I heard about this about a week or so ago. Apparently “The Great Global Warming Swindle” is creating quite a stir, and I am not surprised. Rebecca and I watched it over the weekend, and it really makes you think about things. Personally, I think there is some validity to all the arguments regarding global warming, for or against it actually happening or not.
You can watch this for yourself on Google Video. It’s almost an hour and a half long, but worth the time.
Bottom line, I don’t want to breathe in this stuff anymore. I am all for reducing CO2 emissions and making the skies less hazy with smog. The fact that my great uncle in California always sleeps better, feels better, and has less pain in his joints whenever he is visiting family, outside of the greater L.A. area in which he lives, tells me a lot. It’s bad juju.
The first I heard of this documentary was in the news, as one of the major British newspapers did an investigation into this show and found that the statistics they were most heavily rely upon in this show were all bogus, or heavily outdated and replaced with new data or explanations of anomalies. Apparently, the up to date data is easy to find, and the shows producers would have had to really dig to find the old data, since it was no considered inaccurate and not published anymore.
Among other things, data attributed to NASA is not anything ever published by NASA, just something from another skeptic and he attributed it to NASA; and for data that was favorable to the up to 1980 but then turns unfavorable, the show simply produced graphs that go up to today but extrapolated the data from 1980 till now rather than using the data that is readily available, but unfavorable to their argument. The main scientist in this is apparently funded by the energy companies.
I understand that even the BBC, who broadcast this show, are now trying to distance themselves from it now that it is proving to be very non-factual.
Obviously there isn’t enough here to say who is right and who is wrong about the issue, but as a logical, scientific type person; fake science always makes me think you’re hiding something, otherwise you’d use real science.
Channel 4 was the folks who ran this, but that isn’t too surprising. They are usually a pot stirrer. The argument is compelling though, if not to make you stop and make sure that you’re not jumping off the cliff with everyone else.
Additionally, it should be said that the main theory behind this special is not to say that global warming or climate change isn’t happening. Rather than, the idea is that human produced CO2 just might not be the cause, and solar anomalies have made some researchers wonder otherwise.
Factual or not, I say put it to the test. After all, that is the scientific method. All theories are just that, until proved invalid. Even if one scientist presents a compelling argument for another explanation, it’s the duty of science to follow up and examine it again for the sake of trying to prove it wrong, especially when it is done with the intent of excluding any and all political argument.