Apparently Channel Four in the UK has put out a program which, with admirable honesty entitles itself The Great Global Warming Swindle, and offers the same tired set of swindlers we’ve heard for fifteen years or more, although their site breathlessly proclaims
But just as the environmental lobby think they’ve got our attention, a group of naysayers have emerged to slay the whole premise of global warming.
Particularly amusing for those of us who follow these things is the linkup between the US right, represented by Fred Singer, Patrick Michaels and others, and the Revolutionary Communist Party/LM crew at Spiked who put the whole thing together.* George Marshall (no relation to the George C Marshall Institute, which in turn bears no relation to George C Marshall, the soldier and statesman whose name it shamelessly ripped off) details names, track records of and (an incomplete list of) cash payments received by the participants.
*For those who like to keep track of the links between various forms of delusionism, this is the same group that denied ethnic cleansing in Bosnia.
John Quiggin 
Had to deal with Spiked’s work before (unrelated to Bosnia), and its real-world consequences for innocent humans.
Seriously unimpressed. They are actually far more authoritarian than libertarian.
I watched it last night – its a totally one-sided story that presents only the views of denialists – already it has been claimed to misrepresent. But it is well-produced (it looked like an expensive production – who funded it?) and is a sustained polemic directed at supporters of the global warming hypothesis.
See it .
I am sure it will be influential and damaging – bit-by-bit it needs to be refuted.
The link got screwed up – its the underlined bit.
Somebody get Michael Duffy a copy.
The Australian’s editorial has come out in support of The Great Global Warming Swindle.
They seem to think that TGGWS has evidence that contradicts the greenhouse effect. Can’t wait to see Richard defend this latest delusion.
A recent Channel Four documentary in Britain, The Great Climate Change Swindle, presents a coherent argument for why governments must hasten slowly in responding. The British documentary highlights the anomaly that temperatures are rising faster at the earth’s surface than in the upper atmosphere, directly contradicting the greenhouse hypothesis. It also highlights the fact that ice core data relied on by global warming alarmists actually shows world temperature increases occurred hundreds of years before corresponding rises in the level of atmospheric C02, again contradicting greenhouse theory. The program puts forward evidence to show the world’s climate is controlled by clouds, which are controlled by cosmic rays, which are in turn controlled by the sun.
I posted on this on a previous thread – but for those interested there was an interesting article in the Observer denouncing this documentary. It raised an interesting point as to why GW denialists still exist despite overwhelming evidence – I think you could probably summarise it by saying saying that the denialists exist as a counterpart to the left wing groups who see climate change as a tool to achieve social objectives. Ambit claims beget ambit claims.
http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,2026125,00.html#article_continue
Paul kelly maybe he can borrow a copy from Bolt since he’s already used the environmentalists and Nazis argument I bet he already has a copy and will be preaching about it soon.
Communists and Nazis
http://www.celsias.com/blog/2007/03/12/communists-and-nazis/
“As one of our commenters has astutely observed, the director of the documentary endeavours, not-so-subtly, to marginalise environmentalists – painting them with a Communist type persona – and Monbiot points out that his previous work has likened greenies to Nazis:
Mr Durkin has often been accused of taking liberties with the facts. In 1997 he made a series for Channel 4 called “Against Natureâ€?, which compared environmentalists with Nazis, conspiring against the world’s poor. – Monbiot”
This may be an explanation, Andrew, but it’s not an excuse for blatant lies. And it’s important to observe that virtually the whole of the right in the US and (until very recently, and still in many cases) Australia is delusionist/denialist. By contrast, people wanting to use climate change as a vehicle for radical social change are pretty much confined to green groups (and not even all of them). The vast majority of people in the centre and left just want to fix the problem with as little disruption as possible, accepting that some disruption is going to be necessary.
“It raised an interesting point as to why GW denialists still exist despite overwhelming evidence – I think you could probably summarise it by saying saying that the denialists exist as a counterpart to the left wing groups who see climate change as a tool to achieve social objectives.”
Possibly, but a more plausible reason is that GW denialists exist for the same reason that people exist who believe that: the moon landings were a hoax; Princess Diana and Dodi Al Fayed were murdered by the British secret service; AIDS is not caused by the HIV virus; no planes flew into the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon on September 11 2001 (they were instead bombed by the United States government); Elvis Presley is still alive; and so on.
Some people choose to believe what they want to believe, regardless of the evidence. In fact, the more evidence that is presented that shows them to be wrong, the stronger their beliefs become.
Just as it is impossible to persuade Mr Mohammed Al Fayed that his son was not murderered by the secret service (any and all evidence to the contrary being part of the conspiracy) the more scientific evidence is presented of the existence of human-induced global warming, the more GW denialists believe that GW science is merely a political conspiracy, or the product of scientists conforming to peer pressure, etc.
Since these types of beliefs are impossible to falsify, they can be maintained for as long as the believers have the energy or interest to maintain them.
Andrew I wonder regarding his point about not feeling guilty about air travel since Australia as a country only contributes a small % of total Co2 emissions we shouldn’t feel guilty about our co2 activities?
His point about the hair shirts wanting us to make sacrifices, well read the rest of my above post about the resources needed for the rest of the world to do things like taking holidays overseas. I wonder if the editor thinks we have a few spare Earths just lying around?
Personally I’m with Singer on this one, living a affluent 1st world lifestyle while much of the rest of the world cannot get enough to eat drink or be saved from preventable diseases is immoral. At least now the 3rd world cannot be ignored for if they do what we do and have done we are all screwed. I’m not sure we need to do a Ted Trainer but things need to change. Talking about emission caps is one thing doing that without raising the living standards in the 3rd world is next to useless.
Don’t pass me that hair shirt what about that Fair Trade one instead?
I notice you put “denied ethnic cleansing”, is that the tamer version of genocide and ‘concentration camps’. 10 years on how diluted things have become. Must be something to do with the evidence http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6395791.stm.
Serbs bad (they started the war) all else good (as victims of the war), great analysis and wonderful ‘delusion’ as you may say. That was the childrens guide to conflict in the Balkans we had to endure. Avoiding entirely the backdrop to the Balkan wars, the fall of the Iron Curtain, and subsequent outside intervention precipitating and extending that bloody conflict.
With the simpleton’s guide to war and doing good, no wonder the other deluded groups like the international mujahideen (including our own super hero David Hicks) saw the conflict as somewhere to define their existence.
They were joined by those darlings in the media and in politics who deliberately chose to describe the bloody civil war as a conflict between evil Bosnian Serbs and good innocent Bosnian Muslims in the FRY back in the 1990’s? The emotive terminology about the conflict was so simple, truly black and white back, almost as black and white as the contemporary debate about how and what causes climate change and how and what to do to manage climate change.
If in doubt just say to yourself, its all a plot hatched by the far left and the far right. Keep the faith guys.
Paul Kelly-not-the-Journo, someone must have got Michael Duffy a copy, because he was discussing (?) it yesterday in his ABC program. I’m not sure if I can quote word for word, but he said that Margaret Thatcher was actually responsible for starting the Global Warming concept. Something like “the scientists all followed the money, and the rest is history”. One of the nuttier pronouncements I’ve heard from him.
JQ,
I agree – no excuse for blatant lies…. but nonetheless, if we get blatant exaggeration on one side we’ll get blatant lies on the other. Unfortunately that’s just the way these debates work. We’ll all get far more achieved if both sides calm down the rhetoric and get on with finding solutions to the problem.
There are plenty of things we can do without significantly impacting our lifestyle to address climate change… energy efficiency (in power stations, industry and in the home)should be right up the top of the agenda. I liked the author’s ozone depletion example. Leadership from government is required – unfortunately it is sadly lacking or is being hijacked by vested interest groups (on both sides).
“Andrew I wonder regarding his point about not feeling guilty about air travel since Australia as a country only contributes a small % of total Co2 emissions we shouldn’t feel guilty about our co2 activities?”
Of course, Australia also only represents a small percentage of the world’s total cases of murder and pedophilia.
In a system of beliefs it would be nice to have one which worships mother earth – a new form of animism. The denialists are in general woshipping at the altar of Mammon – no wonder they have irrational belief systems which can withstand any amount of evidence. After all the evolutionary denialists still have adherents who prefer their own cultural myth to any kind of evidence. In fact they don’t need evidence.
It is interesting that Muslims have received another beating for suggesting that the current drought is related to god’s decision. Strange when many Christians have been praying for rain. the comparison in beliefs is intriguing however the denialist do need to be opposed as like the evangelicals they will convert the self interested, the weak and the gullible who affect the way that the politicians respond.
Jill,
Perhaps, before you talk about “current drought” you should answer Steve Edney’s question.
Hi John
Why the total reliance on ad hominem attacks?
On this show I enjoyed reading:
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,2032570,00.html
RealClimate
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/03/swindled/#more-414
The show seemed to show persistent deceit with respect to critiques of the various claims it made – including in one case at least the repetition of an error by an author who had previously acknowledged his error. The word ‘lies’ is often slung around inappropriately but on this occasion it seems spot on.
Bolt has been preaching about it since early Monday morning:
The global warming film you mustn’t watch
The NYT has a criticism of Gore’s film today:
It does not mention whether or not CO2 historically lags behind warming by 800 years. If it does the CO2 cannot be the culprit.
David, nobody who’s up to speed on the science or the politics of the past several years should have any interest in hearing another word from the bozos whose opinions JQ’s ignored here. Feel free to indulge yourself though.
Mike the scientists and the IPCC agree with you that CO2 was not the culprit that initiated all the warmings of the relatively recent historical record. On the other hand I think you’ll find the popular favourite explanation for the Eocene warming and mass extinction event was indeed a sudden, catastrophic rise in atmospheric methane and carbon dioxide levels.
Andrew R from my recollections they are well aware of the general trends, given this, it would it be more likely they are looking to study the specific mechanisms of these trends to give a better understanding when factoring in changes to the Polar Vortex El Nino etc from AGW.
BTW PLS can we not feed any remaining AGW TROLLS!! Enough is enough, debate about policies for solutions yes, but PLS no more debate about the science, it just encourages them. If they haven’t got it by now they never will.
Morally it is now beneath contempt.
Mike: Temperature clearly leads carbon dioxide in the Vostok series that Gore shows. This only shows that Gore is a politician, twisting facts as he sees fit. The fact that the causality is from temperature to carbon dioxide in the past, does not imply that there is no causality from carbon dioxide to temperature in the future.
The latest Science Show covers some of the lastest AGW search plus the scientist that was misquoted by Bolt has his say.
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/default.htm
BTW looks like AGW will cause a greater uptake of CO2 in the Southern ocean that may give us some breathing space at the expense of increased sea level rises and increased acidification of the southern oceans. Expect denialists to try to spin this to the max.
Could the 800 years of warming (perhaps caused by solar cycles, perhaps otherwise) have gradually raised temperature levels so that areas of ground under permafrost then thawed out and released their CO2 stores in the form of decaying organic matter? This would explain the CO2 spike after 8 centuries.
This is similar to one prediction for the Siberian Tundra. If and when it thaws out methane emissions are expected to spike causing a positive feedback.
BTW Bolt has his say
“The vast majority of people in the centre and left just want to fix the problem with as little disruption as possible, accepting that some disruption is going to be necessary.”
That of course assumes that they can fix ‘the problem’ and are not totally deluding themselves here that it can be, albeit with the best of intentions. Sometimes they might have to consider that ‘the problem’ is so entrenched and intractable, as to defy such well intentioned bumbling along their own personal road to Baghdad and exhorting us all to follow. Certainly some seemed to be aware of such a paradigm, when others were so keen to set out on such a road and yet now they seem to have caught the same disease perhaps? Maybe we need to accept that GW is inevitable and here to stay and in developed countries, at least we’ll be better able to cope with air-conditioning?
Roll up, roll up and sign The Pledge! “No child shall be globally warmed by 2050”
You haven’t quite caught on yet Observa but given that around 5 degrees is the difference between now and the last ice age and the world had time to adapt and the global environment wasn’t under stress from a few billion humans. Now mass extinction events are in the range of 10 degrees the sort of thing that kill off the majority of the human population.
Is that something you wish to adapt to?
Business as usual and turning up the air conditioner isn’t an option.
Do you think the you will be hunky dory with millions of climate refugees looking to crash your party? Let alone the countless deaths?
If they go down they will drag us down with them.
On the other hand Mirko Bagaric http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/author.asp?id=3915 has raised the point though why should we be worried about the millions of deaths from GW when many people already allow millions of deaths from other preventable causes, again something similar to Singers line.
“at the expense of increased sea level rises and increased acidification of the southern oceans”
If the acidification and surface warming wipes out phytoplankton, as others have predicted, the southern ocean uptake will count for nought. I think though that Observa’s increasingly hysterical giggles on the subject show the way deniers are more likely to go – the ‘it’s inevitable, so best do nothing – apres moi le deluge’ line.
SimonJM:
No need for “denialists” to spin anything. FTA:
No no no no no.
Never.
Half the CO2 you say? Please tell me it isn’t so. The debate is over! The science is settled!!
Anyone have any dirt on this guy? He needs discrediting and soon, before he causes any more damage. Unleash the inquisitors!
Don’t worry Hal9000 we will have fished out the oceans before the food chain collapses.
“As a nation, we are now obsessed with fussing about speculative future harm, while failing to come even close to meeting the international benchmark of donating 0.7 per cent of Gross National Income to the developing world.”
Bargaric certainly has a point here simonjm. If MDCs are not prepared to give up so much as 1% of their income to help save the LDC’s poor, then even by John Quiggin’s 1% of GDP reckoning, the GW ‘gotta do something’ crowd are pushing manure up inclines. What’s more, apparently they want them to give up their air conditioners to Chinese, so that they can still experience GW without them. What’s the point? Why not leave it to individuals to cut their own emissions, according to their psychological needs to assuage their own personal guilt? The Chinese Govt certainly are.
Amazing how we all immediately scoffed at a certain national leader’s professed claim that ‘No Australian child shall live in poverty by 1990′(wasn’t it?) yet now we have a plethora of world leaders virtually saying the same about globally warmed kiddies all over the globe by 2050 and we’re supposed to take them deadly seriously. Just a matter of us all chipping in, changing a few light globes and going back to windmills and bingo! Sorry the light just doesn’t go on for me.
observa,
The problem with the 1990 “pledge” was that it was likely to happen within the Leader’s term in office – by 2050 most of the current leaders will not only be out of office, but probably dead. Ergo – easy, safe promise, but allows the Leader to appear to be far-sighted. Setting goals 1, 2 or 3 years ahead would be much better – but more measurable.
Medialens has a very scary quote from the film’s writer and director, Martin Durkin:
I think it [the film] 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. It is a big story that is going to cause controversy.
It’s very rare that a film changes history, but I think this is a turning point and in five years the idea that the greenhouse effect is the main reason behind global warming will be seen as total bollocks. (‘“Global Warming Is Liesâ€? Claims Documentary,’ Life Style Extra, March 4, 2007; http://www.lse.co.uk/ShowStory.asp?story=CZ434669 U&news_headline=global_warming_is_lies_ claims_documentary)
Scientists have on many occasions produced stuff that has been used badly (nuclear fission, for example), but it isn’t the science that is the problem it is the way we, the society, use it. Now it seems we are to have an all out war on science as such.
I realize that the term ‘delusionists’ has only just appeared in this blog, but I think it’s time to abandon it already. These are not delusionists, they are illusionists (magicians). Worse still, they are witch-hunters.
Go here to see more of the enthusiasm with which the MSM is taking up the witch hunt.
That would be “go here: http://www.medialens.org/alerts/index.php“
Observa
There must be a game theory term for situations where neither side will give an inch waiting for the other to move before they do. Decision lock or is it just stubbornness? Like a car with two sets of controls racing towards a cliff that they know is there but cannot see in the fog, arguing that before one takes his foot off the accelerator and onto the brake the other has to first. Real smart!
The great thing about the climate no one escapes the consequences you cannot take unilateral decisions it must be all in. But the fact remains the developed nation caused the problems so even if China becomes number 1 polluter it is just making up for lost time.
As I said before it will no longer be possible to ignore the living standards of the developing nations, if the first world wish to enjoy the fruits of their pollution they have to now share that wealth to help others do the same in a sustainable way.
At some stage there will either be a Global Marshal type plan with serious money to help the developing world to leapfrog or we allow China and India to do what we have done and we all go down the drain. I don’t know whether carbon trading will transfer enough capital to do this but I imagine development aid will also need to be substantially increased as well.
Throw in some mega natural disasters and the money will be forthcoming.
keep the faith brothers and sisters. Durkin’s programme took 10 years to get anyone to commission it for him, such is the extent of mainstream bias towards global warming panic and mitigation as the answer.
The stuff on the holy union of capitalism’s apologists was probably the most insightful part of the programme. Might have been a bit more interesting if that was the focus of the show. That and the modern apologists aim to fight global warming to the last third world inhabitant. More believable than the cosmic-ray-sun-thing-bad-guy causing it.
(I’ve had my earlier request removed for some reason, but could Ian Gould explain what he meant above or could someone else?)
The most read article at the SMH website today is this:
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/03/13/1173722471286.html?from=top5
which is the same article that appeared in the NY Times yesterday.
Its horrifying to think that this article is being reprinted around the world and is being read by millions. It is (as Drudge put it) a “hit on Gore” presented as an impartial critique of An Inconvenient Truth.
Anyone who has followed the debate will note that the author quotes six hard-core denialists and only two mainstream climate scientists. This is hardly a representative of scientific opinion.
For those who think we can and should ignore the denialists this kind of thing should be a wake up call.
I have a problem with one of the films sources, Prof Carl Wunsch, who later claimed to have been misrepresented in the film and has talked of legal action. Protaganists say that he has not been misrepresented and that he did say those things but that he is now buckling under pressure to recant.
Leaving all the guff aside he is either;
a) telling the truth
b) telling porkies
If he is a) then his claims that he has been misrepresented are true and therefore the film is untrue. If he is b) then his views as expressed in the film are untrue and the film lacks credibilty.
Of course, the same could also be said about some of the IPCC contributors who now claim to have been misrepresented.
#25
Lobes, the Vostok record does not have a high enough resolution to say, really. Also, it is not 800 years, but 8 plus or minus 5 centuries. Last time I checked, nobody really understood the mechanism, but it indeed must be something like that a higher temperature would allow the biosphere to mobilise soil and ocean carbon and put it in the atmosphere, leading to yet higher temperature and so on.
The fact that nobody really understands ice ages (although there are a good many that present hypotheses as facts) pours cold water on any claim that the science on global warming is settled.
#42
Rog, Carl Wunsch is not known to buckle under pressure. As he is a colleague of Dick Lindzen, it is equally unlikely that his employer intervened. I would be inclined to believe him when he said he was misled, while an interview can be edited to make you say whatever they wish.
(I once gave an interview, and the reporter used all my lines for herself, except for the bit where I was playing my own devil’s advocate.)
And yes, the same can be said about some part of the IPCC summaries for policy makers, that ignore, twist, or contradict the underlying chapters.
I think the climate change debate is now all politics. Science is being left out and propaganda has taken over. In the War Against Science everything becomes a matter of faith or opinion and the rest of us only get a choice about which faith to back. Given that those with power, especially the power of propaganda, are generally backing the anti-AGW faith, I don’t feel very optimistic that anything will be done on the basis of scientific evidence. Then, when things get really bad, scientists (i.e., those who demand evidence) will probably be competing with Arabs/Muslims for the title of the 21st century’s Jews or Witches.
“those with the power of propaganda” like the IPCC, Tony Blair, Al Gore, Angela Merkel, the Guardian, Richard Branson — those?
Don’t forget the science journals themselves eh Richard, shameless aren’t they!
I was thinking rather of Rupert and his Fox. The Guardian has a minor minority readership. The others in your list get media attention from time to time, but so do George W Bush, the Chinese premier, the CEOs or propaganda chiefs of Ryan Air & Exxon, the proponents of “clean” coal (wtf is that? coal that doesn’t emit CO2? and how far away is it?), etc. Who gets more air-time do you think? What are the relative readerships/viewerships?
SimonJM: I sometimes wonder about Nature and Science. Most academic journals stay far away from the press.
Melanie: I was only pointing out that both sides of the debate have the power of propaganda, and use it. If you happen to live in Europe, you would think that one side has a monopoly on the truth (I recently astounded a French journalist by arguing that the Stern Review has imperfections), but if you live elsewhere, you may think that the other side is stronger.
Andrew Reynolds,
Your reference is obscure. You may not have noticed in the south west corner rain has been so scarce in the last 12 months that the River Murray has begun to dry up. This is not to say that drought hasn’t occurred before after all we have the title of the sunburnt country. The 1890s were very bad years.
The conservative approach however is to look after what we have and to look at the natural lifecycles and to make assessments on science and also on common sense. The disappearance of frogs is like the canary in the mine – a warning which can be ignored but is a warning none the less. Prayers are no substitute for action to try and restore a more natural balance to the world’s ecosystems to mitigate effects.