Has David Bellamy gone mad? 14 July 04

A week or so ago the big-bearded TV personality and former environmentalist David Bellamy penned a frankly bizarre article in the Daily Mail, entitled ‘Global warming: what a load of poppycock!’. In it, he asserted that global warming is a “myth”, that increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are a good thing because CO2 fertilises plants, and that “climate change is an entirely natural phenomenon, nothing to do with the burning of fossil fuels”. Amusingly, the only supporting evidence Bellamy could find to cite was the notorious Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine petition of 1998, which claimed to have the signatures of 18,000 scientists, all disagreeing with global warming. The OISM, which is run from a remote shed in an Oregon wood by a right-wing Christian fundamentalist, was so lax about the names on its petition that they included Ginger Spice and Michael J. Fox, according to PR Watch. The upshot is that many of us, including myself, who once held great respect for Bellamy’s contribution to public understanding of environmental issues, are fearing for his sanity. It is especially sad to see the waters of the climate change debate muddied yet again in the week that Dr David King, the UK government’s chief scientist, issued another dramatic warning of how urgent the problem has now become.