The Guardian reports:
A Tory minister has lashed out at the BBC over its coverage of climate change, claiming it gives too much prominence to sceptics.
Greg Barker suggested “the sceptic press” often used research that had not been peer-reviewed to bolster its position and accused the “Sunday newspapers” of presenting comment as science.
But the climate minister honed in on the way the publicly funded BBC still focused on the “sterile” debate over whether it existed when most scientists are firmly in one camp.
He told the Science and Technology committee: “In the case of the BBC they have a very clear statutory responsibility. It’s in the original charter to inform. I think we need the BBC to look very hard, particularly at whether or not they are getting the balance right.
“I don’t think they are.”
He added: “I think there is too much focus on trying to stimulate an increasingly sterile debate on the science, given the overwhelming body of opinion that there is now in favour of the science, and perhaps if they are wanting to have an active debate they should be talking about the policy responses to that science, rather than the science itself.
“I’m not trying to ban all dissenting voices but we are doing the public a disservice by treating them as equal, which is not the case.”
The man only shows his ignorance by his inability to see the other side to this debate and the facts that show that global warming is not occuring. Just because they get elected to Parliament doesn’t mean they have any smarts or common sense. It probably means they are a good talker.
Skeptics are not “peer-reviewed”. Throughout the years, the skeptics have begged the media and their “peers” to actually read their reports and the actual science behind them.
It has been the AGW crowd that refuses to submit their claims and research for verification by others.
A Tory minister says that? Oh bother. One has to agree with Nigel Farage who notes there is no longer any difference between the three ruling parties other than their names.
Mr. Barker is “doing the public a disservice by” accepting a paycheck.