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David Bellamy OBE
David Bellamy
Born	18 January 1933 (1933-01-18) (age 75) London, United Kingdom
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(s)	Rosemary Bellamy (1952 - present)
Children	5

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

[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 number 81 in the charts.^{[citation needed]} During this period he was a popular television presenter. He was parodied by Lenny Henry on Tiswas with a "grapple me grapenuts" catchphrase. 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]}

In 1983, he was jailed for blockading the Australian Franklin River in a protest against a proposed dam. On 18 August 1984 he leapt from the pier at St. Abbs Harbour 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 Referendum Party. Bellamy credits this campaign with the decline in his career as a popular celebrity and television personality, stating in 2002:^[1]

"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."

He is Britain's most prominent campaigner against the construction of wind farms in undeveloped areas.^{[citation needed]} 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.

[edit] Views on global warming

In his foreword to the 1989 book The Greenhouse Effect^[3] 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".^{[citation needed]} A letter he published on 16 April 2005 in New Scientist 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.^[4] Bellamy has since stated that his figures on glaciers were wrong, and announced in a letter to The Sunday Times that he had "decided to draw back from the debate on global warming".^[5]

His opinions have changed the way in which some organisations view Bellamy. In 2005 a spokesperson for the charity Plantlife, of which Bellamy had been president for 15 years, stated that "it would be wrong to ask him to continue [as president]".^{[citation needed]} The Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts stated in 2005 "We are not happy with his line on climate change",^[6] and Bellamy was succeeded as president of the Wildlife Trusts by Aubrey Manning in November 2005.^{[citation needed]}

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^[7] 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'.^[8] In this report they argue 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 Centre for Policy Research (founded by Muriel Newman formerly an MP in the neo-liberal ACT Party) published an opinion piece by Bellamy stating amongst other things that "There are no facts linking the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide with imminent catastrophic global warming".^[9]

Dr Bellamy complained in November 2008 that his dissent from global warming has resulted in rejection for his TV program ideas ^[10]:

WHEN I first stuck my head above the parapet to say I didn't believe what we were being told about global warming, I had no idea what the consequences would be. I am a scientist and I have to follow the directions of science, but when I see that the truth is being covered up I have to voice my opinions.

According to official data, in every year since 1998, world temperatures have been getting colder, and in 2002 Arctic ice actually increased. Why, then, do we not hear about that? The sad fact is that since I said I didn't believe human beings caused global warming, I've not been allowed to make a television program.

My absence has been noticed, because wherever I go I meet people who say: "I grew up with you on the television, where are you now?"

It was in 1996 that I criticised wind farms while appearing on children's program Blue Peter, and I also had an article published in which I described global warming as poppycock. The truth is, I didn't think wind farms were an effective means of alternative energy, so I said so. Back then, at the BBC you had to toe the line, and I wasn't doing that.

At that point, I was still making loads of TV programs and I was enjoying it greatly. Then I suddenly found I was sending in ideas for TV shows and they weren't getting taken up. I've asked around about why I've been ignored, but I found that people didn't get back to me. At the beginning of this year there was a BBC show with four experts saying: "This is going to be the end of all the ice in the Arctic," and hypothesising that it was going to be the hottest summer ever. Was it hell! It was very cold and very wet and now we've seen evidence that the glaciers in Alaska have started growing rapidly, and they have not grown for a long time.

[edit] Recognition

Lists of miscellaneous information should be avoided. Please relocate any relevant information into appropriate sections or articles. (November 2008)

Bellamy also holds or has held these positions:

• Professor of Adult and Continuing Education, University of Durham.
• Hon. Prof. Central Queensland University, Faculty of Engineering and Physical Systems
• Special Professor of Botany, (Geography), University of Nottingham.

Honorary Dr. of Science, Bournemouth University

• President of:
  • FOSUMS - Friends Of Sunderland Museum
  • The Conservation Foundation, UK
  • The Wildlife Trusts partnership
  • The Wildlife Trust for Birmingham and the Black Country
  • Population Concern
  • Plantlife
  • WATCH
  • Coral Cay Conservation
  • National Association for Environmental Education
  • British Naturalists' Association
  • Galapagos Conservation Trust
  • British Institute of Cleaning Science
  • Hampstead Heath Anglers Society [1]
  • President of the Camping and Caravanning club [2]
• Vice President:
  • BTCV
  • Fauna and Flora International
  • Marine Conservation Society
  • Australian Marine Conservation Society
• Trustee
  • Living Landscape Trust
  • World Land Trust (1992-2002)
  • Patron ; The Space Theatre ,Dundee
• Hon Fellow Chartered Institute of Water and Environmental Management
• Chair of the international committee for the Tourism for Tomorrow Awards.
• Honorary member:
  • BSES Expeditions
  • Patron ; Project AWARE Foundation [3]

Recipient of:

• The Dutch Order of the Golden Ark
• the U.N.E.P. Global 500 Award
• The Duke of Edinburgh's Award for Underwater Research
• BAFTA, Richard Dimbleby Award
• BSAC Diver of The Year Award

[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:

• Coastal Walks (1982; ISBN 0-600-35588-8)
• Woodland Walks (1982; ISBN 0-600-35658-2)
• Waterside Walks (1983; ISBN 0-600-35636-1)
• Grassland Walks (1983; ISBN 0-600-35637-X)

[edit] Forewords

Bellamy has contributed forewords or introductions to:

• Chris Packham's Back Garden Nature Reserve New Holland Publishers, Chris Packham, (2001) ISBN 1-85974-520-2
• The Cosmic Fairy Arthur Atkinson [pseudonym for Arthur Moppett] [Colin Smythe Limited Publishers], 1996, ISBN 0-86140-403-3
• British Naturalists Association Guide to Woodlands J L Cloudsley-Thompson

[edit] See also

• Environmentalism

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• David Bellamy Conservation Awards
• Simon Hattenstone, The Guardian, 30 September 2002, "The green man" - Interview with David Bellamy
• New Scientist: 11 June 2005, British conservationist to lose posts after climate claims - Issue 2503, page 4
• Bellamy in the Daily Mail, 9 July 2004
• Correspondence between David Bellamy and George Monbiot, 2004
• George Monbiot, The Guardian, 10 May 2005, "Junk science:David Bellamy's inaccurate and selective figures on glacier shrinkage are a boon to climate change deniers"
• Radio broadcast, Bellamy, David Suzuki, Janet Earle on marine conservation, RRR 102.7fm, Melbourne, 2002
• St. Abbs and Eyemouth Voluntary Marine Reserve, Britain's first Voluntary Marine Reserve opened by David Bellamy in August 1984.
• Today’s forecast: yet another blast of hot air, The Times, 22 October 2007.