Who’s been swindled?

Calling the recent Channel 4 programme, ‘The great global warming swindle’ by programme maker Martin Durkin, a “documentary” implies an authoritative and balanced assessment of the facts. In reality the programme was a travesty with gross misrepresentation of the evidence and highly selective editing of contributions from key experts.

The Independent (14th March 2007) published a detailed analysis of the data and graphs presented by Martin Durkin. It concludes that much of the evidence presented as fact, was fundamentally flawed and riddled with distortions and errors.

It is particularly telling that one graph on terrestrial temperature was modified to make it appear that it was based on up-to-date information, when in fact the data ended in the early 1980’s. Durkin has admitted “There was a fluff there!”. Similarly, one graph based on NASA data, which would have fundamentally undermined Durkin’s case, was omitted altogether from the programme. Durkin’s reason, “The original NASA data was very wiggly-lined and we wanted the simplest line we could find”!

The programme purported to debunk the science of global warming describing it as ‘lies’ and an invention of hundreds of scientists around the world who out of self-interest have conspired to mislead governments, and the general public. It created a conspiracy theory that questions the motives and integrity of the world scientific community, especially as represented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The body of scientific evidence supporting man-made climate change is overwhelming – it is very cogently summarised in a two-page statement by the Academies of Science of the 11 largest countries in the world (the G8 plus China, India and Brazil) addressed to the leaders at the G8 Summit at Gleneagles in 2005. This statement provides a clear, unequivocal and urgent message about the reality of global warming and its likely consequences and also endorses the consensus of the IPCC. The position of the Academies is unprecedented and there could not be a stronger statement supporting the work of the world scientific community, by the most eminent scientists in the world.

Martin Durkin seems to court controversy. He first achieved notoriety when his previous series on the environment for Channel 4, called ‘Against nature’, was roundly condemned by the Independent Television Commission for misleading contributors on the purpose of the programmes, and for editing four interviewees in a way that “distorted or misrepresented their known views”. Channel 4 was forced to issue a humiliating apology.

A number of the scientists who contributed to the programme feel that they were also duped into taking part in The Great Global Warming Swindle programme. Professor Carl Wunsch of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is typical and in a letter of complaint to the production company says “I am angry because they completely misrepresented me. My views were distorted by the context in which they placed them. I was misled as to what it was going to be about. I was told about six months ago that this was to be a programme about how complicated it is to understand what is going on. If they had told me even the title of the programme, I would have absolutely refused to be on it. I am the one who has been swindled.”

In summary, the programme was a tendentious anti-climate change diatribe, largely based on pseudo-scientific contributions from a bizarre and unholy alliance of oil funded American neo-conservatives and ideologically motivated members of the Revolutionary Communist Party.

So who would you trust to interpret the evidence, Martin Durkin or the world community of climate scientists represented by the IPCC? I know where I would put my money!