Thursday, November 06, 2008

Famed Environmentalist Takes on the "Anti-Science" of Global Warming...And Pays the Price

The Daily Express (U.K.) has a delightful interview here with David Bellamy, the noted botanist, environmentalist, author, and television personality. Well, I should say, he was a television personality. But then he dared to dissent from the BBC's global warming fixation...and he's hardly been heard from since.

In the interview, the feisty Bellamy takes on the BBC's ignorance, Al Gore, wind farms, the "McCarthyism" of global warming ideologues, and more. Here's a few samples:

..."When I first stuck my head above the parapet to say I didn’t believe what we were being told about global warming I had no idea what the consequences would be. I am a scientist and I have to ­follow the directions of science but when I see that the truth is being covered up I have to voice my ­opinions.

According to official data, in every year since 1998 world temperatures have been getting colder, and in 2002 Arctic ice actually increased. Why, then, do we not hear about that?


The sad fact is that since I said I didn’t believe human beings caused global warming I’ve not been allowed to make a TV programme.
My absence has been noticed, because wherever I go I meet people who say: “I grew up with you on the television, where are you now?”...

At the beginning of this year there was a BBC show with four experts saying: “This is going to be the end of all the ice in the Arctic,” and hypothesising that it was going to be the hottest summer ever. Was it hell! It was very cold and very wet and now we’ve seen evidence that the glaciers in Alaska have started growing rapidly – and they’ve not grown for a long time.


I’ve seen evidence, which I believe, that says there has not been a rise in global temperature since 1998, despite the increase in carbon dioxide being pumped into the atmosphere. This makes me think the global warmers are telling lies – carbon dioxide is not the driver.


The idiot fringe have accused me of being like a Holocaust denier, which is ludicrous. Climate change is all about cycles, it’s a natural thing and has always happened. When the Romans lived in Britain they were growing very good red grapes and making wine on the borders of Scotland. It was evidently a lot warmer.
If you were sitting next to me 10,000 years ago we’d be under ice. So thank God for global warming for ending that ice age; we wouldn’t be here otherwise.

People such as former American Vice-President Al Gore say that millions of us will die because of global warming – which I think is a pretty stupid thing to say if you’ve got no proof.
And my opinion is that there is absolutely no proof that carbon dioxide is anything to do with any impending catastrophe. The ­science has, quite simply, gone awry. In fact, it’s not even science any more, it’s anti-science.

There’s no proof, it’s just projections and if you look at the models people such as Gore use, you can see they cherry pick the ones that support their beliefs.


To date, the way the so-called Greens and the BBC, the Royal Society and even our political parties have handled this smacks of McCarthyism at its worst.


Global warming is part of a natural cycle and there’s nothing we can actually do to stop these cycles. The world is now facing spending a vast amount of money in tax to try to solve a problem that doesn’t actually exist...


The thing that annoys me most is that there are genuine environmental problems that desperately require attention. I’m still an environmentalist, I’m still a Green and I’m still campaigning to stop the destruction of the biodiversity of the world. But money will be wasted on trying to solve this global warming “problem” that I would much rather was used for looking after the people of the world.


Being ignored by the likes of the BBC does not really bother me, not when there are much bigger problems at stake. I might not be on TV any more but I still go around the world campaigning about these important issues. For example, we must stop the dest­ruc­tion of trop­ical rainforests, something I’ve been saying for 35 years.


Mother nature will balance things out but not if we interfere by destroying rainforests and overfishing the seas. That is where the real environmental catastrophe could occur.