The Great Global Warming Swindle Swindle
Hmmm. Last Thursday's film on Channel 4 : The Great Global Warming Swindle was interesting. What was most interesting about it was not why Channel 4 commissioned a contentious film made by Martin Durkin, whose previous films for Channel 4 "Against Nature" - were criticised by OFCOM because:
"Comparison of the unedited and edited interview transcripts confirmed that the editing of the interviews with these four contributors had indeed distorted or misrepresented their known views."
No, what was most interesting was the statement in the first minute that "it's not true". A statement that appears, on closer inspection, to not be referring to the scientific consensus on climate change, but, in a blinding flash of postmodernism - to the actual film itself. At least, that's the only conclusion I've been able to draw after watching it.
The problems with the film are legion. It's selective of the evidence it uses. It presents that evidence as if it were damming definitive evidence. But when you think about it or look a little closer - you realise that there are well known explanations for some of the problems the film suggests exist. For example the dip in global mean temperatures during the post-war boom period 1940-1970 - presented in the film as incompatible with the theory of anthropogenic climate change, can be attributed to changes in sulphate aerosols from increased industrial output, which have a net cooling effect. This fact is well known - and yet the film neglects to even mention it.
Even more concerning is that some of the claims it makes are clearly wrong. For instance, the film claims that CO2 emissions from volcanoes dwarf those of human emissions - this is simply not true. You don't see any spikes in the records of Atmospheric CO2 concentrations since the 1960's - yet there have been a number of very large eruptions since then. A good dissection and rebuttal of the points the film makes can be found here at realclimate.org. - a blog run by US climate scientists. Also by John Houghton, ex-director general of the UK Metoffice and first chair of the Scientific Assessment working group of the IPCC, has written a clear point by point rebuttal.
Not only is the film selective in its use of evidence, it's also clearly selective in it's editing. I have to admit that I was surprised to see Carl Wunsch being interviewed. Most of the other people are well know for their views that anthropogenic climate change is not occurring, I didn't think that he held the same views. Turns out that he doesn't and looks like he may have been misrepresented and conned into being in the film. He's Not happy about this.
It's a pity - there is a need for a good documentary to be made that intelligently represents the certainties and uncertainties in the study of Anthropogenic climate change. This film, unfortunately, isn't it.
"Comparison of the unedited and edited interview transcripts confirmed that the editing of the interviews with these four contributors had indeed distorted or misrepresented their known views."
No, what was most interesting was the statement in the first minute that "it's not true". A statement that appears, on closer inspection, to not be referring to the scientific consensus on climate change, but, in a blinding flash of postmodernism - to the actual film itself. At least, that's the only conclusion I've been able to draw after watching it.
The problems with the film are legion. It's selective of the evidence it uses. It presents that evidence as if it were damming definitive evidence. But when you think about it or look a little closer - you realise that there are well known explanations for some of the problems the film suggests exist. For example the dip in global mean temperatures during the post-war boom period 1940-1970 - presented in the film as incompatible with the theory of anthropogenic climate change, can be attributed to changes in sulphate aerosols from increased industrial output, which have a net cooling effect. This fact is well known - and yet the film neglects to even mention it.
Even more concerning is that some of the claims it makes are clearly wrong. For instance, the film claims that CO2 emissions from volcanoes dwarf those of human emissions - this is simply not true. You don't see any spikes in the records of Atmospheric CO2 concentrations since the 1960's - yet there have been a number of very large eruptions since then. A good dissection and rebuttal of the points the film makes can be found here at realclimate.org. - a blog run by US climate scientists. Also by John Houghton, ex-director general of the UK Metoffice and first chair of the Scientific Assessment working group of the IPCC, has written a clear point by point rebuttal.
Not only is the film selective in its use of evidence, it's also clearly selective in it's editing. I have to admit that I was surprised to see Carl Wunsch being interviewed. Most of the other people are well know for their views that anthropogenic climate change is not occurring, I didn't think that he held the same views. Turns out that he doesn't and looks like he may have been misrepresented and conned into being in the film. He's Not happy about this.
It's a pity - there is a need for a good documentary to be made that intelligently represents the certainties and uncertainties in the study of Anthropogenic climate change. This film, unfortunately, isn't it.