More or Less is one of my favourite programmes on BBC Radio Four. Not for the presentation style, which for me sometimes grates like fingernails on a blackboard, but for what they present, which makes it well worth getting beyond the style to the substance. And last week's episode was particularly good for its first item, on the mysterious disappearance of a map of climate change refugees from the website of the United Nations Environment Programme. Lest the programme, or at any rate that segment, suffer the same fate, I thought it was worth extracting and making available here.
If you haven’t already listened, consider spending 10 minutes doing so. And don’t miss the bit at around 6:48 when the source of all the fuss defends himself with the immortal “you can’t prove that smoking causes cancer”.
Note, as many people in the item do, that this is not about the reality of climate change or its environmental impact. It is about simplistic extrapolation and the credence given to accurate numbers emanating from authority figures, especially after much repetition.
It is thus an example of Aunt Jobisca’s Truth and The Bellman’s Truth1 rolled into one perfect package.
Bravo More or Less!
-
HALDANE, J.B.S. - “Aunt Jobisca, the Bellman, and the Hermit” in the Rationalist Annual for the Year 1957, and if you have it, I’d love a copy as mine is long gone. ↩
Two ways to respond: webmentions and comments
Webmentions
Webmentions allow conversations across the web, based on a web standard. They are a powerful building block for the decentralized social web.
“Ordinary” comments