I blogged last week about the BBC's planned Planet Relief programme. It now seems that the BBC have decided to cancel the event. The BBC report on this is quite funny in tone (my comments in italics)

"The BBC has scrapped plans for Planet Relief, a TV special on climate change, the BBC News website has learned."
"has learned", it's the same organisation; surely "has been told" would be closer to the truth or are we to believe that there was some investigative journalism involved?

"The decision comes after some senior executives expressed concern that the programme concept might breach impartiality guidelines."
Might! Maybe we bloggers had an effect on the BBC?

"Environmental campaigners slammed the decision as "cowardice".
It would presumably have been braver to bow to the usual "green agenda"

""This decision shows a real poverty of understanding among senior BBC executives about the gravity of the situation we face," said activist and writer Mark Lynas."
Says you

""The only reason why this became an issue is that there is a small but vociferous group of climate 'sceptics' lobbying against taking action, so the BBC is behaving like a coward and refusing to take a more consistent stance.""
The representatives of the political consensus love to brand anyone who disagrees with their cherished policy, "a sceptic"; no disagreement with "the narrative" is allowed.

"A number of right-wing commentators such as the Daily Mail's Keith Waterhouse also criticised the idea."
Do the BBC ever call a commentator from a position on the left of the political spectrum (assuming for a moment that such a spectrum exists) a "left-wing commentator"? Of course not, the left wing is the home of the sane and the correct; the right-wing must be labelled, derided and sidelined.

"However, executives associated with Planet Relief said the aim was not to campaign but to "raise consciousness" about the science of climate change, and to offer them the opportunity to take part in a mass temporary "switch-off" of electrical equipment."
"Raise consciousness", do these people really believe that anyone above the intellectual level of a Big Brother contestant needs their consciousness of Climate Change raised? A mass permanent switch off of televisions might improve the intellectual level of most Britons.

"Many blogs run by climate sceptics groups regularly accuse the BBC of bias, and of ignoring evidence which runs against the idea that elevated levels of greenhouse gases from fossil fuel burning and land clearance are raising temperatures around the world."

"climate sceptics" today, "climate deniers" soon. Maybe if the BBC covered the scientific evidence against Man Made Climate Change (MMCC) in a considered way then maybe they wouldn't be accused of bias. Maybe if the BBC covered the way that temperature data is fiddled and manipulated to give the results that the MMCC industry want then maybe they wouldn't be accused of bias. Read my earlier articles on MMCC here and follow the links therein; if nothing else, visit here and here.