What explains the incredible intolerance, belligerance, and stunning dogmatism of the climate central planners? They really can’t allow a debate, because they will certainly and rightly lose. When that is certain, the only way forward is to rage. If you want tolerance and humility, and a willingness to defer to the evidence and gradual process of scientific discovery, you will find it among those who have no desire to manage the world from the top down. --Jeffrey Tucker,
Liberty Me, 19 June 2014
The BBC’s behaviour grows ever more bizarre. Committed by charter to balanced reporting, it has now decided formally that it was wrong to allow balance in a debate between rival guesses about the future. In rebuking itself for having had the gall to interview Nigel Lawson on the Today programme about climate change earlier this year, it issued a statement containing this gem: “Lord Lawson’s views are not supported by the evidence from computer modelling and scientific research.” The evidence from computer modelling? The phrase is an oxymoron. A model cannot, by definition, provide evidence: it can provide a prediction to test against real evidence. --Matt Ridley,
The Times, 7 July 2014
The BBC bends over backwards to give air time to minority campaigners on matters such as fracking, genetically modified crops, and alternative medicine. Biologists who thinks GM crops are dangerous, doctors who thinks homeopathy works and engineers who think fracking has contaminated aquifers are far rarer than climate sceptics. Yet Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth spokesmen are seldom out of Broadcasting House. So the real reason for the BBC’s double standard becomes clear: dissent in the direction of more alarm is always encouraged; dissent in the direction of less alarm is to be suppressed. --Matt Ridley,
The Times, 7 July 2014
More than half the British public think the television licence fee should be scrapped and the BBC forced to find new ways to fund itself, according to a poll published today. The broadcaster should generate income from advertising rather than relying on taxes or higher licence fee funds, the findings suggest. The results, from a survey of more than 2,000 people by ComRes, come as ministers and BBC executives prepare for the government’s review of the broadcaster’s charter in 2016. The new Culture Secretary, Sajid Javid, has indicated he is prepared to be radical in reconsidering the BBC’s funding. --Tim Ross,
The Daily Telegraph, 7 July 2014
Climate sceptics are influencing government at the highest level, former energy secretary Chris Huhne argued this week. The likes of former Conservative chancellor Lord Nigel Lawson and his climate sceptic think-tank the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) are “fomenting dissent” on climate action, according to Huhne. This is holding prime minister and Conservative leader David Cameron back from delivering on his earlier green ambitions, Huhne implied. Addressing a solar industry conference on Monday, Huhne said: “Within the governing coalition, there are Tory supporters like the former chancellor Lord Lawson, who are actively fomenting dissent in this whole [green] agenda. And his Global Warming Policy Foundation believes that renewable subsidies are a waste of money. As a result of those snipers, the prime minister, who made his name hugging a husky and declaring that this would be ‘the greenest government ever,’ has put his tin hat on. He has yet to make a single major speech on renewable energy or on climate change.” --Megan Darby,
Responding to Climate Change, 4 July 2014
The BBC has announced a series of measures to make it more difficult to challenge green narratives on the BBC, and this is obviously going to lead to new waves of ecodrivel on the national broadcaster’s output. Such liberal spirits! Couldn’t they just shortcut the process and silence everyone except the BBC and the Guardian? --Andrew Montford,
Bishop Hill, 7 July 2014
As loyal left-wingers go, Caleb Rossiter is a trouper. He’s supported every left of center cause going back to the Cold War, but lately he’s become a partial dissenter against the new religion of climate change. And now he’s been put out in the cold. Mr. Rossiter’s fate is further evidence of the left’s climate of intellectual conformity. If you disagree with the orthodoxy on climate change, you aren’t merely wrong, you must be banished from public debate. --Editorial,
The Wall Street Journal, 6 July 2014
