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Friday 9 January 2009

When I am King

Earth: The Climate Wars (BBC 2); Amazon (BBC 2); Tess of the d’Urbervilles (BBC 1)

But I’ve done TV myself and I know how these things work. Right from the commissioning stage — especially if, as here, it’s three hours’ worth of expensive prime-time — you know exactly which way your programme’s going to go. But you’re told to hide this as much as possible because TV execs have this obsession with perceived balance and with the idea of documentaries being a ‘journey’.

Stewart’s conclusion by the end of episode two was that the debate on global warming is over, GW is mostly our fault, and anyone who thinks otherwise is a nutcase on the extreme fringes, probably in the pay of Big Oil. This is what Al Gore said in An Inconvenient Truth. In fact, it’s what the green lobby always says, because it’s much easier to win an argument by closing down the debate than by engaging with your opponents’ objections, point by awkward point. But is it actually true?

Well no. I could point you towards hundreds of scientists — many in even greater positions of eminence than Plymouth Uni’s geology department — who still disagree quite vehemently with this thesis and have much solid evidence to back it up. Stewart is perfectly entitled to disagree with them, but not, I think, at our expense, while posing as an impartial seeker of truth on a channel which, regrettably, still has a reputation for reliability and authority.

Mind you, when as your emperor I do get round to torching the BBC (and slaughtering everyone) it means we shall have to learn to live without great programmes like Amazon (BBC 2, Monday) with Bruce Parry. This week, our delightful, smiley, native-loving hero was in coca country, chewing the leaves but not — unusually for him — doing the proper drug, perhaps because he’d seen how utterly disgusting the refinement process is (benzine, chlorine, you name it). That’s the last time you’ll catch me sticking that muck up my nose. Unless you’re offering and its really good pure base smuggled back in someone’s beehive hairstyle, say, but not, please up their bottom.

More articles from: James Delingpole | this section

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