The Great Global Warming Swindle: Alarmists Lose Another Round in Ofcom Ruling
MensNewsDaily.com | July 22, 2008 | Roger F. Gay

In March 2007, Channel 4, United Kingdom, aired The Great Global Warming Swindle. The documentary, which boldly alleges that global warming is not caused by human activity and that there is no climate crisis, quickly became an international success; selling in 21 countries and distributed openly via the Internet.

A backlash from global warming alarmists was to be expected. Someone was breaking their strangle-hold on telling the public what to believe. Someone was actually engaging them in public debate, without their permission or editorial control, and doing it well. In contrast to Al Gore's “An Inconvenient Truth” (sic), The Great Global Warming Swindle featured interviews with real scientists and provided a more realistic analysis of data to back their claims. The alarmists' claims that climate change is driven by human activity and that we're headed for a major crisis were a fraud.

The alarmist camp filed 265 complaints with the UK regulatory agency for communications, Ofcom, plus a 176 page “group complaint” alleging 137 breaches (later reduced to 67) of the Ofcom code. Ofcom launched a 15 month investigation. In recent days, rumors have circulated that Ofcom would rule in favor of alarmists, “censuring” Channel 4, issuing a crushing blow to the further possibility of regulated media debate on the subject in the UK.

In their ruling however, Ofcom stated that Channel 4 was "on balance" and cleared it of "materially misleading the audience so as to cause harm or offence."

The alarmists began the spin campaign immediately, accusing the regulator of letting the broadcaster off the hook "on a technicality." Yes indeed, and a rather important technicality at that. People, including regulated broadcasters, have the right to disagree and to present evidence and argument even against the pseudo-religious rants of global warming alarmists. It's a free speech thing. It makes no difference that the alarmists have invested heavily in their own propaganda campaign, gained the backing of influential politicians by promoting higher taxes, seated a committee at the UN, push their agenda with politically controlled research funding, secure corporate backing with legislative proposals that would increase profits at the expense of consumers, or that it seemed absolute control was within their grasp. In fact, those are all very strong reasons for open public debate.

Many of the blind followers in the alarmist camp will not understand any of the discussion that follows this ruling, including this opinion piece. The Great Global Warming Swindle is not a pseudo-bible for “deniers.” It was and still is, as Channel 4 claims, “a useful contribution to a timely debate.”

Those of us not aiming to secure control for the alarmist camp will, for example, possibly not pay much attention to some parts of Ofcom's commentary. For example; Ofcom found that Sir David King, the government's former chief scientist, had been misrepresented and that the Nobel prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and Carl Wunsch, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, had been treated unfairly.

If individuals are treated unfairly in a broadcast, then let justice prevail. Individual justice is not unimportant. But it doesn't decide the question that alarmists raise; whether humans are causing catastrophic global warming. It doesn't settle the critical question answered in Ofcom's ruling; whether British broadcasters are allowed to challenge global warming alarmist orthodoxy. The primary result of the ruling is extraordinarily important. The debate is allowed. Let's get it on!