Simon Singh, the author of Fermat's Last Thorem, who had received both the above emails, sought to reason with Durkin:
"I
suspect that you will have upset many people (if Armand is right), so
it would be great if you could engage in the debate rather just
resorting to one line replies. That way we could figure out what went
wrong/right and how do things
better/even better in the future." (Ibid)
Durkin replied at greater length but signed off with: "go and f*** yourself [uncensored in original]". (Ibid)
Durkin has since attempted a marginally more serious response in the Telegraph, where he writes:
"The
ice-core data was the jewel in the global-warming crown, cited again
and again as evidence that carbon dioxide 'drives' the earth's climate.
In fact, as its advocates have been forced to admit, the ice-core data
says the opposite. Temperature change always precedes changes in CO2 by
several hundred years. Temperature drives CO2, not the other way round.
The global-warmers do not deny this. They cannot." (Durkin, ''The
global-warmers were bound to attack, but why are they so feeble?',
March 17, 2007; http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?
As we
discussed in our previous alert, the ice-core data show that the
initial warming that ends an ice age is caused by a change in the
Earth's orbit around the sun, allowing more solar heat to reach the
planet. The point is that rising temperatures then release CO2 from the
ocean back into the atmosphere, so creating even stronger warming under
the usual greenhouse effect. The ice-core record of
glacial-interglacial events is well understood by climate scientists,
but Durkin persists in misrepresenting the science.
Durkin continues:
"During
the post-war economic boom, while industrial emissions of CO2 went up,
the temperature went down (hence the great global-cooling scare in the
1970s). Why? They say maybe the cooling was caused by SO2 (sulphur
dioxide) produced by industry. But they say it mumbling under their
breath, because they know it makes no sense. Thanks to China and the
rest, SO2 levels are far, far higher now than they were back then. Why
isn't it perishing cold?" (Ibid)
Durkin asserts, without
evidence, that "SO2 levels are far, far higher than they were back
then". In fact, although China and other nations have experienced rapid
industrial growth, the Clean Air Acts in the United States, and
equivalent legislation in Europe, have significantly cut levels of
sulphate aerosols in the developed world. Scientists have observed that
the global dimming trend of previous decades reversed in 1990. Since
then, global warming due to greenhouse gas emissions has been clearly
seen in rising temperatures.
The Ties That Bind - Furedi, Durkin And Sense About Science
In
our previous alert, we noted that Durkin was responsible for the 1997
series Against Nature. He has also been involved with the Revolutionary
Communist Party (RCP), founded and chaired by Frank Furedi, a professor
of sociology at the University of Kent. RCP published a magazine called
Living Marxism (LM) to which Durkin claims to have had no connection.
However, the connections between Durkin and Furedi, and other RCP
personnel, are clear, as George Monbiot has noted:
"The
assistant producer of Against Nature, Eve Kaye, was one of the
principal coordinators of the RCP/LM. The director, Martin Durkin,
describes himself as a Marxist, denies any link with LM, but precisely
follows its line in argument. The series starred Frank Furedi,
previously known as Frank Richards, LM's regular columnist and most
influential thinker, and John Gillott, LM's science correspondent, both
billed as independent experts. Line by line, point by point, Against
Nature followed the agenda laid down by LM..." (Monbiot,
'Living
Marxism's interesting allegiances,' Prospect Magazine, November 1998; )
Fast
forward to March 17, when the BBC highlighted comments by two
scientists which appeared to support Durkin's thesis that claims of
human-induced climate change have been hyped. The BBC website gave the
story top billing, reporting that:
"Two leading UK climate researchers say some of their peers are 'overplaying' the global warming message."
The Independent on Sunday explained further:
"The
comments of the two meteorologists, Professor Paul Hardaker and
Professor Chris Collier, both of the Royal Meteorological Society...
threatened to revive the row over the scientific view of global warming
after the broadcasting of Channel 4's polemic The Great Global Warming
Swindle 10 days ago, which took issue with the view set out in Al
Gore's film An Inconvenient Truth." (Lean, '
Climate experts hit back
after being accused of overstating the problem,' Independent on Sunday,
March 18, 2007;
As
well as being covered by BBC radio, TV and online, Hardaker and
Collier's comments were mentioned in the Observer, Telegraph, Mirror,
Sunday Express, Sunday Times, and the Sunday Star.
Hardaker and
Collier were speaking at a conference organised by an organisation
called Sense About Science (SAS). The director of SAS, Tracey Brown,
has worked with Frank Furedi for a number of years. The website
GMWatch.org comments that Brown is "of course part of the
climate-change denying LM network to which Martin Durkin also
intimately connects".
('Another LM network swindle';)
The
assistant director of SAS, Ellen Raphael, has also studied in Frank
Furedi's department at the University of Kent.
(http://www.lobbywatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=151)
A glance at
the SAS website reveals that financial contributors include
AstraZeneca, BP, Dixons, GE Healthcare, GlaxoSmithKline, Halifax Bank
of Scotland, Pfizer, Unilever, and so on. (Donors list and funding
policy; http:/)
/www.senseaboutscience.org.uk/index.php/site/about/63
The
BBC described Hardaker and Collier as "leading UK climate researchers",
but this is not the case. Writing in the Independent on Sunday (IoS),
Geoffrey Lean noted of Hardaker:
"He pointed out that he and his colleague were not experts on climate change." (Lean, op. cit)
Lean
also reported that confusion surrounded the views of Hardaker and
Collier after Hardaker told the IoS "he could not think of a case where
a scientist had overstated the position" on climate change.
How
convenient that the big-business funded Sense About Science - linked to
Furedi and RCP, which are linked to Durkin - produced two scientists
appearing to challenge the consensus on climate change.
The Media - Writing Against The Bias
Whatever
the views of Hardaker and Collier, the fact remains that most serious
climate experts are in broad agreement on climate change. In December
2004, Naomi Oreskes of the University of California at San Diego
reported in the leading journal, Science, on her analysis of a sample
of 928 papers published in scientific journals between 1993 and 2003
under the keywords "climate change". (Quoted, Naomi Oreskes, 'Beyond
The Ivory Tower: The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change,' Science,
3 December 2004: Vol. 306. no. 5702, p. 1686, DOI:
10.1126/science.1103618;
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686)
Of all
the papers, 75% either explicitly or implicitly accepted the consensus
view; 25% dealt with methods or climate issues in the geological past,
taking no position on current human-induced climate change. Remarkably,
not one of the papers disagreed with the consensus position.
By
contrast, consider climate reporting in the mainstream media. In the
November/December 2004 issue of Extra!, Jules Boykoff and Maxwell
Boykoff reported on their study, 'Balance as Bias: Global Warming and
the U.S. Prestige Press,' published in the July 2004 issue of the
journal Global Environmental Change. They analysed articles about human
contributions to global warming that appeared between 1988 and 2002 in
the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and Wall Street
Journal. Their findings:
53 per cent of the articles gave
roughly equal attention to the views that humans contribute to global
warming and that climate change is exclusively the result of natural
fluctuations. 35 per cent emphasised the role of humans while
presenting both sides of the debate - thus more accurately reflecting
the scientific consensus on climate change.
Boykoff and Boykoff,
then, found that media coverage "significantly diverged from the IPCC
consensus on human contributions to global warming". In other words,
they found that "the US press systematically proliferated an
informational bias". (Jules Boykoff and Maxwell Boykoff, 'Journalistic
Balance as Global Warming Bias - Creating controversy where science
finds consensus,' Extra! November/December 2004;
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1978)
The deeper point being:
"By
giving equal time to opposing views, the major mainstream newspapers
significantly downplayed scientific understanding of the role humans
play in global warming." (Ibid)
This is no accident. In exact
contradiction to Durkin's thesis, state-corporate power is in fact
loath to recognise, much less tackle, the climate change crisis. The
reason is simple enough - the corporate system is legally and
structurally tied into generating maximum revenues in minimum time at
minimum cost. Action to avert climate change threatens to massively
raise costs, and to undermine traditional centres of power in the
fossil fuel industries. Noam Chomsky explains:
"The basic
principle, rarely violated, is that what conflicts with the
requirements of power and privilege does not exist." (Chomsky,
Deterring Democracy, Hill and Wang, New York, 1992, p.79)
If the
threat of climate change is at last beginning to exist for the
mainstream media, it is thanks to the sheer weight of evidence provided
by climate scientists warning of impending disaster. But again, the
truth is the exact reverse of Durkin's claim - these scientists have
struggled mightily to be heard because they are "writing against the
bias", to use Graham Greene's phrase, not with it.
SUGGESTED ACTION
The
goal of Media Lens is to promote rationality, compassion and respect
for others. If you decide to write to journalists, we strongly urge you
to maintain a polite, non-aggressive and non-abusive tone.
Write
to Steve Herrmann, editor of BBC Online. Ask him why the website
describes Hardaker and Collier as "leading UK climate researchers" and
why it gave their views such prominence.
Email: steve.herrmann@bbc.co.uk
Send a complaint to Channel 4:
http://help.channel4.com/SRVS/CGI-BIN/WEBCGI.EXE?
Writings 
On March 13, we published a Media Alert analysing some of the gross flaws and distortions in The Great Global Warming Swindle, a Channel 4 film written and directed by 
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