End of The World Harrabin Needs A Pulpit, Not A Job At The BBC
By Paul Homewood
While the BBC’s Justin Rowlatt, brother of Insulate Britain nutter Cordelia, shouts and gesticulates about a coal mine in Cumbria, his sidekick Harrabin needs an End of the World placard, says Charles Moore:
The other day, I was standing in a London street chatting to Trevor Phillips, the former head of the Commission for Racial Equality. We were approached by a man with a beard who cried out that Jesus Christ is coming to save the world. Why did Mr Phillips not announce this, he wanted to know, whenever he appeared on television? I tried to defend Mr Phillips, saying that he was a good Christian, but the bearded gentleman was having none of it. In his view, Jesus’s imminent arrival should be mentioned to the exclusion of all other subjects.
Yesterday, I heard another bearded prophet, Roger Harrabin, the BBC’s environment analyst, on the Today programme. He took a very similar line to our street preacher. Reporting from Cop26 in Glasgow, he complained about “the fishing dispute [with France] that’s rumbling on which is taking away the headlines from this”. By “this”, Harrabin meant Boris Johnson’s claim that the planet is at “one minute to midnight”. (We have heard that phrase so often that it feels to me as if that political clock must have been stopped for about 30 years.) Such “apocalyptic warnings”, Harrabin went on, “are actually borne out by scientists”. Doom is upon us: we might be able to make it “less bad: we can’t make it good any more”. Therefore, declared the voice of the BBC, “We need revolutions right across the board”.
Currently, the BBC’s director-general, Tim Davie, is engaged in a push to make the corporation’s commitment to impartiality real. I think he should start with its environment analyst. In yesterday’s broadcast, none of Harrabin’s assertions was sourced beyond “the scientists say” (he often refers in similar general terms to “experts” and “green groups”). There was not even the faintest attempt to suggest that his claims about the state of the planet were disputable. His call for “revolutions” – getting rid of coal, cars etc – though obviously a matter of policy and therefore of politics too, was unqualified by any sense that in a democracy views on such things may legitimately differ. It was pure preaching, and deliberately frightening preaching too.
Harrabin expresses his views eloquently. He should obviously, in a free country, be free to do so. One would have no objection to him walking around with a placard saying “The end of the world is nigh. Flee from the wrath to come”, but I do question whether he should be allowed to do the broadcasting equivalent at the expense of TV licence payers. Perhaps it would be unkind to sack him, but couldn’t Mr Davie confine him to a weekly slot on Thought for the Day?
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/11/02/bbcs-prophet-doom-belongs-pulpit/
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Monbiot was on the news also spouting ridiculous hyperbole.
His view was that if the Republicans ever get back in in the US it’s certain death for us all.
He gave one of his stock phrases an airing that he uses for people/things he objects to:-
“an engine of planetary destruction”
“enablers of planetary destruction”
“a planetary death machine”
etc.
These maniacs are completely detached from reality.
Monbiot is simply a bunch of unintelligent prejudices constantly seeking justification for those prejudices.
“Harrabin expresses his views eloquently. He should obviously, in a free country, be free to do so.”
Charles is a genuine ‘good guy’ but does he rally believe that this is even close to being a free country under the Johnsons?
All the BBC’s environment and science analysts and reporters are trained liars. It is part of the job description for working at the BBC. Some, like Harrabin, have perfected the art of lying with a straight face over a very long time.
Tim Davie needs to deliver a cultural change at the BBC. Harrabin et al should be shown the door. Then HMG need to abolish the license fee. The BBC’s privileged position is untenable.
Of course they “need to” abolish the fee. But there is no chance they will.
Even better, they should confiscate all the BBC’s past catalogue (not least because we paid for it and it certainly isn’t in safe hands now). Then anyone who can’t prove that they actually tried to prevent the current shitstorm should be given a free P45.
That won’t happen either.
Boris and his chums really appreciate the hard work the BBC has done to promote Lockdown and the Climate Emergency shroud waving, not to mention the cruelty and “nudging” of the Project Fear behemoth.
It is a done deal.
Far more likely that HMG has agreed to a stonking increase in the fee.
Martin,
Would that Mr Charles Moore of Daily Telegraph fame who wrote this piece, be any relation of the Mr Moore who adoringly welcomed the traitorous Boris Corbyn – sorry – Johnson to a gala dinner in London last night of Telegraph employees?
This being the reason our pretend Tory PM had to fly back to the big smoke from Glasgow to “Attend urgent Government business” instead of taking the train.
Tell us about that Mr Moore and why the Telegraph is as guilty as ALL the rest of the media in spreading Global Warming porn.
Charles Moore used to be editor years ago, but the new editor is Chris Evans.
Fortunately, Moore is one of the few Telegraph journalists to challenge Net Zero. If he had still been in charge, the Telegraph’s coverage might have been a lot more critical in the past
If it was only Mr. Harrabin, Charles Moore’s commentary might be adequate, but the whole BBC environment team, and indeed its news teams, are all signed up, sealed and stamped with the catastrophist signature. No voice which counters any of it is ever heard. Even those who take on board the catastrophist ideas, but would like to propose other solutions or responses than the prescribed one, are completely excluded.
This is a rock-solid Ministry of Truth, make no mistake.
If Tim Davie is interested in providing any balance at all, I think he will have an uphill fight, as he will never hear from any BBC employee that any other point of view even exists.
ITV News is no better (I can’t, and won’t, watch BBC news). All the reporters and presenters of ITV News are all signed up to the Catastrophists Society. Only GB News allows dissenting voices. There may be others but not in my experience.
David Bellamy tried years ago and was completely cancelled by the BBC – that is how lacking they are in balanced reporting.
Tim Davie will bring no change. He was/is an acceptable frontman/cover to enable the Ministers of Propaganda to carry on their eulogies.
Remember it’s not just the BBC, it’s not a secret any more that the gov/nudge unit are using the news to manipulate public behavior and thought.
I heard this blinkered and dishonest ass talk twice and he made a huge negative impression at both. oOnce at a Pre Paris COP25 meeting. Some idiot said that there should be more climate change education in the National Curriculum. Harridan harrumphed. “It should be the totality of the National Curriculum”. He also praised Germany as a shining beacon of light for the rest of us – somewhat dimmed now. The other time was on a radio n talk show when a Lady from the Lib Dems and a sceptic (surprise!) made a point about Antarctic ice growing and Temperature leading CO2 in ice borehole record . The Lordly Harry-bum put her down sneering “Oh these old chestnuts have both been well debunked” which I think means – As shots which hole the AGW vessel below the waterline they were swept under the carpet . Of course no explanation how in his deluded little brain these points might be refuted . A truly horrible man with a plum job in a horrible corporation
“We need revolutions right across the board.”
Correction. Revelations? The world is not going to end in nine to 12 years. But it might be difficult to live on this planet if they continue to protest and demand we remove all of the energy “across the board” that got us here. They won’t even be able to fly back home from a loverly sojourn to Glasgow…waving their banners as they go without aviation biofuels emitting CO2.
We’re all going to be awarded allotments as big as dear Cordelia’s dontchaknow……..
Tim Davie needs to make it a rule that no reporter/correspondent/whatever should ever use the phrase, ‘the science shows’ without being able to publicly demonstrate what it is that means.
Tim Davie will need to get moving or I will doubt his integrity.
I think Tim Davie is not going to be supportive anytime soon. See today’s report from the Telegraph
“The director-general of the BBC has said the science of climate change is “no longer politically controversial” and a pledge to increase coverage of the topic would not affect the broadcaster’s impartiality.
Asked whether making climate change central to BBC programming would be seen as “political”, Mr Davie told a panel of TV bosses at the Cop26 summit in Glasgow: “I don’t think it’s politically controversial now. The overwhelming consensus is that we as humanity are causing global warming.
“There are voices on the fringes but in my view, when it comes to due impartiality for the BBC, we are now at a point where we have consensus around that.”
Harrabin will be praised and rewarded for his efforts to save the planet, he actually believes he is doing God’s work.
However the archbishop of Canterbury takes the biscuit for comparing real Nazi genocide with speculation that in the future climate change might cause something, he did not say what or where or when but whatever it was it would be bad, whatever it was.
What a Dick!
The idiot Archbishop has fallen squarely into the stupid hole where people fume about the evil of things that not only haven’t happened but might not happen. There is now this certainty about the future that is wholly unjustified. Quite when so many people came to believe in models, let alone models that have demonstrated very little skill is beyond me. Our supposed highly intelligent elites have abandoned all intelligence on this. To treat models that themselves produce widely varying forecasts as infallible oracle’s is quite ridiculous.
Harrabin, like Monbiot, believes so fervently in the nonsense because it permits him to demand that everyone does as he wants. I have no doubt whatsoever that if we could conclusively demonstrate that the solution to climate change was a smaller state and more capitalism/free markets, the vast majority of Alarmists would instantly become sceptics.
How does anyone supposedly educated, or anyone at all, get so worked up about CO2 increasing from 0.03% to 0.04% of the atmosphere? Anything they say as a result is borne of the clouds of red mist fogging up their brains.
I was double checking the stat of CO2 this week and googled “greenhouse gasses” and was referred to numerous sites that pointed out that CO2 was ALMOST ALL of the greenhouse gasses. The sites completely ignored or made any reference to water vapour, which as we know is over 98% of greenhouse gasses. These lies came from sources as far and wide as the EU to supposedly independent scientific sites. The thing is, that a few years ago when I did this, the sites included water vapour. Clearly people were starting to figure this out so now they are covering it up with out and out deceit and lies. Quite scary really.
I often wonder how many people understand that the whole scare isn’t based on CO2 causing warming directly, but on it “forcing” more water vapour into the air. The fear-merchants seem oddly coy about what is, after all, the central premise of their entire argument. Even their rhetoric is all about the Earth “burning”, with imagery of cities turned to arid deserts; rather a long way from the humid, tropical climate their hypothesis would suggest. Perhaps that’s because, try as they might, they can’t produce any evidence for it actually happening.
I agree with more or less all the above and crave your indulgence by repeating what I have written many times before. The BBC employs four environmental reporters – Harrabin, Mc Grath, Rowlatt and Shukman – and they possess not a single scientific degree among them.
I joined the BBC in 1977 and had 4 degrees in the general area of farming on which I was to report. That did not mean I never made a mistake! But it did mean I had a vague idea of what was going on in farming and related topics. I produced Farming Today on R4 and then Farming on BBC1. Not special but I think I avoided some of the terrible misreporting by the current bunch.
For instance, look at the incidence of wild fires, especially in California and Australia. Current acreages and rates are not unusual. Flooding – we have seen it all before. Drought – read the bible and the 7 years of plenty, followed by 7 years of drought. Not exactly a new phenomenon…Likewise locusts…
This amounts to willful ignorance and is close to deception – and this from the BBC, once the touchstone for reliability and impartiality.
I still hope that Tim Davie might rescue the Corporation from its current dreadful state and restore its reputation…
I’m afraid that things are far worse at the BBC than simply a bad set of environment reporters. The organization as a whole is now pretty much a mouthpiece for environmentalism. The bias and lack of impartiality is total with respect to environmentalism. This taint now spreads right across all of the BBC output – there was even a recent program on Radio 3 which basically applied environmental principles and concerns to classical music. (“Tosh” does not even begin to describe this).
The BBC’s output has become propaganda – “truth” has no part in this, what matters is the message and whether it serves the cause. Not so long ago, it was the Guardian newspaper that was the leader in promoting this environmentalist stance, then joined by “The Independent”. Now, it seems as if the BBC is outdoing them. Once upon a time, I took the BBC as a good source for news and for investigative journalism. Now, I am suspicious when they announce the time, let alone anything more significant.