Just a week will have passed between the broadcasting of Paul Nurse’s film about climate change sceptics’ alleged ‘attack on science’ and the BBC’s next film about… climate change sceptics.
Meet the Climate Sceptics
NEXT ON: Today, 22:00 on BBC FourFilmmaker Rupert Murray takes us on a journey into the heart of climate scepticism to examine the key arguments against man-made global warming and to try to understand the people who are making them.
Do they have the evidence that we are heating up the atmosphere or are they taking a grave risk with our future by dabbling in highly complicated science they don’t fully understand? Where does the truth lie and how are we, the people, supposed to decide?
The film features Britain’s pre-eminent sceptic Lord Christopher Monckton as he tours the world broadcasting his message to the public and politicians alike. Can he convince them and Murray that there is nothing to worry about?
Here’s a trailer for the film,
Skeptics from PTV Productions on Vimeo.
Without wishing to prejudge the film, why send an environmentalist to make a film about climate sceptics? Doing it once… Hmm… You can sort of see the journalistic value. Doing it twice in the space of a week, however, starts to look like a phenomenon. If the intention is to understand criticism of environmentalism, why not let a critic of environmentalism author the film?
Because, as former BBC newsreader Peter Sissons recently said, the BBC is a “propaganda machine for climate zealots” – (link). End of story!
“Do they have the evidence that we are [not] heating up the atmosphere or are they taking a grave risk with our future by dabbling in highly complicated science they don’t fully understand”
Oh dear – Difficult not to read into this the same false choice between rejection of human impact and acceptance of climate catastrophe; and the same blind spot regarding scientifically credible critics.
Talk about clichés:
Obvious Rednecks – check
Country/Banjo music – check
Someone with a gun on a porch – check
I notice from the clip that Mr Delingpole appears in this film. It’s also been mentioned that he is on this Thursday’s Question Time. Perhaps the BBC are having a ‘James Delingpole Week’ and just forgotten to tell us.
James Delingpole has something interesting to say about Murray’s film here:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100074116/meet-the-sceptics-another-bbc-stitch-up/
According to JD, Christopher Monckton is the main target.
I’m not a fan of either man’s approach to the climate debate. I think it’s a little misguided, and we have different political perspectives. But I think their treatment by their opponents is extraordinary. The real problem for those trying to make bogeymen out of Delingpole and Monckton is that as soon as a shadow of doubt emerges about ‘climate science’, they simply hand them a massive chunk of credibility. Thus they have to work harder and harder to make the bogeymen look more absurd. That’s what I think we saw last week on Horizon, and I suspect we shall see again tonight.
A certain kind of inverted racism with respect to banjo-picking rednecks became fashionable in the seventies with films like Deliverance. Then Garrison Keillor’s novels made Republican-voting rural white Americans humorous. With the advent of Sarah Palin and the Tea Party movement they’ve become baddies again. You could probably make an entertaining film disproving Christianity, by interviewing a certain kind of Americans who believes in it.
It doesn’t look as if Richard Lindzen will get much of a look in, unless he can play the banjo.
It’s worse than I had even imagined possible.
It sounds grim – can’t watch it on my stone-age TV but will do so when it surfaces on iPlayer. (Now I have the duelling banjos scene from Deliverance playing in my head, thanks guys!)
Hi All
I am just a middle of the road human, trying to survive daily life and on this subject, trying to understand the evidence. How I see it is this.
Is the earth heating up. Possibly but no conclusive evidence
Has this happened before. Yes
Is this heating up caused by human intervention. Possibly but no conclusive evidence
Is the earth going thru a natural phase cycle of heating and cooling. Possibly but no conclusive evidence.
Are there a lot of people on this earth: Yes Fact
Are we all going to die at some stage: Yes Fact
This documentary is a poor piece of film making if it is to be considered an unbiased view.
Too many biased images leaning to one side (Dramatic footage of floods and desert, Satirical music along side images of a “skeptic”, a publish email to a Climate scientist, not one the other way round)
The film does not contain anything about skeptics in plural, just a man on a mission.
What p*%sess most of us middle of the road people is that we are exposed to this from the pro climate activists especially from the BBC.
No one every produces a serious even handed documentary covering both sides…actually I am gonna grab my camcorder and do it my self….and call myself a film maker.
tell you what Rupert…dare you to make contact and film me doing a proper documentary.