The great global warming swindle

democrates

On ch4 right now.

So the ground temperature is rising faster than in upper altitudes, the opposite of what models predict if co2 is driving climate change.

They're saying according to all ice-core studies the co2 level follows temperature, not visa versa. And most of the co2 comes from the oceans, decaying vegetation, volcanoes etc.
Though they haven't mentioned other greenhouse gasses.

The sun!
Mars is also warming.

Hmm. If the co2 scare is really a swindle who gains?

ReefBreak

I've been watching it. Very convincing I have to say.

TheNog

Goddamit you beat me to it. It is very convincing. Changing my mind on my this issue.

I do share your curiosity,Who gains in this?

Max_Damage

I've just watched it. Indeed very convincing.

I never really believed that CO2 was the cause of global warming, that progam has just reinforced my views on the issue.

mike65

Very interesting pity we did'nt have a follow up programme/discussion to tease out the claims made, but the politics of the Green movement were well
noted. As for the science well we've long known about temperature variation through the ages - that it can be shown to be linked very closely to activity in the sun was pretty compelling as was the point about the % of CO2 that can be attributed to our industrial activity.

I'm still "green" but for reasons of enlightened self-interest - lower fuel bills.

Mike.

democrates

mike65 wrote:

Very interesting pity we did'nt have a follow up programme/discussion to tease out the claims made, but the politics of the Green movement were well
noted. As for the science well we've long known about temperature variation through the ages - that it can be shown to be linked very closely to activity in the sun was pretty compelling as was the point about the % of CO2 that can be attributed to our industrial activity.

I'm still "green" but for reasons of enlightened self-interest - lower fuel bills.

Mike.

Agreed, something so convincing is bound to provoke interesting responses though.
If the dangers of greenhouse gasses have really been overstated, maybe it's been a flag of convenience to get changes made for the inconvenient truth of peak oil.

I'm now undecided on this particular topic, and though there remain other reasons to be green it's only fair to apologise to those who raised the solar correlation here before for not giving them a fair enough hearing, don't ask me why the documentary is more persuasive.

Jackie laughlin

As I said on other threads, I'm a very recent and reluctant convert to global warming - I mean GW as a problematic outcome of human activity. I need to have another look at my former position. The main thing that bothers me is that looking at the coincidence of the CO2 graph and the temp. graph over a long period, I didn't notice the obvious time lag. I could excuse myself because most of printed graphics are limited horizontally but Al Gore's movie graph shows it plainly as an fx. along which he appears to walk

Wibbs

Missed the program. Hopefully it'll be repeated. I've been dubious for a long time about man made global warming. I could see that temps were rising, but the extent to which man was responsible was troubling. That al gore flick really irritated. Where was he when he was in power if they knew this was apparently going on?

The earth has gone through huge changes in temperature, even in the relatively recent past. None of which had anything to do with human activity. Volcanoes have a much bigger effect. The dark ages and the little ice age of the middle ages were largely down to them. There was a time not so long ago when they were wittering on about global cooling ffs.

There was always a sniff of hippy to some of the rhetoric.

There was similar with regard to third world rainforests. Europeans cut down most of our forest long ago. That drove various civilisations growth. Ireland was blanketed in trees. Where are they now? Now deforestation is bad, but I thought it hypocritical for us to stop the rest of the world doing it, just so eco tourists and sting would have a nice place to visit to gawp at the natives with lumps of wood in their lips. We do need to preserve the rainforests. In a big way. Their biodiversity alone is worth saving. But we need to be doing this and other green issues for the right reasons.

The environment needs to be looked after and we've come some way from mistakes in the past. The dubious science of global warming is helping that. We don't need to be throwing the baby out with the bathwater anytime soon. If your average Joe reckons he's saving the planet by turning down his thermostat, then that's a good thing. Even from a purely economic standpoint we need renewable energy. Just not those poxy windmills...:D

Drax

Watched this last night (although missed that last 20 mins!). Very interesting. I recently watched Al Gore's 'A inconvenient truth' and thought it was quite a good film. But now after watching this documentary, I am skeptical about some of Gore's information. For example, at one point in the movie, he walks along a huge graph and at the end steps into a manlift where the projection for temperature (I think) were 'off the scale'. At no point in the program last night was this projection shown. I am also inclined to believe a bunch of scientists over a politician, even if his goal is for the greater good. Showing the correlation between solar activity and the climate changes makes you wonder why no-one has pushed for this theory. But it seems economics and money are the driving forces behind this climate fear. Is it not fair to assume that something the size of the sun in relation to earth would easily have the ability to influence climate changes on a small body orbiting it?

One thing I hope this documentary doesn't cause is for people to go - 'ah f*ck it.... I'm going out to buy a 5 ltr SUV' now because it doesnt matter!... I still think it is important to reduce pollutants etc.

http://www.rense.com/general72/size.htm

silverharp

Drax wrote:

One thing I hope this documentary doesn't cause is for people to go - 'ah f*ck it.... I'm going out to buy a 5 ltr SUV' now because it doesnt matter!... I still think it is important to reduce pollutants etc.

http://www.rense.com/general72/size.htm

This is true, moving away from oil as an energy source is still essential so even if man made global warming is nonscience it will do some good I guess. Interesting that it was Maggie T. in the UK that kicked this off as she was suspicious of the oil and coal industry and was pushing for Nuclear, so sponsored research to back up her view

Alun

I thought it was a fascinating and thought provoking program, and confirmed most of what I thought about this subject already.

One of the most important points in my mind was that there's now a huge amount of impetus behind Global Warming .. it's become a multi-million dollar industry in itself. So, even if the whole of the IPCC privately suddenly decided that it was all a load of rubbish, and that it was all driven by the sun after all, do you seriously think they're going to come out and say so, and immediately put thousands of people worldwide out of a job? I don't think so somehow. I'm old enough, and grey enough, to remember the "new ice age" predictions of the early 70's. What happened to them I wonder.

The other disturbing thing was how politicized it's all become, with scientists who have misgivings about this theory, and it is after all still just that, a theory, are treated like, to quote one contributor "a holocaust denier". That kind of thing, plus some of the behind the scenes shenanigans within the IPCC with scientists who have long since left the IPCC in disgust still being listed as contributors even though their contributions were ignored, makes me wonder how anyone can take them seriously.

Be The Holy

Was very convincing last night. When one considers our government are going to purchase €270 million worth of carbon credits on an inexact science to say the least, people will have to start asking serious questions.

Missed the first 15 mins, but surprised they didnt bring up the whole molecular weight of CO2 being heavier than O2 & N2 and so existing close to the surface as opposed to being up in the atmosphere. This is usually used by anti global warming theorist.

Did they mention the unprecedented rate of warming at all in the last decade etc? Or is that due to the suns activity?

Cuauhtemoc

I haven't seen the program yet and hope it's repeated but people seem to be taking it as gospel. You can pretty much buy research to support any point of view though.
It would be nice to see a balanced debate between the co2 theory scientists and the sun scientists.

If it's the sun where does that leave our options? Solar deflectors or something?

C.

ednwireland

agreed fascinating program esp. the attempts to keep the third world from developing i've always thought its easy for us to say that they shouldn't have what we've got, the coment on using the most expensive technologies to provide power for the poorest people (who cant afford it) hit home with me.
i've always been concerned about the lack of scientific debate on climate change. i dont think anyone was argueing about whether climate change was happening not just that the focus seems to be on co2 which may or may not be a large contributing factor. i think that c02 is a very easy message to deliver which is why its been picked up on. if it makes us reduce consumption (esp. fossil fuels) then its probably not a bad thing. but if we spend billions of dollars creating machines to suck co2 from the atmosphere and putting it somewhere else wthout knowing the effect on the whole system its probably bad.
Cuauhtemoc - just read your post the sun cycles it gets hotter and cooler we just have to acept that.
there definitly seems to be no balanced debate we've been told for years its all co2's fault but its more likely a combination of things that we dont understand yet. if you subscribe to the fact that you can buy any research what does that say about billions spent on co2 research to the detriment of anything else ?

Blitzkrieger

The big swindle I see is all the extra taxes (stealth or otherwise) we're getting lumped with, with very little prospect of improvement.

magicbastarder

does it take a single documentary to sway people that easily?
i didn't see it, so i can't comment on the arguments, but i find it bemusing that people will regard 40 minutes of television as adequate to change their mind about something like this.

ednwireland

just seen this site it seems to explain most of the theories (remember co2 causing climate change is just a theory)
http://www.channel4.com/science/microsites/G/great_global_warming_swindle/index.html?intcmp=homepage_box3
try this as well
http://www.realclimate.org/

dr.bollocko

I think the point people are making is that they havent made their mind up yet. And also that it's quite refreshing to finally see someone who isn't Jeremy Clarkson say that this Global Warming nonsense is a load of old hairy balls. And at least there is an other side to the argument. Particularly when you look at the media and hollywood's take on the situation without thinking "Since when did a bunch of actors or Rupert Murdoch know absolutely anything about CO2 emissions." 30 years ago, the powers that be were saying that global cooling was inevitable if we continue in the same vein.

magicbastarder

were there any solar astrophysicists on the program?

i don't think the "human CO2 production is far outweighed by natural CO2 production" argument holds much water till the actual natural CO2 output is known - because biological CO2 production could be in equilibrium with biological CO2 absorption, whereas humans tend not to absorb CO2.

what volcano are they blaming the little ice age on?

Wibbs

Cuauhtemoc wrote:

I haven't seen the program yet and hope it's repeated but people seem to be taking it as gospel. You can pretty much buy research to support any point of view though.

True, but it makes more sense when you consider how much CO2 is naturally emitted. Add to the sun activity and the man made factor drops off quite a bit.

It would be nice to see a balanced debate between the co2 theory scientists and the sun scientists.

Good luck. The weight is now firmly behind the man made global warming idea

If it's the sun where does that leave our options? Solar deflectors or something?

Not really. It's been hotter in this part of world and it's been colder. All in the last 2000 years. The liffey used to freeze up in winter in the middle ages. Before that it was warmer than it is now. We'll just adapt. I mean I watched the BBC programme a while back on this global warming lark and alarmist wasn't in it. I mean they were worrying about the train track warping in the heat. It doesn't seem to faze the Spanish much and they are currently much warmer than the worst projected figures for these islands. Water will become an issue though. We need to plan for longer hotter summers.

Wibbs

magicbastarder wrote:

i don't think the "human CO2 production is far outweighed by natural CO2 production" argument holds much water till the actual natural CO2 output is known - because biological CO2 production could be in equilibrium with biological CO2 absorption, whereas humans tend not to absorb CO2.

Maybe, but it's complex. EG if you replace forests with grassland you absorb more co2. It's not obvious, but grasslands tend to have thicker soils where the co2 is locked up. It's one of the reasons the co2 level is far lower than it was in the age of the dinosaurs, before grasses evolved

what volcano are they blaming the little ice age on?

I think it was in the far east.

Wibbs

Another one. Greenland was called greenland by the vikings because it wasn't as glaciated as it is today. That's not that long ago. When it started to ice up they lost the colony. We're living through the rebound from that cold snap.

silverharp

magicbastarder wrote:

what volcano are they blaming the little ice age on?

huh? it was the Maunder miminum, there is a correlation between sunspot activity and the enrgy output of the sun. at the time there was little sunspot activity

magicbastarder

silverharp wrote:

huh? it was the Maunder miminum, there is a correlation between sunspot activity and the enrgy output of the sun. at the time there was little sunspot activity

my question was in response to wibb's assertion that it was volcanoes.

magicbastarder

anyway, what i find dangerous is this either/or mindset.
the 'either it's the sun, or it's us' mode of thinking, where any evidence that the sun is causing warming is taken as proof that we're off the hook.

Wibbs

silverharp wrote:

huh? it was the Maunder miminum, there is a correlation between sunspot activity and the enrgy output of the sun. at the time there was little sunspot activity

True but there was apparently also a large eruption at the time which may have tipped the balance.

More recently another volcano mount Pinatubo dropped temperatures to a noticable degree. The indonesian 1815 eruption, screwed up the climate so much that they had frost the following summer in britain. All these things are interrelated of course.

magicbastarder wrote:

anyway, what i find dangerous is this either/or mindset.
the 'either it's the sun, or it's us' mode of thinking, where any evidence that the sun is causing warming is taken as proof that we're off the hook.

True. We do need to look after the environment, even if we're not to blame for this heating. If we don't we won't be on soild ground to survive the heat, manmade or not

magicbastarder

Wibbs wrote:

True. We do need to look after the environment, even if we're not to blame for this heating. If we don't we won't be on soild ground to survive the heat, manmade or not

it wasn't just that i was getting at - it's the "there's only one cause" mindset.
sure, the sun may be causing the earth to warm up, and if that's found to be the case, you can bet that if there's a bush on the throne in the US when it happens, it'll be open season on coal and oil again, which would completely miss the point that humans may also be to blame.

magicbastarder

Wibbs wrote:

True but there was apparently also a large eruption at the time which may have tipped the balance.

there's also the theory that the black death was to blame, which caused reforestation in europe due to the huge number of people farming the land dying.

magicbastarder

Why Channel 4 has got it wrong over climate change

We live in an era of conspiracies. Princess Diana was killed by Nazis; 9/11 was the work of the US government, while the manned lunar landings were hoaxes filmed in TV studios. To this list of internet-fuelled daftness, we can now add a new plot: that the world's scientific community is not just wrong about global warming, but is collectively lying when it says industrial carbon dioxide emissions are heating up the planet.

Michael Crichton started the ball rolling with his novel State of Fear and the idea has bubbled along nicely in online chatrooms ever since. But now the idea is to get the full terrestrial TV treatment when Channel 4 screens Thursday's The Great Global Warming Swindle, a documentary which says claims that carbon emissions are causing global warming are 'lies' and that attempts to debate the subject are being suppressed.

Given that the world's climatologists have just published a careful, sober report showing global warming is real and worrying, the programme is an astonishing foray into the debate. Certainly, there many reasons to deride it. Its contents are largely untrue, for a start. That is Channel 4's problem. Yet a couple of important points do emerge from this nonsense and we should not make the mistake of ignoring them. To back his case, director Martin Durkin interviews climate-change deniers including Phillip Stott, Piers Corbyn, Nigel Calder and Nigel Lawson who reveal their antipathy to the idea we are altering Earth's weather systems.

These names are scarcely unknown. Listeners to Today and viewers of Newsnight have been hearing Stott and the rest promote their views for years. Indeed, they have dominated and distorted the whole global warming debate, a point stressed by Alan Thorpe, head of the Natural Environment Research Council. 'These people are never off the radio or TV, yet now they claim debate is being suppressed? It is preposterous.' So what, we might ask, is the deniers' problem? Examine their movement and you see a common thread: most proponents are elderly, only a few are scientists and several have pronounced pro-market views. And hereby hangs a tale.

'It is widely assumed that to control climate change, we will need a raft of government measures and increased bureaucracy - anathema to these people,' says political philosopher John Gray. 'So they deal with the issue by denying the problem in the first place. They say there is no such thing as global warming and therefore no need for more controls. They have closed their minds.'

The problem is that denial - in all its ludicrous glory - makes it easy for us to gloss over genuine concerns about society's right reaction to global warming and carbon emissions. And that is what is wrong with Durkin's programme. It opts for dishonest rhetoric when a little effort could have produced an important contribution to a critical social problem.

Consider emission controls. This is now assumed to be as much an issue of individual responsibility as of international negotiation. Petrol-guzzling 4x4s must be taxed, foreign holidays discouraged, TVs unplugged and lavatories left unflushed. After decades of waiting, the green movement has found the cause of its dreams: a crisis that gives them carte blanche, they believe, to rule our lives.

Hairshirts are being knitted and the self-righteous are gathering. The Observer's travel desk already gets hate mail merely for highlighting interesting destinations that might seem to encourage carbon-producing air travel. No wonder those poor old deniers cringe.

But it simply does not have to be that way. For a start, air travel accounts for only 2 per cent of global carbon dioxide emissions. So I refuse to feel guilty because I have a family holiday in Spain and then write about the threatened glories of the Great Barrier Reef.

Indeed, if one looks at the world's last great ecological scare, the dwindling of our protective ozone layer, it is intriguing to see how we dealt with a threat that seemed as apocalyptic then as climate change does today. Ozone depletion, caused by CFC chemicals used in fridges and deodorants, was not contained through individual sacrifice. We were not asked to sell our Hotpoint freezers or go smelly to the office. Governments and industries agreed to replace CFCs with safe substitutes. So there was no need for an army of self-appointed greenies to sniff our armpits to check if they were suspiciously non-malodorous. The crisis was contained at an industrial, not a consumer, level, as it should be with greenhouse gases.

Climate change is a bigger, more pernicious problem and will require broader, more intense efforts to cut back on carbon emissions, which, in turn, offers more opportunities for campaigners and politicians to hijack a sound cause to gain control of people's lives. 'That is the striking thing about global warming,' says Myles Allen, of Oxford's climate dynamics group. 'It is a Christmas tree on which each of us can hang virtually everything we want.'

Thus, everyone from EU commissioners and Ken Livingstone to parish councils and writers of green-ink letters now uses global warming as an excuse to tell us how to live. Some of this advice, and attempts at lifestyle control, is sound. Some is not. Either way, it is misplaced. The lead must come from government and industry. So far it hasn't. That is incompetence. Not conspiracy.

http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,2026125,00.html

is_that_so

I think what it demonstrated quite clearly is that there is room for debate and that the reasons for global warming could be myriad.
As magicbastarder has suggested I don't think there is one reason - at least not a known reason that 100% of the scientific community agrees on.
As a programme I thought it was well assembled with very credible experts and worked well apart from the OTT soundbites near the beginning.
Equally it reminded me, as one of the speakers said, they are all after funding, which ultimately makes it difficult to get an objective point of view.

The global warming(or not ) debate at least has us all pointing in the same direction, i.e. there is an acknowledgement that we cannot continue as we are - using resources at such a rate and generating pollution.

IMO what is of more concern is the effect that environmental politics is having in places like Africa, even if the example shown was a bit dramatic. IMO there is a militant edge to some parts of the debate which can preclude fairness and actual science.

As for being convinced , well I think it opened up the debate. The trouble was all it set out to do , was say "Global warming is a swindle".
None of the speakers were challenged to say if the proposals - carbon credits etc. are a good or a bad idea.

I think the current focus on global warming is a positive. The fact that it is also making us look at so many areas of human activity, waste, recycling, transport, industrialisation is also a positive. These are areas we can control and make our lives and environment better. Whether they affect global warming or not is not going be answered any time soon.

ReefBreak

An interesting Guardian article, but typically from the Guardian, it attempts to disprove honest debate by simply attacking the alleged ideology of the other side by saying that "most proponents are elderly, only a few are scientists and several have pronounced pro-market views". Apart from Lord Lawson, I didn't see anything on the documentary that supported this view. Not only that, but the article doesn't say a word about why he believes most of the programme to be untrue. He only says that "Its contents are largely untrue, for a start." I'd like to hear why they are untrue.

Some of the comments below the piece are interesting:

>"These names are scarcely unknown. Listeners to Today and viewers of Newsnight have been hearing Stott and the rest promote their views for years. Indeed, they have dominated and distorted the whole global warming debate..."

This is an utterly bizarre claim.

A google search of the BBC website for "Phillip Stott" returns 1 result, and 2 results on the BBC new site.

A google search of the BBC website for "George Monbiot" returns 119 results, and 169 results on the BBC new site.

I found it very interesting how the former Communist rabble in the UK now have a new cause to support. It appears they won't be happy until everyone is on the bread-line, and if Global Warming can do it, so be it.