If the BBC Never Questions Net Zero the Journalists Might as Well be Replaced by ChatGPT

Spare a thought for the BBC’s Justin Rowlatt as he makes his sorry and uneasy way down the treeless ‘Highway of Shame’ to Belém airport and considers the wreckage of the collapsed COP30. He is not a man devoid of intelligence so he can work out that most of the world has just dodged the bullet of the ‘Great Leap Forward’ let loose by the Net Zero fantasy. The unease arises when he considers his heyday spent spinning an ever more improbable ‘settled’ climate science narrative that deliberately ignored any facts and opinions that troubled the Net Zero political agenda. All for nothing, he might be thinking, except of course the lavish adoration he enjoys in the North London BBC bubble. But now that Net Zero is dying, he, and the numerous other activists on the BBC climate gravy train, must be vaguely aware that following a simplistic, pre-determined but increasingly out-dated narrative can be easily replicated in future by an AI replacement.

Opinions may differ, but suitably prompted AI could easily replicate much of the climate output of the BBC over the last two decades.

If you spend years following a defined narrative by cherry-picking the worst computer modelled climate scare inventions to induce mass climate psychosis, AI is coming for you. It is the work of seconds to load a science paper into Grok and ask it to produce an alarmist story focusing on the most scary ‘scientists say’ predictions in the style of a chosen mainstream media activist. It will be easy, and considerably cheaper, to keep the climate hoax going since all debate will continue to be cancelled, any competing opinions ignored and the intelligence of the British people, as per, insulted on a daily basis.

The BBC is one of the ultimate backers of the Oxford Climate Journalism Network (OCJN) that runs a six-month grooming course for journalists. One of its recent testing tasks was to ask participants to write an article noting why a fruit such as a mango was less tasty this year than last due to climate change. Why not ask Grok to do it using a set number of words – it is so much easier. But Grok has more balance than fake climate journalists – it will also provide a plausible article of similar length explaining why mangoes are more tasty at present due to the changing climate.

Your correspondent has been around the journalism game for a few decades and witnessed astonishing changes. One of his first jobs was compiling a monthly ‘Major Losses and Catastrophes’ page that entailed writing brief compilations from a variety of news sources. It took some time and entailed good educational grunt work, but these days it could be compiled by AI in seconds. Writing to a narrative, producing copy subbed from press releases, parroting what every other captured journalist says, is increasingly something that can be left to the automated process. AI is particularly good at replicating an echo chamber.

Over 100 journalists from around the world sign up for the OCJN course every six months. Why do they think that learning the same narrative, and being told what is the ‘correct’ way to write about a so-called climate crisis, is appropriate behaviour for an inquiring journalist? The Green Blob in the form of past Extinction Rebellion paymaster Sir Christopher Hohn is paying for their education, and it is naïve not to assume that the Green Blob expects a published return on its considerable investment.

Earlier this year, the BBC lead weather presenter Simon King told us that since 1970, the average UK spring temperature has increased by 1.8°C.

This is what he wrote:

The average spring temperature has increased by 1.8°C since 1970, making it the fastest warming season for all four nations of the UK.

This is what a press release issued by the Green Blob-funded Climate Central said:

The average spring temperature for the UK has increased 1.8°C since 1970, making spring the fastest warming season for the UK as a whole.

Where is the added reporting value in that? Why is the BBC’s lead weather presenter seemingly unable to look at the Met Office’s own temperature graph, which shows clearly that temperatures have risen in that period by 1.3°C? But it is worse than that since 1970 is a date cherry-picked by the Climate Central activists as a low point following a decline in UK temperatures from around 1940. Go back 80 years for a more useful climate trend and the figure drops to 0.85°C. And these temperatures, particularly recent ones, are bloated with large unnatural heat corruptions that are an obvious feature of Met Office readings. All in all, the rise in temperatures in the British spring is likely to be similar to the 1°C warming that has occurred since the lifting of the Little Ice Age in the middle of the 19th century.

Paul Homewood wrote an excellent article in the Daily Sceptic on Tuesday noting that one of the takeaways of Belém was the eclipse of Europe as a force in world politics. “While rich, Western countries are still determined to pursue Net Zero regardless of the cost and damage entailed, the rest of the world long ago worked out that fossil fuels are an essential, not a luxury,” he noted.  No longer does the rest of the world pay attention to anything pipsqueaks like Ed Miliband and Wopke Hoekstra, the EU Climate Commissioner, have to say, he added.

The BBC seems to be dying. Unable to properly relate to the concerns of its nationwide audience, hazy on the difference between a man and a woman, seemingly keen on open border migrant overload, its increasingly ridiculous funding flow is starting to evaporate. Whether it could survive in the free market with its biased, identikit news service, along with the thin offerings of audience-lite, woke-obsessed drama, is not certain. Big savings might have to be made. AI looms large over future BBC scripts from Doctor Who to climate change.

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