Text 27625, 262 rader
Skriven 2007-03-05 07:12:10 av John Hull (1:123/789.0)
  Kommentar till text 27623 av Jeff Binkley (1:226/600)
Ärende: Global Warming
======================
Finally, somebody is injecting some common sense into the debate.


Jeff Binkley -> All wrote:
 JB>
http://www.lse.co.uk/ShowStory.asp?story=CZ434669U&news_headline=global_warming

 JB> _is_lies_claims_documentary

 JB> 'Global Warming Is Lies' Claims Documentary
 JB> Sunday, 4th March 2007, 11:04

 JB> Accepted theories about man causing global warming are "lies" claims a
 JB> controversial new TV documentary.

 JB> The Great Global Warming Swindle - backed by eminent scientists - is set
to
 JB> rock the accepted consensus that climate change is being driven by humans.

 JB> The programme, to be screened on Channel 4 on Thursday March 8, will see a
 JB> series of respected scientists attack the "propaganda" that they claim is
 JB> killing the worlds poor.

 JB> Even the co-founder of Greenpeace, Patrick Moore, is shown, claiming
 JB> African
 JB> countries should be encouraged to burn more CO2.

 JB> Nobody in the documentary defends the greenhouse effect theory, as it
 JB> claims
 JB> that climate change is natural, has been occurring for years, and ice
 JB> falling
 JB> from glaciers is just the spring break-up and as normal as leaves
 JB> falling in
 JB> autumn.

 JB> A source at Channel 4 said: "It is essentially a polemic and we are
 JB> expecting
 JB> it to cause trouble, but this is the controversial programming that
 JB> Channel 4
 JB> is renowned for."

 JB> Controversial director Martin Durkin said: "You can see the problems
 JB> with the
 JB> science of global warming, but people just dont believe you  its taken ten
 JB> years to get this commissioned.

 JB> "I think it will go down in history as the first chapter in a new era of
 JB> the
 JB> relationship between scientists and society. Legitimate scientists
 JB> people with
 JB> qualifications  are the bad guys.

 JB> "It is a big story that is going to cause controversy.

 JB> "Its very rare that a film changes history, but I think this is a
 JB> turning point
 JB> and in five years the idea that the greenhouse effect is the main reason
 JB> behind
 JB> global warming will be seen as total bollocks.

 JB> "Al Gore might have won an Oscar for An Inconvenient Truth, but the film
is
 JB> very misleading and he has got the relationship between CO2 and climate
 JB> change
 JB> the wrong way round."

 JB> One major piece of evidence of CO2 causing global warming are ice core
 JB> samples
 JB> from Antarctica, which show that for hundreds of years, global warming
 JB> has been
 JB> accompanied by higher levels of CO2 in the atmosphere.

 JB> In The Great Global Warming Swindle Al Gore is shown claiming this
 JB> proves the
 JB> theory, but palaeontologist Professor Ian Clark claims in the
 JB> documentary that
 JB> it actually shows the opposite.

 JB> He has evidence showing that warmer spells in the Earths history
 JB> actually came
 JB> an average of 800 years before the rise in CO2 levels.

 JB> Prof Clark believes increased levels of CO2 are because the Earth is
 JB> heating up
 JB> and not the cause. He says most CO2 in the atmosphere comes from the
 JB> oceans,
 JB> which dissolve the gas.

 JB> When the temperature increases, more gas is released into the atmosphere
 JB> and
 JB> when global temperatures cool, more CO2 is taken in. Because of the
immense
 JB> size of the oceans, he said they take time to catch up with climate
 JB> trends, and
 JB> this memory effect is responsible for the lag.

 JB> Scientists in the programme also raise another discrepancy with the
 JB> official
 JB> line, showing that most of the recent global warming occurred before
 JB> 1940, when
 JB> global temperatures then fell for four decades.

 JB> It was only in the late 1970s that the current trend of rising
temperatures
 JB> began.

 JB> This, claim the sceptics, is a flaw in the CO2 theory, because the
post-war
 JB> economic boom produced more CO2 and should, according to the consensus,
 JB> have
 JB> meant a rise in global temperatures.

 JB> The programme claims there appears to be a consensus across science that
 JB> CO2 is
 JB> responsible for global warming, but Professor Paul Reiter is shown to
 JB> disagree.


 JB> He said the influential United Nations report on Climate change, that
 JB> claimed
 JB> humans were responsible, was a sham.

 JB> It claimed to be the opinion of 2,500 leading scientists, but Prof
 JB> Reiter said
 JB> it included names of scientists who disagreed with the findings and
 JB> resigned
 JB> from the UNs Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and said the
 JB> report was
 JB> finalised by government appointees.

 JB> The CO2 theory is further undermined by claims that billions of pounds
 JB> is being
 JB> provided by governments to fund greenhouse effect research, so thousands
of
 JB> scientists know their job depends on the theory continuing to be seen as
 JB> fact.

 JB> The programme claims efforts to reduce CO2 are killing Africans, who
 JB> have to
 JB> burn fires inside their home, causing cancer and lung damage, because
their
 JB> governments are being encouraged to use wind and solar panels that are not
 JB> capable of supplying the continent with electricity, instead of coal and
 JB> oil-burning power stations that could.

 JB> Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore is shown saying: "Environmentalists
 JB> have
 JB> romanticised peasant life, but this is anti-human.

 JB> "They are saying the worlds poorest people should have the worlds most
 JB> expensive form of form of energy  really saying they cant have
 JB> electricity."

 JB> Gary Calder, a former editor of New Scientist, is featured in the
 JB> programme,
 JB> and has just released a book claiming that clouds are the real reason
 JB> behind
 JB> climate change.

 JB> The Chilling Stars was written with Danish scientist Henrik Svensmark who
 JB> published a scientific paper, claiming cosmic rays cause clouds to form,
 JB> reducing the global temperature. The theory is shown in the programme.

 JB> Mr Calder said: "Henrik Svensmark saw that cloudiness varies according
 JB> to how
 JB> many atomic particles are coming in from exploded stars - when there are
 JB> more
 JB> cosmic rays, there are more clouds.

 JB> "However, solar winds bat away many of the cosmic rays and the sun is
 JB> currently
 JB> in its most active phase, which would be an explanation for global
warming.

 JB> "I am a science journalist and in my career I have been told by eminent
 JB> scientists that black holes do not exist and it is impossible that
 JB> continents
 JB> move, but in science the experts are usually wrong.

 JB> "For me this is a cracking science story  I dont come from any political
 JB> position and Im certainly not funded by the multinationals, although my
 JB> bank
 JB> manager would like me to be.

 JB> "I talk to scientists and come up with one story, and Al Gore talks to
 JB> another
 JB> set of scientists and comes up with a different story.

 JB> "So knowing which scientists to talk to is part of the skill. Some, who
 JB> appear
 JB> to be disinterested, are themselves getting billions of dollars of
research
 JB> money from the government.

 JB> "The few millions of dollars of research money from multinationals cant
 JB> compare
 JB> to government funding, so you find the American scientific establishment
 JB> is all
 JB> for man-made global warming.

 JB> "We have the same situation in Britain The governments chief scientific
 JB> advisor
 JB> Sir David King is supposed to be the representative of all that is good in
 JB> British science, so it is disturbing he and the government are ignoring
 JB> a raft
 JB> of evidence against the greenhouse effect being the main driver against
 JB> climate
 JB> change."

 JB> The programme shows how the global warming research drive began when
 JB> Margaret
 JB> Thatcher gave money to scientists to prove burning coal and oil was
 JB> harmful, as
 JB> part of her drive for nuclear power.

 JB> Philip Stott, professor emeritus of biogeography at the School of
 JB> Oriental and
 JB> African Studies in London , who also features in the film warned the
 JB> issue was
 JB> too complex to be down to one single factor, whether CO2 or clouds.

 JB> He said: "The greenhouse effect theory worried me from the start because
 JB> you
 JB> cant say that just one factor can have this effect.

 JB> "The system is too complex to say exactly what the effect of cutting
 JB> back on
 JB> CO2 production would be, or indeed of continuing to produce CO2.

 JB> "Its ridiculous to see politicians arguing over whether they will allow
the
 JB> global temperature to rise by 2C or 3C."

 JB> Mr Stott said the film could mark the point where scientists advocating
the
 JB> greenhouse effect theory, began to lose the argument.

 JB> He continued: "It is a brave programme at the moment to give excluded
 JB> voices
 JB> their say, and maybe it is just the beginning.

 JB> "At the moment, there is almost a McCarthyism movement in science where
the
 JB> greenhouse effect is like a puritanical religion and this is dangerous."

 JB> In the programme Nigel Calder says: "The greenhouse effect is seen as a
 JB> religion and if you dont agree, you are a heretic.

 JB> He added: "However, I think this programme will help further debate and
 JB> scientists not directly involved in global warming studies may begin to
 JB> study
 JB> what is being said, become more open-minded and more questioning, but
 JB> this will
 JB> happen slowly."

 JB> Copyright � 2006 National News +44(0)207 684 3000

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