A Masterclass in Communicating Climate Change: The BBC’s Frozen Planet Series

The BBC’s Frozen Planet series has been breathtaking. Never before have we seen such a masterly crafted medley of mesmerizing footage of our polar regions. The events captured were remarkable, the stories told were gripping and the time-lapses were literally out of this world. The BBC Natural History Unit: we salute you!

What most impressed us, however, was the success of the final episode entitled ‘On Thin Ice’ from a climate change communications perspective. Here’s three reasons why:

1. Sir David Attenborough is a national treasure. Few people command as much trust or respect in the world of natural sciences. Frankly, they couldn’t have chosen a more appropriate messenger to communicate the reality and urgency of the situation.
2. By telling the story of how British, American and Russian military submarines have all documented the rapid retreat and thinning of Arctic sea ice, it provided an unexpected but powerful account of the situation. After all, it would seem that the military have little interest in corroborating the – what some may say flimsy – science underpinning climate change.
3. Unless you are watching a Darren Brown show, seeing is most definitely believing. One of the main issues with climate change communications is that there is very little visual evidence to back it up. Enter the Natural History Unit. As a team of exceptionally talented filmmakers and with a sizable budget behind them, they’ve managed to capture staggering events occurring on the coalface of climate change. When Attenborough speaks of retreating glaciers, fracturing ice shelves and migrating species, they have the visual evidence to back it up. I challenge anyone to deny that sea ice dramatically melting in polar regions, once they have seen the photos from NASA in 1980 and those taken in 2010. But what is more, when Attenborough delves into how the Albedo effect is accentuating global warming, a dazzling use of CGI helps explain the complex issue to the viewer, making it all the more real. They haven’t simply relied on hard-hitting numbers, they’ve actually showed people what’s happening instead.

The cynical viewers amongst you may have noticed that the episode spectacularly failed to point the finger at anthropogenic green house gas emissions as the primary cause of global warming or, perhaps more importantly, what can be done about it. But is that the Natural History Unit’s responsibility? Arguably they are tasked with documenting the natural world, not to instruct us humans on how to live our lives. Surely the responsibility to communicate the sequel (‘get off the bloody ice!’ perhaps?) is down to us: the businesses, the politicians and the people. But first things first, let’s hope that the Discovery Channel screens it in the US.