Like most I have been a admirer of David Attenborough ever since I first got to watch the BBC Our World series with my children who were as mesmerised as I to see the wonders of nature in our living room.
You can imagine my excitement when TV One advertised the prime time screening of President Obama interviewing Attenborough on his 89th birthday in the White House, which was billed as “Barack Obama interviews David Attenborough on climate change …”
Just before the broadcast I rang a good friend of mine and environmental lawyer to alert him not to miss the programme. To my surprise he was a little bit dismissive saying that Attenborough doesn’t mention climate change. I could not believe this even if I didn’t immediately remember the BBC documentary “The Truth about Climate Change“. I had read an interview in the UK Independent titled “David Attenborough: Leaders are in denial about climate change where Attenborough said about the upcoming climate conference in Paris :
“Never in the history of humanity in the last 10 million years have all human beings got together to face one danger that threatens us – never.”
Minutes later the “Obama interviews Attenborough” programme started and my wife and I were interested to see if our friend was right that Attenborough doesn’t mention climate change at least not in a BBC production.
Towards the end we were on edge as even if the subject was Climate Change Attenborough did not utter the words. It became almost painful to watch how he avoided the words. For instance when asked about changes to the Great Barrier Reef in the 60 years since he dived there first going back in a submersible recently he talked about acidification and warming of the ocean.
I couldn’t believe it and went back to again watch the interview on Youtube and counted how often climate change was mentioned. The voice over mentioned climate change and global warming. Obama said the words “Climate Change” five times and Attenborough not once over the 34 minute programme.
Which brings us to the question: Why ?
Why did Attenborough not utter the words “Climate Change” on that programme”? What is a possible or likely explanation ?
I am not a conspiracy theorist. I am old enough to have seen most of my assertions of what some might have considered as conspiracy theories at the time being proved correct and true over the last 50 years. Why did the world’s most prominent environmentalist not speak the words “Climate Change” when with Obama ?
For me it looks like either deliberate clever editing or an obligation on the BBC’s greatest star, who’s voice alone is worth millions of Pounds, on this occasion not to say the words “Climate Change”.
We know that the BBC is under increasing pressure from the Tory government. Probably most of their corporate backers don’t like to be reminded of what they are doing not to the planet but the human race.
Lets face it planet Earth couldn’t care less if the temperature on her surface rises by two, five or ten degrees. She will still be circling the Sun in another billion years when we humans – like some parasites on her skin – are long gone.
Nobody else might have noticed this conundrum and we wouldn’t have either if not alerted to look out for the words. We were left with suspicion.
However we hope that it isn’t true that David Attenborough is not allowed to mention Climate Change on BBC !
Tweet ##NZPOL
