Ewan Somerville – The Telegraph Nov 18, 2023
The BBC has been accused of “rank hypocrisy” after a reporter racked up an estimated 20,000 air miles to ask why “despite all the green promises, we’re using more fossil fuels than ever before”.
London-based Richard Bilton travelled to Europe, the Middle East and the United States for an episode of BBC One’s Panorama in which he claimed “the world is saying one thing and doing another” on climate change.
Analysis by The Telegraph suggests that he could have racked up around 20,000 air miles, taking flights to Dubai, Alaska, California and Berlin for the programme, which was aired on Nov 13.
At the most conservative estimate, this would have produced around 5.4 tonnes of CO2, more than the average person produces in a year and the equivalent to driving an average car for 18 months.
The air miles estimates are based on one scenario, which involved Mr Bilton taking return flights from Berlin and Dubai back to London, and going from the UK to California and then onto Alaska before returning across the Atlantic.
The BBC would not say which routes Mr Bilton took.
The BBC, which has pledged to reduce its operational greenhouse gas emissions by 46 per cent by 2030, said all the flights were in economy class and were “required” for “on-the-ground reporting”.
But critics have pointed out that the corporation has local teams of reporters in each location, meaning the “one-man jolly” was “rank hypocrisy”.
In the Panorama episode entitled Why Are We Still Searching for Fossil Fuels?, Mr Bilton took aim at how the world’s energy companies are planning to drill for more oil and gas, and interviewed academics who demanded a faster path to net zero in order to keep global warming to 1.5C.
He told viewers ominously: “2023 is expected to be the hottest year on record – the devastation of climate change will be hard to stop if we remain reliant on fossil fuels.”
Mr Bilton added: “Figures seen by Panorama paint a pretty grim picture of the world – everywhere, Middle East, US, UK – we’re getting more and more carbon out of the ground instead of leaving it.”
At one point in the programme, Dr Barbara Haya from the University of California, Berkeley, told Mr Bilton: “We’re in a climate emergency – we all need to be reducing our emissions as quickly as we can.”
However, analysis by The Telegraph showed that if Mr Bilton took a return flight from London to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, where he asked if it was a “suitable host” for the upcoming COP28 climate conference given it is “wedded with oil and gas”, it would have been 6,840 miles, producing 1.8 tonnes of CO2.
His trip to Alaska and California, assuming he visited both states in one trip from London and flew domestically between the two, would have produced 3.2 tonnes of CO2, a total of 12,290 miles. His Berlin round-trip would consume 400kg of CO2 for 1,200 miles.
In total, this would mean his flights to make the episode spanned 20,328 miles, producing 5.4 tonnes of CO2. According to the International Energy Agency, the average person in the world has an energy-related carbon footprint of around 4.7 tonnes of CO2 a year, the equivalent to driving an average SUV for 18 months.
These calculations exclude any flights for Mr Bilton’s production crew and travel by car – including one Mr Bilton was seen filming from – at each location.
Dame Andrea Jenkyns, the Conservative MP for Morley and Outwood, said: “If the BBC feels it necessary to lecture the public about fossil fuels, they should practise what they preach first.
“BBC Panorama ought to do an episode on itself, namely how its reporter is globe-trotting on flights at the licence-fee-payers’ expense.
“To add to the rank hypocrisy, the BBC could easily have used its local teams of reporters in each country rather than sending one man on a jolly.”
‘I took several flights’
During the BBC Panorama episode, Mr Bilton said: “Energy companies are meeting our demand. To make this programme, I took several flights – it’s hard to fight climate change if we still use fossil fuels to drive, fly and heat our homes.”
The BBC refused to confirm the exact flight itinerary and could not answer why Panorama did not use the BBC’s local reporters in each location.
A BBC spokesman said: “As a flagship current affairs programme, on occasion, some international travel is required to further investigate important stories and provide audiences with additional insight and analysis which may not be possible without on-the-ground reporting.
“We take our sustainability commitments seriously and careful consideration is made when travel is necessary for a story.”
HENRY MAKOW REPLY
this short clip pf film shows 150,000 people in london marching against israeli terrorism
the UK government must start to listen to its people
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/4HngmGOIENA
anyone who takes the BBC seriously is a fool
it can be viewed abroad for free
but British folk have to buy a licence
This breached all UK laws on racial discrimination
since the 193os it has beena Rothschild operation and this is why
servicemen in w w 2 called it ” bullshit-Time”
one BBC director actually said Quote “Britain was horrifically white”
this evil racist bastard should have been sacked
he knew about Jimmy Saville Stephen Fry Allan Freeman Chris Denning and all the other
child rapists, one child in a wheel chair in the spinal unit was just 4 years old when
BBC star performer Saville raped him, another BBC “star” invited a strsight man back toa show biz party at his home
drugged him raped him and threw him unconscious into the swimming pool to drown
BBC lawyers worked hard to get Michael Barrymore off.
BBC – not fit for purpose
We used to call it “Tilting at wind-mills”; everyone respectable now thinks Climate Change is an enemy knight, and good old Don Quixote can be relied upon to go and challenge him. His side-kick on the donkey shakes his head but can’t do much about it
It wouldnt be the eternally-oblivious BBC without one of its phaggot phcktards like Bilton flying around first-class while getting his knickers in a twist about “carbon emmissions”…
😂
There are only two types of so-called journalist left at the BBC. Spooks and kids.
They’re not even trying to cover their tracks anymore they are literally laughing at you.
just an excuse to take a vacation. alaska is pretty. I’m sure he did some sight-seeing. Climate change is bunk. “Journalists” are mostly poorly educated hypocrites.
It looks like the BBC will have to change its name after this STORY to : BRITISH BULLSHIT CO. NO CLIMATE CHANGE just a NAME CHANGE is required.
Excerpt: “The climate-change religion: How long before human sacrifices?
Forgoing procreation, disrupting fellow humans’ lives, and wishing for death on a massive scale, environmentalism shows cult-like tendencies
History teaches us that some ancient civilisations killed their children to change the weather. They used to practice child sacrifice to appease their gods in an attempt to court their good graces. Those primitive peoples believed that through human sacrifice, the forces of nature could be coerced in their favour. For example, one of the ways the Aztecs honoured their gods was by killing people in a field with arrows so that their blood might fertilise the land.
The modern environmentalist movement is often compared to a religion. It certainly thinks that humans can change the weather, and it includes a vision of sin and repentance – damnation and salvation. Above and beyond the presence of actual neo-pagans and Gaia worshippers in its ranks, the environmentalist movement itself is displaying characteristics of a nature-worshipping cult – and a remarkably anti-human one at that. Many of its supporters effectively believe that the world has a cancer, and that cancer is called the human race.”:
https://www.rt.com/news/587544-climate-change-cult-human-sacrifice/
In 2017 BBC weather man Fred Talbot was exposed as a long time abuser of young boys
The TV lawyers jumped in to hide up his past same as they did with the Philip Schofield case
where he was serially texting black schoolboys for sex
Schofield a homosexual jew, has a secret flat strangely just doors away from where Greville Janner
had his secret flat.
Police were hampered in both cases as homosexuality is now no longer a crime
its a legal minefield, and police often come out on the wrong end of things like the Cliff Richard case and the Elton John case where they have to pay out damages
The fact in is all these cares where the boys are under age
it is stilla crime
The BBC knew about Fred Talbot Jimmy Saville and Stephen FRY etc etc
but did nothing about it
and they expect us to pay a licence fee for this ?