The Great Global Warming Swindle

I just watched "The Great Global Warming Swindle" documentary and I have to say that it was quite interesting. I always believed that CO2 emissions are causing the Earth to warm up, and I still believe it after watching the documentary, but it did make for interesting viewing.

I think the good thing that the documentary made me do was to question my long held belief that global warming was due to CO2. This is most likely true, but it never hurts to question things and ask for more evidence.

If you haven't seen the documentary, I suggest you see it whether you believe in global warming due to CO2 or not. The documentary suggests that global warming is just a political exercise and that the real reason for global warming is due to solar patterns. It makes some good arguments and if you watch the documentary alone, you may actually believe that CO2 don't cause global warming at all. The documentary is a good case in how any data can be misrepresented and displayed so that something else is the result. It's only when you read about the negative arguments where all the flaws show up. The show went and interviewed the documentary maker and probed him on all the flaws in his documentary. He sort of side stepped all the questions which made me realise how all his arguments are so flawed.

A lot of the flaws are blatant misrepresentation of facts, choosing to show facts when they suit an argument and omitting facts when they don't. This isn't scientific practise, this is called propaganda. The main case that solar patterns are causing global warming looks great when a graph up to 17 years ago was used where the two data tracked really well. However, recent increases in temperature that did not correspond to increases in solar spots foiled that whole hypothesis. There are many many other things like that in the show where graphs of data are misused and not shown completely.

The current debate over global warming is a very hot topic and this documentary is clearly trying to cash in, just like his claim that environmentalists who belive in global warming due to CO2 are trying to cash in. Despite all the flaws in the documentary, the fact that it does make you think whether we are being told the whole truth about global warming and question how accurate data are, is a good thing. The more people question this topic, the more accurate the data will be and it will tell us whether global warming will be the destruction of mankind. I for one will take steps to reduce my carbon emissions where possible. I don't see any harm in taking preventative measures if they are not hugely inconvenient and costly. We may be saving our own futures after all.