ABC’s one-sided bushfire analysis

21 October, 2013 by

Groupthink at your ABC

Groupthink at your ABC

ABC’s 7.30 Report tonight focussed on the effect of “climate change” on bush fires.

So they invite John Connor, alarmist from the Climate Institute, who essentially agreed with Adam Bandt, alarmist from the Greens, who essentially agreed with Don Henry, alarmist from the Australian Conservation Foundation, who essentially agreed with Andy Pitman, alarmist from UNSW, who essentially agreed with Don Henry (again), who essentially agreed with John Connor (again).

The sole dissenting voice, allowed just 45 words out of the entire segment, was Climate Change Minister Greg Hunt, who managed to sneak in this:

“No-one, no-one should be politicising these bushfires and I would say that respectfully to the gentleman in question.”

Quickly rebutted of course. No sign of anybody to question the four alarmists, whose assertions were unchallenged.

And who says the ABC is infected with groupthink?

Source.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , , ,

ABC: time to shoot a furry animal

3 October, 2013 by

Fluffy story

Fluffy story

The ABC, Anything but Climate (sceptics), has successfully avoided mentioning any of the numerous problems with the IPCC’s recent report, like changing a graph to make it look like climate models hadn’t wildly overestimated warming in the last decade.

In order to distract attention even further, this morning it wheeled out one if its “choose an Aussie icon and put a gun to its head” stories, accompanied by a cute picture to tug at the heart strings:

Rising temperatures pose risk for koalas

A new study on vulnerable koala populations has found the Australian icon could struggle to survive rising temperatures.

…

Dr Crowther says the results of the research call for a change in the management and conservation of koalas.

“One quarter of the koalas we studied perished in a heatwave in 2009 and Australia has just experienced the hottest year since climate records began,” he said.

With temperatures increasing, without more help koalas could really start to feel the heat.

“The lack of understanding of the importance of shelter trees for koalas is particularly concerning given the increasing frequency of extreme weather events,” Dr Crowther said.

“Exposure to prolonged high temperatures can result in heat stress, dehydration and eventually death.” (source)

Gimme all your fossil fuels, or the koala gets it!

Filed Under: ABC Bias, Climate Tagged With: , , ,

Suzuki’s ignorance

24 September, 2013 by

An extreme environmental ideologue, who advocates action on global warming and saving the planet, David Suzuki flies around the world on carbon-fuelled speaking tours and charges thousands of dollars per appearance, whilst exhorting the rest of us to cut back on our excessive lifestyles.

The ABC therefore thinks he’s Gaia incarnate and offered him a full Q&A to himself to spout his propaganda.

Bill Koutalianos, of the Climate Sceptics Party, hit him with the first question on temperature flatlining since 1998. When Suzuki asked how he got to that conclusion, Bill rattled off the acronyms for the four main global temperature sets, GISS, HadCRUT, UAH, RSS. Suzuki was baffled. Ideology and ignorance combined.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , ,

Reform of the ABC long overdue

6 September, 2013 by

Leans to the Left

Always leaning to the Left

This blog has frequently exposed the barely-concealed left-wing bias of our publicly funded broadcaster, the ABC. As Gerard Henderson points out regularly on his must-read Media Watch Dog, there isn’t a single conservative presenter or editor on any mainstream current affairs programme, earning the corporation’s acronym the alternative interpretation of “Anything but Conservatives”.

In their stead we have had to suffer “Red” Kerry O’Brien (whose “old leather bag” visage will be gracing the ABC’s election coverage tomorrow, naturally), Tony Jones (adding another lefty voice to the already skewed Q&A panel every week), Fran Kelly (activist presenter of Radio National’s Breakfast show), News Radio’s political editor and resident Lefty, Marius Benson, Jonathan Green (editor of the Drum, which is banged repeatedly for Labor/Green causes) and Mark Scott himself – wilfully blind to the “groupthink” that is endemic in his organisation – to name but a few.

Then we have all the climate change alarmists, like Dr Karl, Robyn Williams, Adam Spencer, Bernie Hobbs, Tony Jones again, all the Catalyst team etc., 95% of the contributors on the online site, extremists like Clive Hamilton, Stephan Lewandowsky etc, and the list goes on.

It is galling that taxes paid by all Australians go towards funding that Lefty/Green echo-chamber, which caters for a small urban elite, staffed with inner-city Ultimo types who couldn’t run a chook raffle. Privately owned media organisations stand or fall on their output, witness the enduring success of News Corp, and the rapid decline of Fairfax, as it too panders to the latte-sipping, sandal-wearing intelligentsia, and in the process ignores the vast majority of Australians. The Age astonishingly endorses Labor for the election tomorrow – as one commentator pointed out, after asylum disasters, NBN, massive debt, waste, dysfunctional leadership, knifings, in-fighting, Craig Thomson and Peter Slipper, what would it take for them not to endorse Labor?

But the ABC is paid for by all of us, and it should be representative of the views of all Australians, not just a mouthpiece for the Left. It is probable that a Coalition government will be elected tomorrow, sweeping away six years of Labor incompetence. Yet you wouldn’t believe it listening to the ABC this morning, with the majority of stories either puff pieces for Rudd and Labor, or criticism of the Coalition and Abbott. Maybe they realise that the clock is ticking, time is running out, so they have to make the most of it, like the last gasp of the Roman Empire.

It’s time for the ABC to be subjected to significant reform. Balance must be restored in current affairs broadcasting, and the ABC must fully reflect the diversity of Australian opinion. Whether this is by some form of privatisation or otherwise, the population have switched off in droves, with Sky taking over as the de facto national broadcaster.

When the ABC isn’t trusted to run the election debates, something is seriously wrong. Let’s hope Tony Abbott and the Coalition will start to fix it.

Filed Under: ABC Bias, Aussie Politics Tagged With: , ,

ABC plugs Greenpeace alarmism

23 January, 2013 by

greenpeace_logoGreenpeace is an extremist environmental activist organisation. It cares little for the plight of humanity, which it no doubt regards as a plague of locusts upon Gaia’s unblemished cheek, and is only concerned about “saving the planet”:

Greenpeace exists because this fragile Earth deserves a voice. It needs solutions. It needs change. It needs action! (source)

Fragile. Hmm. It’s been here 4.5 billion years… Ask the people of Pompeii or Krakatoa if they thought the planet was fragile.

Given that, it is extremely unlikely that any report issued by such an organisation on environmental matters would be balanced, fair or impartial, taking, as it necessarily would, the worst case scenarios to advance their fanatical crusades.

Their latest publication evidences this:

For more than two decades, climate scientists have warned that, unless heat-trapping emissions are reduced significantly, severe consequences from climate change will follow. Avoiding the worst impacts means limiting the rise in global temperatures to below 2°C – in itself an extremely rapid change compared with the Earth’s past. In November 2012, both the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the World Bank cautioned that the world is heading to a temperature increase of between 3.6°C and 4°C. With the additional CO2 from these 14 projects, the average global temperature will more likely exceed 4°C and quite possibly 6°C – the worst scenarios identified by climate scientists.

…

The impact on people if we trigger catastrophic climate change will be terrible. In September 2012, a new report, commissioned by 20 governments, gave an insight into the disaster that is coming. It estimated that climate change is already taking 5 million lives a year. By 2030, deaths could total 100 million.

…

Clean and safe renewable energy [with the exception of clean, safe nuclear generation, of course, the only real alternative to fossil fuels, because that is ideologically forbidden – Ed], coupled with a much-increased implementation of energy efficiency, can provide the power needed to run the planet and avoid the risks of pushing us ever closer to catastrophic climate change. That is abundantly clear from the astounding progress in the development of renewable energy over the past decade.

…

The world is clearly at a Point of No Return: either replace coal, oil and gas with renewable energy, or face a future turned upside down by climate change.

So it is surprising that the ABC chooses to bestow respectability on this alarmism by soberly reporting on it in a mainstream news item, even going as far as embedding the PDF for easy access and download:

A new report has warned Australia to stop expanding coal exports or risk inflicting “catastrophic” effects of climate change on the world.

The Greenpeace-commissioned study identifies the expansion of Australian coal exports as one of 14 proposed coal, oil and gas projects around the world that will raise greenhouse gas emissions by 20 per cent by 2020.

The study predicts Australia will increase coal exports to 408 million tonnes a year, producing an estimated 1,200 million tonnes of carbon dioxide.

Greenpeace’s Georgina Woods says if the projects go ahead, they will warm the globe more than two degrees Celsius.

Whilst it seems that it is perfectly acceptable ABC editorial policy to plug an environmental activist group’s agenda, without any counterbalancing views, I think we can all imagine the howls of protest that would result if the ABC did the same with a report from, say, the sceptical Global Warming Policy Foundation.

Not only that, but the ABC would ensure that they lined up a series of “experts” to debunk anything the GWPF claimed, and would make sure that the organisation was ridiculed and humiliated in the process (think about the ABC’s treatment of The Great Global Warming Swindle, where Tony Jones commented “I am bound to say The Great Global Warming Swindle does not represent the views of the ABC”).

Where is the statement that the Greenpeace report cited “does not represent the views of the ABC”? We must assume therefore that it does.

By such selective and unbalanced reporting, the ABC advances its own alarmist agenda, in clear and obvious contravention of its duty as a public broadcaster to be impartial (PDF):

The ABC has a statutory duty to ensure that the gathering and presentation of news and information is impartial according to the recognised standards of objective journalism.

Aiming to equip audiences to make up their own minds is consistent with the public service character of the ABC. A democratic society depends on diverse sources of reliable information and contending opinions. A broadcaster operating under statute with public funds is legitimately expected to contribute in ways that may differ from commercial media, which are free to be partial to private interests.

Judgements about whether impartiality was achieved in any given circumstances can vary among individuals according to their personal and subjective view of any given matter of contention. Acknowledging this fact of life does not change the ABC’s obligation to apply its impartiality standard as objectively as possible. In doing so, the ABC is guided by these hallmarks of impartiality:

  • a balance that follows the weight of evidence;
  • fair treatment;
  • open-mindedness; and
  • opportunities over time for principal relevant perspectives on matters of contention to be expressed. 

Except where climate change is concerned.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , ,

ABC's alarmism fest

17 January, 2013 by

Alarmist Broadcasting Corporation

Alarmist Broadcasting Corporation

UPDATE: They just keep on comin’…

Warming planet to threaten native species

What effect will climate change have on Australia’s animal and plant species? This is the fourth of a five-part series in which environment reporter Sarah Clarke sets out to provide answers. [Oops, Sarah is at it again…]

Taskforce names regions most at risk of coastal inundation

The National Seachange Taskforce says coastal communities between Mackay and the Gold Coast are the most at risk in Queensland from predicted sea level rises.

Fish in hot water as climate changes

What effect will climate change have on Australia’s oceans and reefs? This is the final report in a five-part series in which environment reporter Sarah Clarke sets out to provide answers. [And again…]

Experts say oceans likely to continue warming

Scientists have recorded what they describe as the most dramatic marine heatwave in recent history off the WA coast.

And just for luck, another from ABC Science:

The 2013 climate change wake-up call

OPINION: Is an extreme heatwave enough for people to start taking the science of climate change seriously in Australia? Dr Paul Willis hopes so.

Enjoy that last one – “Dr” Willis uses “denier” or variants thereof five times. Just what exactly are we supposed to be denying exactly?

More to come, no doubt…

—

Timed to coincide nicely with the IPCC gas-a-thon in Tasmania, the ABC has gone gangbusters on climate alarmism – and that’s some achievement given previous form.

Ignoring the biggest story of the past couple of weeks, the UK Met Office’s downgrading of its warming forecast for the next five years, ABC News publishes no less than twelve alarmist climate stories in four days. Here they are in all their horrible glory:

Heart attacks and strokes: the climate change link

Heatwaves kill more Australians than car accidents – and medical authorities say that amplifies the risk posed by climate change.

Human health to feel impact of warmer future

What effect will climate change have on health in the Pacific? This is the third of a five-part series in which environment reporter Sarah Clarke sets out to provide answers.

UN group links heatwave to climate change

The United Nations’s (UN) chief climate science body says there is no doubt last week’s extreme heat in Australia is part of a global warming trend.

Extreme weather driving up food prices: Oxfam 

Simon Bradshaw from Oxfam says extreme weather patterns are beginning to affect the food chain.

Climate change will force farmers to adapt: CSIRO

What effect will climate change have on agriculture and food production? This is the second of a five-part series in which environment reporter Sarah Clarke sets out to provide answers.

IPCC meets in Australia for first time

Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Dr Rajendra Pachauri says the latest research is still a work in progress but Australia’s recent weather events are part of an unmistakable trend.

Bushfires and heat a sign of climate change: Milne

The Greens leader Christine Milne says this summer’s bushfires and record temperatures are providing a glimpse of what Australia’s climate might look like in the future.

Scientists warn of glacier melt acceleration

The Government has scoped the potential areas of the Australian coastline at greatest threat after a sea level rise.

Coastal properties facing rising seas risk

Professor Alan Stokes from the National Seachange Taskforce says rising sea levels are a serious risk and coastal councils need to deal with the issue right now.

Rising seas may put $300b of property at risk: scientists

What impact are sea-level rises predicted to have on Australian cities?

Climate change increases fire risk

A Climate Commission report says a warmer globe increases the risk of extreme fire danger conditions.

Heatwave exacerbated by climate change: Climate Commission

A new report from the Federal Government’s Climate Commission says the heatwave and bushfires that have affected Australia this week have been exacerbated by global warming.

And a couple from ABC Science, just in case you haven’t had enough:

Emissions could cut climate damage by 60%

The world could avoid much of the damaging effects of climate change this century if greenhouse gas emissions are curbed more sharply.

Heatwave suddenly shrinks seaweed’s range

SHRINKING SEAWEED: A recent marine heatwave off Western Australia rapidly shrank the distribution range of an ecologically-important seaweed, researchers report.

There must be a policy in force at the ABC. All I need is someone to leak it…

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , , ,

ABC bias (yet again) and sea level alarmism

15 January, 2013 by

Climatically compromised

Climatically compromised

UPDATE 2 [17 Jan]: The Australian has removed the sea level story below and issued a correction. Whilst I have yet to read the paper in full (kindly provided by Dr John Church), the correction states: “[The paper] found that in the past two decades, the rate of sea level rise had been larger than in the 20th century.” More to come.

UPDATE: There is a bunch of static in the headbanger camps about the sea level paper referred to below, and how the sceptics have ‘misinterpreted’ it. If anyone has the full PDF of the Gregory et al 2012 paper, I would be grateful for a copy. TIA.

Two great stories from Graham Lloyd in The Australian today. Firstly, we have – shock horror – the ABC spinning its climate reporting by failing to mention stories, inconvenient to its alarmist editorial agenda, which have been around for weeks, and then choosing an unusual source for sea level information:

THE ABC’s flagship news programs have favoured advice from a non climate scientist based on speculation from a Byron Bay real estate agent over less alarming research from one of the world’s leading scientific organisations.

In the first of a week-long climate change special to coincide with a meeting of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change scientists in Hobart, the ABC did not mention the fact that Britain’s Met Office had reduced its forecasts for average global temperatures up to 2017. The ABC has not reported the issue despite widespread debate internationally.

Instead, the ABC, which is running the series on its main radio and television news programs, yesterday focused on the threat to coastal living from possible sea level rises without discussing the great uncertainties that exist in future sea level projections. Australia’s pre-eminent sea level expert, John Church, highlighted concerns about the melting Greenland ice sheet. And the report did mention a Climate Commission report that a 1m sea-level rise could potentially expose 250,000 homes to inundation.

But the ABC did not mention recent scientific findings that there was no firm link to sea-level rises and climate change in the 20th century. (source)

Is it any wonder there is such confusion in the mind of the public when our own national broadcaster is so hopelessly compromised?

And Lloyd has the sea level story as well:

THE latest science on sea level rises has found no link to global warming and no increase in the rate of glacier melt over the past 100 years.

A paper published last month in Journal of Climate highlights one of the great uncertainties in climate change research – will ocean levels rise by more than the current 3mm a year?

The peer-reviewed article, “20th-century global-mean sea-level rise: is the whole greater than the sum of the parts?” by JM Gregory, sought to explain the factors involved in sea-level rises during the last century. It found that sea-level rises had not accelerated “despite the increasing anthropogenic forcing” or human influence. (source)

If you’re waiting for the ABC to report this, you’ll be waiting a long, long time.

Filed Under: ABC Bias Tagged With: , ,

ABC: Mark Scott's response to bias charge "defies belief"

20 December, 2012 by

ALP Broadcasting Corporation

ALP Broadcasting Corporation

I have to admit I read Mark Scott’s piece in The Australian last week with increasing bewilderment. Comments such as this:

The panel [on Q&A] includes some of the most outstanding political correspondents in the nation: Phil Coorey, Annabel Crabb, George Megalogenis, Lenore Taylor, Mark Kenny, Malcolm Farr. They are employed by News Limited and Fairfax, broadsheets and tabloids, and by media outlets across the country. And their task is to provide analysis on the events of the week. Which they do, carrying no ideological badge and pushing no line

and this:

Not everyone will agree with all his remarks, but I believe [Barrie Cassidy – host of ABC’s Insiders] works in a way that embodies journalistic standards of fairness, balance and impartiality

left me utterly dumbfounded. Is Scott really that blinded by his own organisation’s groupthink, or is he just dense? It has to be one or the other.

Andrew McIntyre responds today:

THE response by the managing director of the Australian Broadcasting Corp, Mark Scott, to Janet Albrechtsen’s piece on ABC bias, almost defies belief. It is not the first time he has argued this case, even as he presented figures to a senate inquiry on the biased make-up of the panellists on Insiders.

Somehow, Scott trusts his “outstanding” commentators, by claiming that they are “carrying no ideological badge and pushing no line”. Well that settles it, doesn’t it?

…

If there is one lesson to be learned and many of us in Australia have been saying it for years it is about the selectivity of issues, the bias that is formed by the things that are not reported, and in interviews, by the people who are not interviewed.

This is an exquisitely refined technique on the ABC. Presenters tend to interview only those experts who agree with their own opinions, thus transforming news from factual content into a point of view without appearing to express the view of the presenter. On a panel on Insiders or Q&A, one simply gets the false impression that there is a consensus.

I guess if you stand on a platform that leans to the left for long enough, it begins to seem level again.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: ,

Equating climate sceptics with paedophiles is fine at the ABC

18 December, 2012 by

Offensive

Offensive: Williams

You will recall the story recently where ABC “science” presenter Robyn Williams opened a programme on climate “denial” with the following:

“What if I told you that paedophilia is good for children, or that asbestos is an excellent inhalant for those with asthma, or that smoking crack is a normal part, and healthy one, of teenage life, and to be encouraged? You’d rightly find it outrageous. But there have been similar statements coming out of inexpert mouths, again and again in recent times distorting the science.”

Lewandowsky got in on the act as well, naturally. I guess he’d be the go-to guy for people like Williams looking for an easy smear quote:

“I discovered that those people [sceptics] were not sceptical at all. They were rejecting the science, not on the basis of evidence but some other factor. We basically found that the driving motivating factor behind the rejection of climate science was people’s ideology or personal worldview.

[…]

Specifically what we find it that people who are endorsing an extreme view of market fundamentalism are likely to reject climate science.”

You forgot to mention that they also deny the moon landings took place, or that smoking is linked to cancer, or HIV linked to AIDS, or that the sun revolves around a (flat) earth – you’re slipping.

Former chairman of the ABC, Maurice Newman, like many of us, was incensed by these comments and lodged a formal complaint. Especially since an article he had written a while beforehand was referred to specifically in the segment.

And the result?

“ABC Audience and Consumer Affairs have carefully considered the complaint, reviewed the program and assessed it against the ABC’s editorial standards for harm and offence which state in part: 7.1 Content that is likely to cause harm or offence must be justified by the editorial context.

“ABC Audience and Consumer Affairs have also sought and considered a response from ABC Radio. Audience and Consumer Affairs have concluded that there has been no breach of the ABC’s editorial standards for harm and offence.“ (source)

What a surprise! No groupthink there, right? So the next time a filthy “denier” equates climate alarmists like Williams to paedophiles (not that “deniers” ever get invited on to ABC except to be ritually humiliated and ridiculed), and the complaints come flooding in, the ABC will dismiss them too?

Newman responds in an op-ed:

Ordinarily it should be unnecessary to object to such appalling commentary. It should have been automatically withdrawn. But no. An ABC response used sophistry to satisfy itself “that the presenter Robyn Williams did not equate climate change sceptics to pedophiles”. Tell that to his listeners.

Global warming is today more about politics than it is about science. If flawed evidence fails, coercion and character assassination is deployed. No slur is too vicious, nor, as we saw with the BBC’s 2006 seminar of the “best scientific experts”, which despite strenuous attempts to resist freedom of information requests were finally revealed to be mainly NGOs and journalists, no deceit is too great.

Lubos Motl, a climate commentator and string theory physicist, said about the ABC’s Science Show: “We used to hear some remotely similar (Czech) propaganda programs until 1989 … but the public radio and TV simply can’t produce programs that would be this dishonest, manipulative, hateful and insulting any more”.

This is not the first time I have provoked the public wrath of the ABC’s climate change clique, but it is the first time I have publicly responded to it. It is important that I do. (source)

One thing we can be absolutely sure of: nothing at the taxpayer-funded broadcaster will change an inch.

You can download PDFs of the two stories here and here.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , , ,

ABC's Doha climate-gasm

3 December, 2012 by

Climate porn

It’s that time of year again. The climate wonks all disappear on a carbon-fuelled jolly to a six-star hotel to work out how to save the planet, and the leftard media spew out acres of climate alarmism to help The Cause.

No media organisation does this better than our very own ABC, a clone of the once-great-but-now-shite BBC.

Here’s their latest serving of climate porn:

The latest snapshot from climate scientists has found the planet is on track for a 4 to 6 degree Celsius temperature rise by the turn of the century.

As United Nations climate talks enter their final week in Doha on the Persian Gulf, scientists are increasing the pressure on governments to do more to cut the discharge of heat-trapping greenhouse gases.

The Global Carbon Project report, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, has calculated that emissions rose by 3 per cent last year, and 2.6 per cent this year, despite the weak global economy.

Pep Canadell from the CSIRO was one of the lead authors of the report, and says the growth in emissions is shocking.

“Our analysis showed that by the end of this year, 2012, global emissions from fossil fuels are set to reach an unprecedented amount of 36 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide,” he told AM.

“Just to put this thing in perspective, this is 58 per cent over 1990, which is the Kyoto Protocol reference year, and growing at about three times faster than they were growing during the 90s.“

He says on current trends, governments globally will have no chance of averting dangerous climate change.

“We are now following perfectly on track of the emissions path that will take us to anywhere between 4 and 6 degrees by 2100, if we don’t do anything different from what we are doing now,” he said. (source)

But despite emissions growing faster than ever, temperature rises have slowed to a crawl in the last decade or so. A six degree rise by 2100 would require a 0.7 degree rise every decade from now until the end of the century. What happens if we splice this on to the current temperature chart?

Likely?

Not only that, but this graphic uses temperature trends since 1995, if you take the trend since 2001, it’s even less. You would have thought, if CO2 were the main driver of global temperatures, that accelerating emissions would result in accelerating rises in temperature, but in fact it is precisely the reverse.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , , ,
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