Connor's Desperate Attempt to Preserve the Illusion that underlies the swindle
claudi...@sbcglobal.net
A Channel 4 documentary claimed that climate change was a
conspiratorial lie. But an analysis of the evidence it used shows the
film was riddled with distortions and errors
"Riddled with distortion and error"?
By Steve Connor
Published: 14 March 2007
A Channel 4 documentary that claimed global warming is a swindle was
itself flawed with major errors which seriously undermine the
programme's credibility, according to an investigation by The
Independent.
Investigation?
The Great Global Warming Swindle, was based on graphs that were
distorted, mislabelled or just plain wrong.
Which ones? Details?
The graphs were nevertheless used to attack the credibility and
honesty of climate scientists.
Are these scientists unable to defend themselves? Why is it that we
see no evidence of these, supposedly, credible and honest climate
scientists putting the record straight. Were they misquoted? Show
us.
A graph central to the programme's thesis, purporting to show
variations in global temperatures over the past century, claimed to
show that global warming was not linked with industrial emissions of
carbon dioxide. Yet the graph was not what it seemed.
We're supposed to take your (the journalist's) word for this? How was
it, supposedly, "not what it seemed?"
Other graphs used out-of-date information or data that was shown some
years ago to be wrong.
Specifically?
Yet the programme makers claimed the graphs demonstrated that orthodox
climate science was a conspiratorial "lie" foisted on the public.
If the shoe fits . . .
Channel 4 yesterday distanced itself from the programme, referring
this newspaper's inquiries to a public relations consultant working on
behalf of Wag TV, the production company behind the documentary.
Yeah, so? I suppose they don't wish to be the primary target for some
envirowhacko living in a cabin in Montana.
Martin Durkin, who wrote and directed the film, admitted yesterday
that one of the graphs contained serious errors but he said they were
corrected in time for the second transmission of the programme
following inquiries by The Independent.
So what's the problem? He was shown a problem and he fixed it. You
envirowhackos still present variations of the hockey stick and it's
been thoroughly disproven.
Mr Durkin has already been criticised by one scientist who took part
in the programme over alleged misrepresentation of his views on the
climate.
The main arguments made in Mr Durkin's film were that climate change
had little if anything to do with man-made carbon dioxide and that
global warming can instead be linked directly with solar activity -
sun spots.
One of the principal supports for his thesis came in the form of a
graph labelled "World Temp - 120 years", which claimed to show rises
and falls in average global temperatures between 1880 and 2000.
Mr Durkin's film argued that most global warming over the past century
occurred between 1900 and 1940 and that there was a period of cooling
between 1940 and 1975 when the post-war economic boom was under way.
This showed, he said, that global warming had little to do with
industrial emissions of carbon dioxide.
Uh, yes. It did.
The programme-makers labelled the source of the world temperature data
as "Nasa" but when we inquired about where we could find this
information, we received an email through Wag TV's PR consultant
saying that the graph was drawn from a 1998 diagram published in an
obscure journal called Medical Sentinel. The authors of the paper are
well-known climate sceptics who were funded by the Oregon Institute of
Science and Medicine and the George C Marshall Institute, a right-wing
Washington think-tank.
However, there are no diagrams in the paper that accurately compare
with the C4 graph. The nearest comparison is a diagram of "terrestrial
northern hemisphere" temperatures - which refers only to data gathered
by weather stations in the top one third of the globe.
However, further inquiries revealed that the C4 graph was based on a
diagram in another paper produced as part of a "petition project" by
the same group of climate sceptics. This diagram was itself based on
long out-of-date information on terrestrial temperatures compiled by
Nasa scientists.
Nevertheless you have no dispute with the overall conclusion. You
have nothing that contradicts the overriding conclusion of that data:
there is no link between increased anthropocentric CO2 and increase
global temps. It's all just wishful nonsense
However, crucially, the axis along the bottom of the graph has been
distorted in the C4 version of the graph, which made it look like the
information was up-to-date when in fact the data ended in the early
1980s.
Mr Durkin admitted that his graphics team had extended the time axis
along the bottom of the graph to the year 2000. "There was a fluff
there," he said.
If Mr Durkin had gone directly to the Nasa website he could have got
the most up-to-date data. This would have demonstrated that the amount
of global warming since 1975, as monitored by terrestrial weather
stations around the world, has been greater than that between 1900 and
1940 - although that would have undermined his argument.
Hardly.
"The original Nasa data was very wiggly-lined and we wanted the
simplest line we could find," Mr Durkin said.
The programme failed to point out that scientists had now explained
the period of "global cooling" between 1940 and 1970. It was caused by
industrial emissions of sulphate pollutants, which tend to reflect
sunlight. Subsequent clean-air laws have cleared up some of this
pollution, revealing the true scale of global warming - a point that
the film failed to mention.
Pure nonsense. There's been a few unsupported speculations along
these lines but it hasn't amounted to much more than just that,
unsupported speculation--like the AGW hypthesis itself.
Other graphs used in the film contained known errors,
Known errors? We're supposed to take the word of an envirowhacko
journalist on this?
notably the graph of sunspot activity. Mr Durkin used data on solar
cycle lengths which were first published in 1991 despite a corrected
version being available
Yeah, so. If it doesn't dispute Durkins conclusion then why even
mention such a minor point? (because you are that desperate.)
- but again the corrected version would not have supported his
argument. Mr Durkin also used a schematic graph of temperatures over
the past 1,000 years that was at least 16 years old, which gave the
impression that today's temperatures are cooler than during the
medieval warm period. If he had used a more recent, and widely
available, composite graph it would have shown average temperatures
far exceed the past 1,000 years.
These are irrelevant points.
Exxon Liars & Thieves
> These are irrelevant points.
crackpot. ignore.
claudi...@sbcglobal.net
Exxon Liars & Thieves
crackpot. ignore.
claudi...@sbcglobal.net
Exxon Liars & Thieves
crackpot. ignore.
claudi...@sbcglobal.net
Ignore the Exxon Crackpot Brigade
crackpot. ignore.
Vendicar Decarian
<claudi...@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
> Are these scientists unable to defend themselves? Why is it that we
> see no evidence of these, supposedly, credible and honest climate
> scientists putting the record straight. Were they misquoted? Show
> us.
RealClimate » Swindled: Carl Wunsch responds
12 Mar 2007
Swindled: Carl Wunsch responds
The following letter from Carl Wunsch is intended to clarify his views on
global
warming in general, and the The Great Global Warming Swindle which
misrepresented them.
Partial Response to the London Channel 4 Film "The Global Warming Swindle"
Carl Wunsch 11 March 2007
I believe that climate change is real, a major threat, and almost surely has
a
major human-induced component. But I have tried to stay out of the `climate
wars' because all nuance tends to be lost, and the distinction between what
we
know firmly, as scientists, and what we suspect is happening, is so
difficult to
maintain in the presence of rhetorical excess. In the long run, our
credibility
as scientists rests on being very careful of, and protective of, our
authority
and expertise.
The science of climate change remains incomplete. Some elements are so
firmly
based on well-understood principles, or for which the observational record
is so
clear, that most scientists would agree that they are almost surely true
(adding
CO2 to the atmosphere is dangerous; sea level will continue to rise,...).
Other
elements remain more uncertain, but we as scientists in our roles as
informed
citizens believe society should be deeply concerned about their possibility:
failure of US midwestern precipitation in 100 years in a mega-drought;
melting
of a large part of the Greenland ice sheet, among many other examples.
I am on record in a number of places complaining about the
over-dramatization
and unwarranted extrapolation of scientific facts. Thus the notion that the
Gulf
Stream would or could "shut off" or that with global warming Britain would
go
into a "new ice age" are either scientifically impossible or so unlikely as
to
threaten our credibility as a scientific discipline if we proclaim their
reality
[i.e. see this previous RC post]. They also are huge distractions from more
immediate and realistic threats. I've paid more attention to the extreme
claims
in the literature warning of coming catastrophe, both because I regard the
scientists there as more serious, and because I am very sympathetic to the
goals
of my colleagues who sometimes seem, however, to be confusing their specific
scientific knowledge with their worries about the future.
When approached by WAGTV, on behalf of Channel 4, known to me as one of the
main
UK independent broadcasters, I was led to believe that I would be given an
opportunity to explain why I, like some others, find the statements at both
extremes of the global change debate distasteful. I am, after all a teacher,
and
this seemed like a good opportunity to explain why, for example, I thought
more
attention should be paid to sea level rise, which is ongoing and unstoppable
and
carries a real threat of acceleration, than to the unsupportable claims that
the
ocean circulation was undergoing shutdown (Nature, December 2005).
I wanted to explain why observing the ocean was so difficult, and why it is
so
tricky to predict with any degree of confidence such important climate
elements
as its heat and carbon storage and transports in 10 or 100 years. I am
distrustful of prediction scenarios for details of the ocean circulation
that
rely on extremely complicated coupled models that run out for decades to
thousands of years. The science is not sufficiently mature to say which of
the
many complex elements of such forecasts are skillful. Nonetheless, and
contrary
to the impression given in the film, I firmly believe there is a great deal
to
be learned from models. With effort, all of this is explicable in terms the
public can understand.
In the part of the "Swindle" film where I am describing the fact that the
ocean
tends to expel carbon dioxide where it is warm, and to absorb it where it is
cold, my intent was to explain that warming the ocean could be
dangerous---because it is such a gigantic reservoir of carbon. By its
placement
in the film, it appears that I am saying that since carbon dioxide exists in
the
ocean in such large quantities, human influence must not be very
important ---
diametrically opposite to the point I was making --- which is that global
warming is both real and threatening in many different ways, some
unexpected.
Many of us feel an obligation to talk to the media---it's part of our role
as
scientists, citizens, and educators. The subjects are complicated, and it is
easy to be misquoted or quoted out context. My experience in the past is
that
these things do happen, but usually inadvertently --- most reporters really
do
want to get it right.
Channel 4 now says they were making a film in a series of "polemics". There
is
nothing in the communication we had (much of it on the telephone or with the
film crew on the day they were in Boston) that suggested they were making a
film
that was one-sided, anti-educational, and misleading. I took them at face
value---clearly a great error. I knew I had no control over the actual
content,
but it never occurred to me that I was dealing with people who already had a
reputation for distortion and exaggeration.
The letter I sent them as soon as I heard about the actual program is below.
[available here]
As a society, we need to take out insurance against catastrophe in the same
way
we take out homeowner's protection against fire. I buy fire insurance, but I
also take the precaution of having the wiring in the house checked, keeping
the
heating system up to date, etc., all the while hoping that I won't need the
insurance. Will any of these precautions work? Unexpected things still
happen
(lightning strike? plumber's torch igniting the woodwork?). How large a fire
insurance premium is it worth paying? How much is it worth paying for
rewiring
the house? $10,000 but perhaps not $100,000? There are no simple answers
even at
this mundane level.
How much is it worth to society to restrain CO2 emissions --- will that
guarantee protection against global warming? Is it sensible to subsidize
insurance for people who wish to build in regions strongly susceptible to
coastal flooding? These and others are truly complicated questions where
often
the science is not mature enough give definitive answers, much as we would
like
to be able to provide them. Scientifically, we can recognize the reality of
the
threat, and much of what society needs to insure against. Statements of
concern
do not need to imply that we have all the answers. Channel 4 had an
opportunity
to elucidate some of this. The outcome is sad.
Carbon Criminal Polluters
wrote:
> <claudiusd...@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message