An Inconvenient Truth on The Great Global Warming Swindle
In April, Tides Canada donated DVDs of Al Gore’s Oscar-winning documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” as an educational resource to all 477 public highschools and 60 school boards in British Columbia, reaching potentially 278,000 students.
Following the announcement of our gift– Michael Chernoff Director of EnCana Corporation, one of the largest independently owned oil and gas companies in the world– offered schools copies of the film “The Great Global Warming Swindle”that purports to challenge current climate change dogma. Some of the leading publications in the United Kingdom have reported on the highly questionable credibility of the film as follows:
The Guardian. April 25, 2007
Move to block emissions ‘swindle’ DVD
Dozens of climate scientists are trying to block the DVD release of a controversial Channel 4 programme that claimed global warming is nothing to do with human greenhouse gas emissions. Sir John Houghton, former head of the Met Office, and Bob May, former president of the Royal Society, are among 37 experts who have called for the DVD to be heavily edited or removed from sale. The film, the Great Global Warming Swindle, was first shown on March 8, and was criticized by scientists as distorted and misleading.
David Adam, Environment correspondent
George Monbiot The Guardian Unlimited March 13, 2007
Don’t let truth stand in the way of a red-hot debunking of climate change
The problem with The Great Global Warming Swindle is that to make its case it relies not on future visionaries, but on people whose findings have already been proved wrong. The implications could not be graver…thousands have been misled into believing there is no problem to address… Cherry-pick your results, choose work which is already discredited, and anything and everything becomes true’
The Independent. 15 March, 2007
‘I should never have trusted Channel 4’
I believe that climate change is real, a major threat, and almost surely has a major human-induced component.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology Professor Carl Wunsch, one of the scientists who appeared in the film who now says his comments were grossly distorted. He has complained about the blatant manipulation of the program – demanding, without response thus far, that his contribution be removed from future broadcasts.
TimesOnline. March 15, 2007
C4’s debate on global warming boils over
Two eminent British scientists who questioned the accuracy of a Channel 4 programme that claimed global warming was an unfounded conspiracy theory have received an expletive-filled tirade from the programme maker. Dr Leroi was particularly concerned about a segment in The Great Global Warming Swindle that featured a correlation between solar activity and global temperatures, He was surprised that the programme failed to mention that while these findings look convincing superficially, they have been revealed as flawed by subsequent research by Peter Laut.
Sam Coates and Mark Henderson.
The Observer. March 11, 2007
Climate scientist ‘duped to deny global warming’
A leading US climate scientist is considering legal action after he says he was duped into appearing in a Channel 4 documentary that claimed man-made global warming is a myth. Carl Wunsch, professor of physical oceanography at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said the film, The Great Global Warming Swindle, was ‘grossly distorted’ and ‘as close to pure propaganda as anything since World War Two’.
Ben Goldacre
The debate over the science of climate change is well and truly over. We now need to focus on how to respond to the challenge of global warming in innovative and positive ways. The film “An Inconvenient Truth” helps all viewers – students, teachers, and parents – think about the long-term implications of our lifestyles and what we need to do to build a sustainable Canada.


