Capitalism Kills The Truth - Fox Buys National Geographic

Rupert Murdoch's 21st Century Fox Corporation has bought up the prestigious National Geographic magazine and its associated TV channel. Within 24 hours of the title exchanging hands, 180 staff (about 9% of the total) were "let go" and although Murdoch's spokespeople have insisted that the editorial board and writing staff are largely intact, the Digger's reach is likely to go beyond the frozen staff benefits pot.

National Geographic, first published in 1888, has long been prized as an impartial and highly reliable source of news about the world. Although with a heavy focus (literally) on wildlife and wilderness landscapes, it has also contributed massively to the mainstreaming of the debate on climate change with leading articles on global warming, resource depletion and environmental damage. Its photo-journalism has sometimes been the conclusive proof of corporations' damage of rainforest, pollution of the seas and assault on indigenous communities.

Click through to a few National Geographic pieces:

"Yes, We can take action to fix climate change!" 

The Climate Change Special Issue

Weather versus Climate change

Learning from Indigenous Peoples About Climate Change

It has a website devoted to explaining climate change: HERE


By contrast, take a look at Murdoch's Fox News Channel's output on this major issue of our times:

 Fossil Fuels are no catastrophe: they have made our lives better.

Weather Channel founder blasts climate change (as fake)  

 Climate change is "Superstition"

Many commentators have criticised Fox for its lax standards of verite, not only on global warming but on a wide range of issues. But it's obsessive traducing of the climate crisis is creating serious damage to the fight to save humanity from self-destruction. The widespread scientific consensus on global warming being caused by human activity is denounced as fraud perpetrated by a Protocols of Zion type world-wide conspiracy by universities in search of grants, while every flake of snow is pronounced another nail in the coffin of the "liberal" myth of a warming planet. Although happy to trouser millions from the biblical climate change epic Noah, Murdoch himself crassly pronounced modern, scientifically proven climate change false after he flew over 300 miles of ice - in the Arctic!

With one analysis declaring 93% of its output as "misleading" on climate change,   the enduring tragedy is that more Americans trust Fox News thant President Obama on the issue - not that, with his own addiction to fracking, Barak has not exaclty covered himself in glory on the environment.

But Fox is critical in slowing and blocking the crucial opt-in to global action on greenhouse gas emissions by the USA without which action by other countries will have limited impact (It is worth noting here that Chinese coal use is now falling and China, doubtlessly in thrall to liberals!, is investing more in clean energy than the rest of the world combined).

Murdoch has of course already insisted there will be no loss of editorial independence, but anyone following the British satirical magazine Private Eye's regular tracking of tie-ins and cross-selling between his UK Sky, Times and Sun media brands will know differently.

Like any good global capitalist, for Rupert Murdoch, global warming, even at its now accelerating pace, is of far less concern than his year on year profits. His poisonous legacy - and those of hundreds of similar global magnates - will exact a huge price from his grandchildren's generation. But of course, by then Rupert will have long since gone to the Corporate Boardroom in (the) Sky.

Below - Spoofs abound already: but is the future bleak for National Geographic?

Global Warming - Seeing the Unseen

As our emissions of carbon dioxide continue to rise, perhaps one of the biggest problems in getting across the impact it has on our planet is the fact that it is invisible. Particulate pollution, often from burning coal, used to cause smog to visibly affect day to day life in many large western cities, leading to public demands and support for clean air action - and we can see similar developments, including public protests, in emergent economies like China now.

However, by sharp contrast, the very fact that we cannot see, smell or taste CO2 somehow relegates the immediacy and scale of what we are doing to our habitat. We don't need to turn a blind eye to what we cannot see.

This video (below) by the US Environmental Defense Fund sets out to show what it would be like if we could indeed see greenhouse gases. It takes the CO2-equivalent emissions of New Yorkers over a timescale from one hour to one year and represents these with very visible one tonne spheres to show the spread of these gases.

The cumulative effect is powerful, to say the least, and silently exposes the folly of the global warming deniers who continue to claim that somehow we are having no effect on the planet, on this, the only place we have to live.

And, bear in mind, it is not only C02. Other invisible greenhouse gasses like methane are just as transparent, but many, many times more warming - and around us in ever greater quantities every moment of the day. Time to stop denying and start acting.

The Only Green is Mould - the Planet Strangling Coalition of the Damned

Three years ago, the Cleggeron regime pledged itself to become the greenest government in history. Heading this mission was the criminal liar Chris Huhne, then the Energy Secretary.

Well, a bit like Mrs Huhne, few believed them then and even fewer do now. After a litany of half-hearted greenwash window dressing to try to disguise the bankruptcy of their environmental commitment (remember that the majority of Tory MPs don't even believe climate change is happening), the Coalition has now delivered the final blow to its tattered credibility on tackling the global warming crisis according to newly released Government figures.

In 2011 to 2012, a surge in use of cheap coal has increased UK carbon emissions by a staggering 4.5%, a rise of over 19 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (and overall with five other "greenhouse gases" the rise in total emissions is 3.5%), which thicken the atmosphere, trap the sun's heat and warms the planet.

In spite of claiming even now to be delivering the greenest government ever, the Coalition has stripped schemes such as the community owned renewable energy feed-in tariff of any genuine support and undertaken a programme of roadbuilding which will significantly increase emissions once completed by encouraging greater use of cars.

The recession has been touted by some, especially the Chancellor George Osborne, as a good chance to stop investing in renewable energy. In spite of the issue being a global emergency, the Government seem to think action can wait - a sharp contrast to Scotland, where the SNP Government is on target to meet a 100% renewables target for electricity generation nationwide by 2020. Likewise, as posted a few days ago, Germany continues to lead the field (and investment) in renewables at a staggering pace.

With global warming continuing apace, and even the current freezing British weather attributable to the impact of rising temperatures on sea ice melt, the need for action has never been so urgent. However, the only green in this regime is the mould encrusting their ideas and the gangrenous stench emitted by their puffed up claims of supposed concern and action.

Time is passing too quickly to delay any longer. And the Coalition, in this area as well as many others, is simply not fit for purpose.