{"id":18719,"date":"2025-07-14T09:22:24","date_gmt":"2025-07-14T16:22:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gelbspanfiles.com\/?p=18719"},"modified":"2025-10-16T12:10:46","modified_gmt":"2025-10-16T19:10:46","slug":"inconvenient-truth-the-bbc-buries-a-false-2020-climate-issue-report-title","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gelbspanfiles.com\/?p=18719","title":{"rendered":"Inconvenient Truth: The BBC Buries a False 2020 Climate Issue Report Title"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chris Morrison’s July 2 blog post at The Daily Sceptic, “BBC Complaints Director Takes Six-Month Sabbatical to Learn How to Promote \u2018Climate Crisis\u2019<\/a>,” was reproduced at Anthony Watts’ WUWT site as a guest post the next day<\/a>. After reading it at WUWT, I simply wanted to put in a comment reply saying I’d had my own encounter with that BBC Complaints Director, Colin Tregear, back in 2021, after I filed a complaint about BBC’s Radio 4 broadcast titled, \u201c\u2018Reposition Global Warming as theory, not fact.\u201d My BBC complaint detailed how there was no truth to that memo directive was evidence of the fossil fuel industry operating disinformation campaigns, so for my July 3 WUWT comment, I wanted to link straight to the BBC’s page with that false accusation phrase as its title of the broadcast episode within their series of \u201cHow They Made Us Doubt Everything\u201d reports, and then mention how BBC concluded that my complaint was meritless . . . . but that title wasn’t there\u00a0<\/strong>at the BBC’s otherwise unchanged program page.<\/p>\n

It’s possible – just potentially possible<\/em> – that as the result of my complaint, I managed to live rent-free long enough in someone’s mind at the BBC that they ultimately felt compelled<\/strong> to bury their fatal mistake of failing to check the veracity of the accusations supplied to them<\/a> (plural<\/a>!) by their guest<\/a> in that episode<\/a>, ex-Greenpeace Research Director Kert Davies<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The backstory here is a bit long, over the span of eight of my GelbspanFiles blog posts:<\/p>\n

1) 7\/31\/2020, “BBC Radio 4 vs Rush Limbaugh: ‘How They Made Us Doubt Everything’ Episode 6 ‘Reposition Global Warming as theory, not fact’<\/a>” \u2014 where I laid out the fatal faults with the accusations (plural) in the BBC podcast report about ‘leaked memos’ supposedly proving the fossil fuel industry deceiving the public by employing skeptic climate scientists ‘shills’ who spread disinformation.
\n2) 8\/5\/20, “BBC Radio 4 vs Rush Limbaugh, Pt 2: ‘I don\u2019t remember this stupid ad<\/em>.’<\/a>” \u2014 the late radio show host reacts to the BBC podcast report and a particular false line in it concerning him.
\n3) 10\/6\/20, “BBC ( sort of \u2026 ) Corrects Radio 4\u2026<\/a>” \u2014 the BBC’s correction explained nothing while making one error bigger and inadvertently admitting that their Radio4 report guest – Kert Davies – had a bit of a credibility problem.
\n4) 7\/9\/2021, “Status Update: my complaint to BBC \u2026<\/a> ” \u2014 in which the senior editorial staff at Radio 4 basically only dug a deeper hole for themselves, via what is described as the Stage 1 part of the BBC Complaints system.
\n5) 8\/18\/21, “BBC\u2019s Executive Complaints Unit Responds<\/a>” \u2014 BBC Complaints Director Colin Tregear’s lengthy<\/em> direct reply to me, “therefore do not believe there are grounds to uphold this aspect of your complaint. There is no further right of appeal against this decision within the BBC\u2019s complaints process but if you do wish to take the matter further, it is open to you to ask the broadcasting regulator, Ofcom<\/em>…”
\n6) 8\/24\/21, “I Appeal for a Reconsideration of BBC\u2019s Executive Complaints Unit \u2018Final Decision\u2019<\/a>” \u2014 after I jumped through several hoops just to get the appeal into the BBC system.
\n7) 9\/17\/21, “BBC Executive Complaints Unit\u2019s Response to my Appeal for a Reconsideration of their \u2018Final Decision\u2019<\/a>” \u2014 BBC Complaints Director Tregear replies twice to tell me to take my complaint one step higher to the British agency overseeing broadcasts, Ofcom
\n8) 11\/8\/21<\/strong>, “Ofcom Complaint”<\/a> \u2014 in which I succinctly explain how a rejected, never-used document cannot serve as evidence of actions operating in the directives of the document.<\/p>\n

Emphasis on the date of my last blog post in that series. That was the end of the line. No response from anyone at Ofcom, no indication anywhere that I could find that any action was taken to correct the situation or to admit fault. If any action had been taken, nobody told me about it.<\/p>\n

Did the industry pay scientist shills to deceive the public? If so, prove it, but the “reposition global warming” memos are inadmissible as evidence, as are the never-implemented “victory will be achieved” memos, the two pillars that BBC report was built on. At GelbspanFiles, I have detailed how both<\/a> memo sets were never implemented<\/a> anywhere.<\/p>\n

The huge problem now for the BBC is this:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

See what happened there? The specific name on the page for this episode was “How They Made Us Doubt Everything Episode 6 ‘Reposition Global Warming as theory, not fact’<\/em>,” and now it is “The Tobacco Playbook:<\/strong> 6. From Fact to Theory<\/strong><\/em>” \u2014 tantamount to an admission by BBC to the world that there was something dicey with the original title. That problem was precisely<\/em> what I detailed repeatedly in my complaint submissions to the BBC.<\/p>\n

Why does it look like the BBC seemingly admitted to fault with their report? Using the Internet Archive crawl scans of that page<\/a>, nothing<\/em><\/strong> in the text changed in that page from its start in mid-2020 until a point between 7\/14\/22 and 6\/14\/24, where the number count<\/em> of the episodes updated from “6 of 10<\/a>” to “6 of 17<\/a>.” However, between 6\/14\/24 and when I myself prompted the Internet Archive crawl of the page on July 3, 2025<\/a>, the number count changed from “6 of 17” to “13 of 17” . . . . along with the massively self-damaging rewording of the title.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Point being, that title change happened minimally 2\u00bd years after<\/strong><\/span> my complaint to BBC was deemed by BBC’s Colin Tregear to have ‘no grounds to uphold this aspect of <\/em>[my] complaint<\/em>” about the “reposition global warming” memos being literally worthless to serve as evidence<\/a> proving industry disinformation campaigns happened.<\/p>\n

I never received a solitary word from the Ofcom organization. Would they have decided to overturn Tregear’s decision and upheld my complaint 2\u00bd years<\/em><\/strong> later? I very much doubt that.<\/p>\n

If BBC Complaints Director Colin Tregear needs to take a 6 month sabbatical to learn anything<\/em>, it is what the reality of the climate issue actually is, on its science and its false accusations against skeptic climate scientists.<\/p>\n

The “reposition global warming” memos has been the mainstay since Day 1<\/a> \u2014 on through Ross Gelbspan’s book<\/a> and Al Gore’s movie<\/a> and the U.S. “ExxonKnew” lawsuits<\/a> and weeks-old U.S. Senate testimony<\/a> \u2014 for the accusation about the fossil fuel industry employing shill experts to undercut the ‘science consensus’ of man-caused global warming.<\/p>\n

The BBC made the cracks in that accusation grow bigger. When that whole accusation falls apart, the cracks in the whole climate issue get exponentially bigger. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again; we may end up seeing one of the biggest collapses of a political ideology in history if the whole thing falls apart.
\n\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014
\nThere’s more – Part 2<\/a>: I filed a new complaint at the BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chris Morrison’s July 2 blog post at The Daily Sceptic, “BBC Complaints Director Takes Six-Month Sabbatical to Learn How to Promote \u2018Climate Crisis\u2019,” was reproduced at Anthony Watts’ WUWT site as a guest post the next day. After reading it … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[58],"tags":[22,199,46],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gelbspanfiles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18719"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gelbspanfiles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gelbspanfiles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gelbspanfiles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gelbspanfiles.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18719"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/gelbspanfiles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18719\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18761,"href":"https:\/\/gelbspanfiles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18719\/revisions\/18761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gelbspanfiles.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gelbspanfiles.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gelbspanfiles.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}