On Fri, 08 Jan 2010 11:21:10 +0000, Martin Brown
wrote:

Eric Gisin wrote:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...ed-emails.html


By Paul Revoir


The BBC's governing body has launched a major review of its science
coverage after complaints of bias notably in its treatment of climate
change.

The drooling right whingers are at it again with their anti-science.

Last year a leading climate change sceptic claimed his views had been
deliberately misrepresented by the BBC.

Lord Monckton, a former adviser to Margaret Thatcher, said he had been
made to look like a 'potty peer' on a TV programme that 'was a one-sided
polemic for the new religion of global warming'.

FULL MARKS TO THE BBC!!!

Lord Monckton is to climate change what the late Screaming Lord Sutch
and his Official Monster Raving Loony Party were to politics.

The latter was at least harmless. Monckton is potentially dangerous by
misleading a scientifically illiterate general public.

Peter Barron said it was 'not the corporation's job to save the planet'.
His comments were backed up by other senior news executives who feared
the BBC was 'leading' the audience, rather than giving them 'information'.

I would actually like to see them do an expose of the denier for hire
industry and smoke out the ones with past history of working to confuse
the public about the risks of smoking tobacco and who now do climate
change using the same techniques. I think the BBC generally gives AGW
sceptics too much air time for their views compared to the proportion of
scientists who genuinely believe that AGW is not happening.

But for balance the TV typically interviews an astronomer and a complete
nutter who claims to be an alien abductee. Not surprisingly the raving
nutter can spin a much more exciting story for the lights seen in the
sky. And since the BBC chases ratings these days there is no Tomorrows
World, Burke Special, Royal Institution Christmas Lectures and the only
remaining popular science program - Horizon is a shadow of its former self.

if one good thing comes of it it will be more popular science programs
on the BBC. They do have a duty to inform the public and to reflect real
scientific opinion and not that of the most vocal lobby groups.

The BBC has also been taken to task over the perception its coverage of
genetically modified food has been too negative

Although the BBC may not have reported it entirely fairly the main
damage was done by Mosantos incredible arrogance and a gerrit down yer
throats message to a Europe that was still reeling from the BSE
catastrophe. Whatever ministers said about it being safe to eat had
below zero credibility after the clip of Gummer feeding his grand
daughter almost certainly contaminated hamburger to show it was "safe".

In the past the BBC has also been attacked over other scientific issues.
It was accused by an adviser of adding to the hysteria about genetically
modified crops with factual errors and bad science.


The expert claimed that makers of thriller Fields of Gold, starring Anna
Friel, had ignored his advice when he pointed out factual errors in 2002.

Probably true but that was a fictional thriller. Imagine how tedious CSI
or Star Trek would be if they had to obey the laws of physics.

More recently flagship current affairs programme Panorama was found to
have broken editorial guidelines in a programme about the potential
health hazards of wi-fi.

The will be damned by one side or the other no matter what line they
take. I don't think wifi is a serious risk. OTOH I would not be keen to
sit on top of the base station every working day.

The BBC's editorial complaints unit said in 2007 that the programme
'gave a misleading impression of the state of scientific opinion on the
issue'.

In 2006 scientists accused the corporation of 'quackery' in a programme
which they claimed attempted to exaggerate the power of alternative
medicine.

Earlier this year former BBC newsreader Peter Sissons claimed it was now
'effectively BBC policy' to stifle critics of the consensus view on
global warming.

Mr Sissons said: 'I believe I am one of a tiny number of BBC
interviewers who have so much as raised the possibility that there is
another side to the debate on climate change.

There is a scientific consensus on Global Warming and the BBC should
reflect that in its reporting. I would like to see them investigate some
of the dodgy US front organistaions and the incestuous nature for the
well known deniers for hire over there. Exxon sponsorship of deniers to
confuse the public got so bad at one point that the Royal Society wrote
an open letter to them asking them to desist from publishing falsehoods.

'The Corporation's most famous interrogators invariably begin by
accepting that "the science is settled", when there are countless
reputable scientists and climatologists producing work that says it isn't.'

A handful of genuine scientists doubt some of the details and/or the
extent of the warming that can be expected. The rest are politically
motivated or lobby groups for the fossil fuel industry.

The science is settled at least in the sense that the probability is
strongly in favour of the AGW theory being accurate enough that we have
to take some action. Ostriches will pay the price.

Regards,
Martin Brown


The consensus seems to be mostly those reaping
windfall wages from climate change study, the sooner
those funds are transferred to alternate energy projects,
the better.