'Global Warming Is Lies' Claims Documentary
Sunday, 4th March 2007, 11:04 (Life Style Extra)
Accepted theories about man causing global warming are "lies" claims a controversial new TV documentary.
'The Great Global Warming Swindle' - backed by eminent scientists - is set to rock the accepted consensus that climate change is being driven by humans.
The programme, to be screened on Channel 4 on Thursday March 8, will see a series of respected scientists attack the "propaganda" that they claim is killing the world's poor.
Even the co-founder of Greenpeace, Patrick Moore, is shown, claiming African countries should be encouraged to burn more CO2.
Nobody in the documentary defends the greenhouse effect theory, as it claims that climate change is natural, has been occurring for years, and ice falling from glaciers is just the spring break-up and as normal as leaves falling in autumn.
A source at Channel 4 said: "It is essentially a polemic and we are expecting it to cause trouble, but this is the controversial programming that Channel 4 is renowned for."
Controversial director Martin Durkin said: "You can see the problems with the science of global warming, but people just don't believe you - it's taken 10 years to get this commissioned.
"I think it will go down in history as the first chapter in a new era of the relationship between scientists and society. Legitimate scientists - people with qualifications - are the bad guys.
"It is a big story that is going to cause controversy.
"It's very rare that a film changes history, but I think this is a turning point and in five years the idea that the greenhouse effect is the main reason behind global warming will be seen as total bollocks.
"Al Gore might have won an Oscar for 'An Inconvenient Truth', but the film is very misleading and he has got the relationship between CO2 and climate change the wrong way round."
One major piece of evidence of CO2 causing global warming are ice core samples from Antarctica, which show that for hundreds of years, global warming has been accompanied by higher levels of CO2 in the atmosphere.
In 'The Great Global Warming Swindle' Al Gore is shown claiming this proves the theory, but paleoclimatologist Professor Ian Clark claims in the documentary that it actually shows the opposite.
He has evidence showing that warmer spells in the Earth's history actually came an average of 800 years before the rise in CO2 levels.
While Prof Clark fully acknowledges that recent increases in atmospheric CO2 are anthropogenic, he just doesn't see any evidence that the man-made increases of CO2 are driving temperature change.
Scientists in the programme also raise another discrepancy with the official line, showing that most of the recent global warming occurred before 1940, when global temperatures then fell for four decades.
It was only in the late 1970s that the current trend of rising temperatures began.
This, claim the sceptics, is a flaw in the CO2 theory, because the post-war economic boom produced more CO2 and should, according to the consensus, have meant a rise in global temperatures.
The programme claims there appears to be a consensus across science that CO2 is responsible for global warming, but Professor Paul Reiter is shown to disagree.
He said the influential United Nations report on Climate change, that claimed humans were responsible, was a sham.
It claimed to be the opinion of 2,500 leading scientists, but Prof Reiter said it included names of scientists who disagreed with the findings and resigned from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and said the report was finalised by Government appointees.
The CO2 theory is further undermined by claims that billions of pounds is being provided by governments to fund greenhouse effect research, so thousands of scientists know their job depends on the theory continuing to be seen as fact.
The programme claims efforts to reduce CO2 are killing Africans, who have to burn fires inside their home, causing cancer and lung damage, because their Governments are being encouraged to use wind and solar panels that are not capable of supplying the continent with electricity, instead of coal and oil-burning power stations that could.
Nigel Calder, a former editor of New Scientist, is featured in the programme, and has just released a book claiming that clouds are the real reason behind climate change.
'The Chilling Stars' was written with Danish scientist Henrik Svensmark who published a scientific paper, claiming cosmic rays cause clouds to form, reducing the global temperature. The theory is shown in the programme.
Mr Calder said: "Henrik Svensmark saw that cloudiness varies according to how many atomic particles are coming in from exploded stars - when there are more cosmic rays, there are more clouds (BBC).
"However, solar winds bat away many of the cosmic rays (Stanford University) and the sun is currently in its most active phase (BBC), which would be an explanation for global warming.
"I am a science journalist and in my career I have been told by eminent scientists that black holes do not exist and it is impossible that continents move, but in science the experts are usually wrong.
"For me this is a cracking science story - I don't come from any political position and I'm certainly not funded by the multinationals, although my bank manager would like me to be.
"I talk to scientists and come up with one story, and Al Gore talks to another set of scientists and comes up with a different story.
"So knowing which scientists to talk to is part of the skill. Some, who appear to be disinterested, are themselves getting billions of dollars of research money from the Government.
"The few millions of dollars of research money from multinationals can't compare to government funding, so you find the American scientific establishment is all for man-made global warming.
"We have the same situation in Britain The government's chief scientific advisor Sir David King is supposed to be the representative of all that is good in British science, so it is disturbing he and the Government are ignoring a raft of evidence against the greenhouse effect being the main driver against climate change."
The programme shows how the global warming research drive began when Margaret Thatcher gave money to scientists to 'prove' burning coal and oil was harmful, as part of her drive for nuclear power.
Philip Stott, professor emeritus of biogeography at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London who also features in the film, warned the issue was too complex to be down to one single factor, whether CO2 or clouds.
He said: "The greenhouse effect theory worried me from the start because you can't say that just one factor can have this effect.
"The system is too complex to say exactly what the effect of cutting back on CO2 production would be, or indeed of continuing to produce CO2.
"It's ridiculous to see politicians arguing over whether they will allow the global temperature to rise by 2C or 3C."
Mr Stott said the film could mark the point where scientists advocating the greenhouse effect theory, began to lose the argument.
He continued: "It is a brave programme at the moment to give excluded voices their say, and maybe it is just the beginning.
"At the moment, there is almost a McCarthyism movement in science where the greenhouse effect is like a puritanical religion and this is dangerous."
In the programme Mr Calder said: "The greenhouse effect is seen as a religion and if you don't agree, you are a heretic."
He added: "However, I think this programme will help further debate and scientists not directly involved in global warming studies may begin to study what is being said, become more open-minded and more questioning, but this will happen slowly."
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