3:22PM GMT 16 Mar 2013 http://www.telegraph.co.uk
It is now seven years since Sir David was first wheeled out
by the BBC as the main cheerleader in its campaign to whip up
panic over man-made global warming. In two documentaries, he
presented himself as a one-time “climate sceptic” who had now
been convinced by the evidence. The only problem was that, as he
repeated a series of familiar alarmist mantras, there was little
sign that he had checked the evidence for any of them: not least
his claim that, thanks to the melting of Arctic ice, the world’s
polar bear population, already down by a quarter, could be
facing extinction.
When, last week, the Global Warming Policy Foundation published a new report, Ten Good Reasons Not to Worry About Polar Bears, Matt (now Lord) Ridley referred in his foreword to Sir David’s bizarre determination to ignore the evidence. The report’s author, Susan Crockford, an experienced Canadian polar bear expert, explains just why there is no connection between the thriving polar bear population and climate change, and how this has been concocted into one of the great urban myths of our time.
Nothing is going to stand in the way of Sir David’s reputation as a national treasure, even though it rests so largely on the extraordinary skill of the cameramen who make his documentaries so memorable. But for his readiness to lend his immense prestige to a scare story that defies all the evidence he deserves no respect at all.