A Channel 4 documentary entitled The Great Global Warming
Swindle aired in the UK recently and broke Ofcom rules, according to the media regulator. The leading UK communications network claims
Channel 4 did not fulfill its obligations to “reflect a range of views on
controversial issues.” (Richard Black, BBC News) The Broadcasting Code requires
the public channel to show “due impartiality” “on matters relating to current
public policy.”
Critics also claim the film treats interviewees unfairly and
simply does not present an objective point of view on the subject. Plaintiffs however, claim that Ofcom’s judgment is “inconsistent” and ‘lets Channel 4 off
the hook on a technicality.”
The filmmaker’s viewpoints include hesitation in accepting
the current climate crisis as a result of global warming. The film relies on
certain facts to back up their argument like the increase in atmospheric
temperatures observed since the 1970’s which was not primarily caused by
emissions of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels. It also concentrates
on the argument that modern climate change is more of a politic issue than an
environmental one. It is being called the counter film to Al Gore’s An
Inconvenient Truth. The doc has been sold
to 21 countries and distributed on DVD.
Sir John Houghton, the former head of the UK Met Office and
chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is disappointed
that Ofcom has not created a more sustainable argument against the film. “I
know hundreds of people, literally hundreds, who were misled by it,” he told
BBC News, as well as adding that the program was well produced and
manipulative.
It was the last segment’s doing that broke official
broadcasting rules, concentrating on climate change’s ‘faulty’ political
argument. However, most of the film was without fault in this department since
at the time it aired, climate science was not ‘controversial.’ Out of the 256
complaints received by Ofcom, one included a 176-pages document “alleging 137
breaches of the Broadcasting Code.”
In response, Channel 4 will broadcast a summary of the Ofcom
ruling.
