There have been grumbles over the BBC's climate coverage for years, but when the Today programme last month covered the floods with a debate between climatologist Brain Hoskins and politician Nigel Lawson, the volume of grumbles markedly increased. Simon Lewis at UCL's geography department, writing in Nature, argued it was a clear failure of BBC editorial guidelines and urged people to complain.

This morning, direct action group Climate Rush – who take inspiration from the suffragette slogan 'Deeds Not Words' – took their grumbles to the streets.

As the Today programme was creeping towards its final half hour, the activists were outside at Broadcasting House, inviting BBC staff to choose whether they wanted to enter the building via a sign labelled ‘Blinkered Broadcasting on Climate’ or ‘Best Broadcaster’.

They also gave out several hundred ‘Make the BBC the Best Broadcaster’ stickers and deployed a roving reporter with a bright red microphone and matching lipstick.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Climate Rush outside BBC Broadcasting House in London

Climate Rush always campaign on climate change issues – the clue’s in the name – but it was the floods in particular which moved them to this action.

People across the UK are still dealing with the effects of flooding. By the point of the Lawson vs Hoskins debate, many had been suffering for weeks. People wanted explanations, analysis and policies. For Today to respond with what is arguably elitist, outdated and unscientific climate scepticism just seemed crass.



When people complain about the media reporting climate change with a sceptic vs scientist narrative, journalists often respond that news needs drama and climate change is not just about the science. I agree, but I don’t think either point justifies giving media space to the Global Warming Policy Foundation, where Lawson is chairman. The Hoskins vs Lawson arrangement is an odd mix of science and politics, which limits coverage of both.



Why not draw out actual scientific debate, of which there is plenty?

I wasn’t that impressed by Hoskin’s appearance either. It’d be nice to hear a greater diversity of scientist voices on climate change. Science isn’t just about what leading professors have to say.



As for the politics, aside from the questions over Lawson’s funding people like Bob Ward have been pressing for years, the floods in particular offer plenty of scope for meaty analysis. What about, for example, the cuts to the Environment Agency? Indeed, we could be asking why the BBC haven’t been pushing on that since the ENDS Report covered it back in October? It’s not quite as amiss as their coverage of the NHS reforms, granted, but it seems similarly insufficient to me.



We’re only going to be able to act on climate change if we have robust public debate, and the BBC are currently failing their public on that.

As with spats over whether the BBC is run by the left or the right, your view of their coverage is probably coloured by your personal politics. But then, just as with spats over left or right, that doesn’t mean that it isn’t still biased, or at least problematic, in places.

The 2011 BBC Trust report on science coverage is often wheeled out at this point, used to argue that too often fringe views are presented against scientific expertise. I worked on that report and it does happen. But by far the biggest worry is that they don’t ask enough questions of the various experts – whoever they are – that they put on air.

Or to put it another way, as George Monbiot wrote after the Australian climate sceptic and geology professor Ian Plimer appeared on the Today programme in 2009: “Let Plimer speak, but let his interviewers do some sodding research first.”

As Carbon Brief’s impressive tracking of the UK press coverage of the floods shows, the BBC is not the only media institution climate activists might be angry about. We've seen a few protests outside media organisations in the last year; Mark Thomas outside the Express, Owen Jones outside the Mail.

Anyone up for a “I heart windfarms” flashmob outside the Telegraph?