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Has David Attenborough Become A BBC Propaganda Mouthpiece Promoting Climate Fear?

By Jim Steele* | Watts Up With That? | May 29, 2014

David Attenborough was my favorite wildlife cinematographer and each year I fed my students numerous clips to make biology and ecology come alive. Researching the plight of the polar bears, I began to worry that “my hero” had decided to use his spectacular wildlife videos to promote catastrophic climate change.

The first example that raised my suspicions was his portrayal of polar bears feeding on walruses, with a narration suggesting it was a new behavior desperately driven by climate change. But for us ecologists who know better: shame on you David Attenborough. He ignored documented wildlife history and cherry-picked a dramatic scene to promote climate fear.

First view this older BBC video pitting polar bears against walrus. Notice how many bears are converging on the walrus herd and that they are coming from the land. Then view Attenborough’s “new and improved video” that puts a very misleading slant on polar bears and walruses.

If you want to read historical facts about walruses and polar bears, I suggest reading Francis H. Fay’s 1982 “Ecology And Biology Of The Pacific Walrus, Odobenus rosmarus, Divergens Illiger.” In the 1950s, Fay was concerned that the walrus was headed for extinction due to over-hunting for ivory and blubber so Fay set out to document everything there was to know about walruses.

In his tome, Fay published early 1900 observations by Russian researchers who admired the polar bears’ varied and clever tactics for hunting walrus.

“The walruses on Peschan Island are frequently bothered by bears, which creep up to them under cover of uneven terrain and of driftwood, of which there usually is an abundance, along the shore. Sometimes the bears dig pits in the sand or make a pile in front of themselves in order to hide from the walruses. We saw a bear in a pit dug in the driftwood within 50 m of the herd, where it watched for a long time. Suddenly, it leaped from its concealment and plunged along the flat terrain toward the walruses. The animals, upon seeing the running bear, rushed into the water, and when the bear reached those on shore, only a few large males remained, and these gradually pivoted into the water, threatening with roars and swinging tusks. The bear in his misfortune was unable to decide whether or not to enter the water and only brandished his paws helplessly and growled in discontent. Not infrequently, in the confusion, the adult walruses crush some young; possibly, at the time of the attack, the bears hope to profit from such accidentally crushed or abandoned young.”

Anyone familiar with the scientific literature knows polar bears have been hunting walruses since recorded history and most certainly before that time. More recently researchers reporting to the Polar Bear Specialist Group meeting speculated that hunting walruses on land was likely to be a behavior that has allowed bears to survive the lack of sea ice that was far more common through out the Holocene Optimum.

For example, Wrangel Island is both home of one of the largest known polar bear denning areas in the Arctic as well as the location of several traditional walrus land haul-outs each summer. Because walruses often get trampled at these haul-outs, bears eagerly supplement their diet by feeding on the trodden carcasses. In addition, polar bears will wait at these haul outs anticipating the summer wave of walrus herds that typically come ashore and then dine on weak or young walruses. Seasoned bears know to avoid a healthy bull.

In 2007 the 2nd greatest decrease in Arctic sea ice was observed in the waters surrounding Wrangel Island. That summer researchers observed the greatest number of polar bears on the island. However, contrary to the less ice­­-means-starving-bear theory, there were no signs of increased nutritional stress. Quite the opposite.

Anticipating the seasonal haul-out of walruses, the bears concentrated along the beaches where they were easily observed by researchers who determined that less than 5% of the Wrangel Island bears were designated skinny or very skinny. That compared very favorably to the 7 to 15% of skinny bears observed in previous years with heavier ice. Furthermore researcher determined that not only did 29% of all bears look “normal”, the remaining 66% were fat or very fat. Those polar bear experts wrote, “Under certain circumstances, such as were observed on Wrangel Island in 2007, (Ovsyanikov and Menyushina 2008, Ovsyanikov et al., 2008), resources available in coastal ecosystems may be so abundant that polar bears are able to feed on them more successfully than while hunting on the sea ice.”

With that scientific background, view Attenborough’s rendition and ask yourself if he is objectively narrating the video. He ignores the bears and walruses’ natural history to suggest polar bears have only recently attacked walruses out of desperation. Attenborough suggests the lone bear had been desperately swimming for days trying to reach the island. However, without a radio-collar on the bear, one must wonder if Attenborough is using creative license. And why is Attenborough “serendipitously“ set up in this location to film this event??? Is it a traditional walrus hunting spot and not the rare event his video suggests?

Researchers have documented instances of younger bears who have not mastered hunting walrus that resulted in injury, but it is a matter of a younger bears evolving experience. Attenborough marries an uncommon hunting failure to climate change. Playing sad music, he suggests that bears only attack walruses as an unnatural last resort; suggesting that, in essence, it is a climate change driven act that is suicidal and doomed to increase.

To my increasing dismay, my former wildlife hero seems to be plunging more deeply into climate propaganda. Attenborough has a new series on Discovery called Africa but it might as well be called “Let’s Push Climate Fear“.

Take for instance his video segment, shown below, on Green Turtles. He accurately tells us that unlike humans who determine gender via the X and Y chromosomes, Green Turtles (as well as several other reptiles) determine the next generation’s gender based on the temperature of the developing eggs. Researchers realized this when trying to save endangered sea turtles from depredation and dug up their eggs to “safely” incubate them. Fearing that buried eggs at the bottom of the pile had not benefited equally from the sun’s warmth, the eggs were laid out evenly on trays so all could incubate at the same temperature. The result was uni-sex baby turtles.

However, turtles have been around since the dinosaurs and their temperature-gender system has been completely successful throughout monumental periods of climate change, massive extinctions, and epochs with far warmer temperatures than today. Attenborough should tell his audience that micro-climates are far more critical to their success as well as informing the public that temperatures drop off dramatically with depth in the sand. Nonetheless he warns that due to global warming, female turtles will soon have great difficulty finding a male. Shameful propaganda Sir David!

Video: http://www.discovery.com/tv-shows/africa/videos/sea-turtles-face-climate-change.htm

* Author Jim Steele is Director emeritus Sierra Nevada Field Campus, San Francisco State University.

Literature cited

Fay, F. (1982) Ecology and Biology of Odobenus rosmarus the Pacific Walrus, divergens. US. Department of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service, North American Fauna, No. 74.

Ovsyanikov N.G., and Menyushina I.E. (2008) Specifics of Polar Bears Surviving an Ice Free Season on Wrangel Island in 2007. Marine Mammals of the Holarctic. Odessa, pp. 407-412.

Segments of this essay are adapted from Jim Steele’s Landscapes & Cycles: An Environmentalist’s Journey to Climate Skepticism

May 30, 2014 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , | Leave a comment

Israelis seize 4 schoolgirls in south Hebron hills

Ma’an – 28/05/2014

BETHLEHEM – Israeli forces on Tuesday detained four Palestinian girls in the south Hebron hills after a settler accused them of stealing cherries, human rights group B’Tselem said.

The girls, aged 11 to 15, were on their way home from school with an Israeli army escort when Israeli police arrested them. They were taken to an Israeli police station in Hebron with no adult accompaniment and held for four hours until being handed over to Palestinian police and released.

“The absurdity and injustice of holding four girls on suspicion of such a minor offense is disgraceful and outrageous, especially given that the authorities systematically refrain from enforcing the law on settlers who attack these girls and their families,” B’Tselem said.

International volunteers from Operation Dove filmed the incident.

May 28, 2014 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, Video | , , | Leave a comment

Eurosceptic parties win dozens of European Parliament seats

May 26, 2014 Posted by | Economics, Video | , , | Leave a comment

Three foreign journalists caught in violence near Slavyansk, two possibly dead – reports

RT | May 24, 2014

An Italian reporter and his interpreter may have been shot dead and a French photographer has been wounded near the city of Slavyansk, in eastern Ukraine, as their car came under fire, Russian media report.

The injured French journalist identified as William Roguelon has been taken to a local hospital where he received treatment and managed to leave the facility on his own.

Roguelon, from the hospital reached Agence France Presse (AFP) and described how out of nowhere their vehicle was bombarded with mortar shells.

“Before that we heard Kalashnikov shots,” Roguelon was quoted by the Italian tgcom24. “Then the mortar shells rained down all around,” he said claiming to have heard up 60 explosions as they tried to hide in the “middle of a ditch.”

The man, who works as a freelance photographer, has told Russian media that after the shooting he saw his Italian colleagues lying on the ground not moving, Rossiya 24 channel reported.

“In the village of Andreyevka, not far from Slavyansk, an Italian journalist and his interpreter have been shot dead and a French correspondent wounded. Their car came under fire,” a source from the self-defense forces has told RIA Novosti.

The area around the city of Slavyansk has been gripped by violence on Saturday, a day before the scheduled presidential election. Shooting was reported in the village of Semyonovka, where a psychiatric hospital has been partly ruined in a fight between Kiev troops and self-defense forces. Witnesses said a shell hit the roof of the hospital.

According to reports, shooting, artillery and machine-gun fire have been heard in the outskirts of Semyonovka starting Friday night.

Shell-holes can be seen in the ground all around the village. Smoke was reportedly seen billowing from at least three locations in Slavyansk on Saturday.

Update May 25th:

May 24, 2014 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Video, War Crimes | | Leave a comment

The Iranian Drones That Save Lives

May 24, 2014 Posted by | Video | Leave a comment

Unlawful killing of two Palestinian teens outside Ofer

Al-Akhbar | May 20, 2014

Video footage obtained by a human rights group Monday showed the chilling shooting deaths of two Palestinian children by Israeli occupation forces last Thursday.

Israeli soldiers shot dead teenagers Mohammed Odeh Abu al-Thaher and Nadim Siyam Nawara during a protest coinciding with the 66th anniversary of the Nakba outside Israel’s Ofer prison near the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Israel had claimed it fired rubber bullets during the May 15 protest to disperse the protesters.

But footage released by the Defence for Children International (DCI) captured from a security camera at a nearby house shows the youths, believed to be aged 16 and 17, being shot dead as they calmly walked.

The video shows the first victim walking in the opposite direction of the occupation forces before he is struck by a bullet in the back. Onlookers immediately rushed to his aid.

The second victim is shot in the chest in the same location as he walked slowly. He falls to the ground and struggles to get back up as others assist him and signal for the occupation forces to cease fire.

Both children were unarmed.

“Israeli forces continue to use excessive force and recklessly fire live ammunition and rubber-coated metal bullets on unarmed protesters, including children, killing them with impunity,” Rifat Kassis, executive director of DCI-Palestine, said in a statement.

The report said a third, 15-year-old victim was shot in the back and left lung during the protest and is recovering at a Ramallah hospital.

International human rights groups have repeatedly condemned Israel’s use of deadly force against Palestinian protesters and civilians in the West Bank and Gaza.

May 20, 2014 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, Video | , , , | Leave a comment

Kiev liable for crisis in eastern Ukraine: Analyst

Press TV – May 20, 2014

The Kiev government is actually responsible for the ongoing crisis in eastern Ukraine, a political analyst tells Press TV.

“We can blame the military operation launched by Kiev and this is not just a military operation. It’s not just used military forces of the Ukrainian army; it has also used militias, irregular troops, terrorist units, simple violent hooligans,” Manuel Ochsenreiter, chief editor of news magazine, Zuerst, said in an interview with Press TV on Tuesday.

He held the Kiev government and not Donetsk and Lugansk or even Moscow accountable for the ongoing crisis.

The acting Kiev government has been staging military operations in the eastern and southern regions since mid-April in a bid to root out pro-Moscow demonstrations.

Nearly 130 people have so far been killed during clashes and operations by Ukrainian troops in the east and the south, according to figures from the United Nations.

The commentator further emphasized that the recent referendum in Ukraine’s eastern regions of Donetsk and Lugansk is not responsible for the humanitarian situation as it did not take the social services from the country.

He added that an election or referendum has never changed the direct humanitarian situation of the people on the ground in any time of history, noting that Kiev and the West are likely to use it as an excuse.

“It’s a very cynical interpretation of the situation to say, well, you wanted to be independent, now take starve, don’t find a doctor, now don’t get medicine,” the analyst pointed out.

On May 12, Ukraine’s two eastern regions of Donetsk and Lugansk declared independence following local referendums in which the regions’ residents voted overwhelmingly in favor of independence from Kiev.

~~~

May 20, 2014 Posted by | Economics, Subjugation - Torture, Video, War Crimes | | Leave a comment

Emmanuel Eisenberg explains his right to disregard international law and destroy private property

Excavations continue on Abu Haikel Land

CPTnet | May 19, 2014

AL-KHALIL (HEBRON) – The Israeli Antiquity Authority (IAA) continues to expropriate Palestinian land in Hebron, on the Tel Rumeida hillside.  On Sunday 18 May 2014, the IAA workforce, under the instruction of project coordinator Emmanuel Eisenberg, continued to cause structural damaged to the Abu Haikel land, deploying questionable and illegal archeological practices, while at the same time utilizing the Al Jobeh family’s land without the family’s consent.

The excavations are illegal under Israeli law, according to the Oslo Agreement, which Israel signed in the mid-90s— a process jointly agreed upon by Israel and Palestine as a vehicle to peace and stability.  Article 2 of the Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement describes in detail how Israeli and Palestinians would jointly administer archeological projects in Palestinian territory.  The IAA has not abided by this agreement in Tel Rumeida.

As previously reported, the IAA had verbally agreed to halt the archeological excavations on the land bordering the Abu Haikel plot until the borders of the property were properly demarcated.  Despite the agreement, the IAA illegal activities continued onto the Abu Haikel’s property, eventually undermining a retaining wall, causing it to collapse and exposing the roots of a centuries-old olive tree to the elements.  These breaches were not the first damage to the Abu Haikel land as a result of the excavations.

The disregard of both international law and Israeli law, combined with verbal and physical assaults of the families living on Tel Rumeida is not an isolated incident, but rather constitute a colonial methodology by the Jewish settler enterprise in Israel.  These tactics were the same political instruments that led to the establishment and expansion of the Israeli settlement of Tel Rumeida.

Explaining how he could destroy the foundations of the Abu Haikel’s wall, Emmanuel Eisenberg said explicitly that he, “Doesn’t give a shit,” and articulated at length the nature of his work, in which he envisioned the site becoming a tourist destination with a kiosk or restaurant on the Palestinian lands.  At one point during the dialogue, Eisenberg had attacked a human rights observer.

As has been chronicled by Israeli Jewish historian Illan Pappe, among others, forced displacement, harassment, and the suppression of basic rights has been the central component of Israeli policy toward the Palestinians.  This reality is demonstrated with facts on the ground in Hebron specifically, with over a thousand Palestinian homes and shops evacuated, razed, or confiscated for the benefit, protection, and expansion of Jewish settlements.

Eisenberg’s work on Tel Rumeida is an extension of formal Israeli policy to settle in “Judea and Samaria” and another instrument of the settlement plan to force Palestinians to leave Hebron.

The gate to the Abu Haikal house
The gate to the Abu Haikal house

May 19, 2014 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Video | , , , , | Leave a comment

CBC exposes Racist JNF Canada Tax Fraud

CBC Fifth Estate’s 1991 documentary titled “Canada Park; Park with No Peace”

May 17, 2014 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Timeless or most popular, Video, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Can the United States Come to Terms with an Independent, Technologically Sophisticated, and Truly Sovereign Iran?

By Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett | Going to Tehran | May 16, 2014

As negotiations on a final nuclear deal between Iran and the P5+1 proceed, CCTV’s news talk program, The Heat, invited Hillary earlier this week to offer her perspective on the requirements for successful negotiations, click on the video above or see here.  The program also included interview segments with Seyed Mohammad Marandi from the University of Tehran and with former Iranian diplomat and nuclear negotiator Seyed Hossein Mousavian.  All three segments are worth watching.  We want to highlight here some of Hillary’s more important points.

Hillary notes that, while the chances for diplomatic breakthrough between Washington and Tehran are “the best they have been for at least a decade,” gaps between the United States and Iran remain “wide” on key issues.  Most importantly, “at this point, the United States doesn’t want Iran to have an industrial-scale nuclear program.”

In Hillary’s view, the “big picture” strategic challenge for the United States in pursuing a diplomatic opening with Iran is recognizing that the Islamic Republic “has sovereign rights, treaty rights, and can be treated like a normal state.”  In the context of the nuclear talks, more specifically, the question is whether the United States “can countenance a country that will be strong, independent, and a real nuclear power—not a weapons power, but a real nuclear power.”

On this point, Seyed Mohammad Marandi says that, from an Iranian perspective, “the crux of the problem is the very notion that Western powers are in a position or they have the authority to determine what Iran is allowed to have and is not allowed to have.  Iran is not going to accept anything less than its full rights within the framework of international law.”

Hillary describes how, to a considerable degree, Washington has been compelled to drop thirty-five years of rejecting the Islamic Republic’s very legitimacy and to consider cutting some sort of deal with it because of the erosion of U.S. military options vis-à-vis Iran and the strategic failure of American sanctions policy.

–With regard to military options, Hillary observes that “one of the things that has made these negotiations possible in a constructive manner is that, from August 2013, when President Obama declared that the United States would attack Syria after chemical weapons were used there, and then had to walk it back and say, “No, actually I can’t do that, Congress isn’t going to support me, no one around the world is going to support me’—with that, the United States’ ability to credibly threaten the effective use of force greatly diminished.  So now you don’t hear President Obama say nearly as much, ‘all options are on the table’—not because the United States doesn’t want to have that [option], but because we don’t have it.  We lost it over Syria, and over some of the other failed military interventions over the last decade.”

–While “the idea that sanctions have so crippled the Iranians, and especially the Iranian leadership, that they have come crawling to the table” is popular in American political discourse, this is a false assessment, “put out there to justify a policy that we have put in place for thirty-five years that has not brought down the Islamic Republic, has not overthrown its government, and has not weakened it.  We’ve seen Iranian power rise and rise.  And I think in some ways the Iranians are letting us have a bit of that narrative, to justify how sanctions have, in a way, let the United States come to the table…It’s a bit the reverse of what the American rhetoric is here, from Washington—it’s not so much that sanctions brought the Iranians to the table; they really brought the Americans to the table.”

Hillary explains that, because of these difficulties, the Obama administration has, over the last two years, determined that the United States might be able to “accept” the Islamic Republic—but “only if it can become part of a pro-American, U.S.-led security and political order in the Middle East.”  To join such an order,  “states in the region have to give up some elements of sovereign rights—to have a big, functioning military; to have full industrialization—and to have policies that support the United States.  So I think what the U.S. team is really trying to test is whether the Islamic Republic of Iran can join this pro-American political and security order”—and, to show that the Islamic Republic could do this, whether Iran “would limit [its] ability to have a civilian nuclear program, according to American wishes.”

Hillary elaborates that, in broader perspective,

“The nuclear deal is almost like, when Nixon and Kissinger first went to China and the relationship opened, we had the Shanghai Communique.  At the end of the day, it was just a piece of paper; it means nothing in the broader scheme of what has become a huge relationship between the United States and China.  The nuclear deal between the U.S. and Iran would essentially serve that function; it would be the equivalent of the Shanghai Communique, to allow for this opening of a relationship between Iran and the United States.

Now the big difference is that the United States wants this relationship on terms that would shore up a pro-American political and security order throughout the region, throughout the Middle East.  What Iran wants in that relationship is to maintain its independence, maintain its sovereignty, and to continue to have this ability to rise as an important power.  Now it may be possible for those two goals to be met, but it’s going to be extremely difficult.”

This difference in fundamental goals is also manifested in U.S.-Iranian disagreements over sanctions, with the Iranians seeking to end sanctions while the Americans talk about suspending them, with specific triggers for re-imposing them.  Hillary explains that the U.S. position grows out of Washington’s greater goal,

“which is to bring Iran into this pro-American political and security order in the region that allows the United States to punish states that don’t go along with U.S. policy preferences—including by the re-imposition or increasing of sanctions on them.  So that is a big strategic goal for the United States.

For Iran, though, Iran has not had trade relations with the United States for thirty-five years.  Their strategy is, if they can get all U.S. sanctions lifted, great.  But the real goal is not this idea that the United States is somehow going to change overnight.  But if the United States can at least get out of the way, stand to the side, not enforce those sanctions, waive those sanctions at least every six months, that would allow room for other states that Iran is very focused on—in Europe, in Asia, especially with China, and other countries—to allow them to trade and invest more freely (and without the constant threat of punishment from the United States), to allow them to invest in the Iranian economy.  That’s the real economic prize; it’s not to open up U.S. trade or U.S. investment per se.”

Looking ahead to a prospective final agreement, Hillary cautions that negotiators “are going to try to have it as specific as possible, to really hold each side to account—not to build trust, but essentially to build in triggers to punish the other side if something goes wrong.  That is not going to be a durable agreement.”  Instead of this approach, Hillary argues that

“the most effective agreement that could come to fruition, whether its July 20 (the self-imposed deadline) or after that, will be something more vague.  It will be something more along the lines of the Shanghai Communique between the United States and China, which essentially will say that Iran will be recognized as a sovereign state.  There may be some interim period for confidence building, but that will be temporary, and after that interim period Iran will be recognized—especially by the United States, but by all of the P5+1—as a normal sovereign state exercising normal sovereign rights, including those for a civilian nuclear program…If they get bogged down in the details of exactly how many centrifuges Iran can run for exactly how much time, that’s a recipe for failure.”

The rest of Hillary’s interview is worth watching, as are the segments with Seyed Mohammad Marandi and Seyed Hossein Mousavian.

May 17, 2014 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Video, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Michael Hayden Gleefully Admits: We Kill People Based On Metadata

By Mike Masnick | Techdirt | May 12, 2014

Since the very first Snowden leak a year ago, one of the more common refrains from defenders of the program is “but it’s just metadata, not actual content, so what’s the big deal?” Beyond the fact that other programs do collect content, we’ve pointed out time and time again that the “just metadata, don’t worry” argument only makes sense if you don’t know what metadata reveals. Anyone with any knowledge of the subject knows that metadata reveals a ton of private info. Furthermore, we’ve even pointed out that the NSA regularly uses “just metadata” to pick targets for drone assassinations. As one person called it: “death by unreliable metadata.”

So we know that the US kills people based on metadata, but given how hard the NSA and its defenders have sought to play down the collection of metadata, it’s somewhat amazing to find out that the always on-message former director of both the NSA and CIA, Michael Hayden, flat out admitted that “we kill people based on metadata.” According to David Cole:

Of course knowing the content of a call can be crucial to establishing a particular threat. But metadata alone can provide an extremely detailed picture of a person’s most intimate associations and interests, and it’s actually much easier as a technological matter to search huge amounts of metadata than to listen to millions of phone calls. As NSA General Counsel Stewart Baker has said, “metadata absolutely tells you everything about somebody’s life. If you have enough metadata, you don’t really need content.” When I quoted Baker at a recent debate at Johns Hopkins University, my opponent, General Michael Hayden, former director of the NSA and the CIA, called Baker’s comment “absolutely correct,” and raised him one, asserting, “We kill people based on metadata.”

You can see Hayden make that statement at the 18 minute mark of this video — though he immediately tries to qualify the statement by saying we don’t kill people based on this metadata. Of course, what he leaves out is that the DOJ believes that the federal government has the legal authority to kill Americans based on this metadata. So that kind of matters:

It’s a bit scary to watch Hayden’s awkward snarky smile after making this statement.

Separately, if you rewind the video to the 15 minute mark, David Cole does a great job laying out why metadata is so powerful, though even he didn’t go so far as to highlight “death by metadata.”

As stated above, we knew that the CIA kills based on metadata — but it’s still fairly amazing that Hayden was willing to admit this. Either way, the next time you hear anyone invoking the “it’s just metadata” or saying “but it’s not the actual content” perhaps point out to them this simple statement: the former head of the NSA and CIA, and one of the biggest defenders of the metadata collection program (some of which began under his watch) has admitted: “we kill people based on metadata.”

May 12, 2014 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Timeless or most popular, Video, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

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