'The great global warming swindle' - an analysis

Did anyone watch 'The great global warming swindle' last night on channel 4?
I did, and I have to say I found a lot of what was put forward was bad science, or at least bad reporting.
For those who didn't see the programme, it focused on debunking climate change, with testimonials from several talking heads from various companies, universities, and other institutions.
I scribbled down several points where I felt that their arguments were misleading, or did not fully explain the issue, or were economical with the truth, and I'll go through a few here, after the cut. I would like to point out that it is a good thing that climate change is being questioned: good scientific method calls for debate and investigation, however I felt that there were several points made in the programme that do not bear up after a little thought.

• Paraphrasing one of the first points made in the programme:

'Carbon dioxide does not explain all of the observed global temperature changes, therefore it is not the cause of climate change'.
As I say, this is paraphrasing somewhat, but I feel that this was the view that came across.
For a start, this is just bad science: if a factor cannot explain all of the observed behavior, it does not mean that therefore this factor has no effect. It is well understood that there are a multitude of complex interactions in the earth atmosphere system; the carbon cycle itself is extremely complex! Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is just one thing which has a bearing on our climate - we need to understand all the factors in order to predict what will happen to our climate in the future.

• 'ice cores show that carbon dioxide levels are controlled by temperature, not the other way around'
  

Firstly, the time error on ice core data is on the order of thousands of years! When analysing any data, the amount of uncertainty must be considered, but the programme made no mention of the potential error in this data.
Secondly, ice core data, obviously, gives us climate data pre-industrial revolution. It is a record of the natural cycles in the earth-atmosphere system. As stated before, the carbon cycle is very complex, with multiple feedbacks; atmospheric chemistry and temperature are inter-related and influence each other. The point that I felt was missed is that we are considering post-industrial revolution carbon dioxide levels; i.e. an unnatural release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The natural cycles are being disrupted by our influence.
The natural carbon cycle can adapt to a certain extent to changes, but the point is that we don't really know what the long term effects are going to be! As best as we can tell, it's going to get hotter...

• 'all the climate change protesters are anti-capitalists/anti-globalisation/anti-economic growth, just jumping on the bandwagon'

It's probably true that a lot of protesters are also anti-capitalists. My issue with the above statement is the inherent implication that anti-capitalists are crazy. There is a great deal of weight behind the argument that our consumerist, capitalist way of life is not the best thing for us! On a global level, western capitalism is responsible for creating a very small number of very rich people, while leaving the rest of the world in poverty, dealing with the pollution and waste created by the few rich. Is consumerism such a good thing that it must be protected?

• 'carbon dioxide is an industrial gas; if it is banned, we will cease economic growth'

As before, is economic growth really that important, considering the affect it has on our environment and society?
My real issue with this statement is that it implies that without carbon dioxide emitting processes, we will no longer be able to grow/develop.
One of that major issues that needs to be addressed is the decoupling of carbon dioxide to economic growth. It is perfectly viable for us to develop and grow through using clean technologies; indeed, the pressure to develop in this direction could be a major inspiration to innovation!
Secondly, the programme also implied that if carbon dioxide is not causing climate change, then we would have no reason to clean up our act. I would argue that it would still be in our interests to do so, even if climate doom were not on the horizon! Fossil fuels remain incontrovertibly non-renewable: we're going to run out sometime, better to start doing something about it sooner. Not to mention reducing energy use, reducing pollution, creating benefits all across society.
I am not an economist, but I would like to understand the concept of economic growth more fully. Is there a point at which the economy can no longer grow?

• 'the developing world is coming under pressure not to develop. We can't deny them development'

Ooo, this is a sticky issue. We in the developed world have benefited from speedy fossil-fueled development. Can we now force developing countries to make do with less powerful renewable energy technologies? I'm not prepared to go fully into the complex ethics, but I will say that developing countries have a fantastic opportunity to avoid making the same mistakes as we have. As I said earlier, fossil-fuels will run out: developing countries can avoid creating a dependency on these fuels, and a useless infrastructure after they do run out. Developing countries have the chance to develop sustainably - they could easily find themselves ahead of the fossil-fuel dinosaurs...


I haven't gone on as much as I could have done, but I feel this post is already long enough!
The whole programme wasn't bad; there were some well raised issues: the damaging media hysteria and problems with bad reporting, for instance; however I feel that evidence on several issues was biased and mis-represented. I hope this post has identified and clarified some of these issues.