A documentary on climate change that was made by the UK’s Channel 4 and has subsequently been sold to 21 countries and distributed on DVD, broke the Office of Communications (Ofcom) rules. The documentary, The Great Global Warming Swindle, controversially argued that temperature increases seen since the 1970′s was not primarily caused by greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels. It claimed that the whole focus on global warming was driven by politics rather than science.
Ofcom found that the documentary did not fulfil requirements to be impartial and to reflect a range of views. It was also found to have treated interviewees unfairly. However, in what has annoyed many people, the programme was not found to have mislead viewers “so as to cause harm or offence”.
Sir John Haughton chaired the scientific assessment carried out by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said that it was very disappointing that Ofcom didn’t come up with a stronger statement on being misled. Bob Ward, former head of media at the Royal Society, felt that the programme had been let off the hook on a technicality. Carl Wunsch, an oceanographer who was interviewed for the documentary, said he had been invited to appear in a programme that would discuss the issues of climate change in a balanced way, but that it turned out to be “an out-and-out propaganda piece, in which there is not even a gesture toward balance”.
Still, on a positive note, the decision did find against the documentary and questions its credibility. It will be difficult for climate change sceptics to use it as an argument in favour of their increasingly marginal views.
