I have received a number of invitations to join public screenings of a film called the People’s Emergency Briefing.
Having watched it in Ringwood, I can decline further such invitations.
The Film is about the dire consequences for Great Britain arising from climate change.
It is presented by Chris Packham. The format follows that of a conference which took place earlier this year in Westminster Central Hall, where a number of eminent experts gave their views of the catastrophic impact climate change will have on our way of life, nature and economy. There was a clip of each expert’s lecture, followed by a brief sofa discussion between Chris Packham and ordinary members of the public, gauging their reactions to terrible things they had just been told.
The purpose of the film is to build support for a government-backed televised emergency briefing to the nation on the climate and nature crisis.
Viewers are urged to follow up the screening by hosting further screenings in their community or workplace. They are also encouraged to fill out a questionnaire for the University of Bath on their response to the film. They are to encourage their MP to support a national televised briefing.
I’ve already started to receive email requests urging my support for the national TV prime-time briefing.
The problem with any briefing remotely like that shown to us in Ringwood, is that national TV broadcasters are under an obligation to demonstrate ‘balance’.
Chris Packham is not an objective observer, he is a long-standing and partisan campaigner.
The film clips from the lectures by experts were just accepted as fact. There was no challenge by dissenting voices. The ‘science’ was presented as if there were overwhelming consensus, when in fact much of what we were told is highly controversial. For example, we were warned that Britain would become uninhabitable and that no food would be able to be produced here.
The solutions were presented as obvious, merely technical, relatively easy, almost cost-free. When, in reality, these decisions require charged political action and very substantial trade-offs.
It would have been more realistic had at least some of the sofa guests expressed some scepticism at what had been served up. As an aside, I found the swift descent to profanity by Jennifer Saunders, who was one of the sofa guests, quite unnecessary.
Interestingly, the demand for a national televised briefing, was accompanied by a short clip from one of the Number 10 daily Covid briefings and we saw the Chief Meical Officer about to address the nation. The comparison is instructive. It was during those briefings that the science was presented as unchallenged and that we must stay at home and obey. On the contrary, the scientific voices which insisted that our chosen response was an act of monumental self-harm with devastating lasting economic and societal consequences, were simply ignored.
I would not want to repeat those mistakes in response to climate change.
Notwithstanding, that I am deeply concerned about climate change and that I support our commitment to net-zero, we still need a sensible debate about our options and a proper sense of proportion. I will not support a national emergency briefing remotely like the one that I have so recently witnessed.