Rupert Read is a Green campaigner; philosopher; former Green Party candidate and a friend of mine. We don't always agree. But we share a lot in common, including a lot of mutual respect. So I was delighted to see him writing this in the Guardian (which I quote extensively with his permission):
Like most Greens, I typically jump at opportunities to go on air. Pretty much any opportunity: BBC national radio, BBC TV, Channel 4, Sky — I've done them all over the years, for good or ill. Even when, as is not infrequently the case, the deck is somewhat stacked against me, or the timing inadequate for anything more than a soundbite, or the question up for debate less than ideal.
But this Wednesday, when I was rung up by BBC Radio Cambridgeshire and asked to come on air to debate with a climate change denier, something in me broke, and rebelled. Really? I thought. This summer, of all times?
So, for almost the first time in my life, I turned it down. I told it that I will no longer be part of such charades. I said that the BBC should be ashamed of its nonsensical idea of “balance”, when the scientific debate is as settled as the “debate” about whether smoking causes cancer. By giving climate change deniers a full platform, producers make their position seem infinitely more reasonable than it is. (This contributes to the spread of misinformation and miseducation around climate change that fuels the inaction producing the long emergency we are facing.)
From a public service broadcaster, this is simply not good enough.
I entirely agree. And I share his frustration. For years I have been seeking to present balanced argument on tax in the media. It's hardly radical to say that you expect people to pay the right amount of tax, in the right place, at the right rate and at the right time, after all. Nor is it radical to say that you want the government to do this even-handedly in the interests of fair competition. From whatever political perspective you come that, surely, makes sense.
But like Rupert, I have been put up, time and again, against people I consider extremists. That is people like the so-called Taxpayers' Alliance and the Institute for Economic Affairs, both of which organisations argue for the end of the structure of society as we know it, the destruction of democracy as we are familiar with it, and the end of those services on which the most vulnerable people in this country rely. They also promote tax havens that would destroy fair competition and undermine markets. And that has been done in the name of supposed balance. But it is not. It creates bias.
And Rupert has stood up against that bias, and for good reason. As he argues, including those with such partisan, and unreasoned views, in on-air discussion actually destroys the debate. He put it like this:
What makes it so frustrating is that there are important debates to be had around climate change. And so I told the Beeb that I would be very happy to come on and take part in a different debate. For example, we should be debating whether the Paris climate accord is going to be enough, or if we need to do more. Or discussing just how radically our society needs to change to meet the challenges of the climate crisis, and how we should rethink our activism. But I will no longer put up with the absurd notion that a straight debate about the science can be justified.
I applaud his decision.
It was the right thing to do.
The time has come for the BBC to stop giving extremists a platform on the basis of supposedly providing balance.
Will the BBC listen though? Who knows? Maybe they might if Rupert's suggestion were followed through:
However, here's the exciting thing. If we get more momentum behind the idea of refusing to participate, it will force a change of coverage methods by the BBC, which experts have been calling for for years. For if we all refuse to debate with the climate change deniers on public platforms, and press the BBC to catch up with the 21st century, it will be forced to change its ways, because the BBC cannot defend the practice of allowing a climate change denier to speak unopposed. If we truly want to see change on this issue, we need to be willing to let it know exactly how we feel. So, now I'm going to get on with filing my official complaint to the BBC …
I will have to think hard about that one. And the next time I am asked to go on air with the likes of Mark Littlewood from the Institute of Economic Affairs I might have to think seriously about whether to do so, or not.
The BBC is biased. It's biased because it gives the far right a platform where none can be justified.
I'm not arguing against free speech. Nor is Rupert. What we are saying is that the balance in reasonable debate is not unreasoned extremism. And it's time the BBC realised that. As yet they do not.
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The same issue was highlighted with the global warming debate. For balance the BBC would wheel on any denier offering zero knowledge of basic physics.
The BBC is at it again – after helping to create the size and influence of UKIP which led to the referendum, yesterday they interviewed Raheem Kassam on the Today programme – which I am listening to less and less. The BBC has learnt nothing. Or its control is no longer just establishment but is becoming part of the far right.
I was struck by what I felt was your most powerful point: that what the BBC approach does is, I would say insidiously, is “in the name of supposed balance. But it is not. It creates bias”. It creates bias; a striking insight. Combine that with the BBC’s powerful involvement (albeit often led by the mainstream i.e., print media; owned or run by ideologists) in creating the “news agenda” (effectively the political agenda), and the ‘balance’ it selects (it does not “find” the balance, it selects it), it may be said that the public is being steered; both in terms of the political aganda the public may address; then in framing the content of the debate. In short the public is being manipulated on a media-driven industrial scale.
I would wish to dissent from one aspect of your argument, and it is not the particularity of climate change that I wish to challenge, but the determination of the nature of “science”. All scientific theory is provisional. Experiment is the final test in science; and all theory stands as provisional; contingent on the next experiment. I am uncomfortable when science is used to silence people. It is a dangerous precedent, however well-intentioned. I suspect most imagined visions of hell are paved in such intentions.
I have yet to see a counter argument to global warming that stands up to even cursory scrutiny. To allow deniers to spout their twisted gibberish is not stopping debate it is, as Rupert Read says in his article, allowing the debate to move on to how to minimise the impact.
Allowing deniers a platform gives them the opportunity to cast doubt in the minds of casual listeners and delays moving on to more important things such as how to provide the 80% of energy we use that does not come from electricity. It could be hydrogen replacing natural gas but how do we generate the hydrogen, or any other synthetic fuel.
RobinT50 says:
” It could be hydrogen replacing natural gas but how do we generate the hydrogen, or any other synthetic fuel.”
It’s been a bloody effective propaganda campaign by the big oil producers if you really think that is a difficult question to answer.
And you probably regard yourself as intelligent and educated.
Shame on you.
Andy,
Sorry if this comes in the wrong place but I don’t understand your comment.
In 2016 the UK the average energy consumption rate of the UK was 210 GW of which 49 GW came from electricity. I’m not sure what this has to do with the big oil. It’s a fact – taken from the Digest of UK Energy Statistics 2017.
As a Chartered Mechanical Engineer, I consider myself well educated and I haven’t found a sensible answer to my question. To rephrase it:
About 20% of the UK’s ‘Final Consumption Energy’ (ie that for industry, transport, domestic and commercial use) comes from electricity. The remaining 80% is mainly derived from fossil fuels. How do we produce that 80% of our energy needs and still keep the country working?
I’d love to know the answer. Obviously it’s not keep using fossil fuels so synthetics are probably needed to keep planes in the air, ships at sea, high temperature industrial processes operating and our homes warm in the winter.
We could use heat pumps for domestic heating but that will increase the electricity demand.
Any answers that add up much appreciated.
I don’t follow your logic at all
None of our energy comes from electricity
Electricity has to be made
So what are you saying?
Wops, I got a couple of numbers wrong. The UK average electricity consumption in 1016 was was 35 GW and the ‘Final Consumption Energy’ average was 200 GW, so the problem is worse than I thought – only 17.5% of Final Consumption Energy comes from electricity. My question is still valid.
I really must improve my typing!
The first word of my previous post should be ‘Whoops’ not ‘Wops@ and the year at the start of the second line should be ‘2016’ not ‘1016’!
Sorry1
Sorry if this hasn’t come over as well as I hoped. My main point is that all the discussion about energy seems to concentrate on electricity but that is less than 20% of the energy used in the UK. The remaining 80% of our energy consumption is mainly fossil fuel for heating, transport and industry. If we are to get off fossil fuels, not only do we need to decarbonise electricity we need to decarbonise the other energy. Cars can be electric, I’m not sure whether that applies to trucks, coaches, planes, ships, domestic heating and industry.
Although some of the 80% can be replaced by electricity (eg domestic heating) some will probably need hydrogen or some synthetic fuel that will also need electricity to produce.
Although some energy saving may be achievable, electricity production could need to increase by a factor of 4 or 5 to achieve a fully decarbonised energy system. Can renewables achieve this? My opinion is that there are insufficient resources in the UK or Europe to achieve this and nuclear will be required to bridge the gap. The Green lobby and the energy industry need to debate this and come up with a solution.
Sorry it’s a long answer but this is a very difficult problem that seems to be ignored.
I leave others to address this….
RobinT50 says:
” Can renewables achieve this? ”
Of course they can. We should have been well on the way.
Energy is energy. We shouldn’t be burning fossil fuels at all. It’s an appalling squandering of a valuable and irreplaceable resource.
The market system is a wholly inappropriate system to price and manage a limited resource. When higher usage is dicounted for price what is supposed to drive htrift and efficiency.
This government (and it’s predecessor was not much better) has deliberately played to the tune of the fossil industry which has a vested interest in short term profit from high consumption. Long term is of no account to these people because in the longer term (as Old Milton Keynes) observed we are all dead.
If yours are educated comments and questions, I’m afraid I despair.
Andy,
Thanks for coming back.
At the end of 2016 the installed renewables (wind, solar, marine, hydro and bio energy) capacity in the UK was 313 TW.h, which delivered 83 TW.h. UK electricity consumption was 304 TW.h, so we produced about 25% of our electricity from renewables (some renewables are thermal processes so their output may not be linked to electricity generation). In addition to electricity, the UK consumers used 1,357 TW.h of fossil fuels, for industrial processes, domestic and commercial heating and transport.
New cars and LGVs can quickly adopt battery power, giving a three-fold improvement in energy use. In 2016 these consumed 348 TW.h of fossil fuels, the change to battery power will increase average electricity demand by something like 125 TW.h.
Batteries are very heavy and have a low energy density, so converting HGVs, planes and ships to battery power is some way off (if at all) unless there is major breakthrough in battery technology. So, for some time these modes of transport will need a dense energy source. A synthetic fuel seems appropriate. In 2016 transport, other than cars and LGVs, used 288 TW.h.
Many industrial processes, use fossil fuels to produce high temperatures fir drying and chemical conversion (eg cement manufacture). At present this is achieved using fossil fuels. The simplest way to avoid fossil fuels would be to use a synthetic fuel. In 2016 the industrial consumption of fossil fuels was 161 TW.h.
In the UK most domestic and space heating is achieved using natural gas. This could be changed to heat pumps, again increasing the average electricity demand. Alternatively, a synthetic fuel could be used (this would also increase electricity demand). In 2016 the domestic and commercial consumption of fossil fuels was 466 TW.h.
Any synthetic fuel will need to be manufactured, hydrogen is simple to manufacture using hydrolysis and the process is reasonably efficient, about 80%, with potential for improvement.
Assuming the future produces a 10% improvement in energy efficiency the total energy consumption of the UK will be something like 1,360 TW.h. If this consumption is all electricity, the capacity will have to increase by a factor of 4.5 and renewables will need to increase by factor of over 16.
All the numbers are from the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (what used to the DECC) Digest of UK Energy Statistics (DUKES) 2017 (converted from kilotonnes of oil equivalent (ktoe)). They are from the Final Consumption section, which is after all the energy to make electricity and petroleum products has been accounted for, I don’t think there is any double accounting.
I would love to know how we can move from a fossil fuel based energy system to something sustainable, so far I haven’t seen any viable options. There are already objections to siting wind turbines and solar panels on land and within sight of land! I completely agree that we shouldn’t be burning fossil fuels that can be used to make useful things such as lubricants, solvents and useful plastics.
We could install solar panels in the Sahara Desert and transmit the power back to Europe, but I think the security situation needs to improve significantly before that’s viable!
As far as my comments being educated, I think they are based on the actual situation and, yes, they also make me despair. I don’t believing in anything apart from arithmetic and I think my arithmetic adds up.
Going back to the original blog, the debate regarding climate change is over, we now need to debate to how we move from a world dependant on fossil fuels, with a population likely to exceed 10 billion that will want at least a Western European living standard, to something sustainable. The BBC should, undoubtedly be part of that but they should leave out the climate change deniers.
“Experiment is the final test in science”. I would have been happier if you had included “observation”. Some theories are not amenable to experiment or it may not be moral to conduct them, for example on humans.
Are you also uncomfortable when science is used to silence people who don’t believe in gravity? There will always be differing findings and opinions on how exactly climate change will occur, but people who deny it is even happening with no scientific evidence have no place in a reality based debate.
In reply to Mr Hewitt, I think experiment not observation (alone) is the final test. This was the view of Feynman, and probably of Clerk Maxwell.
On the more general point I accept there are absurd objections to well-founded theories, not requiring cursory examination; but that is a ‘straw-man’ argument. It is not always easy to determine the matter so easily, or in such a way as to avoid dismissing an important scientific question being raised (whether decisive or merely exploratory). I am not saying there is no requirement to present substantive evidence; indeed I am expecting it. I am not commenting on climate change either; I just do not much care for the tone of the argument, which I believe inappropriate to science. Certainty is rarely available to the scientist in the pugnacious way the case is made here. Indeed, it is worth remembering that physics (typically considered the most rigorous of all sciences) works on the basis of making predictions, and testing them. Nothing more. Nothing.
The only problem with your preference is that we don’t have a spare planet to experiment on. We can make the predictions but can we wait for the results of the experiment to come in?
In any case, what is the cost of anticipating the predictions are correct? We would have made a better world for nothing!
My objection was to the (to me) unnecessarily belligerent – even arrogant – tone of the argument, not the content. I do not doubt the case being made has merit; but it is science, and a little humility always seems appropriate. In addition, you are right; experiments (and therefore predictions) are difficult to do in this field. This does not mean no valuable conclusions can be drawn from analysis and modelling, but this should be carried out with due consideration to the methods used, and their limitations.
I confess that when I read through some of the comments here (may I suggest rereading them), my first thought was: are we just replacing one group of intolerant know-it-alls, for another? Sorry everyone; I do not wish to appear offensive, but there it is.
I’m absolutely in agreement with the diagnosis. But not the prescription, sadly.
“If we get more momentum behind the idea of refusing to participate, it will force a change of coverage methods by the BBC, which experts have been calling for for years.”
No it won’t. They will resist change, procrastinate, delay and obfuscate for ever and ever without making any real change. ‘Giving it time’ for them to come to their senses is a wasted effort, I’m afraid. They won’t.
There is something we can all do though. Something simple; something effective; something now.
Support independent media.
Support those journalists who work in smaller media organisations. Support them by buying what they do. Support them by donating your time to say ‘Thanks; I appreciate it.” Support them by supporting their calls to cover issues the others are ignoring. Support them by joining The Media Fund, for example, which advocates for and supports independent media firms. Support them rather than give your money to offshore, tax-avoiding billionaire-owned media empires.
Because at the end of the day in the media sector what survives and thrives is that which generates sales revenue so put your money where your heart is.
Own the media not be owned by it.
AllanW says:
“Support independent media.”
Hear! Hear!
And stop funding the BBC through the licence fee. It isn’t doing its job. We’re paying to be abused and misinformed. Well some people are, I stopped doing so years ago, for reasons which were then not even ‘political’ (in the commonly accepted sense) but to do with coverage and availability of digital/analogue broadcast.)
It’s way past time we started to play the market at its own game and stop giving them our money to pay for the things we profoundly disagree with. Every pound spent can be a vote for what you want. Or you can keep on being poisoned, mentally and physically at your own expense.
It’s not a perfect response, but every little helps.
Some of it is bias (Noam Chomsky’s propganda model of the media).
Some of it is a combination of simple ignorance and a paucity of intellectual capacity on the part of our journalists.
From what I see and hear journalists are frequently narcissistic wind-bags capable of little in the way of critical thinking. What’s more, if Chomsky is correct, it can hardly be any other way: The biased gatekeepers to the industry ensure that only those with the “correct” mindsets progress in their careers.
A free thinking, honest, intellectually adept and knowledgeable individual will struggle to fit in as a journalist and so such people gravitate to other fields of human endeavour. We’re left with smiley faced simpletons in love with themselves and prepared to suck up to who ever can get them their next big break.
I think if the good-guys start boycotting interviews then the Beeb and others will just find less good people to take their place. One certainty of the modern age is there is no shortage of vacuous morons desperate for their 15mins of fame.
Couple that with news broadcasters’ desperation to pretend there is always something desperately newsworthy occuring at all times and I suspect a boycott is highly likely to backfire as mediocre journalists fill stupid pieces with mindnumbing inputs from biased and/or stupid commentators.
What’s the solution? Probably there isn’t one and we’re just all doomed to stupid ignorant reporting from here to the apocalypse (not long then).
The best you can do IMHO is go down fighting – call them out on their biases and stupidity in every interview. Take up their airtime whenever possible but make clear to listeners both the reality of the science/economics and the reality of the media’s continuing dismal failure to provide unbiased information to the public.
Everyone who does this will of course not be invited back but, if enough do it, eventually the media will be left with only biased dunces to populate their output AND they’ll have a track record of silencing critics of their journalistic integrity. I imagine that would have a more rapid and greater impact than a straight boycott.
Adam,
All that you say applies to corporate, mainstream media NOT independent media organisations. They welcome enquiry, knowledge and debate.
The best thing we can do is support that way of doing things not put up with the dross 🙂 Far more hopeful and uplifting!
Spot on, Adam. Journalists want headlines, disputation, argument – it makes for “good” radio or tv, whether is serves any useful purpose doesn’t come into it and the “facts” of the case aren’t important.
Another surreptitious undermining of informed debate is the “go to’s”, the people who they get on as “experts” on particular topics – safe, mainstream, unlikely to rock the boat. And they never examine their funding sources but always present them as “independent” and “highly respected”.
John Oliver dealt with the issue in his own inimitable way at https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=cjuGCJJUGsg.
why would any one even listen to the bbc, you might get the odd gem but the rest is just completely biased to suit the governments agenda, mind you so are the others, but at least its free.
https://youtu.be/TXQYuLUAbyw
London Calling documentary
LONDON CALLING: BBC bias during the 2014 Scottish independence referendum
This should disabuse anyone of any notion that the BBC is genuinely independent and not an instrument of the British state.
Govt allegedly also used Cambridge Analytica (removing evidence of state use may have been one of the reasons the Information Commissioner was not allowed enter CA’s office for a week).
An impression of Orwellian psyops used against a domestic civilian population in peacetime?
Questions should also be asked about the Institute of Fiscal Studies. Why does the BBC always present them as neutral economists, when their views are objectively neoliberal?
The IFS does at least publish details of where they get their money from. Unlike the Taxpayers Alliance mob, or the Institute of Economic Affairs.
I totally agree with you and your colleague about the BBC.
But I also see this happening elsewhere – I like Channel 4 News but sometimes my loyalty is severely tested to the limit when certain presenters do not enable balanced debates to take place between both sides.
I remember how badly Danny Dorling was treated once in a debate with Matthew Hancock MP and the IEA’s contributors are just good at hogging the discussion and allowed to do it too often.
I think the problem is wider than the BBC. But it is sad that the BBC is no longer a bastion of standards it once was.
Apologies for posting this which isn’t a directly related topic – but thought you (and others) would enjoy this recent brief clip from Stuart Varney at Fox News who, to his credit, at least invited Warren in for a chat! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ge4HwvFbz0s.
As one of their senior economics presenters, the best he could come up with was “It’s all so smart and intellectual”. No wonder we’re in the shxt on both sides of the Pond!
🙂
If I never hear your voice on TV, radio, or in the Houses of Parliament, ever again, I’ll be a happy lady!! Christmas has come early!!!!!!!
I am live on air right now – BBC 5 Live
The photo in this Naked Capitalism article pretty much gives the game away the BBC has been taken-over by Tories often with extremist right-wing views:-
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2018/08/austerity-caused-brexit.html
Maybe
I agree with this post pretty much in its entirety. In terms of the Tax Payers Alliance and the IEA I would say that at the very least they should be required to state where their funding comes from and the BBC displayed this information on screen while their representative was speaking (or for radio read out this information before they said their piece), but Rupert Read is undeniably right to refuse to debate with a climate change denier. I have shared a link to this post on my blog.
Thank heavens we don’t have to put up with the sort of state controlled broadcasters they have in Communist countries.
https://wingsoverscotland.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/img473-1.jpg
🙂
A classic case on Radio 3 news yesterday evening : Mark Carney’s considered warning about the risk of a No Deal (I think he classifies as an expert?) was “balanced” by comments from IDS and Rees Mogg which were essentially just name-calling.
So infuriating.
The BBC also bears a huge chunck of reponsibility for the Brexit mess.
[…] Live, on the Stephen Nolan show. And when they phoned the first thing they said was that  they had read my blog from yesterday on who I would share platforms with. When I was invited they could not tell me that. But they […]
Denying climate change is a minority opinion which few take seriously. You say that therefore people shouldn’t be giving serious airtime to it.
MMT is a minority opinion which few take seriously – if it were not, why is no-one using it?. You complain that no-one is giving it serious airtime?
Where and when did I say that?
Please don’t make up nonsense and posit it here
@ Roger Myers
“MMT is a minority opinion which few take seriously”
Of course, Roger it’s 100% guaranteed you lack the ability to present the arguments to justify your comment. It can very safely be said you’re simply engaged in pointless name calling. Such comments have been seen so often before .
The BBC needs de-institutionalising because it’s become corrupted. Same argument lay behind the English Civil War.