Al Gore needs to 'man up' and debate the deniers. The consensus is in, but the real debate hasn't yet happened. Gore is the guy everybody is looking to for guidance on this. Nobody knows who I am, or who Maurice Strong is. Everybody is looking to Gore as a prophet to lead them out of the wilderness (or back to the wilderness as the case may be). Gore needs to step up and put the deniers in their place by having the courage to actually debate, point-for-point, the crap the heretics are spouting. If he would just do this, I think most everybody would fall into step and get behind the idea of reducing the world's population by any means available and rolling back our technology to pre-industrial levels. These steps, though painful, are what will allow some of us to survive.
Posted by Paul Watson at July 14, 2007 10:08 AMOne wonders if watching this tape wold have any effect upon somewhat like Alexander Cockburn, who strenuously denies that there is such a thing as global warming.
Posted by Erroll at July 14, 2007 12:21 PMThis was a great interview - and definitely should be seen by anyone who questions the science that supports Global Warming. The graphs that were shown on the program clearly were meant to lie about what is really happening - for instance: "Now" means the temperature to 1990 and that the global temperature in the last 17 years hasn't been getting warmer. And if the science says it is getting warmer, it's because the instruments we are using aren't accurate now (but they used to be). Or the fact that in 1985, the correlation between solar output and global temperatures diverged but that's just not put on the program. Use data that has proved to be wrong in subsequent studies and then blatantly ignore the later studies.
Durkin's credibility was completely shot and he just smiled and smiled and concluded that there were no flaws in his program. Right.
Posted by Mary at July 14, 2007 12:21 PMAs a follow up to this interview was another interview with Carl Wunsch who said he had been swindled by Martin Durkin and demanded that sections with him be removed from the program.
I must say, I went into this a little bit naively because my prior experience with print reporters and TV crews and so forth was that often one's comments get distorted or misinterpreted, but that the reporters generally tried quite honestly to convey what I or other speakers were trying to say. I had never before encountered a filmmaker who clearly quite deliberately understood my point of view but set out to imply, through the way he uses me in the film, the reverse of what I was trying to say. As I said before, had he took...
Posted by Mary at July 14, 2007 12:35 PMGreat catch, eriposte! I haven't seen this anywhere else. I'm going to send it to my Senator, gag, Inhofe.
I'd like to see Bill Moyers do this with the Bush administration's lie about the reasons for going into Iraq.
Posted by via at July 14, 2007 12:45 PMEvidently, Margaret Thatcher was behind the Global Warming hoax because she wanted a reason to have more nuclear power plants built. Hummmmm.....
Posted by Mary at July 14, 2007 12:51 PMGreat presentation. I wish we were permitted to have investigative reporting and debunking of fraud in this country.
Posted by Lurch at July 14, 2007 04:03 PM
From the Sunday Telegraph
By Tim Blair
July 14, 2007 12:00am
LAST month Australians endured our coldest June since 1950. Imagine that; all those trillions of tonnes of evil carbon we've horked up into the atmosphere over six decades of rampant industrialisation, and we're still getting the same icy weather we got during the Cold War.
Sadly, those who believe in global warming - and who would compel us also to believe - aren't similarly constrained. A few hot days are all they ever need to get the global warming bandwagon rolling; evidently it's solar powered. Here, for example, is an Australian Associated Press report on May's weather, which in places was a little warmer than usual:
"Climate change gave much of Australia's drought-stricken east coast its warmest May on record, weather experts say.
"Global warming and an absence of significant cold changes had driven temperatures well above the monthly average, said meteorologist Matt Pearce.
According to Mr Pearce, May's temperatures were "yet another sign of the widespread climate change that we are seeing unfold across the globe."
If that's the case, shouldn't June's cold weather - coldest since 1950, remember - be a sign that widespread climate change isn't unfolding across the globe? We're using the same data here; one month's weather. And, in fact, the June sample is Australia-wide while May only highlights the east coast. Fear the dawn of a great "coldening"!
Snow cone Tone hosted an in-studio discussion Thursday night after the ABC presented The Great Global Warming Swindle, and he was hotter than a Christina Aguilera video. "Welcome to our debate on this deeply flawed and utterly mistaken documentary, which is wrong in every regard and was made by a zombie," Jones said in introduction (I'm only lightly paraphrasing).
During an interview with filmmaker Martin Durkin Tone was visibly sweating; no easy achievement during a typical summer in the UK, to where he'd flown for his heated little chat. Perhaps Tone was anticipating the phantom British summer forecast by The Independent's environment editor, Michael McCarthy, in April:
"The possibility is growing that Britain in 2007 may experience a summer of unheard-of high temperatures, with the thermometer even reaching 40C, or 104F, a level never recorded in history.
"This would be quite outside all historical experience, but entirely consistent with predictions of climate change."
As Wimbledon watchers would be aware, what with the rainiest tournament since Jimmy Connors defeated John McEnroe in 1982, those unheard-of high temperatures remain unheard-of. Someone might conclude, therefore, that the not-hot summer is not entirely consistent with predictions of climate change.
Then there's this from England...Cue wet Wimbledon, the coldest day for Test match cricket (7.4C) in English history, and this BBC online headline: "Where has the UK's summer gone?"
Coldest temps in New Zealand and Australia for winter and coldest temps in London at the same time. Yeah, that's global warming for ya.
But climate change is like Michael Moore's tracksuit - it can fit anyone. In 2005, Greenpeace rep Steven Guilbeault helpfully explained: "Global warming can mean colder, it can mean drier, it can mean wetter, that's what we're dealing with."
What we're dealing with, apparently, is weather.
That's all folks...weather
Posted by peter at July 14, 2007 04:58 PMDo something today to help sttle the confusion about global warming
http://www.petitiononline.com/agdgw/petition.html
Posted by Tom Sims at July 14, 2007 10:23 PMWe need to send this guy down to Crawford to interview bush after he's had a few Jack Daniels.
Posted by TIKI AL at July 15, 2007 02:14 AMThanks for putting that interview up.
Posted by johnf at July 15, 2007 04:27 AMI didn't know that the cold weather was melting snow caps. Who would have thunk.
Posted by Judith at July 15, 2007 05:26 AMCarbondioxide is NOT the only reason the earth experiences "Global Warming". There's also a thing called "Global Dimming". This Global Dimming-effect was the major cause for temperatures to go down in the 1950s through the 1970s. But humans has been cleaning up their act and now this Global Dimming-impact is declining. And therefore the output of CO2 is now the major reason why the climate is heating up.
But there's absolutely NO need to persue an active policy to reduce carbonemissions. The reason is that in the next 10 to 30 years the emission of carbondioxide WILL drop (dratically), even without a policy of reducing carbonemissions.
Is that captain Paul Watson upthread? If so, thank you for your tireless committment to protecting the lives of others.
Posted by Christina at July 15, 2007 11:29 AMAnd while we're on the subject of global warming denialism, let us now leave unnoted the increasingly demented Alexander Cockburn in The Nation. He thinks the entire thing is a conspiracy by all the climate scientists of the world to promote nuclear power.
Posted by cervantes at July 15, 2007 02:26 PMAs a geoscientist who had never (and never will) worked for the oil and gas industry I'm still a bit of a skeptic on GW. Thats because I think in geological timescales and right where I sit and write this there was a 1 mile thick layer of ice over me just 10,000 years ago and another one 32,000 years ago and many before. Thats 2 treelines that move all they way up to the arctic and were scraped off.
Even with the best evidence for GW we still have to listen to every point of view (except oil wankers) and be open to all evidence. The computer models are just that computer models. Many experts are honorable but no doubt there's lots of money to be made off of GW so we have to watch out for bullshit artists. Be wise and don't be fooled by either side.
I cringe at some GW experts because its almost like they are using the same marketing firm that monkey-boy Bush and the neocons used to sell the bullshit Iraq war. I think its best to be a bit of a skeptic on all things.
And before anyone calls me a wanker for the oil industy let me say I live a very low impact organic kind of a hippish life. Peace all.
"Sadly, those who believe in global warming"
The vast majority of the scientific community?
Peter why have you chosen to ignore the lies exposed in this program?Instead you spout a load of nonsense about how cold its been in your part of the world.
Has it occurred to you that these events may be connected?What ever.You made your point:you hate Michael Moore and the vast majority of the worlds scientific community are liars.Do you ever stop and actually listen to yourself?
"Al Gore needs to 'man up' and debate the deniers."
You've got to be kidding! Al Gore should waste even one minute of his precious time on this wanker, or anyone like him?! That's like "debating" so-called right-to-lifers. They keep that supercilious little smile on their faces, push the button that starts the tape with their circular reasoning and outright lie--and around and around you go. No amount of facts, evidence, empirical evidence makes a dent, changes a damn thing. Al's got better things to do.
Posted by ravenwind at July 15, 2007 07:58 PMNo Scott, look at the weather. On the same day, England was down to 7.4 C in summer and Australia was experiencing their coldest winter in 60 years. All the while climate change predictors were saying that 40 C in London this summer. That's quite a difference and unreasonably off. My friend in Germany complained in June that it was rather cold to enjoy his new bike, a blistery 15 C.
I made no mention of support for the ABC show. I made no mention of any hatred of any individual.
There isn't a vast majority as you call it in the scientific community that supports climate change. The last survey I read from 2003 said two thirds of those climate scientist surveyed didn't think anything was close to settled. Go read up on... Professor Timothy Patterson of Carleton University. He announced that global warming has ended and that a period of global cooling lies ahead. "Solar scientists predict that, by 2020, the sun will be starting into its weakest Schwabe solar cycle of the past two centuries, likely leading to unusually cool conditions on Earth. Beginning to plan for adaptation to such a cool period, one which may continue well beyond one 11-year cycle, as did the Little Ice Age, should be a priority for governments.
It is global cooling, not warming, that is the major climate threat to the world, especially Canada. As a country at the northern limit to agriculture in the world, it would take very little cooling to destroy much of our food crops, while a warming would only require that we adopt farming techniques practiced to the south of us."
President Jimmy Carter even signed legislation into law back in the 70's, still on the books today. This legislation was enacted by the bi-partisan Congress of the 70's with wide support.
Go look at the sun's activity, it controls our weather not man.
Posted by peter at July 15, 2007 08:35 PMUnfortunately, peter uses weather and it's variability to naysay global warming. And that's the weird thing about global warming, the trend is for a warmer planet but we still have the variability inherent with "the weather". Too bad, really. It confuses uninterested minds like peter's. The stuff about melting and animal death is nonsense compared to a buddy's(?) bike ride. No doubt an invisible buddy no person ever met. The average of the Worlds's thermometers pale in comparison to the compression of some asswipe's Ischial nerves. And I bet peter doesn't have a clue what compression of the Ischial nerves does to a guy. It's all good! It snowed somewhere! Global warming is doodoo! And peter is a fucking fool.
Posted by phidipides at July 15, 2007 11:43 PMGet it people? What happened in the last 17 years is a moot point. And there are millions who actually believe that.
OMG! This species is simply not intelligent enough to solve a problem like this.
Posted by xyz at July 16, 2007 11:04 AM