Source: BBC2: The Daily Politics
URL: N/A
Date: 02/03/2011
Event: Johnny Ball talks about climate change on The Daily Politics
People:
Andrew Neil: Now, should we be thinking the unthinkable? And what is the unthinkable - when we think it? Lost? Yes, I know I am. It leads me to the question of - climate change. Obviously, because the status quo, over how many years - I've lost count - would have us believe that the planet's doomed. Doomed, I say! And our descendants are, too. Now, they may have a point. Then again, they may not. We put that in for BBC impartiality. Many people believe the science is still out. Which leads me to the TV presenter Johnny Ball, and this week's Soap Box.
[Film starts.]
Johnny Ball: How are your kids? The grandchildren. The next generation. How are they doing in school? The potential is all there. In a few years' time, the world will be their oyster. So why are we filling all their heads with doom and gloom? This is a GCSE chemistry book, and the first picture you come to is a boy in a very severe mask to protect him from air pollution. Turn the page, and we're into "The Earth's Atmosphere", where that's covered there, and then those pages, and the next ten pages are just about pollutants in the atmosphere.
Why, when everything about our lives is getting better by miles, are we giving the kids the impression that the world is becoming unravelled and may not be able to support life? What is happening?
Our modern technology is quite amazing. Take communications. Everything - mobile phones, iPads - gets better and better, and cheaper. Why? Because it's consumer-led, it's what people want. Not one decision in this industry is made by politicians.
So what about the lunatic energy policies that have been thrust upon us by politicians? Wind generators, hated but everywhere. And not one would be built without a subsidy. Whereas two new nuclear generators, on the old sites, would produce no CO2 and outdistance all the wind generators built and planned. Why don't we subsidise those?
All the efforts to reduce CO2 in the atmosphere are patently not working. Only 4% of the CO2 that goes into the atmosphere is put there by Man. The rest is completely natural. And the rain falls and washes it out again, and so you have to have a carbon cycle to keep replenishing it. Every aspect of the technology we use to improve our lives, and to lessen our impact on the world, is improving commendably, and the future for our kids is brighter than we can yet imagine. And that's the message we should be delivering to every child.
[Film ends.]
Andrew Neil: A cheery message there from Johnny Ball. He joins us now - welcome back to the Daily Politics.
Johnny Ball: I'm always cheerful. Well, I try to be...
Andrew Neil:... we always try to be cheerful. But we have to deal with politicians every day, so...
Johnny Ball: Precisely.
Andrew Neil: Let me ask you this - what should we tell our children about climate change?
Johnny Ball: If you look at the chemistry, chemistry starts with Dalton's atomic theory, and it's based there. They've removed from the first 35 pages, not pages, removed the mention, virtually, of hydrogen and water. They've removed them - there's not a thing there about water, but water is 97% the cause of temperature change from hour to hour, and day to day, in the atmosphere. They've removed it, in 35 pages, when they're talking about pollutants, including nitrogen dioxide, which is19 particles or so in every billion. It's crazy. The whole thing is a political motivated thing to really scare our kids to death and give them the wrong impression of science and the promotion of...
Andrew Neil: So you're saying that even the textbook is a political propaganda?
Johnny Ball: Oh, it's - it's full of it. And I'm going to do a report on it. Because it's full of it. And it just has to be addressed.
Andrew Neil: So why are you presiding over textbooks that are political propaganda?
Philip Hammond: Well look, I didn't publish the textbook, by the way... But look, I agree with you in one sense. I'm an optimist for the future. I think we have the technology. Er, we have the way to deliver solutions to these challenges. And we should send a message that if we engage with the problems, if we engage with the challenge, for example in my own departmental area, if we now set about greening motoring so that over the next 30, 40 years we see the internal combustion engine...
Johnny Ball:...electric cars aren't the answer to that, electric cars are actually more polluting...
Philip Hammond: ... they're not, when you green the grid...
Johnny Ball: is the most inefficient...
Philip Hammond:.. not when you green the grid...
Johnny Ball: Well, you won't green the grid, because you won't... fossil fuels...
Andrew Neil: Can I just ask you - this is a textbook for GCSE chemistry?
Johnny Ball: GCSE chemistry.
Andrew Neil: I mean, I don't think the kids in China or India are sitting down with textbooks like that.
Johnny Ball: Absolutely not.
Andrew Neil: They've got proper chemistry textbooks.
Johnny Ball: Absolutely.
Alistair Darling: That's one particular book.
Andrew Neil: It's for GCSE chemistry.
Alistair Darling: I don't think it's the only book in circulation on the subject. Firstly, I don't think today's children - and as the father of two youngish children - are scared about what they're being told. I think they're aware of the fact that we have the capacity to damage the environment in which we live...
Andrew Neil: Your children aren't children any more, though...
Alistair Darling: Well, forgive, they're not, they're still students...
Andrew Neil: ...one of them is at university. That's not a child...
Alistair Darling: ...having recently...
Andrew Neil: ...hope she's not watching. Being a student, she probably is...
Alistair Darling: ... in a lecture or something. Time to be up now, surely. [They laugh.] Come on... Um, I think - firstly, I think, you know, climate change is a problem. Where I think I've got some sympathy with you is that too often when we talk about the question of climate change, it's all about what you should not be doing, or what - you should stop doing this, you should stop doing that. You know, this is why, you know, I do disagree with people...
Andrew Neil: ... what is your message?
Johnny Ball: ... cut out of the film. The point I've made is this. All the green policies, all the wind, all the solar is not working. It's collapsed in Spain, the solar panel system collapsed in Spain, where they have quite a bit of sunshine. It's not working, it's not reducing the CO2 in the atmosphere. It's having no effect. But it's costing every family 50% of all their energy bills, their fuel bills, even their air flights. It's costing us a fortune, and making every child, and every family poorer...
Alistair Darling (?): ... I understand...
Johnny Ball:... in these times of austerity. So it's got to be turned round, that's what I'm saying...
Andrew Neil: All right now...
Johnny Ball: ... Gone the wrong way, and you've got to turn around, gentlemen. And you know you have. And you don't know how to turn round.
Andrew Neil: So what would you - so tell us, tell them. You've got two politicians here - tell them.
Johnny Ball: ...to turn round. It's got to start from Europe, because all the diktats come from Europe, and these...
Andrew Neil: ...but what? What?
Johnny Ball: Stop wind immediately. Stop the subsidies. Put the subsidies where they're necessary. Take the subsidies - for instance...
Philip Hammond: Onshore wind doesn't need subsidies any more. Onshore wind can pay its way.
Johnny Ball: It doesn't pay its way, you know it doesn't, it...
Philip Hammond: Onshore wind can.
Johnny Ball: The audits - the world audits show that no wind-generating farm in the world has ever produced more than 25% of its potential alone! The bill in the Thames Estuary windfarm is 3.2 billion...
Philip Hammond: That's not onshore.
Johnny Ball: ...over 20 years from profits that it will never make! It's crazy. The whole thing is really crazy, and...
Alistair Darling (?): ... getting heated...
Andrew Neil: ... in a sentence, then, what would you have us do?
Johnny Ball: You've got to turn the policy around, you've got to start agreeing that carbon is not causing abject climate difference, it's not causing...
Andrew Neil: That's the opposite of what we're told.
Johnny Ball: It's the opposite of what we've been told, because we've been fed that by lobby groups...
Alistair Darling: I don't think you can cite one textbook as evidence that climate change...
Johnny Ball:...issue, that is only a lead-in to the point I'm making. Please.
Andrew Neil: Okay. On that, we're going to have to leave it. Thank you for being with us, come back and talk to us again.