The following is the website of the British TV station that created the documentary film titled "The Great Global Warming Swindle". The site explains the film, it's statements and provides excellent graphics.
Peter
First shown on Channel 4 in March 2007This film by the documentary-maker Martin Durkin presents the arguments of scientists and commentators who don't believe that CO2 produced by human activity is the main cause of climate change.
It's a controversial film that was roundly attacked by some scientists and enthusiastically received by others, and the arguments it contains are an important part of the wider debate on the causes of climate change.
The film was shortlisted for the Best Documentary award at the 2008 Broadcast Awards.
The Programme
The Arguments
Watch the Trailer
Your Questions & Answers
Vote
Play the Quiz
Find Out More
Forum
Showing posts with label The Great Global Warming Swindle. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Great Global Warming Swindle. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
"The Great Global Warming Swindle" on DVD
New from JunkScience.com:
The Great Global Warming Swindle...
is now available on DVD -- only at the
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The Great Global Warming Swindle...
is now available on DVD -- only at the
DemandDebate.com Store! Supplies
are limited. Get your copy while they last!
Monday, August 27, 2007
Important News......
New from JunkScience.com:
Great Global Warming Swindle Now Available on DVD!
'The Great Global Warming Swindle' is now available on DVD at the DemandDebate.com Store. It's not available anywhere else.
Click here to get it now!
Great Global Warming Swindle Now Available on DVD!
'The Great Global Warming Swindle' is now available on DVD at the DemandDebate.com Store. It's not available anywhere else.
Click here to get it now!
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Professor Carl Wunsch And "The Great Global Warming Swindle"
This is from Dr. Carl Wunsch, Professor at MIT in response to his appearance and statements in the British documentary film "The Great Global Warming Swindle." One can only wonder how much grief Dr. Wunsch received from opponents to his view. My personal opinion is that he sounds frightened and angry. He has obviously been severely chastised for daring to question how much faith we should put in predictions of future climate change. You would think he denied the existence of God, or Mom, The Flag, and apple pie.
I agree with much of what he says and I believe that his comments were taken out of context. However, he should have known better. It is unfortunate when people's public comments are taken out of context and "spun" for political reasons. A master at this distortion is that "great" documentary film-maker Michael Moore. Al Gore is pretty good at "spinning" a tall tale as well.
I also think we need to take these kinds of "documentaries" with a great deal of skepticism, whichever side of the political or ideological spectrum they originate from. I feel a bit sorry for Dr. Wunsch. You can be certain that in the future, if he speaks out at all, he will be very, very careful about what he says. One can only question global warming at great peril.
Peter
from: http://ocean.mit.edu/~cwunsch/CHANNEL4.html
Partial Response to the London Channel 4 Film "The Great Global Warming Swindle"
Carl Wunsch 11 March 2007
I believe that climate change is real, a major threat, and almost surely has a major human-induced component. But I have tried to stay out of the climate wars because all nuance tends to be lost, and the distinction between what we know firmly, as scientists, and what we suspect is happening, is so difficult to maintain in the presence of rhetorical excess. In the long run, our credibility as scientists rests on being very careful of, and protective of, our authority and expertise.
The science of climate change remains incomplete. Some elements are based so firmly on well-understood principles, or on such clear observational records, that most scientists would agree that they are almost surely true (adding CO2 to the atmosphere is dangerous; sea level will continue to rise,...). Other elements remain more uncertain, but we as scientists in our roles as informed citizens believe society should be deeply concerned about their possibility: a mid-western US megadrought in 100 years; melting of a large part of the Greenland ice sheet, among many other examples.
I am on record in a number of places as complaining about the over-dramatization and unwarranted extrapolation of scientific facts. Thus the notion that the Gulf Stream would or could "shut off" or that with global warming Britain would go into a "new ice age" are either scientifically impossible or so unlikely as to threaten our credibility as a scientific discipline if we proclaim their reality. They also are huge distractions from more immediate and realistic threats. I've focused more on the extreme claims in the literature warning of coming catastrophe, both because I regard the scientists there as more serious, and because I am very sympathetic to the goals of those who sometimes seem, however, to be confusing their specific scientific knowledge with their worries about the future.
When approached by WagTV, on behalf of Channel 4, known to me as one of the main UK independent broadcasters, I was led to believe that I would be given an opportunity to explain why I, like some others, find the statements at both extremes of the global change debate distasteful. I am, after all a teacher, and this seemed like a good opportunity to explain why, for example, I thought more attention should be paid to sea level rise, which is ongoing and unstoppable and carries a real threat of acceleration, than to the unsupportable claims that the ocean circulation was undergoing shutdown (Nature, December 2005).
I wanted to explain why observing the ocean was so difficult, and why it is so tricky to predict with any degree of confidence such important climate elements as its heat and carbon storage and transports in 10 or 100 years. I am distrustful of prediction scenarios for details of the ocean circulation that rely on extremely complicated coupled models that must run unconstrained by observations for decades to thousands of years. The science is not sufficiently mature to say which of the many complex elements of such forecasts are skillful.
Nonetheless, and contrary to the impression given in the film, I firmly believe there is a great deal about the mechanisms of climate to be learned from models. With effort, all of this ambiguity is explicable to the public.
In the part of the "Swindle" film 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.
Many of us feel an obligation to talk to the media---it's part of our role as scientists, citizens, and educators. The subjects are complicated, and it is easy to be misquoted or quoted out context. My experience in the past is that these things do happen, but usually inadvertently---most reporters really do want to get it right.
Channel 4 now says they were making a film in a series of "polemics". There is nothing in the communication we had (much of it on the telephone or with the film crew on the day they were in Boston) that suggested they were making a film that was one-sided, anti-educational, and misleading. I took them at face value---a great error. I knew I had no control over the actual content, but it never occurred to me that I was dealing with people who would deliberately distort my views.
The letter I sent them as soon as I heard about the actual program is below.
As a society, we need to take out insurance against catastrophe in the same way we take out homeowner's protection against fire. I buy fire insurance, but I also take the precaution of having the wiring in the house checked, keeping the heating system up to date, etc., all the while hoping that I won't need the insurance. Will any of these precautions work? Unexpected things still happen (lightning strike? plumber's torch igniting the woodwork?). How large a fire insurance premium is it worth paying? How much is it worth paying for rewiring the house? $10,000, but perhaps not $100,000? Answers, even at this mundane level, are not obvious.
How much is it worth to society to restrain CO2 emissions---will that guarantee protection against global warming? Is it sensible to subsidize insurance for people who wish to build in regions strongly susceptible to coastal flooding? These and others are truly complicated questions where often the science is not mature enough give definitive answers, much as we would like to be able to provide them. Scientifically, we can recognize the reality of the threat, and much of what society needs to insure against. Statements of concern do not need to imply that we have all the answers. Channel 4 had an opportunity to elucidate some of this ambiguity and complexity. The outcome is sad.
I am often asked about Al Gore and his film. I don't know Gore, but he strikes me as a very intelligent man who is seriously concerned about what global change will mean for the world. He is a lawyer/politician, not a scientist, who has clearly worked hard to master a very complicated subject and to convey his worries to the public. Some of the details in the film make me cringe, but I think the overall thrust is appropriate. To the extent that he has gotten some things wrong, I mainly fault his scientific advisers, who should know better, but not Al Gore.
In general, good scientists (unlike lawyers) are meant to keep in mind at all times that conceivably they are wrong. There is a very wide spectrum of scientific knowledge ranging from the almost certain, e.g. that the sun will indeed rise tomorrow, or that no physical object can move faster than the speed of light; to inferences that seem very plausible but for which one can more readily imagine ways in which they might prove incorrect (e.g., that melting of the Greenland ice cap means that sea level will rise); to fiercely disputed ideas (e.g., that variations in the North Atlantic circulation directly control the climate of the northern hemisphere). Most of us draw conclusions that seem to us the most compelling, but try hard to maintain an open mind about counter arguments or new observations that could prove us wrong. Reducing the extremely complicated discussion of future climate change to the cartoon level we see on both extremes is somewhat like making public policy on the basis of a Batman movie.
I agree with much of what he says and I believe that his comments were taken out of context. However, he should have known better. It is unfortunate when people's public comments are taken out of context and "spun" for political reasons. A master at this distortion is that "great" documentary film-maker Michael Moore. Al Gore is pretty good at "spinning" a tall tale as well.
I also think we need to take these kinds of "documentaries" with a great deal of skepticism, whichever side of the political or ideological spectrum they originate from. I feel a bit sorry for Dr. Wunsch. You can be certain that in the future, if he speaks out at all, he will be very, very careful about what he says. One can only question global warming at great peril.
Peter
from: http://ocean.mit.edu/~cwunsch/CHANNEL4.html
Partial Response to the London Channel 4 Film "The Great Global Warming Swindle"
Carl Wunsch 11 March 2007
I believe that climate change is real, a major threat, and almost surely has a major human-induced component. But I have tried to stay out of the climate wars because all nuance tends to be lost, and the distinction between what we know firmly, as scientists, and what we suspect is happening, is so difficult to maintain in the presence of rhetorical excess. In the long run, our credibility as scientists rests on being very careful of, and protective of, our authority and expertise.
The science of climate change remains incomplete. Some elements are based so firmly on well-understood principles, or on such clear observational records, that most scientists would agree that they are almost surely true (adding CO2 to the atmosphere is dangerous; sea level will continue to rise,...). Other elements remain more uncertain, but we as scientists in our roles as informed citizens believe society should be deeply concerned about their possibility: a mid-western US megadrought in 100 years; melting of a large part of the Greenland ice sheet, among many other examples.
I am on record in a number of places as complaining about the over-dramatization and unwarranted extrapolation of scientific facts. Thus the notion that the Gulf Stream would or could "shut off" or that with global warming Britain would go into a "new ice age" are either scientifically impossible or so unlikely as to threaten our credibility as a scientific discipline if we proclaim their reality. They also are huge distractions from more immediate and realistic threats. I've focused more on the extreme claims in the literature warning of coming catastrophe, both because I regard the scientists there as more serious, and because I am very sympathetic to the goals of those who sometimes seem, however, to be confusing their specific scientific knowledge with their worries about the future.
When approached by WagTV, on behalf of Channel 4, known to me as one of the main UK independent broadcasters, I was led to believe that I would be given an opportunity to explain why I, like some others, find the statements at both extremes of the global change debate distasteful. I am, after all a teacher, and this seemed like a good opportunity to explain why, for example, I thought more attention should be paid to sea level rise, which is ongoing and unstoppable and carries a real threat of acceleration, than to the unsupportable claims that the ocean circulation was undergoing shutdown (Nature, December 2005).
I wanted to explain why observing the ocean was so difficult, and why it is so tricky to predict with any degree of confidence such important climate elements as its heat and carbon storage and transports in 10 or 100 years. I am distrustful of prediction scenarios for details of the ocean circulation that rely on extremely complicated coupled models that must run unconstrained by observations for decades to thousands of years. The science is not sufficiently mature to say which of the many complex elements of such forecasts are skillful.
Nonetheless, and contrary to the impression given in the film, I firmly believe there is a great deal about the mechanisms of climate to be learned from models. With effort, all of this ambiguity is explicable to the public.
In the part of the "Swindle" film 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.
Many of us feel an obligation to talk to the media---it's part of our role as scientists, citizens, and educators. The subjects are complicated, and it is easy to be misquoted or quoted out context. My experience in the past is that these things do happen, but usually inadvertently---most reporters really do want to get it right.
Channel 4 now says they were making a film in a series of "polemics". There is nothing in the communication we had (much of it on the telephone or with the film crew on the day they were in Boston) that suggested they were making a film that was one-sided, anti-educational, and misleading. I took them at face value---a great error. I knew I had no control over the actual content, but it never occurred to me that I was dealing with people who would deliberately distort my views.
The letter I sent them as soon as I heard about the actual program is below.
As a society, we need to take out insurance against catastrophe in the same way we take out homeowner's protection against fire. I buy fire insurance, but I also take the precaution of having the wiring in the house checked, keeping the heating system up to date, etc., all the while hoping that I won't need the insurance. Will any of these precautions work? Unexpected things still happen (lightning strike? plumber's torch igniting the woodwork?). How large a fire insurance premium is it worth paying? How much is it worth paying for rewiring the house? $10,000, but perhaps not $100,000? Answers, even at this mundane level, are not obvious.
How much is it worth to society to restrain CO2 emissions---will that guarantee protection against global warming? Is it sensible to subsidize insurance for people who wish to build in regions strongly susceptible to coastal flooding? These and others are truly complicated questions where often the science is not mature enough give definitive answers, much as we would like to be able to provide them. Scientifically, we can recognize the reality of the threat, and much of what society needs to insure against. Statements of concern do not need to imply that we have all the answers. Channel 4 had an opportunity to elucidate some of this ambiguity and complexity. The outcome is sad.
I am often asked about Al Gore and his film. I don't know Gore, but he strikes me as a very intelligent man who is seriously concerned about what global change will mean for the world. He is a lawyer/politician, not a scientist, who has clearly worked hard to master a very complicated subject and to convey his worries to the public. Some of the details in the film make me cringe, but I think the overall thrust is appropriate. To the extent that he has gotten some things wrong, I mainly fault his scientific advisers, who should know better, but not Al Gore.
In general, good scientists (unlike lawyers) are meant to keep in mind at all times that conceivably they are wrong. There is a very wide spectrum of scientific knowledge ranging from the almost certain, e.g. that the sun will indeed rise tomorrow, or that no physical object can move faster than the speed of light; to inferences that seem very plausible but for which one can more readily imagine ways in which they might prove incorrect (e.g., that melting of the Greenland ice cap means that sea level will rise); to fiercely disputed ideas (e.g., that variations in the North Atlantic circulation directly control the climate of the northern hemisphere). Most of us draw conclusions that seem to us the most compelling, but try hard to maintain an open mind about counter arguments or new observations that could prove us wrong. Reducing the extremely complicated discussion of future climate change to the cartoon level we see on both extremes is somewhat like making public policy on the basis of a Batman movie.
Sunday, June 10, 2007
The Great Global Warming Swindle- homepage
This material comes from the website of the company that made the documentary film titled "The Great Global Warming Swindle". You can see it all here:
http://www.greatglobalwarmingswindle.co.uk/index.html
Peter
The Great Global Warming Swindle
A DVD of the film, The Great Global Warming Swindle, will be available from mid July (despite the strenuous efforts of those who support the theory of global warming to prevent its release). The DVD is an expanded and improved version of the film broadcast in the UK on Channel Four. More interview material has been added, covering a broader range of subjects than was possible in the broadcast film.
However, we urge those interested in hearing the case against the theory of man made global warming to dig deeper. The main purpose of this site is to point people towards key scientific papers, books and other relevant material.
We have received literally thousands of emails from scientists and others expressing their support and encouragement. These emails are also often very useful, steering us towards new studies in different areas. Please keep sending them.
The email address is: gw@wagtv.com
The general reaction to the film has been overwhelming and enormously encouraging. As Channel Four reported in Broadcast magazine, they received a record number of phone calls following the first transmission. They calculated that the calls were 6 to 1 in support of the film.
It would be nice to claim that the explosion of interest was due to the film itself, but the fuss started even before the film was broadcast. The reason, we suspect, is that the coverage of ‘global warming’, on TV, radio and in the press, has been so one-sided and uncritical. In Britain, hours and hours of programmes have been broadcast by the BBC on the subject, much of it scientifically absurd. The very fact that a science documentary dared to challenge the orthodoxy was itself news.
Why? Why have journalists been so craven or biased? How has a theory which demonstrably lacks really solid supporting evidence become an undisputable fact? What of the impressive, much talked about scientific ‘consensus’ which is used to forestall any awkward questions about the evidence?
The film made a humble stab at suggesting some possible answers, but there was limited space for these bigger questions. The whole global warming alarm, we believe, raises serious issues about the way science functions in the real world, about the political bias of scientists, about censorship within the scientific community itself, about the routine practice of scientists drawing false or inflated conclusions from ambiguous or uncertain data, about the manifest failure of the peer review process, about the extraordinary unwillingness of scientists who have invested time and reputation in a particular theory to consider evidence which directly contradicts it, about the elevation of speculation (models) to the level of solid data, and much else besides.
Science and scientists cannot always rise above the prejudices of their class and of their age. The selection and handling of evidence often reflects these prejudices. The most highly qualified and respected scientists can be blind to obvious deficiencies in a theory, and will be dismissive of evidence when it undermines what they want to believe.
But the scare over man made global warming may prove to be the first great example in the modern Western world, when science was betrayed by scientists themselves
This web-sit is still young, and the people running it are doing so in their spare time (when they really should be making television programmes). So apologies for its shortcomings.
The makers of the documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle have made many science documentaries before. The thing they found most shocking when they started to make this one, was the weakness of the case for man made global warming, and the quantity and quality of the evidence which flatly contradicts it.
http://www.greatglobalwarmingswindle.co.uk/index.html
Peter
The Great Global Warming Swindle
A DVD of the film, The Great Global Warming Swindle, will be available from mid July (despite the strenuous efforts of those who support the theory of global warming to prevent its release). The DVD is an expanded and improved version of the film broadcast in the UK on Channel Four. More interview material has been added, covering a broader range of subjects than was possible in the broadcast film.
However, we urge those interested in hearing the case against the theory of man made global warming to dig deeper. The main purpose of this site is to point people towards key scientific papers, books and other relevant material.
We have received literally thousands of emails from scientists and others expressing their support and encouragement. These emails are also often very useful, steering us towards new studies in different areas. Please keep sending them.
The email address is: gw@wagtv.com
The general reaction to the film has been overwhelming and enormously encouraging. As Channel Four reported in Broadcast magazine, they received a record number of phone calls following the first transmission. They calculated that the calls were 6 to 1 in support of the film.
It would be nice to claim that the explosion of interest was due to the film itself, but the fuss started even before the film was broadcast. The reason, we suspect, is that the coverage of ‘global warming’, on TV, radio and in the press, has been so one-sided and uncritical. In Britain, hours and hours of programmes have been broadcast by the BBC on the subject, much of it scientifically absurd. The very fact that a science documentary dared to challenge the orthodoxy was itself news.
Why? Why have journalists been so craven or biased? How has a theory which demonstrably lacks really solid supporting evidence become an undisputable fact? What of the impressive, much talked about scientific ‘consensus’ which is used to forestall any awkward questions about the evidence?
The film made a humble stab at suggesting some possible answers, but there was limited space for these bigger questions. The whole global warming alarm, we believe, raises serious issues about the way science functions in the real world, about the political bias of scientists, about censorship within the scientific community itself, about the routine practice of scientists drawing false or inflated conclusions from ambiguous or uncertain data, about the manifest failure of the peer review process, about the extraordinary unwillingness of scientists who have invested time and reputation in a particular theory to consider evidence which directly contradicts it, about the elevation of speculation (models) to the level of solid data, and much else besides.
Science and scientists cannot always rise above the prejudices of their class and of their age. The selection and handling of evidence often reflects these prejudices. The most highly qualified and respected scientists can be blind to obvious deficiencies in a theory, and will be dismissive of evidence when it undermines what they want to believe.
But the scare over man made global warming may prove to be the first great example in the modern Western world, when science was betrayed by scientists themselves
This web-sit is still young, and the people running it are doing so in their spare time (when they really should be making television programmes). So apologies for its shortcomings.
The makers of the documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle have made many science documentaries before. The thing they found most shocking when they started to make this one, was the weakness of the case for man made global warming, and the quantity and quality of the evidence which flatly contradicts it.
Sunday, June 3, 2007
The Great Global Warming Swindle --- An Environmentalist Perspective
In looking for information on the role carbon dioxide plays in atmospheric global warming, I came across this exchange. I'm saving it for future reference. It does help explain the political motivations of people pushing the belief that man is causing global warming.
Peter
from: http://myblog.michaelpbyron.com/comments/atom.aspx
Friday, May 04, 2007, 2:04:44 PM Michael Byron
I find it interesting that the "global warming is a fraud" meme has so thoroughly infected a zelous, though mostly sincere minority. Connecting the dots, I now surmise that much of this has been caused by a BBC documentary entitled "The Great Global Warming Swindle." It is available online at:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4520665474899458831&q=global+swindle+warming
I note that it is about 75 minutes in length. This documentary purports to "reveal" the "truth" about global warming--namely that it is a fraud perpertrated upon the public by scheming elites etc. I was first alerted to in on March 13th when I recieved a somewhat worried e-mail from the lady who ran for Congress for the Democrats here in the CA-49th CD in '06. (I was the nominee in '04). She stated:
So far 2two intelligent & progressive people have sent me the link to this video. It’s long and it’s disturbing because I think it’s a bunch of disinformation and I don’t believe a word of it – but belief is not a reasonable standard for determining if something is or is not true. So PLEASE give me facts that poke holes in this or tell me it could be correct. (geez, I hope you don’t tell me that – not because I wouldn’t be delighted to hear that we can stop worrying about global warming, but because I would hate to think the vast majority of INTELLIGENT people I know have been so completely duped – who can we trust anymore?)
If my gut instinct is correct and this is a con job to destroy the environmental movement, then we have some major damage control to start doing right away because this could collapse the entire effort to get global warming under control -- and it’s spreading. The confusion and self-doubt this movie could spawn will hurt of not just the environmental movement but the progressive movement as well. Her e-mail elicited a reply from another correspondent who stated that:
Jeeni,
The right-wing blogosphere has been abuzz with the crap for a few weeks now. Lacking any credible evidence to deal with the fact of global warming, they have taken the attack to the messenger. This issue has an incredible consensus amount serious scientists and nobody has presented any evidence to the contrary. What the authors of this movie call “serious concerns” is generally not about the fact of global warming, but about some of the mechanisms and models… this is a far cry from discounting global warming. Remember, I can go out and find a fair number of “scientists” who think the world is only 6,000 years old. A fairly large percentage of the population still thinks the world is flat…
Personally, I think that up until fairly recently, there has been a fair amount of dissention about the amount of the warming caused by humans verses what is natural causes. But most of this has disappeared with the development of new computer models in the last few years. Lawrence Livermore’s atmospheric models clearly show how we can differentiate between “natural” effects and “human” effects. For those of you really into the technical, there is a really good paper by Lawrence Livermore Labs showing the recent computer models: http://www.llnl.gov/str/March04/pdfs/03_04.2.pdf(by the way… that’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory… probably the smartest people on the planet…
This is part of a very well planned and executed attack on the Goracle… Law school 101, when you don’t have the facts on your side, attack the messenger. Do enough damage to the messenger and people will generally forget about the facts…
Mark [rest of name witheld to protect privacy]I replied to this post saying:
Jeeni,
You can find detailed analysis and rebuttal to this disinformation piece at: http://coinet.org.uk/information/swindleresponse.
Additional rebuttal of another part of this disinformation campaign can be found here: http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0314-30.htm
Basically, because most people are unable to understand the deeper scientific realities involved, substituting one plausible sounding story for the actual scientific one is enough to at least created doubt and uncertainty.
On the one hand you have essentially all of the worlds scientists as evidenced by the just released 4th report of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (see: http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb07.pdf). On the other you have a handful of people and well a LOT of industry money as my links above will demonstrate.
Deliberate misinformation, pure and simple.
Best,
Mike Byron PhD,
Author of Infinity’s Rainbow: the Politics of Energy, Climate and Globalization.
http://www.michaelpbyron.com/ The mention of the "hockey puck graph being discredited" in previous posts is a dead giveaway of the video's influence. This can be proved conclusively by googling "hockey puck graph discredited" and perusing the results of the search.I note that this "documentary" is itself thouroughly discredited. However, I have provided the link to it for any interested parties to see it for themselves. I've also provided several debunking links about it. As always, you the reader must decide for yourselves.The "beauty" of this strategy is to utilize those who are most distrustfull of the corporatocracy to do therier bidding in the name of opposing them! Karl Rove would smile at this. As I do not have time to sit here and endlessly reply to whoever wants to try to spread this corporate sponsored disinformation meme, I must leave it at that. As always, let the reader decide on the basis of facts and rational thinking for him/her self. I have not rejected any anti-global warming post and have provided a link to the source of the misinformation in this post. That is enough for this topic. On to the next!Mike Byron
Comment on Misunderstanding Global Warming: Alexander Cockburn versus Reality.
Peter
from: http://myblog.michaelpbyron.com/comments/atom.aspx
Friday, May 04, 2007, 2:04:44 PM Michael Byron
I find it interesting that the "global warming is a fraud" meme has so thoroughly infected a zelous, though mostly sincere minority. Connecting the dots, I now surmise that much of this has been caused by a BBC documentary entitled "The Great Global Warming Swindle." It is available online at:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4520665474899458831&q=global+swindle+warming
I note that it is about 75 minutes in length. This documentary purports to "reveal" the "truth" about global warming--namely that it is a fraud perpertrated upon the public by scheming elites etc. I was first alerted to in on March 13th when I recieved a somewhat worried e-mail from the lady who ran for Congress for the Democrats here in the CA-49th CD in '06. (I was the nominee in '04). She stated:
So far 2two intelligent & progressive people have sent me the link to this video. It’s long and it’s disturbing because I think it’s a bunch of disinformation and I don’t believe a word of it – but belief is not a reasonable standard for determining if something is or is not true. So PLEASE give me facts that poke holes in this or tell me it could be correct. (geez, I hope you don’t tell me that – not because I wouldn’t be delighted to hear that we can stop worrying about global warming, but because I would hate to think the vast majority of INTELLIGENT people I know have been so completely duped – who can we trust anymore?)
If my gut instinct is correct and this is a con job to destroy the environmental movement, then we have some major damage control to start doing right away because this could collapse the entire effort to get global warming under control -- and it’s spreading. The confusion and self-doubt this movie could spawn will hurt of not just the environmental movement but the progressive movement as well. Her e-mail elicited a reply from another correspondent who stated that:
Jeeni,
The right-wing blogosphere has been abuzz with the crap for a few weeks now. Lacking any credible evidence to deal with the fact of global warming, they have taken the attack to the messenger. This issue has an incredible consensus amount serious scientists and nobody has presented any evidence to the contrary. What the authors of this movie call “serious concerns” is generally not about the fact of global warming, but about some of the mechanisms and models… this is a far cry from discounting global warming. Remember, I can go out and find a fair number of “scientists” who think the world is only 6,000 years old. A fairly large percentage of the population still thinks the world is flat…
Personally, I think that up until fairly recently, there has been a fair amount of dissention about the amount of the warming caused by humans verses what is natural causes. But most of this has disappeared with the development of new computer models in the last few years. Lawrence Livermore’s atmospheric models clearly show how we can differentiate between “natural” effects and “human” effects. For those of you really into the technical, there is a really good paper by Lawrence Livermore Labs showing the recent computer models: http://www.llnl.gov/str/March04/pdfs/03_04.2.pdf(by the way… that’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory… probably the smartest people on the planet…
This is part of a very well planned and executed attack on the Goracle… Law school 101, when you don’t have the facts on your side, attack the messenger. Do enough damage to the messenger and people will generally forget about the facts…
Mark [rest of name witheld to protect privacy]I replied to this post saying:
Jeeni,
You can find detailed analysis and rebuttal to this disinformation piece at: http://coinet.org.uk/information/swindleresponse.
Additional rebuttal of another part of this disinformation campaign can be found here: http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0314-30.htm
Basically, because most people are unable to understand the deeper scientific realities involved, substituting one plausible sounding story for the actual scientific one is enough to at least created doubt and uncertainty.
On the one hand you have essentially all of the worlds scientists as evidenced by the just released 4th report of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (see: http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb07.pdf). On the other you have a handful of people and well a LOT of industry money as my links above will demonstrate.
Deliberate misinformation, pure and simple.
Best,
Mike Byron PhD,
Author of Infinity’s Rainbow: the Politics of Energy, Climate and Globalization.
http://www.michaelpbyron.com/ The mention of the "hockey puck graph being discredited" in previous posts is a dead giveaway of the video's influence. This can be proved conclusively by googling "hockey puck graph discredited" and perusing the results of the search.I note that this "documentary" is itself thouroughly discredited. However, I have provided the link to it for any interested parties to see it for themselves. I've also provided several debunking links about it. As always, you the reader must decide for yourselves.The "beauty" of this strategy is to utilize those who are most distrustfull of the corporatocracy to do therier bidding in the name of opposing them! Karl Rove would smile at this. As I do not have time to sit here and endlessly reply to whoever wants to try to spread this corporate sponsored disinformation meme, I must leave it at that. As always, let the reader decide on the basis of facts and rational thinking for him/her self. I have not rejected any anti-global warming post and have provided a link to the source of the misinformation in this post. That is enough for this topic. On to the next!Mike Byron
Comment on Misunderstanding Global Warming: Alexander Cockburn versus Reality.
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