The BBC is finally doing something that all media organizations should do – don’t let crazy people derail important debates. For this entire millennium mass media organizations have invited reality-denying people to debates on issues like climate change. This causes the issue to not actually be talked about.
No more will climate change deniers and other wackos be welcome on the BBC. Hopefully other media organizations will follow suit.
To illustrate the ridiculousness of having one fringe “expert†come in to undermine a scientific consensus, the report points to the network’s coverage of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which in September released a report concluding, with 95 percent certainty, that man-made climate change is happening. As was their due diligence, BBC reporters called a dozen prominent U.K. scientists, trying to drum up an opposing viewpoint. When that didn’t happen — probably because 97 percent of scientists agree that man-made climate change is happening — they turned instead to retired Australian geologist Bob Carter, who has ties to the industry-affiliated Heartland Institute.
To be clear, having one guy dismiss the consensus of hundreds of the world’s top climate scientists as “hocus-pocus science†wasn’t the “balanced†thing to do, and the only reason why people like Carter continue to be taken seriously is because news networks continue to suggest they should be.
I don’t think CBC Radio’s Quirks and Quarks has had a climate change denier on in 5 or 10 years.