Top Gear

Brilliant, just finished watching on Sky+.

The tree huggers were less impressed mind

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A RACE across the Arctic Circle by the three stars of TV’s Top Gear show was yesterday condemned by environment campaigners.

Greenpeace described the race to the magnetic North Pole involving gas-guzzling 4x4s as “beggaring belief” and “highly irresponsible” and said the BBC – a public service broadcaster – should not screen it.

In Top Gear – Polar Special, Jeremy Clarkson and James May race specially converted Toyota Hilux vehicles against Richard Hammond driving a sled pulled by Canadian inuit dogs.

The latest outcry follows another controversial Top Gear shoot in Africa when the team drove across the fragile Makgadikgadi salt plains in Botswana.

Emily Armistead, of Greenpeace, said: “The Arctic is one of the areas most endangered by climate change.
“Perhaps Clarkson and his cronies felt that climate change wasn’t destroying the Arctic quick enough, so they decided to do this. It’s quite astounding really.

“Unfortunately, Top Gear presenters and their producers represent your typical 4x4 driver.

“They are taking some of the most polluting vehicles on the road to spew out far more CO2 than is necessary in an area that is suffering the worst damage from climate change.

“We’re already seeing the impact on polar bears where the ice cap gets thinner and thinner every year.”

Although the BBC has recently broadcast both Saving Planet Earth about endangered species and the Live Earth concert, Armistead also criticised the corporation for screening the programme.

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“It does matter that Top Gear keeps on doing things like this,” she said.

“All right, they’re like naughty boys, we recognise that, but it is supposed to be on a public service broadcasting channel. You would expect a bit more responsibility. Top Gear doesn’t take seriously any of the issues facing us on transport.” In response to an earlier Greenpeace campaign against 4x4s, Clarkson and his friends chained themselves to buses at Hammersmith Bus Station in London.

Armistead said: “When you’re dealing with that sort of thing, I say leave them to it and let the world be their judge. But Clarkson is a problem because he has represented some climate-sceptic views and for someone to be on national television saying that is quite alarming.”

Emil Grimmson, chairman of Arctic Trucks in Greenland who modified the vehicles for the programme, said that Clarkson and May “did quite well for novices” on the 2000 kilometre trip.

On environmental concerns, Grimmson said: “Anything you do anywhere will cost energy. The Hilux is quite a light vehicle actually.”

But he did concede that the project could be environmentally damaging. “I think any expedition, or vacation, is going to be quite bad,” he said. “But I think we did this project quite nicely in those terms. Everybody was thinking about that while we were doing it.”

None of the presenters or the producer would comment.