Julie Walsh

BBC Changes ‘Temperatures Decrease’ Article to Incite Climate Hysteria

by Julie Walsh on April 7, 2008

From NewsBusters.org

On Saturday, NewsBusters shared with readers a BBC.com report that astoundingly proclaimed "Global Temperatures 'To Decrease.'"

Some time after this was posted, the third paragraph of the original piece was changed in a fashion that radically altered the meaning of the entire article (picture courtesy AP).

In fact, what was once a realistic portrayal of new data released by the World Meteorological Organization suddenly became another hysterical report espousing doom and gloom at the hands of manmade global warming.

Here was how the piece began before Saturday's edits (emphasis added):

Global temperatures will drop slightly this year as a result of the cooling effect of the La Nina current in the Pacific, UN meteorologists have said.

The World Meteorological Organization's secretary-general, Michel Jarraud, told the BBC it was likely that La Nina would continue into the summer.

This would mean global temperatures have not risen since 1998, prompting some to question climate change theory.

For the record, a website called Gribbit's Word cut and pasted those three opening paragraphs exactly the same way on Friday at 12:19 PM.

Yet, some time on Saturday after NewsBusters posted its piece at 12:22 PM, the third paragraph was mysteriously changed to this (emphasis added):

But this year's temperatures would still be way above the average – and we would soon exceed the record year of 1998 because of global warming induced by greenhouse gases.

Some difference, wouldn't you agree? Maybe more fascinating is that the time stamp at the top of the article doesn't reflect that any changes were made since Gribbit or I cut and pasted the version we shared with our readers: "Page last updated at 00:42 GMT, Friday, 4 April 2008 01:42 UK."

For those unfamiliar, 00:42 GMT on Friday would be 7:42 PM EST Thursday. So, according to BBC.com, this piece was last updated our Thursday evening.

Yet, Gribbit's cut and paste Friday afternoon, and mine on Saturday afternoon, are different than what one now sees if you click on the links we both posted for this piece. And, since mine was posted at 12:22 PM Saturday, it means this third paragraph was changed at least 40 hours after the last "official" update.

Why? Was someone at the BBC displeased with the tenor of this piece, but didn't want folks to know it was being altered so long after it had been posted?

*****Update: Jennifer Marohasy reports that the headline of this article was changed a couple of times as well —

Moving on to the strange happenings surrounding a subsequent 4th April article by the BBC's Roger Harrabin, blogged here, entitled, Global temperatures 'to decrease' , which was later changed to, Global warming 'dips this year, ' and then subsequently changed back to Global temperatures 'to decrease.' The changes in the text, however, did not revert back to the text in the original article.

Makes sense. After all, the alarmists certainly couldn't have an article out there titled "Global Warming 'Dips This Year.'"

—Noel Sheppard is an economist, business owner, and Associate Editor of NewsBusters.


 

Glenn Beck: Be thankful for big oil

by Julie Walsh on April 4, 2008

Yes, times are tough for many. Sure, oil companies make a lot of cash. But, for that money, they get us to work, get ambulances to the hospital, keep our homes warm, and employ thousands of our friends and neighbors while financing their retirement, paying their health care, and providing energy to millions. Because of capitalism, they have the incentive to do that. I've yet to see what our government does for us with their rather large chunk of each gallon of gas we buy, and I've yet to see them offer to return it or suggest a gas-tax-windfall-tax-tax.

Nothing like a good power plant

by Julie Walsh on April 4, 2008

 
Nigeria needs more power plants to be able to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. Yes, more. They have the seventh largest gas reserves in the world, but haven’t turned these into electricity. Most of the population still uses wood for cooking, as does rural India.
 
Last August, scientists found that these “dirty brown clouds created by millions of cooking fires in Asia contribute as much to global warming as greenhouse gas emissions.”
 
Plus, this past week an expert from the National Forest Conservation Council predicted that all of Nigeria’s remaining forests would be gone in twelve years, a casualty of the need for fuel. Ethiopia has already lost its forests. Those carbon sinks are gone.
 
And yet environmental pressure groups continue to push for energy reductions in Africa.
 

CEI Fights Sierra Club Demands for CO2

by Julie Walsh on April 4, 2008

in Blog

The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) and more than a dozen other conservative groups filed an amicus brief March 21 against a Sierra Club petition demanding that EPA regulate carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from new electric power plants. (The amicus brief can be read at CEI.org.)CEI Fights Sierra Club Demands for CO2

Junk Science: Bush Beats Gore on Climate?

by Julie Walsh on April 4, 2008

in Blog

In the very same week that Gore launched a $300 million public relations campaign to convince Americans that "together we can solve the climate crisis," prominent climate alarmist Tom Wigley essentially endorsed President Bush’s approach to global warming while criticizing that of Gore’s co-Nobelist, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC.

Down with people

by Julie Walsh on April 3, 2008

Sure, just the other day Sen. Barack Obama uttered the questionable assessment that a "crisis pregnancy, as I read it euphemized today, which is left, er, unterminated, is punishing a young lady with a baby. But have you heard the one about Ted Turner…? By now of course you have caught Turner's latest inanity, including a rant about how “We have global warming because too many people are using too much stuff. If there were less people, they’d be using less stuff.”

Reading the transcript I see how with a minor clarification of the punctuation Turner could be simply stating the apparent mindset of most of those whose ideology he was parroting for Charlie Rose’s amusement.

“We’ve got to stop doing the suicidal two things, which are hanging on to our nuclear weapons and after that we’ve got to stabilize the population. When I was born-”

 

(Rose interrupts)

Yes, it does seem that most environmentalists adhere to P.J. O’Rourke’s interpretation of their faith, that there are just enough of them, way too many of you and me. So it seems almost natural were Turner saying that we've got to stabilize the population when (he) was born (1938), meaning either the typical “I’m here, we can stop now” or go back to those levels (appx. 130 million). Naturally, this is a silly interpretation. If Turner believed that – well, any of it – he wouldn’t have had 5 children (or 3 residences at once).

I suppose it is forgivable for people with large families to convince themselves on occasion that there are too many people in the world – or, say, if you live in New Jersey…now, now, just saying it’s got the most condensed population in the country – but shouldn’t the fact that all of these down-with-people types like Turner and Gore have so many houses mitigate that somewhat?

The Clean Energy Scam

by Julie Walsh on April 1, 2008

in Blog

Carter is not a man who gets easily spooked–he led a reconnaissance unit in Desert Storm, and I watched him grab a small anaconda with his bare hands in Brazil–but he can sound downright panicky about the future of the forest. "You can't protect it. There's too much money to be made tearing it down," he says. "Out here on the frontier, you really see the market at work."

This land rush is being accelerated by an unlikely source: biofuels. An explosion in demand for farm-grown fuels has raised global crop prices to record highs, which is spurring a dramatic expansion of Brazilian agriculture, which is invading the Amazon at an increasingly alarming rate.

Nigeria’s forests to disappear by 2020: expert

by Julie Walsh on April 1, 2008

in Blog

Nigeria will lose all of its remaining forests in the next 12 years if the rate of deforestation remains unchecked, an environmental expert warned Thursday.

Nigeria has the seventh-largest gas reserves in the world but has so far failed to harness them to produce affordable cooking gas, meaning the bulk of the population still relies on wood or charcoal for cooking.

"Now that the forests in the north are gone, attention has shifted to … southern Nigeria where trees are burnt for charcoal. This is more destructive than tree chopping because it is more rapid and kills all the flora and wildlife," Yammama further warned.

 

Fourth Gore home located

by Julie Walsh on April 1, 2008

It occurs to me that the Gores fessed up to a fourth spread during this interview.

STAHL: He's also making his parents' farm eco-friendly… oh, so you'll have windmills here?

 GORE: Yep.

This home has apparently been Al’s, as well, since 2004. Windmills are coming, but that footprint just keeps on growing.

A little sunshine, please

by Julie Walsh on April 1, 2008

About those 33 solar panels for that home – their second, an 18-room job, of what would soon be three for our jet-setting power couple – that the Gores purchased after his presidential defeat, and as he ginned up what “60 Minutes” described as a monomaniacal commitment to the global warming cause. Tennessean Bill Hobbs had apparently done the homework for us. In short, if you have to ask, you can’t afford it. Besides, run these numbers and you’ll see it has nothing to do with the economics of the matter.

Of course, it would be silly to wonder if everyone could foot such a monstrous bill, paying that much for so little impact but in order to live in the carbon-constrained world of Gore’s dreams. But a lot of things are silly to you and me that may not occur to people with mansions and multiple, bicoastal homes.

Which reminds us, as I previously noted, that there must really be something to hide about those “private donations from those concerned about solving the climate crisis”, accounting for the bulk of the Gore group’s budget, in order to present this $300 million ad campaign as the Gores’ project

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