Attenborough a climate sensationalist?
By PAUL REVOIR 
Dec 1, 2011
London - Lord Lawson has accused David Attenborough of sensationalism and alarmism over the environment.
The former Tory chancellor, who is a climate change sceptic, said the broadcaster’s claims about global warming were sheer speculation.
In the final episode of his natural history series Frozen Planet, Sir David is expected to suggest the Arctic could be free of ice by 2020.
In a piece written for Radio Times, Lord Lawson said: “Sir David Attenborough is one of our finest journalists and a great expert on animal life. Unfortunately, however, when it comes to global warming, he seems to prefer sensation to objectivity.
“Had he wished to be objective, he would have pointed out that, while satellite observations confirm that the extent of Arctic sea ice has been declining over the past 30 years, those satellite observations show that overall, Antarctic sea ice has been expanding over the same period.”
Sir David - in the same edition of Radio Times - said that “data from satellites collected over the last 40 years show a drop of 30 percent in the area of the Arctic sea ice at the end of each summer”.
He added that the ice was “almost half as thick as it was in the 1980s” and that animals such as polar bears were in jeopardy.
Sir David wrote that the loss of sea ice in the north affected the whole planet because it acted as “a huge reflector, bouncing 85 percent of the sun's heat back into space”. He warned of devastating effects in coastal areas as sea levels rose.
Lord Lawson has claimed that the polar bear population was rising and that while there had been a “modest increase” in the mean world temperature in the final quarter of the 20th century, the Met Office had confirmed there had been no further global warming.
The former Conservative Minister said: “Two things are clear. First, that Sir David’s alarmism is sheer speculation. Second, that if there is a resumption of warming, the only rational course is to adapt to it, rather than to try (happily a lost cause) to persuade the world to impoverish itself by moving from relatively cheap carbon-based energy to much more expensive non-carbon energy.”
It has already been revealed that the BBC is offering Frozen Planet to broadcasters in other countries without the controversial climate change episode.
According to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, most populations of polar bears are declining.
Sir David has been vocal about his concerns over climate change for many years and in 2006 he warned that the issue was the biggest challenge facing the world.
He has said: “If we do care about our grandchildren then we have to do something.” - Daily Mail
https://www.iol.co.za/news/attenborough-a-climate-sensationalist-1190556
