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The Truth About Climate Change


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Editorial
Amazon.co.uk Review

At one point a sceptic of the environmental impact of humans, Sir David Attenborough has more than redressed the balance with this fascinating two hour documentary, The Truth About Climate Change.

It’s split into two parts, as the first half of The Truth About Climate Change examines some of the high profile natural disasters of the past few years, and questions how much of a part humans had to play in them. Attenborough also discusses various other lower profile environmental changes too, and what kind of impact they’re having. It’s intelligently done, without, crucially, coming across as preachy.

The rest of The Truth About Climate Change is then taken up by looking ahead, to what the long-term impact on the planet is likely to be, and things we can do to make sure those worse case scenarios simply don’t come true. Given the strengths of the arguments made before the documentary arrives at this segment, it’s not something you’ll want to ignore.

The Truth About Climate Change is no Saturday night watch, but it is a thoughtful documentary that certainly offers an unsettling amount of food for thought. Fortunately, it does remember, through Attenborough, to spend enough time working through the actions after it’s outlined the damage that’s being done. And that makes it a rounded, interesting piece of work.--Jon Foster


Biased and one-sided
Review date: 2008-11-23 Rating: 6 out of 10

This film is crucial if we want to understand the present debate on climate change. The climate is changing as it has always done. But it seems to be changing more dramatically and warming up slightly though it is still a long way cooler than it was at the time of the dinosaurs. The position defended here by Attenborough is moralistic more than anything else. We are supposed to feel compassion for polar bears and to be afraid of the future. Such a fascination for apocalyptic predictions is quite typical of the Jewish or Christian tradition, with some roots in older Indo-European religious mythologies. This apocalyptic literature is often, and by far, the best and most inspiring inspiration in these traditions. But does it have any real foundation? According to Attenborough it is the truth, full stop, period, dead end, let's get ready for it. He follows the model of the now famous carbon dioxide and green house gases and global warming up theory. And exclusively this one. Then he considers the main cause is the production - or liberation - of carbon dioxide by human activities, particularly the use of fossil fuels. In other words he uses his pointer a little bit too much and of course ends up pointing at the Chinese and their becoming the first polluter in the world, ahead of the US, but he forgets to say they are at least four times more numerous for a level of development that is evaluated by the CIA to be around 80% of the US. When he is not pointing at people he is pointing at the only things we can do to reduce our production of carbon dioxide. And he does not see this totally negative approach cannot really work because people do not want to be made to feel guilty all the time, and then, in this perspective, we will have to set regulations and a cop behind every human activity. He forgets the basic human principle, and even vital principle for all that is alive at least on this planet, that has been totally negated by western development, by this short-sighted development at all costs, the fact that humanity has managed to emerge by using the basic living principle that all activities must produce more energy or value than it consumes and that the consumption of energy has to be as low as possible for the profit margin to be as high as possible. To be soundly economic life has to be economical. And our free and extremely wasteful consumption of energy - and everything else, including human life - is anti-economic because it is un-economical. That is the very first principle we must refer to: we must not use one gram of energy more than what we need. The second principle is also basic to all forms of life: a living being uses his environment to live - and/or survive - but it does not pollute it. And strangely enough humans seem to have been only interested in visible pollution. All that is not visible does not seem to bother them. That's the only positive aspect of the film: it reveals one invisible pollution, carbon dioxide. It also reveals that what is not immediately catchable by human senses does not seem to exist for human beings. I personally think here that it is better to mobilize the sense of cleanliness human life has always demonstrated - even if that sense has been increasing across centuries and will go on increasing - rather than the guilt we are supposed to feel when thinking of our grandchildren. This argument about our descendents is the reversal of another human principle. In all civilizations including ours till recently, the younger generation was there to take care of the older one when needed and not the reverse. The argument used by Attenborough means that we consider the younger generation is unable to assume their responsibilities. We are making them childish and dependent. We should expect them to be more reasonable than us and not the reverse, which does not excuse our own foolishness which is foolishness in itself and not as for the consequences on our descendents. This leads me to a final remark. Has the West been developing along a line that negates all human traditions and logic? I have like the impression that yes it has. We must then reverse that mistake but not with cops and regulations or guilt complexes but with economic and economical arguments. And that should not prevent us from studying other climatic models particularly the one based on water vapor, which Attenborough does not do at all. Note, as a final kick at the sandbag of blind if not biased ideology, that Attenborough does not even take into account that if we learned new cooking method based on microwave oven we could cut by half our consumption n of energy for all forms of cooking, and frying being a bad dietary habit, the light browning we can get with microwaves has to be healthier than all that carbonizing we produce in a frying pan.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines


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Reviews


Blue Chip Documentary Making
Review date: 2008-09-12 Rating: 10 out of 10

I'm biased in reviewing this, as I had the huge honour of working with Sir David Attenborough on parts of the second film that is contained in this DVD. But, from a climate change scientist's point of view, I think the BBC really have excelled themselves here. The content is well-balanced and fast-moving, the facts are well laid out and reflect the consensus of the scientific community. All this is against the incredible back drop of Sir David's myriad programmes from the last few decades, programmes that have brought the wonders of the natural world into the living rooms of millions. With him as our expert guide we have seen so many animals, plants and ecosystems to which previous generations were oblivious. Now he shows us how many of these species and habitiats are at risk, how millions of humans are also threatened, and the ways in which the most extreme impacts of human-induced climate change can be avoided. It's not about beautiful footage (though there is plenty), it's not about a relaxed couple hours letting David's soothing tones wash over you (though he is on top form), instead this is a documentary that puts all those of the superb 'Life' series into fragile perspective.

Weak and waffly
Review date: 2008-08-26 Rating: 4 out of 10

I confess I am a huge fan of David Attenborough (along with Aubrey Manning and Richard Dawkins). I have watched his presentations with relish over the last 30 years. This sadly was not in the same league.

For me the case was not well argued and merely repeats the same populist mantras found in the media in general and also from the current crop of politicians, without any supporting evidence.

Ian Stewarts contribution "Earth: The Power of the Planet" was a greater contribution and at least he admited at the end that it is NOT the planet that is in danger of any of the current climatic and environmental changes currently observed as taking place but Humans.

Not a particularly enlightening contribution to the debate.

Product Details/Specifications


Actor(s):
David Attenborough

Creators:
David Attenborough (Primary Contributor)

Recording label: Eureka Entertainment
Manufacturer: Eureka Entertainment
EAN: 5060000402643
Binding: DVD
Number of items: 1
Format: PAL,
Release date: 2008-06-23
Audience rating: Exempt
Region code: 2
Running time: 120 minutes
Language: English (Unknown)

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