BBC Faked Polar Bear Footage re Climate Alarmism
By David Theroux | Tuesday December 13, 2011 at 10:38 AM PDT
As if the climate alarmist scams revealed in Climategate I and Climategate II were not enough, not to mention the deliberate misrepresentations in Al Gore’s propaganda film, An Inconvenient Truth, we now learn that the BBC faked a key scene in the £16 million, seven-part TV series, Frozen Planet, in which polar bears were being depicted as endangered as a result of global warming. Hosted by alarmist Sir David Attenborough, the series has had viewership of 8 million who were led to believe that the footage was taken in the wild, when all along it was staged in a zoo with fake snow. Attenborough refused to apologize for not disclosing the deception, claiming that the documentary is no different from movies: “Come on, we were making movies.” Apparently, for Sir David there is no difference between fiction and fact. Just more “post-normal science”? Similarly, the pro-alarmist BBC has denied any deception even though it deliberately did not advise viewers of the faked footage. As the Daily Mail reports:
It began by showing genuine footage of a male polar bear scavenging for food during the harsh Arctic winter.
As howling blizzards filled the screen, Sir David explained: “He must live on his resources. This is a time to scrape by.” The camera then panned to a frozen hillside, before cutting to a close-up of a female polar bear hibernating with her newborn cubs.
Apparently referring to the same bear family, the naturalist said: “But on these side slopes beneath the snow new lives are beginning. The cubs are born blind and tiny. An early birth is easier on the mother.”
His commentary continued: “In two more months polar bear families will emerge on the snowy slopes all round the Arctic.” The camera then moves from the snowy tundra to the dark nest, watching the cubs nuzzle up to their mother, as he says: “But for now they lie protected within their icy cocoons.”
Viewers marvelled at the crew’s apparently daring exploits. One fan wrote online after the show: “The camera team would be in a whole heap of s*** if mummy had woken up.”
In reality, the den was made of plaster and wood beneath a German zoo’s polar bear enclosure. It was fitted with cameras shortly before the cubs’ birth.
The truth is revealed on the website, where producer Kathryn Jeffs explained how the film was made last Christmas.
She said it would be impractical to film the carnivores in the wild, adding: “They stay in the pole through the winter and the female polar bears actually give birth at the peak of winter.
“The problem for us is that they do it underneath the snow in these dens of ice and there’s absolutely no way we can get our cameras down there.”
Last night the BBC insisted: “The commentary accompanying the sequence is carefully worded so it doesn’t mislead the audience.”
The spokesman added Sir David was aware captive bears were used in the nest scene, adding: “He knows it would have been impossible in the wild.”
It is the second time a BBC-Attenborough collaboration has faked polar bear scenes. In 1997, Sir David narrated over scenes of a mother snuggling up with newborns in Polar Bear, Arctic Warrior. It was criticised when it emerged it was filmed at a zoo in Frankfurt, Germany.
In addition, here are sample quotes in the British media about the deception:
Frozen Planet’s eight million devoted fans will not take kindly to being left out in the cold. It emerged yesterday a key scene from the hit BBC series showing a polar bear tending her newborn cubs was filmed in a zoo using fake snow.
—Euan Stretch, Daily Mirror, 12 December 2011Sir David Attenborough yesterday defended Frozen Planet’s fake polar bear footage – by comparing BBC nature documentaries to movies. In a surprising justification for duping millions of viewers, the TV star argued that owning up to splicing archive film with real Arctic scenes during the programme would have spoiled the mood. His blunt remarks came as more footage from the series was exposed as a sham.
—Simon Boyle, Daily Mirror, 13 December 2011No one wants to criticise Sir David Attenborough, given the amazing television he has made and the work he’s done to preserve wildlife and educate us about the way we are destroying the planet. But in the case of Polar Beargate, he would be better to recognise that what he and the BBC did was duplicitous and simply apologise. Viewers will be disappointed to find out that Sir David is yet another TV presenter they cannot totally trust.
—Jim Shelley, Daily Mirror, 13 December 2011Sir David Attenborough is one of our finest journalists and a great expert on animal life. Unfortunately, however, when it comes to global warming he seems to prefer sensation to objectivity.
—Nigel Lawson, BBC Radio Times, 6 December 2011I took something of a personal interest in the last instalment of Sir David Attenborough’s Frozen Planet series, billed by the BBC as yet another grim warning of the dangers of global warming. Next day I was due to launch a report for the Global Warming Policy Foundation on the BBC’s notorious bias on this issue. In fact, Sir David played it rather more cleverly than in previous forays. Accompanied by the usual breathtaking photography, he didn’t make his message too explicit. Instead he just conveyed that the polar ice caps are melting at an unprecedented rate, suggesting that this will cause a disastrous rise in sea levels. In each case, however, he arranged his evidence in a notably loaded way, carefully omitting much of the information a less selective picture would have included.
—Christopher Booker, The Sunday Telegraph, 11 December 2011MPs have demanded that the BBC reveals details of all commercial deals its journalists have with other organisations, amid fears of an increasing number of conflicts of interest affecting their work. The Corporation is under pressure following The Mail on Sunday’s disclosure two weeks ago that senior BBC journalist Roger Harrabin accepted £15,000 in grants from the University of East Anglia, which was at the heart of the ‘Climategate’ scandal, and then reported on the story without declaring this interest to viewers.
—Miles Goslett, Daily Mail, 12 December 2011For almost three decades, the British Social Attitudes Survey has measured growing acceptance of things like homosexuality and single motherhood. On December 7th it picked up a more worrying kind of nonchalance. Ardour for environmentalism is cooling. Why might this be? Peter Lynn of the University of Essex reckons a fuss over the way some academics presented data, known as “climategate”, may have had an effect. And present economic woes have distracted people from long-term concerns.
—The Economist, 10 December 2011
HT: Benny Peiser
Tags: Corruption, Culture, Entertainment, Environment, Global Warming, Government subsidies, Media, Politics, Science, Video 
Surely BBC would not do such a thing. They have never done anything so despicable before, or have they? (Humans directly contribute to earth heat; readily calculated. But how much effect it has on earth temperature is not known. )
richard | Dec 13, 2011 | Reply
Climate changes have happened in the past; it’s a natural occurrence. Earth’s climate is determined by the sun; we live “in” the sun’s warmth, always have; we know this by looking at a plant; they are here, they survived. Polar bears have survived past climate changes; we know this by looking at a polar bear; they’re here, they survived.
We’re supposed to be scared why?
docKimble | Dec 13, 2011 | Reply
This presentation of this story is very very disappointing. The issue around ‘faking’ footage of wild animals giving birth using film of captive animals in Attenborough documentaries is an old one, and has absolutely nothing to do with climate warming. It may or may not be a good idea to use footage of captive animals to deal with the obvious difficulties of filming this in the wild. What has this go do with climate warming and why pretend it does? What does this item add to an informed debate about climate change?
Barry Stocker | Dec 13, 2011 | Reply
Barry, As is noted and linked above, this is yet another example of the fabrication of evidence by climate alarmists, ranging from scientists to journalists to activists. The scientific evidence shows that despite increases in CO2, there has been no warming since at least 1998. The conclusion to draw is that other factors such as solar, cloud, and/or other factors must be present that not only overrule overall CO2 influences but make the trivial man-made influences of no importance whatsoever. In addition, polar bear populations are increasing, not decreasing, a point that Attenborough conveniently leaves unmentioned along with the fact that the scene of polar bears was staged in a zoo.
True believers in climate alarmism are unaffected by the evidence, but for most people, we want to know what actually is the truth. Attenborough however has shown himself once again to be a propagandist because he believes in environmental religion, not environmental science.
David Theroux | Dec 13, 2011 | Reply
Barry is right. I read this post top to bottom and I don’t see how the issue of deceptively recording bears in a zoo instead of the wild bears (so to speak) on the issue of their being endangered or not due to global warming.
This is merely a fabrication of evidence that the film makers did all their filming in the Arctic, not evidence that global warming is or is not occurring.
Dain (Mupetblast) | Dec 13, 2011 | Reply
Dain, The simply question here to ask yourself is: why has Attenborough tried to make a point that polar bears are at risk of being decimated by global warming and then have a scene of maternal love for bear cubs? The answer of course is that he believes that such a scene engenders the needed pathos from viewers for the plight of a cozy and cuddly polar bear family and its defenseless young, whose lives are claimed to be at substantial risk unless stringent restrictions on the “pollution” of man-made CO2 emissions are adopted and soon. To do so, Attenborough had to resort to a fake, staged scene to be effective, without informing his viewers in the process, and it is this deception to pull on the heartstrings of viewers that reveals the pathetic nature of what the BBC has attempted. This is not at all about science or truth-seeking, but instead an attempt to con people into siding with him for emotional reasons in his climate alarmist crusade. The series is dressed up to be a documentary based on science, but it is in fact deliberate political propaganda because for Attenborough and the BBC, “the end justifies the means.”
David Theroux | Dec 13, 2011 | Reply
@Dain
Fool you once, shame on them.... Fool you twice, shame on YOU.
James | Dec 14, 2011 | Reply
BBC was wrong to tell this white lie (pun intended). They should have indicated at some point in the documentary that not all scenes were filmed in the wild. Take, for example, car commercials: they depict their advertised cars being driven at high speed in scenic backgrounds. However, they always mention, in fine print, that the car is driven by a professional driver on a closed course. I find it ironic that car dealers can be more honest than environmentalists sometimes.
Cecile | Dec 15, 2011 | Reply
It seems to be that not only is this fabrication morally wrong, but also politically. BBC tugged on the heartstrings of viewers, which in turn affected each individuals mindset and personal economics intentionally or not.
For instance, the demand curve for things that are not considered “green” or “eco-friendly” probably dropped significantly. Who would buy a gas guzzling car after watching polar bears die, it would go against one’s moral code. There are incentives for the consumer to NOT purchase something that would be detrimental to the environment; the incentives being appeasing their conscience.
With the consumers having a lower interest in non eco-friendly goods, producers would be forced to alter their products to make them “green”. This alteration to becoming more earth conscience is not a cheap one and will cause an increasing cost industry. In this case, rational ignorance of the people would have been a cheaper option to the producers than being falsely informed of the polar bears struggle.
This increase in production not only affects the producers, but of course the consumers who are purchasing the good. This polar bear documentary seemingly inflected a high social cost, the cost to everyone.
This situation may even be described as the prisoners dilemma. Film makers acted in the interest of small, specific environmental groups, but affected a large spread population negatively (especially because the filming was false).
The human interest and capital in non eco-friendly industries will be much lower than those of eco-friendly ones. Even though the information in the polar bear documentary seems to be accurate, the filming-in-captivity scandal has not only affected the viewers trust of the media, but also the economy.
Interesting domino affect, yeah?
Annie | Dec 19, 2011 | Reply
I’m with Barry. I still don’t get it.
So what if Attenborough had spent 40 times as much and put his crew to increased danger and filmed the “maternal” scene completely in the wild? It would have had equal emotional effect as the staged scene, and it would have had equal rational relevance to a debate on AGW (i.e., none). But then there would be no possibility of playing “gotcha” about this entirely irrelevant scene.
So is that what it boils down to? Attenborough would have been more “honest” if only he had spent enough time and money to shoot the same scene in the wild? Sorry, this makes no rational sense.
If the faked scene had contained or implied fake evidence for AGW, I could see the complaint here.
Henry Bowman | Dec 19, 2011 | Reply
Henry, Science and propaganda are mutually exclusive, but for climate alarmists there is no difference because for them “the end justifies the means.”
David Theroux | Dec 19, 2011 | Reply
Much ado about nothing.
Dallas Weaver | Dec 20, 2011 | Reply
Oops. I f**ted. Methane is an unburned hydrocarbon. Also some sulfurous nasties. Guess I’d better buy a carbon credit or two from AlGore. Wonder how many fart credits his private jet breaks. Per minute = more than I’ll do in my whole miserable global warm... uh, ‘scuse me, climate changing life.
BobTrent | Dec 21, 2011 | Reply