Tag: Matt McGrath

Sir David Attenborough.

A very great man!

For someone born on May 8th, 1926 he, perhaps, should be slowing down. But none of it. He is passionate about how we are endangering our planet. And having a public profile he is the right position to do something about it, albeit a warning statement.

Plus, he is not the only one doing something about it. For Extinction Rebellion are protesting in the London streets.

But back to Sir David.

I’m assuming that it is OK to republish in full an item that appeared on BBC News yesterday. And according to their terms it is OK.

ooOOoo

Climate change: Sir David Attenborough warns of ‘catastrophe’

By Matt McGrath, Environment correspondent

(There is a video on the webpage that I am unable to copy across. Please go here to watch it. Update: I think I have got it.)

Sir David Attenborough has issued his strongest statement yet on the threat posed to the world by climate change.

In the BBC programme Climate Change – The Facts, the veteran broadcaster outlines the scale of the crisis facing the planet.

Sir David says we face “irreversible damage to the natural world and the collapse of our societies”.

But there is still hope, he says, if dramatic action to limit the effects is taken over the next decade.

Sir David’s new programme lays out the science behind climate change, the impact it is having right now and the steps that can be taken to fight it.

“In the 20 years since I first started talking about the impact of climate change on our world, conditions have changed far faster than I ever imagined,” Sir David states in the film.

“It may sound frightening, but the scientific evidence is that if we have not taken dramatic action within the next decade, we could face irreversible damage to the natural world and the collapse of our societies.”

Speaking to a range of scientists, the programme highlights that temperatures are rising quickly, with the world now around 1C warmer than before the industrial revolution.

“There are dips and troughs and there are some years that are not as warm as other years,” says Dr Peter Stott from the Met Office.

“But what we have seen is the steady and unremitting temperature trend. Twenty of the warmest years on record have all occurred in the last 22 years.”

The programme shows dramatic scenes of people escaping from wildfires in the US, as a father and son narrowly escape with their lives when they drive into an inferno.

Scientists say that the dry conditions that make wildfires so deadly are increasing as the planet heats up.

Greenland is losing ice five times as fast as it was 25 years ago – Getty Images.

Some of the other impacts highlighted by scientists are irreversible.

“In the last year we’ve had a global assessment of ice losses from Antarctica and Greenland and they tell us that things are worse than we’d expected,” says Prof Andrew Shepherd from the University of Leeds.

“The Greenland ice sheet is melting, it’s lost four trillion tonnes of ice and it’s losing five times as much ice today as it was 25 years ago.”

These losses are driving up sea levels around the world. The programme highlights the threat posed by rising waters to people living on the Isle de Jean Charles in Louisiana, forcing them from their homes.

“In the US, Louisiana is on the front line of this climate crisis. It’s losing land at one of the fastest rates on the planet – at the rate of of a football field every 45 minutes,” says Colette Pichon Battle, a director of the Gulf Coast Center for Law & Policy.

People are moving from parts of Louisiana in the US as a result of rising waters. – Julie Dermansky

“The impact on families is going to be something I don’t think we could ever prepare for.”

Hope rising

Sir David’s concern over the impacts of climate change has become a major focus for the naturalist in recent years.

This has also been a theme of his One Planet series on Netflix.

His new BBC programme has a strong emphasis on hope.

Sir David argues that if dramatic action is taken over the next decade then the world can keep temperatures from rising more than 1.5C this century. This would limit the scale of the damage.

“We are running out of time, but there is still hope,” says Sir David.

“I believe that if we better understand the threat we face the more likely it is we can avoid such a catastrophic future.”

The programme says that rapid progress is being made in renewable energy, with wind now as cheap as fossil fuels in many cases. It shows how technologies to remove and bury carbon dioxide under the ground are now becoming more viable.

But politicians will need to act decisively and rapidly.

“This is the brave political decision that needs to be taken,” says Chris Stark from the UK’s Committee on Climate Change.

Teenage campaigner Greta Thunberg has helped spark school strikes all over the world. – Getty Images.

“Do we incur a small but not insignificant cost now, or do we wait and see the need to adapt. The economics are really clear on this, the costs of action are dwarfed by the costs of inaction.”

The programme also highlights the rising generation of young people who are deeply concerned about what’s happening to the planet.

Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg explains that things can change quickly, despite the scale of the challenge on climate change.

“The first day I sat all alone,” she says, speaking of her decision to go on strike from school and sit outside the Swedish parliament to highlight the climate crisis.

“But on the second day, people started joining me… I wouldn’t have imagined in my wildest dreams that this would have happened so fast.”

“Change is coming whether you like it or not.”

Follow Matt on Twitter@mattmcgrathbbc

Climate Change – The Facts is on BBC One on Thursday 18 April at 9pm

ooOOoo

There are so many quotes in this item that one can hardly pick out the most pertinent one.

“Change is coming whether you like it or not.”

“The impact on families is going to be something I don’t think we could ever prepare for.”

“… irreversible damage to the natural world and the collapse of our societies“.

But this is the most powerful one! “We are running out of time, but there is still hope,” says Sir David.

Primordial feelings.

But not of humans – of dogs!

A wonderful item recently on the BBC News website.

Jealous wags: Dogs show envy is ‘primordial’ emotion

By Matt McGrath – Environment correspondent, BBC News

These border collies inspired the study on jealousy in dogs.
These border collies inspired the study on jealousy in dogs.

Jealousy is not just a human condition according to researchers, as it appears to be hard wired into the brains of dogs as well.

Scientists in California found that canines succumbed to the green eyed monster when their owners showed affection to a stuffed dog in tests.

Some experts have argued that jealousy requires complex cognition and is unique to people.

But the authors say their work shows it may also come in a more basic form.

These findings probably won’t be a major surprise to anyone who’s ever owned a dog, but the team say this is the first experimental test of jealous behaviours in man’s best friend.

Human jealousy is a complicated emotion, requiring a “social triangle” and usually arising when an interloper threatens an important relationship.

It is said to be the third leading cause of non-accidental homicide across cultures.

Building on research that shows that six month old infants display jealousy, the scientists studied 36 dogs in their homes and video recorded their actions when their owners displayed affection to a realistic-looking stuffed canine.

Faux fido

Over three quarters of the dogs were likely to push or touch the owner when they interacted with the decoy.

The envious mutts were more than three times as likely to do this for interactions with the stuffed dog compared to when their owners gave their attention to other objects including a book.

Around a third tried to get between the owner and the faux fido, while a quarter of the put-upon pooches snapped at the dummy dog.

“Our study suggests not only that dogs do engage in what appear to be jealous behaviours but also that they were seeking to break up the connection between the owner and a seeming rival,” said Prof Christine Harris from University of California in San Diego.

“We can’t really speak to the dogs’ subjective experiences, of course, but it looks as though they were motivated to protect an important social relationship.”

The researchers believe that the dogs understood that the stuffed dog was real. The authors cite the fact that 86% of the dogs sniffed the toy’s rear end, during and after the experiment.

Jealousy, according to the authors, may have evolved in species that have multiple dependent young that concurrently compete for food and affection.

The argue that jealousy might give an advantage to a young animal that is not only alert to the interactions between its siblings and its parents but is motivated to intervene.

“Many people have assumed that jealousy is a social construction of human beings – or that it’s an emotion specifically tied to sexual and romantic relationships,” said Prof Harris.

“Our results challenge these ideas, showing that animals besides ourselves display strong distress whenever a rival usurps a loved one’s affection.”

The research has been published in the journal, PLOS One.

Have a wonderful weekend! If possible free of primordial feelings! (I’m speaking to your dog!)