Fuel Prices Up - CO2 Down

Two bits of news ought to bring a smile to the face of Chris Huhne and to warmists everywhere. The first is a report that the cheapest annual gas and electricity deal for UK households has hit £1,000 for the first time ever. With all of the big six energy companies dropping the cheaper tariffs, it means that prices are continuing their inexorable rise just as we're heading into what is predicted to be a hard winter. Get ready for the mass chorus of 'weather is not climate' from the AGW apologists if it does turn out to be another bitterly cold one. And look out for the figures for the numbers who die of hypothermia or weather-related accidents and then compare to the virtual deaths predicted thanks to a marginal increase in warmth.

So, energy for light and heat is getting more expensive. Energy usage is likely to drop as some people decide that food trumps heat.

The other bit of news to cheer George Monbiot and co is that the AA estimates that petrol consumption has dropped by 15% in the last three years. And it's not just domestic users who are cutting back, businesses are doing the same. Aside from the financial side effects, this reduction will also impact emissions targets.

So, an all-round good news story for the warmists - CO2 reductions down, thus helping us save the world from global warming (oops, sorry, climate change). On the face of it then, the greenies should be celebrating. Chris Huhne should be jumping with joy.

But what's interesting is the reaction of the high church of global warming (also known as the BBC). Have these stories made it to the BBC environment pages? Nope. Both stories are filed under the personal finance section. This is about your pocket, with no mention of CO2. The nearest the BBC gets to this is a rather coy admission that 'One result has been lower emissions of potentially damaging exhaust fumes.' No mention of CO2.

Does this mean that the AGW mantra is dead and buried at the BBC? No, of course not. What we have is a clear example of bias at work.

CO2 reduction stories are only allowed if they are positive. High energy costs - whether it's petrol of domestic fuel - are negative, so they have to be divorced from the CO2 narrative. Nothing can be allowed to sully the story that reducing CO2 emissions is a good thing.

This is not an isolated case. As Maurizio Morabito has noted, we saw the same thing with the recent spell of hot weather. Normally we see that any unusual weather pattern is likely to be attributed to climate change. Especially hot weather, because then it's not just climate change, it's global warming. But in the case of the all to brief hot weather in October, the press were notably silent on the topic - despite the acres of coverage of the heat. Why? Because most people saw the heat as welcome, a change after a dull, grey and cold summer. Again, nothing can be allowed to sully the overwhelming narrative that warming is bad.

The bottom line is that the worse things get for us, the better it is for CO2 reduction, and the less likely it is that the warmists will draw attention to it. And the more we have to do to remind everybody that this is precisely what Huhne, Monbiot and co have been campaigning for.