What’s Next?

I’m really not buying any talk that ‘The Great Global Warming Swindle’ was still a worth-while project (despite the fact that it lied and misrepresented about both graphics and people) because it was bravely challenging consensus. It’s not hard to challenge consensus, it’s hard to so with evidence and integrity and ‘teach the controversy’ is the argument usually used by people who have neither. It’s the exact same argument that intelligent design proponents use: Sure our evidence (when they actually bother to present any) is quickly debunked but those EVILutionists (replace with climate scientists when appropriate)  are so damn sure of themselves it can’t be right that people only hear what they have to say can it?

In fact, now I think about it, this is the same approach the creator of the Panorama about evil wifi took: ““There is an mainstream accepted view on this and I think it’s a role that Panorama can play to question that mainstream cultural norm.” Apparently there’s a class of people out there who really think there is nothing unjustifiable if they’re doing it whilst sticking it to THE MAN. If I claim that global warming is actually caused by a decline in the number of pirates worldwide, then the fact that no one agrees with me means I’m being repressed! If I make a documentary about it, I’m immune from requirements to check my facts or represent my interviewees honestly because I’m fighting the man! I don’t have time to do things the hard way, you know they’d only make up new ‘facts’ to prove me wrong anyway.

If Channel Four really wanted to produce a documentary on the minority view on climate change, the absolutely least they could have done is pick someone to do it who hadn’t previously got them into trouble for lying and misrepresenting in a documentary. This would, to me at least, seem a REALLY REALLY important thing to do. The fact that they didn’t tells us they didn’t give a damn about accurate science coming out, they just wanted to stir the shit a bit - they contribute to the debate in about the same way that pissing in the well raises the water level.

And another petition to avoid!

‘The government, green lobby groups, and most of the media, claim that there is consensus amongst scientists that global warming is a proven scientific fact and that mankind is responsible. This is absolutely untrue. There are a huge number of scientists that dispute the claim, and a plethora of scientific evidence against it. The government is grossly dishonest to claim otherwise.’

There’s one thing I’ve never really understood: say there’s a worldwide conspiracy of scientists and governments all eager for everyone to believe in global warming - What’s in it for them? What could possibly unite thousands of scientists and governments in perpetuating this lie?

Today I got an answer from someone: ‘So they can put up taxes!’ Yes, I too find it convincing that numerous democratic governments have convincingly kept up a huge conspiracy, bribed thousands of scientists, generated reams of false data and, of course, suppressed all those nasty dissidents (leaving the oil industry to teach us the truth) just so they have a little more money.

And more! We can’t possibly show ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ in schools without counter-balancing with the equally valid ‘Great Global Warming Swindle‘.Teach both side of the issue? Next people will be wanting to teach creationism alongside evolution….

I’m staying off this site. It’s only going to make me stressed.

The title of this post is the immortal response by Martin Durkin, director of ‘The Great Global Warming Swindle’ to some criticism of the science of his programme. As Channel Four later revealed, the program was commissioned as part of a series of polemic films, in other words, films that were one-sided, anti-educational, and misleading.

The goal was to produce controversy, which it achieved very well. Was it an accurate and scientific presentation? Less so. I’m not qualified to question the facts presented, but those that are have done, in depth. It’s quite clear that most of the ‘evidence’ presented is nothing new and has almost entirely been discredited. What’s more, one of the interviewees Carl Wunsch felt that their position had been utterly misrepresented and that their professional credibility had been damaged as a result. It can’t be that Channel 4 wasn’t aware that this was a possibility; Durkin has a history of it. ‘Against Nature’ – a series Durkin had previously made for Channel Four was attacked for similar reasons resulting in the Independent Television Commission reporting that the programme makers “distorted by selective editing” the views of the interviewees and “misled” them about the “content and purpose of the programmes when they agreed to take part”. Channel Four had to make an on-air apology for broadcasting the series. Either the institutional memory is extremely short, or a honest documentary wasn’t the point.

Do we gain from having a series of biased films as opposed to a few well-researched and balanced films? Having two extremes is not the same as ‘fair and balanced’. On the other extreme we get the Durkins of the world, content to ignore and dismiss the issue. On the other we get the fringe-environmentalists who advocate a return to a stone-age lifestyle to live ‘in harmony’ with nature and think that keeping people impoverished as long as they preserve their native culture is for the best. Both sides are equally wacko and all sensible debate gets lost by the wayside. Whilst Durkin is content to attack this extreme fringe of the environmental movement as ‘anti-human’, the sad truth is that to lie and mislead people about the danger of global warming to billions of the world’s poor he is advocating the most ‘anti-human’ position possible in this debate.

Whilst we must always question the status quo, there’s a difference between questioning and outright lies. Channel Four should not be in the business of commissioning shows where the object is not truth, but controversy. They didn’t want education, they wanted entertainment. They should have advertised it as such.