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Education is another area where balance has been replaced by hysteria-inducing propaganda.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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Not just Americans. Every country. And the more “developed” the more it is like that.
And if I’m perfectly honest, I see no escape from this except when the machinery collapses, as it eventually must. But the misery we will have to endure in the meantime for those of us who just want to be left alone and free to live our lives how we want will be almost unbearable.
Indeed, such a thing is really a dead letter in any individual nation who decides that it is. Especially in the USA. Contrary to what some loose constructionists believe, international treaties do NOT supersede the Constitution.
It is ‘appeals to International Law’ that are now the last home of scoundrels…
“The WHO Pandemic Treaty is ‘Binding’ But it’s Not Enforceable”
As I have posted many times – the rule of law is now a fiction and applies ONLY if it suits those controlling the narrative.
Indeed.
It will be enforced through the UN, WTO, trade agreements, financial flows (or ending them), sanctions, and endless propaganda through the fake news and faker science. Once this signed it will be updated in ’25, ’26, ’27….and if a country does not participate in Rona Scamdemic Part 2 can you imagine the insufferable wailing from the usual cadre of idiots?
“The Science has confirmed that Slovakia, a non-signatory to the world-saving WHO agreement of 2024, is experiencing a mass genocide and rampant death because it refuses the magic mRNA stabbinations, LDs and diapers…the EU dictator VdL warns that the EU will cut off all trade, investment and exchange with the pariah state if it does not follow EU rules and ‘values’…the US DoD has announced that an invasion of the genocidal state might be needed to ‘save democracy from fascism in Europe’….” etc
Absolutely.
Yes it doesn’t matter if the treaty is binding, people like Sturgeon would be in competition with another Boris or that Bit@h from New Zealand whose name is hard to spell. If Sturgeon wan in competition with Sweden on who could be more ‘liberal’ that would be another matter. But fascism is back with the public-private partnerships.
Well, talking from the UK, our bureaucrats will be very keen to implement such measures without any democratic consultation. Look at their track record. The provisions will be silently incorporated into relevant guidelines, policy and legislation in just the same way as the Agenda 2030 Sustainability provisions.
“our bureaucrats will be very keen to implement such measures without any democratic consultation.”
This statement requires NO debate.
Don’t think the Tories will miss the last chance they have to dump a final huge turd on the British people for their controllers before they are booted out.
“The threat from WHO proposals come not from outside but from within. We live in a managerial age, run by a technocratic elite. Over time, they have acquired for themselves the discretion to direct society for the common good, as they declare it to be.”
—–
Precisely, it’s why the “Elite” in the House of Frauds, Parliament, the CS etc use the cover of the ECHR to prevent us from controlling our borders and deporting those who have no right to be here.
It’s why those same people want us signed up to the WHO’s power-grab. It’s so the next time they declare a “crisis” or scamdemic they can remove our Civil and Human Rights; lock us down and claim that they have no choice because the WHO has told them to.
Exactly.
We will not be signing away our sovereignty but when the WHO declares a PHEIC we will make a decision in the House of Parliament to go along with it. Not because the WHO dictates are binding – oh good heavens no – but simply because it will be in our interests to do so. All for the public good. A sort of “save Granny on steroids.”
And when he highlight that demographics suggest that we will be replaced in a few decades, they come up with ‘stirring up racial hatred’ with vague interpretations so you can’t even raise awareness when imported criminals are dumped into a small community. UK Column covered the ‘Hate Legislation’ today.
That is exactly how bureaucrats operate. They are always just doing what they’re told, supposedly. Bit somehow they love it.
Become ungovernable. Voting won’t get us out of this.
Feel free to quote me GDA:
Our salvation will not arrive via the ballot box.
Is anyone else sick to death of seeing the Gormless face of Tedros the Terror1st !!!…
National Sovereignty is under threat.
“The emerging ‘environmentalization’ of our civilization and the need for vigorous action in the interest of the entire global community will inevitably have multiple political consequences. Perhaps the most important of them will be a gradual change in the status of the United Nations. Inevitably, it must assume some aspects of a world government.” Mikhail Gorbachev
“The concept of national sovereignty has been immutable, indeed a sacred principle of international relations. It is a principle which will yield only slowly and reluctantly to the new imperatives of global environmental cooperation.”
UN’s Commission on Global Governance
“Government in the future will be based upon . . . a supreme office of the biosphere. The office will comprise specially trained philosopher/ecologists. These guardians will either rule themselves or advise an authoritarian government of policies based on their ecological training and philosophical sensitivities. These guardians will be specially trained for the task”
David Shearman [IPCC Assessor for 3rd and 4th climate change reports]
“For the first time, humanity is instituting a genuine instrument [Kyoto Protocol] of global governance,’…”By acting together, by building this unprecedented instrument, the first component of an authentic global governance, we are working for dialogue and peace.”
Jacques Chirac
As part of the WHO Pandemic Treaty their annual budget will go from $3.5 billion of variable donations, a good portion from Gates Foundation, to $33 billion of fixed country payments. Let’s not forget what this is all about. Bill Gates modus operandi, as he has done with GAVI, is to get governments to fund his philanthropic programs, while he still maintains control. Ghebreyesus previously worked for Gates in one of his vaccine organizations and has been put in place by Bill Gates. So now we end up with an Oligarch controlled world wide vaccine delivery organization paid for with your tax money. Just what the world doesn’t need. Gates is currently ranked as the 7th most powerful person in the world, he soon will be number 1. The UK PM does not rank in the top 10.
The Tories are not going to let their controllers down. This may be the last big turd they have the chance to dump on the British people.