Post by Teddy Bear on Jun 26, 2013 23:22:23 GMT
James Delingpole describing an attitude at the BBC he finds common in their climate change agenda, but could also apply to many other areas in their coverage where they have a particular desired outcome.
The BBC long ago became a mouthpiece for green lunatics. Why does it pretend otherwise?
By James Delingpole
I have just been listening to the BBC's latest professed attempt to find the reasonable middle ground on the great environmental debate. And, as ever with the BBC, it's about as neutral, balanced and informed as an Advanced Self-Flagellation, Tofu And Wind Farming workshop hosted by George Monbiot and the Hon Sir Jonathon Porritt Bt at the Centre for Alternative Technology in Machynlleth.
This particular effort, on BBC Radio 4, was called Shared Planet and was presented by the hunky, great-in-a-hat jeweller-turned-gardening-presenter Monty Don. For the record, I like my fellow Old Malvernian: he has hinterland, bottom, a pleasing aura of wistful melancholia, good looks, a melodious speaking voice, solid dress sense. In the flesh, he's charming (if, perhaps, more reserved than one might prefer: but then I speak as someone who is always impetuously upfront about everything) and down to earth. Also, of course, he does know his gardening and once gave me some very good advice on tulips.
Problem is, he's one of the very last people who should presenting a purportedly neutral programme on environmental issues because it's quite clear that he has long since made up his mind.
Here's a sample Tweet of his from this morning (You can follow him at @themontydon)
Loons who divide space by population have never considered impact or significance of human footprint
That use of the "loon" word was, admittedly, in response to another tweeter who had argued:
Loons who imagine the planet overcrowded have never driven through the American West.
But of course, if Monty Don genuinely had no dog in the fight he would scarcely have felt the need to take such a dogmatic counterposition. These "loons" whose ignorance he dismisses with such blithe confidence: how does he know what they have or haven't considered about the "impact or significance of human footprint", given that it's so patently clear from the programme he presented on Radio 4 today that he has not tried remotely to grapple with their arguments, let alone consider the possibility that they might have a valid point.
To be fair it's partly my fault. A few months ago I promised to send him a copy of my superb book Watermelons – currently on special offer here at Politico's bookshop – and, had I done so (and presuming he had been generous enough with his time to read it) he could at least have spared himself the embarrassment of sounding quite so hopelessly one-sided on his programme.
You'll get an idea of just how unbalanced it was when I tell you that, as the countervailing voice to the Malthusian extremism of Paul Ehrlich we were offered the views of one Joe Smith.
Perhaps the name rings a bell. Joe Smith is the Open University lecturer and environmentalist who co-founded with the BBC's Alarmist-in-Chief Roger Harrabin the Cambridge Media and Environment Programme (CMEP). And it was the CMEP, you'll recall, which was responsible for organising that infamous January 2006 seminar where the BBC decided to give up even pretending to be balanced on the climate change issue and start reporting it like a full-on Greenpeace activist. You'll find links to the full ugly story in this blog.
Now if programmes like Shared Planet were merely shamelessly and nakedly biased, that would be one thing. But what really makes them so insidious and dangerous is this pretence they maintain throughout – in classic BBC style, just like with that travesty of a documentary on shale gas the other day – that they are carefully weighing up the pros and cons of a complex argument and reaching a measured conclusion. So what the unwary listener hears is Monty doing his nurturing, caring, gently contemplative voice as he appears to consult experts on both sides of the debate in order to help make up his mind. And what the unwary listener doesn't realise he's getting, in fact, is yet another party political broadcast on behalf of the Green party.
This week's programme – the first, would you believe it, of 30 episodes: suck on that, licence-fee payer! – concerned one of the Greenies' favourite hobby horses: overpopulation. Of course, not every one thinks overpopulation is a problem, the programme briefly conceded. It quoted (with a wearily sceptical air) the line that all the world's seven billion people could fit into the state of Texas. This is, of course, quite true but the programme then undermined this point with a very dishonest trick. It implied, outrageously, that this would be a case of "standing room only" – which isn't remotely the case.
In fact, as I note in Watermelons, (which I may not have mentioned you can buy very cheaply here) if the world's population were all fitted into Texas you'd have a population density of around 26,000 people per square mile. This is roughly comparable with New York (where, as far as I know, people are not wont to complain that they are living in the East Coast equivalent to the Black Hole of Calcutta) – and considerably less population-dense than, say, Manila which contains around 110,000 people to the square mile.
The BBC's whole approach to the environment is, I think, analogous to the Westminster bubble's approach to politics. In both case what you have is remote, aloof organisations sublimely indifferent both to what is happening in the real world and what real people actually think, need and feel.
Here on planet earth – the real one as opposed to the BBC's imagined one – we of course all like the idea of nature and animals and clean beaches and abundant rain forests and so on; and of course we all want a brighter future for our children and a world where we can spend more quality time rather than working like slaves for consumer durables. But what we also recognise – very much unlike the BBC, Monty Don, Joe Smith and their right-on chums – is that there's a trade off here. All that leisure time, all those improved anti-pollution measures, all those super-lux eco-holidays in Ecuador – these are the kind of benefits you can only enjoy if the world has a functioning, growing economy. The kind of functioning, growing economy that half-witted bilge like Shared Planet wouldn't have the first clue about giving us.
By James Delingpole
I have just been listening to the BBC's latest professed attempt to find the reasonable middle ground on the great environmental debate. And, as ever with the BBC, it's about as neutral, balanced and informed as an Advanced Self-Flagellation, Tofu And Wind Farming workshop hosted by George Monbiot and the Hon Sir Jonathon Porritt Bt at the Centre for Alternative Technology in Machynlleth.
This particular effort, on BBC Radio 4, was called Shared Planet and was presented by the hunky, great-in-a-hat jeweller-turned-gardening-presenter Monty Don. For the record, I like my fellow Old Malvernian: he has hinterland, bottom, a pleasing aura of wistful melancholia, good looks, a melodious speaking voice, solid dress sense. In the flesh, he's charming (if, perhaps, more reserved than one might prefer: but then I speak as someone who is always impetuously upfront about everything) and down to earth. Also, of course, he does know his gardening and once gave me some very good advice on tulips.
Problem is, he's one of the very last people who should presenting a purportedly neutral programme on environmental issues because it's quite clear that he has long since made up his mind.
Here's a sample Tweet of his from this morning (You can follow him at @themontydon)
Loons who divide space by population have never considered impact or significance of human footprint
That use of the "loon" word was, admittedly, in response to another tweeter who had argued:
Loons who imagine the planet overcrowded have never driven through the American West.
But of course, if Monty Don genuinely had no dog in the fight he would scarcely have felt the need to take such a dogmatic counterposition. These "loons" whose ignorance he dismisses with such blithe confidence: how does he know what they have or haven't considered about the "impact or significance of human footprint", given that it's so patently clear from the programme he presented on Radio 4 today that he has not tried remotely to grapple with their arguments, let alone consider the possibility that they might have a valid point.
To be fair it's partly my fault. A few months ago I promised to send him a copy of my superb book Watermelons – currently on special offer here at Politico's bookshop – and, had I done so (and presuming he had been generous enough with his time to read it) he could at least have spared himself the embarrassment of sounding quite so hopelessly one-sided on his programme.
You'll get an idea of just how unbalanced it was when I tell you that, as the countervailing voice to the Malthusian extremism of Paul Ehrlich we were offered the views of one Joe Smith.
Perhaps the name rings a bell. Joe Smith is the Open University lecturer and environmentalist who co-founded with the BBC's Alarmist-in-Chief Roger Harrabin the Cambridge Media and Environment Programme (CMEP). And it was the CMEP, you'll recall, which was responsible for organising that infamous January 2006 seminar where the BBC decided to give up even pretending to be balanced on the climate change issue and start reporting it like a full-on Greenpeace activist. You'll find links to the full ugly story in this blog.
Now if programmes like Shared Planet were merely shamelessly and nakedly biased, that would be one thing. But what really makes them so insidious and dangerous is this pretence they maintain throughout – in classic BBC style, just like with that travesty of a documentary on shale gas the other day – that they are carefully weighing up the pros and cons of a complex argument and reaching a measured conclusion. So what the unwary listener hears is Monty doing his nurturing, caring, gently contemplative voice as he appears to consult experts on both sides of the debate in order to help make up his mind. And what the unwary listener doesn't realise he's getting, in fact, is yet another party political broadcast on behalf of the Green party.
This week's programme – the first, would you believe it, of 30 episodes: suck on that, licence-fee payer! – concerned one of the Greenies' favourite hobby horses: overpopulation. Of course, not every one thinks overpopulation is a problem, the programme briefly conceded. It quoted (with a wearily sceptical air) the line that all the world's seven billion people could fit into the state of Texas. This is, of course, quite true but the programme then undermined this point with a very dishonest trick. It implied, outrageously, that this would be a case of "standing room only" – which isn't remotely the case.
In fact, as I note in Watermelons, (which I may not have mentioned you can buy very cheaply here) if the world's population were all fitted into Texas you'd have a population density of around 26,000 people per square mile. This is roughly comparable with New York (where, as far as I know, people are not wont to complain that they are living in the East Coast equivalent to the Black Hole of Calcutta) – and considerably less population-dense than, say, Manila which contains around 110,000 people to the square mile.
The BBC's whole approach to the environment is, I think, analogous to the Westminster bubble's approach to politics. In both case what you have is remote, aloof organisations sublimely indifferent both to what is happening in the real world and what real people actually think, need and feel.
Here on planet earth – the real one as opposed to the BBC's imagined one – we of course all like the idea of nature and animals and clean beaches and abundant rain forests and so on; and of course we all want a brighter future for our children and a world where we can spend more quality time rather than working like slaves for consumer durables. But what we also recognise – very much unlike the BBC, Monty Don, Joe Smith and their right-on chums – is that there's a trade off here. All that leisure time, all those improved anti-pollution measures, all those super-lux eco-holidays in Ecuador – these are the kind of benefits you can only enjoy if the world has a functioning, growing economy. The kind of functioning, growing economy that half-witted bilge like Shared Planet wouldn't have the first clue about giving us.