Great Global Warming Swindle Ofcom Report

JW · #31 (**permalink**) 01-09-2008, 10:54 AM

I was at the launch of the I Count campaign with the RSPB. On the day there were representatives from the three major political parties. All three agreed that human induced climate change was something that they would all work together to combat. This, it is worth noting, is the first time that there has been full cross party agreement since WW2!
If anyone thinks that the Conservatives will be any different on this issue is sorely mistaken. Green taxes are here to stay.
I wouldn't mind paying them if the costs of public transport came down, but it's just one of those things.

d70mpv · #32 (**permalink**) 02-09-2008, 07:26 PM

Channel 4 have been doing this kind of stunt for years - their remit is to produce 'alternative, cutting edge, racy' material that the BBC or ITV wouldn't traditionally have dared to.

These 'alternative viewpoint' documentaries have me screaming at the telly in anger. I'm a scientist too and God knows I'm sure I could find plenty of creationist scientific 'experts' if I tried - you wouldn't believe them over the 99.99% of other scientists would you? The difference with climate change, sadly, is that the public aren't neutral i.e. they WANT to believe that it's not true. So people go out of their way to quote the odd scientist that the media can find that doesn't believe there's a proven link and quote them verbatim. Creationism is easy to dismiss as it doesn't involve radically changing our comfortable little lifestyles - climate change most certainly does. Turkeys won't vote for Christmas now will they?

As a scientist I've often sat watching their programmes almost ready to scream at the telly at the wilful misrepresentation of otherwise extremely strong scientific evidence (for example, the MMR incident and GM food amongst others). In their eyes it's to be seen to be giving a 'balanced' argument, whereas all it does is fuel the UK public's cynicism and give ney-sayers apparent ammunition.

I try to just ignore almost anything relating to climate change I'm afraid to say. I didn't used to. Nothing will get done in time as humans are just too darn selfish by half. And no government will ever bring in the tough vote-losing measures as are really necessary, especially not the cross-border, international laws we need!

Try and enjoy the planet as much as you can (with the minimal impact possible [!]) and pray that the scientists have got it wrong. Which they probably haven't.