specific emissions data for political reasons, a trio of new papers argue, sounding a warning bell about the global politicization of climate science. “Heated negotiations among scientific authors and diplomats led to substantial deletion of figures and text from the influential ‘Summary for Policy-makers,’” writes Brad Wible, an editor at the journal Science. --Brian Clark Howard, National Geographic, 3 July 2014
A complaint has been upheld against the news programme over a February edition in which Lord Lawson, the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, appeared alongside the respected scientist Sir Brian Hoskins, director of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College, London. During the programme Lord Lawson, the founder of the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), repeatedly argued that “nobody knows” about the extent of climate change and that 2013 was “unusually quiet” for tropical storms. The finding follows a ruling earlier this week from the BBC Trust, which partly upheld a complaint against Radio 4’s The World at One for the platform it gave to the Australian climate change sceptic [Professor] Bob Carter in September. --Ian Burrell, The Independent, 3 July 2014 The BBC Trust has issued a new report into progress on adopting the recommendations of the Steve Jones review of science coverage. This was the integrity-free publication that recommended keeping sceptics off air as much as possible. According to the new paper, the BBC has been holding a series of seminars to bang home the "keep sceptics off air" message and will keep up this re-education programme in the future. Given that we know that BBC editors are telling their staff not to allow scientists to appear opposite anyone who might disagree with them, I would suggest to readers that the paragraph quoted above is entirely mendacious. And the idea that the English literature graduates and environmentalists who infest the BBC are going to "properly scrutinise" scientists is beyond contempt. It is simply a case of putting two fingers up to the general public. -- Andrew Montford, Bishop Hill, 4 July 2014

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If the BBC truly apportioned due weight in their science reporting then anti-fracking reports and global-warming scare stories should effectively disappear. These topics actually represent a tiny fraction of scientific research. So why does the BBC pursue these topics with such vigour? They are confused. They think that environmental activism is science, and employ writers with little science education or experience. I see no defensible reason for lumping Science and the Environment together on the BBC website. One could, with equal validity, classify Science and Sport together. --Michael Heart, Bishop Hill, 4 July 2014 The BBC licence fee could be cut after the Culture Secretary warned that it was a big expense for families and that ‘nothing should be ruled out’ when it is reviewed next year. In the clearest signal yet that the Conservatives are preparing to overhaul the Corporation’s funding and governance if they remain in government after the general election, Sajid Javid said the annual £145.50 payment would be scrutinised. MPs are considering scrapping the licence fee and replacing it with a subscription system or a household levy similar to council tax. John Whittingdale, chairman of the Commons Culture Select Committee, warned last month that the fee was ‘designed for a different age’ and ‘will not survive’. --Tamara Cohen, Daily Mail, 15 June 2014 Action to save coral reefs in the Caribbean has been delayed by the misapprehension that climate change is the primary cause of their decline, a leading scientist said. The main reasons why the area covered by live coral has more than halved since the 1970s are overfishing and coastal pollution, according to Carl Gustaf Lundin, director of the global marine programme at the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The report, published yesterday, concluded that climate change had wrongly been blamed for a problem that had largely been caused by local factors which could have been controlled by better regulation. --Ben Webster, The Times, 3 July 2014 Fracking in the US has led to a greater reduction in carbon emissions than all the wind turbines and solar panels across the entire globe put together. This is the stark fact presented at a meeting at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg last week. The economic impacts of fracking and shale gas are also indisputable: as natural gas prices in the European Union have doubled since the year 2000, US prices have fallen by about 75 per cent in the past few years. Annually, the global solar and wind subsidies cost $60B, whereas the US is saving at least $100B from cheaper energy. --Oil and Gas Online, 30 June 2014


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