Johnny Ball claims his bookings have dried up after being abused by environmental campaigners. Photo: PA
Johnny Ball ‘abused by environmentalists’ over climate change denial
Veteran children’s television presenter Johnny Ball claimed today his career was being wrecked by environmentalists.
By Graeme Paton, Education Editor
The 72-year-old said he had been subjected to a malicious harassment campaign after dismissing climate change as “alarmist nonsense”.
Mr Ball, who has built up a prolific public speaking career over the last decade, said his bookings had plummeted by around 90 per cent following abuse from environmental extremists.
In an interview, he told how websites had been set up in his name featuring pornographic images and a blogger wrote that he should “not be allowed near children”.
One imposter also attempted to cancel Mr Ball’s booking at a training day for maths teachers in Northampton next month, he said.
Police are now investigating the claims.
Mr Ball, who visits up to 100 schools, science festivals and teacher training events each year, told the Times Educational Supplement that the smears were a “criminal act aimed directly to damage me and my career”.
“Since notifying the police of these acts aimed at damaging my name and reputation, the offensive web links have quite amazingly disappeared,” he said.
“People have every right to make up their own minds on my stance on many issues regarding children.
“But to deliberately smear my name in ways that are clearly criminal is so very disappointing. I would hope it is not the way fair and sensible debate is going in this far more open, modern society.”
Mr Ball, father of TV and radio presenter Zoë, rose to fame in the 1970s and 1980s presenting science and technology programmes including Think of a Number, Johnny Ball Reveals All and Think Again.
He has also written books on maths, produced five educational stage musicals and regularly addresses groups of children and teachers.
But Mr Ball claimed his public speaking appearances have dried up following controversy over comments he made in 2009.
Addressing a science conference in central London, he said spiders’ flatulence was more damaging to the environment than fossil fuels and criticised the “bad science” of global warming. Mr Ball was reportedly booed off stage following the comments.
He previously spoke on the issue in other lectures in Edinburgh and Manchester.
“The reason I take this stance is because several films have been introduced into schools which imply that the earth may not be able to sustain human life as we know it, in around 39 years’ time, which is unscientific, alarmist nonsense,” he told the TES.
“Of course mankind is a great burden on the earth, but at every turn we are learning to manage and better control our impact and the damage we do.
“However, my main concern is that the alarmism is actually frightening schoolchildren to an alarming degree.”
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