Interesting article here in the Guardian of all places suggesting that recent “apocalyptic predictions” about Arctic ice melt and soaring temperatures are as bad as claims that global warming does not exist. (I’m not sure anyone says global warming does not exist, some of us query the factors driving it!) The reason I bring this up is that I just watched part of the new David Attenborough series “Nature’s Great Events” on BBC1 and was struck by his constant evangelising on behalf of AGW. Anyone else see it? Great imagery but lots of scaremongery!
APOCALYPSE NOT QUITE NOW
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I don’t take anything seriously from the BBC these days with climate change.
The bollocks about climate change being responsible for the fires in Australia was just the latest low from the BBC.
I wonder if they were taking a dig at tossers like Harrabin in the article?
I’m afraid I can’t stomach Attenborough any longer or, for that matter, most BBC nature programmes, all of which seem to have been made with reference to the Corporation’s role as a subsidiary of Greenpeace.
The BBC is always banging on about “balance” when a consensus is not to their liking.
So how about bringing David Bellamy back to add balance to the debate.
BBC: Trash TV with no credibility whatsoever.
The problem is with tosspots like Harrabin. Because he doesn’t have a technical background he doesn’t understand or want to understand the science of climate change.
I bet Harrabin couldn’t explain anything about the Sun’s short and long term cycles, the changes in the Earth’s Orbit or our axial wobble for example.
Harrabin dresses political views up as pseudo science.
Take a look at most of the climate change loons. They are all arty farty media types or luvvies.
The BBC should insist that ONLY people with a science background can comment on climate change issues.
The BBC has reduced climate change to a joke. They work the climate change angle into everything. No one believes the BBC or the Government about climate change. The BBC can bang on all it likes, no one is listening.
Does anyone really give a s**t about Polar Bears?
If Polar Bears can’t adapt to climate change they will die out and something else will replace them. That’s how nature works and why some species have been around for millions of years (Sharks and Crocs, birds etc) and others don’t last 5 minutes.
The irony is the BBC cheerleads for evolution and yet complains when the consequences become apparent! QED
It is obvious that we have had climatic differences periodically over the millenia.
They have taken ice core samples from Greenland which show that not only has the world warmed up dramatically by several degrees before and very quickly, but it has also cooled just as quickly (several degrees of mean temperature within 50 years or so)
Al Gore’s “inconvenient truth” film skirted around a lot of the evidence and was at best politically motivated by a man with a huge house.
BBC spends £200,000 of licence fees on legal fight to suppress report on anti-Israeli ‘bias’
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1142222/BBC-spends-200-000-licence-fees-legal-fight-suppress-report-anti-Israeli-bias.html
Attenborough has always been full of it when it comes to nature and ecology. I don’t doubt the man’s ability to promote the beauty of nature and his programs have always had stunning photography – but he’s always promoted the ridiculous idea that nature is comprised of a “delicate web” of life and that any man made effect on one species will upset this delicate balance and have serious ramifications for the whole structure. Life isn’t like that at all. It’s incredibly resilient, adaptive and self-regulatory.
Give me David Bellamy any day.
Jason | 12.02.09 – 12:43 am |
Craig Bellamy? 🙂
“If Polar Bears can’t adapt to climate change they will die out and something else will replace them. ”
This is so true. If not extinct, near extinction. Many species that don’t go extinct go to a crunch point (called a “Population Bottleneck”) – this explains why all humans are genetically VERY similar because our numbers were reduced to mere 1000s, maybe 100s. The ones that survive adapt. In essence, they become the champions of the new climate. It’s happened to ALL species. All caused by natural climate change in the past.
If NOTHING adapted, everything was artificially kept alive and unevolved, then we humans would not be able to breathe the current Oxygen/Nitrogen atmosphere we currently have. We (and the other surviving species) are the champions of the environment we have adapted to live in.
The BBC has long gone off its rocker.
aussie firestorm – the work of jihadists?
http://www.theage.com.au/national/islam-group-urges-forest-fire-jihad-20080906-4b53.html
Life isn’t like that at all. It’s incredibly resilient, adaptive and self-regulatory.
Give me David Bellamy any day.
Jason | 12.02.09 – 12:43 am | #
and to prove Jason’s point on resiliance, i give you “foxes on a trampoline”
http://tinyurl.com/b5ot3c
“Take a look at most of the climate change loons. They are all arty farty media types or luvvies.”
they are. i’ve met them.
zero science.
100 per cent political.
Speaking of loons and their banjo-plucking cousins, MWL seems to be AWOL again.
This morning, the blogsphere is full of items about how greenies, not arsonists, caused the Melbourne bushfires because they bludgeoned the authorities to stop controlled burning of forests. Guess what? In the BBC website story about the fires, there’s not a whisper of this -dear old greenie-worshipping auntie is still focusing on the hunt for arsonists.
knacker | 12.02.09 – 4:23 am
Even I must sleep.
David V. sets himself up as a serious commentator on science and then writes “the BBC cheerleads for evolution.” Am I right David that you question the theory of evolution? If you do, can I suggest you really ought not to comment on scientific matters. Attenborough is a scientist; he calls it as he sees it, in the light of the evidence. On agw, his view is the mainstream in science.
A TALE OF TWO DAVIDS.
Take two naturalists/scientists both TV personalities and both very popular.
David Attenborough is a major recipient of BBC money, his nature programmes are very expensive to make and only the BBC with its deep taxslave derived income could bankroll them, Attenborough was told in no uncertain terms that to continue making his expensive films with BBC cash he would have to push the AGW/MMCC alarmism or have his funding withdrawn, Attenborough caved in, threw away his principles instilled in him by his mother(my distant relly) turned his back on his whole scientific ethos, caved into the BBC global warming lobby and got his BBC millions!
What a different story with David Bellamy, David is a highly gifted naturalist who has devoted his life to the study and preservation of wildlife, he has brought nature and concern for nature to millions, he is a national treasure but he is a person the BBC hates like poison, he couldnt be bought off or threatened/bullied into dumping his scientific principles, he told the truth about the AGW/MMCC myths and exposed its weakness as a theory, his treatment at the hands of the green lobby ecofascists was terrible, the smears and libels against him and the campaign to silence and deride him was almost soviet in its nature.
David Bellamy stood true to the priciples of scientific endeavour whereas David attenborough sold out for BBC cash, one prospered and was showered with cash and the other had his career destroyed!
Isnt that a true representation of the state of the AGW/MMCC psuedo science today? Science has been perverted by the same type of people that tried to pervert science in Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia.
Following on from my post above, compare:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/02/11/weve-lost-two-people-in-my-family-because-you-dickheads-wont-cut-trees-down/#more-5546
and:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7883970.stm
mikewhineliberal:
“On agw, his view is the mainstream in science.”
LOL. According to WHOM?
I note with sadness that MWL repeated the tired old ‘you are not allowed to comment’ mantra, funny how this same line is repeated to anyone who dissents/denies the AGW dogma, it seems the only people allowed to comment are those who buy into the global warming beliefs?
Those who wish to deny others the chance to express their views because they might well contradict the supposed consensus have already the lost the argument as far as im concerned.
“Attenborough was told in no uncertain terms that to continue making his expensive films with BBC cash he would have to push the AGW/MMCC alarmism or have his funding withdraw”
No he wasn’t. Do you have evidence for this?
“According to WHOM?”
most (but not all) scientists in the field – hence the “mainstream”
there’s clearly a risk there IMHO, even if its not a “fact”, but the problem with MMGW is that it attracts a load of uberlefty idiots who want to use it as a trojan horse to ram through their discredited economic agendas. so we can’t of course encourage privately financed development of greener technology for profit as a solution. we need to cut back, redistribute wealth blahdeblah.
the beeb seems far too keen to follow this line of thought and also far, far too keen to attribute any dodgy weather to “climate change” without any vigorous scientific backing.
anyway, i’m assuming the evolution comment was a mistake??
I too saw the programme, but I don’t recall DA mentioning global warming… he certainly ‘banged on’ about climate change though.
Are they all beginning to hedge their bets now?
I’m afraid I watch less and less of the BBC’s nature programmes now. Almost without fail there’s a section which shoehorns in a bit about man-made climate change, which is not good for the blood pressure.
Now that I’ve become aware of it, this propaganda seems obvious to me but it won’t be to all. It’s a sub-conscious drip, drip effect which shapes public opinion, or at least attempts to.
Cassandra’s post is dead on the button.
Old Ma Attenborough has lined up the BBC’s Eco-Wackers and their pagan Earth-Worship cult.
David Bellamy is ten times the man(?)
Attenborough is and Craig Bellamy is a much better footballer.
Do you have evidence for this?
mikewineliberal | 12.02.09 – 8:00 am | #
We can see what happenned to David Bellamy when he stuck his head above the parapet and draw our own conclusions. Whether it would stand up in court as evidence I shall leave to the lawyers.
MWL,
Do YOU have evidence that he wasnt blackmailed into toeing the AGW/MMCC agenda?
Perhaps you ought to examine in more depth what has been happening in science today and for quite a few years, perhaps instead of standard kneejerk “no he wasnt” responses you may want to dig a little deeper into subjects that may well be very difficult for your entrenched belief system to handle.
What is the point of me doing the research for you when in fact its upto YOU to find out the facts, only then is there a slight chance that you will understand what dissenting scientists have been going through,
come on MWL start digging and then come back with “no he wasnt”.
Open your eyes, open your mind and flex those fingers and get digging instead of issuing worthless denials eh, you seem a very intelligent person and quite able to ascertain the facts so get rolling, ‘times a wastin’ as they say out west!
MWL: You been talking to your pot smoking mates at the BBC again?
Re-comments above about polar bears. Even members of this well informed blog seem to think they’re in decline. In fact they are not, they’re flourishing to an embarrasing degree. It has been just another global warming panic story like all such things, not based on fact.
Jim T. | 12.02.09 – 9:51 am
Quite so: “There are maybe even too many bears now,” he said… http://www.nnsl.com/northern-news-services/stories/papers/sep17_07bear.html
.
xlr – Thanks for that link. I’d read elsewhere about the bears but hadn’t seen that one before.
No one talks about global warming now because it isn’t! Climate change, however can be used to blame anything, for instance Australian bush fires, on man made CO2.
Incidentally, Polar bears are thriving. There are nine separate groups of polar bears. Of these two are in trouble. One due to excessive culling by the Innuit and the other due to a virus problem. Nothing to do with ice melt. After all the ice melts every summer and when it does, any sensible polar bear moves back to land.
Cassandra | 12.02.09 – 9:24 am
Oh lordy. Read your Popper genius
The bBC, that Carbon footprint and half the story.
Gaza to export Valentine’s blooms
Israel has granted permission for 25,000 flowers from the Gaza Strip to be sent to Europe for Valentine’s Day.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7885412.stm
You’d think that the bBC would be promoting a story about how all of this just pumps CO2 in the atmosphere.
The bBC, that Carbon footprint and half the story.
mikewhineliberal…
“Attenborough is a scientist; he calls it as he sees it,”……
Nothing to do with the fact that he works for the bbc then?
Just how daft are you?
Attenborough is not a CLIMATE scientist. He has no more authority on climate change than many of us have.
Plus – for the bulk of his career he has been a broadcaster – NOT a scientist. His degree-level studies were in zoology, geology and anthropology. He never ever WORKED as a scientist – after national Service he joined the BBC.
Cockney writes: “most (but not all) scientists in the field – hence the “mainstream”
Nonsense.
Read and learn.
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton_papers/consensus_what_consensus_among_climate_scientists_the_debate_is_not_over.html
There is an excellent blog on the Sun Tel website which you can contribute to for about 1 day following C Booker’s column each week. Usually he mentions climate change, and this week he added a piece questioning the way evolution is treated as a religion by the BBC.
What you notice about the blog is the complete defeat of the AGW crowd whenever they put the abuse to one side for a minute and rashly try to start a scientic argument. C Booker attracts so many experts to his blog that the AGW arguments are completely defeated every time.
Both sides are free to make contributions on the C Booker blog. This is not the case for AGW blogs, which tells you something about the people who run them and their confidence in their arguments.
The people who are AGW sceptics generally take the position that the earth’s temperature goes up and down in cycles but the contribution from CO2 is insignificant.
The AGW believers would have been over the moon with joy if we were in a warming phase, as they could claim capitalism caused it. Unfortunately for them, the earth seems to be cooling, which makes them look ridiculous. But they will not give up, although they are getting a bit desperate as their bandwaggon collapses.
caveman
Yes, the wheels are now falling off the GW bandwagon. But at what point will the BBC jump off ? Several years after everyone with a grain of common-sense has seen that it is all a self-serving fraud ?
I didnt get the reply from MWL I was hoping for!
Why is there such a huge amount of intelectual inertia coming from inteligent people who only have to do some digging for information that is freely availible, why the reluctance to find out the truth? there seems to be a modern ostrich type paradox going on here where people are getting so entrenched in a belief system that derides and smothers dissent so readily, do they think that the truth will go away if they close their eyes to it?
People who should know better and who have the intelectual capacity to dig up the truth are simply not doing it, its so frustrating to watch!
MWL could have replied to my well meaning response by at least saying OK, ill read up and check up and then get back to you BUT all he wrote was “lordy read Popper” what kind of answer is that? Only when people make the effort to find out whats going on themselves will they take it in and act accordingly.
Given that the BBC’s Science Editor has confessed its bias over AGW then an excellent way to balance its propaganda is to visit the websites of Steve McIntyre and Anthony Watts. Very informative and vastly more entertaining than the BBC drivel.
An extra incentive is that they are both very unpopular with the AGW crowd, particularly Hansen and Mann (the Hockey Stick man).
Cassandra | 12.02.09 – 12:28 pm
Asking me to prove a negative was asinine. But I apologise for misreading your tone.
I’m am pretty well read on the debate about AGW. I was reading Prof Stott’s website years ago (is it still going?), and Simon Hoggart before that, who is a long time sceptic. I still tend to side with Lomborg about what we should do. And I loathe the secular religious aspects of matters green.
My scepticism though has weakened a lot, in the face of the evidence. And to critise Attenborough for following the direction of most serious science is barmy. He is a serious individual, and in my view the greatest living Englishmen after Richard Thompson.
I didn’t bother watching.
Once I’d seen the trailer: polar bear on melting ice….some other animal…polar bear….some other animal…polar bear…etc ad nauseam, I knew that it wouldn’t be worth wasting my time over.
Yes, the wheels are now falling off the GW bandwagon. But at what point will the BBC jump off ? Several years after everyone with a grain of common-sense has seen that it is all a self-serving fraud ?
JohnA | 12.02.09 – 12:17 pm |
JohnA
The BBC will definitely be the last to jump off
“in my view the greatest living Englishmen after Richard Thompson”
Mike, you really do have a beard then?
The BBC will always support its leftist mates regardless.
MWL
By saying greatest living EnglishMAN were you saying that so as to exclude the Queen and Baroness Thatcher, one of whom usually wins the public vote when it is not gender specific.
Re MMGW are you a shining example to us all in what you have given up (flying, car etc.) to save the planet?
xlr | 12.02.09 – 3:13 pm
I liked him best when he didn’t have a beard.
Gerald Brown | 12.02.09 – 4:27 pm
I was using “man” generically”. Greatest woman would be Linda Thompson. Or perhaps Brenda.
MWL,
Thanks for your post, I didnt mean to be ‘asinine’ so please accept my appologies.
The character assasination of David Bellamy among others will be seen in the future as a crime against science, as it should be, science is not a ‘British Leyland strike meeting’ there can never be science by consensus, there can only ever be science by extrapolation of the availible facts which are then matched against observable reality, when this OR does not match the theory then it almost certainly means the theory is contaminated, AGW/MMCC proponents seem to imagine that its the OR that is corrupted!
A theory based on projections alone which is not meeting the hard law of OR must be viewed with suspicion at the very least, add to this the political nature of AGW/MMCC theory along with selective financial grants, political pressure for a definitive answer and the mix becomes toxic to say the least.
I urge you to visit the case of David Bellamy and I urge you dig under the cosy ‘mainstream’ all through history there have been hundreds of examples of the ‘mainstream’ being utterly wrong, in fact modern science has only ever progressed when the mainstream has been proven wrong. A look at phlogiston and the tectonic plate thories will give you a tiny insight into how the cosy world of science can be so mistaken.