The Great Global Warming Swindle is a 2007 British conspiracy theory documentary film directed by Martin Durkin. The film denies the reality and causes of climate change, justifying this by suggesting that climatology is influenced by funding and political factors. The program was formally criticised by Ofcom, the UK broadcasting regulatory agency, which ruled the film failed to uphold due impartiality and upheld complaints of misrepresentation made by David King, who appeared in the film.
The film presents scientists, economists, politicians, writers, and others who dispute the scientific consensus regarding anthropogenic global warming. The programme's publicity materials claim that man-made global warming is "a lie" and "the biggest scam of modern times." Its original working title was "Apocalypse my arse", but the title The Great Global Warming Swindle was later adopted as an allusion to the 1980 mockumentary The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle about British punk band the Sex Pistols.
The UK's Channel 4 premiered the documentary on 8 March 2007. The channel described the film as "a polemic that drew together the well-documented views of a number of respected scientists to reach the same conclusions. This is a controversial film but we feel that it is important that all sides of the debate are aired." According to Hamish Mykura, Channel 4's head of documentaries, the film was commissioned "to present the viewpoint of the small minority of scientists who do not believe global warming is caused by anthropogenic production of carbon dioxide."
Although the documentary was welcomed by climate change deniers, it was criticised by scientific organisations and individual scientists, including one of the scientists interviewed in the film and one whose research was used to support the film's claims. The film misuses and fabricates data, relies on out-of-date research, employs misleading arguments, and misrepresents the position of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Summary
The film uses techniques, like selective presentation, to cast doubt on the scientific consensus on climate change and lend credence to contrary viewpoints. It argues that the consensus is the result of a "multibillion-dollar" conspiracy of environmentalists, scientists and politicians. The film also argues Western environmentalists promoting renewables over cheap fossil fuels prevents African countries from industrialising. The film is an example of the conspiracy theory documentary genre, and it presents a conspiratorial view about the mainstream scientific institutions that have established the facts of climate change.
The film features interviews, including with Patrick Moore, Greenpeace member turned industry consultant; Richard Lindzen, MIT professor of meteorology; Patrick Michaels, Professor of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia; Nigel Calder, editor of New Scientist from 1962 to 1966; John Christy, professor and director of the Earth System Science Center at University of Alabama; Paul Reiter of the Pasteur Institute; former British Chancellor of the Exchequer Nigel Lawson; and Piers Corbyn, a British weather forecaster. (full list at ) Carl Wunsch, MIT professor of oceanography, also interviewed, has since said that he strongly disagrees with the film's conclusions and the way his interview material was used.
Evidence
The film claims contradictions in the evidence for climate change. For example, it selectively shows a pause in warming between 1940 and 1975. The film states that models suggest warming should be faster in the troposphere than at the surface, which it says the data does not support, instead showing surface warming greater or equal to the lower troposphere. It also argues for solar variation as the driver of warming.
The film states that carbon dioxide is a small part—just 0.054%—of the Earth's atmosphere, and water vapour has the greatest impact. The initial version of the film also claimed that volcanoes emitted more than human activity, though this was removed from later versions after Durkin acknowledged it was wrong.
The film claims temperatures cause changing rather than the other way around, arguing the oceans release carbon dioxide when they warm. According to the film, increases in levels lagged behind temperature increases during glacial terminations, by over 100 years, but it takes hundreds of years for global temperature changes to register in oceanic mass, which is why ice cores shows changes in follow changes in global temperature by 800 years.
The film also argues that current global warming is nothing unusual and temperatures were more extreme during the Medieval Warm Period, associating it with prosperity in western Europe.
Politics According to the film, global warming research "is now one of the best funded areas of science." asserting that scientists seeking research funding are more likely to succeed if the grant is linked to global warming.
The film argues that vested interests have greater impact on proponents (rather than detractors) of global warming because there are hundreds of thousands of jobs created, and denies global warming denialists are funded by the fossil fuel industry. It claims scientists who speak out against global warming risk persecution, death threats, loss of funding, personal attacks, and reputational damage.
The film proposes that some supporters do so because it supports their emotional and ideological beliefs against capitalism, economic development, globalisation, industrialisation, and the United States. It claims that global warming was promoted by the British Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to promote nuclear power and reduce the impact of strikes in the state-owned coal industry by the National Union of Mineworkers.
Existence of consensus The film asserts that it is false that "2,500 top scientists" support the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)'s reports on global warming and claims the report includes many politicians and non-scientists, and even dissenters who demanded that their names be removed from the report. It argues that IPCC reports misrepresent the views of contributing scientists through selective editorialising, and features Paul Reiter of the Pasteur Institute complaining that the IPCC did not take his professional opinion under greater consideration. It states that the IPCC kept his name on the report as a contributor until he threatened legal action.
According to the film, global warming is promoted with a ferocity and intensity similar to religious fervour. Denialists are treated as heretics and equated with holocaust deniers. Tim Ball states in the film (and in subsequent press publicity) that he has received death threats because of sceptical statements he has made about global warming.
Reception and criticism The show attracted 2.5 million viewers and an audience share of 11.5%. Channel 4 stated that it had received 758 calls and emails about the programme, with those in favour outnumbering complaints by six to one.
Following criticism from scientists the film has been changed since it was first broadcast on Channel 4. One graph had its time axis relabelled, the claim that volcanoes produce more than humans was removed, and following objections about how his interview had been used, the interview with Carl Wunsch was removed for the international and DVD releases of the programme.
Other scientific arguments used in the film have been described as refuted or misleading by scientists working in the relevant fields. Critics have also argued that the programme is one-sided and that the mainstream position on global warming, as supported by the scientific academies of the major industrialised nations and other scientific organisations, is incorrectly represented.
The film won best documentary award at the 2007 Io Isabella International Film Week.
Complaints received by Ofcom The British broadcasting regulator, the Office of Communications (Ofcom), received 265 complaints about the programme, one of which was a 176-page detailed complaint co-written by a group of scientists. Ofcom ruled on 21 July 2008 that the programme had unfairly treated Sir David King, the IPCC and Carl Wunsch. Ofcom also found that part 5 of the programme (the 'political' part) had breached several parts of the Broadcasting Code regarding impartiality; however, the Code rules on impartiality did not apply to the scientific arguments in parts 1–4, because the link between human activity and global warming had largely been settled before March 2007. OfCom did not rule on the programme's accuracy, but did rule that: "On balance it did not materially mislead the audience so as to cause harm or offence." On 4 and 5 August 2008, Channel 4 and More 4 broadcast a summary of Ofcom's findings,Ofcom Summary of adjudication though it will not face sanctions.Black, Richard. "Climate documentary 'broke rules'. BBC News, 21 July 2008
Reactions from scientists
The IPCC was one of the main targets of the documentary. In response to the programme's broadcast, John T. Houghton (co-chair IPCC Scientific Assessment working group 1988–2002) assessed some of its main assertions and conclusions. According to Houghton the programme was "a mixture of truth, half truth and falsehood put together with the sole purpose of discrediting the science of global warming," which he noted had been endorsed by the scientific community, including the Academies of Science of the major industrialised countries and China, India and Brazil. Houghton rejected claims that observed changes in global average temperature are within the range of natural climate variability or that solar influences are the main driver; that the troposphere is warming less than the surface; that volcanic eruptions emit more carbon dioxide than fossil fuel burning; that climate models are too complex and uncertain to provide useful projections of climate change; and that IPCC processes were biased. Houghton acknowledges that ice core samples show driven by temperature, but then writes that the programme's assertion that "this correlation has been presented as the main evidence for global warming by the IPCC [is] NOT TRUE. For instance, I often show that diagram in my lectures on climate change but always make the point that it gives no proof of global warming due to increased carbon dioxide."
The British Antarctic Survey released a statement about The Great Global Warming Swindle. It is highly critical of the programme, singling out the use of a graph with the incorrect time axis, and also the statements made about solar activity: "A comparison of the distorted and undistorted contemporary data reveal that the plot of solar activity bears no resemblance to the temperature curve, especially in the last 20 years." Comparing scientific methods with Channel 4's editorial standards, the statement says: "Any scientist found to have falsified data in the manner of the Channel 4 programme would be guilty of serious professional misconduct." It uses the feedback argument to explain temperatures rising before . On the issue of volcanic emissions, it says: A second issue was the claim that human emissions of are small compared to natural emissions from volcanoes. This is untrue: current annual emissions from fossil fuel burning and cement production are estimated to be around 100 times greater than average annual volcanic emissions of . That large volcanoes cannot significantly perturb the concentration of the atmosphere is apparent from the ice core and atmospheric record of concentrations, which shows a steady rise during the industrial period, with no unusual changes after large eruptions.