Sunday 14 March 2010

Here's Tom with the weather

Weather forecasting has always been an inexact science but tolerated just the same. Climate science though is afforded no such leniency. Every time the IPCC updates us on it's latest projection the media is turned over to denialists and sceptics to pick out the differences from previous missives and present them as inconsistencies ad nauseum.

I'm sorry to say that BBC Radio 4 journalist Tom Feilden has found himself deserving of my ire once again for this piece.  But it's his double act with John Humphreys that really rattles my cage ( click on the player). If one ever needed proof that the media intends to spin the climate change story in an incredulous manner this is it. So a short term fall in temperatures is predicted before a relentless rise. Rather than present this as a fact they pretend that this will undermine the case for change and dwell on how sceptics might seize on it to say climate science is flawed. Indeed they might. But only because the BBC is not an impartial observer and does not approach climate change in an even handed manner.

Postscript: The title to this piece is with apologies to the great Bill Hicks, listen to this piece if you need more explanation.

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