Last Thursday I watched CH4's disturbing documentary the Global Warming Swindle.
I was firmly in the human global warming camp so the program made me uncomfortable. And as a media exercise it was very well put together.
My first reaction was that the program was that it was too 'one-sided' to be believable without question, but like most people, I didn't have the knowledge to refute the arguments put by the 'eminent scientists' in the program.
So in the week since then, I have done some research- mainly on the internet. However, because it was on television, too many people have accepted the 'facts' in the programme as gospel.
The reaction to this program is depressing. How is it that so many years of PEER REVIEWED scientific publication can be swept aside by a few polemecists who may have an agenda or may just want to provoke a reaction?
Durkin (the producer/ presenter of the CH4 documentary) blames the global warming lobby of hysteria and quasi-religious statements, but it is precisely because the scientific community won't engage in this kind of media manipulation that the people that he and his like can get away with it.
I have looked at a number of sites over the past week (ok, maybe I'm a bit of a geek with too much time on my hands, but this has really inflamed me)- so here are some links to the some of the best:
www.climatedenial.org A useful summary of alot of the 'noise' on the www about the program. Gives a point by point rebuttal of Durkin's program with scientific references, also gives its account of the background of some of the 'experts' the documentary relies on.
www.ukweatherworld.co.uk click on 'forums', then on 'climate'- both sides debated out - with input by meteorologists.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/03/swindled also contains some useful links to papers, graphs and rebuttal of Durkin's program
http://www.medialens.org/alerts/07/0313pure_propaganda_the.php
http://www.medialens.org/alerts/07/0313pure_propaganda_the.php
I know all this looks as though I'm giving you only one side, as I accuse the program makers of doing. But the first three of the above links are forums or blogs which allow comments, and believe me there are plenty of them taking the climate deniers side. But if you actually read through the comments/ posts, one contrast stands out:
Those who deny that we humans are having an effect on climate tend to rely on rhetoric, and repetitive, unsupported arguments.
A significant number of those who support the human activity global warming theory will support their points with references, links, graphs.
I have come to the following conclusion:
There is no published, peer reviewed, research which supports any other theory than that burning of fossil fuels is responsible for the climate warming we have experienced in the past century.
Big conclusion for me to make, I admit. I have only been looking for one week. But if the research exists, why has it not been flagged all over the internet, as there seem to be as many people on the Internet denying human global warming as there are supporting it?
