The Great Global Sceptic Swindle

Submitted by Bob Burton on

Martin Durkin, the director of the global warming sceptic film, The Great Global Warming Swindle, concedes that a graph he used of temperatures over the last thousand years ignores data from the last twenty years. In Durkin's film the endpoint of the graph, produced by a British academic back in the 1980's, is labelled "now". Despite being condemned by scientists when it first screened in the UK, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation broadcast an edited down version and convened a post-screening discussion panel. In an interview ahead of the panel discussion, Durkin said that it was "absolutely absurd to quibble on when it finishes". However, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reveals a dramatic rise in temperatures in the last two decades. The rights to the film have also been bought by distributors in Germany, Canada, Spain and the United States.

Main Source: 
Reuters, July 13, 2007
Topics: 
Journalism
Climate Change
Pundits
Environment
Ethics
International
Science

Comments

Erik Wesselius replied on

The abbreviated and slightly corrected version of the Great Global Warming Swindle was broadcasted on Dutch public television last Thursday 12 July.

The documentary was followed by a discussion in which "sceptical, scientific and political aspects" were to be covered. The tv station deemed providing such context necessary as "it cannot be expected that the general public and politicians will be able to recognise the fraudulous character of the documentary"

http://www.klimaatportaal.nl/pro1/general/start.asp?i=1&j=7&k=5&p=0&itemid=297

pauljohn replied on

Just a clarification.

The film sought to show a correlation between changes in Earth's temperature and solar activity. It showed the two variables as pretty much tracking together until the "now" year on the graph.

Unfortunately, the "now" year turned out to be 25 years ago, and in the last 25 years there's not only been an increase in temperature but, according to the interviewer of Durkin, a REDUCTION in solar activity, so the two variables have NOT been tracking together for the past 25 years. In fact, the two variables have diverged markedly in that period.

Even though this could be due to short-term fluctuations,this observation compounds the apparent attempt to mislead by the film maker in ignoring the last 2 decades of data.