Who’s Behind the Carefully Curated Global Climate Narrative?

In July the Daily Sceptic received a communication from the BBC Press Office complaining about an article that was “littered with factual incorrect statements”. It pointed out that an attendee on the current Oxford Climate Journalism Network (OCJN) course was a “complaints advisor within the Executive Complaints Unit and not a director”. This might be news to the BBC staff member in question Colin Tregear who has signed up for the six-month climate and Net Zero indoctrination event run by the Green Blob-funded OCJN. In the latest 100-plus strong list of indoctrinatees, drawn from countries around the word, Tregear is described as a “complaints director at the BBC specialising in climate change”.

But what is Tregear doing on this special grooming course that makes a point of only accepting journalists? The OCJN is funded by green money and is an important player in the worldwide curating of media climate narrative messaging. Even complaints, it seems, are part of this narrative compliance operation at the BBC. Perhaps it is not hard to see why the corporation sought to downplay Director Tregear’s involvement in what was described as a “part time” course. For its part, the OCJN describes its programme as “intensive”.

How does the general public think that stories about gin and tonic disappearing due to climate change appear – or lakes turning pink, air turbulence getting worse, or the Gulf Stream going into reverse? Brilliant, independent creative journalism? Probably not, since numerous such stories can suddenly appear in multiple media outlets all at once. More likely is that the stories are based on clickbait nonsense du jour eagerly pounced on by ‘settled science’ activist writers following the careful path laid out by well-funded Net Zero political fanatics. The OCJN is just one operation that ensures a worldwide drum beat of Greta-style hysterical BS. Topping it all off is weather attribution alchemy and the pseudoscientific claims that humans somehow control single weather events. A past OCJN essay proudly displayed on its website is titled ‘Journalists should help audiences understand extreme weather  – even when they lack climate data’.

Much of the legacy media is dying and financial constraints appear to be destroying what independence it ever had. Independent journalism that strays from the elite narrative on medical lockdowns, open borders, woke shibboleths, Israel/Jew-bashing and Net Zero are frequently targeted by well-funded hard-Left groups seeking to block advertising and reduce social media audiences. Financially stretched and often lazy media operations opt for the easy life where curated copy following an elite narrative is pumped out to an increasingly cynical and disbelieving audience.

The OCJN is bankrolled by the Laudes Foundation and it is part of a wider operation called the Reuters Institute. This is backed by the Thompson Reuters Foundation and numerous tax-efficient funders including Knight and Laudes. Media supporters are said to include the BBC, Google News Initiative, YouTube and, interestingly, the UK media regulator Ofcom. This latter operation is a problem so far as free speech in UK broadcasting is concerned since it regards the science around climate as more or less settled. It means that broadcasters can happily whip up any passing scare story, but are constrained in any serious investigation of the so-called science ‘consensus’. In 2023-24, BBC News gave between £50,000-£200,000, while Google’s contribution was said to be “over £1 million”. For nearly a decade, the operation’s steering committee was chaired by the former Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger and is now led by the former director of BBC News Helen Boaden.

When there is climate narrative grooming to be done, the Guardian camp is rarely far from the action. The newspaper group was a founding partner of Covering Climate Now (CC Now) which claims to be a “global collaboration with over 500 news outlet partners reaching billions of people”. That’s a heck of a lot of Net Zero climate fearmongering that can be organised, or as CC Now puts it: “We support, convene and train journalists and newsrooms to produce more and better coverage of the defining story of our time.” Alas, this training appears far from the dark arts of the journalism trade that include asking questions, querying sources and writing independent stories. The old guiding principle that news is something that somebody somewhere doesn’t want printed, all the rest is advertising, has been relegated to history.

The global CC Now task is about providing a political narrative designed to drown out and obliterate any science that is not wholly supportive of the stupid but luxury belief that human societies can exist without using hydrocarbons. A CC Now briefing note on bad weather tells the captured hacks that “even in the absence of explicit attribution data, it’s accurate to say that climate change is making extreme weather more common and more severe”. The fact that this statement is largely untrue and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change agrees it is untrue (for now) is not mentioned.

The briefing note helpfully suggests “language for journalists”, and on flooding it recommends: “Climate change is bringing heavier rainfall extremes and increased, inequitable flood risk to many parts pf the US.” Perhaps the message was spoilt slightly by linking it to the fake claim that 2022 floods in Pakistan left a third of the country underwater. The actual figure was around 10%.

Even the dimmest activist writer is likely to sometimes twig that climate has always changed and huge natural atmospheric forces are constantly at work. But CC Now is on hand with a guiding ‘Best Practices for Climate Journalism’ document. “Do not platform climate denialists,” screams CC Now. “Platforming climate deniers in an effort to ‘balance’ our coverage not only misleads the public, it is inaccurate,” it is stated. “There is simply no good-faith argument against climate science. … If one accepts the science, one cannot deny the need for rapid, forceful action.” Is there any point in calling out the preening arrogance behind this attempt to close down the scientific process? Likewise, any point in suggesting that a journalist who goes along with that last statement really should consider a more demanding job?

More Guardianista involvement is to be found on a recent CC Now ‘Talking Shop’ webinar. This gibberish was spoken by a US Editor Danielle Renwick:

I think also, you know, we’re a global publication. … So you know, I might be covering a community in Queens that is banding together to create a car-free zone. In a neighbourhood, that started for parks. We can talk about how this is their part of a bigger story. You know, they’re not outliers. They are people who are taking action in the way that they can. But this story could also apply, for instance, to a, you know, an article about the rise of the far Right in Germany, and kind of how that aligns with, like most of the public’s climate goals.

Suggested exam question at the Morrison Climate Journalism Network: “Has the author successfully linked the rise of the ‘far Right’ in Germany to ‘climate goals’ and car parking concerns in the New York borough of Queens? Discuss.”

Current Green Blob funders of CC Now include Green South, Michaux, Park and Silicon Valley Community Foundations. Past support is also thought to have come from George Soros’s Open Society, Rockefeller and MacArthur Foundations.

Another helpful guide to getting the global climate story straight is provided by SciLine – needless to say an operation well-funded by Green Blob cash. Quadrivium, Knight, Rita Allen and Heinz all help out and there are connections with the Association for the Advancement of Science, publisher of Science. On hurricanes, it recommends journalists avoid suggesting climate change caused a particular storm to slow or intensify, since there are many contributors to weather events. “Instead ask whether climate change contributed to the intensity of a hurricane or the likelihood of its especially damaging behaviour such as stalling over a coastline,” it recommends. Children, bed, crying, comes to mind, particularly those living all along the east coast of the United States.

The recent heavy greening of the planet due to higher levels of the plant food carbon dioxide is a difficult subject for climate change activists, and, until recently, mostly avoided. But facts are alas facts, so suggested journalist responses include the odd suggestion that corn experiences no benefit at all. “Finally, in many cases, CO₂ disproportionately favours weeds over crops, causing more problems for agriculture,” SciLine states.

Coming soon to a media outlet near you – wrong type of plant threatens climate collapse.

Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor. Follow him on X.