I was reminded, after writing yesterday's post, of a remark made some years ago by David Aaronovitch in The Independent, from his extraordinary review of George Monbiot's Captive State. Aaronovitch was his usual reassuring self, utterly dismissive of the idea that big business wield too much influence on the British government. "The relationship between business and government," as he put it, "is neither a new phenomenon, nor - by itself - a hugely damaging one" (Independent, September 28, 2000).

Well, yet again Aaronovitch has proved to be utterly vindicated in all his pronouncements. Granted the government may have consciously and deliberately emasculated its target for emissions reductions, for fear of losing the support of the Confederation of British Industry - but it's not as if that qualifies as "hugely damaging". Hard to imagine anything more trifling, in fact.

Question 1. Which of the following is currently the biggest obstacle to the survival of humanity?

Still not sure? Here's a clue:

“George Bush was castigated by European diplomats and found himself isolated yesterday after a special conference on climate change ended without any progress. ...

“Britain and almost all other European countries, including Germany and France, want mandatory targets for reducing greenhouse emissions. Mr Bush, while talking yesterday about a "new approach" and "a historic undertaking", remains totally opposed. ...

“One of those present said even China and India, two of the biggest polluters, accepted that the voluntary approach proposed by the US was untenable and favoured binding measures ...”

(from the Guardian)

a) Excluding aviation emissions from the Climate Bill, and continuing to expand Britain's airports;

b) Making sure the target for our emission reductions is sufficiently low as to keep the Confederation of British Industry happy (and appointing the organisation's former boss, himself a former pro-aviation lobbyist, to the Cabinet, just to make sure);

c) Attempting to re-interpret the EU renewables target rather than meeting it;

d) Investing in alternative fuels which will lead to a net increase in carbon emissions, but which sound a bit more green.

Question 3. According to a recent report by nine high-profile environmental groups, the Liberal Democrats have shown the greatest commitment to dealing with climate change of Britain's three mainstream parties. Particular praise was given to the Lib Dems' Zero Carbon Britain proposal - calling for a reduction of Britain's carbon emissions to zero by 2050 - which was based on a report of the same name by the Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT). Said the Lib Dems' Lembit Opik, “These proposals were largely inspired by the Welsh based Centre for Alternative Technology and I would like to thank them for the ground-breaking work.”

While praising the party for this “huge, bold step”, what else have CAT said about the Lib Dems' proposals?

a) “their timeframe will not avoid dangerous climate change”;

b) “it does not move fast enough”;

c) “we believe 2050 is too late ... based on reading the latest climate science”;

d) “the tax-based policy proposed by the Lib Dems will not deliver the cuts we need”;

e) “unfortunately, we do not have until 2050 to make these cuts”.

Question 4. If the solutions proposed by even the best (and smallest) of our three main political parties are currently insufficient to deal with  Britain's contribution to climate change, are we:

a) fucked;

b) buggered;

c) screwed; or

d) none of the above?

Send your answers to: wherever seems appropriate. Best of luck, folks.

As the brutal crackdown in Burma continues, and international attention focuses on the role of China and Russia in blocking pressure on the military junta, it's worth pausing to consider our own role. According to a report released in July by Amnesty International and other NGOs, EU companies have been supplying crucial parts for military attack helicopters set to be sold to the Burmese regime. It must be asked, then, to what extent our own governments are themselves complicit in its brutalities.

New report by Amnesty International, Saferworld and other NGOs: EU-Made Rockets, Guns And Engines Risk Undermining Myanmar Arms Embargo

The proposed transfer to Myanmar (Burma) of a military helicopter containing components and technology from as many as six European Union countries threatens to undermine an EU arms embargo on Myanmar, according to a new report issued today.

‘Indian helicopters for Myanmar: making a mockery of the EU arms embargo?’, a report by European and international NGOs, including Amnesty International and Saferworld, cites credible sources who say that the Indian government is planning to transfer the Advanced Light Helicopter (ALH) to Myanmar. It reveals how the Indian-manufactured helicopter would not be operational without vital components from EU Member States and highlights the urgent need for stricter EU arms controls.

Should this transfer go ahead, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden and the UK could be undermining an EU arms embargo on Myanmar in place since 1988.

Variants of the ALH attack helicopter contain rocket launchers from Belgium; rockets, guns and engines from France; brake systems from Italy; fuel tanks and gearboxes from the UK and self-protection equipment from a Swedish company. German companies have been crucial to the design development of the ALH.

Saferworld’s Roy Isbister said:
“The EU embargo explicitly states that no military equipment should be supplied, either directly or indirectly, for use in Myanmar – what’s the point in having an arms embargo if it is not going to be implemented or enforced?”

Myanmar – or Burma – has a widely-documented record of serious human rights violations, which the United Nations has described as widespread and systematic. Such abuses include summary executions, torture, and the recruitment of child soldiers.

Amnesty International’s arms control researcher Helen Hughes said:
“Greater attention has to be given to the end-use agreements and the re-export of components from EU member states. Otherwise, these states could find themselves indirectly propping up a brutal regime which they themselves have condemned and whose violations have amounted to crimes against humanity.”

Info Birmanie, Burma Campaign, France said:
“The EU must stand by its obligations to prevent its military equipment being used in Burma and urge the Indian Government to stop this transfer. EU equipment must not be allowed to be used in connection with human rights abuses in Burma.”

The report also identifies US companies involved in the making of military equipment for the ALH despite a US arms embargo on Myanmar. Currently, there are no existing restrictions on India transferring these weapons to Myanmar.

The report calls on the EU to initiate immediate consultations with the Indian government. If India plans to supply or has indeed already supplied ALHs to Myanmar, EU member states should:

• withdraw all existing export licence authorisations and refuse any new applications for any transfers of components or technology that could be used for the ALH;
• discontinue all future production co-operation with India that might lead to transfers of embargoed equipment to Myanmar;
• attach to all future licences for transfers of controlled goods and technology to India a strict and enforceable condition prohibiting re-export to states under embargo.

In addition to improving national and EU practice, EU member states should give their full support to current efforts to develop an international Arms Trade Treaty, establishing globally-binding rules on arms transfers in accordance with international law and human rights standards.

The report can be viewed here.

For more information, please contact:

Nicola East, Amnesty International, Tel: +44 (0)207 413 5729; neast@amnesty.org

Sonia Rai, Advocacy and Communications, Saferworld, Tel: +44 (0)207 324 4646; srai@saferworld.org.uk

NGOs endorsing this report include:
Africa-Europe Faith & Justice Network (AEFJN), Belgium; Amnesty International; Armaments Information Office (RüstungsInformationsBüro), Germany; Burma Campaign France; Burma Campaign UK; Caritas France; Campagne tegen Wapenhandel, Netherlands; Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT), UK; Groupe de Recherche et d’Information sur la Paix et la Sécurité (GRIP), Belgium; Pax Christi Flanders; School for a Culture of Peace, Autonomous University of Barcelona (Spain); Swedish Fellowship of Reconciliation (SweFOR); Swedish Peace and Arbitration Society (SPAS); Saferworld, UK; Verification Research, Training and Information Centre (VERTIC), UK.

(from UK Watch, July 18th, 2007)

It is surely a joy without parallel watching the head of the British army, Richard Dannatt, putting his foot in it time and time again over the war in Iraq. First-off, he revealed to the Daily Mail some time ago that the presence of British troops “exacerbates the security problems” there - causing no small embarrassment for the Government as a consequence. Next, he was to reveal the rather inconvenient fact that the troops under the command of that body still referred to as the “Ministry of Defence” appear to have no capacity to actually defend the UK. As the Telegraph reported, in one memo Dannatt “told senior commanders that reinforcements for emergencies … are “now almost non-existent”:

“In the memorandum to fellow defence leaders, the Chief of the General Staff (CGS) confessed that “we now have almost no capability to react to the unexpected”. The “undermanned” Army now has all its units committed to either training for war in Iraq and Afghanistan, on leave or on operations.””

Another senior officer, cited in the same article, confirmed the meaning of Dannatt's comments:

“General Dannatt's appraisal means that we are unable to intervene if there is an emergency in Britain or elsewhere, that's self-evident ...

“But this is a direct result of the decision to go into Afghanistan on the assumption that Iraq would diminish simultaneously. We are now reaping the reward of that assumption.”

Well, brace yourself, because he’s just done it again. This time, in a speech recorded by Channel Four News, we hear the following from the lips of the General:

“Our opponents in the main are Iraqi nationalists, and are most concerned with their own needs - jobs, money, security, hope. And the majority, therefore, I would suggest are not bad people.”

Going simply on the direct and explicit statements of the British army's commander, then, we can sketch an illuminating picture of what that army is currently doing. It is effectively emasculating the security of the general British population by over-stretching itself in foreign countries; one significant reason for this over-stretch is its current deployment in Iraq, where its presence “exacerbates the security problems” for the Iraqi population, while engaging in warfare against people “most concerned with their own needs - jobs, money, security, hope”.

And yet, for whatever bizarre reason, the British public seem less than enthusiastic about lavishing praise on their armed forces. Who would have thought it.

(You’ll note, incidentally, that that last article I linked to quotes directly from the same speech by Dannatt, but apparently deems his comments on the Iraqi insurgents unworthy of mention. Unfortunately, it is far from alone in this respect.)

UPDATE: Well, I thought it worth waiting until the next day to see if coverage of these revelations had improved, but the results are as they were last night: one brief mention in print (the Guardian), and one on television (yesterday’s Channel Four News). Most of the mainstream media are certainly reporting on Dannatt’s speech - they’re simply failing to give any attention to the most important bit.

Dannatt’s comments on Afghanistan, and the “Taliban” fighters we hear so much about, are also well worth mentioning. According to the Guardian:

In Afghanistan, he said, there was a lazy tendency for [our opponents] all to be lumped under the term “Taliban”. It was not as simple as that, he said. There was a hard core of Islamist extremists of varied ethnic and national origin, but the “great majority of the people we are engaged against are those who are fighting with the Taliban for financial, social, and tribal reasons.”

No More Blood For Oil.

fig. 1: Labour MP Denis MacShane confronts the Spectre Of The New Anti-Semitism. A.P. September 2007

If you're wondering what on earth the above is all about, and whether I might have lost the plot, be sure to have a look at Denis MacShane's recent article for the Washington Post, from which I draw my inspiration, and all will (hopefully) become clear. For a fuller analysis of this extraordinary article, read my latest blog entry on UK Watch.

As the ice caps continue their collapse into the sea at a rate far faster than anticipated, so too do the last shreds of the BBC’s dwindling credibility. A few days ago, I wrote to Peters Barron and Horrocks of the BBC, after their remarks in Edinburgh criticising a proposed day of broadcasting on climate change, provisionally titled Planet Relief. As it turned out, Barron’s criticisms of the project were in part based on the view that the “causes of climate change” constitute “a matter of controversy”. A similar level of controversy, of course, exists on the issue of the link between HIV and AIDS, or smoking and lung cancer, though this seems not to exercise Barron particularly.

Now the BBC have scrapped the idea entirely - although this decision apparently “was not made in light of the recent debate around impartiality”. That’s right, reader: the shelving of a programme a full 18 months in development a week after it came under attack by two very high-profile journalists is a matter of mere coincidence, before you go getting any ideas.

It appears that Barron and Horrocks were following the lead of another major journalistic celebrity, Jeremy Paxman, who stated that the BBC’s coverage of climate change “abandoned the pretence of impartiality long ago”. Of course, as I and others have suggested, the BBC’s very concept of “impartiality” is so thoroughly selective and weighted as to be utterly partial in and of itself. But they don’t appear to have taken these observations on board, and so it is that the verbal onslaught has, in this instance, been such a success. Perhaps it’s time for a counter-offensive.

peter.barron@bbc.co.uk

peter.horrocks@bbc.co.uk

http://www.bbc.co.uk/info/contactus/serious_form.shtml (BBC Programme Complaints Unit)

fraser.steel.01@bbc.co.uk (Head of the BBC Programme Complaints Unit)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints (General Complaints)

It is heartening to discover the campaign for direct action against the root causes of climate change gathering new and noteworthy supporters before our very eyes. Gordon Clark recently cited the remarks of ex-presidential candidate and high-profile campaigner on climate change Al Gore, and of prominent NASA climatologist James Hansen, in support of such campaigns:

In his recent global warming op-ed in the New York Times (“The Big Melt,” August 16, 2007), Nicholas Kristof reported on a conversation with Al Gore in which the former Vice-President said: “I can’t understand why there aren’t rings of young people blocking bulldozers, and preventing them from constructing coal-fired power plants.” His comment was a reaction to the ever-quickening pace of polar ice meltoff, with all its catastrophic implications, and the huge role played by coal-fired power plants in advancing our demise through global warming.

Gore's comment was also strikingly similar to a recent quote from Dr. James Hansen, the top climate scientist at NASA: “It seems to me that young people, especially, should be doing whatever is necessary to block construction of dirty (no CCS) coal-fired power plants.”

Gore presumably failed to notice last year’s action against Drax power station in Yorkshire (the largest coal-burning power plant in the UK) - but perhaps he can be forgiven that oversight. Clark is also, of course, quite right to point out that the onus falls not only on “young people” to take direct action - even if the most common stereotypes would seem to suggest otherwise.

The case for concern about coal in particular was powerfully made by John Harris in the Guardian this week. Terrifyingly, Harris notes,

The recent energy white paper … talks not only about securing “the long-term future of coal-fired power generation”, but the imperative “to optimise the use of our coal reserves”.

This is in the context of so-far unproven “carbon capture and storage” systems which, “[e]ven on the most optimistic projections, … won’t become viable on any convincing scale until well after 2030”.

Fortunately the movement for action on climate change within the UK, which has received such a shot in the arm after this year’s Camp for Climate Action, continues unabated - at least if this encouraging press release, courtesy of the Media Lens editors, is anything to go by:

POP UP CLIMATE CAMP AT FLOOD SUMMIT

3 September 2007
For immediate release

Activists from the Camp for Climate Action have set up camp this morning
outside the "Flood Summit" which is being held near Finningley Airport
near Doncaster. Using pop up tents, and displaying banners proclaiming
"Flying Costs the Earth", they will be leafleting delegates and inviting
them to attend workshops highlighting the links between aviation growth
and climate change.

Hosted by Yorkshire Forward, the summit is being billed as a chance "to
learn lessons from the floods" and it will be attended by John Hutton MP,
Secretary of State for the Department of Business, Enterprise and
Regulatory Reform and Steven Timms MP, Minister for Competitiveness. The
campers' message is that the summit is missing the point: it concentrates
solely on emergency response, rather than the policy changes needed to
prevent climate change spiralling out of control, with devastating
consequences for regions like Yorkshire.

Camp participant Rachel Goodweather said: "Climate change is real, it is
happening now and Yorkshire is in the front line. There is still a small
window of opportunity to prevent runaway feedback effects taking hold, but
the business-as-usual agenda of the government and Yorkshire Forward will
slam that window shut. Their Northern Way growth strategy prioritises
aviation and 25 million pounds of tax payers' money has been pumped into
Finningly airport. This is environmental lunacy."

"Plans to treble air passengers are incompatible with the scale of CO2
emissions reductions required to avert disaster. Emissions from aircraft
already account for nearly 20% of the UK's total contribution to global
warming. If emissions from other sectors meet their reduction targets
while aviation continues to grow, aviation emissions will use up 100% of
our national carbon budget sometime around 2030."

"The lessons from the Yorkshire flooding are clear - emissions from
aviation must be included in the climate bill and tax breaks and public
subsidies given to the airport industries must cease. Public money should
not be spent on hot air. It should be wisely invested in saving Planet
Earth."

ENDS

Contacts: 07847 815 926 (to speak to activists at the site) or 07828 632
136 (office)

Which brings me to my last article of topical commentary - this one by Alex Callinicos, an SWP stalwart and currently professor at King’s College London, who asks why “only” two thousand people turned up at the Heathrow Climate Camp. He adduces a couple of reasons: firstly, that “the camp organisers’ emphasis on specialised forms of direct action for which people had to be trained in advance must have helped keep the numbers down”; secondly, that because of the general emphasis on lifestyle, green consumerism and so on in the media, “[t]he idea that collective political action is essential to addressing climate change doesn’t yet seem relevant to many people”.

Callinicos’ proposed solution is far from expansive, but worth considering nonetheless. He writes:

“This will change as people develop greater confidence in their ability to change the world. Here numbers are important. Mass marches, dismissed by [Plane Stupid activist Joss] Garman as “boring and disempowering”, can give a sense of collective power …”

This is very much a value judgment, of course, but it occurs to me that one’s impression of empowerment probably differs according to whether you are on the Central Committee of one of the key groups organising the marches (as Callinicos, a member of the Central Committee of the SWP, has been with regard to the anti-war marches), or whether you are just another face in the crowd. Personally, I don't share Callinicos's optimistic view of such demonstrations. These marches do have a part to play, and a very significant one, in attracting and expressing mass support. But they are often pretty tedious, and very far from fostering a genuine sense of empowerment. The sense of empowerment generated by the Camp for Climate Action’s emphasis on collective decision-making, mass participation and autonomous direct action, on the other hand, was huge. I also share with many others the view that, powerful though the 2003 anti-war march was, its failure in preventing British participation in the invasion of Iraq owed a lot to the failure subsequently to capitalise on the mass support with an organised campaign of civil disobedience - a campaign which could have succeeded in raising the political costs for the government immeasurably. The Iraqi people, I'm afraid to say, have paid dearly for that failure on our part.

In any case, perhaps the most important point to raise is that this is obviously far from a case of “either/or” - and if different actions can be used to serve different functions in our campaign efforts, so much the better. International rallies for action on climate change, as it happens, are planned for the 8 December this year - definitely a date, dear reader, to make a note of.

Just a short note on another brief piece I wrote recently for the UK Watch blog, focusing on the democratic deficit in Britain, and on some attempts to re-think the orthodoxy of elitist representative democracy. You can read that piece here.

When it comes to discussing the record of the BBC in the mainstream media, there appear to be about three default positions one can take. The first is to state that the BBC’s aggressively left-wing, anti-establishment slant represents active bias, which deserves to be condemned. The second is that, on the contrary, the BBC is scrupulously impartial, a great British institution, and deserves to be defended. The third is that the BBC is indeed aggressively anti-establishment and liberal-left in its orientation, but that this is a good thing for our democracy, since it serves as an essential watchdog against potential abuses by the powerful. Illustrating just what a truism the “left-wing” framing has become - and the extent to which it sets the agenda in mainstream debate - is a cartoon on page 8 of this week’s edition of Private Eye, in which a TV repair man stands beside an obviously tilted TV, the words “BBC” emblazoned across the screen, with the caption, “I think I’ve found the problem… It leans to the left”.

A recent piece in the Media Guardian is rather illuminating on the extent to which reality bears this out. According to the article,

Two of the BBC’s most senior news and current affairs executives attacked the corporation's plans yesterday for a Comic Relief-style day of programming on environmental issues, saying it was not the broadcaster's job to preach to viewers.

The event, understood to have been 18 months in development, would see stars such as Ricky Gervais and Jonathan Ross take part in a “consciousness raising” event, provisionally titled Planet Relief, early next year.

But, speaking at the MediaGuardian Edinburgh International Television Festival yesterday, Newsnight's editor, Peter Barron, and the BBC’s head of television news, Peter Horrocks, attacked the plan, which also seems to contradict the corporation's guidelines. Asked whether the BBC should campaign on issues such as climate change, Mr Horrocks said: “I absolutely don’t think we should do that because it's not impartial. It's not our job to lead people and proselytise about it.” Mr Barron said: “It is absolutely not the BBC’s job to save the planet. I think there are a lot of people who think that, but it must be stopped.”

Planet Relief appears to contradict BBC guidelines on impartiality. In June a BBC-endorsed report set out 12 principles on impartiality, warning that the broadcaster “has many public purposes of both ambition and merit - but joining campaigns to save the planet is not one of them”.

Evidently the pressure these remarks put on the corporation paid off. As the article continues,

A BBC spokeswoman said: “This idea is still in development and the intention would be to debate the issue and in no way campaign on a single point of view.”

The implications of this for any potential event put on by the BBC are disturbing, to say the least. If sentiments such as “we need to rein in our greenhouse gas emissions to the level necessary for preventing runaway climate change” can be considered to be a “single point of view”, then it would now appear to be off the BBC’s agenda - essentially neutering the entire project.

I decided to write to Horrocks and Barron to see what they would have to say on this matter. I wrote:

Dear sirs,

I was most intrigued to read in the Media Guardian of your no-nonsense remarks on the BBC’s potential involvement in a “consciousness raising” day of programming on climate change. As you so rightly object, “It is absolutely not the BBC’s job to save the planet”; and such a project is, of course, “not impartial”.

http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,,2156758,00.html

Since you evidently hold both the defining purpose of the BBC and the ethic of impartiality in such high regard, I hope you will soon be extending the same outspoken condemnation to other BBC broadcasts.

Comic Relief, for instance. Clearly it is not the BBC’s job to give aid to those suffering extreme poverty - there are aid agencies, after all - and such programmes are, of course, far from impartial, completely excluding the views of those who believe the poor should be left to suffer and die from hunger and disease; and also of those who regard the poor and starving as the deserving recipients of divine retribution.

Then again, perhaps a programme like Crimewatch is more worthy of your immediate attention. For it is obviously not the BBC’s job to catch criminals - that’s for the police - and to help do so is hardly impartial, since it excludes the views of, say, the criminal underclass for whom the law is simply an irrelevance.

So, in the knowledge that you are both principled individuals not afraid to make your voices heard, I am confident we shall soon be hearing of your valiant efforts to get wholly inappropriate programmes like Comic Relief and Crimewatch axed forever. I, for one, wish you the best of luck.

Yours sincerely,

Tim Holmes

Horrocks, alas, never replied; but I received a prompt response from Peter Barron, who wrote:

Thanks Tim,

I sense the irony in your email, but the issue of impartiality does need
to be taken into account in every programme we do, Comic Relief and
Crime Watch included. Where there are questions of political controversy
as to how best to respond to issues like climate change the BBC must be
careful not to align itself to a particular cause.

Yours sincerely

Peter Barron

I replied in turn:

Dear Peter,

I am glad you share my concerns about impartiality in all areas of the BBC’s output. Will you then be declaring that programmes such as Comic Relief and Crime Watch “must be stopped” also? As I have pointed out, there are grounds for controversy surrounding the issues these programmes address which are at least as credible as the “political controversy” surrounding climate change to which you refer. I think that’s a fair comment - though if there are grounds to consider the political controversy surrounding climate change more credible, I'd be glad to hear of them.

Many thanks,

Tim Holmes

I received this is response:

Dear Tim,

I was asked at Edinburgh about the BBC campaigning on green issues, and
gave my view that it is not the BBC’s job to save the planet. That’s
because the issue of how to respond to climate change - and indeed the
extent and causes of climate change - is a matter of controversy. Every
programme made by the BBC must follow the guidelines on impartiality,
and that includes Comic Relief and Crimewatch.

Best wishes

Peter

This response was perhaps the most incredible. I replied again:

Dear Peter,

You write that “the issue of how to respond to climate change - and indeed the extent and causes of climate change - is a matter of controversy.”

Quite so - just as the causes of extreme poverty are controversial, as I have suggested: some people of a religious persuasion, to repeat, take the view that the root cause of poverty and destitution is divine punishment for past sins, and that the poor may therefore be rightfully abandoned. Why should we exclude this entirely valid point of view in events like Comic Relief?

In any case, I am surely preaching to the converted. You have twice confirmed that programmes like Comic Relief should indeed conform to standards of impartiality, and hence, by your own logic, should be scrapped. I am glad you support this point of view, and shall proudly be citing it in my further campaign efforts on this issue.

As we know, any claims to impartiality are meaningless if we do not give as much time to religious fanatics as we do to aid agencies; to Holocaust deniers as we do to serious historians; to the flat-earth society as we do to NASA; and to the scientifically illiterate as we do to climate scientists.

All the best,

Tim Holmes

Barron’s point about impartiality seems, superficially, to make sense - until one examines the assumptions behind it. Implicit in the idea of impartiality and “balance”, that other buzzword of broadcast journalism, is the recognised legitimacy of both sides in the debate - which is why you don’t see David Irving making primetime documentaries on the Nazis, for example. But public legitimacy is, of course, a function of power. As Mark Lynas puts it, “The reality, as most journalists will tell you after a couple of drinks, is that “fairness” largely consists of balancing out and accommodating the most powerful lobbies and the loudest voices.” Those with the best funding, the slickest P.R. departments, and the most ready access to the media (particularly the corporate media) inevitably have an inherent advantage over the rest of us - as do those peddling a message the powerful want heard.

If the remarks of Horrocks and Barron (not to mention the BBC’s subsequent response) are anything to go by, the results are pretty predictable. In the teeth of a near-total consensus on anthropogenic climate change among scientists, in the public sphere the appearance of a genuine controversy still persists. Whether outlets like the BBC will be able to shake themselves awake before it’s too late will depend very much on people like you and me, and the pressure we bring to bear on them.