excellent, thanks for posting that. Seems like it's getting hit hard.. 'this video is not available at the moment'.
Thing is... I'm starting to doubt the certainty of the (human-caused) global warming thesis myself. Up till this point I have taken people's word that it's happening and that the science is sound, and that no longer seems entirely justified. On the other hand, the opposition to the Global Warming hypothesis (see for example the FAQ page of the Science & Environmental Policy Project, which also declares that the ozone depletion due to CFCs is likely exaggerated) seems dubious as well. For example, the assertion on that page that in order to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 60-80% we would have to cut energy use by that same amount, and that this will "ruin our economies" This, you may recall, is the same rhetoric which Bush uses to oppose US ratification of the Kyoto protocol, and turns out to be the same as that which the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)'s Co-Vice President Yuri A. Izrael uses to
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yes, that one works fine, thanks (that's a hat-trick). I have just watched the documentary (07:00GMT, march 14th) and actually it wasn't 1.25 hours of rubbish. It may have manipulated some of the interviews and quotes, but it also pointed out what seem like some fairly likely truths, such as the now-huge vested interests in the Global Warming thesis. Some of the science might have been dodgy (and in fact now contradicted by improved studies) but the politics and social aspects may still be relevant. What was most interesting (and difficult to dispute) is the claim that that, following the collapse of communism in the CCCP in the mid 80s, many political activists moved into the environmental movement and learnt to cloak their 'neo-marxist views' in green words. This pair of poles, Global-warming questioners versus global warming proponents, and capitalists versus what was made out to be extreme communists, is pretty interesting but may have been overstated by the documentary. However, it comes up again in connection with the so-called
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thank you again, good article with plenty of references (some of which I'm checking). Without having seen it, it seems likely that that Channel 4 documentary is bad science... but that still doesn't imply that the opposite of its conclusions are correct
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It's a very amusing read - it shows the depth of cynicism of the documentary maker, Martin Durkin as he half-heartedly defends his decisions to use and even distort completely out-of-date graphs and data. I was shaking my head in disbelief when he tries to defend using a graph that appeared to show something that more accurate graphs simply wouldn't show by saying "The original Nasa data was very wiggly-lined and we wanted the simplest line we could find..."
I think some of the science in that program was definitely dubious and it's possible (can I say likely?) that the bias was intentional. Not all of the science was false though. Whether the science has to be dumbed down for the easy digestion of The Masses, and whether it can be dumbed down enough to be understandable without it losing its worth, is a different and harder question.
I think at the meta-level though, the examination of Global Warming as a political issue, as an industry, as an area of scientific investigation which has possibly been compromised by politics and money, holds more water. It was interesting, for example, to discover that An Inconvenient Truth had its own omissions and inaccuracies, such as avoiding the important point that the historical record of CO2 in the atmosphere seems to lag _behind_ global temperature changes, a point which I have not seen disputed. It is a great pity that a documentary which _justifiably_ investigated the possible over-hype of Global Warming, did not do a more scientific job.
This story in the Herald perhaps is the most balanced I've seen. Essentially, the interviewed scientists say that human-caused climate change is quite likely happening, but the coverage of it in the media (the "Hollywoodisation") has been grossly overinflated which only gives fuel to the 'skeptics'. This tends to agree with the sense I got from the examination of that documentary. Wunsch, for example, seems to have rejected the most extreme and scare-mongering statements of the 'The End of The World Is Nigh' faction, but apparently still supports the theory that humans are influencing the climate. See the end of that story, where several of the most mediapathic pieces of evidence are debunked.
Thing is... I'm starting to doubt the certainty of the (human-caused) global warming thesis myself. Up till this point I have taken people's word that it's happening and that the science is sound, and that no longer seems entirely justified. On the other hand, the opposition to the Global Warming hypothesis (see for example the FAQ page of the Science & Environmental Policy Project, which also declares that the ozone depletion due to CFCs is likely exaggerated) seems dubious as well. For example, the assertion on that page that in order to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 60-80% we would have to cut energy use by that same amount, and that this will "ruin our economies" This, you may recall, is the same rhetoric which Bush uses to oppose US ratification of the Kyoto protocol, and turns out to be the same as that which the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)'s Co-Vice President Yuri A. Izrael uses to ( ... )
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Try that link instead.
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http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2007/03/13/channel-4s-problem-with-science/
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http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/climate_change/article2355956.ece
It's a very amusing read - it shows the depth of cynicism of the documentary maker, Martin Durkin as he half-heartedly defends his decisions to use and even distort completely out-of-date graphs and data. I was shaking my head in disbelief when he tries to defend using a graph that appeared to show something that more accurate graphs simply wouldn't show by saying "The original Nasa data was very wiggly-lined and we wanted the simplest line we could find..."
Reply
I think at the meta-level though, the examination of Global Warming as a political issue, as an industry, as an area of scientific investigation which has possibly been compromised by politics and money, holds more water. It was interesting, for example, to discover that An Inconvenient Truth had its own omissions and inaccuracies, such as avoiding the important point that the historical record of CO2 in the atmosphere seems to lag _behind_ global temperature changes, a point which I have not seen disputed. It is a great pity that a documentary which _justifiably_ investigated the possible over-hype of Global Warming, did not do a more scientific job.
Reply
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