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Complaint to Ofcom Regarding “The Great Global Warming Swindle”

Appendix F: Some Factors to Consider when Setting the Penalty

3.2	The Friis-Christensen graphs have indeed been subject to significant dispute, as mentioned elsewhere in this complaint. The issue of the CO₂ temperature lag has also been disputed, as mentioned elsewhere in this complaint.
3.3	Global SO₂ emissions are not currently higher than they were in the 1970s. In 2000, they were roughly 20% lower than their 1975 peak. (http://tinyurl.com/296hw9, PDF, page 12, Fig 1).
3.4	In addition, the impact on the climate by SO₂ is much quicker than that of CO₂, so it is to be expected that emissions from early on in the 20th century (which caused SO₂ cooling post-World War II) are no longer masking CO₂–driven warming.

When one of the contributors to the programme, Carl Wunsch, publicly stated that he had been misrepresented by the film, Durkin threatened him with a defamation lawsuit in an apparent attempt to silence him (see http://tinyurl.com/33x4qe, PDF).

Durkin has also attempted to publicly discredit Wunsch by claiming that Wunsch attacked the way he was represented in the film only as a result of peer pressure to do so. For example in Durkin’s radio interview with Charles Adler at http://tinyurl.com/yv89bx, Durkin states:

It would be unfair to Professor Wunsch to go into my analysis of his motives for distancing himself from the documentary now, but all I would say as a general rule is that scientists who stick their head above the parapet and say things that, you know, are against the grain, if you like, with global warming theory often find themselves under really, really vehement attack.

However, not only do Wunsch’s published writings on the subject make it clear that, despite having reservations about some press reporting and some modelling, he believes that global warming is a very serious threat and that models are essential to understanding climate change (see The Economist: http://tinyurl.com/yqca4d, Wunsch, C, 1999, Bull. Am. Met. Soc, http://tinyurl.com/2of3ca and his email at http://tinyurl.com/2lgtjr, PDF); but he also emailed one of the authors of this report at 10:31 am his time, and again at 11:35am, on March 9, 2007, the morning after the broadcast, stating that he had been misrepresented by the film – long before he could credibly have been pressured to do so by his peers. Those emails are at http://tinyurl.com/2hh4jn, PDF.

F.3.2 Post-programme Breaches of Ofcom’s Penalty Guidelines by Channel 4

In correspondence between George Monbiot and Hamish Mykura (Head of History, Science and Religion, Channel 4), which was made public, it is apparent that senior management were complicit in the breach of regulations by The Great Global Warming Swindle (http://tinyurl.com/ytogy5). Mykura claims in the correspondence that the film underwent “rigorous editorial scrutiny”, and yet this complaint has found 137 separate breaches, in the Channel 4 programme, of the Broadcasting Code, 105 of which were also apparent breaches of the Communications Act.

Continued …

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Appendix F.3.2]


Page 163 of 176	Final Revision	Last updated: 11 Jun 2007