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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The thing is…..where will the comedy gold come from if the climate comedians shut up shop?
‘Nearly all the world’s governments and vast numbers of its people are convinced that addressing human-induced climate change is essential if healthy societies are to survive. The two solutions most often proposed go by various names but are widely known as ‘green growth’ and ‘degrowth’
‘……many of these wellbeing goals can be achieved using a fraction of the wealth of advanced nations. For example Cuba with about an eighth of the GDP per capita, has similar life expectancy and literacy rates to the United States.’
Mark Fabian, University of Warwick. Genius
Let Mark Fabian be first. Remove his boiler, car and food made with fossil fuels. Once dead from cold these ppl won’t be so much bother.
That is the sort of considered and measured response I appreciate.
Why don’t they all go and live in Africa where humans, for various reasons, have a much lower “carbon footprint”? There is a lot of space there and people from rich world countries could buy very nice houses.
Cuba has about 3.4% of the population of the USA. This is simply not a valid comparison.
We live in a deepening ice age that started 2.8m years ago, anyone worrying about some miniscule warming is frankly insane.
“Warming” is really not what the UN, the WEF, and all western governments and media are worried about. They are worried about poor people in poor countries using up fossil fuels in the ground and having the same standard of living as those in the prosperous wealthy western countries. Fossil fuels are a finite resource, and just as we cannot continue to sip at a pint of Guiness, we cannot continue forever to use up this finite resource. So along comes the UNIPCC, to provide the excuse for not using them up and that excuse is “climate change” that eventually morphed into the “climate emergency”. ———————-So we (in the west) send poor people in poor countries some money for turbines and solar panels to try and keep their mouths shut but only if they agree to leave their fossil fuels in the ground. We then inflict impoverishment on our own citizens who by now have mostly swallowed the “climate crisis” nonsense all down because they see it every single day on their 6 o’clock news. We are to get rid of our fantastic gas central heating and make do with expensive noisy heat pumps that won’t keep us very warm like gas does. We are to be rid of our cars and only use ones powered by the wind and sun. We are to stop flying or be shamed into stopping. We are not to eat beef, but maybe locusts and other assorted insectum. ————“Warming” then is the excuse for the politics. The politics of Sustainable Development. Doesn’t that sound like a nice sensible thing? Who could possibly object to something being “Sustainable”? ———-Until you realise what it really means that is. It means a world run by technocrats accountable to no one and elected by no one. They will even tell you how much warming is allowed and that they can keep that warming at 1.5 degrees if we only hand over control of the world’s wealth and resources to them. —-If you believe that you will believe anything, and some people so thoroughly believe it that they glue themselves to the road clamouring for their own impoverishment.
Club of Rome 1972.
Yes we know. But you just reduced the whole thing down to the lowest common denominator. It isn’t quite as simplistic as the me old mate.
Twenty five years in a period spanning 2.8 million years. That is just taking the P.
A very pleasantly written article summing up the climate hype in layman’s terms ,showing how & why we are where we are ! Thanks to the likes of Gates & Soros & their collective useful idiots !
Climate hysteria as well as all the woke nonsense are like a black mould stifling all life and creativity out of society, suffocating common sense and reason. It proliferates despite all attempts to combat it (I refer to them all). The infected legions continue to parrot their catechisms of fear and victimhood against all odds. I don’t know what the answer is but whatever THEY (the so called PTB) have in store for us, I ain’t playing along and as long as there are scores of us doing this, they will fail. I think they’ll fail anyway because it’s such utter drivel.
…”climate collapse.” What the hell is that? Are we all simply evaporated or something?
What does the climate collapse in to? Or perhaps Planet Earth disappears via some yet undiscovered black hole.
“Climate collapse” is a lazy use of words which cedes the use of language to the eco genocidalists.
Too right, HP. The people using such words have never for one second stopped to wonder what they actually mean. The intention is always to create fear and panic – just listen to the nonsense that comes out of the mouths of any Just Stop Oil fanatics. It reminds me of the guy who used to wander up and down Oxford Street wearing a sandwich board that announced ‘The End is Nigh’ but x 1000s! The climate will continue as it does whatever we do while THEY will try and corral us into 15 min cities, take away our cars and try and kill us off. It ain’t going to happen!
With you Aethelred
On GB News Nana Akua show on Saturday the question was asked “Should rich countries be sending money to poor countries to help them avoid the worst of climate change”. —————Ofcourse on the panel was the GB news resident climate alarmist Jim Dale (a meteorologist) who thinks that no one can have a different point of view to him because of what his profession is. Not even other people equally or better qualified than him, and there are many who are. If they do have a different opinion, that maybe climate change is not the catastrophe that Jim has decided it is then he will question where there funding comes from and insist they must have an agenda. He will ofcourse mean that they must be fossil fuel lackeys trying to defend the agenda of coal oil and gas companies. —-But Mr Dale. All climate change science is funded entirely by government, so what makes you think fossil fuel funded science has an agenda, but government funded science does not? Ofcourse it does. It is the political agenda of the UN called Sustainable Development. ————-But also Mr. Dale your expertise is in weather as a meterologist, so why do you think your view on the politics of sending money to poor countries is something you should be pontificating on? ——–You are not an eco socialist politician are you? If someone passes comment you disagree with on climate you will question their right to do so because it is not their field, so politics is NOT your field either so SHUT IT. ————-While I was typing this comment I just saw the very same Jim Dale and that Irish Journalist from the Independent get a free pass on GB news for their climate propaganda as Eamonn and Isabel just sat there like two dummies because neither of them have a clue on this issue and were both schooled on it at SKY NEWS. Then on comes that Lady Maguire to say that “All scientists agree”———–Eamonn or Isabel should have stepped in right away and said “Please name 10 climate scientists that agree”. ——But they are unable to even think to ask any questions at all. ———–I am very surprised at GB news for this little climate change party this morning
If you saw his performance on the same slot but this time with Paul Burgess, a proper climate scientist, you would have witnessed his evisceration. He didn’t have an argument, just opinions whereas Paul Burgess had facts, graphs, climate history etc. Jim Dale is just hot air – he should comment less in fact as he is probably adding to the era of global boiling!
I have seen Dale with Burgess twice on GB News. —-But this morning Eamonn and Isabel showed exactly why they should not be questioning people like Dale and that insidious squirmer from the Independent. Because they know NOTHING about energy or climate and Dale and that other activist posing as a journalist run rings around them.
Well in any case the climate is safe from collapse and the planet will not boil because the England and Wales Cricket Board has pledged to reach “net zero” by 2040. No, I am not making this up: Climate Change: ECB signs up to UN’s Sports for Climate Action Framework – BBC Sport
No ‘net practice’?! Whatever is the world coming to! I imagine the Transgender Ashes will be a thing by then played in rainbow outfits to a few miserable spectators at Lords, Ladies, Them, They and It’s Cricket Ground.
Oh praise be !! I shall be sleeping much more soundly with this knowledge!
Funny——–Or at least it would be if it were not so pathetic.