Josh writes via email:
We had a fun programme on the BBC last night that was high on emotion but low on facts.
The BBC describes the show this way:
David Attenborough climate change TV show a ‘call to arms’
Sir David Attenborough’s new BBC documentary on climate change has been praised by TV critics.
Climate Change – The Facts, shown on BBC One on Thursday, was a “rousing call to arms”, said the Guardian.
In a four-star review, the Times said the veteran presenter “took a sterner tone… as though his patience was nearly spent”.
Sir David, 92, has called global warming “our greatest threat in thousands of years”.
In its review, The Arts Desk said: “Devastating footage of last year’s climactic upheavals makes surreal viewing.
“While Earth has survived radical climactic changes and regenerated following mass extinctions, it’s not the destruction of Earth that we are facing, it’s the destruction of our familiar, natural world and our uniquely rich human culture.
“In the 20 years since I first started talking about the impact of climate change on our world, conditions have changed far faster than I ever imagined,” Sir David said in the film.
“It may sound frightening, but the scientific evidence is that if we have not taken dramatic action within the next decade, we could face irreversible damage to the natural world and the collapse of our societies.”
In a glowing review, the Telegraph called the title of the documentary “robust” and praised the use of Sir David in the central role.
“At a time when public debate seems to be getting ever more hysterical,” it said, “it’s good to be presented with something you can trust. And we all trust Attenborough.”
“Sir David Attenborough might as well be narrating a horror film,” wrote the FT.
“A panoply of profs line up to explain that the science on climate change is now unequivocal, never mind the brief clip of Donald Trump prating: ‘It’s a hoax, it’s a hoax, OK’.”
But it added: “Fortunately for our nerves the last 20 minutes focuses on what needs to be – and can be – done on an international and personal level.”
Sir David’s concern over the impacts of climate change has become a major focus for the naturalist in recent years and has been a theme of his Our Planet series on Netflix.
The new BBC programme has a strong emphasis on hope with Sir David arguing that if dramatic action is taken over the next decade, then the world can keep temperatures from rising more than 1.5C this century, limiting the scale of the damage.
The programme – which is now available on the BBC iPlayer – was broadcast as Extinction Rebellion protesters continues to cause disruption in parts of central London.
Well, there you have it, done in timing with “Extinction Rebellion” protesters who are nothing more than the paid rabble of eco-NGO’s. And of course, we’ve heard these end-of-the-world scenarios time and time again from whacked-out doomsters. They didn’t come true, and we are still here.
Josh wasn’t impressed, neither am I.
Meanwhile, if you really want facts, may I suggest this book in which I have co-authored a chapter:
Climate Change: The Facts 2017 contains 22 essays by internationally-renowned experts and commentators, including Dr Bjorn Lomborg, Dr Matt Ridley, Professor Peter Ridd, Dr Willie Soon, Dr Ian Plimer, Dr Roy Spencer, and literary giant Clive James. Anthony Watts also has a chapter.
Get your copy now at Amazon, both Kindle and Paperback are available:
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“Destruction of our familiar, natural world and our uniquely rich human culture.” Who could disagree with that?
Weasels ripped my flesh (RZZZZ!), so I did the ethical thing and blamed climate change.
They can’t even stop the Russian special ops teams in London operations much less global warming.
…a call to glue.
Atty is really old now, and doesn’t get outside much to sense that the weather is the same as it always was. Still gets his newspapers delivered, actually believes the crap written in them. Stays home dictating his talking scripts for the highest bidder his agent has found. Pay is good compared to most 92 yr olds.
Sir Addledburro?
I believe Deadly Climate Boffins themselves are desperately battling d*nile. It is slowly dawning on them that nothing is actually going to be done no matter what they rail about. The hysteria, a 10yr end-of-world deadline and the speedup in recycling old papers on consequences is a ‘tell’.
The return of the “Climate Blues” epidemic is in progress. The first one, because of the “Pause, wiped out the careers of the of the fragile campaigners and we are seeing it again because they know in their hearts nothing will be done to halt CO2 and they fear nothing bad will happen. They are throwing everything they’ve got to get some policy going to take credit for saving the planet by keeping it cool when its going to be just fine anyway and their gig will be over – a wasted career, a wasted life and $trillions of their fellow citizens money thrown away for their legacy. “What did your daddy do during the Climate Boondoggle?” Watch for big defections as the stress mounts!
Attenbourough is just a puppet. The real problem is the public broadcaster – the Beeeb. It’s bad enough that such rubbish is produced – but paid for by the British Public? There’s a petition out for the BBC to be held to account.
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/234797
Today’s PBS, which derives from a heritage of balance, isn’t much better. It’s responsibility is to INFORM the public – not to MISINFORM the public. We can’t stop such rubbish from be exploited by commercial operations, but by the publically-funded broadcaster?
PBS’s funding should be cut, with what remains contingent upon impartiality and balance. If PBS can’t abide by these basic standards, it is easily replaced by countless commercial broadcaasters who provide the same rubbish without picking the public’s pocket.
Any program that has Attenborough as its star is instantly ignored by those who recall his comments re the EU Referendum here in the UK.
He said after the result went against his preferred outcome.
“The common people should never have been asked to decide anything about the EU because they lack the knowledge and intelligence ” he went on to opine.
“Such decisions should be left to the politicians as they have the facts and know what is best”
The politicians he had in mind were Theresa May, Jeremy Corbyn, Diane Abbott, David Lammy and similarly dumb politicians.
That list of MPs are. incompetent, uneducated, innumerate, and ignorant.
That is who Attenborough regards as worthy arbiters of Britain’s future interests.
I think it is unfair to apply “uneducated” to Theresa May, or indeed to David Lammy. Agree with the rest 🙂
So Attenborough is a meritocrat, is he? He must be ignoring the long road to universal suffrage in Britain.
Personally, I consider myself well educated, and I would love for everyone to think the way I do, but I also believe in democracy, currently a shambles in Britain, with Parliament (and the PM) frustrating the expressed will of the people. I also think it is very easy to dismiss unfairly the common sense of the common people.
griff: “Climate skepticism is a minority, US centric viewpoint.”
Okay, I did a search about what the views are in the UK.
http://www.bsa.natcen.ac.uk/media/39251/bsa35_climate_change.pdf
http://www.bsa.natcen.ac.uk/latest-report/british-social-attitudes-29/transport/belief-in-climate-change.aspx
https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/uk-climate-change-real-accept-majority-global-warming-poll-finds-a7909841.html
Some of these are old, some new. Lots of detail there. Bottom line, UK is mostly believers.
Whether it’s the most important concern to them is a different question; it is a concern.
The question nobody ever asks is “Is the cure to this ‘problem’ worse than the ‘problem’?”
How much would you pay to fix it? Everybody wants a RR until they see the price (maybe they don’t want a RR, but you know what I mean).
For comparison, here are tables of the 2008 Gallup Poll responses and 2015 Pew Research Center’s responses by country.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_opinion_by_country
For a programme that had ‘The Facts’ displayed right up there in the title, it was rather lacking in ‘facts’ but a plenty of rhetoric. Paul Homewood does his usual clinical analysis (and by that I mean a thorough debunking) at https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2019/04/19/attenboroughs-climate-change-the-facts/
As a Brit, I have to agree with Griff. I would do anything
absolutely anything to prevent this countries temperatures rising by one degree.
When we get back from our holiday in florida I intend to glue myself to something in
an attempt (no doubt futile) to raise peoples awareness of the dangers of one degree
I just pray that I can survive the heated hell that is florida
Let us not forget that the “best scientific experts” (according to the BBC) who in 2006 advised the BBC to abandon impartiality in its reporting of climate change and who were therefore responsible for David Attenborough’s unintentionally hilarious programme were:
Robert May, Oxford University and Imperial College London
Mike Hulme, Director, Tyndall Centre, UEA
Blake Lee-Harwood, Head of Campaigns, Greenpeace
Dorthe Dahl-Jensen, Niels Bohr Institute, Copenhagen
Michael Bravo, Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge
Andrew Dlugolecki, Insurance industry consultant
Trevor Evans, US Embassy
Colin Challen MP, Chair, All Party Group on Climate Change
Anuradha Vittachi, Director, Oneworld.net
Andrew Simms, Policy Director, New Economics Foundation
Claire Foster, Church of England
Saleemul Huq, IIED
Poshendra Satyal Pravat, Open University
Li Moxuan, Climate campaigner, Greenpeace China
Tadesse Dadi, Tearfund Ethiopia
Iain Wright, CO2 Project Manager, BP International
Ashok Sinha, Stop Climate Chaos
Andy Atkins, Advocacy Director, Tearfund
Matthew Farrow, CBI
Rafael Hidalgo, TV/multimedia producer
Cheryl Campbell, Executive Director, Television for the Environment
Kevin McCullough, Director, Npower Renewables
Richard D North, Institute of Economic Affairs
Steve Widdicombe, Plymouth Marine Labs
Joe Smith, The Open University
Mark Galloway, Director, IBT
Anita Neville, E3G
Eleni Andreadis, Harvard University
Jos Wheatley, Global Environment Assets Team, DFID
Tessa Tennant, Chair, AsRia
Climate change – the facts
https://tambonthongchai.com/2019/04/19/climatehype/
To my Canadian neighbor ferd berple,
Fear not, the Trump train is headed north.
Trudeau will soon lose his other eyebrow.
The Biased Broadcasting Corp is past its sell by date.
They dare not tell people the science, because the science doesn’t support their hysteria.
The programme is simply propaganda. There were no verifiable facts used and Hanson was the prime “pet” climate scientist! Every line of the script could have been rebutted by good scientific information, but there was not a single shred of doubt expressed that ANY of the statements were not 100% accurate and true! Science, no propaganda pure and simple.
I made a complaint about bias in the programme due to the lack of balance, here is the email response in full. Pay particular attention to the fourth paragraph starting “The vast majority…”
“Thank you for contacting us about ‘Climate Change – the Facts’ and your concerns surrounding the accuracy of the programme.
Climate Change – the Facts represented the work of a wide range of scientists from the UK and US, as well as other countries, demonstrating the scale and scope of scientific endeavour and thinking around this complex subject.
Their interviews were based on their research, describing what it has revealed and in some instances expressing personal reactions based on their deep insights. The overall content of the programme was also based on peer reviewed scientific research, which was rigorously checked by an independent scientific consultant, a leading academic at University College London. Inevitably in a 60 minute programme there were some subject areas which could not be addressed in greater detail or which we did not feature.
The vast majority of climate scientists agree on the fundamentals of human induced climate change and this was reflected in the film. As climate change is accepted as happening, the BBC no longer seeks to ‘balance’ the debate by interviewing those who do not agree with this position.
There are many complexities in communicating climate change to a mainstream audience; the film sought to balance potentially alarming scenarios with scientific analysis on attribution (the extent to which extreme weather events and other phenomena such as sea level rise can be linked to climate change), climate modelling and projections of what may happen in the future (in which inevitably there are many uncertainties) and actions aimed at reducing carbon emissions and mitigating the effects of climate change going forward. While Sir David Attenborough drew on his own experience of reporting on this subject over many years, he also balanced a sense of urgency with optimism that there are ways of addressing the serious issues we undoubtedly face.
We hope this helps to address your concerns and we thank you for taking the time to contact us. “
Kind Regards
BBC Complaints Team
http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints