The makers of a Channel 4 documentary which claimed that global warming is a swindle misrepresented the views of some of the world's leading climate scientists, the media watchdog is expected to rule next week.

There was only one scientific advisor on the programme, Martin Livermore, whose sole scientific qualification is that he is the Director of a web-based think tank, The Scientific Alliance. The Alliance was set up by in 2001 by Robert Durward, the fiercely anti-green director of the British Aggregates Association, and Foresight Communications, a Westminster public relations and lobbying company, to “counter scare-mongering by the so-called green lobby”

The Scientific Alliance has no affiliation with any recognised scientific body but, like most of the contributors to the programme, it does have very strong links with the US public relations and lobbying organisations that have been so effective in setting the Bush agenda on climate change.

The writer and presenter of the programme was Martin Durkin. Although it was written in a highly personal and opinionated style- speaking freely of “lies”, and the “shrill frenzy” of “scare stories” – we never saw Durkin or discovered his personal credentials. As George Monbiot has revealed Durkin is closely affiliated with the Revolutionary Communist Party which has a strong ideological opposition to environmental science.

In 1997 Channel Four was forced to issue a humiliating public apology over a previous series of anti-environment programmes directed by Durkin called “Against Nature”. The Independent Television Commission found that “the views of the four complainants, as made clear to the interviewer, had been distorted by selective editing” and that they had been “misled as to the content and purpose of the programmes when they agreed to take part.”

For this programme Durkin drew up a dream team of scientists who have built personal careers as media pundits debunking the peer-reviewed work of their colleagues. There are few of them, but they are well supported by the Washington lobbies and kept very busy with media debates, documentaries and opinion pieces.

Is it any surprise then, that they were so persuasive. Most of the people on the programme are professional communicators who are more familiar with the chat show than the lab. Of course they give good interviews - it is what they do for a living.

And let us not forget that we all want to believe them. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to believe that the science is unsettled, that all that carbon dioxide that we are pumping into the atmosphere really has no effect, and that we do not have to worry about the future.

My problem is they keep moving the goalposts to suit their arguments.

In the early 90's we had a few years of no rain and there was a bit of a drought, hosepipe bans etc.
The experts were saying 'Global warming is here', 'have to conserve water', 'reuse your bath water', 'going to be like the med here' etc Then towards the late 90's one year we had a lot of rain and it got a bit colder, the experts said 'well, changing weather is part of global warming as well'

The fact is the world temperature has always been changing, and apparently it was a lot hotter 1000 years ago, and a lot colder 300 years ago.

Exactly Jegs! In 1993 in cornwall we had a particularly cold snowy day, everyone said ooooooh there's summat funny going on....apparently in 1953 I think they had a very bad snowstorm down there and everyone said oooooohhhh summat funny going on.....No doubt in 5000BC when there was a flurry of extra snow outside someone's cave, he said "Ugg ugg ugg" which loosely translates as "ooooh there's summat funny going on".....
Colder than usual? Its global warming.
Warmer than usual? Its global warming.
Wetter than usual? Its global warming.
Drier than usual? Its global warming.

I thought England (sorry, should that now be Great Britain, United Kingdom or whatever) used to be the butt of a lot of jokes because its residents constantly complained about the inclement weather, so I kind of grew up with the idea that the weather in England is *naturally* all over the shop?

hey, it's just that, in general, major governments are happy when the population are in a state of mild anxiety about something or anything.
This is because if everything is bubbling along quite nicely then 'joe public' sees no reason for any change, thus reducing the justification for having a government taking any more money off you, starting wars, interfering in your everyday affairs, etc etc.
"Global warming" is just a 'hinge' for increasing our anxiety about the environment thus enabling the gov. to levy more hidden (and sometime overt) taxes in the name of being 'green', but I dont know anyone who 'buys' that. Like the threat of terrorism is a 'hinge' upon which to introduce i.d. cards and justify invasions of privacy.
All of these things are quite handy for the gov. as it means they can keep themselves in 'work', introducing various quangos etc so that their mates can have 'work' too, awarding contracts to companies that are owned by 'influential people' (their mates again) etc.
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The talk about your carbon footprint is definitely a load of bollox.
If Governments are so concerned about it, why don't they use the obvious simple solution?
Plant more trees..........

Well the ice is still in retreat if we take the long view, as it has, bar the odd blip, for thousands of years.
Of course those blips killed who knows how many, in whats described as mini-ice-ages.

But the big one is over, we're in the 'interglacial' aka the end of the Ice Age. The glaciers are retreating up the mountains and ever more of the Artic is defrosted.

Of course this will carry on regardless as surely as it will all turn around oneday and the grinding glaciers will be back.

Unless something 'interesting' happens.

Well it will not be long before we are back in the realm of the giant meteors again.
What goes around comes around and like I said we are nearly there again.
Anway on a happier note......

Of corse its a scam to get more money out of us.

See David Icke on Global Warming.
His videos are on youtube.

Maybe that will help to give people a little insight!

Of course global warming is real.
It's being caused by those reptilian Illuminati to keep us all under control (and take our money).
I'm voting David Icke for Prime Minister!

I second David Icke for Prime Minister!!!