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Complaint to Ofcom Regarding “The Great Global Warming Swindle”

2. Complete Transcript and Rebuttal

[Narrator]

Since the mid-19th century the earth’s temperature has risen by just over half a degree Celsius. But this warming began long before cars and planes were even invented. What’s more, most of the rise in temperature occurred before 1940, during a period when industrial production was relatively insignificant. After Second World War, during the post-war economic boom, temperatures in theory should have shot up – but they didn’t. They fell – not for one or two years – for four decades. In fact, paradoxically, it wasn’t until the world economic recession in the 1970s that they stopped falling.

[Comment 43: The reference to “cars and planes” is misleading – they are not relevant here, because the early growth of CO₂ emissions was due to burning of coal for heating, industrial activity and electricity generation.

The narrator continues to misrepresent global warming theory (see also Comment 40, page 33): by claiming that industrial growth can be used to predict temperature change.

His concerns would be justified if the theory actually did link industrial growth to instantaneous climate change. However, not only are industrial growth levels not directly linked to human greenhouse gas emission levels (see Comment 40, page 33), but in addition, greenhouse gas levels are not linked by the theory to instantaneous temperature changes.

There are many factors affecting climate in addition to greenhouse gas levels (see Comment 55, page 50 and the 2001 IPCC report at: http://tinyurl.com/32zmpm). The cooling period post-WWII, and the subsequent warming, is consistent with greenhouse warming theory, and is reproduced in all recent climate models (see http://tinyurl.com/yskadk [IPCC]). The mild cooling period post-WWII (which was greatly exaggerated in the documentary’s graph, see Comment 42, page 35) has been shown to have been due to sulphate aerosol emissions. Once sulphate emissions were controlled as a consequence of air quality regulation in the 1970s, the warming impact of the greenhouse gases took over (see Realclimate: http://tinyurl.com/26sf9x).

Furthermore, the suggestion that global temperatures should be rising and falling in immediate tandem with the emissions of greenhouse gas neglects the thermal lag in the climate system. This lag is driven largely by the oceans, which are so large that it takes centuries for them to warm up (see http://tinyurl.com/3avwtj [IPCC]). The film makers actually make reference to this “memory” of the oceans later on in the programme (see Carl Wunsch, page 49), but disregard it at this point in the film. This is again a clear misrepresentation by the film makers of the theory of greenhouse warming.]

(In breach of the 2003 Communications Act Section 265, Ofcom 5.4, 5.5, 5.11, 5.12)

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Comment 43: Misrepresentation of link between economic growth and global warming]


Page 38 of 176	Final Revision	Last updated: 11 Jun 2007