A damning indictment of BBC climate reporting alleging 20 years of endemic bias and the production of fake news, has been presented to the Government’s mid-term Charter review of the Corporation. Published by the Net Zero Watch and written by the long-time BBC observer Paul Homewood, it suggests that all the factual errors detailed in its submission “could easily have been avoided with a bit of basic research”. Citizen journalist Homewood doesn’t pull any punches: “This is journalism at its shoddy worst.”
It is argued that the “rot” set in after a seminar in 2006 – a meeting the BBC fought for many years to keep secret – shaped climate coverage. The seminar was attended by many green activists such as Greenpeace. “Since then, it has been the norm for BBC reports on climate change and energy policy to exclude or marginalise anybody who does not agree with the consensus view, while giving undue prominence to extreme green activist groups such as Greenpeace and WWF,” writes Homewood.
In a passage detailing how the BBC “neutralises” complaints, Homewood explains that the ‘scientists say’ defence is employed – the BBC is not broadcasting its own view, “merely relating what others are saying”. Homewood has pressed many cases against the BBC over the last decade, and had some success. No doubt from bitter experience, he relates what he calls the BBC’s most common defence, namely, ”simply to ignore the complaint, in the hope it will go away”.
In Homewood’s view, the most egregious example of this concerned Sir David Attenborough’s 2019 televised documentary “Climate Change – The Facts”. It made several highly questionable assertions that storms, floods, heatwaves and sea level rises are all rapidly getting worse as a result of climate change, none of which are backed by the IPCC. A complaint to the effect that there was no scientific evidence behind Attenborough’s claims, “was simply wafted away on the basis that some scientists disagreed with the official line”.
Despite the difficulties, Homewood lists 14 recent complaints upheld by the Corporation’s internal complaints procedure. These include the two recent complaints upheld against the Climate Editor Justin Rowlatt over his 2021 Panorama programme, “Wild Weather – Our World Under Threat”. Homewood notes that Rowlatt’s claim that the death toll from bad weather is rising was the opposite of the truth. His own complaint about the programme to the BBC was fobbed off with the “risible excuse” that Panorama was referring to the cumulative death toll. Rowlatt had been previously censured for claiming that the U.K. offshore wind industry was “virtually subsidy free”, at a time when subsidies were running at £3.5bn a year.
Later in his report, Homewood asks: “And who is editing this fake reporting? Why are they not insisting on accurate reporting? Where are the highly paid executives who let all of this continue?”
Other complaints upheld include:
“June 2020: BBC Radio 4’s Today programme claimed that 2020 saw the hottest May on record in the UK. In fact it was only the 15th warmest.”
“February 2019: Roger Harrabin covered a think-tank report, which made the patently absurd claim that, ‘Since 2005, the number of floods across the world has increased by 15 times, extreme temperature events by 20 times, and wildfires seven-fold’. The think-tank subsequently accepted that their claims were factually untrue, something that Harrabin should have challenged before simply repeating it.”
“In 2017, BBC Two broadcast “Russia With Simon Reeve”, which claimed that reindeer populations across Northern Russia were in ‘steep decline because of climate change’. In fact, a 2016 study proved that 17 out of 19 sub-populations of Eurasian reindeer were either increasing in number, or had a stable population.”
“In March 2017, The World At One made the plainly ridiculous claim that sea levels at Miami were rising at ten times the global rate. The BBC was subsequently forced to admit that sea levels there showed ‘little divergence from the global mean’. (The difference was due to sinking of the land, not sea rise).”
Homewood also identified a further 11 “neutralised” complaints. Among these were:
“April 2022: ‘BBC Weather Climate Check’ reports that the Antarctic is warming at up to three times the global average. Again, this is fake news, as studies show that most of the Antarctic has been getting colder in recent decades.”
“December 2021: BBC News reported that the 2021 Atlantic hurricane season was the third most active. In reality, since 1851, there have been 50 other years with as many or more than the seven hurricanes recorded in the Atlantic in 2021.”
“March 2021: BBC News covered the droughts in California in 2014, implying that global warming was a factor. Again, the actual data show that drought was not unusual, and that much more severe ‘megadroughts’ have happened regularly in the past.”
“May 2021: BBC Weather Climate Check claimed that global warming could be making tornadoes worse in the U.S. Official data show the opposite: that they are now much less severe than in the 1970s.”
Readers will probably recognise many of the above items since they, and many similar scares, have regularly appeared across mainstream media. Almost invariably, there is no questioning of underlying assumptions or source. The science has long been dismissed as ‘settled’, and in this polite journalistic society, impertinent questions are only asked by ‘deniers’. Seasoned atmospheric physicists like Professor Richard Lindzen of MIT can call the current climate change narrative “absurd”, all he likes. Nobody is reporting that, when agendas are being set by establishment elites to promote a command-and-control Net Zero agenda. Mainstream journalists seem incapable of asking basic questions when presented with often rather silly green activist scare stories. It is interesting to observe that some of the heavy lifting in this department over the last decade has been de facto outsourced to a retired accountant.
Homewood concludes that Net Zero, and the total transformation of society which is demanded to achieve it, is of “crucial importance” for the future of the country. The public deserve all of the facts on climate change and Net Zero, “not just the warped version offered by the BBC”.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic‘s Environment Editor.
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Well, isn’t karma a bitch?
”Ulster, Northern Ireland – 49 year old family doctor Dr.Ryan Hamilton died suddenly on Nov.16, 2023
“No problem, don’t wear a mask, don’t get vaccinated your choice. But stay the f*** at home then, the rest of us in society don’t want you mingling with us if you’re too stupid & / selfish to do your part”
The brainwashing cost him his life.
COVID-19 mRNA Vaccinated and dead at 49.”
https://twitter.com/MakisMD/status/1777921748861686060
If you can’t see the comments there’s more examples. None of these people were near the end of their lifespans. As always, the death jab did it until proven otherwise;
https://twitter.com/Tinkerb65712648/status/1778090701156385066/photo/1
I guess this lady was safe then?
Priceless! No doubt she’s one of those who called us covidiot antivaxer conspiracy theorists. She’s evidently the ‘see no evil’ wise monkey 🙈
There’s no cure for stupid and they still get to cast a vote (if they can be bothered)
But that satisfying sentiment, while true, is also how climate-doomsters, the rabid woke and the lockdown-supporting vaxtards would think of us. The truth will come out eventually and then you’ll be hard pressed to find people willing to admit they were foolish.
“I have a healthy distrust of authority and I’m vaccinated”….Bit of an oxymoron there!
Whatever the harms so far, we don’t know what the long term effects will be. Injecting billions of mainly healthy people, repeatedly, for a disease that was almost certainly not going to harm them lastingly in almost all cases, with an experimental concoction that did not stop transmission, has got to be wrong. No fag packet required – postage stamp sufficient.
I saw someone on Twitter have a pic taken of them getting their 9th shot. I thought to myself, ”I thought these things were supposed to be toxic. How can anyone get lucky that many times?” Well many people have succumbed after just one or two jabs, as the data show. I think some people, whether it’s due to hypochondria, zealotry, virtue signaling like a pro, they’ll just keep on going until their luck runs out. I don’t know, maybe they’ve changed the ingredients over time…who knows really? People are bizarre.
As a serious response, it’s quite possible that genetic or other predispositions means that some people can get injected daily and survive: clearly most people don’t die on the first dose.
Compare smoking – it clearly causes chronic lung disease, but a significant percentage are completely immune and will attribute living to 106 to their 20 a day.
In theory you could find how to screen the population and give that percentage a free pass for Jimmy Rags, but in practice you give health warnings to everyone instead.
Smoking is another think the nanny (fascist) state wants to ban. For our own good of course.
It was a bit of a post code lottery what type of batch people got.
And deliberately it seems, making HQC & Ivermectin unavailable in chemists. Remember in the US people having to smuggle Ivermectin to their hubby. Sick and evil!
Yup I keep forgetting that, thanks for the reminder.
The article hasn’t even touched on the increased cancer risks. This is ‘slower burn’ stuff, but the reports from Professor Angus Dalgleish and others seem stark and pessimistic.
If anyone has been paying attention to the Post Office scandal it will be clear that the bureaucracy and political class working together, as the elite they think they are, can avoid and delay for decades. No matter how many people suffer they don’t want to investigate.
With the consequences from Covid so high, they will avoid accountability until the main culprits are long since ensconced in better jobs, ideally outside their home country.
That is why I hate the BBC so much because they could expose everything A Bridgen has been talking about in a heartbeat, but they wont because they were. as Mark Steyn put it, pom pom girls for big pharma.
“You should be aware that a single person differs from a large population; if you do not know how to add, return to school (or join the MHRA).”
Absolutely first class. Beautiful.
Yet more outstanding work from the legendary Professors Heneghan and Jefferson. Short of a fag packet between them this work cannot be improved. 👍👍👍
Listen to the charlatan Fauci in the following video that needs to be preserved as evidence of monumental mal-practice and some of the worst examples of the religion of scientism there has been.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrjMLONm-Bw
Wow, he was still talking elimination!
My husband has the left ventricular systolic problem but it’s explained away as a structural problem – large septal knuckle or somesuch. It appears to be getting worse. He’s got all the symptoms mentioned above and can only walk comfortably on flat ground as he has to stop to catch his breath. To say it has altered his (and consequently my) life is an understatement. He was previously very healthy and active – a bit too active at times – but no more. He had 2 Cominarty vaccinations before my drip-feeding him the Covid/vaccination sham information got through. No idea where he’s headed health wise.
He hasn’t said anything about the vaccines causing his problem and willingly takes medication. The family support him 100% but Covid and vaccinations are elephants in the family room as I am the only one who didn’t believe the nonsense. I doubt any of them would believe the information I’ve got anyway.
Vaccinations are elephants in the room for many many families and friend groups and indeed all social situations. I am only able to broach the subject with two people (not family) in conversation and on forums like this one. The two people were vaccinated and feel angry, fearful and betrayed so I still don’t refer to the subject lightly.
Imho the harms of these genetically engineered “vaccines” have only recently raised their head.
Autoimmune diseeases are usually chronic and can take decades before they become symptomatic – making it sadly easy for the blame to be laid somewhere else.
Bigpharma’s genetic engineers have been and still are, playing God.
The whole of their products on the immune system are poorly understood and even worse, misunderstood.
Never forget- Nature bats last.
Every time I read these articles I am filled with rage at the Government and the ‘scientists’ and myself tbh…who frightened me (against my instincts) and my dear old man into taking three of the vaccines.
I’m fine so far, but not so my old man. His rapidly deteriorating strength and health can be pinpointed (by me) to starting within a week of the first, worsened with second, and even more so after the booster.
I can’t list everything that’s happened to him in these three years, but I’m convinced the jabs has had a detrimental effect on his blood, joints, circulation, heart, lymph system, and brought on vascular dementia. No one is interested in my opinion of course.😠
I’m interested in your opinion as my husband’s ill health started after his first vaccination too. He stopped at 2 which interestingly enough is the situation with quite a few people I’ve discovered. I have no-one to talk to about it as whenever I’ve tried people just look at me as if I’m crazy