David Bellamy

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David Bellamy OBE

David Bellamy
Born January 18, 1933 (1933-01-18) (age 75)
London
Education Sutton County Grammar School; Chelsea College of Science and Technology (now part of King's College London); Bedford College (now part of Royal Holloway, University of London); Durham University
Known for botanist, author, broadcaster, environmental campaigner
Religious beliefs Baptist
Spouse Rosemary Bellamy (1952 - present)
Children 5

David J. Bellamy OBE (born 18 January 1933) is an English botanist, author, broadcaster, environmental campaigner. He is also known to be a global warming sceptic.

Contents

[edit] Background

Bellamy was born in London. He was brought up as a strict Baptist. He attended Sutton County Grammar School, Sutton; Chelsea College of Science and Technology (now part of King's College London); and Bedford College (now part of Royal Holloway, University of London), in London. He originally trained as a botanist at Durham University, where he later held the post of Senior Lecturer in Botany until 1982, and still holds the post of Honorary Professor for Adult and Continuing Education.

Bellamy and his wife Rosemary, whom he married when he was 19, have five children.

[edit] Career

Bellamy first came to public prominence as an environmental consultant at the time of the 1967 Torrey Canyon disaster. He has written and presented some 400 television programmes on botany, ecology, and environmental issues. Bellamy is the originator, along with David Shreeve and the Conservation Foundation (which he also founded), of the Ford European Conservation Awards and has published over 80 scientific papers and many books.

In 1980, he released a cover version of the song "Brontosaurus Will You Wait For Me?" (b/w "Oh Stegasaurus")which he performed on Blue Peter wearing an orange jump suit. It reached 81 in the charts.

In 1983, he was jailed for blockading the Australian Franklin River in protest at a proposed dam. On 18 August 1984, he leapt from the pier at St. Abbs Harbour and splashed into the North Sea. In the process, he officially opened Britain's first Voluntary Marine Reserve, the St. Abbs and Eyemouth Voluntary Marine Reserve.

In 1997, he stood unsuccessfully against the incumbent Prime Minister John Major for the anti-European Union Referendum Party. Bellamy credits this campaign with the decline in his career as a popular celebrity and television personality, saying in 2002:

"In some ways it was probably the most stupid thing I ever did because I'm sure that if I have been banned from television, that's why. I used to be on Blue Peter and all those things, regularly, and it all, pffffft, stopped." [1]

He is Britain's most prominent campaigner against the construction of wind farms in undeveloped areas. This is despite appearing very enthusiastic about wind power in the educational video Power from the Wind[2] produced by Britain's Central Electricity Generating Board.

He once voiced an advert for the blackcurrant drink Ribena, which claimed that 95% of British blackcurrants were used in Ribena. (This has now been changed to "Nearly all British blackcurrants are used in Ribena".)[citation needed]

[edit] Views on global warming

In his foreword to the 1989 book The Greenhouse Effect[3] Dr Bellamy wrote:

"The profligate demands of humankind are causing far reaching changes to the atmosphere of planet Earth, of this there is no doubt. Earth's temperature is showing an upward swing, the so-called greenhouse effect, now a subject of international concern. The greenhouse effect may melt the glaciers and ice caps of the world causing the sea to rise and flood many of our great cities and much of our best farmland."

Dr Bellamy's later statements on global warming indicate that he subsequently changed his views completely.

In 2004, he wrote an article in the Daily Mail in which he described the theory of man-made global warming as "poppycock" [4]. A letter he published in New Scientist (16 April 2005) asserted that a large percentage (555 of 625) of the glaciers being observed by the World Glacier Monitoring Service were advancing, not retreating. George Monbiot of The Guardian tracked down Bellamy's original source for this information and found that it was Fred Singer's website. Singer claimed to have obtained these figures from a 1989 article in the journal Science, but to date this article has not been found.[5] Bellamy has since admitted that the figures on glaciers were wrong, and announced in a letter to The Sunday Times on 29 May 2005 [6] that he had "decided to draw back from the debate on global warming" [7]. However he has not withdrawn his assertions about the causes of global warming.

His opinions have changed the way in which some organisations view Bellamy. In 2005 a spokesperson for Plantlife, where Bellamy has been president for 15 years, said it "would be wrong to ask him to continue [as president]". The Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts stated in 2005 "We are not happy with his line on climate change"[8], and Bellamy was succeeded as president of the Wildlife Trusts by Aubrey Manning in November 2005.

In October 2006, the New Zealand Herald reported that Bellamy had joined the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition, a group of scientists trying to refute what they believe are unfounded claims about man-made global warming[9].

In May 2007 Bellamy and Jack Barrett jointly authored a paper in the refereed Civil Engineering journal of the Institution of Civil Engineers entitled 'Climate stability: an inconvenient proof'.[10] They argued that the widely prophesied doubling of carbon dioxide levels from natural, pre-industrial levels was not only unlikely but would also amount to less than 1 degree C of global warming.

In June 2007, The New Zealand Center for Policy Research (founded by Muriel Newman formerly an MP in the neo-liberal ACT Party) published an opinion piece by Bellamy entitled 'The Global Warming Myth'. Saying amongst other things that "There are no facts linking the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide with imminent catastrophic global warming".

[edit] Recognition

Bellamy also holds or has held these positions:

Recipient of:

[edit] Bibliography

Bellamy has written at least 45 books:

  • Bellamy on Botany (1972) ISBN 0-563-10666-2 (A short and accessible introduction to botany)
  • Peatlands (1973)
  • Bellamy's Britain (1974)
  • Life Giving Sea (1975)
  • Green Worlds (1975)
  • The World of Plants (1975)
  • It's Life (1976)
  • Bellamy's Europe (1976)
  • Botanic Action (1978)
  • Botanic Man (1978)
  • Half of Paradise (1978)
  • Forces of Life (1979)
  • Bellamy's Backyard Safari (1981)
  • The Great Seasons (with Sheila Mackie, illustrator; Hodder & Stoughton, 1981)
  • Il Libro Verde (1981)
  • The Mouse Book (1983)
  • Bellamy's New World (1983)
  • The Queen's Hidden Garden (1984)
  • I Spy (1985)
  • Bellamy’s Bugle (1986)
  • Bellamy's Ireland (1986)
  • Turning The Tide (1986)
  • Bellamy's Changing Countryside (1987)
  • England's Last Wilderness (1989)
  • England's Lost Wilderness (1990)
  • Wilderness Britain? (1990, Oxford Illustrated Press, ISBN 1-85509-225-5)
  • How Green Are You? (1991)
  • Tomorrow's Earth (1991)
  • World Medicine: Plants, Patients and People (1992)
  • Blooming Bellamy (1993)
  • Trees of the World (1993)
  • The Bellamy Herbal(2003)
  • Jolly Green Giant (autobiography, 2002, Century, ISBN 0-7126-8359-3)
  • A Natural Life (autobiography, 2002, Arrow, ISBN 0-09-941496-1)
  • Conflicts in the Countryside: The New Battle for Britain (2005), Shaw & Sons, ISBN 0-7219-1670-8

[edit] Discovering the Countryside with David Bellamy

Bellamy was "consultant editor and contributor" for this series, published by Hamlyn in conjunction with the Royal Society for Nature Conservation:

[edit] Forewords

Bellamy has contributed forewords or introductions to:

[edit] External links

[edit] References

  1. ^ Hattenstone, Simon. The green man, The Guardian, September 30, 2002
  2. ^ Jenkins, N. (September 1990). "European Wind Energy". The Environmentalist 10 (3): 230-231. ISSN 0251-1088. 
  3. ^ Boyle, Stewart; Ardill, John (1989). The Greenhouse Effect. ISBN 0-450-50638-X. 
  4. ^ Junk Science: Global Warming? What a load of poppycock!
  5. ^ George Monbiot, Tuesday May 10, 2005, The Guardian
  6. ^ Times Online: 29 May 2005, In an adverse climate
  7. ^ New Scientist: 11 June 2005, British conservationist to lose posts after climate claims - Issue 2503, page 4
  8. ^ Times Online: 15 May 2005, Wildlife groups axe Bellamy as global warming ‘heretic’
  9. ^ New Zealand Herald: 19 October 2006, Bellamy warms to scientists' scepticism on climate change
  10. ^ Bellamy and Barrett, Climate stability: an inconvenient proof, Proceedings of ICE - Civil Engineering 160, May 2007, 66-72


Persondata
NAME Bellamy, David, OBE
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION English professor, botanist, author, broadcaster and environmental campaigner
DATE OF BIRTH 1933-01-18
PLACE OF BIRTH London, England
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH
Languages