David Craig, on July 26th, 2023Wednesday/Thursday blog
Apologies if you already knew about this. But I guess I’m a bit slow in keeping up with things as I’ve just found out about this.
It appears that around the time of the 2021 Glasgow Cop26 climate junket, Sky News, working in collaboration with the Behavioural Insights Team (BIT) also known as ‘The Nudge Unit’, produced a report titled: “The Power of TV: Nudging Viewers to Decarbonise their Lifestyles”
Reading through the report, it would seem that Sky News decided to join the BBC and much of the mainstream media by abandoning silly, old-fashioned ideas like trying to accurately report the news and instead decided to become a PR and propaganda department for the climate catastrophists and the Just Stop Oil fanatics.
But rather than me making a judgement on what Sky News are up to, here’s (in blue) how Sky explains its important new mission:
- Sky calls for new era of collaboration amongst broadcasters to help consumers to decarbonise their lifestyles through on-air content
- Research from Sky and the Behavioural Insights Team (BIT) across six European countries reveals 7 in 10 consumers are willing to change their behaviour
- Report shows that TV has power to encourage consumers to decarbonise with 1 in 3 having changed their lifestyle because of content seen on TV
‘Seventy per cent of people across Europe are willing to change their behaviour to address the climate crisis according to research published today by Sky and the Behavioural Insights Team (BIT).’
‘Using behavioural science techniques, Sky and BIT set out ten new behavioural science principles to guide broadcasters on helping their viewers to take action. The study develops a clear role for content creators and broadcasters to inspire green behaviours from their viewers, as well as revealing data on consumer attitudes to climate change.’
‘It comes at a critical time as experts now widely accept that we must shift the behaviour of millions of people to deliver on our collective net zero goals.’
Dana Strong, Group Chief Executive, Sky, said: “At Sky we have set out our pathway to achieve net zero carbon, but we know this alone will not be enough. Through the content that we bring into our customers’ homes we believe broadcasters have a clear role and responsibility to encourage lifestyle changes that address the climate crisis. We’re publishing these research results in full as an open tool for content creators and broadcasters. This means that for the first time we have empirical evidence demonstrating how the creative industries can work together to deliver the behaviour change required to meet our net zero ambitions.”
David Halpern, CEO, Behavioural Insights Team, said: “Broadcasters like Sky have a unique role in fostering behaviour changes that are essential to tackle climate change. Our new report finds not only that people’s behaviours and attitudes are significantly shaped by the media they consume, but also that viewers expect and encourage broadcasters to do more to educate and inspire viewers to do their bit for the environment. We hope this report will provide broadcasters with actionable and evidence-based insights on how they can do their bit to avert the climate crisis.”
Mark Strong, actor and Executive Producer of Sky’s Temple, said: “Television has always had the power to change opinions and effect real world change in a meaningful way. That’s why, more than ever, Drama creators now need to put climate crisis storytelling front and centre in their work. To get across these crucial messages, it’s important that storytellers create natural, organic plots which depict the real-world impacts of the climate crisis on character’s lives – and showcases actions which we all can take. I feel proud that our show, Temple, has tried to do this by including climate activism as a central storyline in the new series.”
If I remember correctly Sky News used to have, and may still have, what they called “The Daily Climate Show”. It would seem that this was just a spewing of climate-catastrophist propaganda to ‘nudge’ us into changing our carbon-guzzling behaviour rather than a serious attempt to report actual climate news.
You have been warned.
As for me, I’ve even given up on GB News as with every day it becomes more like a pound-shop version of the BBC. Instead I’ve started to watch Julia Hartley-Brewer, Mike Graham and Kevin O’Sullivan on Talk TV as they have dared openly say that they believe the whole catastrophic climate change cult is a load of nonsense without any scientific backing.
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I have been saying the same about GB News for sometime. Their discussions are so inaccurate that they are encouraging the belief in human caused climate change. We have to understand the reasons for the attitudes you list. That is the challenge we must work on, but I think it is almost impossible to stop this juggernaut crashing because it has so many components.
One possibility related to TV is that the advertisers control the content of the programmes. Rees-Mogg was recently discussing defunding the BBC because it would make them more accountable to the viewing public. This is nonsense unless we pay directly and we don’t, we mostly pay through advertising. Netflix is a case where the viewers can pay or not, so they are responsible to viewers for their success or failure.
Looking at the views you quote it appears like a religious belief with no evidence to support it. I have never had any faith at any time in my life and do not understand it. Having seen what the church has done over the years I am astonished that anybody has faith. Belief in ideas seems to be spreading.
I’m reading a book “Overcoming the Robotic Mind”. It refers to our narcissistic lifestyle encouraged by the billionaires who profit from it, and governments who believe that more and more spending and consumption means economic growth which must be good. But funding all this with worthless printed money.
It has been my view for a long time that we must be accountable for all aspects of our life and our collective decisions will result in a stable and peaceful society. When governments take our money and make decisions for us, they control us. The majority do not want responsibility. They want state provided child care, state provided elderly care, state health care and state education, and more if they can get it. This provides their favoured narcissistic lifestyle of entertainment, holidays, cars, etc. They don’t know how to think about issues they know little about, and don’t know how to research information which is now more available through the internet than ever. This all feeds back to state schools which seem to be turning out imbeciles.
The entire rotten system will have to fail to produce change.
I have just seen a post by Prof Norman Fenton speaking at a conference of his experience of climate scientists. Here is a link
https://youtu.be/kfGmKSWaFZc
It is amusing if nothing else.
He mentions being on a BBC documentary – Climate Change by Numbers in 2015. I can’t find a video of it but there are some clips
GB News do increasingly seem to lean towards the climate scam – maybe ofcom demand it?
In the past couple of weeks i heard Eamonn Holmes waxing lyrical about the hideous wind farm apparently visible from Glasgow which previously would have been a beautiful natural landscape. The young lady Emily with him also went on to say how amazing windfarms are.
They also seem to have adopted the world on fire weather maps charade for what is a typical Summer. With live breathless reports of the Greek wild fires without mention as far as i can tell of suspected arsonists and it seems everywhere of eco rules preventing traditional forest management which helps limit wild fires with controlled burning and fire breaks.
Jacob does discuss the topics but often voices support for the theory. Given the theory is just computer models like covid then maybe he could elaborate a little to explain why.
I suspect (hope?) that intelligent GBNews analysts such as Nigel Farage Jacob Rees-Mogg have views on the alleged “anthropogenic climate catastrophe” which they dare not express, for fear of being ejected from the Channel in the same way as was the wonderful Mark Steyn. On the other hand, Mark Dolan gave every indication on Saturday evening of subscribing to the notion of spontaneous combustion with regard to the Rhodes wildfires. This is nonsense of course. Only a lightning strike can start a wildfire. All other are caused by human activity – fag ends, discarded glass, disposable BBQs. For the moment, Farage is doing everyone in the UK a tremendous favour by focussing on the deplorable practice of UK banks of “de-banking” clients on account of their political views or,I suspect, because they are just not sufficiently profitable. A friend told me just yesterday that her son, a newly qualified teacher at the time, who had never been in any way political, was salaried, had never requested an overdraft, never overspent on his credit card and always paid it off before interest was charged, was “terminated” by Barclays some 20 years ago. He never asked why, just took it on the chin and found a haven elsewhere. Inexcusable though. Back to the subject of this blog – yes, we are all being nudged, indoctrinated, corralled into unquestioning acceptance of and compliance with the desired mantra. Desired by whom, I ask myself? Well, the WEF for a start. The self-appointed “elite” who want to reserve the best of the world’s resources for themselves. Air space for their private jets, road networks for their armoured vehicles (no – they WON’T be crawling around the world looking in vain for a charging point!), steaks and fine wines for their personal consumption. We plebs will eat neither bread nor cake – or what bread we will be permitted will be contaminated with insects from the farms of Gates of Hell. The lies which are being perpetrated on the ignorant and, above all, our children (in my case grandchildren) are inexcusable. I hope to live sufficiently long to witness the utter and complete downfall of wokery, net zero, “climate catastrophe” theory and “trans” nonsense which maintains that men can become women and vice-versa, whereas anyone with any biological knowledge knows that the proportion of X & Y chromosomes which determine sex are determined at the moment of conception.
Waiting for the rain to stop on this decidedly Autumnal day so I can attack the flourishing weeds in my garden, I am passing the time watching on YT a lecture by the wonderful Dr. David Starkey on Katherine Howard, the 5th wife of Henry VIII. Starkey informs us that the summer of 1540, just after the pair got together, was unprecedently hot and dry There was no rain for 3 months. People and Cattle died. Remind me: were there any ICEs in 1540, any steel works (other than the local forge turning out a few swords for the aristocracy) any oil-dependant central heating? Did the people enjoy the convenience of gas or coal-fired electrical generation? What was the population of England? Around 2 million at a rough estimate, if that. I am sardonically amused every time a journalist worshipping at the shrine of “the world is on fire” doctrine finishes a broadcast or a print article with the words “this summer, today (insert as appropriate) is the hottest on record since 18…(again insert as appropriate. Or even earlier). Have they insufficient insight to perceive how illogical they are showing themselves to be?