Sadly the coming climate apocalypse will have to take place without any specialist commentary from the American business cable channel CNBC. It appears the station’s climate desk has been quietly disbanded, causing seasonal favourite stories such as the threat to Thanksgiving pies and turkeys to disappear from the headlines. It’s an undoubted straw in the wind. Major TV stations tend not to cancel news output that attracts eyeballs and advertisers. But what climate catastrophising and green propaganda can CNBC contribute that isn’t repeated endlessly across mainstream media? With climate collapse promised on a daily basis for decades, it seems the general audience is getting wise to much of the fake, pseudoscience being used by well-funded elites to promote a collectivist Net Zero agenda.
Needless to say, the lamentations from fellow climate activists were spread over social media. Bloomberg reporter Akshat Rathi tweeted it was a “sad day” when a major news publication decided to cut jobs that provided essential coverage of a planetary crisis. “The science is clear, the impacts are here, and many world leaders are taking it seriously. So why does a media publication not see a business case?” he asked. The sensible might answer that there is no planetary crisis, it is an invention of political activists, the science is not clear, it is more in dispute than ever, while the catastrophisation of individual weather events is the last desperate throw of the dice following 25 years of slowing warming. The business case for CNBC seems clear – what money can be made by simply subbing clickbait press releases from academics desperately trying to secure funding for their increasingly fanciful climate claims? Not a lot, it seems, when all the competitors are acting as similar trusted messengers citing the usual, ‘scientists say’.
Mass Greta-style hysteria can only be kept going for so long before the disillusioned audience tires of the effort and walks down the mountain muttering disobliging comments about the latest false prophet. Anti-elite populist movements are growing again in many Western democracies as the full horror of the insane Net Zero project becomes apparent. The election of Donald Trump next year as President grows more likely, and this will kill any significant move to Net Zero. In the Netherlands, the Dutch seem to have won a major battle against the supra-national forces trying to destroy their agricultural tradition and business. In the U.K., the anti-Net Zero Reform party, led by the increasingly visible and likeable Richard Tice, is starting to gain traction in the polls. Nigel Farage, of course – who is honorary President of Reform – currently lurks in the undergrowth.
Two weeks ago, Ben Pile published a wide-ranging report that showed the enormous financial firepower wielded by a few ‘philanthropists’. They have considerable power to curate policy across governments, organisations, NGOs, science, academia and the media. In Pile’s view, this process excludes the wider society and promotes and often implements policies that have no grassroots support. The evidence is all around with plans to change diet, reduce car ownership, limit flying, restrict the use of fertiliser and ban the use of natural gas. The mainstream media play their part in grooming the population to accept these restrictions, and receive substantial financial support in this mission. Their compliance is vital. As Pile notes: “The green movement exists almost only because of support from a small number of philanthropic foundations.”
In the U.K. alone, the Gates Foundation has given selected U.K. publications around $83 million for various editorial purposes. The Guardian and the BBC are the biggest beneficiaries of this largess. Worldwide, Gates’s media gifts run into the hundreds of millions of dollars. Last year, Associated Press said it planned to hire 20 climate change journalists following $8 million of funding from a number of billionaires’ foundations. Announcing the move, AP said it retained “complete editorial control” of all content.
As reported in the past in the Daily Sceptic, there are many other ways that elite money controls the mainstream narrative. Covering Climate Now (CC Now) feeds over 500 media outlets with ready-to-publish climate disaster material. It runs out of the Columbia Journalism Review in New York and is backed by the Guardian. It is funded by a few billionaire green philanthropists. Its partners included Reuters, Bloomberg, Agence France Presse, CBS News, ABC and MSNBC. One line of approach recommended for captured commentators is to note that climate change “supercharges normal weather patterns like steroids”. Activists looking to ramp up climate hysteria are told that the fastest way to catch up is to emulate outlets that are already covering climate change well. “You can’t do better than the Guardian,” it helpfully suggests.
None of this poodle behaviour finds any favour with many old-school journalists of a previous generation. These days mainstream media is awash with stories of climate collapse, particularly in the run-up to the annual COP shindig. Neil Winton spent 32 years as a reporter with Reuters, including a spell as science and technology correspondent, and recently wrote in the Daily Sceptic that his alma mater used to be above all this hysteria. It would relentlessly apply its traditional standards of fairness and balance, but of late it seems to have “sold out to the hysterics and axe grinders”. The involvement of Reuters in the CC Now operation seems to Winton to be in “direct contradiction” of three of Reuters 10 ‘journalistic hallmarks’ – hold accuracy sacrosanct, seek fair comment and strive for balance.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.
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This “problem” is easily fixed. The same government that legislated/regulated subsidies to electric vehicles can legislate/regulate a new rule that vehicular insurance policies must not distinguish/discriminate between vehicles powered by petroleum products vs. re-chargeable batteries. Immediately getting better equity and all that in insurance products.
What, so that ICE drivers’ premiums can go up to make up the difference? Haven’t women been losing out WRT to insurance ever since the EU said it was discriminatory (or has that been repealed, post Brexit)?
Guess i was too subtle with my joke. Too close to reality perhaps.
Smiley face at the end next time.
No you weren’t – it’s the lazy-brain, dumb fraternity.
I blame the schools.
“has that been repealed, post Brexit”
hahahHaHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAA!
HAHAHHAHAAAAA!
AAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHHHAAAAAH!
hah
Haha
It is indeed likely that this government (or the next one) will pass such rules – or more likely empower a pseudo-independent ‘watchdog’ to pass such rules. As Smotters points out this will raise the costs for ICE car owners. However, as such a rule will also add an extra compliance burden on the insurers, the overall cost of insurance will increase across all types of vehicle.
As a wholesale replacement of ICE cars with EVs is not achievable with the current electricity supply the increased costs associated with running personal transport will have the added ‘bonus’ of reducing car ownership – which will please those who run London and Oxford for example.
Putting up the cost of ICE cars is this government’s policy
The whole idea of insurance is to assess risk. Government interfering in determining that risk based on their desired political goals is why we are in this mess of government picking winners and losers. and the losers are almost always us.
“You’ve got length of repair times going up, you’ve got the cost of the component parts going up, and you probably see more EVs written off because residual values are particularly low at the moment.”
‘hybrid vehicles, which combine electric and internal combustion engines, present the highest fire risk. Autoweek reported that hybrid vehicles experienced the most fires per 100,000 sales, with 3,474.5 fires, compared to 1,529.9 for petrol or diesel vehicles’
How’s that whole nut zero hopey changey thing working out for y’all………
The irrepressible Sarah Palin quote. Highly apposite.
Mrs DickieA has to change her company car. She currently has a diesel Skoda which she loves but pays over £500 a month in tax. It does around 55MPG. On her car list is a Landrover Discovery petrol Hybrid. It has a nominal MPG figure of nearly 200 miles per gallon – but the electric range is only around 35 miles, so if on a long trip – when running on petrol – owners are reporting a MPG figure well south of 30. However, by choosing this car, she would save around £300 per month in tax.
Another classic example of government interference and the law of unintended consequences. In what perverse way is it a good idea to incentivise people to choose huge, heavy cars that use twice as much fuel?
If the argument is about “lower emissions”, then why is a petrol only car doing around 50 miles to the gallon taxed higher? And if someone is going to do mainly short journeys (and therefore run mainly on the battery) – why do they have a company car in the first place?
There you go again, DickieA, with your “logic”.
The premise (man made climate change) is FALSE, therefore everything which follows is ABSURD.
Yep. 100% agree. I studied climatology at university over 40 years ago. Of course, in those days, all the data showed conclusively that we were heading for a period of colder temperatures….
My son has a plug-in hybrid company car. He lives in a flat and can’t plug in at home so it runs almost entirely on petrol. But it’s tax efficient. The whole Net Zero scam is beyond ridiculous.
Quote: “The greatest thing that science teaches you, is the law of unintended consequences.” Ann Druyan, Co-writer of ‘The Cosmos’, presented by Carl Sagan.
If it’s twice the financial risk then why not twice the cost?
You sit on a huge battery and bide your time. You try to put out a fire of a lithium battery, Very difficult because smothering it doesn’t help as it reignites, Maybe you get insane accleration speeds with electric vehicles but believe me they are not well thought out and that is because they are not meant to endure for long.
Not so fast.
We insured our diesel car a month ago.
Last year £300 with full NCB.
This year the cheapest quote was £600.
Turns out insurers are loading the risk of electronic vehicles onto petrol and diesel cars.
Yet another cash grab by the Carbonocracy.
BEV insurance should be at least 4x as expensive as insurance for ICEs. At least.
For Teslas, make that 16x, what with all that Autopilot and phantom braking or not braking when it should, doors which can’t be opened from inside or out in the event of fire and/or electrical failure, over-the-air updates suddenly triggering causing the car not to start just when you need to drive somewhere, whompy wheels, huge recovery costs even if it’s just run out of charge (try walking to the local fuel station with a plastic bottle when you drive a BEV), the list goes on..
If you are unfortunate enough to collide with a EV and it is deemed your fault, then your insurer has to pay their costs. So it makes sense that some of the cost of EV repairs are passed on to non-EV owners in proportion to the relative number of EV’s on the road.
Just consider the energy that is coming off the battery and you’re sitting on it. Not to mention all the sensors and the necessity of being wired into an online grid. Is that really an improvement in the quality of life? Surely it is the opposite of the yearnings of the human spirit.
Insurance is the worst racket. I have family members who got into it and made a lot of money and now they are like shrivelled shells in their dotage, complete husks and sound frightened and destitute.Like they acknowledged too late that they were meant to apply their energies to other things.The issue of insurance raises a bigger question – is it even possible to organise human affairs optimally within large numbers of people? We wre designed to be in groups of about 50-300 in terms of our faculties and propensities.
Much sooner have the original! Wow, and, 100 miles on a single charge!
OK yes we get it, EVs are a scam, beg borrow, lease or steal one but never own one, they are expensive and an un-affordable liability. And so where does this all go? Will TPTB back down and abolish the Zero Emissions Vehicle (ZEV) mandate? Or will they happily preside over the demise of private motoring and the UK motor industry?
This.
Read Black Diamonds, by Catherine Bailey.
The answer to your question is held within.
They just presided over the loss of 3000 jobs in the Welsh steel industry and the end of our ability to make new steel from ore.
Hardly a good advert for a “war footing”.
Maybe we will be able to buy our tanks and munitions from China?
The answer to your question – 15 minute cities.
How sad.
Nimblefins quote an average EV insurance cost of £654 as of 31-Dec-23, I wonder why Howdens are quoting double that.
“Nimblefins average cost of electric car insurance UK 2024”
My guess is that Howdens made this press release to get free advertising.