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

1. Extracts From Complete Transcript and Rebuttal

1.5.4 Frederick Seitz’s Allegations of Corruption in the Wall Street Journal

[Narrator]

In a letter to the Wall Street Journal, Professor Frederick Seitz, former President of America’s National Academy of Sciences, revealed that IPCC officials had censored the comments of scientists. He said that:

[Cut to zoomed in on-screen display of Wall Street Journal article.]

[Voiceover]	This report is not the version that was approved by the contributing scientists.
[Narrator]	At least 15 key sections of the science chapter had been deleted. These included statements like:
[Voiceover]	None of the studies cited has shown clear evidence that we can attribute climate changes to increases in greenhouse gases.
[Voiceover]	No study to date has positively attributed all or part of the observed climate changes to man-made causes.
[Narrator]	Professor Seitz concluded:
[Voiceover]	I have never witnessed a more disturbing corruption of the peer review process than the events that led to this IPCC report.

[Cut to on-screen display of IPCC reply to these allegations.]

[Narrator]

In its reply, the IPCC did not deny making these deletions, but it said there was no dishonesty or bias in the report; and that uncertainties about the cause of global warming had been included. The changes had been made, it said, in response to comments from governments, individual scientists, and non-governmental organisations.

[Comment 114: The documentary should have made clear that this refers to events that took place in 1996, surrounding the release of the Second Assessment Report, which has been superseded by two more recent assessments. It should also have disclosed that Frederick Seitz is a condensed matter physicist, and has never been a climate scientist or ever been involved with the IPCC. Moreover, it should have disclosed that at the time of writing the letter to the Wall Street Journal, Seitz was the Chair of the fossil-fuel industry–funded George C. Marshall Institute (see page 43), as well as being Chairman of the Science and Environmental Policy Project (see page 46, and see also S. Fred Singer, Appendix C.10, page 34).

Seitz has also worked as a consultant to the tobacco industry (http://tinyurl.com/j5dpp [Guardian]), and was described in an internal memo by Phillip Morris Co. in 1989 (7 years before the WSJ letter) as “quite elderly and not sufficiently rational to offer advice.” (http://tinyurl.com/ytymym [Tobaccodocuments]). He was later instrumental in organising a “petition project” of the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine or OISM: a petition that has been heavily criticised for its misleading nature (see the entry about the OISM on page 45 for details).

Continued …

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Section 1.5.4 / Comment 114: Wall Street Journal allegations]


Page 20 of 50	Final Revision	Last updated: 11 Jun 2007