{"id":758548,"date":"2026-09-03T08:36:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-03T08:36:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/758548\/"},"modified":"2026-09-03T08:36:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T08:36:12","slug":"from-psyops-to-hysterical-hysteria-how-gb-news-and-talk-tv-lost-their-cool-in-the-heatwaves-climate-science-scepticism-and-denial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/758548\/","title":{"rendered":"From \u2018psyops\u2019 to \u2018hysterical hysteria\u2019: how GB News and Talk TV lost their cool in the heatwaves | Climate science scepticism and denial"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the first heatwave of the record-breaking summer arrived on 23 May, GB News host Cristo Foufas was not happy<\/a>: \u201cI am sick to death of the naysayers saying firstly that we\u2019re all going to die and that we have to put out heat alerts, because, you know, just drink some water and drink a bit less ros\u00e9 in the sunshine.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe used to call it Darwinism,\u201d replied co-host Ren\u00e9e Hoenderkamp. She is a medical doctor.<\/p>\n

The arrival of the intense heatwave in late June \u2013 the most extreme recorded in Europe<\/a> \u2013 didn\u2019t change the tone. \u201cPeople die each year from vending machines falling on them, and coconuts hitting their heads. People die, unfortunately, that\u2019s a reality of life, and things get hot,\u201d said Will Kingston<\/a>, a presenter and contributor on GB News, a free-to-air television news channel. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t mean you have to go about changing your life in ways big and small to accommodate for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over on TalkTV, a British streaming news channel, there was also little empathy as the country sweltered in deadly heat. \u201cI\u2019m very sorry if someone dies because of the heat, but I don\u2019t think that\u2019s a reason for us never to be allowed to take a flight again, or stop being allowed to eat meat,\u201d said the presenter Julia Hartley-Brewer<\/a> on 24 June, citing policies no one is putting in place. Her guest, the conservative commentator Benedict Spence, agreed: \u201cOne way or another, something\u2019s going to get you.\u201d<\/p>\n

As that heatwave reached its peak, the TalkTV host Kevin O\u2019Sullivan was getting hot under the collar<\/a> about the \u201casinine snowflakery\u201d of climate concern: \u201cOur hysterical hysteria over climate change because we\u2019ve had a few nice days \u2026 It\u2019s a nice day. Now we call it \u2026 a death risk.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then the numbers came in. The May and June heatwaves had killed about 2,700 people prematurely<\/a> in England and Wales, according to an analysis based on the relationship established between heat and mortality in previous data, published on 13 July.<\/p>\n

Cue a meltdown from O\u2019Sullivan<\/a>: \u201cNo such thing happened. They\u2019ve sort of qualified it \u2013 and said 2,700 people might have died \u2013 and this has been apparently gamed by computer programmes and God knows what.\u201d The report was \u201cjust disgraceful climate change scaremongering<\/a>\u201d and \u201cabsolute poppycock<\/a>\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n

TalkTV\u2019s Kevin O\u2019Sullivan reacting to the premature, heat-related deaths of 2,700 people. Photograph: Talk TV<\/p>\n

On GB News, the presenter Kingston was also deeply unimpressed<\/a>: \u201cIf there is one thing that Covid taught us, it is that modelling is effectively guesswork from clever-sounding people with an ideological agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n

These hot takes did not age well. On 30 July, the UK Health Security Agency announced that 2,877 people had died<\/a> because of the May and June heatwaves, using data on actual recorded deaths.<\/p>\n

Many heat-related deaths are among elderly people and those who are already unwell, factors that apparently made their premature demise less important for some contributors, such as Ross Clark, who had told TalkTV<\/a> on 25 June that they were \u201cperhaps on the point of dying anyway\u201d.<\/p>\n

Presenters and guests on both channels frequently pointed to the higher level of deaths from cold in winter. None were asked why any reduction in winter deaths due to global heating would mean the rising number of heat deaths in summer was acceptable. And it\u2019s not even true any more: the most recent figures from the Office of National Statistics show 2,805 heat-related deaths in England and Wales<\/a> in 2025 compared with 2,244 cold-related deaths.<\/p>\n

Instead, one TalkTV presenter, Andr\u00e9 Walker, decided that one man<\/a> in particular had blood on his hands: \u201cI believe by the end of his career, Ed Miliband will have killed 100,000 people because of his crazy green energy policies that freeze people in the winter and cook them in the summer.\u201d He offered no evidence for this attack on every climate-denier\u2019s bogeyman, the former energy secretary.<\/p>\n

You might think it would be hard to deny the basic reality of climate change as the temperatures soared outside. You\u2019d be wrong.<\/p>\n

There was straightforward denial on GB News with, for example, the presenter Nana Akua calling the climate crisis a \u201cscam\u201d<\/a> as the hottest May ever recorded<\/a> ended; Hoenderkamp blaming the sun (an ancient climate myth<\/a>); and the fashion designer and regular contributor Jeff Banks<\/a> saying, wrongly<\/a>, that: \u201cThe facts are that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has been declining for the last 150 million years.\u201d Over on TalkTV, Hartley-Brewer blithely told viewers<\/a> in late June: \u201cWe\u2019ve always had freak weather.\u201d Not like this we haven\u2019t, according to hundreds of scientific studies<\/a>.<\/p>\n

TalkTV presenter Julia Hartley-Brewer, pictured with commentator Benedict Spence, claimed falsely that it was illegal to fit air conditioning in new-build houses. Photograph: Talk TV<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s take a short break, for a fact check. The world\u2019s climate scientists, in reports signed off by 192 national governments, have been clear for more than a decade that 100% of global heating since 1950<\/a> has been caused by human emissions and activities. Every heatwave is being made more intense and more likely<\/a> as a result of fossil fuel burning, and rising global heat kills one person a minute<\/a> around the world, according to a major recent report in the Lancet.<\/p>\n

Back to the channels, where the heat the country was enduring, if not its cause, was undeniable. Cue the presenters turning their fire on the weather forecasts. \u201cThe weather maps, they used to go orange and red. They\u2019ve now lowered the threshold so it\u2019s bright red. It\u2019s obviously \u2026 a psyops operation,\u201d said the TalkTV host Ash Gould<\/a>. Who was behind this conspiracy was not revealed.<\/p>\n

Another TalkTV host, Alex Armstrong, was also frothing<\/a> about maps: \u201cThey\u2019ve literally coloured the country black \u2013 because it\u2019s like a nuclear holocaust level. They\u2019ve gone nuts, these climate fanatics.\u201d He did not explain what maps he meant, and they were not shown to viewers of the programme.<\/p>\n

One issue that got the TV stations hot under the collar was air conditioning, which, ironically enough, was barely needed in the UK until the climate crisis drove up temperatures. Foufas said on GB News<\/a>: \u201cHere in the UK, remember we\u2019ve all been told to rip out our air conditioning because it\u2019s not conducive to net zero.\u201d This blanket statement appears to be based on a single planning dispute in Camden<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s actually still illegal in new-build homes to fit air con,\u201d chimed in Hartley-Brewer on TalkTV<\/a>. It\u2019s not<\/a> illegal, for either new or existing homes.<\/p>\n

And the unrelenting attacks on net zero, a policy now at the heart of the right\u2019s culture war, carried on. \u201cThe biggest psychosis of our age is climate alarmism and net zero,\u201d the contributor Paul Cox told TalkTV<\/a>. \u201cNet zero being a product of the monetisation of climate alarmism.\u201d The presenter Alex Phillips did not challenge him. Instead, she insulted Miliband as \u201ca meme and a congested ukulele player\u201d.<\/p>\n

A few more examples: net zero is a \u201cderanged religion<\/a>\u201d, a \u201ccrazy ideology<\/a>\u201d, a \u201cfallacy [that] doesn\u2019t exist<\/a>\u201d, \u201clunacy\u201d and \u201cmadness\u201d, meaning \u201cwe all have to eat insects rather than beef and lamb\u201d.<\/p>\n

GB News presenter Jacob Rees-Mogg claimed it would be cheaper to deal with the consequences of climate change than to try to prevent them. The government\u2019s independent adviser\u2019s have shown this to be wrong. Photograph: GBN<\/p>\n

Just to be clear, net zero is the principle, dictated by the laws of basic physics, that until we stop adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, it will continue to get ever hotter. But even if net zero was admitted as necessary, excuses for inaction abound on the channels.<\/p>\n

For example: the UK emits only 1% of global emissions<\/a>, making action pointless. What about all the other countries that only emit a small percentage<\/a>? Another favourite: the supposed cost of net zero, often backed by figures<\/a> conjured up by analyses which ignore the costs of maintaining the status quo or climate damage. Net zero will have \u201csmashed the economy to bits\u201d, according to Cox on TalkTV<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to be less expensive to deal with the consequences,\u201d said the GB News presenter Jacob Rees-Mogg<\/a>. Despite being a former energy and net zero secretary, he is also wrong: a multitude of serious assessments over decades<\/a> have shown reaching net zero is cheaper than not doing so, including work by the government\u2019s own official independent advisers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For those on GB News and TalkTV, the answer to high energy bills is drill, baby, drill! TalkTV\u2019s Jeremy Kyle quotes Donald Trump<\/a>: \u201cWe have, in his words, liquid gold under the North Sea.\u201d In fact, according to the UK Energy Research Centre, the idea that more North Sea oil and gas could cut energy bills for UK consumers or improve energy security is a \u201cdelusion<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the conspiratorial mindset that sometimes leaks out on the channels can explain all this cognitive dissonance in the face of record heat, thousands of deaths and all the hard evidence? Commentators on the channels call net zero \u201ca road to communism\u201d and \u201csocialist-style, communist-style control<\/a>\u201d. Apparently, it is easier for some to deny reality than accept that some big problems require a collective response.<\/p>\n

The GB News presenter Bev Turner is particularly enraged<\/a> when her kids are sent home from overheated schools<\/a>: \u201cWhen the weather gets warm and the government says it\u2019s too hot to go out, stay at home \u2013 we are priming them for climate lockdowns, that is all this is.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a lot of talk on these billionaire-owned, heavy-loss-making<\/a> TV channels about deranged ideologues. But reviewing the summer meltdown on GB News and TalkTV, I think I found them \u2013 right there in the studios.<\/p>\n

Note: The research was conducted for the Guardian by Stop Funding Heat<\/a>, which used a combination of manual and AI-assisted research to monitor broadcasts for relevant content. Each instance was then checked by a researcher and a Guardian reporter.<\/p>\n

The Guardian\u2019s climate forum 2026<\/a>
On Tuesday 20 October, join Damian Carrington, and our panel of experts \u2013 including Prof Andy Haines, Katie White MP, Asad Rehman, Shruti Suresh Gareth Thomas and Amy Fairman \u2013 for a hopeful and solutions-focused evening.
Book tickets here<\/a> or at guardian.live<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the first heatwave of the record-breaking summer arrived on 23 May, GB News host Cristo Foufas was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":758549,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[84,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-758548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=758548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758548\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/758549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=758548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=758548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=758548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}