Complaint to Ofcom Regarding “The Great Global Warming Swindle”

Tanser et al, 2003, http://tinyurl.com/yvqnxb, reports that “projected scenarios would estimate a 5–7% potential increase (mainly altitudinal) in malaria distribution with surprisingly little increase in the latitudinal extents of the disease by 2100”. In comparison, Reiter focuses on the much more ambitious task of predicting disease.

Martens et al, 1999, http://tinyurl.com/342b44, concludes: “On a global level, the numbers of additional people at risk of malaria in 2080 due to climate change is estimated to be 300 and 150 million for P. falciparum and P. vivax types of malaria, respectively, under the HadCM3 climate change scenario. Under the HadCM2 ensemble projections, estimates of additional people at risk in 2080 range from 260 to 320 million for P. falciparum and from 100 to 200 million for P. vivax.”

Githeko and W Ndegwa, 2001, http://tinyurl.com/3cl7hw, report that: “We found an association between rainfall and unusually high maximum temperatures and the number of inpatient malaria cases 3–4 months later.”

In addition, Reiter’s links with fossil fuel industry–funded lobby groups that campaign against measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions were not revealed by the programme (see below), and the public was thus misled about his impartiality.

Links to Corporate-funded Lobby Groups

(For information about the following organisations and the funding they receive, see Appendix D: Corporate-funded Organisations Linked to Contributors to the Programme).

Professor John Christy and Dr Roy Spencer

Professor John Christy and Dr Roy Spencer pioneered the use of satellites to monitor temperature trends in the atmosphere. For several years this data appeared to show more warming at the surface than higher in the atmosphere, which, as discussed in the programme, was used to argue against the accuracy of the climate models.

However the programme failed to disclose that Christy and Spencer’s early satellite data has been found to be in error (see http://tinyurl.com/g2quv). As concluded in a 2006 report of the US Climate Change Science Program (see http://tinyurl.com/logfl), resolving these errors resolved the apparent discrepancy between the models and data; and in fact, John Christy was a co-author of this report. See also the 2005 New York Times article, Errors Cited in Assessing Climate Data: http://tinyurl.com/35egf3.

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