On this day, August 12, in 1990 a crackpot documentary was broadcast on Channel 4. The “Greenhouse Conspiracy” criticised the theory of global warming and asserted that scientists critical of global warming theory were denied funding. Lindzen, Pat Michaels, Roy Spencer, Sherwood Idso etc the usual suspects. Directed produced and presented by Hilary Lawson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilary_Lawson
And, of course, he got to write a 3000 word piece in the Sunday Times (the Murdoch press already spewing shite about climate change, something they have – mostly – kept doing over the last 30 years).
I wonder if Lawson admits he got that one a bit wrong?
Video here
Transcript here
https://web.archive.org/web/20080527135745/http://fufor.twoday.net/stories/3428768/
On this day the atmospheric C02 was 353 ppm. Now it is 421ish- but see here for the latest.
Why this matters.
To be totally fair, at this stage, such a documentary MIGHT have been makeable in good faith. Maybe. Hmmm. The denial has kept on keeping on.
What happened next?
Oh, the smear merchants kept at it, and still keep at it. “The Great Global Warming Swindle” in 2007 was probably the last time they were effective, in documentaries, but the theft and misrepresentation of emails from UEA in late 2009 (so-called Climategate) was also pretty potent.
The ABC, to its credit, did not bow to the IPA sorts who campaigned for it to be shown. It ended up being screened on SBS…