Justin Rowlatt Flies To Spain To Tell Us It’s Hot There!
By Paul Homewood
h/t Patsy Lacey
Utter hypocrisy from the BBC!
The BBC’s Justin Rowlatt and his editors have been accused of hypocrisy after he jetted off to Spain to report on the current heatwave and its links to the climate crisis.
Rowlatt, the corporation’s climate editor, flew to Alicante to report on the record temperatures over the European mainland, blaming the phenomenon on global warming.
In a live report on Tuesday morning Rowlatt stated: “I’m on the beach at Alicante and it’s 27C now, and as you can see dawn is just rising. Even hotter inland, as you can see, they had temperatures in the 30s overnight, inland in Spain and they’re expecting temperatures to peak well into the 40s.
“We’re getting the blast of the heat today in Spain, it’s going to go across into Italy, it’s already very hot in Italy but it’s going to get hotter there, and finally it will end in Greece. All accentuated, exaggerated by the effects of climate change.”
Shortly after, Rowlatt tweeted that mankind was clearly to blame, citing experts, stating: “It is getting very hot in southern Europe and it is going to get even hotter. These kinds of temperatures would be vanishingly unlikely without man-made climate change, says [Dr Friederike Otto] and other climate scientists.”
Why fly to Spain?
But critics queried why Rowlatt flew to Spain to report on the hot weather.
Craig Mackinlay, the Conservative MP for South Thanet, said: “There’s something rather rich about Justin Rowlatt using a fuel-guzzling aircraft to find out what a phone call would have told him. It follows the pattern of the great and the good telling us about the evils of climate change while jetting around the world.
“High temperatures are common in summer and doubtless everything will be back to normal soon.”
Several angry BBC viewers agreed that Rowlatt was contributing to global warming by flying to Spain in order to produce a report he could have presented in the studio.
Andy Mich tweeted: “Did the BBC fly you over to southern Spain Justin? If the climate crisis is as serious as you say and I’m not disputing that it isn’t, wouldn’t it make more sense and be a better look if you stayed at home?”
Other viewers pointed out that the BBC’s Spain-based correspondents could have presented the segment without the need for Rowlatt to fly anywhere.
Rob Morgan wrote on Twitter: “Was it necessary to travel to Spain when the BBC already has reporters there.”
Rowlatt, the BBC’s first specially appointed climate editor, gave up flying for a year in 2006 to reduce his family’s carbon footprint.
The broadcaster has made no secret of his passion for the subject and his belief in the impact climate change could have on mankind.
In November 2021 he presented a special edition of BBC Panorama called Wild Weather: Our World Under Threat, in which he told viewers: “The world is getting warmer and our weather is getting ever more unpredictable and dangerous. The death toll is rising around the world and the forecast is that worse is to come.”
But the following May the BBC’s Executive Complaints Unit (ECU) upheld criticism of two comments made in the programme.
The unit found there was no statistical basis for the claim that the death toll from natural disasters is rising.
The ECU also ruled that Rowlatt’s claim that southern Madagascar was “on the brink of the world’s first climate-induced famine” was incorrect, as other factors were involved.
Critics have pointed out that climate activism appears to be a family affair for Rowlatt.
His wife, Bee, a former producer for the BBC World Service, has taken part in Extinction Rebellion protests and supported a “justice” fund that gave protesters access to legal advice after they were charged.
Rowlatt’s sister Cordelia, who helps run a small fruit and vegetable farm in Frome, Somerset, was fined for taking part in one of Insulate Britain’s M25 blockades in 2021.
Earlier this year, defending his reporting, Rowlatt told the Columbia Journalism Review: “It’s our job in the media to report the facts, impartially and without bias. And there are some inescapable and very grim truths about the trajectory the world is on, in terms of our emissions, which continue to grow.”
The BBC, which has a number of correspondents it can call on in Spain and a Spanish language unit based in London, refused to confirm whether Rowlatt had taken a flight to Alicante for his dispatch.
A BBC spokesman said: “The extreme heat millions of people are experiencing in several parts of the world is a significant story relating to climate change, and our journalists are providing additional insight and analysis on the ground from some of the hardest hit regions.”
So it’s acceptable for the BBC to waste licence payers’ money on flying this ridiculous person to Spain, in order to tell us it’s hot there. I suspect anybody who has been to Spain for summer holidays knows that already, and don’t need this charlatan with his shirt buttons undone to tell us!
As for the BBC’s pathetic excuse:
The extreme heat millions of people are experiencing in several parts of the world is a significant story relating to climate change, and our journalists are providing additional insight and analysis on the ground from some of the hardest hit regions
It has nothing to do with climate change. And it is no more significant than all of the cold, snowy days many countries get every winter. And I don’t see what additional insight and analysis Justin Rowlatt can provide.
In reality, Alicante’s temperatures only hit 36C that day, itself much higher than the rest of the week:
https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/spain/alicante/historic
And as I suspect you have already worked out, temperatures of 36C are pretty commonplace there:
https://www.ecad.eu/utils/showindices.php?fj605blbbj6bc6iqosbrm7s0uc
Nor is there any evidence that heatwaves are getting worse in Alicante:
What this latest piece of brazen propaganda proves is that the BBC is only interested in its relentless pursuit of its Net Zero agenda, and objective facts are expendable.
Comments are closed.
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Rowlatt is a twat.
That’s disrespectful to twats.
Love it!
Rowlatt has no useful purpose whereas the comparator ……
As are all “climate”, “green” and “net zero” fanatics
>>is a twat
In line with the BBC’s continual catastrophising, this past week, because it’s been quite cold and peeing down with rain over much of the UK, they have been seeking to continue the rhetoric by giving us graphic pictures of hot spots around the world wherever they can find them. Justin Rowlatt is now a completely discredited reporter who has so obviously been employed to further the BBC’s agenda that his over exaggerated antics have almost made him a figure of fun and even my wife says, “ Oh God, not that idiot again- the man is clearly as bonkers as a bag of frogs!”
Why even bother to mention that? Obviously, he and the others don’t care. They are paid to create fake news.
Looking at that above photgraph reminds me of the old joke “Why do Elephants have Big Ears?….’cos Noddy won’t pay the ransom.”
So why does the BBC employ Big Ears LowRatt? …’cos they can and there is sweet FA you are allowed to do about it – or so they think. May I suggest we all promote a “defund the BBC” campaign and fuck off LowRatt…and Packham…and Attenbollox et alia.
They are all chronic sufferers of the recently discovered neurological disorder Climate CO2 Oughtism, a delusional tendency to insist they have no need to suffer the solutions to non existent problems they foist on everyone else.
It is known in some circles as Ccooo…..and there is, as yet, no known cure.
(with due respect to all those and their families suffering from Autism in real life)
Here in Valencia, just up the road,as it were, it’s a balmy 31 degrees, which, according to the UK Met office, is 1.5 degrees lower than the average in Valencia for July. I assume that the reason that Mister Rowlatt doesn’t get fired from Auntie Beeb is because he has some secret that they don’t want him to divulge. They do, after all, have some mileage in that area.
Apparantly one of the problems with climate change is that there are just too many of us. We are supposed to be reining in population growth.
Thus I think it is an effing good idea to send Lowratt off to Spain WITHOUT his wife as he might concieve his FIFTH child!
HYPOCRISY DROOLS KO?!
Why is it that the BBC gives this guy such a high profile?
But now he’s broadcast that the heat is moving on to Italy and Greece he’s sure to want to complete his holiday – sorry – research by flying on to Rome and Athens.
But then, if your job is Climate Editor it’s incumbent on you to keep dreaming up scare stories in order to keep your well-paid job.
Global warming- when it’s a bit hot in one relatively small area.
Exactly – most of the global warming/climate change doomsday predictions come from someone with a job with ‘climate’ in their title. Slightly off topic but Colin Walker of the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit said “the new battery factory is vital if the UK’s car industry is to move with the times”. Of course he would!
When british and german tourists stop going to Spain I will believe its hot.
Yes. One wonders how many looked over Rowlatt’s shoulder and thought, “I wish I were there.”
Well, lookee here!
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/news/giant-windfarm-off-norfolk-coast-halted-due-to-spiralling-costs/ar-AA1e7n6d?ocid=finance-verthp-feeds&pc=U531&cvid=904b3028065c4a76b8b0171ab18b5ae8&ei=10
Seeking yet more Govt (taxpayers) money – i.e. corporate blackmail.
The Govt has painted itself in to a corner by destroying coal fired power stations and claiming wind is the way forward so expect to see more handouts every time these organisations threaten to pull the plug.
Are there any reputable TV channels left?
Ch5 The Great Flood of 1953 on recently was another in a series of programs Ch5 has done on UK weather events, snow, 1976 etc. just as an excuse to veer into plugging their climate agenda near the end. In this latest offering they made the extraordinary claim that the official report into these North Sea floods was the first time climate change had been implicated!
For the second Friday in a row the local ITV newsPR has had an item doing PRasNews for Windfarms
Last week Amelia Beckett had an item where she gleefully said “windpower is the cheapest form of electricity”
This week even thicker item
Item starts 10 mins in
https://www.itv.com/news/calendar/2023-07-13/catch-up-itv-news-calendar-south
video expires 6pm Saturday
If you watch that ITV “news” item .. it’s a complete advert for Octopus PRasNews
The best of them is Talk TV. Although Julia Hartley-Brewer ought to tell Dr. Bull that CO2 is not a pollutant.
Actually, you need a certain amount of CO2 in your body at all times or the process of oxygen release in the tissues will not take place. Elementary physiology of the blood. That is why you are advised to breathe using a paper bag when stressed – to recycle the CO2 you breathe out.
To be honest, Roland would be a great improvement on the majority at the BBC. Is he free to do Match of the Day this coming season?
Ooops, this has posted in the wrong place.
The BBC was just showing footage of storms and a tornado near Milan today as part of its 2023 European summer of climate disaster coverage.
Two second’s on Google shows tornadoes are not that uncommon in Italy.
23rd July 1910
A violent long-track tornado caused severe damage along a 62 km path north of Milan. The tornado completely destroyed many homes in Busto Arsizio, Solaro, and Saronno, killing 36 people and injuring another 50, becoming one of the most destructive Italian tornadoes.
O/T This weird thing the way BBC and media put up dramatic Europe temperatures graphs and talk of new temperature records
and everyone on the ground says “but my temperature is 10C lower than what they say”.
Then it tuns out the ESA had started giving out temperature data in an unconventional way
ie LAND SURFACE temp calculated by satellites from MILLIONS of location spots
instead of the normal system that the weather forecasts use of AIR temperatures at 2m high, at THOUSANDS of weather stations
And the media were failing to tell us that
That land surface temp is not air temp.
It’s an Apples vs Oranges comparison
.. https://twitter.com/robinmonotti/status/1681975597453418496
The additional point is it’s easy to get new records
when you up the data sampling from thousands of sites to millions of location spots.
I saw this on Twitter – is it correct that the temperatures were not the usual ones?
Yes. Everybody knows that the ground, especially dark areas are much warmer than the air.
Deliberately misleading propaganda.
I think there has been some twisting/confusion of the facts from both sides. I can’t see how ground temperatures would only be in the 40s, indeed ground temperatures in Spain were reported as 60C in one weather bulletin I saw.
And standardised measured air temperatures did actually reach the low/mid 40s. Again I saw a genuine 46C reported. Here on the 19-20th 43/41C were captured and may have been higher inbetween data points.
https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/@8378527/historic
But these most extreme temperatures were not that widespread or that long lasting, the impression given in the media that the whole of Europe was burning up simultaneously was not honest. But some very high standardised measure air temperatures were indeed reached in some places.
Yes I agree RobinM is wrong to say all BBC figures were hype.. Some of the maps did use land temps
But I saw tweet of 43C records that seem genuine air temp records
But when I looked yes there were cherrypicks
Instead of the record occurring at on the hour reading they appeared in the middle of them and the on the hour ones were someone less
Plus nearby stations had lower maximums too
BTW here is the BBC Land temp map
vs BBCweather air temp map
I have run a climate station, in Oxfordshire, for the Met Office for nearly 60 years. FYI the maximum temperature on Thurday in the screen was 21.0 and the maximum over short cut grass was 40.8!
O/T Mad BBC headline from West Australia
“The Australian climate protesters cast as extremists”
… many replies say “but they are extremists !”
.. https://twitter.com/BBCWorld/status/1681722441440083971
I don’t know if it’s Twatter’s new features, but I – a non Twattererer – can’t access any comments.
It’s by login only now.
My heating (NE England) ON two days this week!
Here in Cheshire my heating has come on every morning this week.
And…. TRUMP WON
Next flight is to Furnace Creek – Death Valley, California.
It is much more developed now than when I visited in the 1970s.
Hypocrisy is their middle name !
I don’t have any evidence (but who needs evidence – the BBC certainly doesn’t use any), but I believe that the BBC has the biggest carbon footprint of any organisation on our ‘fragile’ planet.
No doubt they have sent hoards to Australia and NZ to cover the women’s world cup, where FIFA boss Infantino has been pleading for people other than those who have the 20,000 free tickets to turn up and buy tickets, given their infatuation with women’s sport. They have form with sending teams from every branch of their empire to cover events that could use one shared team. And then there is Glastonbury and their huffiness at being asked how many BBC staff have gone there to cover an event that draws a low number of viewers overall.
Phillip. With his deep commitment to going back to older times with less emissions, Justin is travelling using the example from those times, i.e. a broomstick. Of course he runs the risk of being burnt as a Witch, which is why his mind is dominated by heat.
So, it’s hotter inland than on the coast in summer. Now that Justin has revealed this to the masses, are the British going to start taking their holidays inland instead of shivering on the beach?
I’ve just come back from France where it was 38C some days and I had to take a siesta and cold beer. I wish I had been able to stay.
It’s been that hot in Provence but here in SW France it’s quite cool for July. Mornings and evenings you need a jumper. 9am now and it’s only 17 degrees. Very pleasant but below average.
“And there are some inescapable and very grim truths about the trajectory the world is on…”
Sums up the problem with the BBC. The future isn’t a “truth” or a “fact”. And “very grim” isn’t science, it’s an extremist opinion based on an extremist scenario. Yet Rowlatt convinces himself he’s just reporting facts.
He’s left these jokers in charge
By Georgina Rannard, Erwan Rivault, Jana Tauschinski
BBC climate reporter & data team
A series of climate records on temperature, ocean heat, and Antarctic sea ice have alarmed some scientists who say their speed and timing is “unprecedented”.
Dangerous heatwaves in Europe could break further records, the UN says.
It is hard to immediately link these events to climate change because weather – and oceans – are so complex.
Studies are under way, but scientists already fear some worst-case scenarios are unfolding.
“I’m not aware of a similar period when all parts of the climate system were in record-breaking or abnormal territory,” Thomas Smith, an environmental geographer at London School of Economics, says.
“The Earth is in uncharted territory” now due to global warming from burning fossil fuels, as well as heat from the first El Niño – a warming natural weather system – since 2018, says Imperial College London climate science lecturer Dr Paulo Ceppi.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-66229065
All parts? The last six weeks in SW France it’s below average. London has been completely unremarkable. India is below average.
They are liars.
Ignorant liars.
‘A series of climate records’
Climate is the generalized weather of an area or region.
It cannot, by definition, have ‘records.’
Georgina Rannard, phd in History.
UK emits one per cent. Chins emits 31% . There is not a chance that the Keeling curve will be checked. CO 2 has a marginal effect on the weather. Lord Deben propagates delusions. Net Zero is therefore pointless and will cost you your job.
Even 31% of 3% of zero point four percent is still a very small number with a lot of zeros after the decimal point
O/T A media company put out video of the burntout Hull wind Turbine finally being demolished , yet all the wind power loving local news progs have not mentioned it.
.. https://twitter.com/baxtermedia/status/1678337213669470208
What did all that cost in £ and CO2? And wind lecky is so cheap.
Will they use a battery powered JCB to dig the hole to buy the windmill blades?
Do look at the very bottom of WUWT at their continuous collection of thousands of Met station readings a minute worldwide. Globe has cooled very slightly to 57degsF. Follow the link downwards to the histogram since 2015 and keep calm
Could be that our Mr Rowlatt doesn’t really believe that the climate crisis is real or he wouldn’t be behaving the way he does on the travel front.
No, he believes he is one of the chosen few who give themselves the right to lecture us – or is it preach at us – and therefore whatever he does is necessary.
Why did not this brave, intrepid reporter jump in the company EV, pay his toll through the Chunnel, then E-scoot his way down to Spain? Perhaps all those stops to top-off his charge would have added two weeks to his sojourn and cause him to miss the Fake News Deadline. We would have been better served if he did. The patent hypocrisy of these urinalist is galling to say the least. BBC is Europe’s original fake news, second only to telly weather forecasts.
Those temperature charts. Seem to show a completed wave in the sixty-year cycle which leaps to the eye in so many climatic series. High in 1960, High in 2020. The main point is that the working hypothesis for any complicated system with long-term permanencies is that there ARE cycles in its behaviour. Otherwise it would frequently sweep to an unrecognizable state – i.e. to a genuinely unprecedented condition.
Will the liar that is Rowlatt refer himself to BBC Verify, given the message in vanishingly small font on the webpage “Why you can trust BBC News”.
Can someone mock up “How can you trust BBC News”…and hack the webpage…?
Piers Corbyn predicted in 2008 the return of the Little Ice Age pattern of a bendy jet-stream with blocking patterns. He campaigned in Uxbridge with the message that the population is being bamboozled in everything. He has been a strong campaigner from the beginning against the Global Warming narrative. He was also a strong campaigner against lockdowns. He is well demonised. I wonder if he still has a bank account? He got 109 votes from the sheeple.
Christopher Booker likewise..
Elder Boy and his family have just returned from Barcelona. Said it was lovely. Hot, but it’s Spain. In summer.
On Monday I rode from Pau in SW France over the Pyranees into Spain. I left unseasonably cool drizzly Pau and rode through fog up to near the border then down into sunny Spain.
I assume the unseasonable dank and foggy conditions were Climate Change too.
I worked in Madrid 1993-94 at CASA Space Division (now Airbus Space). The summers were very hot they closed the plant for the duration of August when the temperature usually went well above 40C. Spain in the summer! The Mad Madrilanos used to vamos out of the city to the coast making it a bit of a ghost town. Justin that’s where its coolest, you idiot! Lovely to go and see all the attractions, e.g. the Prado. We had a car there (no air con then!) but we always used the good public transport system if we went into town. We used to usually come back to the UK for 3 of the 4 weeks off. On the other hand the winters could be quite cold, snow and frost. Mainly due, I believe, to Madrid being the highest capital in Europe. I think they used to say six months in an oven and six months in a fridge. The BBC is doing a Hancock trying to ‘scare the pants off us’. The BBC/WEF/UN etc, as Neil Oliver says, want to keep us in state of fright.
Bu the way Mr Catweazle I’m half way through reading ‘Is that TRUE or did your hear it on the BBC?’ excellent book.
MikeyB.
For a suitable fee I will offer the BBC my insightful and relevant reporting skills. I can undercut Rowlatt by reporting from SW England on the unseasonably drab wet cold weather were currently experiencing. Instow beach is windy and wet right now and the dogs are loving it. No jets required.
What I would like to know is what right or authority the BBC has to use a rabid, left wing global warming believer in totally unproven man- made global warming, to be allowed to broadcast worldwide his totally one sided fanatical views on man- made global warming? Neither the BBC nor Mr Rowlatt hold any proof that man-made global warming is real, but refuse to run the risk of inviting far greater experts to proffer an opposite argument for fear of themselves being made to look foolish. We need the BBC to do much more balanced reporting and they should not be allowed to use the public airways to promote their one sided views, especially now that very many more people are realising that man has no control over the World’s climate and are becoming immune from the falsehoods that these fanatics have been allowed to promote for far too long.
“All accentuated, exaggerated by the effects of climate change.”
Idolatry. The undefined ‘climate change’ is a false idol. Rowlatt has performed a sacrament by going to Spain and testifying – witnessing – the ‘effects of climate change.’
He couldn’t witness from home.
Looks like he had a heavy session last night and been on the beach all day.
I thought he always looks like that.
Justin Rowlat’s hypocrisy is sickening. But what do you expect from someone who is totally illiterate on any of the relevant science having studied philosophy and politics. And the BBC promote him as their ‘climate expert’??
Rowlatt simply exposes his and the BBC’s disgusting contempt for everyone else. I think the time to cancell him and the BBC gravy train is long overdue.
Justin Rowlatt’s hypocrisy is sickening. But what do you expect from someone who is totally illiterate on any of the relevant science having studied philosophy and politics which is totally irrelevant. And the BBC promote him as their ‘climate expert’??
Rowlatt simply exposes his and the BBC’s disgusting contempt for everyone else. I think the time to cancell him and the BBC gravy train is long overdue.
David,
Sadly, I agree!
Paul! The headline to this story, made my day! Thanks!
Today’s MailOnLine:
” ….our exclusive picture shows the moment he arrived back at his £2.8 million north London home on Thursday afternoon – with Iberia Airlines bag tags attached to his backpack.”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12327499/BBC-Climate-Editor-home-1-800-MILE-Spain-jaunt-plane-blamed-heatwave-carbon-emissions-here.html
But how did he get the job? He’s worse by bias than Harrabin and Shukman. The whole of the BBC committed to lefty alarmism despite collapsing audiences. Divorced from the credo of their taxpayers, THEY DON’T CARE.