Richard Branson's Virgin Group Gives Platform to Climate Science Denier James Delingpole on Official Podcast

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When is it OK to invite a known climate science denialist with extremist views onto your show โ€“ especially if that show happens to be part of the corporate outreach for one of the worldโ€™s most recognisableย brands?

Well, firstly, youโ€™d want to know something about climate change, or have an actual expert or two onย hand.

If that person has a record of being wrong, then it might also be a good idea to point out to your listeners that most of the statements by your guest could be wrong, irrelevant orย confused.ย 

Alternatively, get a proper expert on the show and ignore the pleas of the fringe calling for โ€œbalanceโ€. Failure to do this could risk confusing your listeners and exposing them toย misinformation.

Unfortunately, this is not a hypothetical situation.ย As Iโ€™ve written on The Guardian, this week global brand Virgin Group โ€” home to some 60 companies with annual revenue of about $24 billion โ€” released its latest Virgin podcast.

They invited climate science denialist James Delingpole to rant about how human caused climate change is a โ€œbankrupt theoryโ€, how global warming stopped 18 years ago, plus otherย bunk.

None of the necessary precautions were made, but rather, host and comedian Dominic Frisby chortled his way merrily through a 20-minute set piece of popular denialist talking points, only occasionally questioning Delingpoleโ€™s fringeย claims.

Delingpole had been invited to provide โ€œbalanceโ€, Frisby said, because the podcast had previously featured three advocates of climate action and some listeners (read:deniers) had contacted Frisby asking for a guest โ€œto air the other side of theย debate.โ€

Delingpole claimed that volcanoes โ€œproduce far more CO2โ€ than humans. In fact, according to the US Geological Survey, humans produce about 100 times more carbon dioxide thanย volcanoes.

But then Delingpole attempted to explain how this was why volcanic eruptions were able to affect the climate.ย  But it is sulphur dioxide particles from eruptions that can have a temporary cooling effect on temperatures, not carbon dioxideย emissions.

During a discussion as far removed from reality as it might be possible to get, Frisby says to Delingpole that โ€œthe UK has actually been getting colderโ€ adding that he remembered โ€œbeing a student in the 90s and we always had amazing summersโ€.ย ย 

Delingpole agrees, then claims that there has been โ€œno global warming in the last 18 and a half yearsโ€. ย Frisby then asks, โ€œbut surely some countries have got hotterโ€, to which Delingpole responds, โ€œno, I donโ€™t think they have,ย noโ€.

Delingpole says that, rather, we are probably in a period of globalย cooling.

Frisby would have to have lived in a fridge with no internet connection not to have noticed the recent spate of record breaking globalย temperatures.

Some 14 of the 16 hottest years on record, according to NASA, have all occurred since the year 2000. Last year, 2015, was the hottest year recorded by an unprecedentedย margin.

UK MetOffice data shows that those โ€œamazing summersโ€ that Frisby remembers (most likely 1995 and 1997, which were particularly warm), were not as warm as 2003 orย 2006.ย 

According to the World Meteorological Association, 2015 was the warmest year for the continents of Asia and South America and the second warmest for Africa andย Europe.

Frisby himself also managed to offer up a classic denierย trope.

โ€œThe thing that always struck me as a little bit deviousโ€ฆ dodgyโ€ฆ was that global warming rebranded itself as climate change,โ€ Frisby told the Virgin podcastย audience.

This is the same talking point recently employed by failed Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz, and hints at a conspiracy thatโ€™s simply notย there.

When did this โ€œrebrandingโ€ occur?ย  Was it around 1989, when UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher referred to โ€œclimate changeโ€ a dozen times in a speech to the UN?

Did the illuminati sneak it in to the journal Science in 1971, in an article titled โ€œClimateย Changeโ€?

A Virgin Group spokesperson told me the companyโ€™s podcasts โ€œcover a wide range of issues and occasionally present viewpoints that are consideredย controversial.โ€

The statement added: โ€œFeaturing James Delingpole was neither an endorsement of nor an agreement with his positions. In fact, it was made clear that Virgin Group does not share his view on climateย change.โ€

This is good to know, given that Virginโ€™s founder, the billionaire Sir Richard Branson, wrote last year that: โ€œWe need every person on Earth to acknowledge that climate change is real, and encourage each other and our leaders to address theย challenge.โ€

I asked Frisby why he had failed to challenge Delingpole on any of his points.ย  He told me he didnโ€™t know much about climate change, but in any case, the style of the podcast was just to let guestsย speak.

Frisbyย said:

โ€œIt is not my way to challenge guests on everything they say, and it is not the way of the show. In fact, as host of the show and the person who usually invites guests on I feel it is incumbent on me to make them feel comfortable and at home. That is my contract as a host. To continuously challenge them is, in my view, a breach ofย trust.

โ€ฆ.

โ€œOnce guests talk, I hope our listeners are independent enough to make their own minds up as to whether they agree or disagree. The beauty of podcasting is that if you think somebody is talking rubbish or you don’t like what they are saying you can switch off. It is voluntary. Nobody is forcing you toย listen.โ€

When I asked Frisby why he seemingly had not done any research before the interview, heย said:

โ€œIt is not, unfortunately, as simple as that. The problem with availing myself of facts is that this argument is now so politicised it is difficult to know what is fact and what is dogma. And many are so aggressive in the way they argue the case it actually has an alienating effect of the undecided, less knowledgeable neutrals like me. Hence my decision to speak to people in person and learn thatย way.โ€

Actually, I donโ€™t think it is difficult to know whatโ€™s dogma and what isย fact.ย 

Credible sources on climate change tend to have a recent record of publishing in the respected scientific literature on relevant topics, tend not to be affiliated with industry-funded think tanks and, well, donโ€™t tend to compare the wind energy industry to a pedophile ring or suggest that โ€œclimate alarmistsโ€ should face a judge with the power to hand out death sentencesย โ€” as the anti-science guest James Delingpole has done.

You can read Frisbyโ€™s full response to my questions here.
ย 

Main image: James Delingpole. Credit:ย DeSmog

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