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Extracts from Ofcom Complaint, by Category: Misrepresentation of People’s Views

1. Extracts From Complete Transcript and Rebuttal

[Prof Paul Reiter]

Mosquitoes are not specifically tropical. Most people will realise that in temperate regions there are mosquitoes – in fact, mosquitoes are extremely abundant in the Arctic. The most devastating epidemic of Malaria was in the Soviet Union in the 1920s: there were something like 13 million cases a year, and something like 600,000 deaths – a tremendous catastrophe that reached up to the Arctic Circle. Archangel had 30,000 cases and about 10,000 deaths. So it’s not a tropical disease; yet these people, in the global warming fraternity invent the idea that malaria will move northwards.

[Comment 111: It is not true that the most devastating epidemic of malaria was in the Soviet Union in the 1920s. Most serious malaria (well in excess of a million deaths every year, currently), occurs in tropical and sub-tropical regions, such as in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Reiter has acknowledged his error in his email to Professor Curtis at http://tinyurl.com/2rklxc.

In addition, the narrative continues to imply, wrongly, in this statement by Reiter, that wherever there are mosquitoes, there will also be malaria (untrue); that the IPCC is suggesting that mosquitoes are specifically tropical (it is not); and that the IPCC is suggesting that malaria is likely to move northwards (it is not); all in an apparent attempt to discredit the IPCC in the eyes of the viewer, based on clear misrepresentations of the facts. For more detail on this, see Comment 109, page 14.]

(In breach of Ofcom 5.7)

[Narrator]	Climate scare stories cannot be blamed solely on sloppy or biased journalism. According to Professor Reiter hysterical alarms have been encouraged by the reports of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC. On the spread of malaria, the IPCC warns us that:
[Voiceover with on-screen quotation from IPCC Assessment]	Mosquito species that transmit malaria do not usually survive where the mean winter temperature drops below 16-18°C.
[Narrator]	According to Professor Reiter, this is clearly untrue.

[Comment 112: The IPCC is selectively quoted here. The full sentence where the quotation appears (Climate Change 1995: Impacts, Adaptation and Mitigation of Climate Change, p571) reads:

Although anopheline mosquito species that transmit malaria do not usually survive where the mean temperature drops below 16-18°C, some higher-latitude species are able to hibernate in sheltered sites. [Emphasis added.]

Hence, the IPCC statement, taken in context, is consistent with the statements of Reiter. By pretending that it is not, and by quoting only the middle half of the sentence in order to make it appear to state the opposite of what it really is stating, the film maker apparently set out quite intentionally to mislead the audience.

Continued …

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Comment 111: Inaccurate claim about malaria in the Soviet Union / Comment 112: Misquoting of IPCC on malaria]


Page 17 of 50	Final Revision	Last updated: 11 Jun 2007