DVD cover

Documentary

United Kingdom

Channel 4

8 March 2007

75 mins

The Great Global Warming Swindle is a polemical[1] documentary film that suggests that the scientific opinion on climate change is influenced by funding and political factors, and questions whether scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming exists. The program was formally criticised by Ofcom, the UK broadcasting regulatory agency, which upheld complaints of misrepresentation made by David King.

The film, made by British television producer Martin Durkin, presents scientists, economists, politicians, writers, and others who dispute the scientific consensus regarding anthropogenic global warming. The programme's publicity materials assert that man-made global warming is "a lie" and "the biggest scam of modern times."[2][3] Its original working title was "Apocalypse my arse", but the title The Great Global Warming Swindle was later adopted as an allusion to the 1980 mockumentary The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle about British punk band the Sex Pistols.[4]

The UK's Channel 4 premiered the documentary on 8 March 2007. The channel described the film as "a polemic that drew together the well-documented views of a number of respected scientists to reach the same conclusions. This is a controversial film but we feel that it is important that all sides of the debate are aired."[5] According to Hamish Mykura, Channel 4's head of documentaries, the film was commissioned "to present the viewpoint of the small minority of scientists who do not believe global warming is caused by anthropogenic production of carbon dioxide."[6]

Although the documentary was welcomed by global warming sceptics, it was criticised by scientific organisations and individual scientists (including one of the scientists interviewed in the film and one whose research was used to support the film's claims[7][8]). The film's critics argued that it had misused and fabricated data, relied on out-of-date research, employed misleading arguments, and misrepresented the position of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.[8][9][10][11] Later broadcasts corrected three errors which had been found in the original film. The film's producer, Martin Durkin, has asserted that the errors were minor and did not affect the film's conclusions.[12][13]