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The Great Global Warming Swindle: Alarmists Lose Another Round in Ofcom Ruling
MensNewsDaily.com | July 22, 2008 | Roger F. Gay

Posted on 7/22/2008, 2:40:04 PM by RogerFGay

In March 2007, Channel 4, United Kingdom, aired The Great Global Warming Swindle. The documentary, which boldly alleges that global warming is not caused by human activity and that there is no climate crisis, quickly became an international success; selling in 21 countries and distributed openly via the Internet.

A backlash from global warming alarmists was to be expected. Someone was breaking their strangle-hold on telling the public what to believe. Someone was actually engaging them in public debate, without their permission or editorial control, and doing it well. In contrast to Al Gore's “An Inconvenient Truth” (sic), The Great Global Warming Swindle featured interviews with real scientists and provided a more realistic analysis of data to back their claims. The alarmists' claims that climate change is driven by human activity and that we're headed for a major crisis were a fraud.

The alarmist camp filed 265 complaints with the UK regulatory agency for communications, Ofcom, plus a 176 page “group complaint” alleging 137 breaches (later reduced to 67) of the Ofcom code. Ofcom launched a 15 month investigation. In recent days, rumors have circulated that Ofcom would rule in favor of alarmists, “censuring” Channel 4, issuing a crushing blow to the further possibility of regulated media debate on the subject in the UK.

In their ruling however, Ofcom stated that Channel 4 was "on balance" and cleared it of "materially misleading the audience so as to cause harm or offence."

The alarmists began the spin campaign immediately, accusing the regulator of letting the broadcaster off the hook "on a technicality." Yes indeed, and a rather important technicality at that. People, including regulated broadcasters, have the right to disagree and to present evidence and argument even against the pseudo-religious rants of global warming alarmists. It's a free speech thing. It makes no difference that the alarmists have invested heavily in their own propaganda campaign, gained the backing of influential politicians by promoting higher taxes, seated a committee at the UN, push their agenda with politically controlled research funding, secure corporate backing with legislative proposals that would increase profits at the expense of consumers, or that it seemed absolute control was within their grasp. In fact, those are all very strong reasons for open public debate.

Many of the blind followers in the alarmist camp will not understand any of the discussion that follows this ruling, including this opinion piece. The Great Global Warming Swindle is not a pseudo-bible for “deniers.” It was and still is, as Channel 4 claims, “a useful contribution to a timely debate.”

Those of us not aiming to secure control for the alarmist camp will, for example, possibly not pay much attention to some parts of Ofcom's commentary. For example; Ofcom found that Sir David King, the government's former chief scientist, had been misrepresented and that the Nobel prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and Carl Wunsch, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, had been treated unfairly.

If individuals are treated unfairly in a broadcast, then let justice prevail. Individual justice is not unimportant. But it doesn't decide the question that alarmists raise; whether humans are causing catastrophic global warming. It doesn't settle the critical question answered in Ofcom's ruling; whether British broadcasters are allowed to challenge global warming alarmist orthodoxy. The primary result of the ruling is extraordinarily important. The debate is allowed. Let's get it on!



TOPICS: Politics
KEYWORDS: censorship; digg; globalwarming
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1 posted on 7/22/2008, 2:40:04 PM by RogerFGay
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To: RogerFGay

The Funny thing is, if you just read the BBC or AP headlines on this story, you would have thought the court ruled against channel 4.


2 posted on 7/22/2008, 2:43:21 PM by Always Right (Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?)
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To: RogerFGay

Methane gas has increased 150% in the atmosphere since the mid 1700’s. (During the same time period, Carbon dioxide increased only 30 %.) A gram of methane gas has more than 25 times the greenhouse gas impact as a gram carbon dioxide. As many know, flatulence, “farts,” are almost entirely methane gas.

Therefore, Al Gore has developed a new program to combat this obviously increasing peril to our planet, and make a little money for himself at the same time.

Everyone will be required to wear a “fart meter,” (Cost $75, available only from Al Gore) which will record and automatically transmit to a new government agency (the Federal Automatic Recording Technology Department) the occasion of each fart and the volume thereof.

For an additional fee of $4,500, interested parties can purchase a fart capture mechanism (available only from Al Gore). This 25 pound device can be conveniently worn under the special clothing available also from Al Gore in attractive shades of brown.

When full, the interested consumer can present his fart capture device to Al Gore’s recycling center, where for a fee of $0.10 per fart, the captured farts will be recycled into the US natural gas distribution system. Al Gore also will receive a modest fee of only $0.015 per fart for the energy content of the gas.

The interested consumer will also receive “fart credits” for the number of farts he recycles. These “fart credits” can be traded to other consumers, who elected not to purchase a fart capture mechanism, through Al Gore’s Fart Trading Exchange. Al Gore will extract only a small commission of $0.01 per fart for each trade.

All Consumers will be required to be “fart neutral” by a “Cap and Trade” regulation, administered by the new Federal Automatic Recording Technology Department. Legislation is being developed as we speak, by the concerned Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, and her erstwhile compatriot in the Senate, Harry Reid.

Get ahead of the mandated stampede to control this growing threat to our planet. Get you fart capture mechanism now.

Simply contact Al Gore and follow his instructions.


3 posted on 7/22/2008, 2:43:57 PM by LOC1
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To: RogerFGay

SITREP


4 posted on 7/22/2008, 2:45:39 PM by LiteKeeper (Beware the secularization of America; the Islamization of Eurabia)
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To: Always Right
The Funny thing is, if you just read the BBC or AP headlines on this story, you would have thought the court ruled against channel 4.

That's why I decided to write the op-ed. It looks like fair and balanced reporting has been redefined to mean that every article on the subject must be laden with commentary and argumentation from the alarmists. I suppose they're worried about being forced through the same type of Ofcom review if they don't.
5 posted on 7/22/2008, 2:50:33 PM by RogerFGay
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To: RogerFGay

Alarmists should be worried, they have grossly overplayed their hand and are being exposed for the fraud they are. More and more scientists are finally standing up to the intense pressure to push catastrophic global warming BS on to the public. Hopefully it is not too late before we do anything really stupid, like signing some binding international treaty which will be the US on the hook for trillions of dollars, all for nothing.


6 posted on 7/22/2008, 2:56:07 PM by Always Right (Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?)
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To: RogerFGay


7 posted on 7/22/2008, 3:03:48 PM by vietvet67
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To: RogerFGay

Beware of the Green Inquisition
The Economic Times ^ | 21 Jul, 2008 | Bjorn Lomborg
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/View_Point/Beware_of_the_Green_Inquisition/articleshow/3256615.cms

[snip]

My response:

“The rush towards [James Hansen promoted] bio-fuels has also strongly contributed to rising food prices, which have tipped another roughly 30 million people into starvation. Because of climate panic, our attempts to mitigate climate change have provoked an unmitigated disaster. We will waste hundreds of billions of dollars, worsen global warming, and dramatically increase starvation.” ~ Bjorn Lomborg

We should bring a tax-payers class-action suit against the reckless cynical opportunists responsible for hyping the anthropogenic GW hoax and causing so much mayhem here and around the world.

The main culprits have already been identified:

’UK Watchdog finds [Channel 4 - The Great Global Warming Swindle] documentary was unfair to scientists but did not mislead viewers.’

One of the scientists who filed the original complaint (Carl Wunsch) is from MIT - an important point in this mix, in light of what one of his MIT collegues (Kerry Emanuel) had to say, which I am copying and pasting below this excerpted preface:

“..Channel 4 will still claim victory because the ultimate verdict on __a separate complaint about accuracy__, which contained 131 specific points and ran to 270 pages, will find that it did not breach the regulator’s broadcasting code and did not materially mislead viewers. ..

..The IPCC, King and other scientists including __Dr Carl Wunsch, a climate expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology__, complained to the regulator over the way they were represented. ...

..After the broadcast, Wunsch said the programme was “masquerading as a science documentary when it should be regarded as a political polemic” and was “as close to pure propaganda as anything since world war two”.

[[[ My interjection: That’s pretty funny in light of the fact that Gore’s movie, An Inconvenient Truth, was determined by a UK court to be one-sided ‘extremist’ political propaganda and unfit to be shown to school children without disclaimers and equal time from ‘the other side’ http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2047988/posts?page=8#8 ]]]

Wunsch claimed he had been duped into appearing and his comments had been misleadingly edited.
The Ofcom ruling is expected to find that Wunsch was misled about the tone and content of the programme, __but that his views were accurately represented within it__. ..” http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/jul/19/channel4.climatechange

Now here is Kerry Emanuel of MIT (who made these remarks months and months ago):

“.. “The evolution of the scientific debate about anthropogenic [man-caused] climate change illustrates both the value of skepticism and the pitfalls of partisanship. .. Scientists are most effective when they provide sound, impartial advice, but their reputation for impartiality is severely compromised by the shocking lack of political diversity among American academics, who suffer from the kind of group-think that develops in cloistered cultures.

“Until this profound and well documented intellectual homogeneity changes, scientists will be suspected of constituting a leftist think tank.”

“On the left, an argument emerged urging fellow scientists to deliberately exaggerate their findings so as to galvanize an apathetic public...”

“Conservatives have usually been strong supporters of nuclear power. .. Had it not been for green opposition, the United States today might derive most of its electricity from nuclear power, as does France; thus the environmentalists must accept a large measure of responsibility for today’s most critical environmental problem.” ~ Kerry Emanuel - MIT http://bostonreview.net/BR32.1/emanuel.html

*
Is Emanuel’s collegue, Carl Wunsch, one of those “scientists on the left” who was involved in deliberately “exaggerating the science”?

And from what I can determine, the Rev. Houghton may be another one of the scientists (mentioned by Kerry Emanuel above) who was involved in deliberately misleading / manipulating people. He even admits it:

The Reverend Sir John Houghton, former head of the UK Meteorological Office, Publisher of Al Gore’s book on GW and Former Co-Chair of the IPCC said:

“Unless we announce disasters, no one will listen.”

He then proceeds to do just that:

” .. human induced global warming is a weapon of mass destruction at least as dangerous as chemical, nuclear or biological weapons that kills more people than terrorism.”
~ John Houghton Monday July 28, 2003 http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,93466,00.html

*
James Hansen of NASA is another:

Hansen has long employed stagecraft http://planetgore.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MDk2YjVlYTYzZjZkNTRhZWU2NGNkNzcwYTMzMmFlNGQ = for political gain. On June 23, 1988, he delivered his testimony in an unusually toasty hearing room.

Why was it so warm?

As then-Sen. Tim Wirth (D., Colo.), told ABC’s Frontline: “We went in the night before and opened all the windows, I will admit, right, so that the air conditioning wasn’t working inside the room . . . it was really hot.” June 27, 2008, 7:00 a.m. http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZjQ2YTllODZiOTA0N2E2MTIzODQwNjUzMjQwYjI2MDI =

*
More first-hand admissions:

“We have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we may have. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.” ~ Stephen Schneider (leading advocate of the global warming theory) (in interview for Discover magazine, Oct 1989)

*
[Therefore] “I personally cannot in good faith continue to contribute to a process that I view as both being motivated by pre-conceived agendas and being scientifically unsound. As the IPCC leadership has seen no wrong in Dr. Trenberth’s actions and have retained him as a Lead Author for the AR4, I have decided to no longer participate in the IPCC AR4.” ~ Sincerely, Chris Landsea

Expert leaves IPCC 17 January, 2005, Resignation letter http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/science_policy_general/000318chris_landsea_leaves.html

*

“The climate modelers have been cheating for so long it’s almost become respectable” (Richard Kerr, discussing adjustments in climate models, Science 1997)

*
Personally, I think that these men (along with others like Al Gore), bear a large responsibility for the suffering and nightmares they have inflicted on adults and children around the world.

Here is merely the latest fallout, among the many examples I’ve read about, from such reckless behavior:
Climate Change Delusion Driving Boy to Kill Himself http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23992448-5007146,00.html

Hopefully more mature, cooler heads will prevail so that this madness may end.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2047988/posts?page=9#9

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2048577/posts?page=13#13


8 posted on 7/22/2008, 3:03:56 PM by Matchett-PI (Driving a Phase-2 Operation Chaos Hybrid that burns both gas AND rubber!)
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To: LOC1

Careful: when you tongue is in your cheek, it’s easy to bite your tongue! I wouldn’t be at ALL surprised if within 10 years, all cattle have to be outfitted with a methane-recovery unit.


9 posted on 7/22/2008, 3:05:33 PM by dangus
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To: sauropod

read


10 posted on 7/22/2008, 3:08:36 PM by sauropod (God created asphalt so yuppies can go four-wheeling.)
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To: Always Right

Exactly. That’s what I thought from the headlines and I was disappointed and dispirited because of it.


11 posted on 7/22/2008, 3:12:49 PM by wildbill ( FR---changing history by erasing it from memory.)
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To: dangus

Termites are likely the leading source of methane. It’s just really hard to make THAT dramatic. Especially when compared to walking behind a cow that’s eaten wet/spoiled hay in the winter barn. Ouch!


12 posted on 7/22/2008, 3:15:16 PM by Blueflag (Res ipsa loquitur)
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To: RogerFGay

No matter what this guy or these others say, in spite of how qualified he and others may be, clean, renewable alternative energy sources are the way to go. They replace what’s running out, getting very expensive, and putting a huge damper right now on the world economy. And they’re cleaner: lower particulates and lower CO2.

It’s a Pascalian wager. Unfortunately for this casino, what happens in Vegas doesn’t stay in Vegas.


13 posted on 7/22/2008, 3:38:15 PM by stravinskyrules (Why is it that whenever I hear a piece of music I don't like, it's always by Villa-Lobos?)
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To: stravinskyrules

Aren’t you glad there can be a free flow of information and open debate so that the pros and cons of these differing ideas can be explained and debated? “Clean renewable energy” - I love Star Trek and look forward to the day. But what are we talking about in today’s world?


14 posted on 7/22/2008, 3:47:04 PM by RogerFGay
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To: RogerFGay

BTTT!


15 posted on 7/22/2008, 3:50:30 PM by Delacon ("The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule." H. L. Mencken)
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To: stravinskyrules

Oh wait. Star trek’s fuel was not “renewable.” Science fiction often precedes fact. Is there any example in science fiction yet, of a strong and healthy future society that runs on renewable energy?


16 posted on 7/22/2008, 3:53:58 PM by RogerFGay
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To: stravinskyrules
Star Trek: Alternative Fuel Enterprise
17 posted on 7/22/2008, 4:05:44 PM by RogerFGay
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To: RogerFGay

Yep. Here is a google of the words "channel 4" and "Great Global Warming Swindle". Only the Independent's Mary Dejevsky's link states that Channel 4 actually won on the major issue. Thanks, for the article.


BBC News
Channel 4's Great Global Warming Swindle 'misrepresented ...
Telegraph.co.uk, United Kingdom - Jul 21, 2008
Ofcom said that The Great Global Warming Swindle, which challenged the theory that human activity was the major cause of climate change, was "unjust and ...
Ofcom's mixed verdict on The Great Global Warming Swindle will ... guardian.co.uk
Mary Dejevsky: Don't silence those who challenge consensus Independent
Ofcom's censure of Channel 4 is flawed: The Great Global Warming ... guardian.co.uk
guardian.co.uk - guardian.co.uk
all 259 news articles »
Why 'climate swindle' film is dangerous, despite ruling
New Scientist (subscription), UK - 36 minutes ago
In my opinion, if Channel 4 carries on producing programmes like The Great Global Warming Swindle, the sooner it goes bust the better off Britain and the ...
Channel 4 to be censured for controversial global warming film
Telegraph.co.uk, United Kingdom - Jul 18, 2008
In a judgment at the end of a 15-month enquiry, Ofcom is expected to censure the channel over The Great Global Warming Swindle, broadcast in March last year ...
Channel 4 censured for programme that said climate change was a fraud Times Online
Channel 4 to be censured over controversial climate film guardian.co.uk
'C4 documentary complaints upheld' The Press Association
all 11 news articles »
Guardian Daily podcast: New drug hope for men with prostate cancer
guardian.co.uk, UK - 9 hours ago
Outspoken environmentalist George Monbiot tells Guardian Daily what he feels about Channel 4's 'The Great Global Warming Swindle'. ...
Snowmail: Mugabe and Tsvangirai pledge to work together
Channel 4 News, UK - 23 hours ago
The regulator has found The Great Global Warming Swindle, which was aired last year, failed to meet obligations to be impartial and to represent a range of ...
Media briefs: Seven wins the week ... the Great Global Warming ...
Crikey (subscription), Australia - Jul 20, 2008
Glenn Dyer The Great Global Warming Swindle swindle. Channel 4 misrepresented some of the world's leading climate scientists in a controversial documentary ...ASX:SEV
I've seen the effects of climate change - and if people won't face ...
guardian.co.uk, UK - Jul 2, 2008
Some have pointed the finger at that fateful Channel 4 documentary, The Great Global Warming Swindle; others at the sometimes contradictory messages from ...
James Hansen Exposed, Climate Outlook is Excellent
Right Side News, GA - Jun 23, 2008
Some environmentalists blame the public's doubts on last year's Channel 4 documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle, and on recent books, including one ...
Big oil's big lie
guardian.co.uk, UK - Jun 23, 2008
... Nigel Lawson, Alexander Cockburn and the television producer (who made Channel 4's documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle) Martin Durkin. ...
TGGWS again: oh lordy
ScienceBlogs - Jul 21, 2008
If you have any sense, you've probably forgotten the late and unlamented The Great Global Warming Swindle (and many other points in the blogosphere). ...

18 posted on 7/22/2008, 4:05:44 PM by Delacon ("The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule." H. L. Mencken)
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To: Delacon

LOL! The alarmist campaign was ready for damage control.


19 posted on 7/22/2008, 4:10:22 PM by RogerFGay
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To: RogerFGay
Anyone know where a DVD of “The Great Global Warming Swindle” can be purchased?
20 posted on 7/22/2008, 4:13:45 PM by fella ("...He that followeth after vain persons shall have poverty enough." Pv.28:19')
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