Durango Bill’s
Debunking the Deniers of Global Warming
“The Great
Global Warming Swindle” is itself a Fraud and a Swindle
by
Bill Butler
“The Great Global Warming Swindle”
(video/movie) is a
pseudo-documentary in which British television producer Martin Durkin
has fraudulently misrepresented both the data involved and scientists
who have researched global climate. Movie director Durkin has willfully
misrepresented the facts about global warming just to advocate his own
agenda. The program was originally aired on England’s
“Channel 4” (The “Supermarket Tabloid” of the
airwaves). In the past, “Channel 4” has had to broadcast a
prime-time apology for broadcasting another of Martin Durkin’s
“sleazebag” pseudo-documentaries.
“The Great Global Warming Swindle” is aimed at
and appeals to the
“Don’t bother me with the facts - I’ve already made
up my mind” audience. There may be future media presentations
by those who wish to promote ignorant
political viewpoints instead of presenting factual knowledge. (Or
possibly, the individuals involved have never passed a high school
science course and don’t understand that there is a difference.)
Martin Durkin’s modus
operandi for the various versions of the video/movie appears to
be:
1) I want to propagandize my anti-environment, anti-global warming
agenda.
2) What kind of wild stories, manufactured “evidence”, etc.
can I include this time to provide political fodder for the
scientifically illiterate dimwits?
The one cardinal rule in science is that you do not
misrepresent the data. But this is what the producer of this
pseudo-documentary has done to try to promote his own opinions.
The picture-pairs that follow are Print Screen images from
the video version of the pseudo-documentary vs. the factual data. At
one time Google had a copy of the video at http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4499562022478442170
. All references refer to this Google “Wag TV” video
version although it appears that it is no longer available at this
link. There may be another slightly shorter version at: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3028847519933351566
Please search the Internet for other versions if this shorter version
also disappears.
Viewers are encouraged to compare each of the
picture-pairs below and draw their own conclusions as to whether the
pseudo-documentary is based on factual data, or if the
pseudo-documentary falsifies the data as part of an anti-environmental
campaign. (See the 2nd half of the pseudo-documentary for the
anti-environmental campaign.)
The Actual Recent
Temperature Record
This first pair of pictures compares the partial
temperature record as presented in “The Great Global Warming
Swindle” vs. the actual observations as shown at NASA’s
Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
The vertical bars at the right are the
pseudo-documentary’s assertion that most of the recent rise in
global temperatures occurred before 1940. The exact words from the
pseudo-documentary are:
“Most of the rise in temperature occurred before 1940.”
(About 14 min. 20 sec. into the presentation.)
Please take a close look at the right-hand portion of the graph.
The picture below shows the actual changes in the
world’s temperature as presented by NASA’s Goddard
Institute for Space Studies. http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/
Again please take a close look at the right-hand portion
of the graph. The pseudo-documentary version of the temperature graph
omits the last 20 years of data. (And “fluffed” the graph
to disguise this omission.) The rapid increase in world
temperatures over the last 20 years has paralleled the rapid rise in
carbon dioxide concentrations. However, the pseudo-documentary does not
include this data. (Note: The slight cooling that took place from 1940
to the 1960’s was caused by increasing sulfates in the atmosphere
- see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Climate_Change_Attribution.png
)
(Note: The above graph incorporates the July, 2007 corrections in
historical data.)
Typical E-mail Response
And what do the purveyors of the “Global Warming Denial Machine” say
when you show them that the climate is warming? The following is a
“Print Screen” copy showing the title of an E-mail that I received from
Bob Webster, Editor of WebCommentary:
http://www.webcommentary.com/ (Bob Webster has been denying “Global Warming” since at least 1998 -
http://www.conservativetruth.org/opinionet/archives2/ccbw/environ/cm2.htm )
Note the assertion that states:
“Last 12 months globally coldest year in over 100 years”
Does the phrase “Out of touch with reality” come to mind?
As the credit card ad says: “Priceless”
The director of the pseudo-documentary has willfully
omitted this most recent data because it would disprove the personal
agenda that he is trying to promote. When anyone misrepresents real
data to try to present a personal agenda, what he is doing is flat out
FRAUD!!
As defined by “Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of Law”
at http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/fraud
“fraud - specifically : a misrepresentation
or concealment with
reference to some fact material to a transaction that is made with
knowledge of its falsity or in reckless disregard of its truth or
falsity and with the intent to deceive another”
The Historical
Temperature Data vs. Carbon Dioxide
& Methane
1 min. 15 seconds into the pseudo-documentary the
following
statement is made: “We can’t say that CO2 will drive
climate, it certainly never did in the past.”
The scientific record shows that the above statement is
completely false, and discredits the person making it (Ian
Clark). The record shows
there is a strong correlation between past levels of carbon dioxide and
methane vs. the earth’s temperature.
The original version of the above chart can be found at
http://www.realclimate.org/epica.jpg.
It is derived from multiple ice
cores that record atmospheric conditions and climate for the last
650,000 years. (Wikipedia has a similar version plus additional charts
at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Co2-temperature-plot.svg
)
The black center line in the chart measures deuterium
(hydrogen isotope) ratios found in the old ice. (Deuterium ratios are a
stand-in for the historical temperature.) The red line shows methane
levels while the blue line shows carbon dioxide ratios.
For comparative purposes, the current CO2 ratio in the
earth's atmosphere is in excess of 380 parts per million and is
climbing
steeply. If this current ratio were plotted, it would be at the left
end of the blue line, and far above anything seen in the previous
650,000 years. We are running an uncontrolled experiment with our
atmosphere.
The 800-Year Time Lag
About 23 minutes into the pseudo-documentary, an assertion
is made that carbon dioxide is not responsible for global warming
because ice records show there have been several instances where
warming has begun some ~800 years before carbon dioxide levels begin to
increase. The actual 800-year lead is true, but the conclusion
presented in the pseudo-documentary is not true.
As pointed out by Jeff Severinghaus (Professor of
Geosciences, Scripts Institution of Oceanography, University of
California, San Diego http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/co2-in-ice-cores
),
historical warm-up periods begin via some variable event that starts a
warming cycle. For example, in the past, these initializing events were
usually set off by Milankovitch variations in the earth’s orbit
that changed the amount of sunshine reaching the ground in the northern
hemisphere. This time, the initialization event has been a human
induced spike in carbon dioxide concentrations. (Of note, the article
at the above URL is dated as of Dec. 3, 2004 which is more than 2 years
before Durkin’s pseudo-documentary was released.)
In turn, the initial warming event triggers a chain
reaction/feedback release of carbon dioxide (blue line in the above
chart) and methane (red line in the above chart) from the earth’s
oceans, which then drives the rest of the warm-up cycle. Please see
Jeff Severinghaus’ article
“What does the lag of CO2 behind temperature in ice cores tell us
about global warming?”
at the above web page for more information.
Alternately please see a longer article:
“The lag between temperature and CO2. (Gore’s got it
right.)” by Eric Steig
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/04/the-lag-between-temp-and-co2/
Milankovitch Cycles
The ~100,000 year periodic cycles that can be seen in the
above chart appear to be closely correlated with changes in the amount
of heat energy (insolation) at middle and high latitudes in the
Northern Hemisphere. (This in turn drives ocean currents starting with
the North Atlantic Ocean.) It is interesting to note that if man-made
“Global warming”/ “Climate Change” did not
exist, then the earth would be currently cooling off. For example,
please see:
Sunspots
Another assertion in the pseudo-documentary is that
sunspots are responsible for global warming. The pseudo-documentary
can’t make up its mind whether to assert that it’s
sunspots, or some indeterminate “Solar Activity” that is
causing changes in temperature; but we will present the
pseudo-documentary’s “Solar Activity” chart and
compare it with the historical sunspot record.
The Print Screen image above shows the
pseudo-documentary’s “Solar Activity” chart. The
blue-green line shows the temperature for most of the last 400 years.
Again, the film’s producer has omitted the steep warming seen in
the last 20 years. If the chart had included this recent warming, the
blue-green line would have run off the top of the chart. (See the first
pair of pictures.)
The red line is purported to depict “Solar
Activity”. If whatever the pseudo-documentary chose to represent
as “Solar Activity” had any correlation to observed
temperatures, then the red line should have spiked just as the recent
temperature has. Of course the red line is conveniently not plotted for
the last few decades.
The red line may have been based on original work by
Nathan Rive and Eigil Friis-Christensen. They have issued a joint
statement stating that the “red line” data was made up of
fabricated data that was presented as genuine.
http://folk.uio.no/nathan/web/statement.html
Regarding: “The Great Global
Warming Swindle”, broadcast in the UK on Channel 4 on March 8,
2007
We have concerns regarding the use of a graph featured in the
documentary titled ‘Temp & Solar Activity 400 Years’.
Firstly, we have reason to believe that parts of the graph were made up
of fabricated data that were presented as genuine. The inclusion of the
artificial data is both misleading and pointless…it incorrectly
rules out a contribution by anthropogenic greenhouse gases to 20th
century global warming.
Ian Clark (The spokesman for the earlier discredited
quote: “We can’t say that CO2 will drive climate, it
certainly never did in the past.”) supports this incorrect
solar/sunspot conjecture. http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/story.html?id=79ef0ec2-4c4c-49e0-b39c-60b13b2ba764
The chart above is an excerpt from NASA’s
“Solar Cycle Update” at
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2004/18oct_solarminimum.htm.
It
shows the actual number of observed sunspots over the last 400 years.
(The number of sunspots has been counted for the last 400 years, and
this record is our only direct measurement of “Solar
Activity” for this time span.) The actual information as shown
above doesn’t resemble the red line in the pseudo-documentary.
The source data for the red line in the pseudo-documentary thus remains
a mystery.
If short term temperatures followed a sunspot cycle, we
should see similar short term temperature oscillations that correspond
to the ~11 year sunspot cycle. No short term correlation exists. The
pseudo-documentary tries to correlate the minor 1940 top in
temperatures with the number of sunspots. A quick look at the sunspot
chart shows no 1940 correlation. Similarly, if sunspots were
responsible for the large observed increase in world temperatures over
the last few decades, then there should also be some unusual anomaly in
the sunspot pattern over the same last few decades. No such anomaly
exists.
Solar Irradiance
Solar Irradiance (Unobstructed heat energy from the sun)
has been measured by satellites for nearly 30 years. The above chart is
from NASA’s Earth Observatory ( http://eobglossary.gsfc.nasa.gov/Study/VariableSun/variable2.html
) and shows total solar radiation as measured by satellites since the
late 1970s. There are several sequences as no single satellite has been
in operation for the entire time period, but if the sun had been
increasing its energy output in recent years, these satellites would
have detected it. As seen in NASA’s records, there has been no
significant increase in solar radiation that could account for the
increase in the earth’s temperature over the last few decades.
The most recent study of solar radiation was released July
11, 2007
“Solar variations not behind global warming:
study” http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSL101501320070710
“Solar activity cleared of global warming
blame”
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/solar-activity-cleared-of-global-warming-blame/2007/07/11/1183833599508.html
The original research report (published in the
“Proceedings of the Royal Society” - highly technical) is
at:
http://www.pubs.royalsoc.ac.uk/media/proceedings_a/rspa20071880.pdf
“Recent oppositely directed trends in solar
climate forcings and the global mean surface air temperature”
This most recent research study indicates that solar
irradiance has actually decreased slightly since the mid 1980s. (Which
is what can be seen in the NASA solar irradiance measurements.)
These two chart pairs from pages 5 and 7 of
the
above report show that solar irradiance is not responsible for the
sharp increase in observed world temperatures over the last few
decades. (TSI = Total Solar Irradiance, ΔT = observed temperature
anomaly) In the first pair of graphs, the ~11 year sunspot cycle
overwhelms directly observable longer term changes in irradiance, while
random temperature fluctuations add a lot of “jiggles” to
the temperature graph.
In the second pair of graphs, the sunspot cycle has been
subtracted out and temperature data has been smoothed. In the smoothed
temperature chart, GISS is Goddard Institute for Space Studies (NASA)
data while HadCRUT3 is data from England’s Hadley Center for
Research. The red line in the irradiance chart shows the resultant best
fit while the other lines reflect various damping factors.
As shown in the charts, not only have temperatures
continued to rise since 1985, the rate of temperature increase is
accelerating. Total solar irradiance (total solar radiated energy) has
slightly decreased during this period. Thus solar irradiance is clearly
not responsible for the recent increase in the earth’s
temperature.
The report also examines sunspot counts, length of the
sunspot cycle, solar magnetic flux, and cosmic rays as part of the
study. The report’s conclusion is:
“Our results show that the observed rapid rise in global
mean temperatures seen after 1985 cannot be ascribed to solar
variability, whichever of the mechanisms is invoked and no matter how
much the solar variation is amplified.”
Also, “Changes in Solar Brightness Too Weak to Explain Global
Warming”
http://www.ucar.edu/news/releases/2006/brightness.shtml
The “Denial
Industry” / “Denial Machine”
Yet the only real evidence that the
“deniers”
(and their well-funded “Denial
Industry” / “Denial Machine”
) can demonstrate is that they are not mentally capable of
understanding real evidence. Note: “The Denial Machine”
video includes Fred Singer’s (see below) assertion that tobacco
smoke is not a health hazard.
Also, as part of their campaign, the deniers continue to
churn out fabricated/manufactured “evidence” that has no
factual basis. Please see Newsweek’s Aug. 13, 2007 cover story -
“The Truth About Denial” - for
additional information.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/32482
(The article is a lengthy documentation of the what/why/when of the
“Denial Machine”, who is financing it, and how it is
flooding the world with disinformation to obfuscate the real evidence
of global warming (climate change).)
(If you don’t understand the above cartoon, you need to see the
“Creationism
= Willful Ignorance” page.)
A quote from http://currentera.com/SwindlersList.html
“Ok, so now we know that Durkin admittedly has no problem with
fudging charts and graphs to meet his own ends”
There is much more at this web site.
The low activity in sunspots from 1650 to 1700 is of
interest. This dip in sunspot activity is called the Maunder Minimum in
honor of astronomer E. W. Maunder. There appears to be some correlation
with historical temperatures as this period coincided with the
“Little Ice Age”. However, if this correlation were
stronger, then temperatures should have maxed out with the late
1950’s peak in sunspots. This is not what we observe in the
temperature records. Thus sunspots are not the cause of the sharp
global warming we have seen in the last few decades.
The chart above from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:1000_Year_Temperature_Comparison.png
shows a composite of 10 different temperature reconstructions over the
last 1000 years. The Maunder Minimum does coincide with the lowest
temperature readings, but it is a loose fit at best, and may be
coincidental. Of note, the Medieval Warm Period was not as warm as
current temperatures. (This refutes the graphic shown in the
pseudo-documentary which claims the Medieval Warm Period was warmer
than present temperatures.)
Gabriel Fahrenheit invented the modern thermometer in the
early 1700’s. Thus early temperatures have to be reconstructed by
indirect methods as shown in the preceding “Reconstructed
Temperature” picture. The graph shown in the pseudo-documentary
is not based on accurate data.
Cosmic Rays
At about 33 minutes into the pseudo-documentary, there is
an assertion that cosmic rays generate clouds that in turn cause
changes in the earth’s temperature. This assertion is refuted by
the following article published by the American Geophysical
Union.
http://www.agu.org/sci_soc/prrl/prrl0405.html (Summary only)
http://www.pik-potsdam.de/~stefan/Publications/Journals/rahmstorf_etal_eos_2004.pdf (Full text)
“Cosmic Rays Are Not the Cause
of Climate Change, Scientists
Say”
Eleven Earth and space
scientists say that a recent paper
attributing most climate change on Earth to cosmic rays is incorrect
and based on questionable methodology. Writing in the January 27 issue
of Eos, published by the American Geophysical Union, Stefan Rahmstorf
of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and colleagues in
Canada, France, Germany, Switzerland, and the United States challenge
the cosmic ray hypothesis.
The authors of the above research conclude that the cosmic
ray hypothesis is “incorrect and based on questionable
methodology” and is “scientifically ill-founded”.
The assertion in the pseudo-documentary may well be based on this
discredited cosmic ray hypothesis.
If you want to look at cosmic ray measurements for the
last 50 years, you can see the actual data at ftp://ftp.ngdc.noaa.gov/STP/SOLAR_DATA/COSMIC_RAYS/climax.tab.
The solar wind is stronger during periods of high sunspot activity
which in turn reduces the number of cosmic rays that can reach the
earth. Thus there is an 11-year inverse correlation with the sunspot
cycle.
The chart above illustrates the average hourly cosmic ray
count rate (1,000’s per hour) for each year beginning in 1953 as
measured at the high altitude observatory in Climax, Colorado. (Data is
from the above web link. 2006 data is a preliminary average for the
first 11 months.) The pseudo-documentary’s cosmic ray conjecture
states that high cosmic ray intensities produce more clouds which would
produce cooler earth temperatures. If this conjecture were true, then
we should see a corresponding 11-year cycle in the earth’s
temperature. If we compare this chart with the actual temperature
record (the NASA/GISS temperature record shown earlier), there is no
apparent correlation.
Volcanoes
At about 25 minutes 18 seconds into the
pseudo-documentary, the video/film shows an animated cartoon of a
volcano and asserts that volcanoes emit more carbon dioxide than human
induced emissions. The exact quote from the pseudo-documentary is:
“Volcanoes produce more CO2 each
year than all the factories and cars and planes and other sources of
man-made carbon dioxide put together.”
Once again the pseudo-documentary willfully falsifies the facts. The
following quote is from the U. S. Geological Survey. http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/Hazards/What/VolGas/volgas.html
Comparison of CO2
emissions from volcanoes vs. human activities.
“Scientists have calculated that
volcanoes emit between about 130-230 million tonnes (145-255 million
tons) of CO2 into the atmosphere every year (Gerlach, 1999, 1991). This
estimate includes both subaerial and submarine volcanoes, about in
equal amounts. Emissions of CO2 by human activities, including fossil
fuel burning, cement production, and gas flaring, amount to about 27
billion tonnes per year (30 billion tons) [ ( Marland, et al., 2006) -
The reference gives the amount of released carbon (C), rather than CO2,
through 2003.]. Human activities release more than 130
times the amount of CO2 emitted by volcanoes--the equivalent of
more than 8,000 additional volcanoes like Kilauea (Kilauea emits about
3.3 million tonnes/year)! (Gerlach et. al., 2002)”
Misrepresentation of
statements by scientific experts
The pseudo-documentary “The Great Global Warming
Swindle” also abusively uses “cut and paste”,
out-of-context statements by at least one legitimate scientist. The
result willfully misconstrues the original meaning to instead promote
the producer’s agenda. The following are statements by Carl
Wunsch, professor of physical oceanography at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology and are posted at:
http://www.celsias.com/blog/2007/03/11/the-great-global-warming-swindle/
Climate scientist
‘duped to deny
global warming’
A Leading US climate
scientist is considering legal action
after he says he was duped into appearing in a Channel 4 documentary
that claimed man-made global warming is a myth. Carl Wunsch, professor
of physical oceanography at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
said the film, The Great Global Warming Swindle, was ‘grossly
distorted’ and ‘as close to pure propaganda as anything
since World War Two’.
He says his comments in the film were taken out of context
and that he would not have agreed to take part if he had known it would
argue that man-made global warming was not a serious threat. ‘I
thought they were trying to educate the public about the complexities
of climate change,’ he said. ‘This seems like a deliberate
attempt to exploit someone who is on the other side of the
issue.’ He is considering a complaint to Ofcom, the broadcast
regulator. - Guardian
Professor Wunsch said: “I am angry because they
completely misrepresented me. My views were distorted by the context in
which they placed them. I was misled as to what it was going to be
about. I was told about six months ago that this was to be a programme
about how complicated it is to understand what is going on. If they had
told me even the title of the programme, I would have absolutely
refused to be on it. I am the one who has been swindled.” -
Independent
The above web site has multiple other links that refute the assertions
made in the pseudo-documentary.
A complete listing of MIT’s Professor Carl Wunsch's comments on
the
pseudo-documentary can be found at:
http://ocean.mit.edu/~cwunsch/CHANNEL4.html
The Other
“Experts” in the Program
The pseudo-documentary implies that the other people who
appeared are knowledgeable experts in their fields. In practice, their
best expertise seems to be wrangling payments from large energy
companies
- especially anti-environmental organizations. The following list
of brief biographies is a long quote from:
http://climatedenial.org
(Original posting will scroll downward)
http://climatedenial.org/2007/03/09/the-great-channel-four-swindle/
Fred Singer.
Despite the caption on the programme, Singer has retired from the
University of Virginia and has not had a single article accepted for
any peer-reviewed scientific journal for 20 years. His main work has
been as a hired gun for business interests to undermine scientific
research on environmental and health matters. Before turning to climate
change denial he has argued that CFCs do not cause ozone depletion and
second hand smoke does not cause cancer (more… ). In 1990 he
founded “The Science and Environment Policy Project”, which
aggressively contradicts climate science and has received direct
funding from Exxon, Shell, Unocal and ARCO. Exxon is also among the
funders ($20,000 in 1998 and 2000)
Patrick Michaels is the most prominent US
climate change denier. In the programme he claimed “I’ve
never been paid a nickel by the old and gas companies” which is a
curious claim. According to the US journalist Ross Gebspan Michaels has
received direct funding from, among others German Coal Mining
Association ($49,000), Edison Electric Institute ($15,000), and the
Western Fuels Association ($63,000) an association of US coal producing
interests (more…). The WFA is one of the most powerful forces in
the US actively denying the basic science of climate change, funding,
amongs other things, the Greening Earth Society which is directed by
Patrick Michaels. Tom Wigley, one of the leading IPCC scientists,
describes Michaels work as “a catalog of misrepresentation and
misinterpretation”. (More on Michaels…)
Philip Stott was captioned as a Professor at the
University of London although he is retired and is therefore free of
any academic accountability. Stott is a geographer by training and has
no qualifications in climate science. Since retiring Stott has aimed to
become Britain’s leading anti-green pundit dedicating himself to
wittily criticizing rainforest campaigns (with Patrick Moore),
advocating genetic engineering and claiming that “global warming
is the new fundamentalist religion.”
Patrick Moore is Stott’s Canadian
equivalent. Since a very personal and painful falling out with
Greenpeace in 1986 Moore has put his considerable campaigning energies
into undermining environmentalists, especially his former friends and
colleagues. Typical of his rhetoric was his claim in the programme that
environmentalists were “anti-human” and “treat humans
as scum”. Throughout the 1990s Moore worked as lead consultant
for the British Columbian Timber Products Association undermining
Greenpeace’s international campaign to protect old growth forest
there. Whenever he has the chance he also makes strong public
statements in favour of genetic engineering, nuclear power, logging the
Amazon, and industrial fishing- all, strangely, lead campaigns for
Greenpeace (more on Moore..)
Piers Corbyn has no academic status and his role
in such programmes is to promote his own weather prediction business.
He has steadfastly refused to ever subject his climatological theories
to any form of external review or scrutiny.
Richard Lindzen. As a Professor of Meteorology
at the credible Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Lindzen is by
far the most reputable academic among the US climate deniers and, for
this reason, he is heavily cited by sympathetic journalists such as
Melanie Phillips and Michael Crichton. His arguments though are
identical to the other deniers – for example an article in the
Wall Street Journal (June 11 2001) he claims that “there is no
consensus, unanimous or otherwise, about long-term climate trends or
what causes them”.
He is strongly associated with the other people on the programme though
co-authored reports, articles, conference appearances and co-signed
statements.
Tim Ball was captioned as the University of
Winnipeg. In fact he left in 1996 since when he has run political
campaigns through two organisations he helped found: the Natural
Resources Stewardship Project and the Friends of Science which,
according to their websites aim to run “a proactive grassroots
campaign to counter the Kyoto Protocol”; and “encourage and
assist the Canadian Federal Government to re-evaluate the Kyoto
Protocol”. Ian Clark is also on the board of the NRSP.
As to the claim that Tim Ball is/was a professor in the
Climatology Department at the University of Winnipeg, “the
University of Winnipeg has never had a Department of Climatology”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Global_Warming_Swindle.
Similarly, the pseudo-documentary has a caption saying
Fred Singer was the “Former Director, US National Weather
Service”. In fact, Fred Singer was never a “Former
Director, US National Weather Service”. These claims are not
true, and are willful misrepresentations of the credentials of the
participants in the movie. These are typical of the fraudulent claims
that are present in the pseudo-documentary.
For example, at about 16 min. 24 sec. into the
pseudo-documentary, Tim Ball asserts that the carbon dioxide content of
the atmosphere is 0.054%. You would think that a real “professor
of climatology” would know that the CO2 content of the atmosphere
has only climbed above 0.038% in the last few years (http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/),
and was consistently below 0.030% for at least 650,000 years before
1900.
Additional information at http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2007/06/piers_corbyn.php
describes Piers Corbyn thusly:
“Piers Corbyn does not appear to
have any academic standing, background, or contacts; he refuses to
divulge his prediction techniques or methods to anyone for examination;
and his actual prediction record is, shall we say, not exactly
justified by the evidence, and I can say this from watching him.”
“Overall, I would place him in the category of "successful
huckster" with the integrity of a sincere astrologer.”
Note: A Google search using < “Piers Corbyn” charlatan
> returns a significant number of hits.
The following information on Richard S. Lindzen was not
included above but can be found at: http://www.alternet.org/envirohealth/50494/
and http://dieoff.org/page82.htm#1
“Lindzen, for his part, 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.”…“In 1991, Western Fuels spent an estimated
$250,000 to produce and distribute a video entitled "The Greening of
Planet Earth," which was shown frequently inside the Bush White House
as well as within the governments of OPEC.”
And as quoted at: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/hotpolitics/reports/skeptics.html
Dr. Lindzen is a member of the Advisory
Council of the Annapolis Center for Science Based Public Policy, which
has received large amounts of funding from ExxonMobil and smaller
amounts from Daimler Chrysler, according to a review Exxon's own
financial documents and 990s from Daimler Chrysler's Foundation.
Lindzen is a also been a contributor to the Cato Institute [see
“Organized Crime” below], which has
taken $90,000 from Exxon since 1998, according to the website
Exxonsecrets.org and a review Exxon financial documents. He is also a
contributor for the George C. Marshall Institute.
“Organized
Crime” and the Pseudo-documentary’s “Expert”,
S. Fred Singer
It appears that the
pseudo-documentary’s
“expert”, “Professor” Fred Singer, has been a
co-organizer (with “Organized Crime”) of pseudo-scientific
organizations whose members consist of “other scientists”
who were willing participants in a “Propaganda for pay”
program. The purpose of these pseudo-scientific organizations was to
provide “anti-environmental”/“anti-consumerism”
reports. These pseudo-scientific organizations are actually fronts for
large energy and tobacco companies that wanted reports by “name
scientists” that would hide (via “disinformation”)
the fact that carbon dioxide emissions are causing “global
warming” (climate change). (Participation by tobacco companies
was to hide the harmful effects of cigarette smoking.)
Currently, a Google search using <
“Fred Singer” “organized crime” >
returns over 1,000 hits. You will find multiple connections to
other people in the above
list including Patrick Michaels’ links with the Cato Institute
(e. g. http://www.cato.org/people/michaels.html
). In turn, the Cato Institute is part of David Koch’s
“alleged”
“organized crime” network. (Picture at right is from http://www.ecosyn.us/adti/Koctopus_01.html,
and it has a great deal more information.)
A couple of good starter links for further research would include:
http://h2-pv.us/adti/AdTI_Contents/AdTI_Contents.html
http://www.ecosyn.us/adti/Singer-Nightline.html
For other links, “Google is your friend”. For
example: < “Koch Industries” “global
warming” >
Complicity between
Patrick Michaels, Koch, etc. and the IREA
(Intermountain Rural Electric Association)
The following quotes are from page 2 of a July 17, 2006 IREA newsletter.
Signed by Stanley R. Lewandowski, Jr. (General Manager)
http://www.realclimate.org/irea_letterJul06.pdf
“In February of this year, IREA
alone contributed $100,000 to Dr. Michaels. In addition, we have
contacted all of the G & T’s in the United States and as of
the writing of this letter, we have obtained additional contributions
and pledges for Dr. Michaels group.”
“Koch Industries is working with other large corporations,
including AEP and the Southern Company, on possibly financing a film
that would counteract An
Inconvenient Truth. Koch has also decided to finance a coalition
that very likely will be administered through the National Association
of Manufacturers.”
There is no confirmation regarding a connection between the above
“financing a film” and Durkin’s TGGWS, but - if you
could follow the money…?
More on Fred Singer
from the New York Times
The following quotes were originally in the New York Times
on April 26, 1998 and are archived at http://www.stopesso.com/coverage/00000077.php
It seems that not only is Fred Singer a member of the “Denial
Industry”, he helped to organize it. (Note: The reference to
“argue against the Administration”
was in Clinton’s administration. The Bush administration has
tried to reinforce this anti-climate agenda.)
INDUSTRIAL GROUP PLANS
TO BATTLE CLIMATE TREATY
By JOHN H. CUSHMAN Jr. (New York Times) 1140 words, April 26, 1998,
Sunday
WASHINGTON, April 25 -- Industry
opponents of a treaty to fight global warming have drafted an ambitious
proposal to spend millions of dollars to convince the public that the
environmental accord is based on shaky science. Among their ideas is a
campaign to recruit a cadre of scientists who share the industry's
views of climate science and to train them in public relations so they
can help convince journalists, politicians and the public that the risk
of global warming is too uncertain to justify controls on greenhouse
gases like carbon dioxide that trap the sun's heat near Earth.
The draft plan calls for recruiting scientists to argue against the
Administration, and suggests that they include ''individuals who do not
have a long history of visibility and/or participation in the climate
change debate.'' But among the plan's advocates are groups already
linked to the best-known critics of global-warming science. They include the Science and Environment Policy Project,
founded by Fred Singer, a physicist noted for opposing the
mainstream view of climate science.
Does Global Warming
Exist
As to whether “global warming” exists, we only
have to look at the earth’s canary birds - the glaciers. For
example, see http://www.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF17/1731.html.
The (historic) Muir Glacier is an extreme example, but there are many
other examples. (If you have Google Earth on your computer, go to
59.012N, 136.163W and look slightly west of due north to generate a
view similar to the view in the linked page.)
Can
“Insignificant” Humans Alter the Earth’s Vast
Atmosphere?
Let’s do a little simple math. The surface area of
the Earth is 197,000,000 square miles. http://www.britannica.com/ebi/article-199816
The World’s population is 6,602,224,175 (July 2007 est.) https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/xx.html
This yields 33.51+ people per square mile. (Includes oceans) Our
surface area allotment per person is a square a little over 912 feet by
912 feet, and our per capita atmospheric allotment is the air above
this square.
If you left your car running in a 25 ft. x 25 ft. closed
garage, it would take only a few minutes to get into trouble. It takes
longer if your garage is 912 ft. x 912 ft. x 5 miles high, but again,
the results are cumulative. (If you represent the earth’s
atmosphere by a column of air with uniform density at standard
temperature and pressure, the column would be slightly under 5 miles
high. In reality, the atmosphere’s average temperature is
slightly less than “standard temperature” which would
produce a slight further reduction in this height.)
Why the
Pseudo-Documentary was produced
There are many people in the world whose
attitude is: “Don’t bother me with the facts - I’ve
already made up my mind.” Typically, these people hold
emotion-based opinions, and don’t want to learn that their
opinions are no better than “urban legends”.
Supermarket tabloids appeal to people that fall into the
above category. These same people also blindly believe
pseudo-documentaries such as “The Great Global Warming
Swindle”. These people who have a “need to believe”
aren’t interested in the facts. But they are quite willing to
believe a fraudulent pseudo-documentary that supports
“Don’t bother me with the facts - I’ve already made
up my mind.” The “Martin Durkin”s of the world get
paid to generate pseudo-documentaries to service this market.
The Producer of the Pseudo-Documentary (Martin Durkin) has
a past record of turning out other “allegedly” biased
pseudo-documentaries that
appeal to the “Don’t bother me with the facts - I’ve
already made up my mind.” audience. The following is a quote from
Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Durkin_(television_director)
Martin Durkin is
a television producer and director, most notably of
television documentaries for Channel 4 in Britain. He has caused
consistent controversy over the alleged bias found in many of his
documentaries. He is understood to have once been closely involved with
the Revolutionary Communist Party and its later offshoots Living
Marxism and Spiked, a magazine and associated political network which
promotes libertarian views, and is highly critical of environmentalism.
Evidence that Martin
Durkin has a past record of “sleazebag” productions
It appears that this is not the only time that Martin
Durkin has used “cut-and-paste”, “out of
context” clips from legitimate scientists to misrepresent the
original meaning. He has used this same tactic in some of his previous
pseudo-documentaries. The following quote is from: http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=39
(and there is a lot more at this web page)
Two scientists critical of genetic
engineering who were invited to contribute to the programme, Dr Arpad
Pusztai and Dr Mae-Wan Ho, both subsequently complained that they were
misled about the content and were not given a chance to reply to
attacks on their positions (Pusztai's comments). Dr Ho said , 'I feel
completely betrayed and misled. They did not tell me it was going to be
an attack on my position.'
Past complicity by
“Channel 4” (Channel Four)
It appears that “Channel 4” is a
co-conspirator with Martin Durkin regarding other previous
pseudo-documentaries. The following is a quote from: http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=39
Channel Four had to broadcast a
prime-time apology after Against Nature drew the wrath of the
Independent Television Commission which ruled, 'Comparison of the
unedited and edited transcripts confirmed that the editing of the
interviews with [the environmentalists who contributed] had indeed
distorted or misrepresented their known views. It was also found that
the production company had misled them... as to the format, subject
matter and purpose of these programs.' (See CHANNEL 4 SAVAGED BY
TELEVISION WATCHDOG )
“Durkin had
intentionally sought out questionable sources and data”
The above quote is an excerpt from a long post at
http://reasic.wordpress.com/2007/03/14/channel-4-distances-itself-from-documentary/
that in turn quotes from the UK newpaper The Independent. The entire post
illustrates the distortions that Mr. Durkin used to try to promote his
own agenda. Single indentions sections are quotes from the Reasic
article while double indentions are quotes from The Independent. The URL for the
original article in The Independent
is: http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/climate_change/article2355956.ece
Channel 4 Distances Itself From Documentary
March 14th, 2007
UK newpaper The Independent has conducted an investigation into the
claims made and data used in Martin Durkin’s latest documentary.
As they reported today, they’ve found that the charts and data
used in the film were not entirely accurate:
The Great Global Warming Swindle, was
based on graphs that were distorted, mislabelled or just plain wrong.
The graphs were nevertheless used to attack the credibility and honesty
of climate scientists.
A graph central to the programme’s thesis, purporting to show
variations in global temperatures over the past century, claimed to
show that global warming was not linked with industrial emissions of
carbon dioxide. Yet the graph was not what it seemed.
Other graphs used out-of-date information or data that was shown some
years ago to be wrong. Yet the programme makers claimed the graphs
demonstrated that orthodox climate science was a conspiratorial
“lie” foisted on the public.
After a little poking around, the reporter found that Durkin had
intentionally sought out questionable sources and data, then
misrepresented them as being from NASA:
The programme-makers labelled the
source of the world temperature data as “Nasa” but when we
inquired about where we could find this information, we received an
email through Wag TV’s PR consultant saying that the graph was
drawn from a 1998 diagram published in an obscure journal called
Medical Sentinel. The authors of the paper are well-known climate
sceptics who were funded by the Oregon Institute of Science and
Medicine and the George C Marshall Institute, a right-wing Washington
think-tank.
However, there are no diagrams in the paper that accurately compare
with the C4 graph. The nearest comparison is a diagram of
“terrestrial northern hemisphere” temperatures - which
refers only to data gathered by weather stations in the top one third
of the globe.
However, further inquiries revealed that the C4 graph was based on a
diagram in another paper produced as part of a “petition
project” by the same group of climate sceptics. This diagram was
itself based on long out-of-date information on terrestrial
temperatures compiled by Nasa scientists.
However, crucially, the axis along the bottom of the graph has been
distorted in the C4 version of the graph, which made it look like the
information was up-to-date when in fact the data ended in the early
1980s.
Mr Durkin admitted that his graphics team had extended the time axis
along the bottom of the graph to the year 2000. “There was a
fluff there,” he said.
When questioned about these discrepancies, Channel 4 distanced itself
from the project:
Channel 4 yesterday distanced itself
from the programme, referring this newspaper’s inquiries to a
public relations consultant working on behalf of Wag TV, the production
company behind the documentary.
Many have already pointed out the distortions in the film. It’s
nice to see that this is reaching mainstream sources.
Martin Durkin’s
“Scientific Reply” to Dr. Armand Leroi
When Dr Armand Leroi from Imperial College London wrote to
Martin Durkin to complain about the distorted science presented in the
program, this was Martin Durkin’s “scientific” reply:
-----Original Message----- From:
Martin Durkin
[mailto:mdurkin@wagtv.com] Sent: 09
March 2007 09:53 To: Armand
Leroi; lbolch@channel4.co.uk Cc:
simonsingh@msn.com;
ben@badscience.net Subject: RE: The
Global Warming Swindle
Isn’t nice to know that “Channel 4”’s
journalism standards include and defend:
“You’re a
big daft cock”
And from The Times On
Line
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article1517515.ece
Martin Durkin, the executive producer
of The Great Global Warming Swindle, responded to the concerns of Dr
Armand Leroi, from Imperial College, and Simon Singh, the respected
scientific author, by telling them to “go and f***
yourself”. (Use a Google search for multiple links that omit the
“***”)
Mr Durkin replied nine minutes later: “The BBC is now a force for
bigotry and intolerance . . .
“Why have we not heard this in the hours and hours of shit
programming on global warming shoved down our throats by the
BBC?”
“Never mind an irresponsible bit of film-making. Go and f***
yourself.”
Recommended links for
further research
The Royal Society - the UK's national academy of science
http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/news.asp?id=6245
“Those who seek to distort and
undermine the science of climate change and deny the seriousness of the
potential consequences of global warming put forward a range of
arguments most of which misrepresent the existing research. It is
vital that the scientific evidence on climate change is accurately
represented.
Policymakers, industry and the public must make informed decisions
about what actions to take rather than be misinformed by lobbyists for
big business or programmes such as Channel 4's recent 'Great Global
Warming Swindle'.”
“Red Line” - “Green line” (“Solar
Activity”) http://www.celsias.com/blog/2007/03/14/channel-fours-problem-with-science/
The “climate experts” (who turn out to be “a little
less expert” than the pseudo-documentary claimed/implied)
“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.”
http://www.hipforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=223598
Scam of the “Great Global Warming Swindle”
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1656640542976216573
Chris Merchant, School of GeoSciemces, University of Edinburgh
Includes: “Has data been manipulated?”, “Selective
(distorted?) data”, “Quoting out of context”
http://reasic.wordpress.com/2007/03/14/channel-4-distances-itself-from-documentary/
Channel 4 Distances Itself From Documentary, March 14th, 2007
The misleading credentials of the “experts”
http://www.desmogblog.com/node/1272
(Also, check other related at this website)
“The problem with The Great Global Warming Swindle … is
that to make its case it relies … on people whose findings have
already been proved wrong.”
http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,2032572,00.html
University of Cambridge: “Scientific Response to “The Great
Global Warming Swindle””
http://www.cpi.cam.ac.uk/gore/PDF/GWS%20Scientific%20Responses%202007.pdf
“Channel 4 used seriously flawed data on which to base their
programme.”
http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/News_and_Information/news_stories/story.php?id=50
“Complaint with regard to 'The Great Global Warming
Swindle'”
http://www.chemlabs.bris.ac.uk/outreach/resources/channel4_response.pdf
An excellent point by point refutation of the pseudo-documentary by
England’s University of Bristol in a complaint submitted to
“Ofcom”.
Another lengthy complaint to Ofcom by Bob Ward also has multiple point
by point refutations of the misrepresentations in the
pseudo-documentary. http://www.climateofdenial.net/
More on the faulty “solar activity” & cosmic ray
graphs. (Note the Stanford University source)
http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF_Papers/DamonLaut2004.pdf
“Analysis of a
number of published graphs that have played a major role in these
debates and that have been claimed to support solar hypotheses [Laut,
2003; Damon and Peristykh, 1999, 2004] shows that the apparent strong
correlations displayed on these graphs have been obtained by incorrect
handling of the physical data. The graphs are still widely referred to
in the literature, and their misleading character has not yet been
generally recognized.”
“The sole objective of the present analysis is to draw attention
to the fact that some of the widely publicized, apparent correlations
do not properly reflect the underlying physical data.”
National Geographic Magazine
What Is Global Warming? http://green.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/gw-overview.html?nav=TOPNAV
Global Warming: How Hot? How Soon? http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/07/0727_050727_globalwarming.html
Global Warming Fast Facts http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/12/1206_041206_global_warming.html
Effects of Global Warming http://green.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/gw-effects.html
Scientific American Magazine
Scientific American Climate Coverage (1960-present)
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=clash-climate-change-coverage
(Includes links to hundreds of articles in Scientific American.)
“Humanity's ability to change the climate and subsequent impacts
. . . a partial bibliography, stretching back only as far as 1960, of
our coverage of this issue.”
If you are not familiar with how the CO2 “Greenhouse
Effect” works, Wikipedia has a good introduction.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect
The Real Data as
Researched by Legitimate Scientists
INTERGOVERNMENTAL PANEL ON CLIMATE CHANGE
Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis
http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb07.pdf
The charts to the right show the real forcing effect
resulting from Carbon Dioxide and Methane as shown in the above IPCC
report. The unit of measure is Watts per Sq. Meter. One watt is about
the strength of a small Christmas tree light. It takes decades for
ocean water several miles deep to warm up at this rate, but the rate is
cumulative, and this same lag means that forcing over the last few
decades will be contributing to future warming for decades into the
future.
“Global atmospheric
concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide have
increased markedly as a result of human activities since 1750 and now
far exceed pre-industrial values determined from ice cores spanning
many thousands of years (see Figure SPM-1). The global increases in
carbon dioxide concentration are due primarily to fossil fuel use and
land-use change, while those of methane and nitrous oxide are primarily
due to agriculture.
The primary source of the increased atmospheric concentration of carbon
dioxide since the pre-industrial period results from fossil fuel use,
with land use change providing another significant but smaller
contribution.
Warming of the climate system is
unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global
average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice,
and rising global average sea level.”
The chart to the right (from the same report) shows the
relative magnitude of the components involved in global warming. Carbon
dioxide is of course dominant. Sulfur dioxide and condensation nuclei
(haze, smoke, etc.) cause increased cloudiness that partially offsets
forcing due to greenhouse gases. There has been a minor contribution
from increased solar radiation, but this is less than 10% of the
man-made components.
For further research about the real data, please see:
NOAA’s
Earth System Research Laboratory - Global Monitoring
Division
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/
(Includes up to date Mauna Loa CO2 readings)
NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies - Forcings in GISS
Model
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/modelforce/
Illustrates “Changes in climate "forcings" or factors that have
contributed to climate change since 1750.”
National Climate Data Center at NOAA.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/index.html
University Corporation for Atmospheric Research UCAR/NCAR
http://www.ucar.edu/research/climate/warming.jsp
“Legitimate
Scientists are the Bad Guys” - Martin Durkin
And what does Martin Durkin have to say about real scientists?
The following quote is from “Life Style Extra, UK News, 'Global
Warming Is Lies' Claims Documentary”
http://www.lse.co.uk/ShowStory.asp?story=CZ434669U&news_headline=global_warming_is_lies_claims_documentary
Controversial director Martin Durkin
said: "You can see the problems with the science of global warming, but
people just don't believe you - it's taken 10 years to get this
commissioned.
"I think it will go down in history as the first chapter in a new era
of the relationship between scientists and society. Legitimate
scientists - people with qualifications - are the bad guys.
Is Martin Durkin trying to get us to believe that only
movie directors understand science, and legitimate scientists
don’t? Is Martin Durkin actually telling us that the real reason
he made the movie was to promote his personal war against legitimate
scientists? (And collect a few bucks from the “Don’t bother
me with the facts - I’ve already made up my mind.”
audience.)
Note: Run a Google search using the above phrase for other sources to
confirm that this is what Martin Durkin actually said.
A link to this web
page by MIT’s Professor Carl Wunsch
(The aforementioned scientist who was “swindled” by Martin
Durkin)
1) Go to: http://ocean.mit.edu/~cwunsch/CHANNEL4.html
2) Click on: “Discussion of some of the science and other
distortion in the "Swindle" (Bill Butler)”
A link from the
Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s “The Science
Show”
1) Go to: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/stories/2007/1966036.htm
2) Click on: “Durango Bill's Debunking the Deniers of Global
Warming”
(Listed under “Further Information”)
A link from “The
Dilbert Blog” that generated over 10,000 page hits
http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/05/global_warming_.html
(Just before the Comments section)
[Update: It took about ten minutes for
reader Chris Graham to post this link debunking the video "The Great
Global Warming Swindle.":
http://www.durangobill.com/Swindle_Swindle.html.
Obviously I am unqualified to judge either the video or the debunking
to it, but the last thing I read always seems the most persuasive.]
Complaint to Ofcom
The following is a copy of an online complaint that the author has
filed with the UK’s Office of Communications (Ofcom) http://www.ofcom.org.uk/complain/
From: (Address & Tel. omitted for
this posting)
To: Complaints at the UK’s Office of Communications (Ofcom)
http://www.ofcom.org.uk/complain/
Dear Sirs:
While I am not a citizen of the United Kingdom and did not
see the original “Channel 4” broadcast of “The Great
Global Warming Swindle”, the program has been widely posted on
the Internet via YouTube.com (where I first saw it), Google Videos, and
subsequently via several dozen “pirate” postings.
I understand that there have been multiple formal
complaints filed in regard to the broadcast. I am not familiar with the
specific UK broadcasting regulations that have been violated, but I
would like to file a complaint that the claimed data and observational
assertions made in the program are in fact false and fictitious. In any
scientific investigation you are allowed to “interpret”
real data/observations, but if you falsify the source data you are
willfully misleading other people into potentially believing these
falsified observations. In turn erroneous governmental/industry policy
decisions may be based on this false data, and public acceptance of
these false observations may lead to decisions that are misguided and
wasteful of taxpayer funds.
I have outlined some of my observations on the
misleading/fraudulent data regarding the
“pseudo-documentary” at a web page titled: “The Great
Global Warming Swindle” is itself a Fraud and a Swindle
http://www.durangobill.com/Swindle_Swindle.html
In an effort to try to stop the worldwide dissemination
(via television in other countries, the Internet, DVD sales, etc.) of
what I regard as fraudulent/dishonest material, I ask that you force
Channel 4 (and any other directly supervised parties) to publicly
apologize for presenting the program and force them to state that the
presentation was not based on factual data.
Sincerely,
Bill Butler
Correspondence with
the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC)
A representative of the ABC contacted me (by E-mail)
before their July 12, 2007 scheduled broadcast of “The
Swindle”. All information/inquiries from them will remain
confidential as per their request, but the following is part of my July
7, 2007 reply.
“My opinion.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation
is doing a major disservice by broadcasting the film. You are fanning
the flames of emotionalism in pursuit of ratings. There are major
questions that should be addressed by policy makers throughout the
world. These would include:
Can anything meaningful be done to mitigate "Global Warming" (Climate
Change)?
If something meaningful can be done, what will it cost? (And you better
have a firm grip on something when you address this problem.)
The one sure guarantee regarding the presentation of the movie is that
policy makers will not be able to make rational decisions. Anything
that they might do will instead be based on emotional opinions of the
voters who have elected them. I fear the eventual outcome will be that
a great deal of money will be wasted on "pseudo-solutions" that will
accomplish - nothing.
Sincerely,
Bill Butler”
Why did the Australian
Broadcasting Corporation show “The Swindle”?
In any “Ace” detective story, if you want to
find “the culprit”, rule Number One is to either 1)
“Follow the money” or 2) “Follow the politics”.
In this case rule number 2) seems applicable as it seems the United
States is not the only country in the world where “high ranking
government officials” declare themselves to be disciples whose
mission is to redefine science.
There have been multiple stories in the Australian press
that the ABC’s Board of Directors forced the movie to be shown
despite the advice of the ABC’s science expert, Robyn Williams.
In turn, the ABC’s Board of Directors is appointed by the
Governor-General. The information shown below about four (a majority)
of the board’s seven directors can be found at http://www.answers.com/topic/australian-broadcasting-corporation
(unless otherwise indicated), and provides some insight as to the
politics involved in the board’s decision to show the film.
Maurice Newman (ABC chairperson): “Maurice
Newman is the current Chairperson of the Australian Broadcasting
Corporation, as well as chair of the board of the Australian Stock
Exchange. He is a close personal friend of Australian Prime Minister
John Howard.”
Janet Albrechtsen: “Albrechtsen's
political views are strongly conservative, and she has supported the
Howard government, the foreign policies of the Bush administration, the
war on terror and the invasion of Iraq.”
Ron Brunton: “Brunton's appointment to the
ABC Board by the Australian Government of John Howard created
controversy given his ideological partisanship.[1] However, it
continues that government's attempt to move the ABC culture to a
political position more amenable to its own.”
Keith Windschuttle: (From “Australian
Broadcasting Corporation adopts new “bias” rules” http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/nov2006/abc-n04.shtml
) “Prominent in the audience was ABC board member Janet
Albrechtsen, a right-wing Murdoch columnist who reportedly initiated
the policy shift. “An awful lot of work has gone into drawing up
these guidelines,” she proudly told reporters. Another extreme
right-wing Howard appointee to the board, Keith Windschuttle, also
praised the guidelines.”
The
“Quality” and “Reliability” of Martin
Durkin’s “Research”
As noted earlier, Martin Durkin keeps changing the content
of the movie as one after another of his misrepresentations are
revealed. The picture below (from http://www.abc.net.au/science/features/globalwarmingswindle/)
shows a new graph that was added to the July 12, 2007 Australian
version of Martin Durkin’s pseudo-documentary.
See if you can find any problems with the
“quality” and “reliability” of Martin
Durkin’s “research”.
Hint 1) The attack on Pearl Harbor was December
7, 1941. (All dates are local time)
Hint 2) Germany surrendered on May 7, 1945.
Hint 3) Japan formally surrendered on September
2, 1945.
Hint 4) The earliest that the “Post
War Economic Boom” could begin would have to be
sometime
after
September 2,
1945.
Hint 5) When did the “Post
War Economic Boom” begin according to Martin
Durkin’s “Research”?
And this is from someone who claims: “Martin Durkin studied
ancient and medieval history at University College London” http://www.greatglobalwarmingswindle.co.uk/martin_durkin.html
Question: Why is there no reference to a degree?
As for the “ACIA” source cited in the graph,
the real “Arctic Climate Impact Assessment” includes a
140-page report titled Impacts of a
Warming Arctic and a much larger 1020-page, “Scientific
Report” Arctic Climate Impact
Assessment book. Both have conclusions that are radically
different than Martin Durkin’s assertions. For example, from page
4 of ACIA’s Policy Document:
“1. The Arctic climate is now warming rapidly and much larger
changes are projected.”
http://www.acia.uaf.edu
The picture to the right is from page 35 in ACIA’s “Arctic Climate: Past and Present” report at: http://www.acia.uaf.edu/PDFs/ACIA_Science_Chapters_Final/ACIA_Ch02_Final.pdf
It
appears to be the source for Durkin’s graph. Once again take a close
look at the right hand portion of the graphs where Durkin has omitted
the warmest year on record (original source uses data through 2003) as
well as the steep rise in the smoothed curve.
(And a “thank you” goes to Wolfgang Wieser for finding this source.)
Stay tuned for future misrepresentations by Martin Durkin. . .
Also please see Roger Cohen’s proposed $5,000 bet
A (retired) Exxon Mobil executive’s attempt to use money
to promote his personal agenda. (Which is to deny “Global Warming”.)
Note: The author (Bill Butler) of this web page is a magna cum laude, Computer Science
graduate of Brown University. A brief bio can be found at message # 8 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CSAtrium/
(CSAtrium is a Yahoo group for the “alums of Brown
University’s
Computer Science Department and Computer Engineering graduates”.)
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