BBC short changes climate change in overseas sales of Frozen Planet nature documentary

The BBC has relegated the seventh and final episode of the Frozen Planet series presented by Sir David Attenborough to an optional extra. The seventh episode - On Thin Ice - deals with how climate change and global warming is impacting the polar regions and how it affects us all. The final episode is heavily narrated by Sir David Attenborough.

Managers at the BBC decided the series would sell better by making the seventh episode and a behind the scenes documentary available as optional extras which broadcasters could choose to take or leave. Evidently 30 networks across the world have already bought the series but a third of them have opted not to take the seventh episode on climate change and the behind the scenes documentary episode. DVD versions of the series will include all episodes.

According to the Telegraph report a spokeswoman for the BBC said: “In international sales it is normal practice to offer broadcasters the option to take which parts they want, as well as add-ons, such as the one-hour Making Of episode. On Thin Ice (Programme Seven) features David Attenborough in vision as it is his authored show. It would be impossible to do a presenter-less version. Only those countries that accept David as a presenter (and there are many where he is well-known – such as Australia, New Zealand and Scandinavia) could be expected to take episode seven as it stands."

“In the case of Discovery in the USA, they had a scheduling issue so only had slots for six episodes and have decided to combine elements of episode seven, On Thin Ice, with episode six, The Last Frontier. The BBC has been consulted on editorial decisions on this.” said the spokeperson.

In the same report a spokesman for Greenpeace said: “It’s a bit like pressing the stop button on Titanic just as the iceberg appears. Climate change is the most important part of the polar story, the warming in the Arctic can’t be denied, it’s changing the environment there in ways that are making experts fearful for the future.”

In Australia the Frozen Planet series airs on the Nine Network on Sunday. There is no detail on the Nine Network website whether they will show the seventh episode and the behind the scenes documentary.

David Attenborough, until a few years ago, was a sceptic on anthropogenic global warming, but now says the evidence of it is too overwhelming to ignore. In 2006 he made two documentary programs on Are We Changing Planet Earth? and Can We Save Planet Earth? (See Wikipedia article) In concluding these programs he said "In the past, we didn't understand the effect of our actions. Unknowingly, we sowed the wind and now, literally, we are reaping the whirlwind. But we no longer have that excuse: now we do recognise the consequences of our behaviour. Now surely, we must act to reform it: individually and collectively; nationally and internationally — or we doom future generations to catastrophe."

I wonder how David Attenborough feels about the seventh episode of Frozen Planet being made an optional extra, when the impacts of global warming are very much not optional and will be increasingly experienced by the human population and the creatures that also share planet Earth.

We are facing the impacts of climate change through species extinction and loss of biodiversity, rising sea levels, more frequent and intense extreme weather events, increasing ocean acidification, ever warmer temperature extremes, increasing temperature impacts on agriculture and food security.

And in two weeks time Environment and Climate ministers will sit down together at the seventeenth United Nations Conference of the Parties in Durban South Africa to argue about little details when we face such a huge challenge.

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A new Arctic study published by Håkan Grudd, of Stockholm University’s Department of Physical Geography and Quaternary Geology, confirms the conclusion that the Arctic is not warmer now than it was previously.

He states: “The late twentieth century is not exceptionally warm in the new Torneträsk record. On decadal to centurial timescales, periods around AD750, 1000, 1400, and 1750 were all equally warm, or warmer.”

In addition, Danish Metrological Institute records show that the “Arctic was warmer in the 1940s than now” – this was published May 13, 2009.

A study published in Geographical Research Letters by astrophysicist Dr Willie Soon states that Arctic temperatures were found to follow an increasing and decreasing pattern consistent with changes in solar irradiance.

This argument is borne out by a study by the US’s Duke University, which shows that the North Atlantic Ocean’s surface waters warmed in the 50 years between 1950 and 2000 but that the subpolar regions cooled at the same time. This resulted in patterns of cooling and warming waters, and which, the researchers indicated, can be largely explained by a natural cycle of wind circulation known as the North Atlantic Oscillation.

The study, quoted by the Washington Post, mentions, in the abstract, the well-known Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age period when temperatures were respectively warmer and colder than now, without any link to industrially produced carbon dioxide. Amazingly, the study then ignores these two incredibly important scientific facts in the body of its findings.

The Washington Post does, at least, interview the credible scientist, Singer, who pointed out that the Medieval Warm Period lasted from 800 to 1300 AD and exhibited higher temperatures than the last 30 years of the present.

http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/that-the-artic-is-warming-faste...

In the same report a spokesman for Greenpeace said: “It’s a bit like pressing the stop button on Titanic just as the iceberg appears.
Here is some Titanic trivia
" Normally Icebergs did not float that far South, this was out of the norm. ~~In all of Captain Smith's experience of 30 years, icebergs did not float so far South, this was fluke and not the norm".
http://www.squidoo.com/Harland-and-Wolffs-Titanic

Takver can you tell me how this statement from Captain Smith fits your Climate change story? answer if you dare LOL