ABC balance? Yeah, right!
UPDATE 2: And yet more ABC alarmism here: “Impact of climate change may be underestimated” Gee what a surprise. Does anybody give a rats what the ABC writes anymore?
As Andrew Bolt confirmed today, the ABC’s editorial policy on climate was stated thus, in a reply to a complaint:
“Given the overwhelming majority of the world’s scientists agree that AGW is real and needs to be addressed and the overwhelming majority of the world’s government’s and the UN acknowledge the reality of AGW and the need to address it, the ABC pursues a balance that follows the weight of evidence on this issue. The ABC’s coverage of this issue has well and truly moved on from the debate as to whether or not AGW is real.”
UPDATE: Ross in the comments points me to this great comment on Bolt’s post:
“So by logical extension any majority view on any topic or issue should be treated accordingly.
Therefore:
- No ALP politician from Queensland should get any airtime whatsoever until after the next election when their vote may have improved enough to give them party status
- Same in NSW, Victoria and West Australia
- No coverage of the carbon tax as polls overwhelmingly say people do not want it. The contrary view is then also given more exposure.
- No union leader gets exposure as unions only represent 15% of all workers
- The greens get 20% of the exposure that the Liberals get who now should get 100% of what the ALP gets given the votes at the last election.
Please add your own to my list.
The ABC is a sick joke.
Phil”
Brilliant.
So it’s little surprise that anything that fits that agenda is reported instantly, and anything that challenges it buried out of sight. The latest is a scare report from the well-know alarmist Potsdam Institute (see here for how a lead scientist there smeared a journalist who dared criticise the IPCC), reported glowingly by Reuters, and regurgitated uncritically by Auntie:
Extreme weather events over the past decade have increased and were “very likely” caused by human-induced global warming, according to a new study.
Scientists at Germany’s Potsdam Institute for Climate Research used physics, statistical analysis and computer simulations to link extreme rainfall and heat waves to global warming. The link between warming and storms was less clear.
“It is very likely that several of the unprecedented extremes of the past decade would not have occurred without anthropogenic global warming,” according the study published online in Nature Climate Change.
The past decade was probably the warmest globally for at least a millennium [ah yes, we must get rid of that darn MWP – Ed]. Last year was the eleventh hottest on record [or since 1880, if you wanted to be less hysterical but more accurate – Ed], according to the [UN’s] World Meteorological Organisation.
Extreme weather events were devastating in their impacts and affected nearly all regions of the globe. [Because people will build their homes in the paths of cyclones – Ed]
They included severe floods and record hot summers in Europe; a record number of tropical storms and hurricanes in the Atlantic in 2005; the hottest Russian summer since 1500 in 2010 and the worst flooding in Pakistan’s history. [Neither of which were shown to have anything whatsoever to do with “global warming”, see here and here – Ed]
The people that write this stuff have the memory of a goldfish, and/or cannot be bothered to do any research to back up their hysterical claims. Clearly, the planet never had severe storms, heat waves, extreme cold, rain etc before man-made greenhouse gases started entering the atmosphere, right? Odd that global accumulated cyclone energy is lower than it has been for decades, despite the climate warming a few points of a degree. Steve Goddard at Real Science does a great job of trawling the newspaper archives and finding all this severe weather we were supposed to never have.
Odd how they fail to mention that the Russian heatwave and the Pakistani floods were primarily natural events due to certain weather patterns rather than global warming.
The only thing we can be sure of is that the Lefty ABC has lost any claim to be a balanced news organisation (if it ever had it to begin with). Whilst we’re on the subject, check out former chairman Maurice Newman’s climate piece at The Spectator here (PDF).
Australian Climate Madness 
There is a comment on Andrew Bolt’s thread on the ABC that is worth sharing around. It is brilliant
“So by logical extension any majority view on any topic or issue should be treated accordingly.
Therefore:
No ALP politician from Queensland should get any airtime whatsoever until after the next election when their vote may have improved enough to give them party status
Same in NSW, Victoria and West Australia
No coverage of the carbon tax as polls overwhelmingly say people do not want it. The contrary view is then also given more exposure.
No union leader gets exposure as unions only represent 15% of all workers
The greens get 20% of the exposure that the Liberals get who now should get 100% of what the ALP gets given the votes at the last election.
Please add your own to my list.
The ABC is a sick joke.
Phil (Reply)
Mon 26 Mar 12 (12:11pm) “
So then…. Tony Abbot should have equal air news as the PM .
Federal labor less than 40 % , browns mob 5% and LCP coalition 55% of news time… And that is before last Saturdays Queensland drubbing of labor and the greens !
Mr Abbott – when the Labor party is destroyed at the next Federal election, please please please sell the ABC.
Agree – election now – get rid of this toxic ALP/Greens – get rid of the “ignorant and sick” ABC to boot. It’s taxpayers money keeping the ABC on the air.
According to the ABC’s own Code of Practice:
2. Accuracy
Principles: The ABC requires that reasonable efforts must be made to ensure accuracy in all fact-based content.
The ABC accuracy standard applies to assertions of fact, not to expressions of opinion.”
… which begs the question – Is the science on climate change a proven fact or simply an opinion? If the answer is the latter, then the ABC’s assertion that AGW is real, is simply an opinion, therefore they do not need to apply any accuracy standards to their own opinion! 😉
Therefore, Tony Abbott’s comment ” climate change is real, humanity is contributing” means what exactly?
If he thinks it’s all baloney why is flagging this Green Army and a Direct Action Plan to combat climate change?
“..the ABC pursues a balance that follows the weight of evidence on this issue”
That’s an oxymoron; balance means providing views on all sides, not following a particular weight of evidence. That is otherwise known as bias.
The ABC needs to replace their dictionary, and/or learn the English language.
“Extreme weather events over the past decade have increased and were “very likely” caused by human-induced global warming”
An interesting statement.
We know that temperature has not increased but somehow CO2 has still managed to cause extreme weather. Any idea how it does that?!?!
By government-induced brainwashing
The ABC reporting on AGW is utter fear mongering. Its got absolutely nothing to do with caring about the planet or about following the scientific method – its an ideological mindset that is rotten to the core.
What must be really worrying them is that the vast majority of the public have worked this out; and as shown by the recent Queensland election are quite capable of transferring that awareness into votes…
When Abbott gets in – the ABC should cleared out down the ground of those who have pushed this dangerous ideology. I’m sure there are people in the ABC who want to do unbiased reporting and be proper journalists – when Abbott gets in that will be the time for them to make themselves known.
The ABC reporting on AGW is utter fear mongering.
I’m not sure it’s that simple. I suspect it has more to do with the overwhelming super-intelligence of the lefty elites that infest the ABC. The ABC has degenerated into a mutual admiration society and in the process has become an unashamed and disgraceful media and public relations front for other lefty elites, e.g. Kevin Rudd, Malcolm Turnbull, Bob Brown, et. al. These lefty elites are, by their own assessment, the brightest globes in the room. They intuitively “get” that it is the profligate consumerism of the unwashed scum that is driving the planet on a pathway to fry in hell – or at least, if it isn’t now, it soon will be, and that’s good enough for them. And they also “get” that the unwashed fickle scum are never going to have the attention span to comprehend and appreciate their self-evident “truths”. Therefore it is incumbent on these lefty elites to show “leadership” on this issue and drive the agenda for the benefit of the ignorant unwashed scum. If truth be known, they’d sooner eat dog’s vomit than have any meaningful interaction with the ignorant unwashed scum – the ones that pay their salaries, and whom they hold in utter comtempt.
I woke this morning to a grab on ABC Newsradio of Emma Alberici interviewing Barnaby, who said the carbon tax had a big impact on the Qld election.
Emma did not like this one bit, but Barnaby tore her into metaphorical strips. A nice way to start a Tuesday.
Re: The ABC – good old “Auntie” – the next Federal Government should just sack the ABC’s news and current affairs reporters (who will probably be able to join/compete with their like-biased mates in the rest of the MSM).
The only valid purpose in retaining the news and current affairs components of the ABC content is ostensibly to have a BALANCED, INDEPENDENT, UNBIASED content in that context. The ABC has failed miserably on that score and the perpetrators will richly deserve the consequences of that failure.
And it’s why, when the Abbott government takes office, they should give very serious consideration to dimembering the ABC. I think Jo Nova suggested retaining the rural divisions – which might make sense if they provide some benefit to rural people and businesses (though not if that simply depends on the redistribution of wealth from urban centres to the bush). The rest of the ABC , in my view, poses a real and present danger to Australia and to Australian democracy and deserves a steak through the heart. The voters, I hope, will do likewise for the Green fascist movement.