Voices in the background
With the Climate Change summit in Copenhagen only a few weeks away now, two of the emails we received over the weekend were a timely reminder that phrases like "climate change" or "global warming" can often arouse strong views.Ìý Both our correspondents, Keith Sullivan from Vilnius in Lithuania and Ray T Mahorney from Ohio in the USA, emailed to say that they felt the recent edition of One Planet was unbalanced - both of them expressed the view that the scientific debate is not yet over, so the programme should express both sides of the argument.Ìý I'm not an expert in this field myself, and I know aspects of climate change have been very controversial - but I also know that there is broad agreement among experts on many aspects of the debate.
Ice melts on Cuverville Island, off the coast of Graham Land in the Antarctic Peninsula in Antarctica.
Anyway, I had a chat this morning with Steven Duke, who's the editor of One Planet. As you'd expect, he takes critical views of his programme seriously, and he'll be talking to Rajan about them later in the week - you'll be able to hear the interview on the next edition of Over To You.Ìý You may have queries of your own about climate change - or any other environmental matters that you've heard discussed on One Planet - and we can put those to him too. So do let us have your thoughts and opinions.
Another topic we're hoping to look at this week is the use of voice-overs on the World Service - the voices that provide an English translation of an interview that was conducted in another language. It's something that can't be avoided unless programmes restrict themselves to interviews in English, which would make for very limited coverage. But Pablo Velarde, from Seville in Spain - one of our regular Over To You correspondents - takes issue with some of what he hears.Ìý In his recent email to us he says: "This common practice in ´óÏó´«Ã½ programmes gives an air of theatrical unreality to the bits voiced over with heavily-accented voices that detract from what I assume is the aim of the programme".
I was reminded of a recent trip I made to Spain. The weather was unexpectedly wet, so to avoid the rain I went to the local cinema, where an American film was being shown, but with the original English dialogue dubbed into Spanish. "Theatrical unreality" exactly describes the result as far as I was concerned.Ìý I was watching some well-known actor on the screen - I think it was George Clooney - but the words that came out of his mouth didn't seem to match what I expected, and I found it very hard to concentrate on what was happening on the screen.
I wonder what you think about voice-overs on the World Service? Does it really matter what a voice sounds like, as long as you can understand the meaning? Or do you agree with our listener, Pablo Velarde, that the voice-over can detract from what is being said? And anyway, is a person's voice so much part of the personality and character that having someone else speaking the words is never going to be anything but second-best? A fascinating subject - and I look forward to reading your comments.
Cathy Packe is the Producer, Over To YouÌý
Comment number 1.
At 9th Sep 2009, thewhyte wrote:Climate change and Global warming indeed are very burning and a controversial issue, however that does not make the issue any less serious than is clearly evident in many parts of the world.In very many places across the globe,we are experiencing very swift variations in weather and climatic patterns. To say the least, over-flooding and other weather related crises are becoming more and more pronounced in Africa.
It is difficult to blame the root cause of these crises on anything else as it is difficult to handle weather related problems in Africa because of the very mimimal knowledge that we have about Climate Change.
Denying the impact of human actions on the environment, and the response of environmental factors to human activities would simply be like denying the danger of throwing a person who can not swim into a sea without a safety jacket. Notably, not all environmental problems are as a result of human interference on the ecological system, there may just be natural reactions to geologic patterns. Nevertheless, human activities are impacting dangerously on the environment and our earth is warming at a very unprecedented rate.
I think that many people, especially in Africa require more environmental awareness to keep us well informed on the issue of Climate change. This knowledge would include how to cope with weather related disasters.
Unnecessary escallation of climate change issue definitely could cause panic and reduce positivism in addressing the issue and many other environmental problems facing our century.
Adi Whyte
Calabar, Cross River State, Nigeria.
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