Julia Hartley Dooda Spooked By Teenager

Months of catastrophic bush fires in Australia; weeks of catastrophic flooding in the UK. Yet there are some out there on the right who steadfastly refuse to understand that the climate is changing, and that they must in turn change their lifestyles. To no surprise at all, more than one of those sad individuals have gravitated to Murdoch-owned TalkRADIO, where one host in particular has willingly embraced climate change denial.

Pretentious? Who, Moi?

That host is the self-promoting Julia Hartley Brewer, who has seen tens of thousands of mainly young people gather on College Green in Bristol to see and hear campaigner Greta Thunberg and been seriously spooked by the experience. Some Rotten Foreigner™ might prevent her enjoying all those long-haul flights to which she has become accustomed, and for Ms Hartley Dooda, that can only be A Very Bad Thing Indeed.

So after Retweeting her fellow TalkRADIO host, the deeply unpleasant Mike Graham, being abusive to Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall for supporting the Bristol gathering, she was away. “If my child wanted to join a school #ClimateStrike I’d expect her to: 1. Know enough to pass a test on climate change facts 2. Agree to give up fashion, all lifts home & all holiday flights 3. Even if she did both 1 & 2, I still wouldn’t let her bunk off school”.

She’s all heart. And then came the sneering dismissal of those gathered in Bristol. “‘At least 30,000 people.’ Or, if it was the same size crowd at a pro-Brexit rally in a BBC report, ‘hundreds of people’”. Why is “Pro-Brexit” the converse of climate protests?

Oh what a giveaway! But do go on. “There’s something about the people attending this #climatestrike by #BristolYS4C with #Greta that I can’t quite put my finger on... Gosh, now what *is* it? I wonder if [Jon Snow] or a BBC reporter could help out?” Try again. "Nope, I still can’t work out what it is. It’s on the tip of my tongue but…”

Still, there was always climate change denial to embrace, and Ms Hartley Dooda performed that task with her customary gusto. That meant Retweeting the pretentious Ben Pile, a flat-out denialist who had sneered at George Monbiot “George invents victims of climate change in Bangladesh and Ethiopia … Both countries have in fact boomed over the last two decades”. It’s not happening - look over there at that economic growth!

And to put the icing on her climate change denial cake, Ms Hartley Dooda RTd Darren Grimes, who was in turn endorsing the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog, who were in turn endorsing denialist outfit the Global Warming Policy Foundation: “Meanwhile, the UK is unable to expand one sodding airport because of an asphyxiating commitment to eradicate our CO2 emissions - which amount to less than 1 per cent of global emissions”. Triple climate change denials all round!

But seriously, this is a sad show of inconsiderate selfishness by someone who is regularly given a platform by major broadcasters. Just because Ms Hartley Dooda wants to carry on with her long-haul jollies doesn’t invalidate the scale of the climate crisis. And the only reason she seems concerned about the Coronavirus is because that, too, could prevent her jetting off to embark on another exhibition of conspicuous consumption.

Julia Hartley Dooda cares. But only about Herself Personally Now.

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