Only for those who watched both An Inconvenient Truth and The Great Global Warming Swindle...?

Question

Only if you've seen both the documentaries An Inconvenient Truth and The Great Global Warming Swindle, I hope you can comment on both. Which do you think present a more compelling argument. And after seeing these two, which side are you on now (has it changed)? Thanks!

Answer 1

I have seen both, I watched An Inconvenient Truth first. I won't lie, the movie could be convincing. It tries to appeal to your emotions. There are far more sections of the movie devoted to stories of how beautiful the environment is or Al Gore's son being hit by a car, than sections devoted to science. Al Gore presents 2 graphs (if I remember right) to support himself. If you think about it that's pathetic. That movie is almost completely devoid of scientific evidence, it seeks to guilt you into believing. Its also proven to be inaccurate, even the IPCC does not agree with Al Gores doomsday predictions of massive flooding.
Now the Great Global Warming Swindle did a good job of presenting evidence to refute what is said by global warming scientists.
Over all An Inconvenient Truth provided very little evidence to back up its claims while the Great Global Warming Swindle was full of evidence backs its claims.

Answer 2

An Inconvenient Truth is a little overdramatic, but has the science basically right. "Swindle" is nonsense. Neither one changed my attitude, which is based on the science, not the movie versions.

"Swindle" is simply a sensationalized political statement which distorts science. The director has a history of putting out misleading stuff. In 1997 he made a series for Channel 4 called “Against Nature”, which compared environmentalists with Nazis. Channel 4 had to apologise on the air for the misleading stuff in that one. The present movie is also a distortion of the science. More here:

http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/climate_change/article2355956.ece

"A Channel 4 documentary claimed that climate change was a conspiratorial lie. But an analysis of the evidence it used shows the film was riddled with distortions and errors."

http://www.medialens.org/alerts/07/0313pure_propaganda_the.php

"Pure Propaganda"

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/03/swindled/

Explanations of why the science is wrong.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Durkin_(television_director)

History of the director.

http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,2032572,00.html

"The science might be bunkum, the research discredited. But all that counts for Channel 4 is generating controversy."

Gore's movie may be a little over dramatic, but it has the basic science right. This movie does not. The scientists who question Gore's work still agree with him on the basics; global warming is real, a serious problem, and mostly caused by us.

Channel 4 itself undercuts the movie in a funny way. If you go to their website on the movie you find links to real global warming information. They also have a way to "Ask the Expert" about global warming. The questions go to a respected mainstream scientist who supports (mostly) human responsibility for global warming.

Answer 3

There's a problem with your question in that The Great Global Warming Swindle is just that - a swindle.

The producer (Martin Durkin) is a film maker, not a scientist and has publicly put himself on record as stating that the programme was made with the intention of causing controversy. He openly admits that the 'evidence' was fabricated, erroneous, known to be wrong and of his own programme he describes it as 'an irresponsible bit of journalism'.

By his own admission he seeks to cause controversy and describes himslef as a 'controversial revolutionary communist'. 'Swindle' is just one of many programmes he's made specifically for the purpose of cuasing controversy. Others include programmes promoting the use of silicone breast implants and labelling women who suffered as a result as "cranks, malingerers and compensation-chasers".

Durkin has repeatedly been exposed as a charlaton, has been successfully sued by the people he misrepresented, has been rejected by the mainstream broadcasters (Channel 4 is a 'fringe' broadcaster), has judgements against him for his programmes, has been the subject of some of the most damming TV watchdog (ITC) rulings, is currently facing legal action from the scientists featured in 'Swindle' etc etc etc.

Just Google 'Martin Durkin' to find out more about him.

Unfortunately there are people who will watch 'Swindle' and think it's real - it's not and was never meant to be.

On that basis it's hard to contrast the two documentaries.

An Inconvenient Truth is at least based, in the main, on documeted scientific evidence. Whilst there are some inaccuracies in it and it doesn't address all the issues of global warming it is by and large factually accurate and has over 100 years of science, 1000 reports and over 1 million scientisits to corroborate it.

Neither programme has made me change my mind about global warming. I prefer to see the evidence first hand.