Polar Bear floats through the Great Wen

A life-like 16ft high sculpture of an iceberg featuring a stranded polar bear and its cub was launched on the Thames today to mark the launch of the new Natural History TV channel Eden.

Eden’s programming starts at 9am, Monday 26th January 2009, with Attenborough Explores...Our Fragile World at 10pm. Further information about the programmes can be found at: www.exploreeden.co.uk

Sir David Attenborough: “The melting of the polar bears’ sea ice habitat is one of the most pressing environmental concerns of our time. I commend Eden for highlighting the issue; we need to do what we can to protect the world’s largest land carnivores from extinction.”

Eden goes live at 9am on 26th January with a schedule packed full of high-end premieres. From the scale and beauty of Superstorm, Ganges and Wild China to the revelation and intimacy of Tribe (series 3), Elephant Diaries (series 2) and Tribal Wives – that will play alongside landmark series such as Planet Earth, Ray Mears’ Extreme Survival, Life of Mammals and Full Circle with Michael Palin. A complementary website with the url www.exploreeden.co.uk goes live on the same day.

Eden can be found on:
Sky Channel: 532
Virgin TV Channel: 208
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Richard Lawson: The retreat of the ice is the most easily understood key piece of evidence of global Warming. I recall that the Koguis  noticed years ago that the snow level at the place they did their rituals was gradually rising, and ascribed it to the actions of the "Younger Brother" - that's us.

To anticipate argumentative comments from climate denialists, I am not claiming that the observed fact that the planetary ice cover is nearly everywhere in retreat does "scientifically prove" that we have to decarbonise our economy.  Nothing is ever "proven" in science, only "not-yet-disproven".

What we are claiming is that we have enough scientific evidence to convince 99% of serious atmospheric scientists that there is an urgent political need to decarbonise the world economy.  That should be enough to convince every human on the planet, with the sole exception of the climate change denialists, who  will never be convinced, any more than a person with anrexia nervosa can be convinced that they are not fat when they look in a mirror.

Fixing the global atmospheric crisis is a huge economic challenge, almost as expensive in the short term as fixing the global debt crisis. But we can be a lot more confident about getting positive outcomes by of putting money into the physical energy systems.

Renewable energy is a better investment than the City of London.  A better bet.

The beauty of it is that in fixing the ecological problem, we will also be fixing the economic problem.