Channel 4, OFCOM and some very inconvenient un-truths

Al Gore’s film An Inconvenient Truth has recently been shown on two UK public service broadcasting channels. Programme output of this kind is regulated by the Broadcsting Code enforced by Ofcom and I am in the process of submitting a complaint about the way in which what was clearly misleading and politically inspired content was screened without due consideration for the requirements of the code. Here are a couple of relevant clauses, but there are others that also bear on this matter:

2.2 Factual programmes or items or portrayals of factual matters must not materially mislead the audience.

5.12 In dealing with matters of major political and industrial controversy and major matters relating to current public policy an appropriately wide range of significant views must be included and given due weight in each programme or in clearly linked and timely programmes. Views and facts must not be misrepresented.

http://www.ofcom.org.uk/tv/ifi/codes/bcode/

I am in the process of drafting a submission to Ofcom and this is the first part of it:

Background to this complaint

1.      Al Gore’s film An Inconvenient Truth (AIT) was shown on Channel 4 (C4) on Saturday, 4^th April 2009 at 9:20pm and on S4C on Monday, 6^th April 2009 at 10:45pm. A disaster movie, The Day after Tomorrow, the theme of which was the catastrophic consequences of sudden climate change, was also broadcast on C4 at 7:00pm, immediately prior to AIT on Saturday 4^th April, but this was not shown on S4C.

2.      In AIT, Mr Gore, who is an American politician with no scientific qualifications, presents what appears to be conclusive scientific evidence that anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases caused global temperatures to rise during the last century and that this trend will continue during the current century, with catastrophic consequences, unless such emissions are drastically reduced. The arguments are not presented as being the opinion of Mr Gore, but the indisputable evidence of scientific research. Although there are references at various points in the film to there being a contrary point of view, in each case these references are dismissive, disparaging or contemptuous to an extent that is clearly intended to discredit any opinion which conflicts with those presented in AIT.

3.      This was the first time that this Oscar winning documentary had been screened on UK TV, but AIT had previously been the subject of controversy in this country.  On 2^nd February 2007, the (then) Department of Education and Skills announced that AIT would be used as a teaching aid in all secondary schools in England, and this led to litigation when Mr Stuart Dimmock, a school governor, initiated a challenge in the High Court questioning the legality of doing so. On 10^th October 2007, Mr Justice Burton delivered his judgement, and this is material to the complaint I am now making about Channel 4 and S4C’s broadcast of AIT.

4.      Although Mr Justice Burton’s ruling in the ‘Dimmock Case’ concerns the legality of using this film in schools under the terms of the Education Act 1996, it also has a bearing on whether Channel 4 and S4C fully complied with the Sections 2 and 5 of the Broadcsting Code when they broadcast AIT. The judgement found that the film was politically inspired and partisan in nature and also that it presented misleading and unsubstantiated claims concerning supposed scientific evidence that forms an important part of Mr Gore’s arguments.

5.      The following sections in Mr Justice Burton’s judgement define the content and purpose of AIT. This summary should be read in conjunction with the full text of the judgement at http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2007/2288.html.

a)  Section 3 of the judgement determines that the film is ‘substantially based on scientific research’ but that this is presented in the context of Mr Gore’s ‘crusade’ to influence political policies. It also refers to Mr Gore promoting ‘an apocalyptic vision’.

b)  Section 11 determines that the film is ‘partisan’ in the way in which it presents evidence of anthropogenic global warming and that the term ‘one sided’ can also be applied to the arguments deployed by Mr Gore in AIT.

c)  Section 17 states that ‘it is clear’ that AIT is substantially founded upon scientific research and fact, albeit that the science is used, in the hands of a talented politician and communicator, to make a political statement and to support a political programme.’ It also says that: ‘There are errors and omissions in the film, to which I shall refer, and respects in which the film, while purporting to set out the mainstream view (and to belittle opposing views), does in fact itself depart from that mainstream, in the sense of the “consensus” expressed in the IPCC reports.’ (In arriving at this conclusion, Mr Justice Burton considered that the IPCC’s Fourth Asssesment Report represented the mainstream or consensus position on the validity of scientific evidence for anthropgenic climate change and that insofar as AIT diverges from this, then it fails to represent mainstream or consensus scientific opinion.)

d)  Section 19 determines that ‘some of the errors, or departures from the mainstream, by Mr Gore in AIT in the course of his dynamic exposition, do arise in the context of alarmism and exaggeration in support of his political thesis.’

e)  Section 22 supports the claim by  Dr Peter Stott (of the Hadley Centre who gave evidence for the defendant in this case that ‘”Al Gore’s presentation of the causes and likely effects of climate change in the film was broadly accurate.” However Mr Justice Burton also points out that even on the strength of Dr Stott’s evidence ‘there are errors or deviations from the mainstream by Mr Gore’. In other words, that Dr Stott was unable to justify some of the claims made in the film.

f)  Section 23 sets out the criteria by which Mr Justice Burton assessed the errors in the film. This was by reference to the findings of the IPCC’s Fourth Assesment Report (published in 2007) and also the evidence of Dr Stott. That Dr Stott’s evidence should be used in this way points to his failure to persuade the court that parts of the film did not deviated from what can be considered to be mainstream or consensus views as represented by the IPCC report. Furthermore, Dr Stott was unable to substantiate ‘nine errors’ that occurred in the film by reference to the IPCC report or any other mainstream or consensus scientific evidence. The judge again refers to AIT as ‘a political film’.

g)  Sections 24 to 33 lists the 9 major errors in the film with the judges observations on each.

h)  Section 34 establishes that without correction the film is misleading. The judge refers to all nine of the errors that have been identified as “significant planks in Mr Gore’s ‘political’ argumentation”. This is clearly the case as the sections of the film that he refers to are sequences that are likely to make the most compelling impression on an audience and linger longest in their minds. These include sections of the film depicting: melting of polar ice caps and associated catastrophic sea level rise, inundation of Pacific atolls, shutting down of part of the Gulf Stream, the direct coincidence between rise in atmospheric CO₂ and rising temperatures, the diminishing snows of Mount Kilimanjaro, contraction of Lake Chad, Hurricane Katrina, the death of polar bears and bleaching of coral reefs.

i)  Section 37 expresses ‘satisfaction’ with guidance notes to be used by teachers that Mr Justice Burton has required to be drafted as a necessary means of correcting the misleading impressions created by the errors in the film. Much has been made in the press, and elsewhere, of the fact that at some points in his judgement Mr Justice Burton has enclosed the term error in quotation marks; it has been suggested that this was because he did not really consider these to be errors at all. It is clear from the burden of the judgement, and particularly from this section, that this is not the case and that whatever the nature of the errors, he considered they amounted to misrepresentation. See also summary of Section 45 below.

j)  Section 40 refers to the need for ‘necessary and judicious guidance’, including a warning that ‘AIT promotes partisan political views (that is to say, one sided views about political issues)’ and also concerning the existence of a ‘a minority of scientists disagree with the central thesis that climate change over the past half-century is mainly attributable to man-made greenhouse gases’.

k)  Section 45 concludes that AIT is intended to influence opinion and therefor had it been distributed to schools without suitable guidance notes then there would have been a breach of ss406 and 407 of the Education Act 1996.

6.      Although the Dimmock Case clearly does not refer to the Broadcasting Code, but to the Education Act 1996, Mr Justice Burton’s analysis of the underlying motivation of the film and of its factual content are equally pertinent regardless of the context.

I will post the terms of the complaint when I finish drafting them; later this week I hope.