On December 4th, the BBC ran a story titled “Colleague defends ClimateGate professor” with a side-bar headed “CLIMATEGATE TIMELINE” reading:

19 Nov - Rumours appear on blogs that a hacker had obtained emails from CRU computers
20 Nov - UEA confirms emails and documents from CRU had appeared illegally on the internet”.

For brief, relevant background to the BBC’s role in the affair, note that their own Paul Hudson, who addresses “climate” issues, has acknowledged having had the material as of October 12, 2009, but sat on it. On that day the writer who admits to having received the information posted an … Continue Reading

Reporting on the unexpected narrowing of the US trade deficit in September 2009, a non-bylined October 9th BBC piece uses the headline “Weak dollar improves US trade gap.”

The BBC headline implies that the shrinking trade deficit is a “good thing” for the US economy. In so doing, the BBC perpetuates the myth that an expanding trade deficit reflects weakness in the US economy, and, by extension, that this weakness is caused by imports. In reality, there is a strong correlation between an expanding US trade deficit and GDP growth, not shrinkage, as US businesses and workers … Continue Reading

On August 10th the BBC ran an image showing smog-choked streets accompanying a story originally titled “Bonn hosts climate change talks” – since updated to a more excited “Time ‘runs short’ on climate deal” – about negotiations for a successor to the Kyoto Protocol regulating greenhouse gas emissions.

The context is inescapable: the photo caption below the choking pollution states “There are demands for China and India to commit to cutting emissions”, and the story is about reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The BBC implies it … Continue Reading

An April 21 BBC article, “‘Quiet Sun’ baffling astronomers”, by Pallab Ghosh tries to blame the sun for the fact that doom-saying computer modelers haven’t been able to predict the past 15 years of no warming and a decade of cooling. The article begins:

The Sun is the dimmest it has been for nearly a century.

There are no sunspots, very few solar flares - and our nearest star is the quietest it has been for a very long time.
…
Last year, it was expected that it would have been hotting up after a quiet spell. But instead it hit a

… Continue Reading

Matt McGrath’s  March 12 BBC article, “Earth warming faster than thought,” offers no evidence of any such thing. It merely reveals claims of impacts that modelers project would result from a large warming – impacts greater than previously asserted by others, as is how things work when it comes to global warming.

Examples include one person cited who “said that if the world was to warm by 5C over the next century there would be dramatic consequences for millions of people.” Also, “There was also new information on how the Amazon rainforest would cope with rising temperatures.”

The article said “New … Continue Reading