Don’t mention the war climate disaster.
The BBC has decided not to broadcast an episode of David Sir Attenborough’s flagship new series on British wildlife because of fears its themes of the destruction of nature would risk a backlash from Tory politicians and the rightwing press, the Guardian has been told.
The BBC says not true, not true, they never planned to broadcast that episode. But…
Senior sources at the BBC told the Guardian that the decision not to show the sixth episode was made to fend off potential critique from the political right. This week the Telegraph newspaper attacked the BBC for creating the series and for taking funding from “two charities previously criticised for their political lobbying” – the WWF and RSPB.
The BBC should just kick back and watch the planet burn.
Laura Howard, who produced the programme and used to work at the BBC’s Natural History Unit, said she did not believe its messages to be political.
She told the Guardian: “I think the facts speak for themselves. You know, we’ve worked really closely with the RSPB in particular who are able to factcheck all of our scripts and provide us with detailed scientific data and information about the loss of wildlife in this country. And it is undeniable, we are incredibly nature-depleted. And I don’t think that that is political, I think it’s just facts.”
But you can make it political by screaming and complaining and kicking up a fuss because you want to keep doing what you’re doing and let the future people deal with the mess we’ve made.
Caroline Lucas, the Green party MP for Brighton Pavilion, said: “For the BBC to censor of one of the nation’s most informed and trusted voices on the nature and climate emergencies is nothing short of an unforgivable dereliction of its duty to public service broadcasting. This government has taken a wrecking ball to our environment – putting over 1,700 pieces of environmental legislation at risk, setting an air pollution target which is a decade too late, and neglecting the scandal of our sewage-filled waterways – which cannot go unexamined and unchallenged by the public.
“BBC bosses must not be cowed by antagonistic, culture war-stoking government ministers, putting populist and petty political games above delivering serious action to protect and restore our natural world. This episode simply must be televised.”
Sorry, would love to chat but have a plane to catch.
Comments
10 responses to “Would risk a backlash”
Usually deja vu is close to instantaneously experienced, but I just had one that was delayed 12 years.
Frozen Planet episode on Global Warming pulled from Discovery
Actually, it wasn’t pulled, but some people thought it should have been.
The BBC either made or commissioned this series that included the sixth episode. They knew what they were doing.
And now, some little twerp thinks they know better than the program makers.
It’s bad form to point out when you point out unpleasant facts that someone needs to keep hidden in order to make money. Much worse than the destructive (though profitable) behaviour itself.
Is this the same Green Party that believes that men can be women? However correct you are on condemning the censorship of this show, you burned your credibility to the ground when you hitched your wagon to gender bullshit. Because of this, nobody has any reason to believe anything you have to say on any other issue. Way to go!
This article directly relates to Australia, but it’s implications are worldwide.
https://michaelwest.com.au/how-pr-and-the-fog-of-corporate-disinformation-has-governments-paying-to-burn-the-planet/
your name’s not Bruce#3
It is surely possible, and right, to distinguish between propositions you disagree with for good reason and things you agree with for good reason, whatever the provenance of those propositions. Certainly, one might examine certain propositions more carefully because of their provenance, but I hardly think it true or sensible to say that ‘nobody has any reason to believe anything you have to say’ on a particular issue on the grounds that ‘you’ are sadly wrong on other issues.
Yeah, I get that on an intellectual level, but I’m looking at this from the point of view of someone who wants the Green Party (when it actually is green and not pink and baby blue) to do better and have a greater influence on the policy positions of more mainstream parties. In going all in on gender ideology, they’ve wrecked their reputation as advocates of scientific realism when it comes to dealing with environmental issues. It’s not just that they’re wrong or mistaken, they’re wrong and mistaken on an issue that has little to no bearing on environmental concerns; they’ve been fooled, and are passing on the foolishness. They themselves are not being sensible or true. They have turned themselves into a witness whose testimony can be shown to be unreliable on this issue. The fact that it’s outside their supposed core area of expertise and advocacy, and that they’ve gone out of their way to embrace it and promote it only makes it worse. That shows a failure of judgement that doesn’t inspire confidence in their other positions. Their other policy goals and proposals might be marvelously brilliant, but in this one area, they’re poison. How does one balance one’s support when faced with that sort of dogged irrationality?
It’s also not a very good fit with Green aspirations to be open and transparent in their way of doing politics; the trans and Stonewall ethos and methodology has rubbed off on them without any apparent transfer of means and methods going in the other direction. It’s another instance of “Every organization that embraces trans ideology turns to shit.” Internal Green politics seems to have eagerly taken on the unsavoury bullying and intimidation we see coming from trans activism. Maybe the Greens were already like this and I just hadn’t noticed. But they certainly have not become better for having added trans activism to their laundry list. If elected Green representatives get more worked up about pronoun usage than environmental issues, then that’s a step backwards. Probably several. If one is so easily upset by people being mean, then maybe electoral politics isn’t a good fit ; environmental politics doubly so.
Certainly claims, statements, and policies should be examined on their own merits on a case by case basis, and sometimes you have to take the bad with the not quite as bad. In Canada, the only federal parties I’m ever likely to vote for have all gone for genderism at the expense of the rights of women and girls, and needlessly so. Even though the Conservatives would, on the whole, be worse for women (and everyone else), and I would only vote for them if all my other choices were further to the right, it still feels like a betrayal of women to support parties that spout such blatant lies on this one issue. These parties will support this bullshit until it costs them electoraly, and they may do so afterwards, depending on their blindness and commitment. They will blame defeat on any number of other things if they’re unable or unwilling to admit that espousing trans “rights” is a political liability. Unless and until the demand for trans “rights” is seen as the dangerous, anti-progressive, misogynistic garbage that it is, parties seduced by twitter activism will be inordinately eager to signal their “virtue,” even in the face of reality. If there was some way to bring this realization about, to rub their noses in it without handing right-wing parties governing power, forcing misguided leftists to do their soul-searching in the political wilderness, I’d be all for it. I hate having to hold my nose when I vote, but I see little choice for the time being.
Yes, the Greens (at least over here) have always been like this. Like all political parties it’s a big tent and it’s often hard to find ecological conservatives amongst all the crystal healers. “advocates of scientific realism” approximately never.
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The “like this” that I had in mind was the bullying and intimidation towards those seen as not toeing some particular line, in this case those critical of the concept of “gender identity,” rather than proneness to woo. The latter I would have guessed, the former I wouldn’t have been so sure about.
YNNB #6
“…Green politics seems to have eagerly taken on the unsavoury bullying and intimidation …”
‘Greens’ have long tended to use bullying & insults against anyone saying that nuclear power is a good way to cut CO2 emissions. This is an all too common human fault that is not unique to ‘trans’ activists