"Action is urgently needed" - yes that's the message

The BBC report the findings of an opinion poll and they are not happy...

"The number of British people who are sceptical about climate change is rising, a poll for BBC News suggests.

The Populus poll of 1,001 adults found 25% did not think global warming was happening, a rise of 8% since a similar poll was conducted in November.

The percentage of respondents who said climate change was a reality had fallen from 83% in November to 75% this month.

And only 26% of those asked believed climate change was happening and "now established as largely man-made".

The findings are based on interviews carried out on 3-4 February.

"It is very unusual indeed to see such a dramatic shift in opinion in such a short period," Populus managing director Michael Simmonds told BBC News.

"The British public are sceptical about man's contribution to climate change - and becoming more so," he added.

"More people are now doubters than firm believers." "

Of course this being the oh so 'warmist' BBC the message they would like you to take from this is not that the people aren't as dumb as the BBC and IPCC would like them to be but that this is indicative as being a serious problem.

"The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs' (Defra) chief scientific adviser, Professor Bob Watson, called the findings "very disappointing".

"The fact that there has been a very significant drop in the number of people that believe that we humans are changing the Earth's climate is serious," he told BBC News.

"Action is urgently needed," Professor Watson warned.

"We need the public to understand that climate change is serious so they will change their habits and help us move towards a low carbon economy." "

The passage that really got to me was this one:

"During the intervening period between the two polls, there was a series of high profile climate-related stories, some of which made grim reading for climate scientists and policymakers."

So "grim reading for climate scientists and policymakers", are facts not important? Should the truth have been suppressed in the interests of 'policy'?

Meanwhile a journalist Mehdi Hasan writing in the New Statesman wonders

"Why is our public service broadcaster giving credence to climate conspiracy theories? "

He does this by quoting Sunny Hundal's Guardian piece that includes this line that is so far removed from reality that I had to do a double-take:

"After watching last night's Newsnight, I can only come to one conclusion: the BBC has become this country's most pernicious climate-change-denying media outlet in the UK."