Book Review by Kip Hansen — 18 January 2022
A fantastic read! Take a deep dive into the intrigue and devious deception perpetrated on the world by a detailed list of international operators at the point where international climate change politics, the entertainment industry and over-zealous and unscrupulous advocacy meet to generate money, transfer power and influence international politics.
This book is a forensic investigation into how one sad and tragic act of Nature was intentionally, and with great stealth, twisted into a false narrative to bolster the very questionable claims that there is a climate emergency and wielded in secret to influence the movers and shakers of international policy.
It is also the heart-breaking tale of how a great man, one who has educated and delighted audiences around the world with a long list of award-winning nature documentaries, fell prey to the temptings of a duplicitous money-hungry advocacy organization which drew him into a scheme to hide the truth in order to create a powerful lie. The scheme involved years of secretive planning and included requiring participants to sign non-disclosure agreements to prevent the true story from emerging before the gut-punch video could have its intended shocking effect on the stage of world opinion.
That man was the highly respected Sir David Attenborough.
The story was “Walruses are jumping off cliffs to their deaths — yes, because of climate change”.
The major knowing and complicit malefactors in this deception: The BBC, Netflix, Silverback Films, and WWF.
FALLEN ICON is not a book for children, it is serious professional investigative journalism, and clearly laid out for readers in a step-by-step narrative. This is not just speculation but an extremely detailed account from start to finish. The book is 166 pages of eye-gripping reporting and includes, for those who wish to dig even deeper, 73 additional pages of references, appendices and citations.
Read it and rejoice in the victory of Truth over Falsehood – and weep for our Fallen Icon.
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Author’s Note:
This review was written based on a pre-publication for-review version of the book provided by author and colleague, Dr. Susan Crockford.
It should be available today from the usual major outlets for e-publications.
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Will be blindly “fact-checked” and summarily cancelled
The IUCN rated two of three walrus subspecies “least concern” and the third “data deficient”.
Walruses have survived much warmer conditions. The threat to them ended with large scale hunting bans.
Same as polie bears yes.
shoot fewer and somehow there are more.
But less ice helps too
Zig Zag ==> This story, oddly enough, has been followed pretty faithfully in the media, especially in the UK.
I checked a lot of the facts personally – because I provided them. Particularly tracking down the blog writings and photographs from Anatoly Kochnev, who was the local naturalist who advised the documentary crew, and also from Evgeny Basov, who also observed and photographed events. I noted the EXIF data that showed when photos were taken. I provided translations of their narratives that helped expose the rather different truth. Indeed, much of the original contact and highlighting of information with Susan Crockford was at this very blog, although that was backed up in email later.
Here’s a smoking gun….
Incidentally that photo was taken as long ago as June 2013, substantially predating the filming (you can check the EXIF). However, it might well have been clickbait for the Our Planet team.
Footage that I unearthed some considerable time after the original effort was discussed here
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/11/19/new-footage-reveals-netflix-faked-walrus-climate-deaths/
Discussion of Attenborough ‘s mea culpa is here
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/11/04/polar-bears-precipitated-netflix-walrus-deaths-new-attenborough-tv-special-shows/
My original research posting
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/04/15/our-planet-film-crew-is-still-lying-about-walrus-cliff-deaths-heres-how-we-know/#comment-2680968
fact-checked
You mean subjected to the gruelling inquisition of “protected opinion” ?
David Attenborough has always been a legend in his own mind.
His latest series on BBC1 ‘The Green Planet’ is very interesting and has few if any climate references.
tonyb
I noticed that too. I watch these documentaries, wondering how long it will be before the usual lies creep in. That’s when I hit ‘mute’ or ‘off’.
I’m not interested in putting any money into the lying SOBs pockets.
TonyB ==> Glad to hear — I’ll try to catch it on streaming in the US.
Should be called ‘The Greener Planet’
And yet, according to the BBC, at the premiere event screening of the special ‘preview’ episode of The Green Planet series, held in Glasgow on the eve of COP26:
“The giant 80x60ft IMAX screen also played a provocative animation ahead of the premiere featuring an electrocardiogram heartbeat that turns into a green plant stem and flatlines, perilously voiced by David Attenborough.
As the audience exited the screening, they were confronted with a living plant installation that was abundant at the start of the screening but now appeared decaying and withered bearing the message: ‘Let’s not make Fossil Forests be our Future.’”
And many thanks to Kip for his fabulous review.
Susan
Isn’t coal fossil forests?
I can’t be bothered to watch his stuff anymore.. I assume it will be wall to wall eco-woke claptrap.
Watched an old C4 documentary about the probable cause of a massive two year famine due to [best guess] massive Krakatoa eruption in 535AD.Frosts in summer. many people died,
Never mind. 20ppm increase in CO2, is worser than the worsest thing there ever was..
Look at the effect of the volcanic eruption on Tonga recently.
Feel very sorry for the people affected, and wonder whether the amount of dust and SO2 discharged into the atmosphere is sufficient to have an effect, temporary, on the climate/weather?
Stephen ==> As for climate/weather effects, we will have to wait and see.
I’ve read that the Tonga eruption was a VE5. That probably won’t be big enough to have a measurable impact on climate/weather.
Tony
Indeed – it even mentions photosynthesis
If you read any of his autobiographies, he was an editor at the BBC and was very clear there were stories he wanted heard and others he did not. That’s what editors do I suppose, but its very clear he was his own authority and he liked it that way.
Voltron ==> Yes, Attenborough was often his own man and insisted on saying things his own way — read the book and you’ll discover that he had to have known, at least towards release time — that the cause of walrus deaths were being falsified, and yet he went ahead with it.
Being willing to play loose with the facts in order to push the “humans bad” agenda was the primary reason why he got the gig in the first place.
Oh so true, I’ve met him!!!
Not sure when eugenics freak qualified as a ‘great man’.
Here, here
See my comment below
Where? Where?
Or did you mean Hear Hear?
Yup, autocorrect is my worst enema
That’s funny! 🙂
What’s the origin of that phrase? Hear, Hear.
Read Dr. Crockford’s synopsis of her book. Saddest part is the Siberian guides knew and phone filmed the truth, which everyone else conspired to hide in order to create the climate lie.
Dissembling seems to be the warmunist MO:
-Mann’s Nature trick
-Briffa’s Hide the decline
-Trenberth’s Missing Heat (Essay in Blowing Smoke)
-Dessler’s positive cloud feedback (essay Cloudy Clouds in Blowing Smoke)
-Marcott’s hockey stick (essay A High Stick Foul in Blowing Smoke)
-OLeary’s Eemian Wais collapse (essay By Land or by Sea in Blowing Smoke)
-Fabricius’ ocean acidification killing corals (essay Shell Games in Blowing Smoke)
are some of the older ones from a decade ago.
Rud ==> Sad but true. It’s our job to keep the truth out there where the public can stumble on it (since Big Tech won’t be directly them in our direction….)
Why I wrote the book. Even in the two energy sections, each essay illustrates either a popularized misunderstanding or a (likely deliberate) erroneous conclusion by the likes of IEA, EIA, CPUC, DoE, NREL…
… NOAA, CSIRO,,,
Rud ==> Reply with a link to your book, so readers can access it easily.
Kip, it’s easy. No link needed. Go to either iBooks or Kindle books and in the search bars type ‘Istvan Blowing Smoke’. Brings it plus reviews plus snippet excerpts up. Just click purchase (it is deliberately cheap, as I did not write it over two years to make money—Kindle even lowered the price two bucks because was selling well enough there).
Rud ==> Thanks, I’m sure readers will be buying copies.
LOL!
The truth got its pants on again.
Follow the money too
RG ==> LOTS of $$$$ involved.
I saw a proramme on tv recently where David Attenborough showed the real story behind the walrus deaths (ie, spooked by polar bears). Give him credit, maybe he realised he was being used, and insisted on the real story being told.
Too many polar bears!
You are right , Polar Bears are on the verge of becoming a pest !
due to too much “carbon pollution”
Polar bears have been a “pest species” for as long as humans have lived near them. There are so many on the western shore of Hudson Bay villagers have asked for permission to shoot three times as many per year until the population is manageable again.
It is not safe to have a top predator wandering through your neighbourhood.
Same situation with Florida manatees. After 30 years of “Save the Manatees!!”, the population count has increased from 1,267 in ‘91 to over 6,300 in ‘21 … but all we hear in the media is the “record number of manatee deaths” last year. But the breathless news bites always fail to mention the five-fold population increase.
Where/when was this broadcast, i’d be interested too, also to see if he just states it was mistaken or if he cops to the outright fraud.
Andrew ==> Netflix put out the truer story a few months later — they all know the truth would out but that it would never overshadow their falsehood — the propaganda version was just too powerful. which is exactly why they did it the way they did.
Read the book for all the gory details.
I’m a Netflix addict and haven’t seen it.
Zorzin ==> It is back a year or so — the exact title is in the book.
I didn’t see the book listed on Kindle.
Here is the link to the book.
I saw an interview he gave once where one of his similar lies was outed. He admitted the deception, and just laughed about it. Unfortunately I can’t remember the lie itself.
He really doesn’t care.
Could it be the fake footage of his penguins flying?
Nope, not what happened. Read the book.
By that I mean there is no evidence he insisted the real story be told.
We got there first….
It wasn’t just polar bears. There were helicopters flying low overhead to film the walruses. The sound of the rotors spooked them and caused them to jump.
Fifi ==> Well, actually DRONES were obviously present — the camera angles tell us this.
Attenborough admitted it here in the LINK
Sunsettommy ==> Yes, correct, this is all covered in Dr. Crockford’s book.
Not the same ‘group’ controlling GoJo Brandon by any chance – and AOC while we’re here??
I might have suggested ‘controlling BoJo’ but that’s pushing things too far, he’d give the game away in no time.
His ‘dear princess’ is an entirely ‘nother matter tho
“ weep for our Fallen Icon.
Having just turned the awful Chris Packham off, no chance.
Packham is the main reason I’m not doing the garden bird survey.
Glad I’m not the only one. I am proud to say it only takes 0,5 of a second to get to the remote to switch him off. It was 0.6 for corbyn and the same for Monbiot.
Looking forward to the Griffter’s review of the book. Should be any minute now. After all, it’s not like he has to read it first.
Griff only reads headlines
“FALLEN ICON is not a book for children…”
And not a book that the MSM will ever mention.
Zorzin ==> You might be surprised….some will try to pan it (which will only increase sales) and some others may pick up the story.
Kip and Susan, thanks. Just bought the book for my iPad Kindle reader. Looking forward to a good read.
A pro tip. My publisher put my 3 ebooks on both the Kindle and iBooks platforms. I find the iBooks reader interface a bit better for bookmarking, annotating, noting errata, and such a bit more like a real book. Kindle lives with Kindle device EInk limitations.
Rud ==> I am a dedicated anti-Apple guy . . . . my prejudice is based on apple’s overall philosophical approach to the device/used relationship.
But, Thanks for the Tip!
I will never publish a book of my own. . . . .(a long-term promise to myself). If I do, I will be sure to include the “both worlds” approach and do Kindle and iBook.
I too am more or less anti-Apple, but it has more to do with the attitudes of many pro-Apple people.
That an my belief that Apple has a poor price to performance ratio.
The control that Apple has over developer does improve the quality a bit, however the the extra cost for that improved quality is not worth it.
Thirdly, most of that “extra” quality was in the past. In recent years the cost has remained, but quality has eroded.
More than slightly contradictory there, Kip.
sturmudgeon ==> Self-publishing a book, even a vanity book, is either a commercial enterprise or a promotional enterprise. Publishing in the two most popular formats is simply sensible and pragmatic if you want people to buy and read your book.
I don’t discriminate against Apple-heads, I’m just not one of them.
I will never give a penny to WWF. Their advertising is lie upon lie,
I’ve ordered the book. If only to tip a dollar towards Susan.
We visited the British Museum of Natural History 5 years ago and Marveled at the thousands of dead animals killed by Attenborough and his ilk.
Preserved for posterity nailed to a board.
I was invited to his book launch, ”The trials of life” some thirty years ago and shook hands with the man. A lot shorter in stature than I thought, around 5’5”. He asked me… ”and what is your purpose in life?” I answered that I am a farmer, forester and dabbling in aquaculture. To which he totally ignored the farming, forestry bit and went straight to aquaculture which was a failed attempt to farm white bait, they eat Phyto Plankton, of which we just couldn’t get enough of to make it a commercial enterprise.
I was an enormous fan back then, even though I knew he was green, but not now, especially after the walrus episode. Shame he went down the alarmist road and didn’t stay neutral.
He’s basically a hobbit
There’s a saying about short people having over sized ego’s to make up for their lack of stature.
It seems to be also true for Robert Reich and Michael Bloomberg.
MarkW ==> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bfyS-S-IJs
Fauci, Fauci, & Fauci.
Mr. Attenborough certainly doesn’t deserve any praise. He might have been honest in the beginning but if so, he lost it to fame.
Now, he could redeem himself by doing a show on the effects of the Sun on the climate and the ongoing Grand Solar Minimum that is cooling the world and disrupting the climate over most of the world.
I have said it before, but years ago the BBC did a great programme on the Sun, with some beautiful pictures & video shots, but they destroyed all credibility when the narrator (just an actor, not generally known for their brain power outside their field), finished off with the phrase, “No one, can fully explain what effect the power of the Sun has on Earth’s climate, but whatever it is, it’s already been overtaken by manmade climate change!!!” Wonderful scientific reasoning, “we don’t fully know what effect element A has upon element B, but it’s already been overpowered by element C!!!”! Priceless!!!
Thanks for that! We’ve had countless examples.
I don’t believe he’s ever been honest. There was another gentleman who used to do these nature series for the BBC, however he did insist on honesty, so he was replaced by Attenborough.
What we need is a documentary on this and get Jeff Goldblum as Dr Ian Malcolm mercilessly shredding everything Attenborough babbles about with cutting wit and humor.
THAT would rock!!!
Not to mention Attenborough is a patron on the Optimum Trust AKA Population Matters, a racist outfit whose sole purpose is to reduce the population in the non-white, non-christian areas of the world
I make no apologies for posting a link to this spreadsheet yet again
Attenborough should be given a platform to explain not just the walrus lie but also how he could put his name to a “documentary” that showed shellfish dissolving in an “increasingly acidic” ocean.
How have we arrived at a situation where such obvious dishonesty has become the norm?
It is the norm.
Except it is a material fact that the ice over shallow water Walrus rely on is a diminishing commodity and they therefore haul out more often.
Some walrus science (i.e. not politically based opinion)
Walruses in a Time of Climate Change (noaa.gov)
Except that it isn’t, apart from your completely delusional reality, of course. Walrus haul-out’s have been recorded for centuries, archaeological evidence of them has been established at numerous sites and the frequency appears to be unchanged. The frequency of media reporting on them has increased, but that is a completely different matter and has no bearing on the actual frequency of the Walrus haul-out’s. Stop believing everything the media tells you and do your own research.
“Sophie Lanfear of Silverback Films told the Telegraph: “We filmed Pacific walrus falling from high cliffs. They were not being driven off the cliffs by the polar bears and we know this because we had two team members watching the cliffs from afar who could see the polar bears and were in radio communications with us to warn us about any bears approaching the crew closer to the walrus and the cliffs.
“Once the walrus had rested at the top for a few days they wanted to return to sea when all the others below started to leave. We would watch them for hours teetering back and forth on the edge before finally, falling off.
“Fundamentally, the reason walrus used this haulout location is because of a lack of sea ice in the region, meaning they are coming ashore more frequently than they did in the past. Especially mothers with their pups. And at this particular site, once the beach below the cliffs was full, they spread out and up the cliffs and were unable to find their way safely down, with tragic consequences.”
https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/news/climate-change-deniers-haul-out-a-daft-conspiracy-theory-about-attenboroughs-new-programme/
PLEASE….
There isn’t a shred of evidence to support your conviction that walrus haul-outs must have increased. If walrus are so dependent on ice, how did they ever survive the Holocene optimum which was at least 2 to 3 degrees warmer than today?
Zoologist David Bellamy is my icon.
He was a great man, better than some of the ones who outlived him.
By itself this will have zero effect perhaps a whiff of wind in re to the overiding debate on the climate change controversy. Unless it supports development of a new taxonomy on classification of how / whether called climate change research and evidence truly follows the accepted standards of science research esp. following the scientific method. It may sell well with the legion of retiored armchair scientists who write articles and run blogs. We need to focus ion the real hoax and that is the abandonment of scientific principles in the whole field of climate change … espeically the real causes which are the sources of funding behind it.
Danley ==> Many of those writing and reading here are serious about the effect of the changes happening within the general scientific fields — not just climate science but medicine, biology, social sciences.
Part of the process of correcting what is wrong with science today is the calling out of biased, poorly performed research. This effort helps to discourage poor practices.
The collusion of the media and activist-science is one of the huge factors spreading ignorance in today’s world.
Just ordered the book. Thanks to Ms. Crockford for your tireless efforts to expose the fraudsters and tell the truth. And to this blog as well.