Unfortunately, Channel 4 abdicated their journalistic responsibility to give a fair and balanced picture of the current state of climate science. They presented a completely false picture of a community of climate scientists actively engaged in duping the rest of the world. Channel 4′s Great Global Warming Swindle focused on selling a bizarre conspiracy theory to the British public, rather than on doing the diligent, painstaking reporting that would have been necessary in order to improve public understanding of a complex scientific issue.

Consider this “revision”:

An Inconvenient Truth focused on selling an alarming scenario to the public, rather than on doing the diligent, painstaking science that would have been necessary in order to verify their findings, and improve the public understanding of a complex scientific issue.

British regulator Ofcom has rejected complaints that the popular polemical film, The Great Global Warming Swindle, misled viewers. The regulator said it was paramount that the public received alternative points of view – even if these were not endorsed by institutions or the major political parties.

While some aspects of the presentation “caused some concern”, the regulator notes, such as failing to give guests time to respond after broadcast, the errors were “of such insignificance” that they could not be judged to mislead the audience.

Ofcom said it couldn’t judge the validity of the facts on each side of the argument, but rather that its job was to decide whether the programme breached the Broadcasting Code, in which programmes must not mislead viewers in order to cause offence.

“Ofcom considers that it is important, in line with freedom of expression, that broadcasters are able to challenge current orthodoxy. It is self-evident that there will be strong disagreements over the ‘facts’ on an issue such as the causes of global warming – where some scientists disagree. Some may wish to challenge the evidence and the conclusions drawn from it. Channel 4, however, had the right to show this programme provided it remained within the Code and – despite certain reservations – Ofcom has determined that it did not breach Rule 2.2. On balance it did not materially mislead the audience so as to cause harm or offence.”

The hour long programme, directed and narrated by Martin Durkin, was screened in March 2007, and has subsequently become a hit on DVD. Environmental activists blame the film, and the broadcaster Channel 4, for undermining public confidence in the theory that human CO2 emissions are primarily responsible for increasing temperatures in the late 20th century.

Ofcom ruled that Swindle did not pretend to represent the mainstream view, and clearly labelled its contents; it did not dispute that temperatures were rising (something it could legitimately have done, as temperatures have been steady for almost a decade, the British climate research centres Hadley and the Climatic Research Unit now agree).
http://tinyurl.com/6xxzoq

The blockbuster climate disaster movie The Day After Tomorrow contains badly flawed science and ignores the laws of physics, leading UK scientists believe.

But many of them have welcomed the film as a dramatic and popular way to raise people’s awareness of climate change.

Sir David King, the government’s chief scientific adviser, said he hoped many ordinary Americans would see the film.

And the former US Vice-President Al Gore said the risks the film portrayed were a threat to our common future.

Beyond the science

Speaking in London, Sir David described The Day After Tomorrow as “a spectacular action film” which portrayed the switching off of the Gulf Stream and the Northern Hemisphere’s subsequent plunge into a new Ice Age.

The scientific consensus was that climate change might lead to a weakening of the thermohaline circulation (THC), the phenomenon that drives the Gulf Stream; but it was not expected to cause its complete halting, as in the film.

Sir David said the present global atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration of 379 parts per million, the highest for at least 420,000 years, was “very significantly higher” than during previous warm periods.

But that did not mean the THC, which keeps north-western Europe about 5C warmer than it would be otherwise, would switch off at all, and certainly not as quickly as The Day After Tomorrow suggested.

The film “unrealistically concertinas into a few weeks a scenario which, if it did occur, would take decades or a century”.

Sir David said: “The film brings events together into a highly unlikely or even impossible scenario. It’s very difficult to explain the physics of it.

“But what’s good is that while my colleagues and I have just spent half an hour presenting you with the scientific understanding of climate change, the movie gets the basic message across in a few sentences of dialogue. It’s a beautiful piece of script-writing.

Ignoring the facts

“I hope US audiences will see it. It’s very important that we all take cognisance of what science is saying, and that includes American politicians.”

Dr Jenkins said scientists thought a collapse of the THC was a low-probability but high-impact event. But they did not know how low the probability was, and in principle it could happen.

Dr David Viner, of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, told BBC News Online: “The film got a lot of the detail wrong, and the direction of change as well – cooling of this sort is very unlikely with global warming.

“But the fact that The Day After Tomorrow raises awareness about climate change must be a good thing.”

Images copyright 2004 Twentieth Century Fox.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3707873.stm

Every single one of their complaints about the science was rejected. Not that Ofcom said that they were wrong about the science; only that they had come into the wrong room if they were looking for comfort. Ofcom’s powers were limited to deciding on whether sections 2 or 5 of the Act had been breached and, in respect to the science, they concluded that they hadn’t.

Swindle only lost on a couple of pretty small points – their handling of the last segment on Africa and a couple of restricted finings on unfairness to individusls, essentially boiling down to a finding that they had not given adequate change to IPCC or David King to respond or give enough explanation to Carl Wunsch. But when you read the decisions, they make the individual complainants look incompetent. Someone at Ofcom has a real sense of humor.

I started writing up a long post, but the grandkids came over. I’ll post tomorrow.

Channel 4 is a public service broadcaster which is commercially funded and subject to the Communications Act 2003 and is currently answerable to the Ofcom and formerly the IBA.

Climate documentary ‘broke rules’

They could have complied with the ‘rules’ that were ‘broken’ (unfairness, nondisclosure) and the story would not have changed all that much.

Specifically, Singer’s quote (on the the chief UK scientist on habitability under warming) could have been modified to comply without much loss. Wunsch’s contribution could have been given an expanded context or dropped altogether, without much difference. IPCC could have been given 4 weeks instead of 4 days to reply as to the editorial process. Who’s to say they wouldn’t request 4 months or 4 years?

Channel 4 is a publicly-funded television network

Channel 4 is a ‘public service’ service network but its revenue is from commercials.

I beleive, but am not sure, that it has received some public support for minority programs and there has been some recent talk of a partnership with the commercial arm of the BBC but it is a commercial station.