BBC Reporter Flies Around The World To Lecture Us On Climate Change!
By Paul Homewood
h/t Ian Magness
The BBC has been accused of “rank hypocrisy” after a reporter racked up an estimated 20,000 air miles to ask why “despite all the green promises, we’re using more fossil fuels than ever before”.
London-based Richard Bilton travelled to Europe, the Middle East and the United States for an episode of BBC One’s Panorama in which he claimed “the world is saying one thing and doing another” on climate change.
Analysis by The Telegraph suggests that he could have racked up around 20,000 air miles, taking flights to Dubai, Alaska, California and Berlin for the programme, which was aired on Nov 13.
At the most conservative estimate, this would have produced around 5.4 tonnes of CO2, more than the average person produces in a year and the equivalent to driving an average car for 18 months.
The air miles estimates are based on one scenario, which involved Mr Bilton taking return flights from Berlin and Dubai back to London, and going from the UK to California and then onto Alaska before returning across the Atlantic.
The BBC would not say which routes Mr Bilton took.
The BBC, which has pledged to reduce its operational greenhouse gas emissions by 46 per cent by 2030, said all the flights were in economy class and were “required” for “on-the-ground reporting”.
But critics have pointed out that the corporation has local teams of reporters in each location, meaning the “one-man jolly” was “rank hypocrisy”.
In the Panorama episode entitled Why Are We Still Searching for Fossil Fuels?, Mr Bilton took aim at how the world’s energy companies are planning to drill for more oil and gas, and interviewed academics who demanded a faster path to net zero in order to keep global warming to 1.5C.
He told viewers ominously: “2023 is expected to be the hottest year on record – the devastation of climate change will be hard to stop if we remain reliant on fossil fuels.”
Mr Bilton added: “Figures seen by Panorama paint a pretty grim picture of the world – everywhere, Middle East, US, UK – we’re getting more and more carbon out of the ground instead of leaving it.”
Dame Andrea Jenkyns, the Conservative MP for Morley and Outwood, said: “If the BBC feels it necessary to lecture the public about fossil fuels, they should practise what they preach first.
“BBC Panorama ought to do an episode on itself, namely how its reporter is globe-trotting on flights at the licence-fee-payers’ expense.
“To add to the rank hypocrisy, the BBC could easily have used its local teams of reporters in each country rather than sending one man on a jolly.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/11/18/bbc-hypocrisy-row-air-miles-emissions/
Strangely there does not seem to be any mention of China and India in Mr Bilton’s whingeing!
Comments are closed.
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
John Kerry is the US Climate Czar:
A guy with 6 houses, 12 cars, 2 yachts and a private jet will tell you, that YOU should get on yer Bike and take the bus to save the Planet!
Michael Bloomberg has 6 Planes, 3 Helicopters, 11 Houses and 42 Cars:
He thinks YOU should use public transport to ‘save’ the environment!
Lurch is a moron.
I’ve known nicer morons.
Anxious looking BBC reporter picture is a classic of the genre, to be savoured, like all the ‘angry people in Daily Mail’ pictures.
I used to tell my children, “If you don’t stop telling lies, you’ll grow up to be a BBC reporter.”
It’s good to expose the hypocrisy, but the real fight is in revealing the absurdity, impossibility & dangers of Net Zero, and the scientific BS that has created the hysterical goal.
Failing that, there is always a job at the Gates Guardian.
👍
Par for the course. Hypocrisy rules!
The travel is a visible example of the hypocrisy. The grimmer reality is the emission success of shutting down domestic industrial production and replacing those products with foreign imports from exempt countries. Local politicians pat themselves on the back for emission reduction which is really emissions export.
The comments section of the article shows how educated people view the hypocrisy, propaganda and lies of the BBC. The BBC is beyond redemption and should be defunded. If only we had a government with some backbone.
Indeed, but maybe we should be asking how we defund the Government. All this PAYE schemes + VAT (because of the former EU) should be PAUSED to help OUR CASHFLOW
I see they have made a cutback by no longer sending a tv licence letter every 3 months.
As a comparative dunce in scientific matters I see such phrases as used here, ‘academics who demanded a faster path to net zero in order to keep global warming to 1.5C’, being repeated as though this is an immutable fact. I wonder why it isn’t challenged more often, or that’s how it appears to me. I don’t believe that it can be correct that the global temperature can be ‘controlled’ to such a specific level. What is the evidence that supports this claim? I know that there is challenge and discrepancy in how the ‘global temperature’ is collated and I would have thought that that would also bring question to the 1.5c claim. If I am missing the challenges to the claim of being able to ‘control’ the global temperature then I think those challenges aren’t reaching public discourse or certainly not in a manner that this average dunce comprehends.
It takes about a century for the climate to reach a new equilibrium. If we believe the models even partially, warming for that time is tied in.
Not sure that your statement is correct. Do you have a source or reference? I recall reading that there is a large range in what scientists say is CO2 longevity in the atmosphere. I am not sure what the lag you mentioned might be caused by.
Yes I think it is correct. There are at least two climate sensitivities in the models, one is the immediate warming effect of an instantaneous increase in CO2, and the other is the warming effect after the climate has reached a new equilibrium. Reaching that new equilibrium is said to take roughly a century (some sources say longer). That is my understanding of it anyhow. This material is widely available online, Google Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS).
Thanks… but, Google, really? My last choice
” It takes about a century for the climate to reach a new equilibrium. ”
The world’s climate is never in equilibrium, it’s always changing, although the pace of the change varies.
We should just simply ask them to explain why we had the Mediaeval Warm Period and the Roman Warm Period before fossil fuels were in use and it was warmer than now. Inconvenient truths. And why Mann the climate crook spent so much effort on trying to make the MWP disappear. Claims that it was not global have been debunked by a whole host of papers in recent years.
Looks like we have one of those “reader” types checking in. Why, Sir, do you let facts get in the way of the Climate Grift? They’re saving a planet here, one plane ride at a time. Get with the program, or you will be legislated out of existence.
” What is the evidence that supports this claim? ”
There is no proof that humans are responsible for dangerous climate change.
Ah, but look at it this way. His programme could have engendered sufficient guilt to lead to a few of his viewers to switch off a room light for a couple of hours. Each doing so would save about 50 Kg of CO2 so only 100 viewers would have to do likewise to cancel out his trip’s CO2.
No way would 100 people turning off a light for 2 hours save that much CO2.
I think you will have to show your working there.
You’re right – different websites quote different numbers but most are way smaller than the number I based my guesstimate on. A professional looking site implies 16 hours of a 60W bulb per Kg CO2. So 8 switchings off would save 1Kg therefore 40,000 to save 5 tonnes. Sorry for the bum steer.
Also bear in mind most people have replaced their 60W bulbs with LEDs.
But they are already numbered among the righteous so need do no more.
Dress to impress while pretending to be modern-day Indiana Jones.
Stare straight into camera.
Touch Mother Earth in apparent show of protective solidarity.
Stern, worried face.
Obviously it’s a planetary crisis and dear reader, it’s all your fault.
The BBC will incur any amount of unnecessary GHG emissions to get what it considers to be a ‘good’ climate story.
It’s a bit much though when its warmist bedfellow highlights Aunty’s double standards:
“BBC put presenter on a plane to interview Greta Thunberg”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/dec/28/bbc-put-presenter-on-a-plane-to-interview-greta-thunberg
Large rewards have been offered to show scientifically how man made carbon dioxide can affect the climate. This has not been taken up because the effect is negligible. Stop believing the fear mongers who prove nothing apart from convincing governments to make us poorer.
Quite! Current CO2 levels are c420 ppm and roughly half historical levels. Man-made CO2 is about 0.04% of naturally occurring CO2. The contrary truth is that once levels reduce to 250 ppm, life beings to fail, and at 150 ppm, live would be extinguished. The lies peddled to induce fear & compliance is insane & corrupt.
Bilton should reflect on what he said: “despite all the green promises, we’re using more fossil fuels than ever before”. It’s. Not working because India and China have no intention of playing along. The promises are hollow, nothing more than gesturing to the great climate crisis swindle. He’s parroting the relentless messaging designed to persuade us to embrace Net Zero, renewable energy and surrender control of our lives to a powerful global elite, who are shamelessly exploiting us for every penny.
What’s needed is a relentless campaign to end the license fee and knock the BBC off its high horse.
Rules for thee, do not apply to me. Hey, man; I’m saving a planet here. Deal with it!
How do we know if the flights were “offset”?
All you have to do is pay extra to offset your flight, and you have a clear conscious.
You mean like buying an indulgence from the Church? Great idea. I thought the original Climate Grifter, Al Gore, thought of that years ago and made a fortune selling those “offsets.” As Barry taught us, “Never let a good crisis go to waste.”
Yes it’s very like buying an indulgence from the church, and about as much use.
Stop calling BBC propagandists ‘reporters’. You tarnish a noble trade.
Which trade, propagandist or reporting?
I expect the BBC and Mr. Bilton know there is no CAGW caused by increasing CO2 emissions which is why he had no qualms to take this junket.
I expect they know of the work of Happer & Wijngaarden who have shown that there is no global warming caused by increasing levels of CO2 (natural or anthropogenic) because of IR saturation. Their calculations on the real atmosphere, including water vapour (omitted in the IPCC models), fit perfectly with the measured data above the equator and at Mediterranean latitudes and fit so well that they even show correctly that CO2 COOLS rather than warms above Antarctica:
This programme was another designed by Susan Mickie to get our country to implement the economy destroying Net Zero Strategy and accept the rationing of energy, food, heating and transport to save the planet.
How would this bozo fly around without fossil fuels?
‘BBC Reporter Flies Around The World To Lecture Us On Climate Change!’
Surely that’s John Kerry’s job? ✈️
The BBC ‘reporters’ should travel everywhere in a hot air balloon.
They certainly produce enough “fuel” for it.
Just had a worrying experience here. Asked three well educated neighbours what causes climate change? They stood and thought but had no answer. This is because the CULT had overcome rationality
My favourite is to ask if they can name the top three gases in the atmosphere folliwed by how much CO2 there is in ppm?
If that stumps them I rely on Chris Monckton’s lovely survey where his researchers asked people if they would sign a petition to have di-hydrogen-monoxide banned on the basis that it was the most dangrous common element in the world: it is most deadly to sailors apparently.
Typical activist hypocrisy. Talk about privilege.
The BBC said…all the flights were in economy class…
Oh, I forgot, the economy class uses less fuel. Yup, that must be right.
Hideous