Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Veteran Nature Program presenter David Attenborough has urged business and political leaders at Davos to provide practical solutions for unlimited clean energy, to prevent climate catastrophe.
‘We need a plan’: Attenborough urges Davos leaders to act on climate change
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“If people can truly understand what is at stake, I believe that they will give permission to business and governments to get on with the practical solutions. And as a species, we are expert problem solvers.
“But we haven’t yet applied ourselves to this problem with the focus that it requires.
The Blue Planet and Dynasties narrator said: “We can create a world with clean air and water, unlimited energy and fish stocks that will sustain us well into the future. But to do that, we need a plan.”
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Read more: https://www.sbs.com.au/news/we-need-a-plan-attenborough-urges-davos-leaders-to-act-on-climate-change
I have to say I fully endorse David Attenborough’s call for unlimited energy, I would like to have access to unlimited clean energy as well. If only the engineers would get on with it and build the magic boxes, it’s not like we haven’t repeatedly asked, pleaded and demanded that they stop messing about and come up with a solution.
David Attenborough is a great natural world film maker and narrator. He feels passionate about the environment. He is not a climate scientist and obviously believes all the alarmist hype about global warming. Why would he not? Many people take on trust what they are told. At the age of 92, he is still a remarkable man.
Having said all of that, while I am sure that he feels strongly about global warming for the above reasons, I am very sure that his good name is being exploited by his employer, the BBC and no doubt many eco-activists who have access to him. Many of Attenborough’s excellent documentaries are spoiled by the obligatory global warming alarmism usually added at the end, obviously to satisfy the BBC obsession with saving the planet.
Like many here, I have lost some respect for him, but the pressure on him to cooperate must be huge and he is 92 years old.
Agree, among his greatest achievements are also those as the BBC’s programs controller: History of Western Art, Bronowski’s Ascent of Man, Alister Cook’s America, etc.
Recently he left the BBC to work for Netflix.
Certainly man of great ability, a media genius despite his views regarding climate change and consequences that may follow.
This is rubbish, as is most of the theorising about natural selection.
(My BS detector smells a bad odour of eugenics & bad genetic science).
“Bronowski’s Ascent of Man” was just another load of bollox which developed the theory that man was always improving*, and we should look should look at our ancestors as primitive primates.
Attenborough has this bent from the beginning just like Jacques Cousteau.
Ie. Make money from alarmism of the disappearance of the species, then blame it on man.
It’s weird how the narrative is somehow so contradictory* that they have to fire Bellamy who has a brain, and air their agenda rich BBC crap instead.
Back in the days, and maybe still true today, there was just one question that determined if you were hired by the Big Brother Corporation. Are you a communist ?
I feel terribly sad to see Attenborough spout this nonsense in his old age, his documentaries are great, he shouldn’t meld in politics.
His documentaries are fake. They always were.
I’ll look into it. It would be great if you had a source to direct me to.
PS : I meant “meddle” in my previous comment.
I guess I should have also said he made great science fiction. Indeed there has been so much proven fakery that everything in the “documentaries” can be questioned.
I loved Attenborough as a young kid, but all his documentaries started to look identical and I lost interest. Many years ago I read a long document that spelled out all the tricks used in his documentaries.
To make a long story short; Attenborough and the film crew would scramble through a forest (sometimes not even the forest they said they were in) and film him searching around. Then they’d gather some insects and whatevers and film them in the studio where they had more time and could set up specific moments. Think of waiting for a trap door spider to come out of the nest in the forest. So yes, most of the films were faked. Even if the general science was mostly accurate.
I’ve come across him twice, and I definitely don’t like his methods.
The first time was in the Okavango delta. We had booked rooms long in advance in a wildlife lodge, but when we got there we found that Attenborough was there, didn’t want tourists around, and had paid them to send us off to another less well situated lodge.
The second time was in the Galapagos where he had bribed the National Park Authorities to forbid any boats from going through the strait between Fernandina and Isabela because he didn’t want any boats in the background when he was filming in the “virgin wilderness”. So I never got to see the Galapagos Cormorant.
tty
Interesting use of BBC licence fee payers money – bribes.
I guess he didn’t become a BBC’s program controller without a bit of backstabbing either.
But he’s such a ‘nice’ gentle man, isn’t he.
Beware the smiling assassin.
The have unlimited clean energy in Star Trek, so why can’t we have it now?
And warp drive too.
Not a lot to ask!
Beam me up
warp drive is leaving seams in space-time stuff.
the environmental damage and potential catastrophe is such that warp travel needs to be eliminated for all but the absolutely necessary (elites).
(Star Trekking is now dead, unless they come around and show that the folks that were claiming the warp drive travel issue was a made up ploy to control everyone else.)
Didn’t this demented old fart describe humans as a ‘plague’?
Yes he did in 2013, (“We are a plaque on Earth.”) As recently as October 2018, he said that “Population growth has to come to an end”. Seems he hates us all.
Could you be insinuating that for us to have access to unlimited clean energy will require more than just having the U. S. Federal Reserve and the other nations’ central banks conjure a bit more magic money out of their magic holes in the air so we can be able to use the magic money to pay for the limitless magical clean, sustainable energy
Gee whiz, If everyone can have ‘free’ quality healthcare, I don’t understand why we can’t have the same for energy. I mean, the laws of physics apply equally to all things and to all processes and systems.
Okay. I’ll get a stick and wave it around while making various incantations. If I can get it to work, I’ll refrain from patenting it and donate it to the IPCC. Problem solved.
David Attenborough in re to his narratives about animals…”as if”
The Left wing are clueless anarchists.
They believe they are on the side of good, when in reality they are on side of evil chaos.
Rather than travel to Climate Conferences in cushy places they should try living a few months in the long list of struggling countries that do not have 24/7 electric power.
How many hours/day per year has David Attenborough experienced without electric power?
Pakistan. Try living with a brown-out of 10 hours per day.
https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2018/07/02/electricity-shortfall-exceeds-6000mw/
The current electricity shortfall has crossed the edge of 6000MW as country rural and urban areas are facing 14 and 10 hours electricity load-shedding respectively.
Nigeria. The leading cause of deafness in Nigeria is noise pollution from diesel generators. Every application that requires 24/7 electric power is powered from a diesel generator. There are for example 50,000 telecommunication towers in the country of 190 million people each of which has a 150 KVA diesel generator that runs 24/7.
https://spotlight.africa/2018/06/29/the-unspoken-horror-of-electricity-shortage-in-nigeria/
Many households in rural areas only have electricity for an average of 2 hours a month. …
It is disheartening and disturbing to hear that only 78 out of a possible 140 turbines are functional in the nation’s 26 power plants. Also, Nigeria cannot provide sufficient gas to operate 23 of these power plants because they are running on simple cycle gas turbines. The government categorically states that Nigeria will not have adequate electricity for years to come, citing reasons that include the inadequate supply of gas and a lack of funding.
South Africa
https://mybroadband.co.za/news/energy/267263-south-africas-electricity-system-is-falling-apart-and-it-is-much-bigger-than-just-eskom.html
Many power outages occur when the municipal distribution network is overloaded and trips, especially during periods of high electricity demand – like on a cold winter night.
Instead of proactive monitoring and maintenance of the infrastructure, poor management means that problems are only detected and fixed after a failure occurs.
Whilst reading this thread I had a quick look at current UK generation data. We are currently importing more electricity from France and the Netherlands, than is being produced by wind (zero solar, of course as it is night). Fance 2GW, Neth 1.2GW, wind 2.9GW. For comparison, 6.4GW from coal and 25.9GW from gas of a total 48.5GW consumption.
We are constantly scolded for having a view on AGW because we are not qualified in the subject. A degree in natural sciences apparently qualifies you.
Whenever I hear his dulcet tones I switch off.
“Presenters” was always a better description than the ones used in the US for folks in that job. Once upon a time most of the population here received our nightly news from 3 or 4 old men. We thought they were sages. Walter Cronkite was touted as “The Most Trusted Man In America”
That was always BS. We learned.
I too have lost all faith in this man who has dedicated his life to the animal world. Who gave him a platform at the world leaders conference in Davos enabling him to spout his ridiculous views on the subject of climate change? He is not a climate scientist, and as far as I know has never publicly associated himself with the global warming brigade. Is it possible that he is being paid a fat fee by one or more Green charities for using his name and reputation to make such outrageously silly speeches
He isn’t stupid, perhaps paid lot of money for public speaking on ‘grand’ occasions, but what if he is subtly ridiculing the AGW by making outlandish statements kind of he made at Poland’s climate conference.
“Global plan” sounds ominous.
Mr. Astley. If only the word “clueless” in your first sentence applied in all cases. Ah, wouldn’t it be pretty to think so.
Why do these people deny the reality of molten salt nuclear technology? We know it works and we now have designs (several) to make it practical and cheaper than any other power technology.
I think we can all get behind better energy generation technology. Apparently there are “experts” out there who are still looking for a revolutionary new energy tehnology. Hey, folks!! It’s here, you GD morons.
What we need to get the show going is a summary of the black hat issues concerning light water high pressure reactors and the gold hat results of having the new mass produce able, cheap as a coal plant to construct reactor.
60 percent of the population is absolutely terrified concerning nuclear power. Why? What is the reason for the light water reactor fuel rod melt downs, explosions, and radioactive releases?
The inherent safety problem in light water reactors is fuel rods and water.
US technology makes a naturally very, dangerous design less dangerous.
And our regulatory agency has spent 30 years talking about the faults and making rules to protect against the faults of the very dangerous design, when there is a fault-less alternative that we built and tested 50 years ago.
No the story is better. The designer and patent holder, of the dangerous reactor, told congress that that design was dangerous, and recommended that we switch to the molten salt reactor. and so on. the story…
The molten salt reactor is not safer, it does not have the catastrophic failure modes.
The molten salt reactor can be mass produced. The US light water reactor is constructed from 8-inch plate and can hence only be produced in one factory in the world. The light water reactor turbines are special constructed, long delivery, as they must handle the low temperature wet steam from the 315C reactor.
The Integral Molten Salt Reactor produces heat at 600C. The increase in temperature, from 315C, opens up more than two trillion dollars/year of industrial heat requirements.
This is a destructive, mostly super good, civilization engineering “breakthrough”.
Indeed. The major nuclear accidents have all been the result of steam or hydrogen explosions, the products respectively of water coolant and zirconium fuel cladding. Eliminate these two and you eliminate most of the risk. That and you can’t very well have a meltdown when the fuel is intended to be molten. If the fuel starts to overheat you drain it into a simple, strong holding tank. You can’t do that with solid fuel.
“David Attenborough Demands Unlimited Clean Energy at Davos”
And men in hell demand ice water.
But, do they get it?
Hell No.
And I demand a magic wand.
That and $5 still won’t buy you anything at Starbucks.
If unlimited clean energy is wanted, maybe David Attenborough could try the big wins first. China produces about 45% of the world’s coal production, yet is a net importer of the stuff. In December 2018 China produced 320.38 million tonnes of the stuff. From the BP Energy Outlook 2018, in the whole of 2017 the two biggest EU producers – Germany and Poland – managed to produce just 302 million tonnes. The combined annual production of the EU in a year is about 7 weeks production of China.
In 2017 China produced 3523 million tonnes. Nine other countries produced in excess of 100 million tonnes, and collectively produced 3437 million tonnes.
If climate activists wanted to genuinely reduce global emissions, maybe they should target China. Raising tariffs against China might be a start. President Trump is already taking a lead in this.
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-china-economy-output-coal/chinas-coal-output-hits-highest-in-over-3-years-as-mines-start-up-idUKKCN1PF0DI
“If people can truly understand what is at stake, I believe that they will give permission to business and governments to get on with the practical solutions.”
The only practical solution is war against the two biggest CO2 emitters. Immediate and total destruction of China and India are indicated. You on board, Attenborough? Or are you really as clueless as you appear? I think you should have stopped speaking in public ten years ago. Your kids should take the microphone away from you.
David Attenborough = large carbon footprint = hypocrite.
BBC = large carbon footprint = hypocrites.
Hey hypocrites, shut down you activities first.
The only truly green energy is FOSSIL FUELS, aka superrenewable fuels, because once burned, the carbon dioxide makes more life, including wood and ethanol which can recycle forever.
Carbon dioxide remains the basis of photosynthesis, which is the basis of all terrestrial life.
No other fuels increase the carrying capacity of the Earth for Life. Fossil fuels (and natural ocean cycles?) have increased the leaf area by 40%, according to NASA satellite data reported on WUWT.
Seems we should send a perpetual motion machine salesman to Davos.
Attenborough is one of the most precious of the BBC elite who are beyond reproach or criticism . When the public voted to call the latest Antarctic survey ship “Boaty MacBoatyface” by a large majority, the humour bypass government ignored the immensely creative public idea and asked Attenborough to have his name given to the new ship. Despite coming a distant fourth in the popular poll, Attenborough didn’t hestitate at this ego swelling opportunity. Well why would he when he views himself and his contributions on world affairs so important.
So now he wants more fish, and perhaps he meant a “pan”rather than a “plan” in his latest rambling nonsense.
That’s to go with unlimited corp jet mileage and jet fuel consumption.
Sir David , in the same pool as the sharks at Davos, what a strange situation.
The gnomes of Davos will only be interested in making even more money, a small thing like “Saving the Planet ” will be be more than a flicker in their minds. ” Sad that David after all of the good nature programmes of the past, has now joined the nutty Greens.
Regarding the practicable alternative such as Nuclear, I wish our readers would stop talking about “Fusion”. That will always be just around the corner, please send more funds. Instead lets stick with what already works. Fission.
MJE
Those damned Republicans are hoarding all the dilithium crystals!