"Global Warming Swindle" Movie Not Quite Offensive Enough For Regulators

When "The Great Global Warming Swindle" aired on British television last year, it was billed by its producers, Wag TV, as "the definitive response to Al Gore's 'An Inconvenient Truth.'" In what is arguably the film's most jarring line, the narrator says: "Everywhere you are told that man-made climate change is proved beyond doubt. But you are being told lies."

Several hundred viewers, including dozens of scientists, filed complaints about the film's accuracy, impartiality and fairness with Britain's Office of Communications, or Ofcom, which among many duties monitors standards for programming. The office's findings on the climate documentary were released Monday, and I have a story in Science Times on the mixed result. I've posted excerpts from the story below, along with links to the report.

Many leading scientists, including Martin Rees of the Royal Society, have criticized the film and the results of the inquiry. Robert Watson, a former chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, one of the film's main targets, strongly attacked the TV office today, saying, "The public has been swindled," in an op-ed in the Guardian.

Read the whole story here.

Comments

[tkondaks]

How many of you that are commenting on it have actually seen the 115 minute-long "Great Global Warming Swindle"?
Youtube used to have the entire show in about 5 different parts -- and I wanted to provide the links to it here -- but now I can't seem to find it...perhaps the owners had them take it off for copyright reasons as they have released the DVD version in the U.S.
Be that as it may, if you put "great global warming swindle" into the youtube search engine, you'll get some great results, particularly a 9-part debate on Australian TV.
Look, when Al Gore -- or anyone, for that matter -- says that the debate on a particular subject is over, that's when you know that the debate hasn't even begun.

[Exusian]

Scientific debate takes place in the form of papers published in the relevant scientific journals and presented at the relevant scientific conferences. What you see in those venues is plenty of debate about the details of competing forcings and natural variability and the underlining mechanics of the climate system, but what you do not see are legitimate papers showing that the basic science of antropogenic greenhouse gas forcing is wrong.

To be sure a "debate" over whether or not human activity is altering the climate still rages, but it is not a clear-headed objective debate about the science among scientists actually working in the relevant fields, it"s a debate about the impact on human society in the court of public opinion. Those are two entirely different debates that should not be confused. That a substantial portion of the public does not widely accept the science does not make it a scientific debate.

[mamacat]

Feb. 5, 2007, from CNNMoney.com

"Exxon has been criticized in the past for funding groups that promote what many experts believe to be junk science."

"A recent report from the Union of Concerned Scientists said Exxon spent $16 million between 1998 and 2005 funding 43 'organizations that seek to confuse the public on global warming science.' "

"The oil giant.......pledged to stop funding what many consider to be fringe groups that downplay human's role in global warming."

Was Exxon funding anti-global warming fringe groups out of a sense of civic duty? Or were they trying to protect their bottom line, by averting the movement to develop alternative energy sources and to cut down on our use of petroleum products?

Draw your own conclusions.

[tkondaks]

$16 million?
Over 7 years?
My God, that's a drop in the bucket compared the 10s of billions of dollars spent EVERY YEAR by the federal government on research that is set out to prove global warming.
I would hope that in the future Exxon starts to spend $50 million a year so that we can have some semblance of a debate on the subject.

[mamacat]

There is no government on the face of this planet that is spending 10s of billions of dollars every year on research to prove global warming.

By giving billions of dollars in subsidies and tax breaks to oil, coal, and nuclear, this federal government is in effect paying for whatever they spend on lobbyists and public relations campaigns.

The debate over global warming resembles the debate over evolution. Among scientists, about the same percentage believe that evolution and/or global warming are not accureate descriptions of reality - a small percentage of less than 1%.
There is a very lively debate among bloggers, and among some pundits, but there is no debate among scientists, because the proof is too overwhelming.

[JScott]

The question everyone should be asking is who funded this, those who benefit from denying global warming.

[tkondaks]

Good question.
Its corollary question should be: Are the reports that Al Gore is worth $100 million in stock ownership in Green Companies true?
If true, isn't Gore's continual promotion of catastrophic man-made global warming a conflict of interest and predispose him NOT to report on evidence that point away from his position?
If true, doesn't Gore have a responsibility to announce this every time he opens his mouth to spout his side of the story?
Certainly you agree, JScott, that what's good for the goose is good for the gander.

[Steeevyo]

Nice attempt at free speech. Environmentalist fascists.

[mamacat]

Is it free speech, or corporatist funded speech?

[Mogamboguru]

WHO's the fashist here? Flagged.

[CrzyRussell]

Steeevyo does have a point. Suppressing free speech because you disagree with it's view point is well.....

[CrzyRussell]

If your facts are strong there there shouldn't be any issues with different viewpoints being presented. Generally when people try to prevent different viewpoints from being presented it's because their position is weak and thus threatened.

[jay1975]

Too true.

[Alethea]

I still find it a little amazing that people dispute the effects of Co2 in our atmosphere. So let's see if I can dumb this down.

1. Co2, by it's chemical nature, traps heat.
2. Humans are pumping approximately 8 Billion Metric Tons of Co2 into the Atmosphere every year - on top of what is already produced naturally.
3. Since Co2 traps heat, then the increase in Co2 has trapped a proportional amount of heat in the atmosphere.

THESE ARE INDESPUTIBLE FACTS!!! Sun + Co2 = retained heat. Humans emitting Co2 = Human responsibility.

This is about a simple as I can state it. Now what will happen AS A RESULT of these facts are up for debate. But the mere fact that SOMETHING will happen is guaranteed. There are processes in the earth that can recycle Co2 out of the atmosphere, but they take time, and there's no guarantee that it will help in our lifetimes or prevent any lasting damage.

So it's just like playing Russian Roulette by yourself, and you're not sure how many bullets are loaded. We might luck out, but it's pretty unlikely. So how daring are we?

I look at it this way: if I'm wrong about the end results of these chemical FACTS, and we switch to cleaner energy, then the worst that will happen is that the air is a little cleaner and some Saudis are a little poorer. But if GW deniers are wrong, then the worst that can happen

[NL207]

"1. Co2, by it's chemical nature, traps heat"

There is nothing about its 'chemical' nature that traps heat. This is entirely a product of quantum physics and wave scattering.

"Humans are pumping approximately 8 Billion Metric Tons of Co2 into the Atmosphere every year - on top of what is already produced naturally"

Just how much is produced naturally? And how much is absorbed natuarlly? You have one post to produce the research or I get to embarass you as an ignoramus.

" Since Co2 traps heat, then the increase in Co2 has trapped a proportional amount of heat in the atmosphere"

This is utter garbage, presuppoing that all greenhouse gases are equally effective in absorbing IR radiation. This is a fallacy as this source shows clearly: "Among those identified, carbon dioxide is among the least effective as a greenhouse gas"
source: http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/archive/gg97rpt/chap1.html

The 500 pound gorilla of greenhouse gases is water vapor, over which man has no control.

[MGhamma]

NL207,mentioning water vapor destroyed any credibility you might have been able to claim. You've just shown that haven't a clue what your talking about.

[Alethea]

is....

(I meant to add)

[Mr Grey]

Wait until the perfect storm arrives. Wait until London is hit by a catastrophic flood greater than faced in New Orleans. The same can happen in New York and other major coastal cities around the world. What are they going to say then? How many people are going to have to die? How many weather related disasters is it going to take to wake these people up?

[jay1975]

New Orleans was destroyed because it was below sea level and used levees to hold the waters back. Not likely to be nearly as destructive in a city above sea level.

[Mogamboguru]

Let's not presume, let's have facts.

[joebaggadonuts]

What is the use of arguing? The other side is not listening. Wasted breath is just more hot air. Let them speak so that we may remember their denial and charge them when the great consequences come to pass.

[tkondaks]

And who do WE charge when all the catastrophies that Al Gore predicts don't come true, yet we've spent several trillions of dollars trying to combat them?
And what about all the poor people dying now because of the policies -- such as Ethanol for Fuel -- that have resulted from the pro-global warming folks have tripled the prices of food staples such as corn?
AGJ, AGJ, how many babies have you killed today?

[Mogamboguru]

Earth cooling down 0.6 degrees Celsius in only two years IS a consequence - if one you don't really like to accept.

Right?

[KillTheMessenger]

Except that the Earth did not cool down. It's just a climate troll misinterpreting data. Bummer.

[Alethea]

Prove that one for me would you? A link or two would be best.

The best I could find is this http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/06/03/uah-global-temperature-dives-in-may/ but those results are ultimately inconclusive since monthly variations don't predict long term rises or falls.

Or this one http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/ but it only shows a significant 10 month drop. Not a 2 year drop.

Seeing as how the temps has been rising steadily for the last 100 years, a 2 year drop is nice, but as you can see from some of these other graphs, they not unusual and hardly evidence of any real decline. Especially when the effects of GW are so obvious right now as we speak.

Believe me, I hope we are wrong about GW and that everything will be fine. But the evidence only raises more concerns then they resolve.

[darthdarcy]

It's those "Liberal Satellites", showing the Ice Melting everywhere..

Those "Liberal Satellites.."

[Mogamboguru]

Greetings from Mars!

http://nsidc.org/cgi-bin/bist/bist.pl?annot=1&legend=1&scale=75&tab_cols=2&tab_rows=2&config=seaice_index&submit=Refresh&mo0=05&hemis0=S&img0=extn&mo1=06&hemis1=S&img1=conc&year0=2008&year1=1980&.cgifields=no_panel

Since 1980, the ice around Antarctica has grown substantially LARGER as well as THICKER.

If you don't trust the liberal satellites, perhaps you trust the Martians...

[Alethea]

Interesting link.

Unfortunately this one disproves it as anything significant. http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/exclusive-no-ice-at-the-north-pole-855406.html

The fabled Northwest Passage is becoming a reality. Scary thought...

[Mogamboguru]

Yeah -

those, frigging, librul satellites show that, since 1980, the ice around Antarctica has substantially grown in area, as well as in thickness!

Damn, frigging, librul satellites!

http://nsidc.org/cgi-bin/bist/bist.pl?annot=1&legend=1&scale=75&tab_cols=2&tab_rows=2&config=seaice_index&submit=Refresh&mo0=05&hemis0=S&img0=extn&mo1=06&hemis1=S&img1=conc&year0=2008&year1=1980&.cgifields=no_panel

[Tator]

Now lets add on top of this Hansen has been caught manually manipulating the GISS data again to try and keep the wheels from coming off the hoax AGW . This is getting comical watching the snookered try to keep from being made fools of...but that has already happened.

http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=3327

[darthdarcy]

It's those damn liberal satellites showing the ice melting all over the globe...those damn liberal satellites...

That's the ticket...!