Sir David Attenborough’s long career as a presenter of BBC natural-history programmes first began in 1953 with a three-part series called “
Animal Patterns”.
In the seven decades since, he has fronted dozens of iconic series filmed and broadcast around the planet, helping to earn him the status as one of the world’s most respected and influential science communicators.
In 2005, a TV reviewer in the Times even described him as the “most trusted man in Britain”.
Writing in the Independent in 2005,
he said:
“I was sceptical about climate change. I was cautious about crying wolf…But I’m no longer sceptical. Now I do not have any doubt at all. I think climate change is the major challenge facing the world. I have waited until the proof was conclusive that it was humanity changing the climate.
“The thing that really convinced me was the graphs connecting the increase of CO2 in the environment and the rise in temperature, with the growth of human population and industrialisation. The coincidence of the curves made it perfectly clear we have left the period of natural climatic oscillation behind and have begun on a steep curve, in terms of temperature rise, beyond anything in terms of increases that we have seen over many thousands of years.”
Last month, the Sunday Times interviewer Bryan Appleyard
wrote:
“Like the Queen, Attenborough must resist being too opinionated. For a while, this meant he was wary of taking sides in the climate-change argument until he was sure of the facts. About 15 years ago, a lecture by an American scientist, the late
Ralph Cicerone, convinced him the evidence was beyond argument and his shows since then have often concluded with a nod to the certainty of global warming.”
In an interview with the Times in 2017 to publicise the Blue Planet II series, the interviewer Andrew Billen
wrote:
“After years of pretty taciturn scepticism, Attenborough finally presented two BBC programmes on the subject, Are We Changing Planet Earth? and Can We Save Planet Earth?, in 2006. He dates his conversion – and he checks the date in his Filofax – to a lecture the American chemist Ralph Cicerone gave in Liège in Belgium on November 8, [2004]. It was important to speak out only when he knew he had the facts right. It can also be argued that when he did speak out, his warning had more impact as the considered judgment of a cautious man.”
Arguably, the fullest account of Cicerone’s influence came in December 2006 when Attenborough was giving evidence in the House of Commons to an Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee
hearing (pdf) on climate change and the “citizen’s agenda”. He was asked by the committee chair, Michael Jack MP, what led him to make the two programmes in 2006:
“One quite precise thing: in November 2004, I went to a lecture given by Prof Cicerone from the United States, who is an expert on atmospheric chemistry. He showed a series of graphs showing world temperature and, critically, population as well as ingredients within the atmosphere. The congruence of those things convinced me beyond any doubt whatever that not only was the climate changing, but that humanity was responsible for that. Until then, one knows that the climate has changed over geological history, and I was not totally sure that this was not just an aberration within the parameters of their ability, but Prof Cicerone’s graphs convinced me beyond any doubt at all.
“It is not my job, of course, to make judgments on these things, my job is to make programmes about wildlife. When the BBC was discussing this I, of course, said, ‘Yes, I believe absolutely so that this is the case and if you want me to go and investigate and talk to people, I will gladly do so.’ The only inhibition I had was that people might think I was setting myself up as an expert on climate technology and climate science, which I am not. Therefore, the programmes were very much an investigation from people such as Dave Reay [
Dr Dave Reay of the University of Edinburgh’s School of Geosciences, who was also giving evidence that day], for example, who appeared in one of them and other people to talk about climate and the reality that really is taking place and, secondly, what we can do about it.”
And, so, I didn’t publically go out about climate change – I went public about that we were losing certain species of animals, yes, of course, because you could demonstrate that was the case, and we did – but the issue about climate change was [that] perfectly responsible people were doubting that it was true. So, if you dealt with it, you had to put both voices. Now, if I was in charge of a network or in charge of a programme, it would be irresponsible of me to prejudge that issue while it was controversial.
“In my private capacity, of course, you did something else because you were involved in all kinds of other charitable organisations, or whatever, or indeed academic organisations which took different views. That was proper, too. But the issue of the reality that the temperatures of the world have risen over the past 100 years has been demonstrated beyond question. And, so, it was right and proper that one should assume that and say so. But, of course, there’s a grey area in the middle about what time do you change from being controversial to accepted fact? And that’s up to your own conscience.”
David discusing a few subjects, including climate change, adressing "died in the wool" climate change disbelievers, would he accept an invitation to speak to president Trump amongst other things.
https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/20...e-change-science-storytelling-blue-planet-ii/