Mike: I assigned this as a 'reading' in my course at Sydney University and then discussed it in class. Monbiot has a good article denouncing it but there are better ones out there I set another reading that comprehensively demolishes the films argument but I don't recollect the citation and I'm out of the office. I also showed graphs and data from some Aussie skeptics (in the Lavoisier Group if memory serves) offering alternate theories including the same one on the fluctuation in the outut of the sun to explain recent warming. They predict a near term cooling as a result. Down Under climate change is taken seriously and looks like an issue in the upcoming national elections. I also gave them the reults of a Real Climate publication analysing the skeptics data and explaining it within the prevailing paradigm. Students were unconvinved by the skeptic argument, Cheers, Neil Harrison Visiting Scholar University of Sydney
________________________________ From: Michael Maniates [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wed 10/24/2007 9:15 AM To: gep-ed@listserve1.allegheny.edu Subject: The Great Global Warming Swindle Hello all, Does anyone have the backstory on The Great Global Warming Swindle, a "contrarian" climate change video aired in the UK recently and now available on DVD? My understanding is that many of the scientists in the video objected to how their on-camera comments were manipulated in the editing process. I've also gleaned from the web -- from totally unreliable sources I might add -- that both Channel 4, which aired the movie, and the producers distanced themselves from the production because of data falsification, and that the show has not been run in the U.S. (even by Fox News) because of this. But most of this comes to me through third-person contacts or random web sites. Do any of you have the larger story, or can you point me in the right directions? I ask because a colleague of mine at Allegheny, in response to a request from students who feel silenced by the energy Al Gore has generated, is thinking of screening this video as a formal, College-sanctioned event to "bring balance to the debate on campus." As an aside, I think The Great Global Warming Swindle can be a useful addition to teaching tool-box of those of us who teach the climate-change controversy. And I myself wouldn't object to the video if it's used to teach the debate. I'm more wary of Swindle as a definitive, credible "counter-balance" to Inconvenient Truth or the material that my colleagues and I present in the classroom, in large part because of its accusations of conspiracy and intentional distortion of data. Feel free to reply to me off-list. I'll summarize the helpful replies and repost them for all to see. Yours, Mike Maniates Allegheny College
