The Australian Warming Swindle debate

Climate-related: a recent talk by Fred Singer
Also: less than 1/2 of published scientists endorse AGW theory

Martin Durkin is not necessarily 100% saint, his documentary wasn't 100% free of errors, and his answers are not quite 100% perfect. But look how he was treated in Australia after his The Great Global Warming Swindle was aired by ABC, the Australian TV station, on July 12th:



He was treated like a heretic or a criminal even though he was at least 90% right in these big questions. I am sure that the professional yet aggressive journalist who talks to Durkin would behave towards mujahideens in a much more friendly way. All the well-known blogospherical criticism is raised in a very dramatic, prepared way and nothing else is invented. Durkin had to answer on the spot. I've heard that the "debate" that followed the screening of Durkin in Australia was bad but I didn't imagine it was that bad. Was an alarmist movie ever analyzed on TV in a comparable way?

Felicity McMahon has argued that it was time to privatize ABC. She wrote:

In the recent airing by the ABC of the Martin Durkin’s polemic documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle the ABC sealed its own fate. It showed that even after Mark Scott took the helm of the National Broadcaster, its leftist agenda would remain. In what was lambasted by ABC Director, Kim Dalton, as the best evidence of the ABC’s priority of “allowing principal relevant viewpoints on matters of public importance to be aired” (see “ABC should air dissenting opinions”, May 25, 2007, The Australian), The Great Global Warming Swindle, was far from that.

The airing of the documentary was supposed to give an opportunity for Australians to hear arguments opposing the existence of global warning. Durkin’s documentary featured criticism of the science and indeed the business surrounding climate change. It was interesting, through-provoking and challenged the climate change orthodoxy which has taken a strangle-hold of the Australian thinking on the subject.




But the ABC failed in its aim, as Dalton alleged, “to be Australia’s town square where people can debate, hear alternative views and learn from each other”. Instead, it was nothing more than a hand-holding experience. The ABC could not just air the program and leave the concepts and ideas with Australians to mull over themselves. Instead, the ABC’s Tony Jones (usually the host of Lateline) conducted a panel discussion after interviewing Durkin that essentially blocked out any anti-climate change opinions. Whatever has been said about the performance of the climate change sceptics in the discussion, it does not change the fact that Jones’ approach to the “discussion” was completely biased.

Jones even blocked the opinion of the ABC’s own highly-respected conservative voice, Michael Duffy. Duffy could not get a word in, having made it clear that he would not tow the ABC pro-climate change line. Early on in the panel discussion, Duffy had queried why there was such organised criticism and deconstruction of Durkin’s documentary, and no such treatment of Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth.

A valid question indeed. Why did the ABC feel the need to aggressively deconstruct Durkin’s documentary? Why did it feel that Al Gore’s documentary deserved no criticism?

The answer of course, was simple. The ABC has a particular agenda to push. It remains accountable to no one. Its revenues are secured. The taxpayers will continue to be forced to pay no matter how biased the coverage is or how enraged the voters are.

This environmental agenda is pushed further by other programming choices the ABC makes. In Carbon Cops the ABC is really on to you - invading your home and checking to see if your carbon footprint is bigger than it should be.

Before I saw the scary video, these were just words for me.

If you have strong nerves, you may watch all eight parts of the "debate". The first two parts contain the aggressive interview and the remaining six parts resemble the Council of Constance where Mr Jan Hus was convicted and eventually burned at stake.