Harrabin's Black and White World - Biased BBC

Harrabin's Black and White World: "The indefatigable Richard North has a dismissive take on the BBC's latest article about Pachauri and Glaciergate. His point that the Beeb's bias comes as much from what it leaves out could also apply to the most recent of Roger Harrabin's Notes.

For the second 'note' running (see previous one here) Harrabin has expressed his anguished concern over recent developments in America. He says that Scott Brown's election 'certainly puts the nail in the coffin of Democrat hopes for a full climate bill this year' but once again fails to point out that some Democrat politicians oppose such legislation too. He states that the 'fossil fuel industry is poised with banknotes at the ready' to take advantage of the recent Supreme Court ruling on political advertising, but neglects, as ever, to mention the huge sums of money swirling around the warmist lobby, much of it provided courtesy of Western taxpayers. And there's certainly no mention of the money that flows into Pachauri-linked enterprises, some of it thanks directly to the false claims about Himalayan glaciers. Harrabin takes at face value the spin that the inclusion of this material in the IPCC report was just an unfortunate 'inexplicable blunder'; heaven forbid that a BBC environment correspondent would dare to suggest that there could be a link between dodgy climate research and financial gain by leading warmists.

As with the BBC line that Obama's woes are down to Fox News, Harrabin apportions similar blame for the problems facing the warmist cause:

Part of the answer lies with the media - particularly right-wing newspapers…

Mr Cameron has re-branded his party as 'vote-blue-get-green', but many of his back-benchers rank climate change as a very low priority. A couple of his Cabinet members are likely to be outright climate sceptics, and more may be driven that way if right wing newspapers continue chasing stories about the IPCC's failings.

[Note to Harrabin - check BBC style re 'right-wing newspapers' or 'right wing newspapers']

That last line seems to imply a lack of interest on Harrabin's part in 'chasing stories about the IPCC's failings' - ie they're the realm of the right-wing press. It's worth remembering that some of the Conservative-supporting newspapers have often been slow to run stories critical of the AGW orthodoxy.

For Harrabin it's all about good versus evil, with the scientists (incorruptible truth-seekers, noble of intent), the Democrats, and the NGOs on one side and the evil fossil fuel lobby, the Republicans, and the right-wing media on the other. It's biased, simplistic and wrong, but it's the sort of world-view that helps people like Harrabin get through the day.

Update. Andrew Neil goes where Harrabin fears to tread.

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