8.30pm Thursday, July 12th on ABC TV and ABC2
Hosted by Lateline presenter Tony Jones featuring an in-depth interview with writer and director Martin Durkin, followed by an expert panel discussion with a studio audience. Also simulcast on ABC 2 and ABC NewsRadio.
Tonight, Lateline presenter Tony Jones, hosts the screening of the controversial documentary - The Great Global Warming Swindle - written and directed by Martin Durkin.
Immediately following the documentary, Jones will conduct an in-depth interview with Durkin on all the contentious issues raised in the program - including its impact when it premiered in the UK in March on Channel 4; the science on which the documentary is based; the credibility of the scientists interviewed for the film; their satisfaction with the way they were portrayed; and the filmmaker's assertion that capping CO2 emissions would be devastating to developing nations.
The interview will include opinions from eminent scientists from Australia and overseas who oppose and support Durkin's documentary.
Following Durkin's interview with Jones, the discussion will be expanded to involve a panel comprising leaders from the business and scientific communities, social commentators, environmentalists and academics. This group will include a number of climate sceptics who support Martin Durkin's view of global warming.
The ABC's comprehensive multi-platform coverage of this contentious documentary will involve ABC TV; the ABC's digital channel ABC 2; ABC NewsRadio; and ABC on-line.
The Great Global Warming Swindle documentary, Tony Jones' in-depth interview with Martin Durkin, and the discussion with the expert panel will be repeated in a two-hour special on ABC 2 on Saturday, July 14th at 8.30pm.
About the Documentary
The Great Global Warming Swindle caused controversy in the UK when it premiered in March on Channel 4.
According to Martin Durkin's documentary, the chief cause of climate change is not human activity but changes in radiation from the sun.
Some have called The Great Global Warming Swindle the definitive retort to Al Gore's 'An Inconvenient Truth'.
Using a comprehensive range of evidence it's claimed that warming over the past 300 years represents a natural recovery from a 'little ice age'.
According to the program humans do have an effect on climate but it's infinitesimally small compared with the vast natural forces which are constantly pushing global temperatures this way and that.
From melting glaciers and rising sea levels, The Great Global Warming Swindle debunks the myths, and exposes what may well prove to be the darkest chapter in the history of mankind.
According to a group of leading scientists brought together by documentary maker Martin Durkin everything you've ever been told about global warming is probably untrue.
Just as we've begun to take it for granted that climate change is a man-made phenomenon, Durkin's documentary slays the whole premise of global warming.
"Global warming has become a story of huge political significance; environmental activists using scare tactics to further their cause; scientists adding credence to secure billions of dollars in research money; politicians after headlines and a media happy to play along.
No-one dares speak against it for risk of being unpopular, losing funds and jeopardising careers."
About the filmmaker
Martin Durkin Biog:
Martin Durkin joined the current affairs department of London Weekend Television (LWT) in 1989.
In 1994 he became a director of RDF Television, where he produced and directed some major science documentaries and helped devise a number of shows, including Scrapheap Challenge (aka Junkyard Wars) and Shipwrecked.
In 1999 he became managing director of Wag TV.
He was listed in Broadcast magazine as one of the top ten executive producers in British TV and is on the special advisory committee of the World Congress of Science Producers.
His films which have touched on subjects relating to environmentalism have received special attention from environmental campaigners, in particular the political activist George Monbiot.
In The Guardian, Monbiot described one of Durkin's films (relating to the medical safety of breast implants: Storm in a D-Cup) as the work of a charlatan.
The following week it was awarded Best Science Documentary of the Year by the British Medical Association.
According to Dominic Lawson, writing in The Independent newspaper,'among environmentalists Martin Durkin is more hated than any multinational oil company chairman.'
from the Global Warming Swindle website http://www.abc.net.au/tv/swindle/default.htm where you can see the trailer of the film.