This is the film that caused all the fuss. According to a group of scientists brought together by documentary-maker Martin Durkin, if the planet is heating up, it isn't your fault and there's nothing you can do about it.
Since then, two of the scientists who took part in the film, have made public complaints about the way the film was made. They claim that the way the film was edited gave a misleading impression of critical data and their own viewpoints. There has been a storm of complaint from at least 37 other scientists.
In August 2007, Mike Lockwood of the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory published a study which may have put the final nail in the coffin for the anti-CO2 brigade. He has shown than since 1985, solar activity has run in the opposite direction to global warming and therefore cannot explain rises in average global temperatures. If this study turns out to the true, then the arguments presented in this film lose much of their strength.
Check out the programme and the arguments to see what you think.
The film brings together the arguments of some scientists who disagree with the prevailing consensus that carbon dioxide released by human activity is the cause of rising global temperatures today.
Solar activity, over the last several hundred years, correlates, on a decadal basis, with temperature’
In more recent history there has been: a mini ice age in the seventeenth century when the Thames froze so solidly that fairs could regularly be held on the ice; a Medieval Warm Period, even balmier than today; and sunnier still was the so-called Holocene Maximum, which was the warmest period in the last 10,000 years.
Those who think global warming is a natural process point to the fact that in the last 10,000 years, the warmest periods have happened well before humans started to produce large amounts of carbon dioxide.
A detailed look at recent climate change reveals that the temperature rose prior to 1940 but unexpectedly dropped in the post-war economic boom, when carbon dioxide emissions rose dramatically.
There is some evidence to suggest that the rise in carbon dioxide lags behind the temperature rise by 800 years and therefore can't be the cause of it.
In the greenhouse model of global warming, heat from the sun's rays is trapped by greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. If it weren't for these gases, Earth would be too cold for life.
Greenhouse gases trap heat from the sun within the earth's atmosphere. This is the greenhouse effect. Traditional models predict that increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases lead to runaway heating.
If greenhouse warming were happening, then scientists predict that the troposphere (the layer of the earth's atmosphere roughly 10-15km above us) should heat up faster than the surface of the planet, but data collected from satellites and weather balloons doesn't seem to support this.
Those who think global warming is a natural process say that the troposphere is not heating up because man-made greenhouse gases are not causing the planet to heat up.
For some people, the final nail in the coffin of human-produced greenhouse gas theories is the fact that carbon dioxide is produced in far larger quantities by many natural means: human emissions are miniscule in comparison. Volcanic emissions and carbon dioxide from animals, bacteria, decaying vegetation and the ocean outweigh our own production several times over.
Others would argue that carbon dioxide isn't the only greenhouse gas and that human emissions could tip up a finely balanced system.
New evidence shows that as the radiation coming from the sun varies (and sun-spot activity is one way of monitoring this) the earth seems to heat up or cool down. Solar activity very precisely matches the plot of temperature change over the last 100 years. It correlates well with the anomalous post-war temperature dip, when global carbon dioxide levels were rising.
In fact, what is known of solar activity over the last several hundred years correlates very well with temperature. This is what some scientists are beginning to believe causes climate change. Others feel that solar activity only explains the fine details of temperature change.
So how does the sun affect the earth's temperature? The process scientists suggest is that as earth moves through space, the atmosphere is constantly bombarded by ever-present cosmic rays. As these particles hit water vapour evaporating from the oceans, clouds form in the atmosphere. Clouds shield Earth from some of the sun's radiation and have a cooling effect.
When solar activity is high, there is an increase in solar wind and this has the effect of reducing the amount of cosmic radiation which reaches Earth.
When less cosmic radiation reaches Earth, fewer clouds form and the full effects of the sun's radiation heats the planet.
But is the effect of solar activity really enough to explain away global warming caused by the greenhouse effect? This is still a moot point.
Channel 4 transmits across the whole of the UK, except some parts of Wales, which are covered by the Welsh language S4C. It is available on all digital platforms (terrestrial, satellite and cable) as well as through traditional analogue transmission.
Channel 4 also operates a number of other services, including the free-to-air digital TV channels E4, More4 and Film4, and an ever-growing range of online activities at channel4.com, including the broadband service FourDocs and Channel 4's bespoke video-on-demand service 4oD. The Film4 production division produces and co-produces feature films for the UK and global markets.
The Channel's primary purpose is the fulfilment of its public service remit, which was most recently defined in the 2003 Communications Act. This states that "the public service remit for Channel 4 is the provision of a broad range of high quality and diverse programming which, in particular:
(a) demonstrates innovation, experiment and creativity in the form and content of programmes;(b) appeals to the tastes and interests of a culturally diverse society;(c) makes a significant contribution to meeting the need for the licensed public service channels to include programmes of an educational nature and other programmes of educative value; and (d) exhibits a distinctive character."
As a publisher-broadcaster, Channel 4 does not produce its own programmes but commissions them from more than 300 independent production companies across the UK, a far greater number than any other broadcaster, including the whole of the BBC. It works very closely with the independent production sector, and invests heavily in training and talent development throughout the industry.
The Channel 4 service was originally established under the Broadcasting Act 1981 and was provided for by the Independent Broadcasting Authority. The Channel Four Television Corporation was subsequently established under the Broadcasting Act 1990 and the Channel's functions were transferred over to the new Corporation in 1993. The Corporation's board is appointed by OFCOM in agreement with the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport.
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