The BBC and the mainstream media regularly frighten everyone with the latest climate disaster news with pictures of floods, fires and hurricanes, always followed by scary predictions that things will only get worse unless mankind mends its irresponsible ways.
My alma mater Reuters, the global news agency, used to be above all this hysteria and would relentlessly apply its traditional standards of fairness and balance, but even this mainstream outfit seems to have sold out to the hysterics and axe grinders.
The trouble is, many if not all of these disaster stories, far from being another step in a worsening scenario, are often nothing of the kind. In a recent book Unsettled. What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, And Why It Matters, Steven Koonin uses the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change data to show that if reporters took the trouble to do a minimum amount of checking, most of these incidents would appear to be natural disasters, yes, but not part of some ever worsening syndrome.
Economist Bjorn Lomborg has been pointing out for years that humans are having an impact on the climate, but technology will be a match for any problems. Current Government plans to combat climate change will squander massive amounts of taxpayers’ money and achieve very little in terms of stopping rising global temperature, Lomborg says.
Warmist politicians and lobby groups regularly trash the work of a significant group of climate experts, insulting them with unfounded accusations that they can’t be taken seriously because they have barely perceptible links with ‘Big Oil’ and are ‘climate change deniers’. Criticisms are mainly personal and not aimed at their work. Koonin and Lomborg also suffer the unethical ‘denier’ slur, so let’s destroy that canard first.
Every scientist knows the world’s climate has been gradually and occasionally irregularly warming since the last Ice Age over about 10,000 years. Nobody denies the climate is changing. The ‘denier’ charge is nonsensical. But it performs the useful function of making clear the user knows nothing about climate science. The argument is about the ‘why’ not the ‘if’. Warmists say all the warming is because of man’s activity. The rest say some, a little or none.
Education is another area where balance has been replaced by hysteria-inducing propaganda. Children shown demonstrating on the news are often borderline hysterical. No doubt their teachers didn’t bother to tell them that man-made global warming is a theory not a proven fact, and that it’s okay to talk about different opinions.
If you wonder why much of the mainstream media seem united in accepting that the world will soon die unless humans don hair shirts, freeze in winter and walk instead of driving, you need to know about websites like Covering Climate Now (CCN).
Reuters and some of the biggest names in the news like Bloomberg, Agence France Presse, CBS News, and ABC News have signed up to support CCN, which brags that it is an unbiased seeker after the truth. But this claim won’t last long if you peer behind the façade. CCN may claim to be fair and balanced, but it not only won’t tolerate criticism, it brandishes the unethical ‘denier’ weapon with its nasty holocaust denier echoes. This seeks to demonise those who disagree with it by savaging personalities and denying a hearing, rather than using debate to establish its case.
CCN advises journalists to routinely add to stories about bad weather and flooding to suggest climate change is making these events more intense. This is not an established fact, as a simple routine check would show.
I asked CCN about the nature of its dealings with Reuters and the likes of Bloomberg. Was it to thrash out a general approach to climate change reporting or to be more partisan?
CCN hasn’t replied.
I have a particular interest in Reuters’ attitude because I spent 32 years there as a reporter and editor. The global news agency’s traditional insistence on high standards in reporting makes this liaison with CCN seem questionable.
When Reuters announced its tie-up with CCN in 2019 it said this, among other things.
The (CCN) coalition, which includes more than 350 organisations [there are many more now] has no agenda beyond embracing science and fair coverage and publishing more climate change content.
That is clearly not true. It has a partisan agenda and encourages reporters to dismiss those with contrary opinions as ‘deniers’.
The statement went on to quote Reuters Editor-in-Chief Stephen J. Adler:
Reuters is committed to providing the most accurate and insightful coverage of the climate crisis, as it threatens the health, safety and economic well-being of people world-wide. Our hope is that our careful, factual reporting will help nations, businesses and individuals respond to the challenge rapidly and intelligently.
The idea of a ‘climate crisis’ is not widely accepted, but partisans shout about it. It is a very vague claim and hard to define or prove. By Reuters standards shouldn’t this include a balancing view? Certainly, many people believe that there is such a crisis, but lots of people don’t. The idea climate change threatens the health, safety and economic well-being of people worldwide is an assertion, not a fact.
The involvement of Reuters in CCN seems to me to be in direct contradiction to three of its 10 Hallmarks of Reuters Journalism – Hold Accuracy Sacrosanct, Seek Fair Comment, Strive For Balance and Freedom From Bias.
I asked Reuters for its reaction to criticism of its CCN involvement in a new book Not Zero by Ross Clark, published by Forum, and it said this in a statement.
Reuters is deeply committed to covering climate change and its impact on our planet with accuracy, independence and integrity, in keeping with the Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
When I became Reuters global Science and Technology Correspondent in the mid-1990s, the global warming story was top of my agenda. Already by then the BBC was scaring us saying we would all die unless humankind mended its selfish ways. Carbon dioxide (CO2) was the culprit and had to be tamed, then eliminated. I had no reason to think this wasn’t established fact. I was wrong.
My Reuters credentials meant that I had easy access to the world’s finest climate scientists. To my amazement, none of these would say categorically that the link between CO2 and global warming, now known as climate change, was a proven scientific fact. Some said human production of CO2 was a probable cause, others that it might make some contribution; some said CO2 had no role at all. Everybody agreed that the climate had warmed over the last 10,000 years as the ice age retreated, but most weren’t really sure why. The sun’s radiation, which changes over time, was a favoured culprit.
My reporting reflected the wide range of views, with Reuters typical “on the one hand this, on the other, that” style. But even then, the mainstream media seem to have run out of the energy required, and often lazily went along with the BBC’s faulty, opinionated thesis. It was too much trouble to make the point that the BBC’s conclusion was challenged by many impressive scientists.
Fast forward 20 years and firm proof CO2 was warming the climate still hasn’t been established, but politics has taken over. Sure, there are plenty of computer models with their hidden assumptions ‘proving’ man is guilty as charged, and the assumption that we had the power and knowledge to change the climate became embedded.
The Left had lost all of the economic arguments by the 1990s, and its activists eagerly grabbed the chance to say free markets and small government couldn’t save us from climate change; only government intervention could do that. Letting capitalism run free was a certain way to ensure the end of the planet; smart Lefties should take charge and save us from ourselves.
The debate about climate change is far from over. I’m not a scientist so I don’t know enough to say it’s all man-made or not. But politicians and lobbyists have decided that we are all guilty. They are in the process of dismantling our way of life, ordering us to comply because it’s all for the future and our children. If we are going to give up our civilization, at the very least we ought to have an open debate. Journalists need to stand up and be counted. The trouble is that requires bravery and energy, and an urge to question conventional wisdom.
Reuters should be leading this movement. All it has to do is stand by its 10 Hallmarks. And maybe tell CCN thanks but no thanks; it needs to apply Reuters principles to its climate reporting.
Neil Winton worked as a journalist at Reuters for 32 years, including as global Science and Technology Correspondent. He writes at Winton’s World.
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“Net Zero Will Require a Command Economy”
Perhaps this gives a clue as to its popularity with the group that fancies doing lots of “commanding”.
Well there are just to many of us nasty human beings. Depopulation is the only answer I wonder how they will address this issue.
Interestingly the elite never suggest killing off the oldies at age 70 as a way to control population. I guess because Soros & the gang are oldies themselves.
None of it will ever apply to them. They are the Prize Pigs.
De-population?????? How do you propose we go about that? In reality it is the poorest countries who have the highest birthrates. Once a country becomes prosperous its birthrates fall to that seen in the wealthy west. So the answer to your alleged problem of too many people is wealth. ———-Ironically there is only one way that poor countries can become prosperous and that is by using the same fuels as we did ——Coal gas and oil. Fobbing poor people off with wind turbines is condemning them to misery and poverty for decades to come.
Great article, even if CO2 is the problem net zero is totally unachievable without a huge drop in our standard of living. That won’t go down to well with the electorate, that’s if you believe we are still living in a democracy.
To what extent is CO2 “the problem”? Remember that there is no evidence that CO2 is causing or will cause dangerous changes to climate. ——-But CO2 is something else. It is the one gas that can be directly tied to Industrial Capitalism , and that is what all of this is really about. Notice is always the progressive left and Communists who harp on about the climate. because it is a tool to redistribute and control the worlds wealth and resources. CO2 is the Globalist bureaucrats dream gas. It allows them to put in place policies they have long demanded, and they have the plausible excuse of climate to help them achieve that.
Of course Net Zero requires a central planning, command and control economy – it’s a Socialist wealth redistribution project.
Anyone not having seen that with the whole 30 year long global warming/climate change hoax has not been paying attention.
It is why it is so popular with the German Greens and the EU – nothing says central economic planning and control like the EU.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/israel-palestine-conflict-connecting-dots-more/5835802?doing_wp_cron=1697106680.1301569938659667968750
The best explanation of the Israel “war.”
Exellent, accurate, historically factual and spot on account.
Remember, it’s not just about the control of finance, land and resources, it’s far more sinister than that.
Thanking you for this link.
Oh well, you can’t even talk to normal people about this anymore!
Fat Pig News Investigates!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIO3fJpnXLE
People will not be permitted to vote against the policies of the political class. The nationalist parties were only permitted to flourish in the interests of splitting up the UK. Now that is achieved they will not get such an easy ride.
The Greens were allowed to kick start the policies the political class had already adopted. Now they are just a nuisance.
The chances of a new party are insignificant. Worth trying but with a minimal chance of having any impact. CBDC will not permit donations to them.
What a cheery article.
So Britain will become a North Korea type hermit state. A glowing example of a stale miserable, soul crushing, anti-human ideology.
It will probably need North Korean levels of indoctrination and repression to achieve too.
We’re still in time to vote against it in the next election… oh, yeah, no we can’t because both Team A and Team B are pushing it. Oh well….
Perhaps if enough commentators raise the alarm and plead with the powers that be to be reasonable,.like kowtowing supplicant before an emperor, maybe they’ll relax the goals and crush us into submission a little bit more slowly and gently.
That’s democracy folks.
throwing all that labour into Net Zero
I suggest a slightly different spelling: Throwing all that Labour into Net Zero. Makes much more sense in this way.
This conclusion is indeed what is happening already . We are being commanded to buy electric cars , heat pumps and expensive , unreliable wind and solar energy . The only way it will actually happen is in a Dictatorship like China and I fear our young are stupid enough to vote in a Dictator . It will be too late by the time they realise that their fate is sealed .
It’s been obvious all along. Net Zero is just communism rebranded.
CO2 will not kill us all, in fact it won’t kill anyone due to emissions. But getting to utterly worthless Net Zero will kill quite a few of us and it’ll bring the country to its knees. Net Zero must be stopped and the grifters getting rich off of it need to be jailed.
Net Zero comes from the Maurice Strong School of thought that that thinks that Industrial society should be destroyed and he said “Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about”? ——-Our own globalist parasite politicians are fully onboard with this impoverishment of their own citizens and they are a diabolical disgrace. Not one of them questioned the Net Zero amendment to the Climate Change act in 2019. No questions about cost or benefit were ever asked, and the cost to people in terms of their wallets, their standard of living, welfare and health will be enormous. The political class are squirming UN lackey parasites.
Personally I think NetZero is cloud cuckoo land.
not enough electricity
unsustainable energy sources: wind,solar, battery
a massive rethink is necessary.
“Net Zero Will Require a Command Economy and Massive Drop in Living Standards” – but surely that’s the point? Do people seriously think that Net Zero is about protecting the environment? Or that lockdowns, social distancing and jabs are about preventing the spread of infectious disease? Or that Wokeism is about combatting racism? Or that ESG scores are about creating a fairer society? Or that the Transgender movement is concerned about homosexual and transgender people? Or that Militant Veganism is about animal welfare? Or that the Communist and Socialist ideologies of the last century were about helping ordinary, working people?
It won’t be an issue that the climate hasn’t stopped “changing” by 2050, just like it wasn’t an issue that covid hadn’t disappeared after weeks of lockdown. It will just be our fault for not doing it all soon enough, hard enough, and long enough, so the answer will be to do it all even sooner and harder and longer.