The Great Global Warming Swindle March 8, 2007
Posted by rupertward in Environment, TV.trackback
I like to think that I am the kind of person that believes others, that thinks the best of them. Very noble you might say. Or you could say gullible. I hate it when it happens (and it does!): when I have believed someone hook, line and sinker, and then find that I have been led up the garden path (do you like my mixed metaphors?).
So when it comes to global warming, or “human induced climate change” as I am told it is now called, I am believer! I was convinced last year, watching a program by David Attenborough, hugely respected and well known naturalist and TV presenter. If David is convinced, so am I. I believe. We all believe. Er, excuse me, I don’t!
So, says Eric, in the comments of a previous post, New Earth and Carbon Emissions: he is not a believer. He cites books and points us in the direction of an article about a leading French scientist, who has changed his mind on climate change, or to be more accurate, if humans are causing climate change. And apparently Erik and this Frenchman are not alone.
Tonight, on Channel 4 at 9pm (in the UK) there is program called the Great Global Warming Swindle, questioning the consensus on global warming being induced by the CO2 and human activity. The logic goes (apparently) it is not the increase in CO2 that is producing Global Warming, but Global Warming that increases the levels of CO2. Apparently there are some leading scientists who are promoting this view on the program.
In the US there seems much more debate about the environmental issue than in the UK. James Dobson and others, has joined Jerry Falwell, in denying the human cause of climate change in a recent open letter to the National Association of Evangelicals. Jim Wallis and Brian McLaren join in the riposte against the religious right. In the UK, there really doesn’t seem to be any loud dissenting voices in the Christian World. All are believers, so it seems.
I too am a believer. But who knows what I will believe after the program tonight! What about you? Do you believe? And if you watch the program, what did you make of it?
Rupert's Blog 
man, I hope they show that in the states. I disagree, but I’d love to hear it.
Of course there will always be contrary opinion – that is the nature of debate (and of a lot of science – we can claim to know so much but after that we hit theory and suppositions! e.g. Evolution – its a theory, but the best we have so far, eg where do blue whales go to mate – we don’t know!) BUT I didn’t watch the programme 1) becuase it went on after my bed time and I need my beauty sleep you know! and 2) I couldn’t be bothered – having spent the last few weeks researching, reading and debating I had not got the nergy to watch (not as opened minded as some maybe!) but having read about the programme prior to its airing I didn’t want to partake in the hogwash and propaganda!
See
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2007/01/30/another-species-of-denial/
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=547233
Andrew (who wishes that humanity would stop debating and DO something!)
I saw most the program and it was interesting to see the other side of the argument. However, it did appear to be pretty much one-sided it that it raised interesting questions (eg. whether climate warming results from C02 increases, or whether C02 levels increase when the climate warms), presented the anti-global warming view, but did not present any counter argument. I’m no expert, but i can’t beleive that counter arguments don’t exist to many of their points – given that thousands of scientists in the IPCC have taken a contrary view. It makes me suspicious they were rather selective in the research they chose to focus on (?).
The proper place for answering these questions lies with the scientific community who through a process of theory, analysis, and critical review should be able to answer whether humans are contributing to global warming (significantly) or not. And hopefully, the likes of the IPCC are doing this in an objective and rigourous manner. I was under the impression that this was the case, and they have found that the balance of evidence strongly supports the case that humans have and will continue to have an impact.
Dear Rupert,
You are a brave man…
Thank you for being open…
Everyone,first, let me say I believe we need to be good stewards of the environment. As I mentioned in the other post, recycling, and wise use of resources, are a must. Huge gas guzzling cars are not wise whether global warming is an issue or not. They abuse a non-renewable resource.
Water pollution and air pollution must be controlled.
Also let me say that, I personally have never heard the premise of the program that aired in the UK.
All the reading I have done simply points to the facts that :
1)there is NO global scale warming.
Global warming means the WHOLE EARTH gets warmer. I mentioned that there is data that shows many areas of the world are cooling.
One of the most interesting is a place called Punta Arenas, Chile. It is one of the closest cities in the world to the South Pole. Since 1888-2004 the average temp has decreased about .6 degrees Celsius.
(pg 211 State of Fear/ data from NASA).
That may not sound like much…but it is about the same that the global temperature has supposedly increased.
Another example is Albany, NY which is only about 140 miles from New York City. It has seen a .5 degree Fahrenheit decrease from 1820, while NYC has had about 4 degrees F increase.
The article that Rupert so kindly linked about the scientist in France who has changed his mind really says A LOT…He himself has noted that the ice in in the interior of Antarctica is getting THICKER.
2) there is a record of waves of warming and cooling in the earths history…
Check out this info from a UK source:
http://blog.hasslberger.com/2006/
11/manmade_global_warming_the_deb.html
Please note, there was a very warm period from about AD 950 to about AD 1450. It was so warm that Greenland, which is now covered with ice, was ACTUALLY GREEN!!
Check page 5 of the pdf file found here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/
graphics/2006/11/05/warm-refs.pdf
(sorry…I cannot figure out how to post links using the comment poster)
3) there is still debate among scientists about the cause of these swings.
IF the earth warmed so much in 950-1450 what caused it?
Do we need to take care of the environment? Of course…
Can we best do it by spreading hysterical untruths? I doubt it.
The sad thing, as always, is it seems that sincere people are taken in by over zealous people.
I am sorry Andrew…I REALLY think we need to prayerfully consider the evidence and move with well thought out reaction…not panic…
If you read the article series in the Canadian paper it tells about the hurricane specialist that worked with the UN. The UN had their press conference to announce the findings of their research BEFORE they did the research…
something is “fundamentally” not right here.
The http://www.telegraph.co.uk link above mentions the “infamous” hockey stick spike that “supposedly” has occured in world temperatures. It coveniently leaves out the middle ages data.
That is truly an “inconvenient truth” for Al Gore.
I have in the last year or so made a startling discovery (driven by the Evo/ID debate and this issue.) Narrow minded and bigoted apply to the bpth the right and the left. The term “fundamentalist” is a label that applies to anyone who will not examine an issue and is “fundamentally” against anything.
I honestly think that Brian McLaren has missed it on this issue…it seems to me he was trying distance himself from the “fundi wackos” like Jerry Falwell and James Dobson, only to have linked himself with fundamentalists of another stripe…
May the LORD’s kingdom come,
Eric
i missed the show, but then again i was taking some time out to chill with Debs, which certainly improved the climate around my house…
Anywho as James said it seems a lil bit chicken/egg – clearly a lot of C02 in the atmosphere is not a good thang and I think we should individually do our bit but more we should recognise the political and economic power we have by how we vote and what we consume to encourage govt and industry to develop C02 removing technology from the atmosphere and in reducing emissions at source.
I appreciate Eric’s point the world is not uniform and there is cooling in some parts as the world gets warmer – i have some graphs on my blog from a book about temperature in America which shows that temperature increase is not uniform.
However even if global warming doesn’t exist for everyone and a better label is climate change, do we really want to continue to mess with the constituent elements in our atmosphere just so we can live a carbon rich easy consumption lifestyle?
More than climate change manifestly will impact on the poorer nations so it also becomes a question of justice in my mind.
I didn’t see the programme. I don’t really care. As others have said, including Eric, so much of this is just old fashioned common sense. We should be taking care of our planet. I think the problem is that some folks are advocating what I would call an extreme response, ie. lets go back to the 19th century, ditch all mechanical transport, etc. Whilst I think this will work with small-scale eco communities, it will never work for the World (TM), for which a more realistic set of targets is needed.
I guess also its about sacrifice, and how far we are prepared to sacrifice our comfortable living.
I think also sometimes we have to compromise. Sometimes in order to live at all, we have to use a product or do something which ultimately is not good. But we may not had much choice. Like using an energy saving light-bulb assembled by an exploited Chinese worker. Or if not that, perhaps it was assembled by an Arms manufacturer (General Electric). You can’t win! Shall we just go back to candles and burn our houses down?
So yes, down with all of this, but lets be realistic in our implementation.
Thanks one and all for your comments.
Just to help here are the links that Andrew and Erik posted:
Andrew’s link 1
Andrew’s link 2
Erik’s link 1
Erik’s link 2
Let’s hope this works!
Great – it did! Have had a brief look (but some are long eh?).
What is does confirm is that there is some disagreement here. I had always thought it pretty much was those who believed that global warming is human induced, and those who just couldn’t be bothered to think about it. But it seems that there are at least some who are atheists as far as human induced climate change are concerned.
I haven’t watched it all either – but the i did see was pretty one sided (agree with you james).
One of the things that always bothers me is how much people are being influenced by others to have certain opinions. The accusation that those in favour are influenced by money and jobs is powerful. However, what wasn’t covered was the way those against are being infuenced, probably also my money and jobs, and the coal / oil industry, avaition industry, etc etc. There are a lot of worried people out there.
Could we also be coming to a consensus here though? It does seem, that even though we might disagree about how the earth is warming up, we are agreeing that it is, and we have a responsibilty to care our earth, and to help those most affected (good point Paul on social justice).
Is that just a cop out from the disagreement that exists between Erik and others? Am I trying to do my peacemaking role again????
For my part, I think the earth probaly is warming up “naturally” and the trend has been that way for a few hundred years. But I still think that human activity is accelerating that heating up.
I agree with Andrew we need to move to action … but Alastair raises some interesting tensions. And i wonder if the scaremongering that can exist about this issue, is all that helpful? (I think this is part of Erik’s point). If has been warmer in the past, perhaps it isn’t the catastophe that we are making it out to be?
Having said that, i don’t think that is an excuse for doing nothing.
And Paul – glad the climate is good with you and Debs!!
Rupert
Thanks for posting the links.
The one that I had won’t come up now. It got archived…
Andrew,
At the risk of being obnoxious…the links that you posted are mainly “ad hominem” attacks on President Bush and the guy that made the “TGGWS” program.
That is another complaint on this issue. It always ends up being about someone, instead of the data.
Just as,again, the 2 climatologists removed from positions for dissenting…(prev posts)
There IS reference to the hockey stick graph…but when I checked the sites, neither one addressed the global warming that occured during the middle ages. That is one problem with the graph.
The point is, any spike at our end of the graph, ( I wonder if they included any cooling localities or not) becomes much smaller if the warm period during the middle ages is included.
This warm period is mentioned on many different sites addressing the history of that time period that have nothing to do with global warming. One is Stanford University’s.
The loudest voices in the scientific community are not always correct. Eugenics, at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century was all the rage, and now no one wants to touch it. (Although Richard Dawkin’s has recently said it wasn’t so bad…).
Paul Erhlich’s book “The Population Bomb” made wild predictions that 100’s of millions would starve during the 70’s and 80’s and nothing could be done to stop it.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
The_Population_Bomb)
His ideas influenced abortion policy all over the world. Although not as radically as he would have liked. Not only did millions of children die before birth,now France and Japan are trying to figure out what to do with rapidly aging populations that will soon be unsustainable…China has a generation of one child families and almost no females.
I also would disagree about evolution…read “Darwin’s Black Box” a non-religious, scientific book.
Anyway…I’m sure I have exhausted everyone with this…
Rupert, I look forward to further emails.
George Monbiot (renowned environmental campaigner in UK) posted this re the programme.
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2007/03/13/channel-4s-problem-with-science/#more-1047
thanks Erik and Andrew for futher comments.
Here is the link that Andrew posted:
Andrew’s Link