Now here’s a program I learned about today while watching BookTV on C-SPAN. It’s called “The Great Global Warming Swindle,” and was broadcast on British television in March of this year.
In a nutshell, it makes the case that man-made global warming is junk science; i.e., that increased CO2 levels are not a cause, but rather an effect, of global warming, and that climate change is instead caused by solar activity. Recent warming is part of the earth’s natural warming and cooling cycles that have gone on for thousands of years, the program goes on to argue. It’s kind of like a rebuttal to Al Gore’s “Inconvenient Truth.”
There are those who think the documentary is a bunch of bunk, of course (like this site), and in addition to rebutting the claims made in the program, tries to discredit the filmmaker. But then, there are those who think Al Gore’s documentary is full of inaccuracies, too (like this site). Naturally, Wikipedia has an entry on it already (and it’s mentioned in the entry for Gore’s film as well).
All of this leads me to believe that at least one claim in this documentary is true: that man-made global warming has become a bit like a religion, with those who disagree on the tenets being labeled heretics by the opposing side. I don’t see the harm in looking at both sides of the issue. I mean, isn’t science all about challenging hypotheses and testing theories? Why all the fear? I find it amusing that the man-made-global-warming-theorists are calling this film WWII-style propaganda, yet see no irony in their efforts to suppress the release of it in DVD format. Propaganda bad, censorship good? Heh.
The program is on YouTube (what isn’t?), if you’d like to view it and form your own opinion. It’s about 75 minutes long, so it’s broken into eight parts. For your convenience, you can watch it here by clicking the “Read the rest of this entry” link below.