More Swindle...

Channel 4 comes under fire again in an article in the Independent about The Great Global Warming Swindle. But this time it is from Carl Wunsch - one of the scientists interviewed in the programme.

Those who saw the programme will have noticed the extensive editing that took place when the interviews were shown. Only a few sentences were shown at a time and I for one was left wondering what it was that these people said either side of the bits that were shown.

Professor Wunsch complains that he was mislead about the nature of the programme when he was originally approached by Channel 4 - and that far from suggesting that global warming is driven by natural rather than man-made emissions he was trying to say that as the world warms, natural effects - such as the warming of the oceans - can kick in and release vaste amounts of stored CO2 which will dwarf man made emissions. This is quite different to saying that man made emssions are not causing the problem.

Professor Wunsch goes on to say: "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."

The programme he says was "one-sided, anti-educational, and misleading. I took them (Channel 4) at face value - a great error."

So there you have it.

The Swindle Exposed

An article in todays' Independent analysies the flaws in the Channel4 documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle.

As mentioned in some of my previous posts, much of the data presented was either out of date, misrepresented, invented or just plain wrong. Important and well known explanations for certain variations to the climate patterns were not mentioned because they would have destroyed the programme maker's case. And the programme maker himself has now admitted under questioning from The Independent that some of the graphs shown were 'modified' to support his case. Channel4 - according to the article - seem now to be wanting to distance themselves from the documentary.

The programme maker in question has been repremanded before by the ITC. Now it seems that a number of influential people are on his tail. And no doubt the ITC will soon be on the case yet again. Hopefully this time his credibility will be destroyed once and for all and his career as a documentary maker will be well and truly over.

It's a shame Channel4 didn't distance themselves before they broadcast such dangerous rubbish to a gullible public. But then this isn't the only major cockup Channel4 have made in recent weeks is it...?

Swindled Again....

It was profoundly depressing to read some of the commentary about last night's Channel4 programme The Great Global Warming Swindle. Most people - it seems - are happy to accept anything they are told without question. Until you read Reasic's excellent blog where he not only points out that most of the evidence presented in the programme was faulty, but that the programme maker - Martin Durkin - himself has a bad history of misrepresenting evidence and inventing conspiracies:-

"Mr Durkin has often been accused of taking liberties with the facts. In 1997 he made a series for Channel 4 called “Against Nature”, which compared environmentalists with Nazis, conspiring against the world’s poor. No one would suggest that green claims should not be subjected to critical examination, but the people he interviewed were lied to about the contents of the programmes and given no chance to respond to the accusations the series made.

"The Independent Television Commission handed down one of the most damning verdicts it has ever reached: the programme makers “distorted by selective editing” the views of the interviewees and “misled” them about the “content and purpose of the programmes when they agreed to take part.” Channel 4 was forced to make a humiliating prime time apology. After the series was broadcast, I discovered that the assistant producer and several of its interviewees worked for the right-wing libertarian magazine masquerading as “Living Marxism”, which has just been successfully sued by ITN. All the arguments Against Nature made had been rehearsed in LM."

So there you have it - the great swindle was the programme itself .

The Great Channel 4 Swindle

Channel 4's so called documentary last night "The Great Global Warming Swindle" will hopefully come to be seen as another big mistake by the broadcaster. The programme was big on vox-pops from people with no credibility, short on evidence and big on conspiracy theories.

One of their keystone arguements was to point to the fact that the different levels of the atmosphere are not warming evenly - as the climate models suggest that they should - as an indicator that the current global warming is not due to greenhouse effects.

But spend a few minutes searching on the web and the original scientific data is readily available from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The real difficulty apparently was a discrepancy between data gathered by satelites and that gathered by weather balloons. The discrepancy has now been resolved and the layers of the atmosphere have been shown to be warming evenly and consistent with the climate models. This report was published in April 2006 - so exactly how the programme makers missed it when I found it within a few minutes is beyond belief.

Similarly they argued that changes in cloud formation were as a result of changes in cosmic radiation as the cloud droplets in the upper atmosphere are precipitated by cosmic rays. Problem: the cosmic radiation data is also readily available on the internet and it shows no increase during the period in question.

The assertion that Al Gore's data in "An Inconvenient Truth" showing the correlation between CO2 and global temperature was flawed because CO2 levels lag global temperature was also incorrect. This time lag is well known as the Milankovitch cycle and is indicative of a positive feedback effect whereby as the oceans warm they release CO2 thereby accelerating the warming. The reverse also happens as the climate cools.

The most objectionable assertion in the programme was that measures intended to reduce carbon emissions will have a deleterious effect on the world's poor by forcing them to rely on 'flakey' sources of electricity such as solar. Far from it - anybody interested in plans to build massive solar infrastructure in Northern Africa should check out www.trec-uk.org.uk/index.htm. There is every reason to hope that the tropical deserts of North Africa will become one of the world's powerhouses - with the capacity to supply the world with electricity many times over.

Of course - most people won't bother checking the scientific data - or even know where to look. Channel 4 certainly didn't.

I'm not against people having different views and having intelligent debate. But there are are a dangerous number of people out there happy to sieze on programmes like the Channel 4 offering as an excuse for inaction and ammunition for creating doubt. What I am against is people blatently lying and producing false evidence - and a broadcaster who gives air time to such rubbish in the pursuit of ratings and dramatic programme billing.