The Great Global Warming Swindle
Encyclopedia
The Great Global Warming Swindle is a polemical
documentary film
that suggests that the scientific opinion on climate change is influenced by funding and political factors, and questions whether scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming
exists.
The film, made by British television producer Martin Durkin
, presents scientists, economists, politicians, writers, and others who dispute the scientific consensus
regarding anthropogenic global warming. The programme's publicity materials assert that man-made global warming is "a lie" and "the biggest scam of modern times." Its original working title was "Apocalypse my arse", but the title The Great Global Warming Swindle was later adopted as an allusion to the 1980 mockumentary
The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle
about British punk
band the Sex Pistols.
The UK's Channel 4
premiered the documentary on 8 March 2007. The channel described the film as "a polemic that drew together the well-documented views of a number of respected scientists to reach the same conclusions. This is a controversial film but we feel that it is important that all sides of the debate are aired." According to Hamish Mykura, Channel 4's head of documentaries, the film was commissioned "to present the viewpoint of the small minority of scientists who do not believe global warming is caused by anthropogenic production of carbon dioxide."
Although the documentary was welcomed by global warming sceptics, it was criticised by scientific organisations and individual scientists (including one of the scientists interviewed in the film and one whose research was used to support the film's claims). The film's critics argued that it had misused and fabricated data, relied on out-of-date research, employed misleading arguments, and misrepresented the position of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
. Later broadcasts corrected three errors which had been found in the original film. The film's producer, Martin Durkin, has asserted that the errors were minor and did not affect the film's conclusions.
has numerous scientific flaws, and that vested monetary interests in the scientific establishment and the media discourage the public and the scientific community from acknowledging or even debating this. The film asserts that the publicised scientific consensus is the product of a "global warming activist industry" driven by a desire for research funding. Other culprits, according to the film, are Western environmentalists promoting expensive solar and wind power over cheap fossil fuels in Africa, resulting in African countries being held back from industrialising.
The film won best documentary at the 2007 Io Isabella International Film Week
.
A number of academics, environmentalists, think-tank consultants and writers are interviewed in the film in support of its various assertions. They include the Canadian environmentalist Patrick Moore
, former member of Greenpeace
but now a critic of the organisation; Richard Lindzen
, professor of meteorology
at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
; Patrick Michaels
, Research Professor of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia
; Nigel Calder
, editor of New Scientist
from 1962 to 1966; John Christy
, professor and director of the Earth System Science Center at University of Alabama
; Paul Reiter
of the Pasteur Institute
; former British Chancellor of the Exchequer
Nigel Lawson
; and Piers Corbyn
, a British weather forecaster.
Carl Wunsch
, professor of oceanography at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was also interviewed but has since said that he strongly disagrees with the film's conclusions and the way his interview material was used.
on climate change is the product of "a multibillion-dollar worldwide industry: created by fanatically anti-industrial environmentalists; supported by scientists peddling scare stories to chase funding; and propped up by complicit politicians and the media".
Using a series of interviews and graphics, the film sets out to challenge the scientific consensus by focusing on what it says are inconsistencies in the evidence, and the role said to have been played by ideology and politics.
about global warming does not exist.
Following criticism from scientists the film has been changed since it was first broadcast on Channel 4. One graph had its time axis relabelled, the claim that volcanoes produce more than humans was removed, and following objections about how his interview had been used, the interview with Carl Wunsch was removed for the international and DVD releases of the programme.
Other scientific arguments used in the film have been described as refuted or misleading by scientists working in the relevant fields. Critics have also argued that the programme is one-sided and that the mainstream position on global warming
, as supported by the scientific academies of the major industrialised nations
and other scientific organisations, is incorrectly represented.
), received 265 complaints about the programme, one of which was a 176-page detailed complaint co-authored by a group of scientists. Ofcom ruled on 21 July 2008 that the programme had unfairly treated Sir David King
, the IPCC
and Professor Carl Wunsch
. Ofcom also found that part 5 of the programme (the 'political' part) had breached several parts of the Broadcasting Code regarding impartiality; however, the Code rules on impartiality did not apply to the scientific arguments in parts 1–4, because the link between human activity and global warming had largely been settled before March 2007. OfCom did not rule on the programme's accuracy, but did rule that: "On balance it did not materially mislead the audience so as to cause harm or offence." On 4 and 5 August 2008, Channel 4 and More 4 broadcast a summary of Ofcom's findings, though it will not face sanctions.
In a BBC interview about this study, Lockwood commented on the graphs shown in the documentary:
, professor of Physical Oceanography at MIT, is featured in the Channel 4
version of the programme. Afterwards he said that he was "completely misrepresented" in the film and had been "totally misled" when he agreed to be interviewed. He called the film "grossly distorted" and "as close to pure propaganda as anything since World War Two", and he lodged a complaint with Ofcom
. He particularly objected to how his interview material was used:
Filmmaker Durkin responded:
Although Wunsch has admitted that he finds the statements at both extremes of the global climate change debate distasteful he wrote in a letter dated 15 March 2007 that he believes climate change is "real, a major threat, and almost surely has a major human-induced component. But
I have tried to stay out of the `climate wars' because all nuance tends to be lost, and the distinction between what we know firmly, as scientists, and what we suspect is happening, is so difficult to maintain in the presence of rhetorical excess." He further cautiously states that "The science of climate change remains incomplete. Some elements are so firmly based on well-understood principles, or for which the observational record is so clear, that most scientists would agree that they are almost surely true(adding CO2 to the atmosphere is dangerous; sea level will continue to rise,...). Other elements remain more uncertain, but we as scientists in our roles as informed citizens believe society should be deeply concerned about their possibility: failure of US midwestern (sic) precipitation in 100 years in a mega-drought; melting of a large part of the Greenland ice sheet, among many other examples."
Wunsch has said that he received a letter from the production company, Wag TV, threatening to sue him for defamation unless he agreed to make a public statement that he was neither misrepresented nor misled. Wunsch refused, although he states he was forced to hire a solicitor in the UK.
Following Wunsch's complaints, his interview material was removed from the international and DVD versions of the film.
On 7 December 2007, Wunsch restated his critique on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation
's Lateline
programme after the film was screened, saying: "It's not a science film at all. It's a political statement." In the same interview, reacting to what he claimed were new and further distortions by Durkin, Wunsch said:
Ofcom divided Wunsch's complaint into three parts, ruling in his favour on two parts and against him on one part.
's research was used to support claims about the influence of solar activity on climate, both in the programme and Durkin's subsequent defence of it. Friis-Christensen, with environmental Research Fellow Nathan Rive, criticised the way the solar data were used:
In response to a question from The Independent
as to whether the programme was scientifically accurate, Friis-Christensen said: "No, I think several points were not explained in the way that I, as a scientist, would have explained them ... it is obvious it's not accurate."
Following Eigil Friis-Christensen's criticism of the 'Temp & Solar Activity 400 Years' graph used in the programme (for perfectly matching the lines in the 100 years 1610–1710 where data did not in fact exist in the original), Durkin emailed Friis-Christensen to thank him for highlighting the error: "it is an annoying mistake which all of us missed and is being fixed for all future transmissions of the film. It doesn't alter our argument".
Environmentalist and political activist George Monbiot
, writing for The Guardian
before the programme was shown, discussed the arguments for and against the "hockey-stick graph
" used in An Inconvenient Truth
, claiming that the criticism of it has been "debunked". He also highlighted Durkin's previous documentary Against Nature, where the Independent Television Commission found that four complainants had been "misled" and their views were "distorted by selective editing". After the programme was shown, Monbiot wrote another article arguing that it was based on already debunked science, and he accused Channel 4 of being more interested in generating controversy than in producing credible science programmes. Robin McKie, science editor of The Guardian, attacked the documentary for opting "for dishonest rhetoric when a little effort could have produced an important contribution to a critical social problem".
Dominic Lawson
, writing in The Independent
, was favourable toward the programme, echoing many of its claims and recommending it to the public. He largely focused his attention on the reactions of the environmental community, first at Durkin's earlier production, Against Nature
, and now at The Great Global Warming Swindle. Lawson characterised the programme's opponents as being quick to leap to ad hominem
attacks about the director's qualifications and political affiliations rather than the merits of his factual claims. Lawson summarised examples from the production of how dissenting scientists are pushed into the background and effectively censored by organisations such as the IPCC
. Lawson described the correlation between sunspots and temperature as "striking."
Geoffrey Lean, The Independents environment editor, was critical of the programme. He noted that Dominic Lawson is the son and brother-in-law, respectively, of two prominent global warming sceptics (Nigel Lawson
, who is also featured in the programme, and Christopher Monckton
), implying that Lawson was not a neutral observer. The Independent mostly disagreed with three of the programme's major claims, for example stating that "recent solar increases are too small to have produced the present warming, and have been much less important than greenhouse gases since about 1850". In a later Independent article, Steve Connor attacked the programme, saying that its makers had selectively used data which was sometimes decades old, and introduced other serious errors of their own:
The online magazine Spiked
published an interview with Durkin, in which the director complained of how Ofcom
censures "seriously controversial work", and that the end result is "phoney controversialism on TV but not much real controversialism". Spiked described the programme's "all-encompassing cosmic ray theory" as "a little unconvincing", but said that "the film poked some very big holes in the global warming consensus", and argued "we could do with more anti-conformist films from 'mavericks' like Durkin".
The Timess science editor Mark Henderson listed a number of points where, in his opinion, "Channel 4 got it wrong over climate change". He highlighted the feedback argument for the ice core data, the measurement error explanation for temperatures in the troposphere, and the sulphate cooling argument for mid-20th century cooling.
Janet Daley, writing in The Daily Telegraph
in a column headlined "The Green Lobby Must Not Stifle The Debate", noted that "Among those who attempted to prevent the film being shown at all was the Liberal Democrat
spokesman on the environment, Chris Huhne
, who, without having seen the programme, wrote to Channel 4 executives advising them in the gravest terms to reconsider their decision to broadcast it".
In response, Huhne sent a letter to The Daily Telegraph about Daley's column, writing "Janet Daley is simply wrong to state that I wrote to Channel 4 'advising them in the gravest terms to reconsider their decision to broadcast' Martin Durkin’s The Great Global Warming Swindle. I wrote asking for Channel 4's comments on the fact—not in dispute—that the last time Mr Durkin ventured onto this territory he suffered serious complaints for sloppy journalism—upheld by the Independent Television Commission—and had to apologise." The Daily Telegraph
apologised, saying they were happy to accept that "Mr Huhne's letter was not an attempt to prevent the film being shown or suppress debate on the issue".
The Christopher Booker
book The Real Global Warming Disaster
provides a detailed synopsis of the programme, as well as an account of the subsequent complaints and Ofcom verdict.
, at the time the UK Secretary of State for Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs, presented a rebuttal of the main points of the film on his blog and stated that "there will always be people with conspiracy theories
trying to do down the scientific consensus, and that is part of scientific and democratic debate, but the science of climate change looks like fact to me."
Steven Milloy
, who runs the website Junkscience.com, endorsed the documentary on 18 March 2007.
The programme has been discussed extensively in Australia, including favourable mentions in an editorial in The Australian
and the Counterpoint
radio programme presented by Michael Duffy
. The Australian stated the film "presents a coherent argument for why governments must hasten slowly in responding". Duffy noted the program's claims regarding Margaret Thatcher. In response, writing in an opinion piece for the Australian Financial Review, John Quiggin
criticised the programme for putting forward "conspiracy theories". According to The Australian, scientist Tim Flannery
had wondered at a conference whether the programme should be classified as fiction rather than a documentary. In a critical review of the documentary, Barry Brook
stated "Amongst the selected contrarian 'experts' Durkin has rallied to his cause, there are Tim Ball and Patrick Michaels (who also happen to deny that CFCs cause damage to the ozone layer), and Fred Singer and Richard Lindzen (who, in earlier incarnations, had been active denialists of the link between passive smoking and lung cancer, despite neither having any medical expertise)."
In the Czech Republic, President Václav Klaus
addressed the audience of the first local release of the movie on 28 June 2007. He called the premiere a "meeting of supporters of reason against irrationality" and compared the warnings of scientists against global warming to Communist propaganda. According to Czech news, Klaus—an outspoken critic of scientific consensus on global warming—has been the first head of state to endorse this movie.
In March 2007, media analysis website Media Lens published a highly critical article about Durkin's film, describing the work as "wildly distorted propaganda".
In September 2008, Iain Stewart presented a documentary series The Climate Wars covering the climate change debate, during this program a clip from Durkin's film showing the link between solar activity and temperature was shown, noting 'it seems a convincing argument!'. The documentary then included data available at the time that could have been included, showing the correlation didn't hold true for this omitted and more recent data.
to drop plans to release a DVD of the film. In the letter they say Durkin "misrepresented both the scientific evidence and the interpretations of researchers." Durkin said in response: "The reason they want to suppress The Great Global Warming Swindle is because the science has stung them".
He acknowledged two of the errors mentioned by the scientists—including the claim about volcanic emissions—but he described those changes as minor and said they would be corrected in the expanded DVD release.
In response to the call by these scientists not to market a DVD of the film, Times columnist Mick Hume
, described environmentalism as a "new religion", saying "Scientists have become the equivalent of high priests in white coats, summoned to condemn heretics".
The DVD was released in the UK on 30 September 2007. Christopher Monckton
, a prominent British global warming sceptic, is funding the distribution of the documentary in English schools as a riposte to Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth
, which is also being shown in schools.
and temperature change, saying that Friis-Christensen stood by his work, and that "No one any longer seriously disputes the link between solar activity and temperature in earth's climate history." He accepted that the time axis of one graph was incorrectly labelled when the programme was first transmitted, but said that this does not change his conclusions. Regarding the Carl Wunsch controversy (see above), he repeated that Wunsch was not duped into taking part in the programme. (Ofcom later ruled against Durkin on this point.)
Durkin went on to reject his opponents' position that the cooling period observed post Second World War was caused by sulphate aerosol cooling: "Thanks to China and the rest, SO2
levels are far, far higher now than they were back then. Why isn't it perishing cold?" He concluded by saying that the "global warming alarm...is wrong, wrong, wrong."
Commenting at a Cannes film festival
press conference on 17 April 2007, Durkin noted: "My name is absolute mud on the Internet; it's really vicious," adding "There is no good scientific basis for it but the theory continues to hold sway because so many people have built their careers and reputations on it."
reported that Durkin had seriously fallen out with a scientist who had been considering working with him. Armand Leroi, a geneticist, was concerned that Durkin had used data about a correlation between solar activity and global temperatures which had subsequently been found to be flawed. Leroi sent Durkin an e-mail in which he said that he thought the programme "made some good points (the politics of the IPCC
) and some bad points (anthropogenic global warming is a conspiracy to keep Africa underdeveloped)" but said what had most interested him was some of the scientific claims about solar activity and global temperature; he said he looked for citations of the 1991 Friis-Christensen scientific paper used in the programme.
While Leroi acknowledged "I am no climate scientist" he said that after reviewing criticisms of the paper, he had become convinced that: "To put this bluntly: the data that you showed in your programme were wrong–and may have been deliberately faked... it does show what abundant experience has already taught me–that, left to their own devices, TV producers simply cannot be trusted to tell the truth."
"
Leroi copied the e-mail to various colleagues including The Guardian
journalist and Bad Science columnist Ben Goldacre
and science writer and mathematics expert Simon Singh
. Durkin replied to all with the single sentence: "You’re a big daft cock". Singh then sent an email to Durkin that said: "I have not paid the same attention to your programme as Armand has done, but from what I did see it is an irresponsible piece of film-making. If you can send me a copy of the programme then I will examine it in more detail and give you a more considered response...it would be great if you could engage in the debate rather just resorting to one line replies".
Durkin responded: "The IPCC's own figures show the hottest year in the past ten was 1998, and the temp has been flat-lining now for five years. If it's greenhouse gas causing the warming the rate of warming should be higher in the troposphere than on the surface. The opposite is the case. The ice core data shows that temperature change causes the level of atmospheric to change — not the other way round. Why have we not heard this in the hours and hours of shit programming on global warming shoved down our throats by the BBC?", and concluded with, "Never mind a bit of irresponsible film-making. Go and fuck yourself". Durkin later apologised for his language, saying that he had sent the e-mails when tired and had just finished making the programme, and that he was "eager to have all the science properly debated with scientists qualified in the right areas".
declared that the final part of the film dealing with the politics of climate change had broken rules on "due impartiality on matters of major political and industrial controversy and major matters relating to current public policy". Ofcom also backed complaints by Sir David King
, stating that his views were misrepresented, and Carl Wunsch
, on the points that he had been misled as to its intent, and that the impression had been given that he agreed with the programme's position on climate change. Ofcom further ruled that the IPCC had not been given an adequate chance to respond to adverse claims that its work was politicised and that it had made misleading claims about malaria
. However, the regulator said that because "the link between human activity and global warming... became settled before March 2007", in parts 1–4 the audience was not "materially misled so as to cause harm or offence". According to Ofcom the program caused no harm because "the discussion about the causes of global warming was to a very great extent settled by the date of broadcast", meaning that climate change was no longer a matter of political controversy.
Channel 4
said in its defence against the complaints that The Great Global Warming Swindle "was clearly identified as an authored polemic of the kind that is characteristic of some of Channel 4’s output", and Ofcom said in its decision that it was "of paramount importance that broadcasters, such as Channel 4, continue to explore controversial subject matter". Ofcom declined to rule on the accuracy of the programme, saying: "It is not within Ofcom's remit or ability in this case as the regulator of the 'communications industry' to establish or seek to adjudicate on 'facts' such as whether global warming is a man-made phenomenon." It noted that it only regulates "misleading material where that material is likely to cause harm or offence" and "as a consequence, the requirement that content must not materially mislead the audience is necessarily a high test."
The regulator ruled that the parts of the programme about the scientific debate "were not matters of political or industrial controversy or matters relating to public policy and therefore the rules on due impartiality did not apply." In the fifth segment of the programme concerning the political controversy and public policy, however, Ofcom ruled that the programme-makers were "required to include an appropriate wide range of the significant views" but "failed to do this." Channel 4 was required to broadcast a summary of the Ofcom ruling but was given no further sanctions.
, a former chair of the IPCC
, also welcomed Ofcom
's ruling that the film had committed a number of breaches of the broadcasting code but expressed disappointment "that Ofcom did not find that the programme materially misled the audience as to cause harm or offence." He characterised the film as inaccurate, not impartial, unbalanced and misrepresentative of the scientific consensus on climate change. Another former IPCC chair, Sir John Houghton
, likewise commented that "it's very disappointing that Ofcom hasn't come up with a stronger statement about being misled." Bob Ward, the former head of media at the Royal Society
, who played a major role in coordinating objections to the film, asserted that "the programme has been let off the hook on a highly questionable technicality", noting that although the ruling acknowledged that "Channel 4 had admitted errors in the graphs and data used in the programme", the regulator had nonetheless "decided that this did not cause harm or offence to the audience."
Rajendra K. Pachauri
, the current chair of the IPCC, welcomed the ruling as "a vindication of the credibility and standing of the IPCC and the manner in which we function, and [it] clearly brings out the distortion in whatever Channel 4
was trying to project." The Royal Society's head, Lord Rees
, issued a statement in response to the ruling, commenting: "TV companies occasionally commission programmes just to court controversy, but to misrepresent the evidence on an issue as important as global warming was surely irresponsible. 'The Great Global Warming Swindle' was itself a swindle. The programme makers misrepresented the science, the views of some of the scientists featured in the programme and the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change."
When questioned by television industry e-zine C21 about Ofcom's finding against the channel Mykura said:
While he said that he regretted that 'there were some breaches of the code' he said there was 'a degree' to which he disagreed with the complaints they upheld:
, Germany's RTL
(on 11 June 2007) and n-TV
(on 7 July 2007), Finland's MTV3
(on 7 October 2007) and Hong Kong's TVB Pearl
(on 16 November 2007). Negotiations are underway with the United States network ABC
and France's TF1
.
A modified version (running time 55 minutes) of the documentary was shown in Germany. Many interviews were cut out, with others replaced by German speaking interview partners, and some claims were abandoned or changed. For example, the reference to Margaret Thatcher was replaced by the claim that Helmut Schmidt
promoted climate change to justify the construction of nuclear power plants in Germany. The programme on RTL was followed by a discussion roundtable.
A shortened version, excluding the interview with Carl Wunsch and claims about volcanoes, among other material, was shown by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation
on 12 July 2007. The Australian
reported that this was "against the advice of ABC science journalist Robyn Williams
, who instructed the ABC Television not to buy the program." Williams described the programme as "demonstrably wrong", and claimed that the ABC board had put pressure on ABC TV director Kim Dalton
for the programme to be shown. Dalton defended the decision, saying "[Durkin's] thesis is way outside the scientific mainstream. But that's no reason to keep his views away from audiences"
The broadcast was followed by an interview between Durkin and ABC reporter Tony Jones
, in which Jones challenged Durkin on a number of points, including the accuracy of graphs used in the program, criticism of the program's claims by climate scientists, its allegation of a conspiracy theory and the claims of misrepresentation by Carl Wunsch. This was followed by a panel discussion, including participation from a studio audience. Lateline
, which followed, included an interview with Wunsch. (See Carl Wunsch section for full details.)
Manning and Wratt stated that the IPCC
reports represented the well documented consensus amongst the scientific community that climate change was a real phenomenon and that human activities, including emissions, were the most likely cause.
Smith disputed that there was evidence that caused temperature rises. He referred further science issues to de Lange. Smith made several references to the many scientists whose research and publications refuted the human causes of climate change, however no details were provided.
Baxter was supportive of the IPCC consensus. She reminded the group on several occasions that there were several known funding connections between the groups most vocal in raising doubts about and large industrial companies (such as ExxonMobil
).
At the end of the session, two different graphs were shown with more recent data than that used in The Great Global Warming Swindle.
Polemic
A polemic is a variety of arguments or controversies made against one opinion, doctrine, or person. Other variations of argument are debate and discussion...
documentary film
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
that suggests that the scientific opinion on climate change is influenced by funding and political factors, and questions whether scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming
Global warming
Global warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades...
exists.
The film, made by British television producer Martin Durkin
Martin Durkin (television director)
Martin Durkin is a television producer and director, most prominently of television documentaries for Channel 4 in Britain. He is managing director of WAG TV, a London-based independent TV production company. He has produced, directed and executive-produced a wide variety of programmes covering...
, presents scientists, economists, politicians, writers, and others who dispute the scientific consensus
Scientific opinion on climate change
The predominant scientific opinion on climate change is that the Earth is in an ongoing phase of global warming primarily caused by an enhanced greenhouse effect due to the anthropogenic release of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases...
regarding anthropogenic global warming. The programme's publicity materials assert that man-made global warming is "a lie" and "the biggest scam of modern times." Its original working title was "Apocalypse my arse", but the title The Great Global Warming Swindle was later adopted as an allusion to the 1980 mockumentary
Mockumentary
A mockumentary , is a type of film or television show in which fictitious events are presented in documentary format. These productions are often used to analyze or comment on current events and issues by using a fictitious setting, or to parody the documentary form itself...
The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle
The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle
The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle is a mockumentary film directed by Julien Temple and produced by Don Boyd and Jeremy Thomas about the British punk rock band Sex Pistols....
about British punk
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
band the Sex Pistols.
The UK's Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
premiered the documentary on 8 March 2007. The channel described the film as "a polemic that drew together the well-documented views of a number of respected scientists to reach the same conclusions. This is a controversial film but we feel that it is important that all sides of the debate are aired." According to Hamish Mykura, Channel 4's head of documentaries, the film was commissioned "to present the viewpoint of the small minority of scientists who do not believe global warming is caused by anthropogenic production of carbon dioxide."
Although the documentary was welcomed by global warming sceptics, it was criticised by scientific organisations and individual scientists (including one of the scientists interviewed in the film and one whose research was used to support the film's claims). The film's critics argued that it had misused and fabricated data, relied on out-of-date research, employed misleading arguments, and misrepresented the position of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a scientific intergovernmental body which provides comprehensive assessments of current scientific, technical and socio-economic information worldwide about the risk of climate change caused by human activity, its potential environmental and...
. Later broadcasts corrected three errors which had been found in the original film. The film's producer, Martin Durkin, has asserted that the errors were minor and did not affect the film's conclusions.
Viewpoints expressed in the film
The film's basic premise is that the current scientific opinion on the anthropogenic causes of global warmingScientific opinion on climate change
The predominant scientific opinion on climate change is that the Earth is in an ongoing phase of global warming primarily caused by an enhanced greenhouse effect due to the anthropogenic release of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases...
has numerous scientific flaws, and that vested monetary interests in the scientific establishment and the media discourage the public and the scientific community from acknowledging or even debating this. The film asserts that the publicised scientific consensus is the product of a "global warming activist industry" driven by a desire for research funding. Other culprits, according to the film, are Western environmentalists promoting expensive solar and wind power over cheap fossil fuels in Africa, resulting in African countries being held back from industrialising.
The film won best documentary at the 2007 Io Isabella International Film Week
Io Isabella International Film Week
is the first film festival in the south of Italy, and the second in Italy, devoted to Women and Documentary. It spotlights the work by and about women and Creative Documentary...
.
A number of academics, environmentalists, think-tank consultants and writers are interviewed in the film in support of its various assertions. They include the Canadian environmentalist Patrick Moore
Patrick Moore (environmentalist)
Patrick Moore is a former environmental activist, known as one of the early members of Greenpeace, in which he was an activist from 1971 to 1986...
, former member of Greenpeace
Greenpeace
Greenpeace is a non-governmental environmental organization with offices in over forty countries and with an international coordinating body in Amsterdam, The Netherlands...
but now a critic of the organisation; Richard Lindzen
Richard Lindzen
Richard Siegmund Lindzen is an American atmospheric physicist and Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Lindzen is known for his work in the dynamics of the middle atmosphere, atmospheric tides and ozone photochemistry. He has published more than...
, professor of meteorology
Meteorology
Meteorology is the interdisciplinary scientific study of the atmosphere. Studies in the field stretch back millennia, though significant progress in meteorology did not occur until the 18th century. The 19th century saw breakthroughs occur after observing networks developed across several countries...
at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
; Patrick Michaels
Patrick Michaels
Patrick J. Michaels is an American climatologist. Michaels is a senior research fellow for Research and Economic Development at George Mason University, and a senior fellow in environmental studies at the Cato Institute...
, Research Professor of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia
University of Virginia
The University of Virginia is a public research university located in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States, founded by Thomas Jefferson...
; Nigel Calder
Nigel Calder
Nigel Calder is a British science writer.Between 1956 and 1966, Calder wrote for the magazine New Scientist, serving as editor from 1962 until 1966...
, editor of New Scientist
New Scientist
New Scientist is a weekly non-peer-reviewed English-language international science magazine, which since 1996 has also run a website, covering recent developments in science and technology for a general audience. Founded in 1956, it is published by Reed Business Information Ltd, a subsidiary of...
from 1962 to 1966; John Christy
John Christy
John R. Christy is a climate scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville whose chief interests are satellite remote sensing of global climate and global climate change. He is best known, jointly with Roy Spencer, for the first successful development of a satellite temperature...
, professor and director of the Earth System Science Center at University of Alabama
University of Alabama
The University of Alabama is a public coeducational university located in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, United States....
; Paul Reiter
Paul Reiter
Paul Reiter is a professor of medical entomology at the Pasteur Institute in the city of Paris , France. He is a member of the World Health Organization Expert Advisory Committee on Vector Biology and Control . He was an employee of the Center for Disease Control for 22 years . He is a Fellow...
of the Pasteur Institute
Pasteur Institute
The Pasteur Institute is a French non-profit private foundation dedicated to the study of biology, micro-organisms, diseases, and vaccines. It is named after Louis Pasteur, who made some of the greatest breakthroughs in modern medicine at the time, including pasteurization and vaccines for anthrax...
; former British Chancellor of the Exchequer
Chancellor of the Exchequer
The Chancellor of the Exchequer is the title held by the British Cabinet minister who is responsible for all economic and financial matters. Often simply called the Chancellor, the office-holder controls HM Treasury and plays a role akin to the posts of Minister of Finance or Secretary of the...
Nigel Lawson
Nigel Lawson
Nigel Lawson, Baron Lawson of Blaby, PC , is a British Conservative politician and journalist. He was a Member of Parliament representing the constituency of Blaby from 1974–92, and served as the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the government of Margaret Thatcher from June 1983 to October 1989...
; and Piers Corbyn
Piers Corbyn
Piers Richard Corbyn is a meteorologist, astrophysicist, consultant, and owner of the business Weather Action which makes weather forecasts up to a year in advance, and which he also bets on.-Personal life:...
, a British weather forecaster.
Carl Wunsch
Carl Wunsch
Carl Wunsch is the Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physical Oceanography at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is known for his early work in internal waves and more recently for research into the effects of ocean circulation on climate.- Career :Wunsch received his Ph. D. in...
, professor of oceanography at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was also interviewed but has since said that he strongly disagrees with the film's conclusions and the way his interview material was used.
Assertions made in the film
The film takes a strongly sceptical view of current scientific thinking on climate change. It argues that the consensusScientific opinion on climate change
The predominant scientific opinion on climate change is that the Earth is in an ongoing phase of global warming primarily caused by an enhanced greenhouse effect due to the anthropogenic release of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases...
on climate change is the product of "a multibillion-dollar worldwide industry: created by fanatically anti-industrial environmentalists; supported by scientists peddling scare stories to chase funding; and propped up by complicit politicians and the media".
Using a series of interviews and graphics, the film sets out to challenge the scientific consensus by focusing on what it says are inconsistencies in the evidence, and the role said to have been played by ideology and politics.
Evidential issues
The film highlights what it asserts are a number of contradictions and inconsistencies in the evidence supporting man-made global warming.- Atmospheric carbon dioxideCarbon dioxideCarbon dioxide is a naturally occurring chemical compound composed of two oxygen atoms covalently bonded to a single carbon atom...
levels and temperature change since 1940. The film asserts that records of atmospheric levels since 1940 show a continuing increase, but during this period, global temperature decreased until 1975, and has increased since then. - Variations in warming rate. The programme states that all models of greenhouse effect-derived temperature increase predict that the warming will be at its greatest for a given location in the troposphereTroposphereThe troposphere is the lowest portion of Earth's atmosphere. It contains approximately 80% of the atmosphere's mass and 99% of its water vapor and aerosols....
and at its lowest near the surface of the earth. The programme asserts that current satellite and weather balloonSatellite temperature measurementsThe temperature of the atmosphere at various altitudes as well as sea and land surface temperatures can be inferred from satellite measurements. Weather satellites do not measure temperature directly but measure radiances in various wavelength bands...
data do not support this model, and instead show that the surface warming rate is greater than or equal to the rate in the lower troposphere. - Increases in and temperatures following the end of ice ages. According to the film, increases in levels lagged (by over 100 years) behind temperature increases during glacial terminations.
- Relationship between atmospheric carbon dioxideCarbon dioxideCarbon dioxide is a naturally occurring chemical compound composed of two oxygen atoms covalently bonded to a single carbon atom...
levels and temperature change. The film asserts that carbon dioxide levels increase or decrease as a result of temperatures increasing or decreasing rather than temperatures following carbon dioxide levels, because as the global climate cools the Earth's oceans absorb carbon dioxide, and as the climate warms the oceans release carbon dioxide. - Influence of oceanic mass on temperature changes. The programme argues that due to the very large mass of the world's oceans, it takes hundreds of years for global temperature changes to register in oceanic mass, which is why analysis of the Vostok StationVostok StationVostok Station was a Russian Antarctic research station. It was at the southern Pole of Cold, with the lowest reliably measured natural temperature on Earth of −89.2 °C . Research includes ice core drilling and magnetometry...
and other ice coreIce coreAn ice core is a core sample that is typically removed from an ice sheet, most commonly from the polar ice caps of Antarctica, Greenland or from high mountain glaciers elsewhere. As the ice forms from the incremental build up of annual layers of snow, lower layers are older than upper, and an ice...
s shows that changes in the level of atmospheric carbon dioxide follow changes in global temperature by 800 years. - Influence of water vapour on climate change. According to the film, water vapour makes up 95% of all greenhouse gases and has the largest impact on the planet's temperature. Water particles in the form of clouds act to reflect incoming solar heat, but the film argues that the effects of clouds cannot be accurately simulated by scientists attempting to predict future weather patterns and their effects on global warming.
- Influence of carbon dioxide on climate change. The film states that carbon dioxide comprises only a very minuscule amount—just 0.054% of the Earth's atmosphere. According to the film, human activity contributes much less than 1% of that, while volcanoes produce significantly more per year than humans, while plants and animals produce 150 gigatons of each year. Dying leaves produce even more , and the oceans are "the biggest source of by far." Human activity produces a mere 6.5 gigatons of each year. The film concludes that man-made emissions alone cannot be causing global warming. (Durkin subsequently acknowledged that the claim about volcanic emissions was wrong, and removed the claim from later versions.)
- Influence of the sun on climate change. The film highlights the solar variation theory of global warming, asserting that solar activitySolar variationSolar variation is the change in the amount of radiation emitted by the Sun and in its spectral distribution over years to millennia. These variations have periodic components, the main one being the approximately 11-year solar cycle . The changes also have aperiodic fluctuations...
is currently at an extremely high level, and that this is directly linked to changes in global temperature. The posited mechanism involves cosmic rayCosmic rayCosmic rays are energetic charged subatomic particles, originating from outer space. They may produce secondary particles that penetrate the Earth's atmosphere and surface. The term ray is historical as cosmic rays were thought to be electromagnetic radiation...
s as well as heat from the sun aiding cloudCloudA cloud is a visible mass of liquid droplets or frozen crystals made of water and/or various chemicals suspended in the atmosphere above the surface of a planetary body. They are also known as aerosols. Clouds in Earth's atmosphere are studied in the cloud physics branch of meteorology...
formation. The film argues that the activity of the sun is far more influential on global warming and cooling than any other man-made or natural activity on Earth. - Previous episodes of warming. The programme asserts that the current episode of global warming is nothing unusual and temperatures were even more extreme during the Medieval Warm PeriodMedieval Warm PeriodThe Medieval Warm Period , Medieval Climate Optimum, or Medieval Climatic Anomaly was a time of warm climate in the North Atlantic region, that may also have been related to other climate events around the world during that time, including in China, New Zealand, and other countries lasting from...
, a time of great prosperity in western Europe.
Political issues
The programme makes a number of assertions arguing that the integrity of climate research has been compromised by financial, ideological and political interests:- Increased funding of climate science. According to the film, there has been an increase in funds available for any research related to global warming "and it is now one of the best funded areas of science."
- Increased availability of funding for global warming research. The film asserts that scientists seeking a research grant awardResearch fundingResearch funding is a term generally covering any funding for scientific research, in the areas of both "hard" science and technology and social science. The term often connotes funding obtained through a competitive process, in which potential research projects are evaluated and only the most...
have a much more likely chance of successfully obtaining funding if the grant is linked to global warming research. - Influence of vested interests. The programme argues that vested interests have a bigger impact on the proponents (rather than the detractors) of arguments supporting the occurrence of man-made global warming because hundreds of thousands of jobs in science, media, and government have been created and are subsidised as a result.
- Suppression of dissenting views. According to the programme, scientists who speak out (against the view that global warming is man-made) risk persecution, death threats, loss of funding, personal attacks, and damage to their reputations.
- Role of ideology. The film proposes that some supporters of the finding that global warming is man-made do so because it supports their emotional and ideological beliefs against capitalismCapitalismCapitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
, economic developmentEconomic developmentEconomic development generally refers to the sustained, concerted actions of policymakers and communities that promote the standard of living and economic health of a specific area...
, globalisationGlobalizationGlobalization refers to the increasingly global relationships of culture, people and economic activity. Most often, it refers to economics: the global distribution of the production of goods and services, through reduction of barriers to international trade such as tariffs, export fees, and import...
, industrialisationIndustrialisationIndustrialization is the process of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an industrial one...
, and the United States. - Role of politics. The programme asserts that the view that global warming is man-made was promoted by the British ConservativeConservative Party (UK)The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
Prime MinisterPrime Minister of the United KingdomThe Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the Head of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom. The Prime Minister and Cabinet are collectively accountable for their policies and actions to the Sovereign, to Parliament, to their political party and...
Margaret ThatcherMargaret ThatcherMargaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990...
as a means of promoting nuclear powerNuclear powerNuclear power is the use of sustained nuclear fission to generate heat and electricity. Nuclear power plants provide about 6% of the world's energy and 13–14% of the world's electricity, with the U.S., France, and Japan together accounting for about 50% of nuclear generated electricity...
and reducing the impact of strike actionStrike actionStrike action, also called labour strike, on strike, greve , or simply strike, is a work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to work. A strike usually takes place in response to employee grievances. Strikes became important during the industrial revolution, when mass labour became...
in the state-owned coal industry by the National Union of Mineworkers. - Role of industry. The film argues that the assertion that global warming sceptics are funded by private industry (such as oil, gas, and coal industries) are false and have no basis in fact.
Disputing the global warming consensus
The film argues that the consensus among climate scientistsScientific opinion on climate change
The predominant scientific opinion on climate change is that the Earth is in an ongoing phase of global warming primarily caused by an enhanced greenhouse effect due to the anthropogenic release of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases...
about global warming does not exist.
- Status of IPCCIntergovernmental Panel on Climate ChangeThe Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a scientific intergovernmental body which provides comprehensive assessments of current scientific, technical and socio-economic information worldwide about the risk of climate change caused by human activity, its potential environmental and...
contributors. The programme asserts that it is falsely stated that "2,500 top scientists" support the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate ChangeIntergovernmental Panel on Climate ChangeThe Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a scientific intergovernmental body which provides comprehensive assessments of current scientific, technical and socio-economic information worldwide about the risk of climate change caused by human activity, its potential environmental and...
(IPCC)'s reports on global warming. In fact, according to the programme, the report includes many politicians and non-scientists, and even dissenters who demanded that their names be removed from the report but were refused. - Accuracy of representation of IPCC contributors. The film argues that IPCC reports misrepresent the views of scientists who contribute to them through selective editorialising. The film highlights the case of Paul ReiterPaul ReiterPaul Reiter is a professor of medical entomology at the Pasteur Institute in the city of Paris , France. He is a member of the World Health Organization Expert Advisory Committee on Vector Biology and Control . He was an employee of the Center for Disease Control for 22 years . He is a Fellow...
of the Pasteur InstitutePasteur InstituteThe Pasteur Institute is a French non-profit private foundation dedicated to the study of biology, micro-organisms, diseases, and vaccines. It is named after Louis Pasteur, who made some of the greatest breakthroughs in modern medicine at the time, including pasteurization and vaccines for anthrax...
who complained that the IPCC did not take his professional opinion under greater consideration. It states that the IPCC kept his name on the report as a contributor and did not remove his name until he threatened legal action. - Suppression of dissenting views. According to the programme, the concept of man-made global warming is promoted with a ferocity and intensity that is similar to a religious fervour. Sceptics are treated as hereticsHeresyHeresy is a controversial or novel change to a system of beliefs, especially a religion, that conflicts with established dogma. It is distinct from apostasy, which is the formal denunciation of one's religion, principles or cause, and blasphemy, which is irreverence toward religion...
and equated with holocaust deniersHolocaust denialHolocaust denial is the act of denying the genocide of Jews in World War II, usually referred to as the Holocaust. The key claims of Holocaust denial are: the German Nazi government had no official policy or intention of exterminating Jews, Nazi authorities did not use extermination camps and gas...
. Retired university professor Tim Ball states in the film (and in subsequent press publicity) that he has received death threats because of sceptical statements he has made about global warming.
Killing the African dream of development
- Author and economist James ShikwatiJames ShikwatiJames Shikwati is a Kenyan libertarian economist and Director of the Inter Region Economic Network who promotes freedom of trade as the driving solution to poverty in Africa...
says in the programme that environmentalists campaign against Africa using its fossil fuelFossil fuelFossil fuels are fuels formed by natural processes such as anaerobic decomposition of buried dead organisms. The age of the organisms and their resulting fossil fuels is typically millions of years, and sometimes exceeds 650 million years...
s: "there's somebody keen to kill the African dream. And the African dream is to develop." He describes renewable power as "luxurious experimentation" that might work for rich countries but will never work for Africa: "I don't see how a solar panel is going to power a steel industry - rather a transistor radio." We are being told, 'Don't touch your resources. Don't touch your oil. Don't touch your coal.' That is suicide." - An example is given in the film of a Kenyan health clinic which is powered by two solar panels which do not provide enough electricity for both the medical refrigerator and the lights at the same time. The programme describes the idea of restricting the world's poorest people to alternative energy sources as "the most morally repugnant aspect of the Global Warming campaign."
Reception and criticism
The show attracted 2.5 million viewers and an audience share of 11.5%. Channel 4 stated that it had received 758 calls and emails about the programme, with those in favour outnumbering complaints by six to one.Following criticism from scientists the film has been changed since it was first broadcast on Channel 4. One graph had its time axis relabelled, the claim that volcanoes produce more than humans was removed, and following objections about how his interview had been used, the interview with Carl Wunsch was removed for the international and DVD releases of the programme.
Other scientific arguments used in the film have been described as refuted or misleading by scientists working in the relevant fields. Critics have also argued that the programme is one-sided and that the mainstream position on global warming
Scientific opinion on climate change
The predominant scientific opinion on climate change is that the Earth is in an ongoing phase of global warming primarily caused by an enhanced greenhouse effect due to the anthropogenic release of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases...
, as supported by the scientific academies of the major industrialised nations
G8
The Group of Eight is a forum, created by France in 1975, for the governments of seven major economies: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In 1997, the group added Russia, thus becoming the G8...
and other scientific organisations, is incorrectly represented.
Complaints received by Ofcom
The British broadcasting regulator, the Office of Communications (OfcomOfcom
Ofcom is the government-approved regulatory authority for the broadcasting and telecommunications industries in the United Kingdom. Ofcom was initially established by the Office of Communications Act 2002. It received its full authority from the Communications Act 2003...
), received 265 complaints about the programme, one of which was a 176-page detailed complaint co-authored by a group of scientists. Ofcom ruled on 21 July 2008 that the programme had unfairly treated Sir David King
David King (scientist)
Sir David Anthony King FRS is the Director of the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at the University of Oxford, Director of Research in Physical Chemistry at the University of Cambridge, Director of the Collegio Carlo Alberto, Chancellor of the University of Liverpool and a senior...
, the IPCC
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a scientific intergovernmental body which provides comprehensive assessments of current scientific, technical and socio-economic information worldwide about the risk of climate change caused by human activity, its potential environmental and...
and Professor Carl Wunsch
Carl Wunsch
Carl Wunsch is the Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physical Oceanography at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is known for his early work in internal waves and more recently for research into the effects of ocean circulation on climate.- Career :Wunsch received his Ph. D. in...
. Ofcom also found that part 5 of the programme (the 'political' part) had breached several parts of the Broadcasting Code regarding impartiality; however, the Code rules on impartiality did not apply to the scientific arguments in parts 1–4, because the link between human activity and global warming had largely been settled before March 2007. OfCom did not rule on the programme's accuracy, but did rule that: "On balance it did not materially mislead the audience so as to cause harm or offence." On 4 and 5 August 2008, Channel 4 and More 4 broadcast a summary of Ofcom's findings, though it will not face sanctions.
Reactions from scientists
- The IPCCIntergovernmental Panel on Climate ChangeThe Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a scientific intergovernmental body which provides comprehensive assessments of current scientific, technical and socio-economic information worldwide about the risk of climate change caused by human activity, its potential environmental and...
was one of the main targets of the documentary. In response to the programme's broadcast, John T. HoughtonJohn T. HoughtonAs co-chair of the IPCC, he defends the IPCC process, in particular against charges of failure to consider non-CO2 explanations of climate change. In evidence to, the Select Committee on Science and Technology in 2000 he said:...
(co-chair IPCC Scientific Assessment working group 1988–2002) assessed some of its main assertions and conclusions. According to Houghton the programme was "a mixture of truth, half truth and falsehood put together with the sole purpose of discrediting the science of global warming", which he noted had been endorsed by the scientific community, including the Academies of Science of the major industrialised countriesG8The Group of Eight is a forum, created by France in 1975, for the governments of seven major economies: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In 1997, the group added Russia, thus becoming the G8...
and China, India and Brazil. Houghton rejected claims that observed changes in global average temperature are within the range of natural climate variability or that solar influences are the main driver; that the troposphere is warming less than the surface; that volcanic eruptions emit more carbon dioxide than fossil fuel burning; that climate modelsGlobal climate modelA General Circulation Model is a mathematical model of the general circulation of a planetary atmosphere or ocean and based on the Navier–Stokes equations on a rotating sphere with thermodynamic terms for various energy sources . These equations are the basis for complex computer programs commonly...
are too complex and uncertain to provide useful projections of climate change; and that IPCC processes were biased. Houghton acknowledges that ice core samples show driven by temperature, but then writes that the programme's assertion that "this correlation has been presented as the main evidence for global warming by the IPCC [is] NOT TRUE. For instance, I often show that diagram in my lectures on climate change but always make the point that it gives no proof of global warming due to increased carbon dioxide." - The British Antarctic SurveyBritish Antarctic SurveyThe British Antarctic Survey is the United Kingdom's national Antarctic operation and has an active role in Antarctic affairs. BAS is part of the Natural Environment Research Council and has over 400 staff. It operates five research stations, two ships and five aircraft in and around Antarctica....
released a statement about The Great Global Warming Swindle. It is highly critical of the programme, singling out the use of a graph with the incorrect time axis, and also the statements made about solar activity: "A comparison of the distorted and undistorted contemporary data reveal that the plot of solar activity bears no resemblance to the temperature curve, especially in the last 20 years." Comparing scientific methods with Channel 4's editorial standards, the statement says: "Any scientist found to have falsified data in the manner of the Channel 4 programme would be guilty of serious professional misconduct." It uses the feedback argument to explain temperatures rising before . On the issue of volcanic emissions, it says:
A second issue was the claim that human emissions of are small compared to natural emissions from volcanoes. This is untrue: current annual emissions from fossil fuel burning and cement production are estimated to be around 100 times greater than average annual volcanic emissions of . That large volcanoes cannot significantly perturb the concentration of the atmosphere is apparent from the ice core and atmospheric record of concentrations, which shows a steady rise during the industrial period, with no unusual changes after large eruptions.
- Alan ThorpeAlan ThorpeAlan C. Thorpe was a rugby union player who represented Australia.Thorpe, was born in Sydney, New South Wales and claimed 1 international rugby cap for Australia.-References:...
, professor of meteorology at the University of ReadingUniversity of ReadingThe University of Reading is a university in the English town of Reading, Berkshire. The University was established in 1892 as University College, Reading and received its Royal Charter in 1926. It is based on several campuses in, and around, the town of Reading.The University has a long tradition...
and Chief Executive of the UK Natural Environment Research CouncilNatural Environment Research CouncilThe Natural Environment Research Council is a British research council that supports research, training and knowledge transfer activities in the environmental sciences.-History:...
, commented on the film in New ScientistNew ScientistNew Scientist is a weekly non-peer-reviewed English-language international science magazine, which since 1996 has also run a website, covering recent developments in science and technology for a general audience. Founded in 1956, it is published by Reed Business Information Ltd, a subsidiary of...
: "First, let's deal with the main thesis: that the presence or absence of cosmic rays in Earth's atmosphere is a better explanation for temperature variation than the concentration of and other gases. This is not a new assertion and it is patently wrong: there is no credible evidence that cosmic rays play a significant role...Let scepticism reign, but let's not play games with the evidence." - The Royal SocietyRoyal SocietyThe Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...
has issued a press release in reaction to the film. In it, Martin Rees, the president of the Royal Society, shortly restates the predominant scientific opinion on climate changeScientific opinion on climate changeThe predominant scientific opinion on climate change is that the Earth is in an ongoing phase of global warming primarily caused by an enhanced greenhouse effect due to the anthropogenic release of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases...
and adds:
- Alan Thorpe
Scientists will continue to monitor the global climate and the factors which influence it. It is important that all legitimate potential scientific explanations continue to be considered and investigated. Debate will continue, and the Royal Society has just hosted a two day discussion meeting attended by over 300 scientists, but it must not be at the expense of action. Those who promote fringe scientific views but ignore the weight of evidence are playing a dangerous game. They run the risk of diverting attention from what we can do to ensure the world's population has the best possible future.
- Thirty-seven British scientists signed a letter of complaint, saying that they "believe that the misrepresentations of facts and views, both of which occur in your programme, are so serious that repeat broadcasts of the programme, without amendment, are not in the public interest. In view of the seriousness of climate change as an issue, it is crucial that public debate about it is balanced and well-informed".
- On 5 July 2007, The GuardianThe GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
reported that Professor Mike Lockwood, a solar physicist at the Rutherford Appleton LaboratoryRutherford Appleton LaboratoryThe Rutherford Appleton Laboratory is one of the national scientific research laboratories in the UK operated by the Science and Technology Facilities Council . It is located on the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus at Chilton near Didcot in Oxfordshire, United Kingdom...
, had carried out a study, initiated partially in response to The Great Global Warming Swindle, that disproved one of the documentary's key planks — namely that global warming directly correlates to solar activity. Lockwood's study showed that solar activity had diminished subsequent to 1987, despite a steady rise in the temperature of the Earth's surface. The study, to be published in a Royal Society journal, used temperature and solar data recorded from the last 100 years.
In a BBC interview about this study, Lockwood commented on the graphs shown in the documentary:
All the graphs they showed stopped in about 1980, and I knew why, because things diverged after that ... You can't just ignore bits of data that you do not like.
- Volume 20 of the Bulletin of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society presented a critique by David Jones, Andrew Watkins, Karl Braganza and Michael Coughlan.
The Great Global Warming Swindle does not represent the current state of knowledge in climate science… Many of the hypotheses presented in the Great Global Warming Swindle have been considered and rejected by due scientific process. This documentary is far from an objective, critical examination of climate science. Instead the Great Global Warming Swindle goes to great lengths to present outdated, incorrect or ambiguous data in such a way as to grossly distort the true understanding of climate change science, and to support a set of extremely controversial views.
- A public forum entitled “Debunking “The Great Global Warming Swindle"” was held at the Australian National University in Canberra on 13 July 2007, at which scientists from the Australian National University, Stanford University, USA, and ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies exposed what they described "as the scientific flaws and half-truths in the claims of climate change skeptics"
Carl Wunsch
Carl WunschCarl Wunsch
Carl Wunsch is the Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physical Oceanography at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is known for his early work in internal waves and more recently for research into the effects of ocean circulation on climate.- Career :Wunsch received his Ph. D. in...
, professor of Physical Oceanography at MIT, is featured in the Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
version of the programme. Afterwards he said that he was "completely misrepresented" in the film and had been "totally misled" when he agreed to be interviewed. He called the film "grossly distorted" and "as close to pure propaganda as anything since World War Two", and he lodged a complaint with Ofcom
Ofcom
Ofcom is the government-approved regulatory authority for the broadcasting and telecommunications industries in the United Kingdom. Ofcom was initially established by the Office of Communications Act 2002. It received its full authority from the Communications Act 2003...
. He particularly objected to how his interview material was used:
In the part of The Great Climate Change Swindle where I am describing the fact that the ocean tends to expel carbon dioxide where it is warm, and to absorb it where it is cold, my intent was to explain that warming the ocean could be dangerous—because it is such a gigantic reservoir of carbon. By its placement in the film, it appears that I am saying that since carbon dioxide exists in the ocean in such large quantities, human influence must not be very important—diametrically opposite to the point I was making—which is that global warming is both real and threatening.
Filmmaker Durkin responded:
Carl Wunsch was most certainly not 'duped' into appearing in the film, as is perfectly clear from our correspondence with him. Nor are his comments taken out of context. His interview, as used in the programme, perfectly accurately represents what he said.
Although Wunsch has admitted that he finds the statements at both extremes of the global climate change debate distasteful he wrote in a letter dated 15 March 2007 that he believes climate change is "real, a major threat, and almost surely has a major human-induced component. But
I have tried to stay out of the `climate wars' because all nuance tends to be lost, and the distinction between what we know firmly, as scientists, and what we suspect is happening, is so difficult to maintain in the presence of rhetorical excess." He further cautiously states that "The science of climate change remains incomplete. Some elements are so firmly based on well-understood principles, or for which the observational record is so clear, that most scientists would agree that they are almost surely true(adding CO2 to the atmosphere is dangerous; sea level will continue to rise,...). Other elements remain more uncertain, but we as scientists in our roles as informed citizens believe society should be deeply concerned about their possibility: failure of US midwestern (sic) precipitation in 100 years in a mega-drought; melting of a large part of the Greenland ice sheet, among many other examples."
Wunsch has said that he received a letter from the production company, Wag TV, threatening to sue him for defamation unless he agreed to make a public statement that he was neither misrepresented nor misled. Wunsch refused, although he states he was forced to hire a solicitor in the UK.
Following Wunsch's complaints, his interview material was removed from the international and DVD versions of the film.
On 7 December 2007, Wunsch restated his critique on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly referred to as "the ABC" , is Australia's national public broadcaster...
's Lateline
Lateline
Lateline is an Australian television news and current affairs program produced by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, airing weeknights at on ABC1. The program has developed a reputation for head-to-head debates on current issues and political interviews. Lateline is followed by its sister...
programme after the film was screened, saying: "It's not a science film at all. It's a political statement." In the same interview, reacting to what he claimed were new and further distortions by Durkin, Wunsch said:
Durkin says that I reacted to the way the film portrayed me because of pressure from my colleagues. This is completely false. I did hear almost immediately from colleagues in the UK who saw the film who didn't berate me. They simply said, "This doesn't sound like you, this seems to be distorting your views, you better have a look at this".
Ofcom ruling on Wunsch complaint
Ofcom divided Wunsch's complaint into three parts, ruling in his favour on two parts and against him on one part.
- Ofcom agreed with Wunsch that he was misled as to the programme's intent, ruling that he wasn't given sufficient information about the polemical nature and tone of the programme to allow him to give informed consent for his participation.
- Ofcom also found that Wunsch's general views were misrepresented:
The Committee did not consider that the editing of the programme presented Professor Wunsch as denying that global warming is taking place. However it noted that the programme included his edited interview in the context of a range of scientists who denied the scientific consensus about the anthropogenic causes of global warming. In the Committee's view Professor Wunsch made clear in his full unedited interview that he largely accepted this consensus and the seriousness of the threat of global warming (albeit with caveats about proof) and therefore found that the presentation of Professor Wunsch's views, within the wider context of the programme, resulted in unfairness to him.
- However, Ofcom did not uphold Wunsch's complaint that the programme misrepresented his views in relation to the oceans and :
The Committee noted from the unedited interview that Professor Wunsch had referred to the greenhouse effect on a couple of occasions. However, in the Committee’s opinion Professor Wunsch's comments in this respect had not been primarily to warn of the dangers of warming the ocean (as Professor Wunsch had suggested in his complaint). Rather the references had been used to make the point that the relationship between carbon dioxide and atmospheric temperature is complicated. In the Committee’s view, it was entirely at the programme maker's editorial discretion to decide whether to include these comments in the programme.
Eigil Friis-Christensen
Eigil Friis-ChristensenEigil Friis-Christensen
Eigil Friis-Christensen is an expert in space physics, and Director of the Danish National Space Center.- Career :Friis-Christensen received a Magisterkonferens in Geophysics from University of Copenhagen in 1971. In 1972, he was a geophysicist at the Danish Meteorological Institute...
's research was used to support claims about the influence of solar activity on climate, both in the programme and Durkin's subsequent defence of it. Friis-Christensen, with environmental Research Fellow Nathan Rive, criticised the way the solar data were used:
We have concerns regarding the use of a graph featured in the documentary titled 'Temp & Solar Activity 400 Years'. Firstly, we have reason to believe that parts of the graph were made up of fabricated data that were presented as genuine. The inclusion of the artificial data is both misleading and pointless. Secondly, although the narrator commentary during the presentation of the graph is consistent with the conclusions of the paper from which the figure originates, it incorrectly rules out a contribution by anthropogenic greenhouse gases to 20th century global warming.
In response to a question from The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
as to whether the programme was scientifically accurate, Friis-Christensen said: "No, I think several points were not explained in the way that I, as a scientist, would have explained them ... it is obvious it's not accurate."
Following Eigil Friis-Christensen's criticism of the 'Temp & Solar Activity 400 Years' graph used in the programme (for perfectly matching the lines in the 100 years 1610–1710 where data did not in fact exist in the original), Durkin emailed Friis-Christensen to thank him for highlighting the error: "it is an annoying mistake which all of us missed and is being fixed for all future transmissions of the film. It doesn't alter our argument".
Reaction in the British media
The documentary received substantial coverage in the British press, both before and after it was broadcast.Environmentalist and political activist George Monbiot
George Monbiot
George Joshua Richard Monbiot is an English writer, known for his environmental and political activism. He lives in Machynlleth, Wales, writes a weekly column for The Guardian, and is the author of a number of books, including Captive State: The Corporate Takeover of Britain and Bring on the...
, writing for The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
before the programme was shown, discussed the arguments for and against the "hockey-stick graph
Hockey stick controversy
The hockey stick controversy refers to debates over the technical correctness and implications for global warming of graphs showing reconstructed estimates of the temperature record of the past 1000 years...
" used in An Inconvenient Truth
An Inconvenient Truth
An Inconvenient Truth is a 2006 documentary film directed by Davis Guggenheim about former United States Vice President Al Gore's campaign to educate citizens about global warming via a comprehensive slide show that, by his own estimate, he has given more than a thousand times.Premiering at the...
, claiming that the criticism of it has been "debunked". He also highlighted Durkin's previous documentary Against Nature, where the Independent Television Commission found that four complainants had been "misled" and their views were "distorted by selective editing". After the programme was shown, Monbiot wrote another article arguing that it was based on already debunked science, and he accused Channel 4 of being more interested in generating controversy than in producing credible science programmes. Robin McKie, science editor of The Guardian, attacked the documentary for opting "for dishonest rhetoric when a little effort could have produced an important contribution to a critical social problem".
Dominic Lawson
Dominic Lawson
Dominic Ralph Campden Lawson is a British journalist.-Background:Educated at Westminster School and then Christ Church, Oxford, he is the elder son of a former Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer Lord Lawson and socialite Vanessa Salmon, heir to the Lyons Corner House empire, who died of...
, writing in The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
, was favourable toward the programme, echoing many of its claims and recommending it to the public. He largely focused his attention on the reactions of the environmental community, first at Durkin's earlier production, Against Nature
Against Nature
Against Nature may refer to:*À rebours, a French novel by Joris-Karl Huysmans*A television documentary by Martin Durkin *Against Nature , a 1989 rock album by The Fatima Mansions...
, and now at The Great Global Warming Swindle. Lawson characterised the programme's opponents as being quick to leap to ad hominem
Ad hominem
An ad hominem , short for argumentum ad hominem, is an attempt to negate the truth of a claim by pointing out a negative characteristic or belief of the person supporting it...
attacks about the director's qualifications and political affiliations rather than the merits of his factual claims. Lawson summarised examples from the production of how dissenting scientists are pushed into the background and effectively censored by organisations such as the IPCC
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a scientific intergovernmental body which provides comprehensive assessments of current scientific, technical and socio-economic information worldwide about the risk of climate change caused by human activity, its potential environmental and...
. Lawson described the correlation between sunspots and temperature as "striking."
Geoffrey Lean, The Independents environment editor, was critical of the programme. He noted that Dominic Lawson is the son and brother-in-law, respectively, of two prominent global warming sceptics (Nigel Lawson
Nigel Lawson
Nigel Lawson, Baron Lawson of Blaby, PC , is a British Conservative politician and journalist. He was a Member of Parliament representing the constituency of Blaby from 1974–92, and served as the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the government of Margaret Thatcher from June 1983 to October 1989...
, who is also featured in the programme, and Christopher Monckton
Christopher Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley
Christopher Walter Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley is a British politician, public speaker, former newspaper editor and hereditary peer. Formerly a member of the Conservative Party, Monckton has been the Head of the Policy Unit for the UK Independence Party since November 2010. He was...
), implying that Lawson was not a neutral observer. The Independent mostly disagreed with three of the programme's major claims, for example stating that "recent solar increases are too small to have produced the present warming, and have been much less important than greenhouse gases since about 1850". In a later Independent article, Steve Connor attacked the programme, saying that its makers had selectively used data which was sometimes decades old, and introduced other serious errors of their own:
Mr Durkin admitted that his graphics team had extended the time axis along the bottom of the graph to the year 2000. 'There was a fluff there,' he said. If Mr Durkin had gone directly to the NASA website he could have got the most up-to-date data. This would have demonstrated that the amount of global warming since 1975, as monitored by terrestrial weather stations around the world, has been greater than that between 1900 and 1940—although that would have undermined his argument. 'The original NASA data was very wiggly-lined and we wanted the simplest line we could find,' Mr Durkin said.
The online magazine Spiked
Spiked (magazine)
Spiked is a British Internet magazine focusing on politics, culture and society from a humanist and libertarian viewpoint.- Editors and contributors :...
published an interview with Durkin, in which the director complained of how Ofcom
Ofcom
Ofcom is the government-approved regulatory authority for the broadcasting and telecommunications industries in the United Kingdom. Ofcom was initially established by the Office of Communications Act 2002. It received its full authority from the Communications Act 2003...
censures "seriously controversial work", and that the end result is "phoney controversialism on TV but not much real controversialism". Spiked described the programme's "all-encompassing cosmic ray theory" as "a little unconvincing", but said that "the film poked some very big holes in the global warming consensus", and argued "we could do with more anti-conformist films from 'mavericks' like Durkin".
The Timess science editor Mark Henderson listed a number of points where, in his opinion, "Channel 4 got it wrong over climate change". He highlighted the feedback argument for the ice core data, the measurement error explanation for temperatures in the troposphere, and the sulphate cooling argument for mid-20th century cooling.
Janet Daley, writing in The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
in a column headlined "The Green Lobby Must Not Stifle The Debate", noted that "Among those who attempted to prevent the film being shown at all was the Liberal Democrat
Liberal Democrats
The Liberal Democrats are a social liberal political party in the United Kingdom which supports constitutional and electoral reform, progressive taxation, wealth taxation, human rights laws, cultural liberalism, banking reform and civil liberties .The party was formed in 1988 by a merger of the...
spokesman on the environment, Chris Huhne
Chris Huhne
Christopher Murray Paul-Huhne, generally known as Chris Huhne is a British politician and cabinet minister, who is the current Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament for the Eastleigh constituency in Hampshire...
, who, without having seen the programme, wrote to Channel 4 executives advising them in the gravest terms to reconsider their decision to broadcast it".
In response, Huhne sent a letter to The Daily Telegraph about Daley's column, writing "Janet Daley is simply wrong to state that I wrote to Channel 4 'advising them in the gravest terms to reconsider their decision to broadcast' Martin Durkin’s The Great Global Warming Swindle. I wrote asking for Channel 4's comments on the fact—not in dispute—that the last time Mr Durkin ventured onto this territory he suffered serious complaints for sloppy journalism—upheld by the Independent Television Commission—and had to apologise." The Daily Telegraph
apologised, saying they were happy to accept that "Mr Huhne's letter was not an attempt to prevent the film being shown or suppress debate on the issue".
The Christopher Booker
Christopher Booker
Christopher John Penrice Booker is an English journalist and author. In 1961, he was one of the founders of the magazine Private Eye, and has contributed to it for over four decades. He has been a columnist for the Sunday Telegraph since 1990...
book The Real Global Warming Disaster
The Real Global Warming Disaster
The Real Global Warming Disaster is a 2009 book by English journalist and author Christopher Booker written from a standpoint of environmental scepticism which aims to show how scientists and politicians came to believe in anthropogenic global warming.In the book, Booker...
provides a detailed synopsis of the programme, as well as an account of the subsequent complaints and Ofcom verdict.
Other reactions
David MilibandDavid Miliband
David Wright Miliband is a British Labour Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament for South Shields since 2001, and was the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs from 2007 to 2010. He is the elder son of the late Marxist theorist Ralph Miliband...
, at the time the UK Secretary of State for Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs, presented a rebuttal of the main points of the film on his blog and stated that "there will always be people with conspiracy theories
Global warming conspiracy theory
Global warming conspiracy theory refers to an allegation that the data with which the theory of anthropogenic global warming is derived has been tampered with, adulterated, achieved through anecdotal means and/or is being misrepresented so as to inaccurately accuse mankind of causing global climate...
trying to do down the scientific consensus, and that is part of scientific and democratic debate, but the science of climate change looks like fact to me."
Steven Milloy
Steven Milloy
Steven J. Milloy is a commentator for Fox News and runs the Web site junkscience.com, which is dedicated to "debunking" what Milloy labels "faulty scientific data and analysis." On Fox News Channel he is billed as a "Junk Science commentator." He describes himself as a libertarian.Among the topics...
, who runs the website Junkscience.com, endorsed the documentary on 18 March 2007.
The programme has been discussed extensively in Australia, including favourable mentions in an editorial in The Australian
The Australian
The Australian is a broadsheet newspaper published in Australia from Monday to Saturday each week since 14 July 1964. The editor in chief is Chris Mitchell, the editor is Clive Mathieson and the 'editor-at-large' is Paul Kelly....
and the Counterpoint
Counterpoint (Radio National)
Counterpoint is an Australian weekly radio program, presented by Michael Duffy and Paul Comrie-Thomson and broadcast by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Radio National.-Programming:...
radio programme presented by Michael Duffy
Michael Duffy (Australian journalist)
Michael Duffy is an Australian journalist and novelist. Duffy presents ABC Radio National's Counterpoint with Paul Comrie-Thomson, and writes for the Sydney Morning Herald and the Sun Herald...
. The Australian stated the film "presents a coherent argument for why governments must hasten slowly in responding". Duffy noted the program's claims regarding Margaret Thatcher. In response, writing in an opinion piece for the Australian Financial Review, John Quiggin
John Quiggin
John Quiggin is an Australian economist and professor at the University of Queensland. Quiggin studied at the Australian National University, obtaining bachelor's degrees in Arts and Economics in 1978 and 1980 respectively, and completing a master's degree in Economics in 1984. Quiggin was awarded...
criticised the programme for putting forward "conspiracy theories". According to The Australian, scientist Tim Flannery
Tim Flannery
Timothy Fridtjof Flannery is an Australian mammalogist, palaeontologist, environmentalist and global warming activist....
had wondered at a conference whether the programme should be classified as fiction rather than a documentary. In a critical review of the documentary, Barry Brook
Barry Brook (scientist)
Barry William Brook is an Australian scientist. He is a professor in the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Adelaide, where he holds the Sir Hubert Wilkins Chair of Climate Change. He is also Director of Climate Science at the Environment Institute. He has a B.Sc. and...
stated "Amongst the selected contrarian 'experts' Durkin has rallied to his cause, there are Tim Ball and Patrick Michaels (who also happen to deny that CFCs cause damage to the ozone layer), and Fred Singer and Richard Lindzen (who, in earlier incarnations, had been active denialists of the link between passive smoking and lung cancer, despite neither having any medical expertise)."
In the Czech Republic, President Václav Klaus
Václav Klaus
Václav Klaus is the second President of the Czech Republic and a former Prime Minister .An economist, he is co-founder of the Civic Democratic Party, the Czech Republic's largest center-right political party. Klaus is a eurosceptic, but he reluctantly endorsed the Lisbon treaty as president of...
addressed the audience of the first local release of the movie on 28 June 2007. He called the premiere a "meeting of supporters of reason against irrationality" and compared the warnings of scientists against global warming to Communist propaganda. According to Czech news, Klaus—an outspoken critic of scientific consensus on global warming—has been the first head of state to endorse this movie.
In March 2007, media analysis website Media Lens published a highly critical article about Durkin's film, describing the work as "wildly distorted propaganda".
In September 2008, Iain Stewart presented a documentary series The Climate Wars covering the climate change debate, during this program a clip from Durkin's film showing the link between solar activity and temperature was shown, noting 'it seems a convincing argument!'. The documentary then included data available at the time that could have been included, showing the correlation didn't hold true for this omitted and more recent data.
Reaction to DVD release
Thirty-seven climate scientists wrote a letter urging Martin DurkinMartin Durkin (television director)
Martin Durkin is a television producer and director, most prominently of television documentaries for Channel 4 in Britain. He is managing director of WAG TV, a London-based independent TV production company. He has produced, directed and executive-produced a wide variety of programmes covering...
to drop plans to release a DVD of the film. In the letter they say Durkin "misrepresented both the scientific evidence and the interpretations of researchers." Durkin said in response: "The reason they want to suppress The Great Global Warming Swindle is because the science has stung them".
He acknowledged two of the errors mentioned by the scientists—including the claim about volcanic emissions—but he described those changes as minor and said they would be corrected in the expanded DVD release.
In response to the call by these scientists not to market a DVD of the film, Times columnist Mick Hume
Mick Hume
Mick Hume is a British journalist and former organiser of the defunct Revolutionary Communist Party. He was raised in Woking and educated at Manchester University where he read American Studies...
, described environmentalism as a "new religion", saying "Scientists have become the equivalent of high priests in white coats, summoned to condemn heretics".
The DVD was released in the UK on 30 September 2007. Christopher Monckton
Christopher Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley
Christopher Walter Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley is a British politician, public speaker, former newspaper editor and hereditary peer. Formerly a member of the Conservative Party, Monckton has been the Head of the Policy Unit for the UK Independence Party since November 2010. He was...
, a prominent British global warming sceptic, is funding the distribution of the documentary in English schools as a riposte to Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth
An Inconvenient Truth
An Inconvenient Truth is a 2006 documentary film directed by Davis Guggenheim about former United States Vice President Al Gore's campaign to educate citizens about global warming via a comprehensive slide show that, by his own estimate, he has given more than a thousand times.Premiering at the...
, which is also being shown in schools.
Durkin's response to his critics
On 17 March 2007, The Daily Telegraph published a response by Durkin, "The global-warmers were bound to attack, but why are they so feeble?" In it, he rejected any criticism of the close correlation between solar variationSolar variation
Solar variation is the change in the amount of radiation emitted by the Sun and in its spectral distribution over years to millennia. These variations have periodic components, the main one being the approximately 11-year solar cycle . The changes also have aperiodic fluctuations...
and temperature change, saying that Friis-Christensen stood by his work, and that "No one any longer seriously disputes the link between solar activity and temperature in earth's climate history." He accepted that the time axis of one graph was incorrectly labelled when the programme was first transmitted, but said that this does not change his conclusions. Regarding the Carl Wunsch controversy (see above), he repeated that Wunsch was not duped into taking part in the programme. (Ofcom later ruled against Durkin on this point.)
Durkin went on to reject his opponents' position that the cooling period observed post Second World War was caused by sulphate aerosol cooling: "Thanks to China and the rest, SO2
Sulfur dioxide
Sulfur dioxide is the chemical compound with the formula . It is released by volcanoes and in various industrial processes. Since coal and petroleum often contain sulfur compounds, their combustion generates sulfur dioxide unless the sulfur compounds are removed before burning the fuel...
levels are far, far higher now than they were back then. Why isn't it perishing cold?" He concluded by saying that the "global warming alarm...is wrong, wrong, wrong."
Commenting at a Cannes film festival
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...
press conference on 17 April 2007, Durkin noted: "My name is absolute mud on the Internet; it's really vicious," adding "There is no good scientific basis for it but the theory continues to hold sway because so many people have built their careers and reputations on it."
The Armand Leroi correspondence
The TimesThe Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
reported that Durkin had seriously fallen out with a scientist who had been considering working with him. Armand Leroi, a geneticist, was concerned that Durkin had used data about a correlation between solar activity and global temperatures which had subsequently been found to be flawed. Leroi sent Durkin an e-mail in which he said that he thought the programme "made some good points (the politics of the IPCC
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a scientific intergovernmental body which provides comprehensive assessments of current scientific, technical and socio-economic information worldwide about the risk of climate change caused by human activity, its potential environmental and...
) and some bad points (anthropogenic global warming is a conspiracy to keep Africa underdeveloped)" but said what had most interested him was some of the scientific claims about solar activity and global temperature; he said he looked for citations of the 1991 Friis-Christensen scientific paper used in the programme.
While Leroi acknowledged "I am no climate scientist" he said that after reviewing criticisms of the paper, he had become convinced that: "To put this bluntly: the data that you showed in your programme were wrong–and may have been deliberately faked... it does show what abundant experience has already taught me–that, left to their own devices, TV producers simply cannot be trusted to tell the truth."
"
Leroi copied the e-mail to various colleagues including The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
journalist and Bad Science columnist Ben Goldacre
Ben Goldacre
Ben Michael Goldacre born 1974 is a British science writer, doctor and psychiatrist. He is the author of The Guardian newspaper's weekly Bad Science column and a book of the same title, published by Fourth Estate in September 2008....
and science writer and mathematics expert Simon Singh
Simon Singh
Simon Lehna Singh, MBE is a British author who has specialised in writing about mathematical and scientific topics in an accessible manner....
. Durkin replied to all with the single sentence: "You’re a big daft cock". Singh then sent an email to Durkin that said: "I have not paid the same attention to your programme as Armand has done, but from what I did see it is an irresponsible piece of film-making. If you can send me a copy of the programme then I will examine it in more detail and give you a more considered response...it would be great if you could engage in the debate rather just resorting to one line replies".
Durkin responded: "The IPCC's own figures show the hottest year in the past ten was 1998, and the temp has been flat-lining now for five years. If it's greenhouse gas causing the warming the rate of warming should be higher in the troposphere than on the surface. The opposite is the case. The ice core data shows that temperature change causes the level of atmospheric to change — not the other way round. Why have we not heard this in the hours and hours of shit programming on global warming shoved down our throats by the BBC?", and concluded with, "Never mind a bit of irresponsible film-making. Go and fuck yourself". Durkin later apologised for his language, saying that he had sent the e-mails when tired and had just finished making the programme, and that he was "eager to have all the science properly debated with scientists qualified in the right areas".
Ruling
In an 8400-word official judgement issued on 21 July 2008 the British media regulator OfcomOfcom
Ofcom is the government-approved regulatory authority for the broadcasting and telecommunications industries in the United Kingdom. Ofcom was initially established by the Office of Communications Act 2002. It received its full authority from the Communications Act 2003...
declared that the final part of the film dealing with the politics of climate change had broken rules on "due impartiality on matters of major political and industrial controversy and major matters relating to current public policy". Ofcom also backed complaints by Sir David King
David King (scientist)
Sir David Anthony King FRS is the Director of the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at the University of Oxford, Director of Research in Physical Chemistry at the University of Cambridge, Director of the Collegio Carlo Alberto, Chancellor of the University of Liverpool and a senior...
, stating that his views were misrepresented, and Carl Wunsch
Carl Wunsch
Carl Wunsch is the Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physical Oceanography at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is known for his early work in internal waves and more recently for research into the effects of ocean circulation on climate.- Career :Wunsch received his Ph. D. in...
, on the points that he had been misled as to its intent, and that the impression had been given that he agreed with the programme's position on climate change. Ofcom further ruled that the IPCC had not been given an adequate chance to respond to adverse claims that its work was politicised and that it had made misleading claims about malaria
Malaria
Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease of humans and other animals caused by eukaryotic protists of the genus Plasmodium. The disease results from the multiplication of Plasmodium parasites within red blood cells, causing symptoms that typically include fever and headache, in severe cases...
. However, the regulator said that because "the link between human activity and global warming... became settled before March 2007", in parts 1–4 the audience was not "materially misled so as to cause harm or offence". According to Ofcom the program caused no harm because "the discussion about the causes of global warming was to a very great extent settled by the date of broadcast", meaning that climate change was no longer a matter of political controversy.
Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
said in its defence against the complaints that The Great Global Warming Swindle "was clearly identified as an authored polemic of the kind that is characteristic of some of Channel 4’s output", and Ofcom said in its decision that it was "of paramount importance that broadcasters, such as Channel 4, continue to explore controversial subject matter". Ofcom declined to rule on the accuracy of the programme, saying: "It is not within Ofcom's remit or ability in this case as the regulator of the 'communications industry' to establish or seek to adjudicate on 'facts' such as whether global warming is a man-made phenomenon." It noted that it only regulates "misleading material where that material is likely to cause harm or offence" and "as a consequence, the requirement that content must not materially mislead the audience is necessarily a high test."
The regulator ruled that the parts of the programme about the scientific debate "were not matters of political or industrial controversy or matters relating to public policy and therefore the rules on due impartiality did not apply." In the fifth segment of the programme concerning the political controversy and public policy, however, Ofcom ruled that the programme-makers were "required to include an appropriate wide range of the significant views" but "failed to do this." Channel 4 was required to broadcast a summary of the Ofcom ruling but was given no further sanctions.
General responses
Robert WatsonRobert Watson (scientist)
Robert T. Watson is a British scientist who has worked on atmospheric science issues including ozone depletion, global warming and paleoclimatology since the 1980s.- Education and awards :...
, a former chair of the IPCC
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a scientific intergovernmental body which provides comprehensive assessments of current scientific, technical and socio-economic information worldwide about the risk of climate change caused by human activity, its potential environmental and...
, also welcomed Ofcom
Ofcom
Ofcom is the government-approved regulatory authority for the broadcasting and telecommunications industries in the United Kingdom. Ofcom was initially established by the Office of Communications Act 2002. It received its full authority from the Communications Act 2003...
's ruling that the film had committed a number of breaches of the broadcasting code but expressed disappointment "that Ofcom did not find that the programme materially misled the audience as to cause harm or offence." He characterised the film as inaccurate, not impartial, unbalanced and misrepresentative of the scientific consensus on climate change. Another former IPCC chair, Sir John Houghton
John T. Houghton
As co-chair of the IPCC, he defends the IPCC process, in particular against charges of failure to consider non-CO2 explanations of climate change. In evidence to, the Select Committee on Science and Technology in 2000 he said:...
, likewise commented that "it's very disappointing that Ofcom hasn't come up with a stronger statement about being misled." Bob Ward, the former head of media at the Royal Society
Royal Society
The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...
, who played a major role in coordinating objections to the film, asserted that "the programme has been let off the hook on a highly questionable technicality", noting that although the ruling acknowledged that "Channel 4 had admitted errors in the graphs and data used in the programme", the regulator had nonetheless "decided that this did not cause harm or offence to the audience."
Rajendra K. Pachauri
Rajendra K. Pachauri
Rajendra Kumar Pachauri has served as the chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change since 2002, during which his tenure has engendered controversy. He is also been director general of TERI, a research and policy organization in India, and chancellor of TERI University...
, the current chair of the IPCC, welcomed the ruling as "a vindication of the credibility and standing of the IPCC and the manner in which we function, and [it] clearly brings out the distortion in whatever Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
was trying to project." The Royal Society's head, Lord Rees
Martin Rees, Baron Rees of Ludlow
Martin John Rees, Baron Rees of Ludlow, OM, FRS is a British cosmologist and astrophysicist. He has been Astronomer Royal since 1995 and Master of Trinity College, Cambridge since 2004...
, issued a statement in response to the ruling, commenting: "TV companies occasionally commission programmes just to court controversy, but to misrepresent the evidence on an issue as important as global warming was surely irresponsible. 'The Great Global Warming Swindle' was itself a swindle. The programme makers misrepresented the science, the views of some of the scientists featured in the programme and the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change."
Channel Four's response
The ruling was welcomed by Channel 4's Head of Documentaries, Hamish Mykura who commissioned the film stating the channel was "pleased" that Ofcom found the film did not "materially mislead the audience."When questioned by television industry e-zine C21 about Ofcom's finding against the channel Mykura said:
It has scrutinised the documentary in great detail over 16 months. Any film scrutinised for that long would have revealed some factual inaccuracies, but crucially, it's said that what it found was not of a significant magnitude to materially mislead the viewer. It said that there were some things that weren't right, but ultimately it has exonerated us.
While he said that he regretted that 'there were some breaches of the code' he said there was 'a degree' to which he disagreed with the complaints they upheld:
On the complaint from Sir David King, there was a quote by a contributor in the film that was wrong, which he had wrongly picked up from someone else and was quoting. On the second point regarding the IPCC, Ofcom decided that we didn't give it enough time to respond to the allegations presented. We gave them 10 days, so you can decide as to whether you feel that's enough time. And on the complaint from Carl Wunsch, he complained that we hadn't made it significantly clear he would be appearing on a polemic climate change programme. But we told him we were going to explore the issues of the counter argument to global warming and he got the same letter as everyone else, and no-one else claimed they didn't know what they'd be appearing on.
Awards and recognition
- Shortlisted in the Best Documentary category in the British television industry's 2008 Broadcast awards.
- Best Documentary at the Io Isabella International Film WeekIo Isabella International Film Weekis the first film festival in the south of Italy, and the second in Italy, devoted to Women and Documentary. It spotlights the work by and about women and Creative Documentary...
held in southern Italy. - Jury's Special Mention for courageous contribution to the scientific dialogue and for the quality of cinematography in the 3rd International Science Film Festival Awards 2008 held in Athens.
Contributors to the programme
The film includes appearances from the following individuals:- Syun-Ichi AkasofuSyun-Ichi Akasofuis the Founding Director of the International Arctic Research Center of the University of Alaska Fairbanks , serving in that position from the center's establishment in 1998 until January 2007. Previously he had been director of the university's Geophysical Institute from 1986.-Background:Akasofu...
– Professor and Director, International Arctic Research CenterInternational Arctic Research CenterThe International Arctic Research Center, or IARC, established in 1999, is a research institution focused on integrating and coordinating study of climate change in the Arctic. The primary partners in IARC are Japan and the United States... - Tim Ball – Head of the Natural Resources Stewardship ProjectNatural Resources Stewardship ProjectThe Natural Resources Stewardship Project is a Canadian non-profit organization that presents itself as undertaking "a proactive grassroots campaign to counter the Kyoto Protocol and other greenhouse gas reduction schemes while promoting sensible climate change policy." The group was founded in...
(Misidentified in the film as Professor from the Department of Climatology, University of WinnipegUniversity of WinnipegThe University of Winnipeg is a public university in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada that offers undergraduate faculties of art, business and economics, education, science and theology as well as graduate programs. The U of W's founding colleges were Manitoba College and Wesley College, which merged...
. Ball left his faculty position in the Department of Geography in 1996; the University of Winnipeg has never had a Department of Climatology.) - Nigel CalderNigel CalderNigel Calder is a British science writer.Between 1956 and 1966, Calder wrote for the magazine New Scientist, serving as editor from 1962 until 1966...
– Former Editor, New ScientistNew ScientistNew Scientist is a weekly non-peer-reviewed English-language international science magazine, which since 1996 has also run a website, covering recent developments in science and technology for a general audience. Founded in 1956, it is published by Reed Business Information Ltd, a subsidiary of...
from 1962 to 1966 - John ChristyJohn ChristyJohn R. Christy is a climate scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville whose chief interests are satellite remote sensing of global climate and global climate change. He is best known, jointly with Roy Spencer, for the first successful development of a satellite temperature...
– Professor, Department of Atmospheric Science, University of Alabama in HuntsvilleUniversity of Alabama in HuntsvilleThe University of Alabama in Huntsville is a state-supported, public, coeducational research university, located in Huntsville, Alabama, United States, is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools to award baccalaureate, master's and doctoral degrees, and is organized in five...
and a Lead Author of Chapter 2 of the IPCCIntergovernmental Panel on Climate ChangeThe Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a scientific intergovernmental body which provides comprehensive assessments of current scientific, technical and socio-economic information worldwide about the risk of climate change caused by human activity, its potential environmental and...
Third Assessment Report (Credited in the film as 'Lead Author, IPCC') - Ian Clark – Professor, Department of Earth Sciences, University of OttawaUniversity of OttawaThe University of Ottawa is a bilingual, research-intensive, non-denominational, international university in Ottawa, Ontario. It is one of the oldest universities in Canada. It was originally established as the College of Bytown in 1848 by the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate...
- Piers CorbynPiers CorbynPiers Richard Corbyn is a meteorologist, astrophysicist, consultant, and owner of the business Weather Action which makes weather forecasts up to a year in advance, and which he also bets on.-Personal life:...
– Weather Forecaster, Weather Action - Paul DriessenPaul Driessen (author)-Biography:Driessen received his bachelor's degree in geology and field ecology from Lawrence University, JD from the University of Denver College of Law, and accreditation in public relations from the Public Relations Society of America....
– Author: Eco-Imperialism: Green Power, Black DeathEco-Imperialism: Green Power, Black DeathEco-Imperialism: Green Power, Black Death is a 2003 book written by Paul Driessen.In the book Driessen introduces the idea of eco-imperialism as the forceful imposition of western environmental views on developing countries to their detriment.... - Eigil Friis-ChristensenEigil Friis-ChristensenEigil Friis-Christensen is an expert in space physics, and Director of the Danish National Space Center.- Career :Friis-Christensen received a Magisterkonferens in Geophysics from University of Copenhagen in 1971. In 1972, he was a geophysicist at the Danish Meteorological Institute...
– Director, Danish National Space CenterDanish National Space CenterThe Danish National Space Center is a Danish sector research Institute and a part of the Danish Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation. It is located in Copenhagen at Østerbro...
and Adjunct Professor, University of Copenhagen (who has since criticised the programme for fabricating data and not fully explaining his position on 20th century global warming). - Nigel LawsonNigel LawsonNigel Lawson, Baron Lawson of Blaby, PC , is a British Conservative politician and journalist. He was a Member of Parliament representing the constituency of Blaby from 1974–92, and served as the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the government of Margaret Thatcher from June 1983 to October 1989...
– Former UK Chancellor of the ExchequerChancellor of the ExchequerThe Chancellor of the Exchequer is the title held by the British Cabinet minister who is responsible for all economic and financial matters. Often simply called the Chancellor, the office-holder controls HM Treasury and plays a role akin to the posts of Minister of Finance or Secretary of the... - Richard LindzenRichard LindzenRichard Siegmund Lindzen is an American atmospheric physicist and Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Lindzen is known for his work in the dynamics of the middle atmosphere, atmospheric tides and ozone photochemistry. He has published more than...
– Professor, Department of Meteorology, M.I.T. - Patrick MichaelsPatrick MichaelsPatrick J. Michaels is an American climatologist. Michaels is a senior research fellow for Research and Economic Development at George Mason University, and a senior fellow in environmental studies at the Cato Institute...
– Research Professor, Department of Environmental Sciences, University of VirginiaUniversity of VirginiaThe University of Virginia is a public research university located in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States, founded by Thomas Jefferson... - Patrick MoorePatrick Moore (environmentalist)Patrick Moore is a former environmental activist, known as one of the early members of Greenpeace, in which he was an activist from 1971 to 1986...
– Co-founder, GreenpeaceGreenpeaceGreenpeace is a non-governmental environmental organization with offices in over forty countries and with an international coordinating body in Amsterdam, The Netherlands... - Paul ReiterPaul ReiterPaul Reiter is a professor of medical entomology at the Pasteur Institute in the city of Paris , France. He is a member of the World Health Organization Expert Advisory Committee on Vector Biology and Control . He was an employee of the Center for Disease Control for 22 years . He is a Fellow...
– Professor, Department of Medical Entomology, Pasteur InstitutePasteur InstituteThe Pasteur Institute is a French non-profit private foundation dedicated to the study of biology, micro-organisms, diseases, and vaccines. It is named after Louis Pasteur, who made some of the greatest breakthroughs in modern medicine at the time, including pasteurization and vaccines for anthrax...
, Paris - Nir ShavivNir ShavivNir Joseph Shaviv is an Israeli/American physics professor, carrying out research in the fields of astrophysics and climate science. He is currently an associate professor at the Racah Institute of Physics of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem....
– Professor, Institute of Physics, Hebrew University of JerusalemHebrew University of JerusalemThe Hebrew University of Jerusalem ; ; abbreviated HUJI) is Israel's second-oldest university, after the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. The Hebrew University has three campuses in Jerusalem and one in Rehovot. The world's largest Jewish studies library is located on its Edmond J... - James ShikwatiJames ShikwatiJames Shikwati is a Kenyan libertarian economist and Director of the Inter Region Economic Network who promotes freedom of trade as the driving solution to poverty in Africa...
– Economist, Author, and CEO of The African Executive - Frederick SingerFred SingerSiegfried Fred Singer is an Austrian-born American physicist and emeritus professor of environmental science at the University of Virginia...
– Professor Emeritus, Department of Environmental Sciences, University of VirginiaUniversity of VirginiaThe University of Virginia is a public research university located in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States, founded by Thomas Jefferson...
(Misidentified in the film as Former Director, U.S. National Weather ServiceNational Weather ServiceThe National Weather Service , once known as the Weather Bureau, is one of the six scientific agencies that make up the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the United States government...
. From 1962–64 he was Director of the National Weather Satellite Service.) - Roy Spencer – Weather Satellite Team Leader, NASANASAThe National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
- Philip StottPhilip StottPhilip Stott is a professor emeritus of biogeography at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and a former editor of the Journal of Biogeography .-Background:...
– Professor Emeritus, Department of Biogeography, University of LondonUniversity of London-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the... - Carl WunschCarl WunschCarl Wunsch is the Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physical Oceanography at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is known for his early work in internal waves and more recently for research into the effects of ocean circulation on climate.- Career :Wunsch received his Ph. D. in...
– Professor, Department of Oceanography, M.I.T. (who has since repudiated the programme)
Related programmes and films
- Against Nature: An earlier controversial Channel 4Channel 4Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
programme made by Martin Durkin which was also critical of the environmental movement and was charged by the Independent Television Commission of the UK for misrepresenting and distorting the views of interviewees by selective editing. - An Inconvenient TruthAn Inconvenient TruthAn Inconvenient Truth is a 2006 documentary film directed by Davis Guggenheim about former United States Vice President Al Gore's campaign to educate citizens about global warming via a comprehensive slide show that, by his own estimate, he has given more than a thousand times.Premiering at the...
: A film that showcases Al Gore's presentation on global warming, arguing that humans are the primary cause of recent climate change. - The Greenhouse ConspiracyThe Greenhouse ConspiracyThe Greenhouse Conspiracy is a documentary film broadcast by Channel 4 in the United Kingdom on 12 August 1990, as part of the Equinox series, which criticised the theory of global warming and asserted that scientists critical of global warming theory were denied funding...
: An earlier Channel 4 documentary broadcast on 12 August 1990, as part of the EquinoxEquinox (television)Equinox was a long-running Channel 4 popular science and documentary programme. The series ran from 1986 to 2001, originally aired on a weekly basis....
series, in which similar claims were made. Three of the people interviewed (Lindzen, Michaels and Spencer) were also interviewed in the The Great Global Warming Swindle. - The Denial Machine – A 2007 Canadian Broadcasting CorporationCanadian Broadcasting CorporationThe Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly known as CBC and officially as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian crown corporation that serves as the national public radio and television broadcaster...
documentary "how fossil fuel corporations have kept the global warming debate alive long after most scientists believed that global warming was real and had potentially catastrophic consequences". Many interviewees from The Great Global Warming Swindle appeared in—and were the subject of—this film. - Doomsday Called Off: A 2005 Canadian Broadcasting Corporation expose raising many of the same criticisms of anthropogenic global warming. Included are interviews with several sources of information used, but not interviewed, in The Great Global Warming Swindle (among whom are Willie SoonWillie SoonWillie Wei-Hock Soon is an astrophysicist at the Solar and Stellar Physics Division of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Soon has testified before Congress on the issue of climate change He is known for his views that most global warming is caused by solar variation...
and Sallie BaliunasSallie BaliunasSallie Baliunas is an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in the Solar, Stellar, and Planetary Sciences Division and formerly Deputy Director of the Mount Wilson Observatory. She serves as Senior Scientist at the George C. Marshall Institute in Washington, DC, and...
).
International distribution
The documentary has been sold to Sweden's TV4, (who aired it in April 2007) Denmark's DR2DR2
DR2 is a Danish television station. It is part of Danmarks Radio, the public service broadcasting company of Denmark.It was launched in 1996 as a satellite-/cable-only channel. This was highly controversial at the time, as it was considered close to a breach of public service principles that the...
, Germany's RTL
RTL Television
Rtl.de' redirects here. For other uses, see RTL.RTL Television , or simply RTL, is a German commercial television station distributed via cable and satellite along with DVB-T , in larger population centres...
(on 11 June 2007) and n-TV
N-tv
n-tv is a German television news channel owned by the Bertelsmann AG Media's RTL Group and an affiliate network of CNN since the networks creation in 1992....
(on 7 July 2007), Finland's MTV3
MTV3
MTV3 is a Finnish commercial television station owned by Bonnier. It had the biggest audience share of all Finnish TV channels until Finnish Broadcasting Company’s YLE1 took the lead. The letters MTV stand for Mainos-TV , due to the channel getting its revenue from running commercials...
(on 7 October 2007) and Hong Kong's TVB Pearl
TVB Pearl
TVB Pearl is one of the two free television services in Hong Kong that mainly broadcast in the English language, the other being ATV World. It is owned and operated by Television Broadcasts Limited, and together with its sister Cantonese language station TVB Jade, is broadcast from TVB City at 77...
(on 16 November 2007). Negotiations are underway with the United States network ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
and France's TF1
TF1
TF1 is a national French TV channel, controlled by TF1 Group, whose major share-holder is Bouygues. TF1's average market share of 24% makes it the most popular domestic network...
.
A modified version (running time 55 minutes) of the documentary was shown in Germany. Many interviews were cut out, with others replaced by German speaking interview partners, and some claims were abandoned or changed. For example, the reference to Margaret Thatcher was replaced by the claim that Helmut Schmidt
Helmut Schmidt
Helmut Heinrich Waldemar Schmidt is a German Social Democratic politician who served as Chancellor of West Germany from 1974 to 1982. Prior to becoming chancellor, he had served as Minister of Defence and Minister of Finance. He had also served briefly as Minister of Economics and as acting...
promoted climate change to justify the construction of nuclear power plants in Germany. The programme on RTL was followed by a discussion roundtable.
A shortened version, excluding the interview with Carl Wunsch and claims about volcanoes, among other material, was shown by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly referred to as "the ABC" , is Australia's national public broadcaster...
on 12 July 2007. The Australian
The Australian
The Australian is a broadsheet newspaper published in Australia from Monday to Saturday each week since 14 July 1964. The editor in chief is Chris Mitchell, the editor is Clive Mathieson and the 'editor-at-large' is Paul Kelly....
reported that this was "against the advice of ABC science journalist Robyn Williams
Robyn Williams
Robyn Williams AM is a science journalist and broadcaster resident in Australia who has hosted the Science Show on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation since 1975, Ockham's Razor and In Conversation .-Background:Robyn Williams was born in Buckinghamshire, England, and educated in Vienna and...
, who instructed the ABC Television not to buy the program." Williams described the programme as "demonstrably wrong", and claimed that the ABC board had put pressure on ABC TV director Kim Dalton
Kim Dalton
Kim Dalton is an Australian born, Australian TV executive and the ABC's Director of Television since 2006.Dalton has worked in the Australian and international film and television industry since 1973 after graduating from the Flinders University Drama School. In 1978 he was awarded a Post Graduate...
for the programme to be shown. Dalton defended the decision, saying "[Durkin's] thesis is way outside the scientific mainstream. But that's no reason to keep his views away from audiences"
The broadcast was followed by an interview between Durkin and ABC reporter Tony Jones
Tony Jones (news journalist)
Anthony William Jones, known as Tony Jones, is a Walkley Award-winning Australian television journalist.-Early life:Jones attended Newington College and the University of Sydney as a resident of St Paul's College.-Career:...
, in which Jones challenged Durkin on a number of points, including the accuracy of graphs used in the program, criticism of the program's claims by climate scientists, its allegation of a conspiracy theory and the claims of misrepresentation by Carl Wunsch. This was followed by a panel discussion, including participation from a studio audience. Lateline
Lateline
Lateline is an Australian television news and current affairs program produced by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, airing weeknights at on ABC1. The program has developed a reputation for head-to-head debates on current issues and political interviews. Lateline is followed by its sister...
, which followed, included an interview with Wunsch. (See Carl Wunsch section for full details.)
New Zealand broadcast
A version of The Great Global Warming Swindle (edited by Durkin to remove errors) was broadcast in New Zealand on Prime TV, 8:40pm, 1 June 2008. Following the program there was an hour long panel discussion, moderated by Prime presenter Eric Young, including the following people:- Dr. David WrattDavid WrattDavid Wratt is the Chief Scientist at the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research and is responsible for NIWA's National Climate Centre. He has a PhD in atmospheric physics from the University of Canterbury. He has worked in the USA and Australia as well as New Zealand...
—NIWANational Institute of Water and Atmospheric ResearchThe National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research or NIWA , is a Crown Research Institute of New Zealand. Established in 1992, NIWA conducts commercial and non-commercial research across a broad range of disciplines in the environmental sciences...
General Manager - Leighton SmithLeighton Smith (radio)Leighton Smith is an Australian-born talkback radio host based in Auckland, New Zealand. He is on air, Monday to Friday, between 8:30 a.m...
—climate change sceptic and radio talkshow host - Dr. Wilholm De Lange—Senior Lecturer, Department of Earth & Ocean Sciences – University of WaikatoUniversity of WaikatoThe University of Waikato is located in Hamilton and Tauranga, New Zealand, and was established in 1964. It has strengths across a broad range of subject areas, particularly its degrees in Computer Science and in Management...
- Cindy Baxter—Greenpeace Climate change consultant
- Dr. Martin Manning—Professor and Research Fellow in Climate Change at the Victoria UniversityVictoria University of WellingtonVictoria University of Wellington was established in 1897 by Act of Parliament, and was a former constituent college of the University of New Zealand. It is particularly well known for its programmes in law, the humanities, and some scientific disciplines, but offers a broad range of other courses...
, Climate Change Research Institute
Manning and Wratt stated that the IPCC
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a scientific intergovernmental body which provides comprehensive assessments of current scientific, technical and socio-economic information worldwide about the risk of climate change caused by human activity, its potential environmental and...
reports represented the well documented consensus amongst the scientific community that climate change was a real phenomenon and that human activities, including emissions, were the most likely cause.
Smith disputed that there was evidence that caused temperature rises. He referred further science issues to de Lange. Smith made several references to the many scientists whose research and publications refuted the human causes of climate change, however no details were provided.
Baxter was supportive of the IPCC consensus. She reminded the group on several occasions that there were several known funding connections between the groups most vocal in raising doubts about and large industrial companies (such as ExxonMobil
ExxonMobil
Exxon Mobil Corporation or ExxonMobil, is an American multinational oil and gas corporation. It is a direct descendant of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil company, and was formed on November 30, 1999, by the merger of Exxon and Mobil. Its headquarters are in Irving, Texas...
).
At the end of the session, two different graphs were shown with more recent data than that used in The Great Global Warming Swindle.
See also
- The Cloud MysteryThe Cloud MysteryThe Cloud Mystery is a documentary by Danish director Lars Oxfeldt Mortensen. It explores a controversed theory by Danish scientist Henrik Svensmark on how galactic cosmic rays and solar activity may affect cloud cover, and how this might influence global warming...
- Global warming controversyGlobal warming controversyGlobal warming controversy refers to a variety of disputes, significantly more pronounced in the popular media than in the scientific literature, regarding the nature, causes, and consequences of global warming...
- Not Evil Just WrongNot Evil Just WrongNot Evil Just Wrong is a documentary film by Ann McElhinney and Phelim McAleer that challenges Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth by suggesting that the evidence of global warming is inconclusive and that the impact global-warming legislation will have on industry is much more harmful to humans than...
- Politics of global warmingPolitics of global warmingThe politics of global warming have involved corporate lobbying, funding of special interest groups and public relations campaigns by the oil and coal industries which have affected policy decisions and legislation worldwide...
- Scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming