Bizarre Real Life Dont Look Up Style TV Interview Deadline

Bizarre, Real-Life Don’t Look Up Style TV Interview

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“It’s willful blindness and it’s going to kill us.”

This is how climate activist Miranda Whelehan described the attitude of presenters like those of Good Morning Britain, who this week literally refused to face the facts about climate change that she laid before them.

Her interview with Richard Madeley and Ranvir Singh from the series struck a chord online. Many compared the segment to the TV interview on Don’t Look Up, in which Jennifer Lawrence’s character says, “We’re trying to tell you the whole planet is going to be destroyed!” and the interviewer, played by Cate Blanchett, replies, “It’s just something we’re doing here, keep the bad news low!”

But the GMB hosts didn’t back down easily. The interview became a three-on-one Attack the Messenger segment. The two hosts and another guest struck Whelehan himself – who is part of a protest group that has been peacefully blockading oil terminals in the UK as part of a campaign to get the country off oil – as a simpletoned, inexperienced and aloof hypocrites.

Madeley, 65, dismissed the much younger Whelehan’s argument not on the basis of its merits but, as he implied, because it was “pretty childish”. He called the protesters’ slogan “Just Stop Oil” simplistically or, as he said, “very playground-like”.

Whelehan replied: “The answers are actually very simple – we need to stop new oil licenses. With the oil reserves we have now and the oil fields we still have, we would have eight years of oil.”

Good Morning Britain’s idea of ​​a counterpoint to Whelehan was to include Lowry Turner in the discussion. Turner describes herself on her website as “a well-known journalist and broadcaster who is now a qualified hypnotherapist and nutritionist.” Like Madeley, she attacked the messenger.

“The problem I have is this notion of the one group of people who decided they’re the ones to save the world, and there’s a certain Poe face that’s incredibly unnerving — I get it here coming at me in a wave – like ‘How dare you question us because we know what’s right?’ With all due respect, Miranda is 20. I’m more than twice her age. i have children I have a job, I have an elderly mother. We have to get on with our lives.”

Turner cynically described eco-activism as “over-ego”.

“We’ve had a winter without protests and now, as soon as the sun comes out, it’s eco-festival time. It’s a celebration. It’s a jamboree. Let’s sit down with a poster. Let’s get to social media. Let’s advertise what a great person I am.”

“I just can’t believe you’re saying that,” replied an almost speechless Whelehan. “The United Nations tells us that with warming of 1.7 degrees, half the population will face uninhabitable conditions.”

Singh interrupted, “The point is, it’s not just about stating the facts over and over, it’s about the actual protests and disruption.”

Madeley then chimed in and asked Whelehan about her clothes.

The segment spawned waves of comments, including Don’t Look Up director Adam McKay, who retweeted a clip and wrote, “God bless this activist for sticking with this TV creature [Madeley]. #JustStopOil I wonder how much fossil fuel advertising costs this show. Or is the host just so clueless? Or both?”

GreenpeaceUK tweeted: “#DontLookUp was meant to be satire. Feeling pretty real right now.”

In an article she later wrote for The Guardian Whelehan, she wrote: “The worst thing is that these presenters and journalists think they know better than senior scientists or academics who have been studying the climate crisis for decades, and they refuse to to hear something else.”

You can watch the entire GMB interview below.