'Climate change is a lie'
2008-07-22 19:07
London - A Channel 4 documentary that
claimed man-made climate change is a fraud broke strict
broadcasting rules on impartiality, the media regulator said on
Monday.
Ofcom said Great Global Warming Swindle was unfair to
several senior scientists and should have given a wider range of
views on such a controversial issue.
However, the watchdog cleared the programme's makers of the
serious charge of "materially misleading" viewers and said the
first four of the programme's five parts did not breach
impartiality rules.
The show, written and directed by film-maker Martin Durkin,
was first shown in March 2007 and has been described as a
response to Al Gore's Oscar-winning documentary An Inconvenient
Truth.
'Climate change overstated'
Durkin's film drew 265 complaints and provoked an intense
debate on its central claim - that the human impact on global
warming and climate change has been wildly overstated.
In the documentary the narration said: "Everywhere you are
told that man-made climate change is proved beyond doubt. But
you are being told lies.
"This is a story of how a theory about climate turned into a
political ideology...it is the story of the distortion of a
whole area of science."
The programme argued that there was "nothing unusual" about
current temperatures.
The era's defining issue
Its approach was starkly at odds with the views of most
mainstream scientists. Last month, UN Secretary-General Ban
Ki-Moon said global warming was becoming the era's defining
issue and would hurt rich and poor.
Many scientists predict rising seas, melting glaciers and
more intense storms, droughts and floods as the planet warms.
Complainants said the programme was one-sided,
misrepresented the facts, contained inaccuracies and distorted
the science of climate modelling.
They also said it misled viewers by exaggerating the
credentials of some contributors and leaving out key
information.
Others complained that the show had unfairly promoted the
idea that environmentalists seeking to reverse economic growth
had pushed the theory of man-made global warming.
'Beyond all reasonable doubt'
After the watchdog's ruling, Dave King, the government's
former chief scientific adviser, said the link between human
activity and climate change was "established beyond all
reasonable doubt".
"Today, none but the most ill-informed can maintain that
human-induced climate change is not happening," he said in a
statement. Channel 4 had no immediate comment.