Help Talking-up Scotland keep goin

Crowdfunder at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/help-talking-up-scotland-keep-going

Or by direct bank transfer to: JOHN WATSON ROBERTSON Sort Code – 08-91-04 Account – 12266421

Earlier today, the Scottish Government published the above statement after the Holyrood debate on large data centres.

At around 18:00, BBC Scotland, the taxpayer-funded, public service provider, responded with this:

Planning consent for large data centres in Scotland is “highly unlikely” to be granted in the next three months, the Scottish government says.

The Scottish Greens have called for application processes to be paused until new national guidelines are in force – with an emphasis on energy demand and the environment.

Ministers, while rejecting that call, say they will publish the guidance by Christmas and told MSPs they don’t expect any planning decisions to be made before then.

They have also announced that new and existing applications for AI data centres will have to undergo an environmental impact assessment. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cqe9eyn5yry3o

You can read both in full at the links above.

The BBC Scotland report misses out an important point:

The new direction has been developed with input from the Scottish Science Advisory Council (SSAC), Scotland’s highest level science advisory body. It provides independent advice and recommendations on science strategy, policy and priorities, through its Chair, to the Chief Scientific Adviser (CSA) for Scotland and to Scottish Ministers.

To do so, reduces dramatically to a quick tactical political reaction, the measured nature of the Scottish Government’s response to the Greens call, the rigorous basis and scientific objectivity of that response and the scientific basis for its 50MW Environmental Impact Assessment requirement.

This omission makes the Scottish Government position look more tactical and less evidence-based than it was.

Why did BBC Scotland omit this key piece of information? Taken in the light of their long history of bias I can only see it as deliberate and propagandist.

There are other absences in the BBC Scotland report undermining the Scottish Government guidance. The full ministerial framing of the debate in terms of the economy, employment, energy, climate and community wealth, is left out as is any explicit definition and purpose of the Environmental Impact Assessment. However, it is the removal of any mention of the measured scientific consultation leading to the guidance that robs it of authority and opens it up to the kind of ill-informed but widely-platformed criticism we can expect tomorrow.

Help Talking-up Scotland keep goin

Crowdfunder at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/help-talking-up-scotland-keep-going

Or by direct bank transfer to: JOHN WATSON ROBERTSON Sort Code – 08-91-04 Account – 12266421