'The Great Global Warming Swindle'

[miriam_e]

The ABC here in Australia is going to be showing 'The Great Global Warming Swindle' soon. What a terrible mistake that will be. It is an awful film that masquerades as a documentary. It falsifies data, misquotes scientists, and re-cuts at least one interview to make it appear the scientist is saying something very different to what he really did. The filmmaker has done this kind of thing before where apologies had to be issued for re-cutting interviews to misrepresent what the people said.

Many of the lies in the film have since been represented by the director to be "mistakes" but continue to stand whenever it is shown, including in the new DVD version -- perniciously misinforming viewers. Clearly the intention is to lie.

• You will be told, for instance, that volcanoes produce 100 times more CO₂ than human activity, but that is simply not true. Volcanoes barely even register on CO₂ graphs, whereas human effect is obvious.
  
• You'll be shown a graph which makes it look like solar activity controls the climate, but the filmaker sneakily altered the time span of the data to make it fit. When the correct curve is used it is clear there is no correlation between solar activity and climate over the time period he suggests.
  
• And you'll be shown another graph showing apparent cooling between 1940s to 1970s which has data altered to fit the filmmaker's wish. There is no tidy graph like that. In actual fact the temperature fluctuates all over the place during that period, sometimes going down, sometimes up.
  
• It will be made to look like climate change drives CO₂ levels by ignoring the effect of the oceanic feedback system, where the ocean releases even more CO₂ as the greenhouse effect warms it -- this cause for more concern, not dismissal.
  
• They also say that the developing world is being held back by being prevented from using their oil, but that just isn't true. The imact of storms and flooding far outweigh petroleum income, which tends not to stay in their countries anyway, but moves offshore to the richest of the rich. Already we are seeing some of the calamitous effects of changing rainfall in the Sudan. Carbon trading can help third world development while still reigning in CO₂ emissions all over the world. Runaway climate change will hit the third world hardest, making much of their land uninhabitable
  
• Global warming will be represented as a possible boon to civilisation, in warming snowbound regions. But if the Atlantic current gets stopped (as seems likely) then the Earth will warm, making equatorial regions hellish places, while possibly plunging Europe into glaciation because they'll be cut off from warming waters.

It is scary that this film is being screened without corrections, and that lies like these will affect public debate.

We always need dissenting voices. That's how knowledge advances, but we don't need promoters of bald-faced lies propagandising and deliberately sabotaging important debate. I wonder how much money the petroleum industry contributed to this nasty little piece of work.

Here are some links with more info:
http://www.medialens.org/alerts/07/0313pure_propaganda_the.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Global_Warming_Swindle
http://www.celsias.com/blog/2007/03/11/the-great-global-warming-swindle/
http://inthegreen.typepad.com/blog/2007/03/deconstructing_.html
http://www.jri.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=137&Itemid=83
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2007/04/22/swindlers-list/ (thanks peaseblossom)

A bit of background on the sociopathic writer/director of the film:
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2000/03/16/modified-truth/

Here is a report released by the Australian Academy of Science rebutting the film:
http://www.science.org.au/reports/12july07.htm

Comments

Balancing?

[(Anonymous)]

Do you feel slightly different now that the ABC is slotting in a debate about the documentary afterwards where the producer will (hopefully) be put on the spot - and his critics will be able to speak their piece.

(I suspect this is a response to the harsh criticism the ABC has received for choosing to show this "doco.")

Cheers, MFG

Re: Balancing?

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

Not really. :(
There are far too many ways to mislead and confound proper debate in such a forum. All they need do is do the creationists' trick of rapid-fire throwing in many, many questions that can be as dopey and irrelevant as they desire. Anybody who tries to answer them will be led on an unsatisfactory merry-go-round and still leave the audience with the feeling that the irrational questioner must have a point, just simply because of the number of the questions. In the end the anti-climate change people will have their say and there will not be enough time to dispose of their points properly.

Also it depends on the moderator being extremely intelligent and totally impartial. They need to be able to cut short misleading bullshit disguised as debate and they need to avoid leaning one way or the other. The anti-climate changers will represent themselves as underdogs, which has powerful psychological effects. If the moderator then favors the side of climate change the nay-sayers will derive strength from it. If the moderator favors the ani-climate changers then the audience will think there is something to the anti- argument.

The odds are stacked badly before it even begins. And that's without considering the possibility that the rich oil and coal lobbies may fill the audience with their people.

I'm quite pessimistic about the whole thing. The ABC shouldn't be touching it. It's a nasty distraction that can seriously damage genuine debate and polarise opinions without adding information. It will provide plenty of heat but little light.