Roger Harrabin, the BBC reporter whose April 4 story on global warming was altered after he was sent bullying emails by a climate change activist, has assured me the story was only changed to improve it, not to appease the activist.
I tried to get his comments before I published an article on Wednesday about this issue.
Harrabin emailed me today, saying his non-reply to my queries was because he’d been on holiday.
“Do you really think that I quaked in fear under a threat from an environmentalist that she would tell her friends about me?” he says. “Please….
“We are under incessant pressure on climate change mainly from sceptics. We changed the report to improve it.”
UK climate change activist Jo Abess posted a series of emails between her and Roger Harrabin boasting she had been responsible for changes to Harrabin’s story that revealed there had been no global warming since 1998.
The emails she published showed he initially resisted changing the article. After a particularly bullying email from her saying “I am about to send your comments to others for their contribution… you may appear in an unfavourable light because it could be said that you have had your head turned by the sceptics,” he responded: “Have a look in 10 minutes and tell me you are happier. We have changed headline and more.”
The article was then rewritten to downplay the fact that world temperatures had not risen since 1998, giving emphasis to predictions they would keep rising.
In particular, this key third sentence from the original was pushed down in the story: “This would mean global temperatures have not risen since 1998, prompting some to question climate change theory.” And this became the third: “But this year’s temperatures would still be way above the average – and we would soon exceed the record year of 1998 because of global warming induced by greenhouse gases.”
Update Sunday morning 10am: Roger Harrabin has emailed me saying he has written an article on the BBC Editors Blog about the issue of the changes to this story.
6 Comments
April 12, 2008 at 6:05 pm
“oger Harrabin, the BBC reporter whose April 4 story on global warming was altered after he was sent bullying emails by a climate change activist,”
More of a nudge I would say. The BBC has to stick to the line set by the proportion of experts who err on one side of the current (uncertain) but evolving state of knowledge. They say something like “the majority of scientists…but a minority disagree”
A journalist can’t just decide to override a majority of scientists even if it does add punch to the item.
April 12, 2008 at 11:24 pm
“Do you really think that I quaked in fear under a threat from an environmentalist that she would tell her friends about me?”
I guess our host would have more an idea if this is true than I would, as I dont know Mr Harrabin so well, personally I have to answer “I dunno?” to this apparent rhetorical question.
I can only go from what I see from the evidence of the date stamps. Within 30 minutes he changed from holding firm, to an apparent total capitualation to Ms Abbess. If the WMO or some BBC high up, or his conscience gave him the inspiration to completely rewrite the tenor of the article, then I would have liked a better answer than this apparent appeal to our incredulity.
Hey ho! I guess Mr Harrabin knows this will be lost in the blogosphere eventually, thanks for the update anyway
April 13, 2008 at 7:23 am
Roger Harrabin has just written something about this on the BBC site:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2008/04/climate_change_debate.html
April 13, 2008 at 9:39 am
Say your sorry Poneke!
Could you enlighten us on skeptics and global warming Poneke? Is this a Skeptics Society thing, if so why? Usually the Skeptics Society is arguing religion versus science or modernism v post modernism etc. I notice Dennis Dutton is a prominent AGW skeptic but he uses science against science where the knowledge is provisional and evolving but a big majority are pro.
Here’s a response to the claim “Global warming ended in 1998″ from Gristmill.
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/11/4/175028/329
July 5, 2008 at 11:21 am
Jo Abbess is a bully, Roger Harriban is a coward. What was originally reported was factual, at least as factual as the garbage Abbess is spouting. By that I mean it was based on as much evidence. From the e-mail trail it is plain that Jo Abbess’ ONLY concern that was that people would discover a potentially counter argument.
If Jo Abbess were any kind of scientist – which I doubt she is – she would understand that scientific analysis HAS to be based upon sound “base-line data” …. Global Warming is not. The instrumentation used to record meteorological data until the past 20 yrs has been at best crude, typically primitive(as a meteorologist who has used the instrumentation the argument is based upon I do know what I am talking about). So to build an argument – either for, or against – around global warming using data older than 20 yrs is folly.
If you think that an asumption on global doom and disaster can be based on flawed data the you are foolhardy – at best, stupid – at worst
July 5, 2008 at 7:15 pm
For a little bit of light relief from the slugging going on at “Wishart’s crusade against….”, and the onset of some wild wet windy and snowy colder weather, Jos Joslyn has a point.
“Jo Abbess is a bully, …”
I would be totally surprised if Joe Abbess is any one other than a bully and an apt description for her beliefs could best be described as a follower of enviro-fundamentalism. With her self description as having morphed into an environmental campaigner after having absorbed bucket loads of “knowledge” from reading mountains of critical reports she now claims, so it appears, to justify wrapping herself in a cloak of enviro-legitimacy.
Here is an example of someone who is a true believer in the religion of man made global warming and taking on the disciples role of the truly neo-religious fundamentalist alluded to in Poneke’s “Bullshit detector…” article and also described by the talented journalist Bret Stephens in his July article Global Warming as Mass Neurosis http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121486841811817591.html kindly referenced by Owen McShane.
Karl Marx was well known, along with his many other notable statements, for describing religion as the opiate of the people, a revelation that fits like a glove onto those neo-religious enviro-fundamentalists and followers who after having snorted on the opium of the pushers, those warming preachers, like all hooked users find it difficult to kick the habit before it scrambles their brains.