Source: YouTube, BBC TV News
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ug5W-oTVKL4
Date: 06/02/2010
Event: Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: "there is a huge, right-wing, anti-regulation, worldwide lobby..."
Attribution: TopTellyFan, BBC TV News
People:
Annita McVeigh: Well, let's take a closer look now at the morning papers, with John Torode from the Spectator and Yasmin Alibhai-Brown from the Independent. Yasmin, John, welcome to you. We'll begin with the Independent and the story about climate change, the climate-change sceptics, which all ties in with what Ed Miliband was talking about last weekend, the fear that more and more people are becoming sceptical - sceptical about this whole issue.
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: Well, I think there have been some very um, er, unacceptable things that some scientists, who should have behaved better, have been found guilty of in the last two or three months. I think there is a hugely powerful lobby - and this is what the Independent, and also a very interesting debate in the Observer, looks at - there is a huge, right-wing, anti-regulation, worldwide lobby, which is partly funding, I think very effectively, um, anything from denial to scepticism. Because, and because some scientists didn't do their job properly, or were trying to push the case more than they should have done, this lobby is now winning the argument, in which I find extremely scary. And in the Independent -
Annita McVeigh: It's partly the fault of the governments in Copenhagen as well, who couldn't come up with a firm deal, isn't it.
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: Yeah, but it's also these leaked emails and so on.
John Torode: But hang on, these leaked emails were of very great importance - they say that there was fiddling of -
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown [interrupting]: Yeah, but that's not all the science in the world.
John Torode: I know it's not all the science in the world [Yasmin Alibhai-Brown now starts to talk over him] - all I'm asking -
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: And here are - here are - can I just say what the Independent is saying. It says - and this is somebody from the London School of Economics [she is probably referring to Bob Ward] -
John Torode: So it must be true.
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: Um, er, the Policy Dir- actually, yeah, probably he knows more than you and I do about it, because he's an expert. And he says a lot of the climate-sceptic arguments are being made by people with demonstrable right-wing ideology, which is based on opposition to any environmental regulation.
John Torode: What about the left-wing ideology which supports it?
Annita McVeigh: John, are you playing devil's advocate here, or are you -
John Torode: No.
Annita McVeigh: - one of the sceptics?
John Torode: I'm a sceptic.
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: He genuinely is. He's a denier, I think. You're a denier.
John Torode: No. Hang on, I am a sceptic, I am not a denier.
Annita McVeigh: Sceptic and denier - not the same thing.
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: Oh, he is a denier.
John Torode: You're playing this Holocaust-denial game, that if you don't -
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: You're a denier.
John Torode: I believe in looking at the evidence. Of what I've had in the last weeks, is example after example after example - in particular, of the IPCC, the International [sic] - you know... whatsit on climate change, has been run like a joke. It's a sort of - you know, it's been fiddling the facts, it's been distorting - University of East Anglia is in big trouble -
Annita McVeigh: And Yasmin, you were saying that all of this has been placed and promoted by a very powerful lobby.
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: I think - like I said, that John is right, there have been some very important people -
John Torode: And serious fiddling.
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: - but that does not mean that the case is wrong.
John Torode: No, it means the case is open for debate.
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: Hey, we are talking about the future of our children's children.
John Torode: Oh, come on...
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: We cannot -
Annita McVeigh: But do you take John's point that the case is open for debate?
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: It is open to debate, but not in the way that John and others are doing, which is -
John Torode: How am I doing it?
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: - found to have - they've found a small number of people. And they are significant people, I'm not underplaying that.
John Torode: Listen, I'm a geomorphologist. You were talking about this chap at the LSE. I know what I'm talking about.
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: There is a man here who - who -
John Torode: A man...
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: Robert McGee, who has been writing for 30 years. He started as a sceptic. He talked to scientists from around the world. He has reached the position that we are in serious danger - we can't dismiss that, simply because -
Annita McVeigh: Okay, let's just -
John Torode: The way you're talking - can I just say one small thing. It sounds - it sounds like a religious or moral crusade.
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: It is a moral crusade.
John Torode: It doesn't sound - it is a moral - you've just given - hang on, I've just been given my point, it is a moral crusade.
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: It is a moral crusade.
John Torode: No longer about fact and science, it's about a great ethical thing -
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: Yes!
John Torode: Yasmin happens to believe that the world's coming to an end. I believe I'd like to look at the scientific evidence.
Annita McVeigh: Okay, let's - let's take the opportunity to get through some of the other stories. The -
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: I shall send you scientific evidence.
Annita McVeigh: The Observer - Yasmin, John, the Observer also does a double-page spread on this story. Um, and I think also the front page of the Daily Telegraph touches it as well.
John Torode: The Telegraph, just to say, has a further series of -
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: The Telegraph has been against climate change for five years.
John Torode: And the Independent's been in favour of it - you said it's talking about a game. [?]
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: Absolutely. So don't tell me you found it in the Telegraph.
Annita McVeigh: I think - I think our viewers -
John Torode: So don't tell me you found it in the Independent.
Annita McVeigh: Yasmin -
John Torode: You're playing a silly, stupid game.
Annita McVeigh: Yasmin, John, I think our viewers can probably read these stories for themselves, and make up their own minds. Obviously, I don't think the two of you are going to agree on this, any time soon. Let's move on -
John Torode: Even the BBC's started looking into the science.
Annita McVeigh: Let's get a chance - Yasmin - John -
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: It is important for you to be polite and not use words like "stupid". Please.
John Torode: Can I withdraw it?
Annita McVeigh: Yasmin, John...
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown [outraged]: Withdraw it!
John Torode: I've withdrawn it.
Annita McVeigh: Yasmin and John, we will move on, please -
John Torode: Rapidly...
Annita McVeigh: - to the front page of the Mail, let's take a chance to get a few more stories in.