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Enjoy Outgoing Greenpeace Head’s Interview Struggle
It’s not often that a well informed interviewer asks challenging questions about climate alarmism and energy policy reality, especially on the BBC. All too often the likes of Greenpeace are allowed to make absurd statements on science and policy unchallenged. Enjoy some ‘global squirming’ from the outgoing Executive Director of Greenpeace International, Dr Gerd Leipold, whilst being interviewed on BBC News HARDtalk by a clued up Stephen Sackur. Possibly my favourite part was where Leipold was forced to admit that Greenland’s ice wouldn’t melt by 2030, depite a Greenpeace PR claiming that it could. His “I don’t read all the PRs” line had me rolling with laughter. Of course, CRN knows that it would take millennia to melt Greenland, even if warming continues. As expected, Leipold attacked lifestyle, economic growth and energy use, which is what climate alarmism is really a shield for.
I fear that only people in the UK will be able to see the interview via BBC iplayer here.
In a HARDtalk interview broadcast 5 August 2009, Stephen Sackur talks to Dr Gerd Leipold, Executive Director of Greenpeace International.
When it comes to environmental campaigning, Greenpeace is a brand with global reach.
It claims millions of supporters and an annual income of more than two hundred million dollars. But does it use its money and its influence wisely?
Dr Gerd Leipold is the outgoing Executive Director of Greenpeace International.
Stephen Sackur puts it to him that confrontational campaigning may not be the best way to win the argument over climate change.
Hardtalk is shown on the BBC World News at 0330 (except Middle East, South Asia and Asia Pacific), 0830, 1430, 2030 and 2230 GMT (except Middle East and South Asia)
HARDtalk is also broadcast on the BBC News channel at 0230, 0430 & 2330
August 7th, 2009 at 5:32 pm
I saw that episode here in India, on BBC World. HARDTALK is one of my favorite shows, but even Stephen Sackur has slipped up in earlier interviews he has done on this issue.
He interviewed Al Gore soon after he won the Nobel Prize last year, along with the UN’s IPCC. At one point in the interview, he asked Gore what he thought of Bjorn Lomborg and his views. Lomborg is a scientist who believes in man-made global warming, but has criticized alarmist tactics of Gore and others. Al Gore got very angry and asked Sackur why the BBC/ other media were giving space to such a person!!
If a person who fought an election to be the leader of the democratic world cannot even brook criticism from someone who agrees with his broad point of view, then there is something really wrong here. After all isn’t one of the tenets of democracy: “I do not agree with your point of view but I will defend to death your right to express it”? I would have pinned Gore down on precisely that fact – should climate scientists stop studying an opposing premise just because of one Oscar and a Nobel?
Sadly, Sackur tamely moved on to the next question.
August 7th, 2009 at 5:49 pm
Many thanks – nice to receive a comment from India! I haven’t watched HARDtalk before. All I can say is that Sackur did a very good job in this interview.
August 8th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
“Of course, CRN knows that it would take millennia to melt Greenland, even if warming continues.”
This is actually a bit of an understatement. If you raise CO2 to FOUR TIMES THE BACKGROUND INSTANEOUSLY-then maintain that concentration THE ENTIRE TIME, Greenland will still have ice after almost 1800 years. That’s not even a realistic scenario, and it assumes that the warming of CO2 is correct in models, which is by now pretty much certainly erroneous.
Do we even have the fossil fuels necessary to do that? I think not! Will we even be burning them in a thousand years? I KNOW not.
August 8th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
Yes – I remember that paper using a Hadley-coupled model – C02 was quadrupled and held steady until all the ice melted. But even this assumes a high climate sensitivity to CO2, which CRN doesn’t agree with.