Debunking the “Great Swindle”
sduford on May 03 2007 at 12:09 pm | Filed under: Global Warming, Politics, The Denial Machine
Ever since the “Great Global Warming Swindle” came out, some of my contrarian readers have repeatedly pointed to it as proof that Global Warming is a hoax, and I have repeatedly pointed out the producer’s past “swindles”, as well as the lack of credibility of most of the “scientists” they used, and the fact that one of the real scientists was actually sueing them for misrepresentation.
Well, two more scientists have stepped forward to criticize the U.K. TV documentary, the Great Global Warming Swindle , for misleading viewers with unsubstantiated conclusions about climate change.
Read their letter here. Great Swindle indeed; they couldn’t have given their show a better name.
This is a perfect example of how a little bit of false information gets picked up by the media and goes a long way for the denial machine. That’s how they make the public believe that there is still a scientific controversy on the subject. The only debate left is how bad it will get, not whether or not it’s happening!
With all the swindle, and the swindle swindle, and the great swindle, which are just fights between groups of scientists or so-called scientists. But I think I am smart enough to underline some important facts that I think are logical: people’s pollution and energy consumption have some effect on the climate, but there are other factors that contribute to the climate change in a bigger way. Those factors are: the sun and the oceans. From what I have seen, there has been payed little, if no attention to the oceans. And I think this should be out focus for the next period.
Thanks forstopping by Adrianne. Actually the effect of the increased sun output only contributes about 1/10 as much as the green house gases do.
As for oceans, I’m really not sure what you are talking about. The oceans do not contribute energy, but they are both heat sinks, and carbon sinks, so they are actually slowing down global warming. The oceans are absorbing about 30% of the CO2 we put out. But that has its own set of problems, icluding the acidification of the oceans, which is bleaching coral reefs and threatening all shell-fish.
Dear sduford,
climatic specialists and those people who have contributed to recent debates are possibly as much of a threat to the climate as the pollution caused by industrialization. For almost one hundred years, science has failed to realize that climate and the oceans are one and the same thing. As a result, the 1982 U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, the only true treaty dealing with climatic change issues, was thwarted the moment it came into effect over ten years ago.
An alternate definition for the climate can be used: “The totality of the atmosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere and geosphere and their interactions.†What this all boils down to is that climate is nature working in all its forms — a nonsensical definition and useless as a basis for legal regulations.
As recently as 1990, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) came to the conclusion that CO2 was altering the climate and that “understanding and detecting the earth’s climate system must surely be the greatest scientific challenge yet to be faced by humankind. It is a worthy banner under which the nations of the world can unite†(IPCC, Working Group I, p. 328). Certainly not a bad thing for science. The 1992 Earth Summit resulted in an unprecedented success for the scientists working in the climatic area, forcing politicians to listen to them and paving the way for greater financial backing in an effort to understand and come to terms with the climate system.
Yet, what is good for scientists is not necessarily good for the climate. The simple fact of the matter is that meteorology has never been particularly interested in climate except for statistical purposes, defining it as the average weather over a given period of time. On the other hand, there are the mathematicians, physicists and chemists, who do little more than apply their laboratory findings, theoretical conclusions and abstract calculations performed on greenhouse gasses to a real natural system with little regard for the true essence of climate.
But while the seas continue to influence the climate, science is staring into the air (or, to be more precise, the atmosphere) in an attempt to find out what makes the climate tick. What is more, scientists have misled the international community of nations by claiming that greenhouse gases are the actual cause of climate change. This may yet prove to be the real tragedy of the climate change issue. After all, the oceans are still the part of the world about which the least is known. There is neither an “inventory†of the oceans nor an observation system. What is even sadder is that climate is still far from being acknowledged as the blue print of the oceans.
So beware of IPCC’s call for unification in its attempt to come to terms with the climate. The climatic change issue is far too serious a matter to leave to those who should have known better for many decades and who were not interested in or aware of matters relating to the oceans. It is high time to enforce what is by far the best convention for understanding and protecting the climate—the 1982 U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea—before it is too late. After all, it is the first global constitution and would therefore compel humankind to ensure that the planet remains a place worth living in. There is no need to “detect the Earth’s climate†and even less is there a need for a banner to serve IPCC’s “greatest scientific challenge.â€
You can find related documentation on http://www.oceanclimate.de/.
Sorry Adrianne, but I think this is a lot of hogwash and frankly, it doesn’t even make sense. What exactly are your qualifications? Are you simply reading stuff that suits your personal values and repeating it here? Do you have a scientific background? Do you even understand what you are talking about?
The oceans are a huge part of the climate, climate scientists know it, and it is a big part of the climate models.
Also, the scientific community and the its scientific method is a self correcting mechanism. Whenever new information comes in, it is used to update the current knowledge and theories. If some scientist is way off-base, he will usually not get published. If he does get published, his findings will quickly be demolished by further science from the rest of the community.
Thousands of climate researchers are approaching the problem from countless ways from the bottom of the sea to space. No stone is being left unturned, and no major find or major area of research or major effect on the climate is being ignored.
While greenhouse gases may not be the only cause of warming, one thing is for sure, they are the MAIN cause, and we have a pretty good idea of how much they contribute.
SDuford,
You finally had someone else to read and comment on your blog, and you insult her and chase her away too!
Aren’t you getting lonely?
And, won’t all that ice melting into the oceans lower the temperature of the water, and thus more of the hated CO2 will be in solution in the oceans? And less in the atmosphere? SO, less global warming?
I have no interest in wasting my time chatting with people who make comments as naive and ridiculous as she did. The goal of this site is to disseminate information, not to get into arguments with people who are clearly unable to differentiate between science from propaganda.
And no the oceans will not cool-off, they are actually warming as the less ice there is the more sun energy the oceans absorb. The oceans are in fact warming and that has so far been a greater contributor to see level rises than ice melting. The capacity of the oceans to absorb CO2 also seems to be diminishing as they become more saturated.
You really must have a very low of opinion of science to believe that climate scientists who devote their life’s work to the subject would overlook such basic facts as water vapour and more fresh water entering the oceans.
You should try and get your science information from real science organizations instead of from politically motivated people.
“Global Climate Change” is a politic, not science.
If you really want true discussion about this topic, read Dr. SInger’s well documented book “Unstoppable Global Warming. Every 1500 years”
(I know, he is a corporate whore, right?)
Actually, yes Jon, Dr. Singer is a corporate whore. He is the most well known and widely debunked fraud in the denial industry. He is a retired “Scientist” who has not done any active research or published a science paper in a peer-reviewed journal in 20 years.
During those 20 years Dr. Singer has been working for various PR agencies and industry sponsored “think-tanks” and has been actively denying a variety of things such as the Ozone layer depletion, the health effects of tobacco smoke, and now global warming. He is funded by industry and will say anything they want him to say in order to further their causes. On each one of these industry causes he paints himself as a “scientific expert” even when he has no qualifications.
Dr. Singer has zero credibility and all the so-called “arguments” he puts forward are either complete fallacies or else they are mis-representations of the science or even re-hashing long-ago debunked theories. For example, he says that data from the World Glacier Monitoring Service shows that 55% of glaciers are actually advancing. This is patently false and you can verify it yourself by going to the WGMS website ( http://www.geo.unizh.ch/wgms/ ) where you will see that 90% of glaciers are retreating. I could cite about a dozen such fallacies that Singer keeps repeating.
If you believe this industry-backed fraud over the thousands of real and active climate-scientists around the world then you are either a fraud yourself, or you are seriously deluded by your political ideology. You should check Dr Singer`s background before using him in your arguments, because by doing so you are completely discrediting yourself.
Well sduford, you are certainly riled up on this issue and to be honest, your assailing of Adrianne is remarkable and your rebuttal is impatient and unprofessional. It leads a reader to believe you have a level of insecurity about this topic.
“clearly unable to differentiate between science from propaganda”
No comment.
Thanks for your opinion Chris. I’m also entitled to mine.
I like to call a spade a spade, and Adrianne’s comment WAS hogwash. Perhaps I was too harsh, but her comment didn’t make any sense whatsoever. If someone wants to come here and make sensible science-based arguments, I’m all for it. But when someone says things that don’t make sense and tries to pass them as science or fact, that’s when I lose my patience.
The “sea” is not affecting the climate magically on its own, it is a part of the entire climate system and it is a huge part of the climate models so to say that scientists are ignore it is deeply wrong. The “sea” is not creating energy, it is getting it’s energy from the sun, and the amount of energy that gets through the atmosphere and not released back out to space is controlled by the greenhouse effect.
So the statement that “the sea is changing the climate” by some automagic process is not worth discussing.
I admit I am just a layperson, but I recall not over 15 years ago (when I was a child and in high school) we were all going to freeze to death because we were loosing your atmosphere because of freon and other pollutants. In order to balance the system out, why not just bring back the pollutants we had then, wouldn’t that help.
I know you will probably call my proposal comical, but it does make sense.
You also talk about “corporate whore’s” on here. What is the difference in them and you? Aren’t you “scientists” being paid by someone for your research. And if there was no problem we could cure, wouldn’t your grants dry up as there would be no use to fund your research? Think about it…we all have our agenda’s.
I have none as I am not a scientist…I am an evil consumer.
Hi Darrell, I think you are a bit confused. 15 years ago (and to this day) scientists we’re talking about freon and CFCs eating away at the ozone layer, which was a known fact, and it has happened. And just as in the case of Global Warming and cigarette smoke, industry embarked on a campaign of disinformation and used Fred Singer and others as a “scientists” to debunk the science. We all know the ozone layer decreased dramatically and southern countries like Chile have seen the rates of skin cancer skyrocket because of it. Industry finally saw the light and turned around, and actually made more money by coming up with replacements products, and now the ozone layer appears to be starting to recover.
In the 1970s, there were a couple of scientists who advanced a theory that perhaps we were going back into a colder era. This was never widely accepted and the scientific method worked as further research proved the theory wrong. Unfortunately, the mass media latched on to that story and made it appear like it was a widely accepted scientific theory.
You clearly do not understand how the scientific method and the scientific community operates. It is a self-correcting mechanism where false or inacurate theories are quickly proven wrong. To think that thousands of scientists all over the world are prostituting themselves for grant money is ridiculous, especially when many of them like the scientists at NASA and the NOAA are actually going against their own governments and putting their jobs at risk. Most scientists don’t make that much money and many spend months in horrible conditions in the pursuit of truth and knowledge. If they didn’t truly care about this line of research, there are plenty of other problems they could work on.
To take corporate whores who pass themselves for scientists but don’t do science, and who are paid to debunk anything that goes against their corporate sponsor’s best interest, and to compare them with scientists who are paid a pittance to work on what is their life’s passion in the pursuit of knowledge, is quite ridiculous.
Let me guess, you’ve been brainwashed by Fox News.
Yes, I will admit that I have been brainwashed by Fox News. But I am not as naive when it comes to science though as you might think. I am not a scientist by trade, but I am an avid aquarist and amateur astronomer. I do understand the scientific method. My wife is a chemistry teacher.
Back to the corporate whore…I have watched the Al Gore get rich quick movie “The Inconvenient Truth” as well. It is full of nonsense that has nothing to do with proving whether or not we are causing global warming. That movie has helped him pay for his huge carbon foot print and it keeps getting bigger. If one with an analytical mind does not honestly believe that movie is not 90% propaganda and 10% profit then that person is delusional.
I think it was L. Ron Hubbard that said something along the lines of: “If a person creates a religion he will get rich.” He said this before he created “Scientology” with his book “Dianetics.” I have read that one too. Al Gore has also created a religion, and he is getting rich. The man is clearly no idiot, but neither was Jim Jones nor Hubbard.
But back to whether there is global warming is real or not. I believe it is. There is evidence that it is. Is there a man made component? Probably. How much of it is us? Unknowable. But based on the evidence so far, probably not much. And if the “scientific” community is honest about that then the grants go away. Bottom line.
One final point…I believe that the planet and the universe for that matter, follow natural self correcting cycles. The planet heats up, and cools down. Even the cycles have cycles.
PS. The global cooling thing was not just picked up by the media…it was postulated by the “scientific community” and you are right, the “scientific community” corrected the mistake. I am just concerned that in correcting the mistake, if they did not go off the other deep end.
There is no need for anyone to post anything in comment to sduford’s opinion. Everybody is wrong and sduford is right. Look for certain keywords (brainwashed, corporate whores, hogwash) in response to what people have posted and you will know exactly what you are dealing with.
What can I say “moronpolice”, I like to call a spade a spade.
If anyone doesn’t see that Fred Singer is a professional corporate whore of the highest calibre, one who has made a career of working for the PR Industry and denying science about the negative impacts of phosphates, CFCs, cigarette smoke and now CO2, and with documented finances from the likes of Phillip Morris and Exxon, then frankly I know exactly who I am dealing with too.
Show me a real scientist doing real science that goes against the climate change theory and I will respectfully discuss his work. But when jerks like Singer try to pass themselves as active scientists when he hasn’t done any scientific research in 20 years and makes a living repeating the same old fallacies tirelessly, than yeah, I will call him a corporate whore.
I have tried to offer a sensible debate with you…and I get a bunch of misdirection and name calling…”Fred Singler is a whore.” Exxon, phosphates, “real scientists,” jerks, Blah Blah Blah. Mostly the hot air you seem so worried about preventing.
I have looked around your site more and realize there is an awful lot of advertising for books for the religion of global warming and the evil that man is. I remember a pastor called Jimmy Swaggart and most recently an Elliot Spitzer. Both had a campaign against literal whores, but they were both caught in bed with whores themselves. Just because you sleep with different whores than does Exxon, Phillip Morris (and I still don’t know what they have to do with the global warming debate) and the others you despise, that does not make you and Al Gore any better than the rest.
And just because you give that advertising revenue to the poor children dying of hunger in New Orleans or wherever you donate it (as I am sure you do,) does not change the fact that the money was made using the capitalist pigs model.
Good luck with your quest. I trust some good will come out of the hypocrisy. Just as Al Gore’s new houses and big planes have created jobs for us little people.
This comment will probably not be posted as censorship is also another good that is only wrong if used by the far left’s detractors.
I’m done…I can’t believe I even got into this absurd conversation.
Wow, aren’t you an angry person.
First of all, the science of climate change has absolutely nothing to do with Al Gore. Sure, he was instrumental in promoting the issue, but whatever he does or doesn’t do has no impact on the validity of the science. He’s been doing this spiel for over 20 years and was not taking any money for most of that time. He’s also not taking any profits from his film. And rather than buying what a few pundits say on Fox News at face value and buy the idea that Gore’s film is not based in reality, why don’t you do a bit of research? While there are a few innacuracies and a few selective and debatable emphasis for effect, the film is by and large right on the money. If you really believe that anything in the film is wrong, and truly want an intelligent debate, why don’t you tell me what you think is wrong and then back that claim with some facts and data? That would be an intelligent debate, just repeating what Fox News say in their hyper partisan rethoric just doesn’t cut it.
This is also not a political or ideological issue, although the right sure likes to make it so, and you clearly fall into that camp, letting your political ideology and hatred of everything liberal (especially Gore) cloud your judgement.
And of course, you don’t even want to hear anything I say about Fred Singer. To begin with, I’m not the one who called him a corporate whore first. One of the commenter here cited him and then said “but of course you’re going to dismiss him as a corporate whore”. So of course, I said “as a matter of fact…”
If you only took a few minutes to read what I said, and to research Fred Singer’s background, you would understand what I’m saying rather than just dismiss it. Singer has been retired as a scientist for over 20 years, and has not done any scientific research since. He has been employed by a series of PR agencies and so called “think tanks”. During all those engagements, he has come out as a denier of science on a series of issues that were inconvenient to his corporate employers. These included the science that showed that phosphates were bad for the environment, that CFCs were destroying the ozone layer, that cigarette smoke caused cancer, and now that CO2 is causing global warming. Every time he painted himself as a scientific expert in those fields, and every time he said the scientific community was wrong. I can show you at least a dozen fallacies he constantly repeats in his speeches, and if you were in fact interested in reality, I could also show you the fact that disprove those fallacies.
Just do a bit of research, you’ll see for yourself. And clearly, anyone who says “what’s wrong with a little warming?” is incredibly naive, ill informed, or dishonest.
As for the books advertised here, they are a futile attempt at trying to recover the cost of running this website, and believe me, it doesn’t even cover that cost. So spare me your lecturing on the leftist evils.
The irony in all this is that the very agenda put forward by the neo-cons and repeated ad-nauseam by Fox News is all about preserving corporate profits at the expense of not only the environment but the little guys like you and I.
Do you have kids? I sure not for your sake.
I’m not a scientist, but at this point - the climate is changing, our economy is in turmoil, we are at war, and there is a global crisis for commodities like food.
Which one of these is the most important to focus on? Whoever is right or wrong about climate change, niether can definitively prove their point, or prove definitively that we can in fact do something to slow our climate change down. Or, I also believe that it can’t be proved that paying for a solution to these percieved problems will be better than the problem itself. My mother went through Chemotherapy for cancer, the Chemo ended up killing her. I think that focusing on more immediate threats for us may prevent our own focus on healing the planet from killing us.
In light of other global crises at this point, I think we are much better off to put off our differences about climate change and focus on problems that we know we can solve today. I believe that the cost will be too great to shift more political focus on the climate over our current economic state and it’s effect on the rest of the world. Sure, let’s revisit it, but not now. We didn’t react immediately to threats of global cooling either, and we’re still alive to talk about it.
The climate is changing, it will affect our lives. We may be able to have an impact on it and we may not - but we sure as hell can do something about hunger, and economics today.
How about it?
Hi jorbrock, thanks for stopping by.
Sorry to hear about your mom. However, while it is true that some people are killed by chemotherapy, it remains a very useful therapy that helps the majority of people who receive it.
Second thing is that global warming is not about the USA as you seem to indicate. It is a global crisis and we’re all in it together. As for war, the price of oil and the economy, these are largely self-inflicted gifts from your beloved Bush the 2nd. The instability caused by your government in the Middle-East and the falling US dollar are largely responsible for the rise in oil prices. In turn, the rise in oil prices and the stupid run towards biofuels are largely responsible for the food crisis that is unfolding before us.
You also fail to recognize several facts related to global warming: it will make world poverty a lot worse as poor countries are by far the most affected, and this is already happening. It will increase food prices as droughts spread further. Conversely, reducing oil consumption would not only help with climate change but it would also help reduce the price of oil.
Finally, investing in conservation and green energy would be a big boon to the economy. It’s just plain common sense: you save energy, you save money! You reduce pollution, you save money! And the USA is missing a huge opportunity to gain the upper hand in new green industries and technologies. Meanwhile countries like Germany and some Scandinavian countries are creating thousands of jobs, saving money, and creating entire new markets and industries while the USA keeps catering to the oil and coal industry.
The sad part is that for a fraction of the cost of your illegal and completely unnecessary war that has destroyed Iraq and is ruining your own country, a fraction of that cost would have enabled the USA to completely ween itself off of middle-eastern oil while creating lots of jobs and improving the environment.
The cost of doing nothing about climate change will be far greater than the cost of weening ourselves off of oil. And 50 years from now the problems caused by climate change will be so bad that the current problems will seem trivial.
Doing a little search on the merits of Dr. Singer and found your blog.
Couldn’t agree with you more.
However…the only long term solution is not presented here…
Human Culture is to blame - Culture in the Anthropological sense, all things about humanity that are not part of our physicality, but are indispensible for continued existence…
I include:
language
fire
technology of all types
Social Structure - (the “big man” was our god…and became god…different discussion)
Agriculture
Health Care
Art
Math
Writing
Just as natural species find new energy niches to exploit, and therefore new species are formed over time, human culture allowed us to overwhelm the natural boundaries on our species, and thereby move into new energy niches.
Humanity could not have “evovled” in the Arctic, yet, through our culture, we came to dominate that extreme climate just fine thanks.
We evolved (alongside our culture!), to ignore all natural limits, and take advantage of energy niches!
Currently we’re the only species IN THE ENTIRE EXPERIENCE OF LIFE to have no governor on our procreation, and that’s what is overwhelming the natural systems…but, we are just doing what comes NATURALLY!!!
VOLUNTARY HUMAN EXTINCTION
The planet cannot withstand our presence.
If everyone, voluntarily, did all they could to minimize energy use (turning off lights, changing all lights to flourescents, hi-mileage vehicles, etc. etc. etc.) it would only decrease our usage by 20%.
That doesn’t consider India/China/Indonesia/Brasil/Mexico all increasing their use of electricity, having cars, etc. etc. etc.
Given our population trend, that isn’t buying us ANY time.
Human caused climate chaos is a better way to talk about “climate change”. It will be wetter/drier/colder/wetter selectively, but the ultimate effect will be bad, and the changes will occur far faster than any natural systems can cope with (normal climate changes occur within the range of evolutionary capabilities, but, here WE are!).
There is no moral justification for ANYONE on the planet to have children.
60,000 YEARS AGO THERE WERE ONLY 2000 INDIVIDUALS ON THE PLANET…DO THE MATH, NOTHING WE DO IS SUSTAINABLE OR LIKELY TO BE…THE DIE OFF IS INEVITABLE, AND, THEREFORE, TO REDUCE HUMAN SUFFERING (AND TO INCREASE THE PROBABILITY THAT OTHER LIFE WILL SURVIVE OUR PRESENCE), ALL OF US SHOULD VOLUNTARILY REFRAIN FROM HAVING OFFSPRING.
ALL OF US.
Wow!! It’s amazing how these great predictors of the future can tell you how warm it will be in fifty years, but couldn’t predict the catastrophes in Myanmar or China. They can’t even be 100 percent accurate with next week’s weather. Of course they will give you a list of scientific reasons on how they are different but I’m not buying it. They expect you to believe that in a little less than 200 years we are influencing the climate of a planet that has been in existence for billions of years. Our time here is insignificant to this planet. They don’t even hint on the fact that it could be our planet going through a planetary cycle or the Sun going through one of it’s cycles. They don’t talk about our Solar systems planets orbits that change over millions of years. A few million years closer to the Sun. A few million years further away from the sun. Thus global cooling and warming. They show you some satellite pictures of some polar ice caps and of some polar bears as evidence and all of sudden you have to stop driving your SUV. Imagine how much money Al Gore would have made if he was around during our planet’s thaw from our last ice age! I don’t deny that we could try to put less toxins in the air for our good but for Earth? Earth has done a find job taking care of itself. For some fun facts look into the emissions of our most recent volcano. You will notice how we don’t even come close to what the Earth could spew out. Last I would like to mention that in order to accomplish what these men of science want would require a global “green” effort. I would like to seen them convince some of these other countries that are still cutting off heads to use some different light bulbs.
RRivera: first you are confusing weather and climate, demonstrating that you are totally clueless when it comes to science and climate change.
You also have a very dim view of science. Scientists are looking at and studying naturally occurring cycles too, they understand them a heck of a lot better than you do, and they can separate them from this human-induced change, which is happening an order of magnitude faster than any natural cycle would predict. But you are obviously much smart than the thousands of scientists working on this problem.
You are also wrong about volcanoes. We can actually tell what percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere is man-made, because it has a different isotope signature than naturally occurring CO2. So we not only can calculate how many billions of tons we’re pumping out, but we alsi have a pretty darn good idea how much of it stays up there.