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# Once Upon a Time on the BBC
- URL: https://goodoil.news/once-upon-a-time-on-the-bbc/
- Published: 2019-12-22T01:30:00.000Z
- Updated: 2019-12-21T11:04:14.000Z
- Author: WH
- Tags: Fun Stuff, World Climate change, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2024-07-17 03:49

The *Yes Minister* programme actually poked fun at Global Warming back in 2013\. There is little chance of this happening now on the BBC.

*The phone rings. They all look at it.*

**Claire* Hello? It’s the BBC again. I see. Thanks. (She hangs up.) Piling on the agony. A big new story about global warming has just broken, they’re adding that to the Sunday programme too. Global warming computer models have been proved wrong.*

**Humphrey* How shocking!*

**Claire* The new models show that it’s even worse than previously thought. Much more severe. And happening faster.*

**Jim* Is that supposed to be my fault too?*

**Claire* Everything is at the moment. They want to know why the government is dragging its feet on CO2 emission controls.*

**Jim* (losing it) Do we have to deal with that tonight? As well as …(much has gone wrong for Jim earlier in the play)… Is there anything else, anything else we can pile on me tonight? Oh yes! Global bloody warming, thank you very much!*

**Claire* It’s just that they’re going to add it to the catalogue of your failures. (He gives her a look.) Alleged failures, I mean.*

**Humphrey* Meanwhile, may I suggest that you don’t worry too much about global warming?*

**Jim* Right. I can’t do anything about that tonight, can I?*

**Humphrey* Tell me, how do they know we’re all going to drown in years when the weather forecast was so wrong last Friday?*

**Jim* Because all the scientists agree.*

**Humphrey* So they say. So do the computer models. I know. But why should global warming computer models be any more accurate than financial ones?*

**Jim* Um…*

**Humphrey* Wall Street computer models were designed to prove sub­prime mortgage derivatives were low risk. These computer models are designed to show global warming is getting worse.*

**Jim* Come off it, Humphrey.*

**Humphrey* Remember mad cow disease? Computer models for that proved that we’d be dying in our hundreds of thousands by now. The only thing is, virtually nobody died, did they? Same with the salmonella-in-eggs computer models. Same with swine flu.*

**Jim* You’re suggesting … what, exactly?*

**Humphrey* Global-Warming models leave out nearly all the other possible causes except CO2. And then they say ‘Look, CO2 has caused all this climate change.’*

**Jim* What other causes are there?*

**Humphrey* If the earth were actually getting warmer, one might start by looking at the sun. Solar activity, water vapour, cosmic rays, sunspots, underwater volcanoes –*

**Jim* If? The world is getting hotter, the science is overwhelming, everyone knows that.*

**Humphrey* There’s been no rise in temperature since 1998.*

**Jim* Really? But it was rising, wasn’t it?*

**Humphrey* From 1975 to 1998, yes, absolutely.*

**Jim* That’s what I mean.*

**Humphrey* But it fell from 1940 to 1975\. Even though that was a heavily industrialised period, when CO2 shot up. And overall the temperature isn’t rising at all: the hottest year in the twentieth century was 1934.*

**Jim* I read that two thousand five hundred top climate scientists contributed to the last IPCC survey and they all agreed that man­made global warming is a proven fact and trapped greenhouse gases are the cause.*

**Humphrey* Nearly fifty of them agreed. The others didn’t, actually. But their views were left out of the summaries given to the press.*

**Claire* Haven’t you seen that film of the melting icebergs in the Antarctic?*

**Humphrey* Yes. Beautiful, aren’t they?*

**Claire* That’s caused by CO2.*

**Humphrey* No, that’s caused by warm water masses from the Pacific.*

**Claire* Why are the polar bears becoming extinct?*

**Humphrey* Are they?*

**Claire* The computer models say they are.*

**Humphrey* But the people who actually go and count them have found more than there were thirty years ago.*

**Jim* For heaven’s sake, Humphrey! If it’s all such nonsense why does everyone believe it?*

**Humphrey* (amused) Hard to understand, I agree. But some scientists believe it, lots of others want the billions of pounds you can get for research that seems to show that global warming is caused by greenhouse gases, and most of the scientists who disagree can’t get published. Journalists love shock­horror stories, governments want to look virtuous to the voters, lefties want a way to rubbish big oil, and it makes the tree-huggers, whale-savers, anti-capitalists and everyone at the BBC feel holier than thou and warm and fuzzy inside. What’s not to like?*

**Jim* Why hasn’t anyone else said all this?*

**Humphrey* They have. No one wants to hear it.*

**Jim* So wind farms don’t make sense?*

**Humphrey* (chuckles) They certainly do, for all the businessmen who are getting enormous government grants for them. But there isn’t enough wind to be practical. The total output of all the UK wind turbines put together is one-fifth of one decent sized coal-fired power station.*

**Claire* You don’t believe in global warming?*

**Humphrey* My job is not to believe or disbelieve. My job is to weigh up arguments and produce answers. That’s what the Civil Service is for.*