Brits - Channel 4 9pm Tonight "The Great Global Warming Swindle"

[MOBIUS]

Originally posted by Oerdin
The director of that TV program also did a documentary that argued silicon breast implants actually decrease the risk of breast cancer. His scientific advisor eventually walked off the project because they were distorting and ignoring her research.

http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2007/3/6/8814/25388

The guy seems to have a history of distorting facts in order to sell more of his films/shows.

Why stop there Oerdin...

Climate change: An inconvenient truth... for C4

This Durkin geezer sounds like a successful film-making version of Spinkie...

[MOBIUS]

Oh sorry, I forgot, morons like Spikie and pals need to have stuff handed to you on a plate...

Climate change: An inconvenient truth... for C4
This expert in oceanography quoted in last week's debunking of the Gore green theory says he was 'seriously misrepresented'
By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor
Published: 11 March 2007

It was the television programme that set out to show that most of the world's climate scientists are misleading us when they say humanity is heating up the Earth by emitting carbon dioxide. And The Great Global Warming Swindle, screened by Channel 4 on Thursday night, convinced many viewers that it is indeed untrue that the gas is to blame for global warming.

But now the programme - and the channel - is facing a serious challenge to its own credibility after one of the most distinguished scientists that it featured said his views had been "grossly distorted" by the film, and made it clear that he believed human pollution did warm the climate.

Professor Carl Wunsch, professor of physical oceanography at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said he had been "completely misrepresented" by the programme, and "totally misled" on its content. He added that he is considering making a formal complaint.

A Channel 4 spokesman said: "The film was 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. If one of the contributors has concerns about his contribution we will look into that."

Any complaint would provoke a crisis at Channel 4, now recovering from the Jade Goody Big Brother storm. It had to make a rare public apology after the Independent Television Commission convicted previous programmes on environmental issues by the same film-maker, Martin Durkin, of similar offences - and is already facing questions on why it accepted another programme from him.

The commission found that the editing of interviews with four contributors to a series called Against Nature had "distorted or misrepresented their known views".

Professor Wunsch said: "I am angry because they completely misrepresented me. My views were distorted by the context in which they placed them. I was misled as to what it was going to be about. I was told about six months ago that this was to be a programme about how complicated it is to understand what is going on. If they had told me even the title of the programme, I would have absolutely refused to be on it. I am the one who has been swindled."

When told what the commission had found, he said: "That is what happened to me." He said he believes it is "an almost inescapable conclusion" that "if man adds excess CO2 to the atmosphere, the climate will warm".

He went on: "The movie was terrible propaganda. It is characteristic of propaganda that you take an area where there is legitimate dispute and you claim straight out that people who disagree with you are swindlers. That is what the film does in any area where some things are subject to argument."

Mr Durkin last night said that Professor Wunsch was "most certainly not duped into appearing into the programme" and that it "had not in any way misrepresented what he said".

Before the programme was shown, the IoS asked Channel 4 why it had commissioned another film from Mr Durkin and, further, whether it was making any special checks on its accuracy.

A spokesman said the programme made by Mr Durkin for which it had had to apologise was a decade old, adding: "We treat Martin as any other film-maker."

* David Cameron will tomorrow unveil three schemes to tax air travel in order to combat global warming. He is to consult on whether to impose VAT or fuel duty on domestic flights, institute a flight tax targeted at the most polluting engines, or to set up a "green miles scheme" to tax frequent flyers at a higher rate. The revenue raised would be used for tax cuts to help families.

The cold, hard facts about global warming

What do most scientists believe caused global warming?

The vast majority are convinced it is human emissions of carbon dioxide. It was established scientifically 180 years ago - and has never been seriously disputed - that natural levels of the gas given off by decaying vegetation and the oceans help to keep the Earth warm; without it, and other natural greenhouse gases, the planet would be some 20C colder and we would freeze. Adding even the so far relatively small amounts from human activities makes us warmer.

Has the world warmed before?

Yes, and big warmings over prehistoric times were not started by increasing CO2 levels; changes in solar activity are more likely. Levels of the gas started rising some 800 years into the warming, but then probably reinforced it, making it bigger and longer. Temperature and CO2 are interdependent; when one goes up the other follows. This time it is different because vast amounts of the gas are being artificially put into the atmosphere by humans.

What about more recent history?

There was a warm period in Europe in the Middle Ages, again probably caused by solar activity, but it does not seem to have been a worldwide phenomenon, although records are scanty.

So is the sun responsible now?

Some sceptics say so and probably it played the major role until quite recently. But over the past three decades, solar activity has scarcely risen, while temperatures have shot up - a fact disguised in the film. What has gone up is CO2 and even top sceptic Nigel Lawson admits it is "highly likely" that the gas has "played a significant part" in global warming this century.

[Gibsie]

Amusing combination of quotes from the two articles:

A spokesman said the programme made by Mr Durkin for which it had had to apologise was a decade old, adding: "We treat Martin as any other film-maker."

Controversial director Martin Durkin said: "You can see the problems with the science of global warming, but people just don't believe you - it's taken 10 years to get this commissioned.

No wonder!

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Heads up from Drudge.

NY TIMES PLANS TUESDAY HIT ON GORE, NEWSROOM SOURCES TELL DRUDGE: 'Scientists argue that Gore's warnings are full of exaggerated claims and startling errors'... Developing...

[Solly]

As usual the Independent distorts. Wunsch's actual thoughts are that climate science "remains incomplete".

Mobius, a question for you to think about. When should we act on information that is incomplete?

[Dis]

Originally posted by Oerdin
That's actually the official line the wingnuts have switched to now. Back in 2000 they denied that global warming existed at all but now science has conclusively shown that 1) Global warming is real and 2) humans are the main cause of it. Thus the wingnuts have switched to a new line; namely "OK, I guess global warming is real but... IT'S REALLY A GOOD THING!!!"

It's just more lies for the same people who have been lying since the start. They just delay and delay and delay even though they know they're wrong. The science is already in and the concensus is that human caused climate change is going to lead to increased desertification in the sub-tropics, higher sea levels, and large scale disruptions to the lives of people, animals, and economies. The short anwser, as the scientists agreed at the UN's recent conference on climate change, is that global warming is very, very, very bad.

of course it will be bad. No one in their right mind will say otherwise.

But you can't deny human nature. human nature is to be lazy and have the products of dead organisms power our daily lives. To impose restrictions on western countries and allow China and India to do their thing is just stupid. The left are just a bunch of self hating people with a guilt trip who want to lower our standard of living so we don't have to feel guilty about having it better than the rest of the world. **** that.

Nature is cruel. Deal with it.

words of wisdom. People ****ing die. Get over it. Humans and other organisms have been evolving and adapting from day1. They will adapt. If not, they will die. Desertification will serve to cap the total population anyways, and can be seen as a good thing.

I suppose this is a selfish attitude to live a life of luxery while we may be dooming future generations to eating slime and cockroaches because no other life can exist in the extreme heat, but I'll take my chances.

Humans are selfish creatures. If we don't use the resources, someone else will take them away from us and use them. We can't expect other nations to be "nice".

The planet is going down. Whining about the west's standard of living isn't going to do anything. What these rich scientists need to be doing is figuring out how we are going to surivive in a planet with higher temps. and how to correct it if we have a runaway greenhouse effect.

[Solly]

The UK has been around 1.5-2c above average for a good 9 months now, and we've actually seen below the usual in terms of destructive weather. GW seems to be quite benign in this neck of the woods that it has hit first.

[Dis]

Originally posted by Geronimo
Do any of you dogmatic GW-skeptics have a suggestion for how policy makers can deal with the uncertainty of climate change?

Do you all just assume that adverse anthropogenic climate change is practically impossible?

For some reason it appears that everybody either wants to immediately burn giant holes in our piggy banks with abominations like the Kyoto treaty or they are gw-skeptics dead set on ridiculing the very notion that a threat could exist at all, effectively sticking their heads in the sand.

I'm thinking we need to try to identify every low cost strategy we can use to reduce the magnitude of any possible anthropogenic influence on the climate.

For instance we could use policy to promote nuclear power and other alternatives to fossil fuel based power generation.

Isn't it worth while to try to concentrate on devising such a list of prudent policies that will do minimal harm if global warming is not a threat and yet will help to mitigate it's effects if it is?

I tend to agree. The solution is to invest heavily into real research and development. Talking about and trying to curtail certain human instincts is futile.

If need be we will have to learn to live in a higher temp environment with more desert, and less biodiversity. And deal with more hurricanes, flooding in low lying areas etc. We need to prepare for this now.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Oerdin


A more proper slang term for Green Peace types is ecoweeny or Green Nazi. Wingnuts refer only to right wingers.

You're full of ****, and you're leaking.

[One_more_turn]

Global temperature over the last 500 million years:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Phanerozoic_Climate_Change.png

Global temperature over the last 65 million years:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:65_Myr_Climate_Change.png

5 million years:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Five_Myr_Climate_Change.png

450 thousand years:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Ice_Age_Temperature.png

12000 years:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Holocene_Temperature_Variations.png

2000 years:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:2000_Year_Temperature_Comparison.png

It's definitely getting warmer.

[Drake Tungsten]

Good thing. According to those charts, we're living in one of the coldest periods in the earth's history...

[Dinner]

Originally posted by notyoueither


You're full of ****, and you're leaking.

Old man, you just haven't a clue.

1. wingnut
73 up, 36 down


n. An outspoken, irrational person with deeply-held, nominally conservative, political views. A person who chooses on principle to be flagrantly ignorant. A "right-wing nut".

Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and Fred Phelps are examples of the wingnut element in modern America.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=wingnut

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
Good thing. According to those charts, we're living in one of the coldest periods in the earth's history...

We've known that for several decades. When global warming alarmists talk of unprecedentedly high average global temperatures they mean unprecedented in the last few thousand years.

The earth was totally Ice free and much warmer for almost all of it's history than is the case today.

I think the trauma of the transition to such conditions would be ruinous but I also think in the long run such conditions might be more favorable to humanity.

Nobody really seems to be examining how favorable the ice free conditions would be once the painful transition was completed.

[Drake Tungsten]

I live a long way from the ocean and want Nebraska to get warm enough for ume to survive the winter. Bring on the global warming...

[Dis]

long as we don't have a runaway greenhouse effect...

conditions like on Venus could be a little tough on us.