Fact Checking The BBC–John Redwood
By Paul Homewood
MP John Redwood highlights some perverse behaviour by the BBC:
I was surprised to receive an email from the BBC after my interview on Monday of last week. It asked me to prove that German carbon dioxide emissions were twice as large as the UK’s, a claim I made in my interview. I was surprised because I would expect the BBC to know the main sources of carbon dioxide emissions worldwide as practically every BBC news show and comment show has to have a climate change item on it these days. I sent him back couple of sources that a simple google search yielded. I had of course checked my recollections of the numbers before doing the interview so I knew they were correct. He expressed no interest in my allegations about China which accounts for around 27 times as much CO2 output as the UK.
He returned to the issue having consulted someone else to point out that if you looked at consumption patterns rather than at where fuel was burned and things made the Uk would have a worse figure and Germany as a leading exporter of carbon dioxide drenched products would have a bit better figure by transferring some of their CO2 to the importing country. Germany would of course still be the larger emitter. I explained that I was talking about COP 26 and the global Treaty framework. The whole basis of the international conferences is to get countries to pledge to cut the CO2 that is generated on their territory, as that is more subject to their control. Surely the expression Germany’s CO2 output means just that, the CO2 they produce.
He agreed that the figures used were correct but felt he needed to write an additional essay about how perhaps we should use consumption based figures instead of the agreed international output based figures. I objected to this being done in the name of a fact check on what I had said when it was obvious I had cited accurate normal figures. Nonetheless the BBC fact check then posted a long essay which did begin by quoting another source to show my figures were accurate before going into a long apology for Germany and a representation of figures to cast Germany in a better light. Why? Why does Germany have to be protected when her business model includes digging out plenty of brown coal and burning it, and producing millions of fossil fuel burning vehicles. In contrast the UK has all but phased out coal from the mix. Why no mention of Germany’s rows over extending open cast coal mining, her refusal to eliminate coal this decade, and no mention of China, the world’s largest carbon dioxide producer?
https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2021/08/17/fact-checking-the-bbc/
It seems the BBC is determined to be right even when it is wrong!
The BBC’s “Factcheck” is here. As well as making a meal of the consumption issue, it also states:;
Curiously however, the report makes no mention whatsoever of the fact that Germany’s per capita emissions are 43% higher then the UK.
Of course, as Redwood correctly comments, the whole of the UN’s decarbonisation strategy revolves around the output of emissions by individual countries, not their consumption. If Germany or China want to carry on exporting their goods, they must do so in a low carbon fashion, just as our industries are being forced to.
Comments are closed.
Bullshit Broadcasting Crap.
Let the Beeb tell us why it’s OK for German autobahns to have no maximum speed limit (apart from some always busy stretches), which leads to – gasp – a lot more ’emissions’ per mile/km.
Even our M ways were designed for 100mph, in the 60s.
Chaswarnertoo.
Incorrect.
Motorways designed for 120 mph.
Put simply, when we import German or Chinese goods we are importing their CO2 emissions. If it really mattered to the atmosphere, all imported goods would have carbon tariffs attached and UK manufacture would start to grow again. Now, we just export jobs to Germany and China.
When you tax something you lower demand for it. You cannot tax an economy into prosperity.
Jack…when anyone imports or buys ethanol (liquor, wine) or carbonated drinks, beer and sodas, they are getting sequestered CO2 (and water). As long as they don’t use it emissions don’t grow. We make biofuel ethanol from plants, add 10% of it to fossil fuels and use it immediately for transportation. There is no way to lower emissions and expect CO2 to drop without capturing and storing that CO2… permanently. That’s why so much is being invested in subsidized industrial carbon capture and geological storage. The central problem being that it cannot be done in the huge amounts that would be needed to make a difference to the climate. Nature was able to do it, but it took millions of years. It is a myth that this sort of technology can help “save the planet”.
Given that around 3% of atmospheric CO2 is all that we have any control over, according to most of what I read, I’m still puzzled as to why anybody is concerned about it. If that figure is correct where has the idea that a doubling of the stuff between 1850 and 2050 is something we can do anything about.
What am I missing here?
CO2 is worryingly low. All life dies below 150ppm.
Plants love 1000ppm, humans are fine up to 10,000 ppm.
There is NO climate problem.
Complete nonsense. Why do some people have this obsession with manufacturing, particularly with relatively low value items? If other countries can make stuff cheaper better than we should let them and then import those items. That makes us richer. The opposite makes us poorer.
I prefer to be richer.
Obviously, I would not agree with this statement, in my view, importing makes the rich richer and the poor poorer, by taking away skilled jobs. These imports were generated by unfair competition from economies whose hands have not been tied behind their backs by stupid governments, and I include Germany in that. Fair competition is another matter.
The UK have been the trade-fools for many years: from following EU regulations to “leading” Climate Change.
Phoenix44 – the 10’s of thousands of years of “specialisms” driving human progress only works if you have something to trade.
It is viable to argue that we should import from places that can do things cheaper, but when you can buy a handsaw made in Denmark, but not sheffield – we have a problem (or fridges made in Italy – or ………………)
THe UK still has a worrying reliance on “Financial Services”, with the rest of us just selling each other a skinny latte.
Britain-Bashing Corporation.
The bottom line is that we left the EU and must pay for our ‘sins’.
Of course China is not going to cut its CO2 output, it doesn’t need to, Communist country emissions don’t count because they cannot cause warming!
Political correctness transcends science, as we have repeatedly discovered in this world of fantasy!
The entire case is about jostling for power (as in control) and money.
Attempts are made to try to confuse.
The Origins of Oil and Petroleum
http://www.prouty.org/oil.html
Fossil – Fuel Theory Debunked : Oil, Gas Deposits Called Primordial
by Toldedo Blade
Fletcher Pouty Explains Intevention and Use of Term “Fossil Fuels”
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zSffOpwc1Xc
Oh not that long-debunked rubbish about Abiogenic sources of oil.
There is a very informative set of posts from oil engineer Davis Middleton at WUWT. Fascinating and brilliant explanation of oil and its technology. Required reading…
David Middleton — Davis
All lies and jest
Still, a man hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest
Lies and jest ? What a shame, it made a good story. The last bit is certainly true.
If y/t does’t want to play try this 8 minutes long.
Apologies Douglas wasn’t replying to you.
I was commenting on the BBC.
However my view is the hydrocarbons have always been here but life has recycled them. So they are not fossil fuels.
The first line (which you do not quote) is very apt: ‘Such are promises’.
Thanks cookers. I know little so visit here to learn.
All insight from Paul and everyone is greatly appreciated.
Would that be Paul Simon?
Who does does this Nicholas Barrett think he is? Yes this is an ad hominem remark on him simply because his ” fact check” is basically an unsolicited political attack on John Redwood and clearly nothing to do with emissions of carbon dioxide anywhere.
A 2:1 BA in Digital Media from University College Falmouth and a MA Merit in International Journalism do not make you an authority on anything other than dubious journalism skills. I am probably more astonished than John Redwood that the BBC allow this sort of partisan article as it is way outside their remit. It frankly beggars belief that he is allowed to start an article by proving John Redwood correct and then simply discussing his own personal and completely irrelevant personal view that is unsupported by any internationally recognised standards.
How is it that 30 year old, unelected, activist with no relevant subject qualifications is license fee payer funded to promote his own “beliefs” – I certainly never agreed to that operating principle for the BBC.
Here is his twitter feed for anyone who may wish to contribute their views to him.
https://twitter.com/nbarrett100?lang=en
The BBC is simply following government policy.
They want the Licence Fee? they toe the line.
Why is the ITV also following the policy?
I can understand Al Jazeera jumping on the band-waggon, large money flows to their sponsors follow COP 26.
That man is a self important, self regarding tit, if ever there was one. Left him an annoying comment
John Redwood is one of the few MPs who have a grasp of what is really going on with climate alarmists but in taking on the BBC like this he is p****ng against the wind.
An unpleasant truth for the BBC.
https://energy-charts.info/charts/energy/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE&year=2021&stacking=stacked_absolute&interval=year&legendItems=011111101001110
With that red nuclear vat due to disappear next year, Germany is going to be short of electricity. That will have to come from coal, especially if there is any delay to Nordstrwam 2. The share of renewables has been poor in 2021, with significant underperformance. Both prices and emissions are rising. So much for Energiewende.
The bits they want to get rid of Coal fired, Gas fired and Nuclear make up only 50.3% of demand.
Alternately Coal, Gas and Biomass add up to 48% of demand, but emissions from Biomass don’t count (by decree) so all they have to do is include coal & gas emissions in that decree, and celebrate NET ZERO by opening the champagne Ooops!
That energy chart is misleading. It should really have time on the X axis since the output from random energy sources varies also output levels on the Y axis vary.
PR released for the 90 min BBC Climategate drama, no date
#RewritingHistory
“First-look images released for BBC One’s new conspiracy thriller The Trick – coming this Autumn”
” the story of world-renowned Professor Philip Jones, Director of Climate Research at the University of East Anglia, who back in 2009 found himself at the eye of an international media storm, and the victim of *cyberterrorism* “ (actually unknown whistleblowers, not known if inside or hacker)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/2021/the-trick-first-look-images
If I remember correctly, the Climategate “hacker” exposed the faulty and adjusted science being foisted off on the public. If that’s the cyberterrorism being filmed, that’s one thing, but calling any of them victims is ludicrous. Hide the decline? Adjust the “blip”?
“At 06:25 28/09/2009, Tom Wigley wrote:
“Phil, Here are some speculations on correcting SSTs to partly explain the 1940s warming blip. If you look at the attached plot you will see that the land also shows the 1940s blip (as I’m sure you know). So, if we could reduce the ocean blip by, say, 0.15 degC, then this would be significant for the global mean — but we’d still have to explain the land blip.”
It’s aerosol suppression by the oil smooths from the Battle of the Atlantic. Lord Rayleigh and Benjamin Franklin showed the effect.
The oil/surfactant pollution of the ocean surface has become much worse than that. Look for ‘First We Guess, Then We Do Science’ at Independence Daily.
JF
Not the oil on surface
They seemed to have made the ‘land temperature blip disappear’ and then blamed the buckets for the ocean blip.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14006-buckets-to-blame-for-wartime-temperature-blip/
On just about any other scientific discipline, the Climategate emails would have led to entire departments being disbanded/shunned for systematic fraud.
Imagine a drug company caught trying to “hide the decline” in a trial?
But to the BBC these fraudsters are heroes. Because despite the fraud the BBC somehow know they are “right”.
Phoenix44
Whoa!
Don’t get carried away!
Big Pharma fiddling medical research results??
They are little better than the Climate Charlatans.
Even the leftist Lancet admits that at least 50% of medical ‘research’ papers are un-reproducable including very many that show clear evidence of having been completely ‘made up’.
Read McKintrick on the great Statin scam.
As with Julian Assange, one man’s hacker or whistle-blower is another mans freedom fighter.
Perhaps but I fail to see how releasing emails between climate scientists could ever be cyberterroism? They were working on climate change, not matters of national security nor is there anything “confidential” in the emails in the sense of new discoveries or intellectual property. What we see is mediocrities showing how little they actually understand of their subject whilst making huge efforts to hide their ignorance. At one point one of them even admits to their ignorance. That the BBC cannot see the problem the emails clearly demonstrate is unsurprising perhaps but still extraordinary.
“Hide the Decline” is the killer phrase in the climategate emails, proven by the barrage of fake news accounts about it that appear under a google search, but here is one on page 2:
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=hide%20the%20decline
Too many people focus on “decline”.
No scientist should ever talk about “hiding” anything.
The more CO2 the merrier: it’s plant food with likely a tiny cooling effect on global temperatures, via convection.
Climatologist Dr. Tim Ball’s (et al) latest book:
Sky Dragon Slayers’ Victory Lap
His website:
principia-scientific.com
John Doran.
jdseanjd, I’m with you! I was toying with a suggestion that ‘the Emperor has no clothes’ but your comment is more pithy.
Do like a pithy comment !!! 🙂
British Bolshevik Collective
Abiotic oil?
http://www.viewzone.com/abioticoilx.html
Book:
Oil, The 4th Renewable Resource, by Shawn Alli.
Recommended.
JD.
Abiotic oil is derailed instantly by stereo chemistry. Petroleum is of biotic origin. Period. It’s not debatable.
It is possible that methane is of abiotic origin, and that some life form(s) aggreggated it into longer chain hydrocarbons.
Didn’t stereoisomers of, for example, amino acids (as the building blocks of living things) have an abiotic origin?
http://www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net/Geoplitics___Eurasia/Peak_oil___Russia/peak_oil___russia.html
Oil is regularly found, apparently, at depths inappropriate for fossils.
JD.
Redwood is fortunate that the BBC communicate with him; they ignore me.
Readers will be pleased to know this…
AUGUST 17, 2021
Majority of climate change news coverage now accurate: study
by University of Colorado at Boulder
https://phys.org/news/2021-08-majority-climate-news-coverage-accurate.html
– – –
These ‘fact’ checkers get everywhere 😆
I recently finished a very long but excellent book about the early years of the Rusduan Revolution. It took them quite a few years to get the majority of news coverage “accurate” too.
Oldbrew
Chatfeckers, I think you mean.
1 hour climate science interview between Mallen Baker and prof’ Ken Rice (aka ‘And Then There’s Physics’)
1 comments up so far ..none support Ken
waiting for YT to do the transcript.
Cui bono?
JF
No it’s very very simple. Germany had spent billions on windmills – far more than UK- thus any story that ITS NOT WORKING is anathema to the BBC because it casts extreme doubt on our ‘green net zero’ pretentiousness and all that stuff about the benefits of windmills that Harrabin tells us daily. Cannot be allowed.
Farage show “So the US said Afghanistan is the Saudi Arabia of lithium”
… Farage said it seems they have handed it to China now
“Already a Chinese company has announced it will reopen the worlds second largest copper min in Afghan”
..video clip https://youtu.be/e2sxN6ODHTU
We’ve caught up with the comedy programme ‘Not Going Out’ which was our sole reason for still paying the Beeb TV licence.
Her indoors is currently finding out how to cancel the decades old standing order.
Free at last! Free at last! Great God Almighty, free at last!
JF
UK bad, Germany good. Been the BBC’s view of the world for decades when there is a Tory government.
I found BBC’s convoluted arguments to “defend” Germanies performance difficult to follow.
The easiest way to check our respective performance is to compare our efforts to reduce emissions since 1990.
UK -36%
Germany -22%
Italy -17%
France -12%
USA – no change
Japan +15%
Canada +35%
China +354%
I last checked these figures 12 months ago.
FYI, I’m having my own year-long battle with the BBC via my official complaint that was just met days ago with a ‘final’ decision from the BBC’s Executive Complaints Unit regarding the egregiously biased and inaccurate Radio 4 Aug 2020 postcast report “How They Made Us Doubt Everything” Episode 6: ‘Reposition Global Warming’. My blog post yesterday, http://gelbspanfiles.com/?p=12353 is essentially “part 5” in this ongoing matter.