This program was recently reported on by The Independent:

"A Channel 4 documentary that claimed global warming is a swindle was itself flawed with major errors which seriously undermine the programme's credibility, according to an investigation by The Independent.

"The Great Global Warming Swindle, was based on graphs that were distorted, mislabelled or just plain wrong. The graphs were nevertheless used to attack the credibility and honesty of climate scientists.

"A graph central to the programme's thesis, purporting to show variations in global temperatures over the past century, claimed to show that global warming was not linked with industrial emissions of carbon dioxide. Yet the graph was not what it seemed.

"Other graphs used out-of-date information or data that was shown some years ago to be wrong. Yet the programme makers claimed the graphs demonstrated that orthodox climate science was a conspiratorial "lie" foisted on the public."

Full article here:
http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/climate_change/article2355956.ece

It is important to offer balanced arguments, that is what science is about. It is true that much of the facts on this film are questionable, but it is vital we don't loose sight of sientific debate.

I would also point out that even if there is nothing we can do with regards to greenhouse emissions, surly it is vital to find an alternative to the dwindeling supply of fossil fuels before it is too late and our civilisation collapses.

Carl Wunsch:
An expert cited in the documentary has responded to the film stating that he was misrepresented, saying the documentary was "grossly distorted" and "as close to pure propaganda as anything since World War Two".
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2031455,00.html
From his own site:
"...Channel 4 now says they were making a film in a series of "polemics". There is nothing in the communication we had (much of it on the telephone or with the film crew on the day they were in Boston) that suggested they were making a film that was one-sided, anti-educational, and misleading. I took them at face value---clearly a great error. I knew I had no control over the actual content, but it never occurred to me that I was dealing with people who already had a reputation for distortion and exaggeration."
http://ocean.mit.edu/~cwunsch/papersonline/responseto_channel4.htm

downvoting due to grossly distorted facts and pseudoscience. People who believe simplistically that "science is based on offering balanced arguments" have a very poor understanding indeed of what the process of science actually is.

what is scientific about cutting down rainforests to plant soybeans to make biodiesel to reduce some percentage of carbon dioxide? There is hysteria about global warming, and political types are willing to foster it.

gluonium, I study molecular and cellular biology. Don't tell me about the processes of science. I am a firm believer in climate change due to man.
It is people like you who tarnish these arguments. It polarises people's beliveves. Hear all sides then judge.

But I do think the science in this video is doubful. Then again, to discount these arguments because they do not match your own, without thinking them through.... you might as well read the bible and be done with it.

I suppose I should stop next morning and listen to the raving nut on the corner to carefully consider his lucid viws on the subject too if I want to 'hear all sides' before judging? My complaint is about the belief that all ideas are equal and are worth equal time in evenly balanced arguments. In fact, in addition to credible and worthy ideas, there exist also deliberately deceptive ideas and shit ideas undeserving of any time of consideration whatsoever. I would expect a fellow scientist such as yourself to not only be able to recognize valid scientific arguments when they see them but also be able to recognize and discern legitimate debate from illegitimate artificial debate which has been invented merely to decieve the uninformed into thinking a real debate actually even exists on a particular subject.

Let me ask you. You're a biologist, would you reccomend that I sit down and carefully read the bilge that Michael Behe or Ken Ham churn out to, you know, just hear all the sides of the debate before deciding if evolution is actually real? I thought not. Sometimes, there is no debate.

wtf? I did NOT write the comment that was just here. something is either screwy w/videosift or my acct. was hijacked. weird.

The real problem is who is actually muddling the argument on climate change. The line of diction coming from the fringe and the corporate sponsored media has been of the following nature, that global warming is not caused by man, it's natural and doing anything about it will only mean famine and death for the American economy. Suddenly global warming is up to debate, the most recent data figures and scientific consensus become 'debatable'?

Who exactly has to lose from environmental laws? The American corporations that have for years swinged by on deregulation and stringent fights against goverment legislation and control when it comes to the safety of the society. Examples? Oh seat belts until Ralph Nader, cigarettes until the late 90s practically, these companies don't want to suddenly change overnight, they will fight environmental legislation with tooth and nail because it cuts into profitability, because they know it will take them alot of reinvestment to modernize instead of actually giving away large bonuses the size of small goverment budgets to their departing CEOs.

To say that global warming doesn't happen is to have a lack of basic common understanding about the world, that what effects occur in micro scale occur in macro scale as well, ask anyone who has been to L.A. about the smog that covers the city so much so that it's nearly impossible to see the famous Hollywood sign from most locations of the city, California tried to institute stricter emission laws, you can find out for yourself what happened with that. Ask anyone who has seen an oil tanker spill its guts all over a pristine bay and basically poison life there. Visit the cities in America built on expanses of flat concrete that just burn daily because there is nothing to take the heat of the sun away, the concrete just absorbs it and radiates it right back pushing the temperatures higher then they should normally be.

Now ask yourself what will happen in 50 to 100 years time, how will life be when population will be larger, there will be less fuel to power our nice sleek SUVs of today, and more reliance on dirty fuels like coal as seen in China at the moment, no more oil to burn for energy supplies. The blame now is being laid at the 3rd world, the 3rd world has said that time and time again that it is willing to adopt modern technologies. So obviously the solution is just to give up and burn the furnace for a bit longer. The cities will need to expand, suburbia will press further and further out into the lands. Drive around any US state today, almost row after row of nearly identical neighborhoods, with their own complexes of cinemas, fast food and Starbucks. All they need. Civilizations end because the means to sustain them end. We are reaching the end of our oil economy, lots of alternatives are being thrown about but really they don't understand that most alternatives actually really on a oil based economy to sustain them. Such that investment needs to be now, instead of later when resources will be tighter and harder to attain. Most probably by then there will be small scale energy wars over control of oil wells and other sources of energy.

Frankly why do I bother. Nothing will really happen until shit starts really hitting the fan and our complacency in the current comforts will give way to urgent need for assuring survival. The free people sleep.

LOL -- yes, gluonium, I was thinking the same thing. That was MY comment. I guess I'll have to repost it, but now I can't even remember what I posted.

Yes Farhad but the earth has an amazing way of repairing itself too. Not to say it's good to pollute but everything we pull from the earth eventually goes back to it.

It's incredibly comforting and appealing to believe that we can control the earths enviroment. Quite frankly, we can't do shit about it.

Admitting to global warming science and pulling out of Iraq, etc. etc. means that conservatives have to admit that liberals were right on both subjects -- and that, quite frankly, is just impossible.

There is no force on Earth stronger than the stubborn egos of backward conservatives.

"Critical thinking" is central to scientific investigation, which I assume NickyP meant with "balanced argument"... hopefully.

As a note to gorgonheap, ... what are you talking about? If you're saying Earth will move on with or without humankind, than yes, I agree. If you're saying humans can't cause water to be undrinkable, plants and animals to be inedible, and land to be unlivable, than I completely disagree.

From George Carlin:

We're so self-important. So self-important. Everybody's going to save something now. "Save the trees, save the bees, save the whales, save those snails." And the greatest arrogance of all: save the planet. What? Are these fucking people kidding me? Save the planet, we don't even know how to take care of ourselves yet. We haven't learned how to care for one another, we're gonna save the fucking planet?

I'm getting tired of that shit. Tired of that shit. I'm tired of fucking Earth Day, I'm tired of these self-righteous environmentalists, these white, bourgeois liberals who think the only thing wrong with this country is there aren't enough bicycle paths. People trying to make the world safe for their Volvos. Besides, environmentalists don't give a shit about the planet. They don't care about the planet. Not in the abstract they don't. Not in the abstract they don't. You know what they're interested in? A clean place to live. Their own habitat. They're worried that some day in the future, they might be personally inconvenienced. Narrow, unenlightened self-interest doesn't impress me.

Besides, there is nothing wrong with the planet. Nothing wrong with the planet. The planet is fine. The PEOPLE are fucked. Difference. Difference. The planet is fine. Compared to the people, the planet is doing great. Been here four and a half billion years. Did you ever think about the arithmetic? The planet has been here four and a half billion years. We've been here, what, a hundred thousand? Maybe two hundred thousand? And we've only been engaged in heavy industry for a little over two hundred years. Two hundred years versus four and a half billion. And we have the CONCEIT to think that somehow we're a threat? That somehow we're gonna put in jeopardy this beautiful little blue-green ball that's just a-floatin' around the sun?

The planet has been through a lot worse than us. Been through all kinds of things worse than us. Been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, continental drift, solar flares, sun spots, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles...hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and asteroids and meteors, worlwide floods, tidal waves, worldwide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages...And we think some plastic bags, and some aluminum cans are going to make a difference? The planet...the planet...the planet isn't going anywhere. WE ARE!

We're going away. Pack your shit, folks. We're going away. And we won't leave much of a trace, either. Thank God for that. Maybe a little styrofoam. Maybe. A little styrofoam. The planet'll be here and we'll be long gone. Just another failed mutation. Just another closed-end biological mistake. An evolutionary cul-de-sac. The planet'll shake us off like a bad case of fleas. A surface nuisance.

You wanna know how the planet's doing? Ask those people at Pompeii, who are frozen into position from volcanic ash, how the planet's doing. You wanna know if the planet's all right, ask those people in Mexico City or Armenia or a hundred other places buried under thousands of tons of earthquake rubble, if they feel like a threat to the planet this week. Or how about those people in Kilowaia, Hawaii, who built their homes right next to an active volcano, and then wonder why they have lava in the living room.

The planet will be here for a long, long, LONG time after we're gone, and it will heal itself, it will cleanse itself, 'cause that's what it does. It's a self-correcting system. The air and the water will recover, the earth will be renewed, and if it's true that plastic is not degradable, well, the planet will simply incorporate plastic into a new pardigm: the earth plus plastic. The earth doesn't share our prejudice towards plastic. Plastic came out of the earth. The earth probably sees plastic as just another one of its children. Could be the only reason the earth allowed us to be spawned from it in the first place. It wanted plastic for itself. Didn't know how to make it. Needed us. Could be the answer to our age-old egocentric philosophical question, "Why are we here?" Plastic...asshole.

So, the plastic is here, our job is done, we can be phased out now. And I think that's begun. Don't you think that's already started? I think, to be fair, the planet sees us as a mild threat. Something to be dealt with. And the planet can defend itself in an organized, collective way, the way a beehive or an ant colony can. A collective defense mechanism. The planet will think of something. What would you do if you were the planet? How would you defend yourself against this troublesome, pesky species? Let's see... Viruses. Viruses might be good. They seem vulnerable to viruses. And, uh...viruses are tricky, always mutating and forming new strains whenever a vaccine is developed. Perhaps, this first virus could be one that compromises the immune system of these creatures. Perhaps a human immunodeficiency virus, making them vulnerable to all sorts of other diseases and infections that might come along. And maybe it could be spread sexually, making them a little reluctant to engage in the act of reproduction.

Well, that's a poetic note. And it's a start. And I can dream, can't I? See I don't worry about the little things: bees, trees, whales, snails. I think we're part of a greater wisdom than we will ever understand. A higher order. Call it what you want. Know what I call it? The Big Electron. The Big Electron...whoooa. Whoooa. Whoooa. It doesn't punish, it doesn't reward, it doesn't judge at all. It just is. And so are we. For a little while.

Expired in Queue - 4 day limit.