david cromwell and david edwards on a ‘deeply deceptive’ global warming documentary |
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On March 8, Channel 4 screened The Great Global Warming Swindle, a documentary claiming the scientific consensus on climate change was a "lie".
In an interview, the film's writer and director, Martin Durkin, was clear about his aim: "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."
No surprise, then, that climate-sceptic journalists queued up to shower praise on a film that said what they wanted to hear. The Daily Mail's Melanie Phillips described it as a "devastating documentary" that had "blown an enormous hole in every fundamental claim made to support the climate change obsession". Christopher Booker went even further in the Sunday Telegraph: "Never |
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| Martin Durkin’s film claimed that scientists have reversed the relationship between global temperature and CO2 |
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before has there been such a devastatingly authoritative account of how the hysteria over global warming has parted company with reality."
Durkin's main claim was that the world's top climate scientists are guilty of the most basic error imaginable: they have reversed the relationship between temperature and CO2. Global warming is caused by natural phenomena, such as solar and volcanic activity, not man-made CO2.
But, since the screening, there have been three important developments.
First, Real Climate, an internet site run by climate scientists, including NASA's Dr Gavin Schmidt and Dr William Connelley of the British Antarctic Survey, has described the documentary as "deeply deceptive" and guilty of "lying to us by omission".
Second, Professor Carl Wunsch, a climate scientist who appeared in Durkin's film, claims he was "duped" into taking part.
Third, an investigation by the Independent last week reported that the film was "flawed with major errors which seriously  |
