The Great Global Warming Swindle

[Nemesis6]

http://video.google.com/url?docid=-...windle&usg=AL29H22bAjPH6m8oC1tuRfGxhJ4Vtl_OTw

Produced by UK4(I think?), the movie goes on to illustrate how global warming is bullshit and how those who the theory of it threatened to silence through ostracization and actual death threats. Essentially, it's junk science. I hadn't taken a position on this before this, but this pretty much convinced me that it was bullshit. What about you?

 

[99.vikram]

For the time being I'll play safe and assume it's real. This video gave little in the way of hard facts, so I dont buy it.
(I'm not saying it is DEFINITELY real)

 

[Mechagodzilla]

The video is temporarily offline for whatever reason.

Could you summarize which parts of the video convinced you, given that it is a google video listed beside google videos saying the war on terror is a conspiracy and the kennedy assassination is a conspiracy and 9/11 is a conspiracy?

Burden of proof, man; I call bullshit. On a Nemesis post.

What else is new?

 

[ComradeBadger]

It was on Channel 4. It's a proper documentary

 

[Solaris]

Watch it here.

 

[CyberPitz]

Personally, I don't have a stance on Global Warming. I'll watch the video later today when I get home from work, but as of right now...I don't know.

 

[theotherguy]

Didn't we already have a couple of threads dedicated to this video?

EDIT: watching the video I am appalled at how these scientists can say that "co2 certainly never drove climate change in the past" Hello?? What about the mico-ecocene maximum? That was entirely driven by Co2. In fact, it was caused by a huge field of pete being exposed by falling sea levels which then burned for several years, releasing extreme amounts of Co2 into the air and causing a massive temperature change of 8 degrees globally.

 

[Absinthe]

Isn't there already a topic on this? And if so, wasn't it pretty much established that the maker of the film has a history of misleading and bullshiting both his viewers and interviewees?

 

[Mechagodzilla]

The fact that it was actually broadcast doesn't mean it's any more valid than the average clarkyism. Discovery channel inexplicably has daily prorgramming about ghosts and UFOs. Fox has done alien autopsy and moon landing hoax conspiracy documentaries.

The question is whether the actual arguments are compelling in the face of criticism, and so far I'm getting a conspiracy theory I can't even view, seemingly based on naught but anecdotes, plus a glowing endorsement from Nemesis "your points against me are valid but- hey look it's islam distraction! Yoink!" Six.

So the bullshit call stands.

Also, the Absinthe revelation is TOTALLY UNSURPRISING.

So now the question is whether the thread gets closed for breaking the rule against conspiracy theory google video bullpap. Any reason to keep this open?

 

[DaMaN]

Nope.

But I'm going to argue my point anyways

I mean, it's been established for over a hundred years that CO2 and other greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere cause the Earth to be warm. If it didn't, the Earth's temperature would be a whole lot lower and humans would have never evolved. This is caused the greenhouse effect.

It's also been scientifically established that there are more greenhouse gasses in the air now than there has been for a long time.

And finally, according to the IPCC, "Most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely (greater than 90% likely) due to the observed increase in anthropogenic (human) greenhouse gas concentrations".


So unless someone is willing to provide evidence that...
A) Greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere do not warm the Earth,
B) Recently there have not been large greenhouse gas emissions
or
C) Recent large greenhouse gas emissions are not caused by humans
...then there's not much else that can be discussed here.

 

[Sulkdodds]

I have not watched the documentary so can't really comment, but this link and this one would appear to be pertinent.

I would also say the thread shouldn't be closed as it is hosted by a major, generally respectable broadcasting company, albeit one which has said of the program: "It is essentially a polemic and we are expecting it to cause trouble."

If there are flaws in the argument of the film, or reasons to distrust it inherent in its conception, then they should be revealed in this thread rather than left to independent investigation after a hasty closure.

 

[DaMaN]

Hmm... I see your point Sulkdodds. I guess we should keep it open then...

 

[Direwolf]

As far as I can tell the reason that we keep seeing people on both sides of the debate citing stuff about how information is being suppressed is that it really does happen occasionally. But just because someone is unfairly trying to stop someone from publishing something doesn't mean that what they're publishing is the truth.

 

[SAJ]

I could go on for hours about how much bullshit was in this so-called "documentary" , but to save time and space I will let George Monbiot do the work as he has deconstructed the program as well as one could aleady.....
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2032361,00.html

The problem with The Great Global Warming Swindle, which caused a sensation when it was broadcast on Channel 4 last week, is that to make its case it relies not on future visionaries, but on people whose findings have already been proved wrong.

The film's main contention is that the current increase in global temperatures is caused not by rising greenhouse gases, but by changes in the activity of the sun. It is built around the discovery in 1991 by the Danish atmospheric physicist Dr Eigil Friis-Christensen that recent temperature variations on Earth are in "strikingly good agreement" with the length of the cycle of sunspots.

Unfortunately, he found nothing of the kind. A paper published in the journal Eos in 2004 reveals that the "agreement" was the result of "incorrect handling of the physical data". The real data for recent years show the opposite: that the length of the sunspot cycle has declined, while temperatures have risen. When this error was exposed, Friis-Christensen and his co-author published a new paper, purporting to produce similar results. But this too turned out to be an artefact of mistakes - in this case in their arithmetic.

So Friis-Christensen and another author developed yet another means of demonstrating that the sun is responsible, claiming to have discovered a remarkable agreement between cosmic radiation influenced by the sun and global cloud cover. This is the mechanism the film proposes for global warming. But, yet again, the method was exposed as faulty. They had been using satellite data which did not in fact measure global cloud cover. A paper in the Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics shows that, when the right data are used, a correlation is not found.

So the hypothesis changed again. Without acknowledging that his previous paper was wrong, Friis-Christensen's co-author, Henrik Svensmark, declared there was a correlation - not with total cloud cover but with "low cloud cover". This, too, turned out to be incorrect. Then, last year, Svensmark published a paper purporting to show cosmic rays could form tiny particles in the atmosphere. Accompanying the paper was a press release which went way beyond the findings reported in the paper, claiming it showed that both past and current climate events are the result of cosmic rays.

Sorry, but I have to post this part again. I really is damning...

The film's main contention is that the current increase in global temperatures is caused not by rising greenhouse gases, but by changes in the activity of the sun.... ...The real data for recent years show the opposite: that the length of the sunspot cycle has declined, while temperatures have risen. When this error was exposed, Friis-Christensen and his co-author published a new paper, purporting to produce similar results. But this too turned out to be an artefact of mistakes - in this case in their arithmetic....

So, in a nutshell , the film's main contention is shown to be based on an utterly disproven and discredited theory. And, what is worse is that the filmmaker himself was quite aware of that fact, and chose not to inform the audience

...The film also maintains that manmade global warming is disproved by conflicting temperature data. Professor John Christy speaks about the discrepancy he discovered between temperatures at the Earth's surface and temperatures in the troposphere (or lower atmosphere). But the programme fails to mention that in 2005 his data were proved wrong, by three papers in Science magazine.....
...Cherry-pick your results, choose work which is already discredited, and anything and everything becomes true. The twin towers were brought down by controlled explosions; MMR injections cause autism; homeopathy works; black people are less intelligent than white people; species came about through intelligent design. You can find lines of evidence which appear to support all these contentions, and, in most cases, professors who will speak up in their favour. But this does not mean that any of them are correct....
....But for the film's commissioners, all that counts is the sensation. Channel 4 has always had a problem with science. No one in its science unit appears to understand the difference between a peer-reviewed paper and a clipping from the Daily Mail. It keeps commissioning people whose claims have been discredited - such as Durkin. But its failure to understand the scientific process just makes the job of whipping up a storm that much easier. The less true a programme is, the greater the controversy.

Pretty much says it all, the commisioning editors can only have been motivated by profits for Channel four, as they were well aware that the filmmaker (who had produced films for them before) had a dodgy past to say the least.*

...But there is one scientist in the film whose work has not been debunked: the oceanographer Carl Wunsch. He appears to support the idea that increasing carbon dioxide is not responsible for rising global temperatures. Wunsch says he was "completely misrepresented" by the programme, and "totally misled" by the people who made it

Here is his letter of complaint, its long but I have highlighted the parts that will make the points...

Mr. Steven Green
Head of Production
Wag TV
2D Leroy House
436 Essex Road
London N1 3QP

10 March 2007

Dear Mr. Green:

I am writing to record what I told you on the telephone yesterday about your Channel 4 film "The Global Warming Swindle." Fundamentally, I am the one who was swindled---please read the email below that was sent to me (and re-sent by you). Based upon this email and subsequent telephone conversations, and discussions with the Director, Martin Durkin, I thought I was being asked to appear in a film that would discuss in a balanced way the complicated elements of understanding of climate change---in the best traditions of British television. Is there any indication in the email evident to an outsider that the product would be so tendentious, so unbalanced?

I was approached, as explained to me on the telephone, because I was known to have been unhappy with some of the more excitable climate-change stories in the British media, most conspicuously the notion that the Gulf Stream could disappear, among others. When a journalist approaches me suggesting a "critical approach" to a technical subject, as the email states, my inference is that we are to discuss which elements are contentious, why they are contentious, and what the arguments are on all sides. To a scientist, "critical" does not mean a hatchet job---it means a thorough-going examination of the science. The scientific subjects described in the email, and in the previous and subsequent telephone conversations, are complicated, worthy of exploration, debate, and an educational effort with the public. Hence my willingness to participate. Had the words "polemic", or "swindle" appeared in these preliminary discussions, I would have instantly declined to be involved.

I spent hours in the interview describing many of the problems of understanding the ocean in climate change, and the ways in which some of the more dramatic elements get exaggerated in the media relative to more realistic, potentially truly catastrophic issues, such as the implications of the oncoming sea level rise. As I made clear, both in the preliminary discussions, and in the interview itself, I believe that global warming is a very serious threat that needs equally serious discussion and no one seeing this film could possibly deduce that.

What we now have is an out-and-out propaganda piece, in which there is not even a gesture toward balance or explanation of why many of the extended inferences drawn in the film are not widely accepted by the scientific community. There are so many examples, it's hard to know where to begin, so I will cite only one: a speaker asserts, as is true, that carbon dioxide is only a small fraction of the atmospheric mass. The viewer is left to infer that means it couldn't really matter. But even a beginning meteorology student could tell you that the relative masses of gases are irrelevant to their effects on radiative balance. A director not intending to produce pure propaganda would have tried to eliminate that piece of disinformation.
An example where my own discussion was grossly distorted by context: I am shown explaining that a warming ocean could expel more carbon dioxide than it absorbs -- thus exacerbating the greenhouse gas buildup in the atmosphere and hence worrisome. It was used in the film, through its context, to imply that CO2 is all natural, coming from the ocean, and that therefore the human element is irrelevant. This use of my remarks, which are literally what I said, comes close to fraud.

I have some experience in dealing with TV and print reporters and do understand something of the ways in which one can be misquoted, quoted out of context, or otherwise misinterpreted. Some of that is inevitable in the press of time or space or in discussions of complicated issues. Never before, however, have I had an experience like this one. My appearance in the "Global Warming Swindle" is deeply embarrasing, and my professional reputation has been damaged. I was duped---an uncomfortable position in which to be.

At a minimum, I ask that the film should never be seen again publicly with my participation included. Channel 4 surely owes an apology to its viewers, and perhaps WAGTV owes something to Channel 4. I will be taking advice as to whether I should proceed to make some more formal protest.

Sincerely,

Carl Wunsch
Cecil and Ida Green Professor of
Physical Oceanography
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Its a shame that there will be plenty of people (as the OP has shown) who are stupid enough to be taken in by this garbage masquerading as information.


* Durkin, made a film for channel four which equated the green movement to nazi's. So many complaints about selective editing and misrepresentation of interviewees viewpoints were made, that Channel four were forced into making a public apology.

 

[Nemesis6]

Sorry but, weren't the IPCC the ones who themselves cut and pasted the parts they liked from scientists, and essentially ignored all points they didn't?

But I think this issue can be summed up like this when it comes to the social norm -

Kid - "Excuse me, my dad's a geologist, and he says there's no such thing as global warming."
Environmentalists, pushing the kids to prepare for "Earth Day" - "That's not true <does the Jedi mind trick thing with his hand> Global warming is going to kill us all."

The guys in the video said it: If you go against the current, as some might see this post as - You will be ostracized, and you will most likely not get any funding for ideas that prove the opposite of what the environmentalists say about global warming. For example, as one guy said - Do a report on the squirrels' nut-collecting in Sussex and guess how much funding you'll get for that. But involve global warming, and it's another story.

 

[SAJ]

Sorry but, weren't the IPCC the ones who themselves cut and pasted the parts they liked from scientists, and essentially ignored all points they didn't?

An assertion made in the film does not (as demonstrated) equal a fact.
I could say that in a hundred years the moon will turn to cheese, who can prove me wrong? No-one, doesnt make a fantasy into a fact though.

But I think this issue can be summed up like this when it comes to the social norm -

Kid - "Excuse me, my dad's a geologist, and he says there's no such thing as global warming."
Environmentalists, pushing the kids to prepare for "Earth Day" - "That's not true <does the Jedi mind trick thing with his hand> Global warming is going to kill us all."

Yeah, its all jedi mind tricks, uh-huh :rolling:

The guys in the video said it: If you go against the current, as some might see this post as - You will be ostracized, and you will most likely not get any funding for ideas that prove the opposite of what the environmentalists say about global warming. For example, as one guy said - Do a report on the squirrels' nut-collecting in Sussex and guess how much funding you'll get for that. But involve global warming, and it's another story

See point one.

 

[Sulkdodds]

Sorry but, weren't the IPCC the ones who themselves cut and pasted the parts they liked from scientists, and essentially ignored all points they didn't?

Source?

Kid - "Excuse me, my dad's a geologist, and he says there's no such thing as global warming."
Environmentalists, pushing the kids to prepare for "Earth Day" - "That's not true <does the Jedi mind trick thing with his hand> Global warming is going to kill us all."

Congratulations, this bears no relation to reality and says nothing meaningful. It's not even funny.

The guys in the video said it: If you go against the current, as some might see this post as - You will be ostracized, and you will most likely not get any funding for ideas that prove the opposite of what the environmentalists say about global warming.

I don't buy it. The fact that this documentary even exists and is so widely accepted as credible (regardless of its truthfulness) is indicative of widespread disagreement regarding global warming. To use anecdotal evidence: I and almost everyone I know have found it very difficult to get an overview of the subject because of the mass of conflicting opinions, many of which are utter and complete bullshit and/or clearly biased.

Any "ostrasizing" going on in this thread appears to be based on the percieved failure of the film's argument.

The example of squirrels collecting nuts also bears little relevance to the matter of hand - that is something which has nothing to do with global warming, rather than something which attempts to contradict the villanous green fascists.

People like SAJ are providing detailed and credible sources.

You are providing trite examples and unsourced statements.

I'd like to remain neutral here as I haven't seen the documentary nor made my own detailed foray into the evidence, but quite frankly you're making it impossible.

 

[CptStern]

thanks SAJ for clarifying the issue ..most informative. Oh and Nemesis you really do have a tendecy to jump on a bandwagon ..especially if it's contrary to "liberal moonbat thinkspeak"

 

[Candy art]

what am I supposed to believe now lol?
TV says it's true..and other TV stations say its not true.


I'm so confused

 

[Absinthe]

You won't be ostracized for going against the current.

You'll be ostracized for being an idiot.

 

[Sulkdodds]

Not man-made? THIS IS ENVIRO-SPARTAAA!

*kicks Nemesis into pit*

 

[CptStern]

lol that made me ...lol

 

[SAJ]

what am I supposed to believe now lol?
TV says it's true..and other TV stations say its not true.


I'm so confused

You have the internet at your disposal, and(one assumes) a brain with which to utilise it.

You figure it out.

I dont take any of the credit for the rebuttal posted above, all of the work was done by the journalist George Monbiot.
I just quoted from his article as the alternative was hours of back tracking to find sources for everything.
If I get the time I will find more.

Here's some background on the programme's contributors(curtesy of.. http://www.climatedenial.org/ )

Make up your own minds from their track records. Here is a little more information on some of the people who appeared on the programme:

Fred Singer. Despite the caption on the programme, Singer has retired from the University of Virginia and has not had a single article accepted for any peer-reviewed scientific journal for 20 years. His main work has been as a hired gun for business interests to undermine scientific research on environmental and health matters. Before turning to climate change denial he has argued that CFCs do not cause ozone depletion and second hand smoke does not cause cancer (more? ). In 1990 he founded ?The Science and Environment Policy Project?, which aggressively contradicts climate science and has received direct funding from Exxon, Shell, Unocal and ARCO. Exxon is also among the funders ($20,000 in 1998 and 2000)

Patrick Michaels is the most prominent US climate change denier. In the programme he claimed ?I?ve never been paid a nickel by the old and gas companies? which is a curious claim. According to the US journalist Ross Gebspan Michaels has received direct funding from, among others German Coal Mining Association ($49,000), Edison Electric Institute ($15,000), and the Western Fuels Association ($63,000) an association of US coal producing interests (more?). The WFA is one of the most powerful forces in the US actively denying the basic science of climate change, funding, amongs other things, the Greening Earth Society which is directed by Patrick Michaels. Tom Wigley, one of the leading IPCC scientists, describes Michaels work as ?a catalog of misrepresentation and misinterpretation?. (More on Michaels?)

Philip Stott was captioned as a Professor at the University of London although he is retired and is therefore free of any academic accountability. Stott is a geographer by training and has no qualifications in climate science. Since retiring Stott has aimed to become Britain?s leading anti-green pundit dedicating himself to wittily criticizing rainforest campaigns (with Patrick Moore), advocating genetic engineering and claiming that ?global warming is the new fundamentalist religion.?

Patrick Moore is Stott?s Canadian equivalent. Since a very personal and painful falling out with Greenpeace in 1986 Moore has put his considerable campaigning energies into undermining environmentalists, especially his former friends and colleagues. Typical of his rhetoric was his claim in the programme that environmentalists were ?anti-human? and ?treat humans as scum?. Throughout the 1990s Moore worked as lead consultant for the British Columbian Timber Products Association undermining Greenpeace?s international campaign to protect old growth forest there. Whenever he has the chance he also makes strong public statements in favour of genetic engineering, nuclear power, logging the Amazon, and industrial fishing- all, strangely, lead campaigns for Greenpeace (more on Moore..)

Piers Corbyn has no academic status and his role in such programmes is to promote his own weather prediction business. He has steadfastly refused to ever subject his climatological theories to any form of external review or scrutiny.

Richard Lindzen. As a Professor of Meteorology at the credible Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Lindzen is by far the most reputable academic among the US climate deniers and, for this reason, he is heavily cited by sympathetic journalists such as Melanie Phillips and Michael Crichton. His arguments though are identical to the other deniers ? for example an article in the Wall Street Journal (June 11 2001) he claims that ?there is no consensus, unanimous or otherwise, about long-term climate trends or what causes them?.
He is strongly associated with the other people on the programme though co-authored reports, articles, conference appearances and co-signed statements.

Tim Ball was captioned as the University of Winnipeg. In fact he left in 1996 since when he has run political campaigns through two organisations he helped found: the Natural Resources Stewardship Project and the Friends of Science which, according to their websites aim to run ?a proactive grassroots campaign to counter the Kyoto Protocol?; and ?encourage and assist the Canadian Federal Government to re-evaluate the Kyoto Protocol?. Ian Clark is also on the board of the NRSP.

Already mentioned was Carl Wunsch

An example where my own discussion was grossly distorted by context: I am shown explaining that a warming ocean could expel more carbon dioxide than it absorbs -- thus exacerbating the greenhouse gas buildup in the atmosphere and hence worrisome. It was used in the film, through its context, to imply that CO2 is all natural, coming from the ocean, and that therefore the human element is irrelevant. This use of my remarks, which are literally what I said, comes close to fraud.

For the time being I would like to say this; If you are uncertain as to what to think about man-made global warming,(for whater reason) educate yourself.
Its not an ideological debate, it's a scientific one, the facts are out there -at your disposal- use them.

All you need to get a hold of the issue is a (very)basic understanding of chemistry and physics, and of course a desire to know something rather than be told something.

 

[ComradeBadger]

Just read this, I'm sure I've posted it to widespread apathy before. The CATO institute's report on Global Warming, written by the Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv15n2/reg15n2g.html

 

[KagePrototype]

Talk about it here:

http://www.halflife2.net/forums/showthread.php?t=121546