"Global Warming Swindle" Movie Not Quite Offensive Enough For Regulators

When "The Great Global Warming Swindle" aired on British television last year, it was billed by its producers, Wag TV, as "the definitive response to Al Gore's 'An Inconvenient Truth.'" In what is arguably the film's most jarring line, the narrator says: "Everywhere you are told that man-made climate change is proved beyond doubt. But you are being told lies."

Several hundred viewers, including dozens of scientists, filed complaints about the film's accuracy, impartiality and fairness with Britain's Office of Communications, or Ofcom, which among many duties monitors standards for programming. The office's findings on the climate documentary were released Monday, and I have a story in Science Times on the mixed result. I've posted excerpts from the story below, along with links to the report.

Many leading scientists, including Martin Rees of the Royal Society, have criticized the film and the results of the inquiry. Robert Watson, a former chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, one of the film's main targets, strongly attacked the TV office today, saying, "The public has been swindled," in an op-ed in the Guardian.

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