Great Climate Change Swindle, who is trying to swindle who?

Not all of the program but a few clips from it.

The Great Climate Swindle Part 1

The Great Climate Swindle Part 2

[Buddy]

I've commented on the dubious science presented in the programme, so lets go back to the roll call. I must admit that even I am shocked at what a bunch of rogues they really are:

• Fred Singer Exxon Secrets #1

  In a February 2001 letter to the Washington Post, Singer denied receiving funding from the oil industry, except for consulting work some 20 years prior. SEPP, however, received multiple grants from ExxonMobil, including 1998 and 2000. In addition, Singer's current CV on the SEPP website states that he served as a consultant to several oil companies.

  He was the last one to speak on the programme, and the UK's Cheif Scientist should be after him for slander:

  There will still be people that believe that this is the end of the world. Particularly when you have for example the chief scientists of the UK telling people that by the end of the century the only habitable place on Earth will be the Antarctic. And it may ... humanity may survive thanks to some breeding couples that move to the Antarctic. It's hilarious (chuckle) it would be hilarious actually if it weren't so sad." Roll credits ...

  Oh dear, Sir David King is the UK's Chief Scientist and he has never said any such thing. It was Professor James Lovelock who said it in 'The Revenge Of Gaia'. I'm sure they know the difference, lies but it sounded impressive, so they put it in the programme...
  
• Patrick Michaels Exxon Secrets #4:

  Dr. Patrick Michaels is possibly the most prolific and widely-quoted climate change skeptic scientist. He has admitted receiving funding from various fossil fuel industry sources.

  and http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2006...audit.php#more (enjoy the magic changing graph):

  The first approach is the one taken by Pat Michaels, who dishonestly erased scenarios B and C from Hansen's graph.

  From DeSmogBlog:
  

  Numerous media outlets reported that one of your professors, Dr. Patrick Michaels , has accepted upwards of $150,000 from coal interests and coal-burning electric utility companies for his advocacy against the overwhelming consenus on global warming.

• Fred Seitz Exxon Secrets #6

  A June 2000 Business Week article referred to physicist Frederick Seitz as "the granddaddy of global-warming skeptics". Seitz was once a director and shareholder of a company that operated coal-fired power plants.

  n 1998, Seitz wrote and circulated a letter, asking scientists to sign a petition asking the Government to reject the Kyoto Protocol. Seitz signed the letter and identifed himself as a former president of the National Academy of Sciences. He also directed attention to a report by Dr. Arthur Robinson, which concluded that carbon dioxide posed no threat to climate. The report was not peer-reviewed, but was formatted to look like an NAS journal article. The NAS later issued a statement disassociating itself from the petition and the article.

• Tim Ball (apparently not an emeritus professor) Exxon Secrets #1164:
  

  5 February, 2007
  I am not alone in this journey against the prevalent myth. Several well-known names have also raised their voices. Michael Crichton, the scientist, writer and filmmaker is one of them. In his latest book, "State of Fear" he takes time to explain, often in surprising detail, the flawed science behind Global Warming and other imagined environmental crises.

  - but Michael Crichton is "a Harvard Medical School graduate turned writer" who gave a leture "entitled "Aliens Cause Global Warming"", can't he find someone more reliable? http://www.desmogblog.com/channel-4-...of-its-experts
  

  In its promotional material, Channel 4 was advertising one of its experts, Dr. Tim Ball, as a “Climatologist and Prof Emeritus of Geography at the University of Winnipeg.” In fact, Dr. Ball retired from a short, unspectacular academic career in 1995. He neither earned – nor was he given – the honour of an Emeritus professorship, and the University of Winnipeg has, on at least one previous occasion, specifically requested that he stop presenting himself as such.
  
  Far from being a working scientist or credible expert, Dr. Ball has associated himself in the last decade with a series of energy industry front groups (the Friends of Science, the Natural Resource Stewardship Project ) that fight against any policy that would address climate change.
  
  Even the Calgary Herald, the leading newspaper in the Canadian oil capital of Calgary, has said that Ball is “viewed as a paid promoter of the agenda of the oil and gas industry rather than as a practicing scientist.”

  But the locations that Channel 4 still mentions suggest that the other “experts” will include at least a cross-section of other people who are known more for taking money from the energy industry than they are for scientific research.

• Ian Clark Exxon Secrets #1280 and from DeSmogBlog

  Dr. Fred Michel, part of a small group of Ottawa scientists (also including Tim Patterson and Ian Clark) acting on behalf of the energy-industry front group the Natural Resources Stewardship Project

  ... Natural Resources Stewardship Project

  12 Oct 06, BREAKING UPDATE!
  NRSP exposed -- controlled by energy industry lobbyists

  ...
  
• John Christy Exxon Secrets #903

  While he now acknowledges that global warming is real and the human contribution is significant

  His findings have been widely disputed.

• Richard Lindzen Exxon Secrets #17

  Ross Gelbspan reported in 1995 that Lindzen "charges oil and coal interests $2,500 a day for his consulting services; his 1991 trip to testify before a Senate committee was paid for by Western Fuels, and a speech he wrote, entitled 'Global Warming: the Origin and Nature of Alleged Scientific Consensus,' was underwritten by OPEC."

• Roy Spencer Exxon Secrets #19

  17 April, 2006
  "We are not saying that we don't believe that there can be significant global warming. As John [Christy] said, if you add CO2, something has to change. But things are changing all the time anyway. The big question is: So what? How much is it going to change, compared to other things? And what can you do about it?"

  Tech Central Science Foundation or Tech Central Station

  ExxonSecrets:

  ExxonMobil gave the Foundation $95,000 in 2003 for "Climate Change Support."

  and note Sponsors pull plug on Tech Central Station
  
• Paul Reiter Exxon Secrets #421

  11 January, 2007
  I am not a climatologist, nor an expert on sea level or polar ice. But I do know from talking to many scientists in many disciplines that this consensus is a mirage.

  and try here.
  
• Paul Driessen (author) Exxon Secrets #1038

  Paul Driessen is the author of Eco-Imperialism: Green Power - Black Death (www.Eco-Imperialism.com) and director of the Economic Human Rights Project, a joint initiative of the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise and Congress of Racial Equality.

  ... ExxonSecrets:

  Alan Gottlieb, a former tax felon, founded CDFE in 1974 along with two gun groups

  "We are sick to death of environmentalism and so we will destroy it. We will not allow our right to own property and use nature's resources for the benefit of mankind to be stripped from us by a bunch of eco-facists."

  "Facts don't really matter. In politics, perception is reality."

• Patrick Moore (co-founder of Greenpeace) SourceWatch
  

  In 2000 Moore went to the Brazilian Amazon rainforests for the filming of a documentary by Marc Morano for American Investigator, According to an interview in the New York Post, Moore dismissed concerns about the impacts of logging, mining and clearning for agriculture on the Amazonian rainforests. "All these save-the-forests arguments are based on bad science ... They are quite simply wrong. We found that the Amazon rainforest is more than 90 percent intact. We flew over it and met all the environmental authorities. We studied satellite pictures of the entire area," he said.
  
  "They are just about the healthiest forests in the world. This stuff about them vanishing at an alarming rate is a con based on bad science ... Anyone who has been in the jungle knows that if you want to live there, you'd better take a few machetes. Otherwise, it'll take it all back," he said.

• Piers Corbyn SourceWatch
  

  He keeps the details of his methodology for making predictions a secret, and has been criticized for making unfounded claims about the power of his predictions, even after they turned out to be inaccurate.

• Carl Wunsch (tricked to appear) http://www.realclimate.org/index.php...7/03/swindled/

  Carl Wunsch (who was a surprise addition to the cast) was apparently misled into thinking this was going to be a balanced look at the issues (the producers have a history of doing this), but who found himself put into a very different context indeed.

  http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2007/0...comment-367476

  I've just received the following email from Carl Wunsch, whcih confirms that Martin Durkin has been true to type:
  
  ----- Original Message -----
  From: "Carl Wunsch"
  To:
  Sent: Friday, March 09, 2007 2:31 PM
  Subject: Re: Just wanted to check something
  
  Dave,
  I've not seen it and the context was not at all what we
  had agreed on. Was billed as a balanced discussion of the
  threat of global warming As I began to see ads for the program, I realized I'd been duped. I'm wondering if there's some way I can get to see it. If you do register some kind of complaint, can you let me know what it says?
  
  Carl

• Nigel Calder (author) SourceWatch

[Buddy]

A critique by Sir John Houghton (former co-chair IPCC Scientific Assessment working group 1988-2002) of Channel 4 "The Great Global Warming Swindle" is at the JRI website:

Excellent: http://www.jri.org.uk/index.php?opti...=137&Itemid=83

[f0ul]

Why are you lot so desperatly trying to attack the people in the programme, rather than what they actually said?

Its a really bad way of constructing a proper argument - ad hominem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

Secondly, you have pointed out a few graphs from the program, and, because a date is not where it needs to be, have dismissed the entire idea. Considering the graphs where only there to make a visual point, and was not intended to be the full reason why global warming is happening - I think you lot seemed to have missed a point.

I've noticed how no one has commented on some of the other points raised in the show. The number of people who's livelihoods depend on global warming as it is currently being presented. thousands of jobs have been created by this industry - and it is almost all funded by governments. Seems to me that if it turns out not to be true, the tax payer is going to be looking for some serious answers.

No one has mentioned how the IPCC got close to a legal dispute before finally removing one of the lead authors names from the list.

Seems to me that there is a lot of negative thinking on this forum. People unwilling to believe that there is another reason to why it is getting a little warmer. The worst suggestion for these posters is it might not have anything at all to do with man. Which leads to a suggestion that in the great scheme of things means man is irrelevant - and what a smack in the ego that would be?!

[Paradox]

Originally Posted by zigglewigler

When you've made your mind up, you've made your mind up.

In the material Buddy provided was this reference:

There are no direct measurements cosmic rays from before 1953. However, since it is thought that cosmic rays are strongly affected by the solar magnetic field, it is likely that the long-term changes in cosmic ray flux are similar to the long-term changes in the Geomagnetic AA Index (see above). In other words, changes in cosmic rays may help to explain changes in the Earth's surface temperature in the first half of the 20th century.

Cosmic Ray forcings is now a full-blown theory being vigorously studied. Sorry Buddy, it will be a slow demise but the GW theory is crumbling under the weight of the evidence. I think it is ashame because it would be great for our planet if there was in-fact a silver bullet. There is not.

[Buddy]

If you are disappointed/angry (for example at the propaganda/mis-representation of science) that was The Great Global Warming Swindle here is where to complain:

http://www.ofcom.org.uk/complain/pro...?itemid=286480

Complain to C4 itself:

http://help.channel4.com/SRVS/CGI-BI...ARSET_TITLE=TV

Complain to the advertisers:

Volkswagon, Hastings & Direct, Bradford & Bingley, Visa, Yakurt, Orange, Audi, Virgin Media, Mitchelin, Zurich finance, Wrigley (orbit gum), Ing Direct (finance), Magners Cider, confused.com (insurance), Christian Dior (J'adore), Kraft foods (Toblerone, Cote d'or), Nat West, Love Films, Citreon, Nissan, Expedia, Microsoft, Ibuleve, Otex ear drops.

Notice how many car and finance adverts there were. I let The Independent off because they published an article criticising the documentary.

[the reporter]

I managed to watch about the first 5 minutes of this video, right up to the point where “professor” Tim Ball’s credentials are flashed at the bottom of the screen: “University of Winnipeg: department of climatology”. Anyone wondering about the accuracy of the claims being made by this document need only point their browser to www.uwinnipeg.ca to see that that institution does not have a department of “climatology”, nor am I aware of the existence of any such department elsewhere.

[Buddy]

Originally Posted by Paradox

In the material Buddy provided was this reference:

Cosmic Ray forcings is now a full-blown theory being vigorously studied. Sorry Buddy, it will be a slow demise but the GW theory is crumbling under the weight of the evidence. I think it is ashame because it would be great for our planet if there was in-fact a silver bullet. There is not.

See the article ‘Cosmoclimatology’ - tired old arguments in new clothes' (9 Mar 2007) at
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php...n-new-clothes/

There are a number of issues which really make the A&G paper poor in my view. One is the neglect in addressing old criticisms of the hypothesis that galactic cosmic rays (GCR) change our climate by modulating clouds (see here, here, & here). Svensmark is very vague on the lack of any trend in GCR or other solar proxies since 1952. I confronted him about this question on an European Geophysical Society (EGS) conference in Nice a few years ago, and have since published a paper also making the point. The A&G article makes selective references, without answering the serious criticism forwarded by Damon & Laut (2004), Laut (2003), or myself. To be fair, the critical paper by Kristjansson and Kristiansen (2000) is cited, albeit only to say that Svensmarks's own conclusion is "a counter-intuitive finding for some critics".

- it seems that the peer-review process is a bit lacking here. A number of scientists have pointed out flaws and have effectively been ignored. If you look at the graphs they present notice how the last 10 years are missing, and they they try to show trends with just 15 years of data.

[August]

Originally Posted by the reporter

I managed to watch about the first 5 minutes of this video, right up to the point where “professor” Tim Ball’s credentials are flashed at the bottom of the screen: “University of Winnipeg: department of climatology”. Anyone wondering about the accuracy of the claims being made by this document need only point their browser to www.uwinnipeg.ca to see that that institution does not have a department of “climatology”, nor am I aware of the existence of any such department elsewhere.

That's interesting. Goes to prove that some people - and media actors - are willing to perform any act of deception, simply in order to fool those of us who wants to be fooled. And that's not just a few of us, I'm afraid. All these CO2 producing workers, for example. Eh? - Don't even think about it.

[Buddy]

Originally Posted by f0ul

Why are you lot so desperatly trying to attack the people in the programme, rather than what they actually said?

- what they have presented is quickly being shown to be rubbish, I've posted some examples above, I'll post more.

Originally Posted by f0ul

Its a really bad way of constructing a proper argument - ad hominem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

- having shown that they are mis-representing the science. It seems obvious to see what they might have done in the past. And well well ... Once trust has been broken it is very hard (if not impossible) to restore. It seems to me that they have really blown it. They have walked their half baked and disproven theories into the search-light and are now melting like the glaciers.

Originally Posted by f0ul

Secondly, you have pointed out a few graphs from the program, and, because a date is not where it needs to be, have dismissed the entire idea.

- would you like to be more specific. Are we talking about graphs where lines stop very conveniently just before they would disprove the 'theory. Or graphs which simply don't present the last 10 years of data. Or graphs which present only 15 years of data and claim the answer?

Originally Posted by f0ul

Considering the graphs where only there to make a visual point, and was not intended to be the full reason why global warming is happening - I think you lot seemed to have missed a point.

- "A picture paints a thousand words". They presented many graphs very quickly, most missing legends. Now you see it now you don't. If the graph does not support the point they should not use it.

Originally Posted by f0ul

I've noticed how no one has commented on some of the other points raised in the show.

- we also have lives to live. And shovelling his stuff is no fun really.

Originally Posted by f0ul

The number of people who's livelihoods depend on global warming as it is currently being presented. thousands of jobs have been created by this industry - and it is almost all funded by governments. Seems to me that if it turns out not to be true, the tax payer is going to be looking for some serious answers.

- if

Originally Posted by f0ul

No one has mentioned how the IPCC got close to a legal dispute before finally removing one of the lead authors names from the list.

- of thousands.

Originally Posted by f0ul

Seems to me that there is a lot of negative thinking on this forum. People unwilling to believe that there is another reason to why it is getting a little warmer.

- each time an alternative theory is presented it is examined and found wanting. If the prediction was that it would only ever get a little bit warmier there wouldn't be a problem.

Originally Posted by f0ul

The worst suggestion for these posters is it might not have anything at all to do with man.

http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb07.pdf

FIGURE SPM-4. Comparison of observed continental- and global-scale changes in surface temperature with results
simulated by climate models using natural and anthropogenic forcings.

- have a look at those graphs.

Originally Posted by f0ul

Which leads to a suggestion that in the great scheme of things means man is irrelevant - and what a smack in the ego that would be?!

- if only we could be relatively insignificant such that we could do what we liked to Earth without risk.