Frozen Planet furore
The final programme in the Frozen Planet series was broadcast this week – David Attenborough’s personal take on climate change.
For me, it was an extraordinary programme – creative, convincing, compelling. To be fair, I am hardly unbiased. Indeed, I am very biased. Primarily because of the furore that has broken out over the coverage of the programme in the Radio Times.
Image courtesy of UN Photo via Flickr
A few weeks ago, the Radio Times asked me to do an accompanying commentary on David Attenborough’s own article in the Radio Times. I was obviously delighted to do this. I was then told that they had also asked Nigel Lawson to do the same, which of course strengthened my resolve.
When I saw it, I thought Lawson’s piece was a disgrace. Rude, patronising, scientifically illiterate and totally inappropriate. I couldn’t really believe that anybody would publish it.
The justification offered up by the Radio Times for carrying this piece was the usual politically-correct claptrap of ‘achieving balance’ – but for no editorial controls to have been exercised is fairly extraordinary.
Perhaps I shouldn’t worry too much about this. Most people seem to have been astonished at Lawson’s ill-judged contempt. And David certainly knows how to look after himself.
But the contrast between the way in which David made up his mind about climate change (methodically, slowly, evidence-based) and Lawson’s ideological, evidence-blind approach, couldn’t be clearer. I wrote about this at some length in my initial article for Radio Times (which got somewhat ruthlessly pruned back), and just wanted to publish that original version here:
The debate about the science of climate change here in the UK becomes more and more surreal. Whilst a little clique of armchair pundits continue to peddle the usual mix of scepticism and ill-informed prejudice, real scientists observing real-time phenomena in real places all around the world point to one inescapable conclusion: that the climate is changing far faster than anyone imagined possible even a few years ago.
Talking to climate scientists who have been out in the field can be a deeply disturbing experience. As professional scientists, they fiercely defend the objectivity of their data; as private citizens (and often parents), one can’t help but note the fear in their personal testimonies.
When a personal testimony of that kind comes from David Attenborough, its impact is enormous. David is one of the UK’s most trusted and admired public figures, whose views on climate change carry great weight.
What people won’t know is the personal journey David has been on in coming to those conclusions. For years, he was studiously neutral, listening to all sides of the debate, carefully assessing the evidence, politely resisting demands from environmental pressure groups to add his voice to various climate campaigns.
Only when he felt the evidence was robust enough did he declare his opinion (a few years ago) that the climate was changing, and it was changing because of man-made emissions of greenhouse gases.
It’s that thoughtful, conscientious journey that makes this personal testimony from the Arctic and the Antarctic all the more compelling - and I can only hope it will help to dispel some of the doubts that people still have as to the pressing urgency with which we must now address accelerating climate change.
And there’s still so much to be done – on energy efficiency, investment in renewables, research into storage technologies, smart grids and so on.
And I’m sure that David (as a fellow Patron of Population Matters) would also be advocating huge new investments in family planning programmes in key countries to help slow population growth.
In a world where more people take their guidance on climate change from Jeremy Clarkson than from the President of the Royal Society, or from the Daily Mail than from the New Scientist, I suppose there will be some who look more to Nigel Lawson than they do to David Attenborough.
But I rather doubt it.
Comments
Nobody should assume that man-made global warming is a fact. It may be true, but based on the raw data presented so far, it is probably not true.
It is staggeringly hard for me as a practising biological scientist, to try and get used to the idea strongly propogated by the eco-science community that eco-scientists have an absolutely perfect, proven and unassailable, crystal ball to look into the future. When I was taught biology we learnt to observe facts, not predict the future. That was left to witches. Nowadays, gullible students are being indoctrinated into the global-warming faith by being told that facts are irrelevant compared to computer "projections". I have done computer projections. Well, let me tell you something about ecological computer models. The term "Rubbish in, leads to Rubbish out" is hugely optimistic. It should read " The slightest, smallest, mistake you can ever possibly imagine in, leads to total and utter bollocks out"! (Chaos theory seems about right). As we know very little about ecological relationships in biology. Anybody touting a computer model as a likely representative model of the future climate, is by default an absolute charlatan - and he or she knows it perfectly well.
Also, what the hell are meteorologists, who know nothing whatsoever about biology, doing trying to model a long-term biological system such as the Earth's atmosphere. Why do people believe them? If I, as a biologist, announced that I knew how to make a fusion reactor, so could taxpayers please pauper themselves to give me 100 million dollars to have a go, nobody in their right mind would give me the cash. When some spotty computer operator/meteorologist who has never been out of his computer room in his short academic life, says he has a "model" showing the end of the world as we know it, all the eco-scientists fete him, and shower him with grants and gold, like he is a new God. No wonder they oblige with doom-laden prophesies so often!
Add to this the unbelievable bias of the IPCC, the East Anglia University Climategate, the many scandals that regularly come to light regarding global-warming scientists falsifying raw data, "adjusting" figures, mis-representing actual findings in their conclusions, and refusal of journals to publish reputable science that is not "on-message" and you can hardly be surprised if well-informed people are sceptical.
Here is one of the scandals regarding NIWA:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/25/uh-oh-raw-data-in-new-zealand-tell...
There are loads more if you care to look with an open mind. Please wake up a bit and get a grip upon yourselves.
My thanks to Bishop Hill for posting a link to Lawson’s article, without that link I would have never seen how patronizing Lawson was. Repeatedly stating “Had he wished to be objective” was extremely rude and patronizing; I find it difficult for anyone to not see it that way. When it comes to the Frozen Planet series it self, we have yet to see it here State side. I just found out that the Discovery Channel will be airing Frozen Planet starting on March 18! It was the stunning videography of Planet Earth that finaly coaxed me to upgrade to an HDTV and DISH HDDVR. I have the full series of both Planet Earth and Blue Planet saved, I can’t wait to start recording Frozen Planet. There are a few people that work with me at DISH who love these documentaries as well. I think we may have a small get together to watch the premier episode. Poking around the web I found that the last episode was going to be left out of U.S. airings but Discovery has since reversed that decision. I am sure this series will have its fair share of detractors and critics, but I will take the word of a seasoned researcher and film maker like Attenborough over an “economist” like Lawson any day.
Research has shown, rather convincingly, that what slows the birth rate is a steady income and the secure ownership of some property. The family planning argument clearly fails to recognise this - and somehow skirts around the issue. A redistribution of wealth appears to be the surest way to create a stable population.
"Rude, patronising, scientifically illiterate and totally inappropriate".
What a very strange characterisation of the article. Feels like professional outrage to me.
http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2011-12-07/climate-change--is-david-atten...
How anyone could trust an utter failure in the world of economics like Lawson to get it right on any facts and figures in an area he clearly knows absolutely nothing about, beggars belief.
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