Will Rupert Murdoch's Fox News go for kill on climate change?

Rupert Murdoch went green just over two years ago. Will his media empire do the same, asks Geoffrey Lean.

By Geoffrey LeanPublished: 7:15PM BST 11 Sep 2009
As Barack Obama struggles to rescue his medical insurance package, blown off course by well-organised public meetings, industrial interests are preparing to derail his attempts to get to grips with global warming.
Already "astroturfing" – creating fake grassroots movements to influence public opinion – has been detected. A leaked memo revealed that the Energy Citizens protest group was started by the oil industry, while a congressional inquiry found that letters to senators and Congressmen attacking climate legislation, ostensibly from ordinary people, were in fact backed by energy groups.
Will Rupert Murdoch's Fox News, at the heart of stirring up opposition to the health care plans, do the same over climate change? I ask because just over two years ago, the great man, a former global-warming sceptic, went green. In his first global webcast, he told employees that "climate change poses clear, catastrophic threats" and that the world "cannot afford the risk of inaction". He wanted his media empire to "change the way the public thinks abut these issues" and "to inspire people to change their behaviour". James Murdoch, his son and heir apparent, is one of Britain's most influential greens.
Yet this week, Fox News claimed the scalp of one of Mr Obama's most prominent environmental advisers, green jobs tsar Van Jones, who resigned after repeated attacks by its controversial host Glenn Beck for long ago questioning the accepted truth about 9/11. It probably had nothing to do with climate change – but we'll soon see.
Digging the dirt in Downing Street
You may think of many things when the name Gordon Brown comes up, but I’ll bet organic gardening isn’t among them. Yet environmentalists visiting Downing Street on Wednesday were taken round the prime ministerial patch, and proudly shown its pesticide-free flowers and vegetables.
Actually, it’s Sarah, who is enthusiastic about growing things without chemicals, and she impressed the greens with her knowledge. Peter Melchett, a top honcho at the Soil Association, who cross-questioned the gardeners, reports: “It is a real, organic garden.” Sons John and Fraser helped to plant it all out in tubs and raised beds and the whole family is said to be enjoying the results.
The inspiration was provided by Michelle Obama, when she visited Downing Street in April. The First Lady grows more than 50 kinds of vegetables in a 1,000 sq ft organic patch she created at the White House, digging some of the dirt herself, and is backing a local farmers’ market. She got into it on the advice of her children’s doctor, after worrying that the presidential campaign was affecting the family’s health.
You can see the attraction of not wanting to add to the toxins that tend to seep into both buildings – the names Karl Rove and Damian McBride spring to mind – but where will it stop? Can we hope to see Silvio Berlusconi’s floozies picking up trowels? And what about France, where Nicolas Sarkozy is bidding to be the continent’s greenest leader by introducing a carbon tax? Call me curmudgeonly, but I don’t see Carla Bruni manhandling manure.