One man truly can make a difference

I wasn't listening, but yesterday's Today programme marked the final appearance by the BBC's environment (activist) analyst Roger Harrabin. Here's his tweet about it:

Cripes - only a month to go now before I leave BBC after 35 years. I did my last turn on Today Prog earlier. Felt very upset walking home. Not for me, but for the fate of the planet. Most people still have no idea how bad it's likely to be.

Meanwhile, he's keeping on keeping on till the last day. Here he is being as impartial as ever:

How come the Supreme Court makes a ruling that will compromise still further the efforts made to rescue this fragile planet? You can trace it back to the fossil fuel firms who funded so-called think tanks to turn climate change into a partisan issue. Good job, guys.

The story he's referring to received equally impartial handling by the BBC's News at Ten on Thursday. The opening headline made the BBC's position crystal clear:

Tonight at Ten. A serious blow to tackling global climate change from the US Supreme Court. It's curbed the US Government's power to limit greenhouse emissions from coal fired power stations.

There was a time when the BBC would have at least made an effort to fake impartiality on the issue by saying something like, “Tonight at Ten. The US Supreme Court has curbed the US Government's power to limit greenhouse emissions from coal fired power stations. Environmental campaigners are calling this 'a serious blow to tackling global climate change'”, but now the BBC just comes out and asserts that it's “a serious blow to tackling global climate change” off its own bat. 

I'd credit Roger Harrabin with playing quite a large part in making that kind of open opinion-pushing happen.