{"id":363780,"date":"2025-01-28T17:41:14","date_gmt":"2025-01-28T16:41:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=363780"},"modified":"2025-01-28T17:41:15","modified_gmt":"2025-01-28T16:41:15","slug":"start-the-week-as-you-mean-to-go-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=363780","title":{"rendered":"Start the Week as You Mean to Go\u00a0On"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Climate Scepticism<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By\u00a0Mark Hodgson<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just stop propaganda<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Start the Week is a programme on BBC Radio 4 which, as its name suggests, is broadcast at 9am on Mondays. This week\u2019s edition<\/a> is titled \u201cClimate Crisis: truth, lies and compromise<\/em>\u201d. Its contents are summed up in the programme blurb on the BBC website. They fall into three parts. First, there\u2019s a section on a play written by Joe Robertson and Joe Murphy about the drama surrounding the Kyoto Protocol \u2013 which the BBC website breathlessly describes as \u201cone of COP\u2019s greatest successes<\/em>\u201d. I should have known that the BBC would find its way to this, since the Guardian has already, rather predictably, featured it at least four times: 15th<\/sup> June 2024<\/a>; 25th<\/sup> June 2024<\/a> ; 29th<\/sup> November 2024<\/a>; 25th<\/sup> January 2025<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second part is a hook to plug Mike Berners-Lee\u2019s latest book, \u201cA Climate of Truth<\/em>\u201d. The final part also offers a book plug, this time for \u201cIn the Shetland Way: Community and Climate Crisis on my Father\u2019s Islands<\/em>\u201d by Marianne Brown. As regular readers will know, I\u2019m keenly interested in the whole story story of the Viking Energy Wind Farm<\/a> on Shetland Mainland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t propose to dwell on the first part of the programme about the Kyoto play, because it was the later discussions that really irritated me. If you\u2019re interested in the play, you can listen to the BBC programme podcast (the link is above). Having said that, the introduction by Adam Rutherford is probably worth transcribing, since it displays the BBC\u2019s bias from the off, so here goes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adam Rutherford (AR): Well the science is settled, more or less, and has been for a while \u2013 we are in the midst of the climate crisis. [Well, we all know that\u2019s how the BBC sees it, anyway. No dissent allowed]. But the arguments still rage, and we\u2019re paralysed by political disagreement. We will \u201cdrill, baby drill\u201d said President Trump in his inaugural speech last week, and then he took the US out of the Paris Agreement on climate change. Mike Berners-Lee thinks it should be called the poly-crisis, not the climate crisis, as the world faces a multitude of problems from plastic pollution to biodiversity loss, from food insecurity to a tidal wave of political dishonesty. His new book \u201cA Climate of Truth\u201d asks what will it take for us to do better? One answer may come in the form of renewable energy, but in her<\/strong> book, \u201cThe Shetland Way\u201d, Marianne Brown looks at how a major wind farm has caused deep disagreement in the community, tearing families and friends apart\u2026. [Then he starts the programme proper with the Kyoto play. At five minutes 30 seconds there was a problem with a microphone, so Adam Rutherford moved the discussion to the others].<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AR: I\u2019m going to ask Mike, so we are<\/strong> up to COP29, 30 will be, I think it\u2019s Brazil later this year, but I get a sense from you and your work that you feel pretty cynical about the levels of agreement and their efficacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MB-L: Well, we have to stand back and look at 29 COPs now, and whilst that process has been going on, every year greenhouse gas emissions have been getting, going up and up, so in other words we\u2019re accelerating into the problem and, if you put a, you know, a line through the graph of carbon emissions, a line for COP1, you know, you won\u2019t find any trace of any evidence at all that that curve has noticed, er, has noticed that those COPs have been taking place. So, what I thought was so powerful about the play was just this, er, dramatisation of the flat-out sabotage that went on in COP3. It\u2019s exactly, that sabotage has been going on through 29 COPs now, and it\u2019s the reason why we\u2019re accelerating into the problem still, so it\u2019s quite a difficult watch in a way, but very powerful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AR: And Marianne, just to bring it back to the very local<\/strong> level, because this is about inter-governmental, you know, countries arguing about these things, but, but that sense of the, the, the subterfuge that\u2019s going on in the room is something that you\u2019ve experienced in the Shetlands [sic] in discussing this major wind farm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MB: Erm, I don\u2019t know about subterfuge, I mean, I think, er, in Shetland there was, there was kind<\/strong> of, my sense was people kind of did want, it was rooted in similar concerns and similar desire for er, new, something new and good for Shetland. It\u2019s just that, er people had different ideas about what that would be. So, some people thought they needed a massive onshore wind farm and some people really strongly felt that it was too big and in the wrong place. And in the end nobody got what they wanted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AR: Did you see parallels in those discussions with, with what was happening in Kyoto in the play?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MB: Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think actually probably the most comparable thing is the local media up in Shetland because it really, from my perspective, looked like people kinda shouting at each other over a parapet, you know, using opinion pieces in the local press. And it\u2019s a really great local press, I should stress. They\u2019ve got a really thriving, wonderful local press. And it was serving a good point, but yeah, absolutely, it felt, like opposition, just shouting at each other. There wasn\u2019t really any space for conciliation. At that point the discussion reverted to the Kyoto play. At 17 minutes, they move on].<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AR: Well, we\u2019ll come to discuss the effectiveness of that Agreement [Kyoto] in just a minute, but Marianne, I want to talk about your book, The Shetland Way, because that\u2019s a global agreement (I\u2019m sort of doing air quotes there) but in Shetland, in your story, you\u2019ve got a very<\/strong> tight-knit community \u2013 community is everything on Shetland \u2013 the agreement was not forthcoming when it came to this major wind farm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MB: Yeah, erm, so, so my connection to that story er is very personal. So, my dad is from Shetland, but I didn\u2019t, I wasn\u2019t very close to my dad, I didn\u2019t really grow up with him. My parents split when I was very little, erm, and it was only when he died that, erm, I went up to Shetland and ended up getting stuck there cos of lockdown. I had intended to go for his funeral, and be there for a couple of weeks. I ended up being there for seven months, erm, stuck in his house he\u2019d built on his ancestral croft and just outside the front door there\u2019s a ruin where his grandparents had lived. Across the road from that is a house his dad had built where my dad had grown up, and from the kitchen window you can pretty much see the grave? where are a lot of them are buried. So I was kind of like intensely in this space where oh my gosh there are like Browns everywhere. I can\u2019t escape from the Browns, erm, and then I realised towards the end of my stay there that from the periphery of the croft you could see hills where there\u2019s gonna be this huge dramatic change, and that was going to be an onshore wind farm, which was pitched to be the biggest onshore wind farm in the whole of Britain. And this was gonna be transformational for the islands and it was also transformational for me, because I was like, I had been a journalist involved in the environment, erm, covering environmental issues for years and suddenly, and you know normally I\u2019m like yeah, let\u2019s build wind farms. But then I was just thinking oh my gosh, actually I feel really connected to this landscape now and I, there was a new story emerging, for me it was like, what do I really feel about this landscape, and I really want to understand more about it. So then I kind of went on a journey, thinking right, I wanna, I want to speak to people and understand how they connect to this place, how this story emerged, because it was a really fascinating story this windfarm. It had been pitched twenty years ago as, erm, as a community-owned wind farm. There would be, it was basically a plan to replace oil revenues, because they\u2019d had this great deal in the seventies\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AR: Pitched by whom?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MB: So, erm, some key<\/strong> players, erm, in the Council, politicians, business people, in Shetland folk were already involved in the emerging wind industry, so very canny people\u2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AR: Shetland\u2019s got this long, long history of association with, of, of energy production\u2026oil, whale blubber\u2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MB: Absolutely<\/strong>. It\u2019s fascinating, for such a small population in the extreme north of Britain, it\u2019s been really central to energy exploitation for, for Britain, er so in the seventies the Coincil managed to broker this really great deal while the good \u2013 it was a deal that changed Shetland, erm, where they basically managed to keep a fraction of the revenues from oil and gas in the isles, and that really transformed the economy. So they, obviously the coffers were going down and, erm, they wanted to maintain this level of wealth, so it\u2019s like what\u2019s the next thing we can do, it\u2019s literally blowing in their faces, you know, this wind, you know, it\u2019s the windiest place in Britain, so let\u2019s do something about it. So they\u2019re like let\u2019s build this massive project \u2013 it had to be massive because it\u2019s only a little population, 23,000 people. So they had to build an interconnector, and for that to happen it had to be vast, so this project was gonna service 500,000 people, er 500,000 households, I should say. But there\u2019s only 10,000 households in Shetland, so the vast majority of this is going to be exported. So that\u2019s an issue in itself, but initially it was pitched as the community-owned thing. But over the, over the years, you know, a very vocal sizeable group of folk were like, actually no we don\u2019t want this, we don\u2019t agree with this, erm, it\u2019s in the wrong place, erm, it\u2019s too big, and their disruption derailed the plans, so it ended up being SSE majority owned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AR: So it\u2019s a very complex disagreement and I know that wind farms and wind turbines, the presence of them is often controversial anyway, as eyesores, the various environmental effects that they have, but there was more to it on Shetland as well. Part of it was the debate about whether the peat that they were building them on was a carbon sink or how that worked, so what were <\/strong>the levels of disagreement?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MB: Oh, so many, erm, unfortunately you probably don\u2019t have time for me to talk about them all. But, but, yeah, peat was a really clear one, erm, I mean, the actual project itself was built on degraded peat, erm, so there was an argument for restoring that peatland, but yeah, of course peat, degraded peat can be a carbon emitter because it\u2019s not storing that peat in the ground\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AR: Otherwise peat is a big carbon sink\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MB: Exactly, exactly, and that\u2019s why we\u2019ve got to look after them, but it\u2019s also at risk from climate change, because it dries out the peat and then it cannot hold the water in. So, yeah that was a huge big thing, but there was also the threat to wildlife, wildlife is so<\/strong> important up in Shetland. You know, we\u2019re seeing species extinction as Mike points out in his book, it\u2019s part of the poly crisis, erm, and in Shetland it\u2019s still a kinda, a home for so many species that haven\u2019t, that are still surviving in the little pockets, erm, and it\u2019s like well we need to protect this. It\u2019s so important to Shetland, so what will the effect of the wind turbines be? Will they, like, slice into the flight paths of these really iconic birds and other creatures, you know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AR: The rain geese.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MB: Yeah, so can I, will you forgive me if I try and do my rain goose impression?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AR: I would love you to:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MB: OK, right, so prepare yourselves, it kinda goes, erm [impression], and that wasn\u2019t an angry chicken, that was me trying to be a red-throated diver, yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AR: Well, I\u2019ll take it on trust that that was accurate, but the arguments that wind turbines, erm, are very damaging to birds, bats and various other flying creatures, that\u2019s a long-standing argument but it was specific, not just for their flight paths, but also for their nesting grounds\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MB: Yeah, their nesting grounds are really important, and red-throated divers, they\u2019re such amazing beautiful birds, and what I really wanted to do was talking about their story as well, was just, try and understand how the landscape and connection to place isn\u2019t just one view. It\u2019s kinda like, like a kaleidoscope you\u2019re turning around, it\u2019s a million things all at once, and it\u2019s changing all the time, but everything\u2019s still connected, so that\u2019s kinda what, what I was using the rain goose for, erm, so the rain goose is really important culturally in Shetland because it\u2019s associated with changes in the weather and there\u2019s a phrase which, oh, I\u2019m gonna try and remember what it is, oh my God, erm\u2026.it\u2019s to do with the call and it\u2019s either going to be a downpour, or it\u2019s either gonna be light rain and either you can stay on land or you\u2019ve, you can go out to sea and it\u2019s all to do with that. So that kinda connects actually with how dangerous the land, the land was<\/strong> not that long ago, you know, in the mist you might fall off a cliff, or end up being drowned in a peat bog and these symbols in the landscape are important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AR: In the complexities of the arguments \u2013 because you talk about how families and friends were, were, driven apart, and maybe those rifts will never heal is part of the implication \u2013 but, but it\u2019s not binary, it\u2019s not NIMBYism necessarily, there are so many factors involved. How do, I mean, how do the arguments unfold?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MB: Yeah, that\u2019s a good question. I mean, I think from my impression, I wasn\u2019t there, but from piecing together afterwards and talking to people, it was really erm, in sort of 2008 a few years after the initial plans had been put into place that a group of people, a big group of people, they\u2019re called Sustainable Shetland, so they were the main opposition group, they said no we don\u2019t want this, we feel like we haven\u2019t been listened to, and this was a really key theme throughout the book. It was listening, which is really interesting because that\u2019s a lot of what your play talks about as well, Joe. Erm, so it\u2019s, they really felt they hadn\u2019t been consulted, so they were like, nah, and they said they disagreed with the planning process, so they took, erm, they took the Ministers to Court. And that was initially upheld, so there was a big delay in how the project went on, and then eventually it went to appeal, and then it ended up\u2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AR: But it did<\/strong> happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MB: Of course, yes, yeah, the wind farm is<\/strong> operating right now. It went online in the autumn and I went up there and saw the turbines turning away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AR: Joe, you look like you had something to say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joe Murphy [one of the Kyoto playwrights]: I\u2019m not suggesting that what I\u2019m about to ask will solve the particular problem of the Shetland Islands, but I do sometimes wonder if one of the, erm, problems with wind turbines, which I love <\/strong>aesthetically, is that everywhere they are, they\u2019re the same white wind turbine. White, big, huge. And I wonder if part of the community decisions that you\u2019re talking about could be to, to change the colour of them, to design them. Would that be something that would shift the dial slightly?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MB: Er, I don\u2019t think so, I think \u2013 I don\u2019t want to speak for everyone in Shetland, obviously \u2013 but I think it\u2019s I think the visual aspects are really an interesting question, and I think that it would be a different conversation if we could see the carbon emissions, you know, if carbon emissions were bright pink, and we saw the stuff that was like pumping out of SUVs and pumping out of planesand going into our children\u2019s lungs [digression, it\u2019s CO2, not carbon, and it won\u2019t do any harm to your children\u2019s lungs \u2013 though I concede that other things pumping out of SUVs and planes might do so] I don\u2019t think we\u2019d be so fixated on what the wind turbines look like. But, there\u2019s also an aspect of looking at a turbine and, you know, and seeing what you feel, so it\u2019s like, if you look at a turbine and you think this is exporting all the energy, all the profits away from me, this is like an imposition in my landscape, I hate<\/strong> it, I don\u2019t want it here, erm, you know, that\u2019s an obvious connection. But if you see it, and you\u2019re like, I own<\/strong> it, that I<\/strong> get the direct benefits from this, I have control over this, I have agency, it\u2019s a different conversation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[Digression. I am aware that Marianne Brown interviewed many Shetland people as part of the process of writing her book \u2013 certainly more than I have spoken to \u2013 but I can\u2019t help feeling, based on my own conversations, that her final comments above completely miss the point].<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AR: There\u2019s a technological aspect to this as well, though, because we, you\u2019ve described how we\u2019ve reached the point where the turbines are generating much more energy than is useful for the local environment, but it can\u2019t be stored, it\u2019s, it exceeds exportation, and so the government [no, actually it\u2019s the poor long-suffering taxpayers \u2013 the government doesn\u2019t have it\u2019s own money] is now paying them to turn them off, which feels like a Kyoto-style absurdity, because the tech just doesn\u2019t exist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[Digression \u2013 imagine a world in which BBC Verify investigated the billions of pounds being paid to turbine companies in constraints payments. Imagine a world in which the BBC thought to ask whether SSE might have jumped the gun with Viking Energy, in the knowledge that it would make loads of money out of constraints payments because it knew full well that the grid wouldn\u2019t be able to cope with the electricity from Viking from August 2024. Just a thought].<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MB: Well, that\u2019s really interesting, as well, like, er, constraints payments, they\u2019re called, erm I was reading a report by an organisation called Regen? And they were saying actually<\/strong> the vast majority of constraint payments go to gas power plants to produce more<\/strong> in order to balance the grid. So we\u2019re not hearing that story, and you talk about the right-wing press Mike, a lot and truth, obviously, the truth is a lot more complicated than wind farms receiving benefits to switch off. The truth is the, the electricity network needs to be functioning properly, also needs renewable energy [er, it doesn\u2019t need<\/strong> renewable energy], and in order for it to catch up, it\u2019s go to pay wind farms to turn up. It\u2019s also got to pay gas plants to produce more, so\u2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[Imagine a world in which a BBC interviewer interjected at that point to explain that the owners of gas generators are paid to run them inefficiently because they are relegated to a subservient role on the grid \u2013 behind unreliable renewables, with the consequence that not only do we pay wind farms to switch off but gas power plants also cost more than necessary. This isn\u2019t a bug, or a glitch, it\u2019s a feature<\/strong> of a grid which incorporates increasing volumes of unreliable renewable energy. One can dream. Instead:]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AR: Mike, are there technological solutions to this, can we develop storage devices, batteries, that will mean that we don\u2019t, when the wind\u2019s not blowing, it\u2019s all good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MB-L: Yup. The good news about the whole of the climate crisis and the rest of the wider poly crisis is that from a technical<\/strong> perspective it\u2019s challenging, but we can deal with all of that. It turns out not to be the technology that\u2019s the problem. I mean, you know, what I love about your book, Marianne, is \u2013 one of the things I love about it \u2013 is the way that you unpick, you know, all the detail and complexity that\u2019s required to make a high quality decision, erm, around, around all this. It\u2019s such a different way of making decisions from the way, you know, the way we\u2019re classically talking about the climate crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[Note, he hasn\u2019t answered the question].<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AR: Before we get onto the tech, which is a big part of the conversation with you Mike, I just wanna ask Marianne where, where it stands in Shetland right now. It\u2019s operating, it\u2019s generating energy, how\u2019s the community?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MB: How\u2019s the community? Well, I haven\u2019t been up there, erm, for a while but, I mean, in speaking to the, the journalists up there who\u2019ve been interviewing me, I think the importance of this book is that it\u2019s starting a conversation again, and because I don\u2019t take a side in it it\u2019s quite, it\u2019s been encouraging that this might be something that, you know can be a positive point of er discussion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AR: OK. Well, Mike, you\u2019re the scientist, the climate scientist and have been all of your life [sic]. Climate of Truth is your book, erm, you\u2019ve just mentioned that the, the technology exists. We are not in a, in a point of time where the climate crisis [do they get paid extra for inserting the words \u201cclimate crisis\u201d at every opportunity?] just cannot be dealt with because we don\u2019t know how<\/strong> to?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MB-L: No, there are still some little gaps for complete clean energy transition, but it\u2019s not the technology that\u2019s the bottleneck at all. So, I\u2019ve been working away on, on climate for, erm, probably 20 years I guess, so full time on it, and you know, we\u2019ve been going round this circle of the scientists screaming, you know, talking ever more loudly about how much trouble we\u2019re in and how serious it is and how urgent it is, and the politicians, you know, broadly speaking, erm, you know, continuing not to take much notice [sic]. If you look at climate, at emissions curve, it\u2019s just going up and up and up as if we had never noticed, if humans had never noticed a climate crisis, so what I don\u2019t want do is get to my kind of death bed saying well I\u2019ve spent my life, you know, er, just, just going round in circles on this, or you know, and I don\u2019t want to, I don\u2019t want to be saying well, I told you so. So, we have, if we\u2019re gonna start getting anywhere, then we have to face the fact that we\u2019re not getting anywhere. It\u2019s not that, erm, you know Antonio Guterres and the UN said, you know, er er, we\u2019re making progress but not fast enough. Actually, the facts are against him. We\u2019re not making progress. We are, every year we\u2019re making the world worse by a larger amount than the year before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[That last is a good point, but he still hasn\u2019t answered the question about how technology solves this for us].<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AR: OK, so before, before we get to what you argue are the real problems, just briefly<\/strong> can you tell us what the technological fixes are that, that could<\/strong> dig us out of this crisis if we got our act together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[Credit to Adam Rutherford for noticing that the question hasn\u2019t been answered and sticking to it].<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MB-L: OK, so the first<\/strong> thing that we don\u2019t talk about enough is we need to use less energy at the global level [oh, does that mean that there isn\u2019t<\/strong> a technological fix?]. Er, then, when we\u2019re doing that, we need to constrain the fossil fuel coming out of the ground. The climate doesn\u2019t care actually how many wind turbines we have, what the climate cares about [er, the climate isn\u2019t a sentient being, it doesn\u2019t care<\/strong> about anything at all. Shouldn\u2019t a climate scientist know that?] is how little fossil fuel we\u2019re burning, and the wind turbines on their own don\u2019t leave the fossil fuel in the ground, so we need a constraint on fossil fuel usage. And actually \u2013 and extraction \u2013 and that\u2019s what the climate COPs have so far failed to deliver, and the reason we don\u2019t have a carbon price or a constraint on fossul fuel is because the very powerful fossil fuel er lobby understands erm that er we\u2019ll allow policy-makers more less to say and do anything they like as long as it won\u2019t constrain the fossil fuel coming out of the ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[Did you notice? He still<\/strong> hasn\u2019t answered the question. And it seems to have worked. Adam Rutherford is side-tracked in his next question].<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AR: Just unpick this idea that the more renewables, the more wind turbines, that we have, that doesn\u2019t have an effect on keeping fossil fuels in the ground. This is Jeevens Paradox.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MB-L: Jevens Paradox, yeah. So, the dynamics of growth when you and I explore this in some depth in the book are that when you add, er, a new energy source, you know, you create, er, you create a rise in energy demand and you create, as we become more efficient with things, we also tend to do more of it at an even faster rate than we become efficient at it. So, unless you constrain the actual environmental impact, erm, what you find is that the dynamics of growth are, things like wind turbines, we just have them as well as<\/strong> the fossil fuel. So at the moment we\u2019re growing our, we\u2019re growing our renewable capacity, but we\u2019re also<\/strong> growing our fossil fuel extraction at the same time and that\u2019s not good for the planet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[I still haven\u2019t heard what the technological soultion is].<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AR: You\u2019re asking people to radically change their lifestyles, you\u2019re asking governments to behave in entirely different ways. And, I, you know, and most right-thinking people don\u2019t doubt that the climate crisis is real and is indeed an emergency [cheers, Adam, that\u2019s me on the naught step, then], but you have to have some sort of notion of human nature to say that we can, that we are<\/strong> capable of changing our lifestyles in significant ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MB-L: Absolutely. Absolutely. So, erm, so my book is about saying well we\u2019re not getting anywhere so we have, if we want to understand what it will take to get somewhere, we have to stand right back from the problem. We have to see it in new ways from the ways we\u2019re classically looking at it. And we have to dig right underneath the surface, right down through the layers of the reasons behind the reasons why we\u2019re not getting anywhere. Learn from our failure, join up all different parts of the issue and see where that takes us to. And, you know, the big<\/strong> picture is that we\u2019ve arrived in this era \u2013 some people call it the Anthropocene \u2013 in which it\u2019s suddenly humans that are the big powerful force, erm, on affecting the ecosystem. And yet everything about how we do life, how we do economics, how we run our politics, how we make our decisions, all of that has been honed in a previous era in which the world was a robust place \u2013 robust compared to anything we could do to it \u2013 so it\u2019s unsurprising that we need to do some, some re-engineering of how we do life. It\u2019s a deep and fundamental change. We have to see that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[Did he actually say anything there? I\u2019m still waiting for the technological solution].<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AR [who definitely seems to have given up on trying to get an answer]: It struck me that this is a core theme in the disagreements in Joe\u2019s play in Kyoto, particularly the argument between America and China, where the Chines \u2013 then a developing nation \u2013 were saying you\u2019re asking us to not have the joys that you\u2019ve enjoyed for the last 200 years, and not<\/strong> have economic progress as a result of that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

JM: Absolutely right. You know, China was saying, you\u2019ve become a super-power because of fossil fuels and now you\u2019re saying that we can\u2019t have that chance, that\u2019s insane. And you can understand that there is a certain logic within that\u2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[At which point I also gave up. Nobody will criticise China; I don\u2019t know why. It seems that only the developed world has to change its ways. We were promised a technological solution that would make it OK, but instead I was told that we have to use less energy. The technological solution wasn\u2019t forthcoming, despite numerous attempts by Adam Rutherford to elicit it. I have a lot of time for Adam Rutherford. I even have one of his books on my book shelves. But I ended that programme (or as much of it as I could be bothered to listen to) wondering why he did this. Yet another BBC climate crisis piece of propaganda that really enlightened us not one jot. I also hoped for a deeper exploration of the Viking Energy debacle on Shetland, but I didn\u2019t get that either. Not many marks out of ten, I\u2019m afraid].<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Start the Week is a programme on BBC Radio 4 which, as its name suggests, is broadcast at 9am on Mondays.\u00a0This week\u2019s edition\u00a0is titled \u201cClimate Crisis: truth, lies and compromise\u201d. Its contents are summed up in the programme blurb on the BBC website. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":363781,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691818389,691818056,691818102,691825530,691832922,691820492],"class_list":{"0":"post-363780","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-bbc","9":"tag-climate-change","10":"tag-climate-crisis","11":"tag-cops","12":"tag-kyoto-protocol","13":"tag-paris-agreement","15":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/00sky-clouds-4k-ja.jpg?fit=3840%2C2160&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1wDq","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":413730,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=413730","url_meta":{"origin":363780,"position":0},"title":"The BBC: My Part in Its Downfall","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"18\/11\/2025","format":false,"excerpt":"The BBC has always been very Left-wing. But it didn\u2019t used to be biased.","rel":"","context":"In \"\u2018climate change denial\u2019\"","block_context":{"text":"\u2018climate change denial\u2019","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=climate-change-denial-2"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/0Screenshot-2025-11-18-100526.png?fit=1200%2C678&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/0Screenshot-2025-11-18-100526.png?fit=1200%2C678&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/0Screenshot-2025-11-18-100526.png?fit=1200%2C678&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/0Screenshot-2025-11-18-100526.png?fit=1200%2C678&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/0Screenshot-2025-11-18-100526.png?fit=1200%2C678&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":238175,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=238175","url_meta":{"origin":363780,"position":1},"title":"Lord Deben Repeats Pakistan Floods Lie\u2013BBC Fail To Challenge","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"06\/01\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"This is not the first time that Deben has been allowed to get away with outright falsehoods on a BBC programme.","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/image-227.png?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/image-227.png?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/image-227.png?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/image-227.png?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/image-227.png?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":268816,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=268816","url_meta":{"origin":363780,"position":2},"title":"Justin Rowlatt Flies To Spain To Tell Us It\u2019s Hot\u00a0There!","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"22\/07\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"The BBC\u2019s Justin Rowlatt and his editors have been accused of hypocrisy after he jetted off to Spain to report on the current heatwave and its links to the climate crisis.","rel":"","context":"In \"BBC\"","block_context":{"text":"BBC","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=bbc"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/OIG-7.jpeg?fit=1024%2C1024&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/OIG-7.jpeg?fit=1024%2C1024&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/OIG-7.jpeg?fit=1024%2C1024&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/OIG-7.jpeg?fit=1024%2C1024&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":204173,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=204173","url_meta":{"origin":363780,"position":3},"title":"\u2018Institutionally alarmist\u2019 BBC\u2019s stream of fake news on climate change","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"13\/06\/2022","format":false,"excerpt":"By Paul Homewood THE BBC has been accused of institutional alarmism about climate change in a\u00a0report\u00a0published by Net Zero Watch.\u00a0It reveals the BBC\u2019s persistent exaggeration and false information when it comes to climate and weather-related news. The study, written by me, reveals that the BBC has been forced to correct\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/0BBC1.jpg?fit=1200%2C591&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/0BBC1.jpg?fit=1200%2C591&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/0BBC1.jpg?fit=1200%2C591&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/0BBC1.jpg?fit=1200%2C591&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/0BBC1.jpg?fit=1200%2C591&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":434618,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=434618","url_meta":{"origin":363780,"position":4},"title":"Ofcom to investigate complaints of climate change\u00a0denial","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"27\/03\/2026","format":false,"excerpt":"This is frightening. Indeed, it is truly Orwellian: OFCOM, it appears, now want to police free speech.","rel":"","context":"In \"Climate change\"","block_context":{"text":"Climate change","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=climate-change"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/AQN7_5YirC2_wOg0JyM5RAu4rRFuXJfrVwGhqZl1yvMJ8upLHATg4uS-146si6Qvod4aEYXuRAEuJQxH03BIrmBk-3jBd4IwymfLn0A9iRhmPPoXf75HYCTBijZnaL_.jpeg?fit=1200%2C683&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/AQN7_5YirC2_wOg0JyM5RAu4rRFuXJfrVwGhqZl1yvMJ8upLHATg4uS-146si6Qvod4aEYXuRAEuJQxH03BIrmBk-3jBd4IwymfLn0A9iRhmPPoXf75HYCTBijZnaL_.jpeg?fit=1200%2C683&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/AQN7_5YirC2_wOg0JyM5RAu4rRFuXJfrVwGhqZl1yvMJ8upLHATg4uS-146si6Qvod4aEYXuRAEuJQxH03BIrmBk-3jBd4IwymfLn0A9iRhmPPoXf75HYCTBijZnaL_.jpeg?fit=1200%2C683&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/AQN7_5YirC2_wOg0JyM5RAu4rRFuXJfrVwGhqZl1yvMJ8upLHATg4uS-146si6Qvod4aEYXuRAEuJQxH03BIrmBk-3jBd4IwymfLn0A9iRhmPPoXf75HYCTBijZnaL_.jpeg?fit=1200%2C683&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/AQN7_5YirC2_wOg0JyM5RAu4rRFuXJfrVwGhqZl1yvMJ8upLHATg4uS-146si6Qvod4aEYXuRAEuJQxH03BIrmBk-3jBd4IwymfLn0A9iRhmPPoXf75HYCTBijZnaL_.jpeg?fit=1200%2C683&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":200173,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=200173","url_meta":{"origin":363780,"position":5},"title":"The BBC\u2019s (false) prophet of doom\u2013Ross Clark","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"17\/05\/2022","format":false,"excerpt":"By Paul Homewood The pressure builds on Justin Rowlatt, as Ross Clark weighs in: Anyone who watched the\u00a0BBC\u2019s Panorama programme on November 3 last year without previously having taken an interest in\u00a0climate change\u00a0probably found themselves terrified. That edition of the Beeb\u2019s flagship documentary series, called Wild Weather: Our World Under\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/0image-62.png?fit=594%2C732&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/0image-62.png?fit=594%2C732&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/0image-62.png?fit=594%2C732&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/121246920"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=363780"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363780\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":363784,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363780\/revisions\/363784"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/363781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=363780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=363780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=363780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}