By Paul Homewood
Stung by accusations of bias, the BBC have circled the wagons!
Instead of engaging constructively with the many who have genuine concerns, we have already seen Tony Hall rejecting complaints out of hand.
Now the BBC press office has jumped to the defence of Roger Harrabin, accused of bias and preaching by Charles Moore.
https://twitter.com/RHarrabin/status/1211557430221529089
They obviously don’t appreciate that Honorary Doctorates go to people for who they are, and not what they know!
However a quick look back through the archives shows that Harrabin’s journalism is not as impeccable as the BBC would like us to think.
Last March, for instance, Harrabin made a big play of a new report by the left wing Institute for Public Policy Research, ludicrously stating:
They say since 2005, the number of floods across the world has increased by 15 times, extreme temperature events by 20 times, and wildfires seven-fold.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-47203344
Following my formal complaint, the BBC were forced to retract this claim, after the IPPR admitted that their figures merely reflected the fact that many weather disasters are officially reported now which would have gone unreported in the past.
While the initial fault lay with the IPPR, it is incredible that a supposedly competent journalist should publish such risible nonsense without having the gumption to check the facts first.
Such a failure to do so is prime evidence of Harrabin’s bias towards climate alarmism, whether conscious or not.
Harrabin also continually exhibits bias in favour of renewable energy. For instance, in 2018 he falsely claimed that there was a “ban on new onshore wind farms”:
![image1[6085]](https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.files.wordpress.com/2018/08/image16085_thumb.png?w=600&h=797 "image1[6085]")
Once again, I was forced to complain to the BBC, and point out that there was no ban, simply an end to subsidies for onshore wind.
Harrabin apparently was hauled over the coals for this lie:
That however has not stopped his bias for renewables. He frequently complains about the cost of nuclear power, claiming it is much more expensive than offshore wind, for instance in this piece last June:
The debate has taken on greater significance as the true costs of nuclear power have been revealed.
It was once forecast that nuclear energy would be too cheap to meter. But it’s clear now that bill-payers will give price support to the Hinkley Point C nuclear station at a cost of £92.50 per megawatt hour, compared with £55 for offshore wind.
What he consistently fails to mention is that when the contract for Hinkley Point was signed in 2015, the prices for offshore wind were much greater, up to £119.89/MWh. Worse still, offshore wind projects handed out in 2013 were even more expensive, ranging up to £155/MWh.
I have yet to see Harrabin ever report the true cost of renewable subsidies, currently running at over £11bn a year.
Of course, for all of his cultivated superiority, Roger Harrabin has no qualifications when it comes to climate or energy matters, merely a degree in English. That may explain why he makes so many blunders.
For instance, he visited India three years ago and filed this report:
Prime Minister Modi is offering subsidies for a plan to power 60 million homes with solar by 2022 and aims for 40% of its energy from renewables by 2030.
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2017/01/06/harrabins-indian-howler/
Unfortunately he confused “electricity” with “energy”, power “capacity” with “generation”, and “low carbon” with “renewables”.
India’s actual target is to achieve 40% installed capacity from low carbon.
In his war against fossil fuels, Harrabin is also happy to parrot claims made by obscure groups that the UK government is paying massive subsidies to fossil fuel companies. Not only are such claims factually wrong, he is happy to ignore the huge tax revenues generated by both the oil and gas industry and consumers.
Indeed, he regularly gives full coverage to extreme climate claims made by environmental groups and fellow travellers, but rarely offers any counter arguments from other experts.
I suspect we won’t be hearing any of this from the BBC press office!
via NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
January 2, 2020 at 12:19PM
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