NewsBusters has just learned that a British “climate activist” was responsible for getting the BBC to radically alter its “Global Temperatures ‘To Decrease’” article last Friday.

As reported Sunday, the third paragraph of what previously had been a very balanced piece about how global temperatures have been declining since 1998 was totally reworded in order to make the report just another hysterical climate change pronouncement. On Monday, Jennifer Marohasy, the director of the Environment Unit at Australia’s Institute of Public Affairs, received and published an e-mail exchange between the article’s author, Roger Harrabin, and a climate activist affiliated with the British Campaign Against Climate Change:

Here was how the piece began before Saturday’s edits:

Global temperatures will drop slightly this year as a result of the cooling effect of the La Nina current in the Pacific, UN meteorologists have said.

The World Meteorological Organization’s secretary-general, Michel Jarraud, told the BBC it was likely that La Nina would continue into the summer.

This would mean global temperatures have not risen since 1998, prompting some to question climate change theory.

Some time on Saturday after NewsBusters posted its piece at 12:22 PM, the third paragraph was mysteriously changed to this (emphasis added):

But this year’s temperatures would still be way above the average - and we would soon exceed the record year of 1998 because of global warming induced by greenhouse gases.

What a joke, the BBC seems to be confused

Filed under: BBC, News, global warming