Countless mainstream media programmes now incorporate extremist green climate propaganda into their output, seemingly without any desire to question the most outlandish and improbable statements. Last Monday’s Start the Week on BBC Radio 4 provides a case study in how fiction is mixed with cherry-picked fact, doused in error-ridden political Net Zero propaganda and presented as a learned contribution to our understanding of how the climate is breaking down. Not to put too fine a point on it, the whole affair was a one-sided, misinformed muddle.
As extreme weather becomes more frequent, are we out of kilter with nature, asked presenter Kirsty Wark. The question was rhetorical since in the same sentence she adds, “How and why did it happen and could we humans drive a climate catastrophe?” But extreme weather is not becoming more frequent. All that seems to have happened is that the BBC, like most mainstream media, has started catastrophising every bad weather event. Last year, four leading Italian scientists published a joint review of historical climate trends and concluded that declaring a ‘climate emergency’ was not supported by the data.
During the course of their work, the scientists found that rainfall intensity and frequency is stationary in many parts of the world. Tropical hurricanes and cyclones show little change over the long term, and the same is true of U.S. tornadoes. Other meteorological categories including natural disasters, floods, droughts and ecosystem productivity show no “clear positive trend of extreme events”.
The BBC programme featured three guests to help Wark “convey the story and impact of climate”. They were the Oxford historian Professor Peter Frankopan, Professor Dame Jane Francis, Director of the British Antarctic Survey, and climate fiction author Jessie Greengrass.
Frankopan noted that we were living in a world of “cascading effects”, asked how we have reached a point of “existential threat” and suggested we are living through an ongoing “mass extinction”. One can’t help wondering if students in a Frankopan history tutorial would be welcome to ask questions along the lines, what cascading effects and what existential threats? This fear-mongering is just repeating activist opinions, and there is little in the scientific evidence to back it up. As to the ‘mass extinction’ trope, trotted out constantly on the mainstream media, the evidence suggests something completely different. The bedrock extinction scare comes from the World Wildlife Fund and the Zoological Society of London, who made the improbable claim that vertebrates across the planet have declined by 69% since 1970. But a group of Canadian biologists recently showed that the figure was a statistical freak. They revealed that the estimate is driven by 2.4% of wildlife populations, adding, “If these extremely declining populations are excluded, the global trend switches to an increase.”
Antarctica scientist Jane Francis said the climate was changing fast and we needed to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. To back up her observations, she referred to the Antarctica ice core explorations, noting correctly that air bubbles gave an accurate indication of the past atmosphere. From this and other elements present in the ice can be deduced both temperature and the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere going back 800,000 years. But Francis gave no further details, possibly because the ice core drilled at Vostok suggests that temperatures often rise ahead of CO2 levels.

A seminal science paper in 1999 (Petit et al.) concluded that CO2 lagged temperature during the onset of glaciation by several thousands of years. The above graph shows that over many periods, particularly during the current Holocene, temperature and CO2 levels are not in general lockstep. A more plausible observation might be that naturally rising temperatures lead to higher levels of CO2 as gas is released from across the Earth’s surface.
There were a number of contributions correctly billed as fiction from the author Jessie Greengrass, who invoked Noah’s Ark in a new book called The High House. It features the heroine who leaves her family because she is so worried about the climate that she wants to make a difference on a global scale. There were no further details about making this global difference, although it might not be a surprise if it included shouting very loudly and gluing herself to stuff. Like Noah, Greengrass is also worried about floods and is concerned about Pacific islands (most of them increasing in size at last looking) and England, which she suggested could be a “spine’”in future.
But enough fiction, back to the fiction. Professor Francis was worried about extreme weather “which we have created”, referencing the recent hurricane in Mississippi with the suggestion that such events have become “more frequent and worse”. Regrettably, a couple of small errors crept into these statements, namely that it was a tornado that hit Mississippi, not a hurricane, and far from getting worse, the recent record has got better.

Of course Francis is in good company in claiming black is white so far as U.S. tornadoes are concerned. Penn State meteorologist Michael Mann claims that the latest science “indicates that we can expect more of these huge (tornado) outbreaks because of human-caused climate change”, while Jennifer Francis, a scientist at Woodwell Climate Research Center, told the Guardian that climate change was “making some of the ingredients needed to create an outbreak like this more likely”.
Author Greengrass concluded that we needed to communicate about climate change “in every way we can to every possible audience about what is happening”. There is nothing wrong with the BBC trying to make interesting programmes with interesting people having a lively debate about newsworthy topics. But on climate change, the appalling decision made years ago to avoid debating the so-called ‘settled’ but unproven science narrative means that almost any crackpot green opinion and agitprop can be broadcast without any attempt made to inquire into its validity. This sterile approach should be left to the wilder reaches of social media, and cannot justify imposing a hefty licence charge on everyone in the U.K. owning a terrestrial TV receiver.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.
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It’s going to be a rerun of COVID.
Make up a global catastrophe. Force people to do all manner of insane things to avoid the “catastrophe”.
When catastrophe is averted, claim it was all the action taken that saved us.
Everybody will have been so comoletely indoctrinated and so invested in the supposed solutions that it will be impossible to convince them they’ve been duped.
That btw is pretty much the story of most government action.
This is a linear forecast of events. Reality is far more chaotic though.
I think it was Basil Fawlty who said “a lie repeated often enough becomes the truth”.
May have been someone else.
Judging by the smug visage of the accompanying photo, she looks like she needed more hugs as a child.
Usually attributed to Goebbels, and cited as such over half a million times on the Internet. But in fact there’s no evidence he ever said it, which kind of proves the point.
Goebbels, in fact, accused the English of stupidity in “telling a big lie and sticking to it.” “Vaccines are safe and effective.” “Russia has run out of ammunition.” “Britain is getting hotter year by year.” “Diversity is a traditional British value.” It seems he was right, doesn’t it?
I’d more or less heard the same, though it is April 1st!
And more bugs. Yum.
The ‘big lie’ quote is usually attributed to Joseph Goebbels!
Co2? Causes weather, seasons and climate?
There is 0 correlation between Co2 and climate. It is plant food. Necessary to make oxygen. I would like more of it please.
After sitting through 5 months of a shitty UK winter I would like some warmtarding too please.
Doesn’t Gaia emit 95% of the 0.04% Co2 trace chemical? Isn’t THE SCIENCE ™ suggesting we kill her to save her?
I don’t believe in the man-made catastrophic climate change narrative, but I think we should acknowledge that man does have some impact on the climate, mainly through the greenhouse effect. My understanding is that any contribution man has made through the greenhouse effect is pretty much at saturation point i.e. increases in atmospheric CO2 above the current level of around 410 parts per million will have negligible impact (see the attached diagram, which indicates a rise in CO2 from 400 ppm to 800 ppm increases temp by 0.4C and 400 to 1600 ppm results in 1C).
I also think it is disingenuous of us to talk of man’s share of CO2 emissions, since Gaia both emits (land, volcanoes, oceans) and absorbs (vegetation, oceans) CO2. So, while man’s share of emissions may be less than 5%, it will be a much higher % of net emissions (see attached diagram).
What bullshit.
98% of Co2 is reused.
Are you telling me that man’s Co2 ‘forces’ only a positive feedback loop and Gaia’s does not.
Greenhouse is horseshit.
There is no glass ceiling.
No need to be discourteous since MichaelM didn’t actually say that.
I think the big hitters on our side of the argument (ie those not buying the climate catastrophe narrative), such as Richard Lindzen and William Happer, do acknowledge the greenhouse effect and that the burning of fossil fuels has had a significant impact on the increase in atmospheric CO2 from 280 ppm to 410 ppm over the last 150-200 years.
I do agree with you that there is no glass ceiling round the Earth.
If you want to generate a halting problem in someone claiming that a large percentage of species have gone extinct due to climate change, ask them to name one.
The BBC are CLIMATE ACTIVISTS. They claim to be reporting on science. But in science you question everything, otherwise it is isn’t science you are dealing in. So by questioning NOTHING all the BBC reveal is that they are not reporting on science at all, they are reporting on “Official Science”. You can switch on TV News almost every day and hear of extreme weather, more floods, more droughts, more storms etc etc and most people busy with work and family life will just accept that as truth because they assume they are listening to investigative journalism. But in the real world there is no increase in the frequency or intensity of any type of weather event. ———— How can it be that our National Broadcaster is reporting the opposite of what is true and getting away with it? SKY NEWS with their “Climate Show” do something similar but we are not all forced to pay for SKY. ————-The mainstream media talk of the “Climate Emergency” and the “Climate Crisis”, but this is not the language of science, it is the language of politics. For many of the unsuspecting public it is difficult to grasp why misinformation on this industrial scale would be taking place. They think the issue is all about science, but don’t realise the issue is highly politicised and that there is a political agenda behind it all. That political agenda is the United Nations Sustainable Development, and if there is no increase in the frequency or intensity of any type of weather event then that whole political agenda collapses. So the idea that extreme weather is getting worse MUST be kept in the public’s eye. They must at all times be under the impression that floods and storms will kill millions and sea level rise will drown coastal cities. This is the biggest pseudo scientific fraud ever perpetrated and I am thoroughly embarrassed that the British Broadcasting Company is part of it.
We’re all doomed
But this time! It’s real, honest!
We can trace the decision to the infamous Jan-2006 seminar organised by Harrabin himself – the actual Harrabin, not an ancestor – entitled ‘Climate Change: The Challenge to Broadcasting.’
For several years the BBC stonewalled all enquiry on who the seminar’s attendees had been, though it was known that the Heads TV and Radio News and many senior executives were there. An internet archive search revealed in 2009 that only 3 scientists, none of them ‘climate’, were there, the rest of the attendees being emissaries of WWF, Greenpeace, Friends of the earth, etc.
The only journalist, Richard D North, described the BBC people present as ignorant, having done no background reading or research, and bent on whipping up the most hysterically alarmist picture possible.
The keynote speaker was the Australian ecologist Lord May. He was president of the Royal Society 2000-05 and had transformed it into a relentless evangeliser for global warming. The gist of his speech was that dissenters were so few and marginal they could be safely classed with flat-earthers and perpetual-motionists, and the BBC Charter obligation of impartiality could therefore be set aside.
No criterion has ever been set or even debated for restoring it, despite the fact that many eminent atmospheric physicists – profs Lindzen, Christy, Spencer – have denied that there is any climate crisis.
Wasn’t Lord May played by Christopher Lee in The Wicker Man? Hotspots in the Summer Isles.
Might I suggest some family connection to Dame June?
Don’t the Big Black Cock corporation realise how out of touch they are with the licence payers? Or, maybe they aren’t?
” I’d gladly pay twice the price for my television licence ”
happily stupid from Milton Keynes.
“Brainwashing, corrupt, biased” are some of the more moderate adjectives applied to the BBC by readers of Andrew Montford’s excellent 57 page pamphlet ‘The Propaganda Bureau.’
It should be compulsory reading for all, with lefties compelled to learn it by rote.
I’ve just been offered 450 quid and an apology by the BBC for harassment over the TV licence and subsequently lying to me.
It was beautiful, they thought they were being cute, but every email or letter they sent contained lies.
For example, they said I had no visits from am enforcement officer in 2020….I said I never said 2020. They then realised I’d had 3 visits but said it was “the other department’s fault” for withholding the information…and so on.
They could not put pen to paper or finger to keyboard without lying and it was the carelessness of their lies which was as galling as the harassment. Could have been written by Kirtsy Wark.
Result! But I suspect very few get a modest jackpot but are continually harassed in a Kafka-esque manner.
Maybe 1 in 800? Where have I heard that stat before?
What shocks me is the number of people that genuinely believe all this catastrophising nonsense. Extreme gullibility and an inability to question the validity of outlandish claims make the general population vulnerable to manipulation. When will they turn bbc off?
The people outside of Islington don’t even watch the British Bias Corporation, never mind paying the laughable licence fee. The access to objectivity and the truth from the Internet broadcasting news network has killed it.
Is it true or did you hear it on the BBC?
The BBC is now the Globalist and Government slut, used to control the official narrative with Ofcom, and the Trusted News Initiative (what a joke). Taxpayers are not just funding via the licenses but also through Government spending on advertising. Billy Boy has kindly given them over £12million. Other channels like Sky are similar.
The once proud bastion of truth and integrity across the globe is one of our worst enemies, working with Government and corporations to cause tremendous harm to our society.
Humanity-caused climate change advocates remind me of this –
In the past, in some civilizations, sacrifices were offered so that the sun would rise the next day.
Sacrifices were offered.
Sure enough the sun rose the next day.
Therefore proof that the sacrifices worked to cause the sun to rise.
The media increases readership and viewership by giving constant attention to a ‘crisis’.
It’s in their interest to hype every conspiracy theory about catastrophe and crisis.
Gets people attention and they want to read or view the news stories.
Why has this paper now been retracted?