Go Greener, Australia

Last night the ABC aired The Great Global Warming Swindle, a documentary that claims nature, not humans, is causing climate change. ABC Science Online has a debunking at The-Great-Global-Warming-Swindle Swindle which explains the science in layman’s terms. If you really want to nerd it up, you can see more details at RealClimate.org and the Australian Science Media Centre.

I’m not sure why the ABC aired such an out-of-date documentary: Tim Flannery suggested it’s for ratings, while Crikey.com.au believes it’s due to political pressure.

Studio Debate
I was more interested in the studio debate after the documentary was aired. Tony Jones hosted a panel of scientists, industry leaders and media people. They covered the science, the UK response to the doco, and the business response to global warming.

Prof. David Karoly (climate scientist) and Prof. Bob Carter (geologist, denialist) had most of the discussion, arguing over statistics and data. Karoly had a lot of energy and evidence, while Carter repeated points from the film which were easily rebutted. Ray Evans (Lavoisier Group, denialist) ranted about how pathetic the coal industry is to cave in to the environmentalists - Dr Nikki Williams, representing coal interests, gave him a killer look at that point! She’s in favour of preventing global warming, but her main aim was good PR for the coal industry.

Then it was time for questions from the audience. Unfortunately, many of the people in the studio weren’t there to debate or ask questions, they just wanted to air their own kooky theories (Larvatus Prodeo has the YouTube video of it). There were rambling statements about carbon-14 isotopes from a creationist; and a few people saying that all environmentalists are into eugenics - I’m told they’re followers of a guy called Larouche. My favourite was the student (of astrophysics, music and “physical economics”, another Larouche-ian) who rambled incoherently about Johannes Kepler and Plato. The more sensible audience members asked panelists to clarify things they’d said earlier, or made statements about how they’re not scientists but they believe the planet is getting warmer and they’d like someone to fix it, please.

After the debate, Lateline interviewed Dr Carl Wunsch, a scientist who says the documentary misrepresented him. He had his comments cut from the film, and has threatened legal action against Durkin. I think he was naive to not check what he was contributing to before being interviewed, because Durkin already has a reputation for dodgy “science” and misrepresenting people on film. Wunsch is certainly wiser now.

It was an interesting night of tv, but I don’t know that it’s had any benefit for the Australian public. The denialists are still convinced there’s a left-wing conspiracy, and those of us who are more sensible will still be switching our light-bulbs and recycling our rubbish.

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 14th, 2007 at 3:15 pm and is filed under climate change, reviews, science, tv. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.