The debate is over, is it?

The climate change debate has always been beyond me. I see too little of the world to be able to make meaningful comparisons about shifts in the weather. I am not a believer in anthropogenic global warming (AGW). Nor am I sceptic or a denier – I simply don't know. But when I hear the words 'the debate is over', this inclines me to the view that it most certainly isn't over and possibly hasn't been allowed to start.

It's what the US Surgeon General's (2006) report said about the dangers of passive smoking.

It's also over for the BBC, says James Delingpole, launching an attack with this interesting paragraph:

When the history of the greatest pseudoscience fraud in history  -aka “Climate Change” – comes to be written, no media organisation, not even the Guardian or the New York Times, will deserve greater censure than the steaming cess pit of ecofascist bias that is the BBC. That’s because, of all the numerous  MSM outlets which have been acting as the green movement’s useful idiots, the BBC is the only one which is taxpayer funded and which is required by its charter to adopt an ideologically neutral position.

You don't need to believe that this is the biggest pseudoscience fraud in history to realise that the BBC has a big credibility problem here, and Delingpole seeks to show that the BBC deliberately dropped its impartiality on the climate change debate, in what looks like an exercise in social marketing. 

How this was achieved is recounted in the report Submission to the Review of Impartiality and Accuracy of the BBC’s Coverage of Science, by Andrew Montford and Tony Newbery. Their report centres on a seminar held by the BBC in January 2006, under the title 'Climate Change – the Challenge to Broadcasting'. A report published by the BBC Trust the following year opined: 

The BBC has held a high-level seminar with some of the best scientific experts, and has come to the view that the weight of evidence no longer justifies equal space being given to the opponents of the consensus. [emphasis added]

To cut a long story short, there is little evidence of any 'scientific expert' at the conference at all, and two observers were appalled at the level of research that BBC personnel appeared to have done on the issue of climate change. The BBC also refused to reveal the identities of those attending the seminar under a Freedom of Information request, and legal clarification has been sought on the exemptions relied on by the BBC. It is quite unacceptable that a publicly funded body should seek to conceal the identity of participants in such a key seminar. 

The report's conclusions recommend (to the Review of Impartiality and Accuracy of the BBC's coverage of science) that due attention is paid to the BBC's commitment to impartiality and any necessary corrections are made to public records, and to why the participants of the seminar, many of whom were attached to environmental NGOs, were allowed to formulate BBC policy on climate change.

The Review is to be chaired by Professor Steve Jones and will report next Spring. I hope its report is thorough.