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

ISI WoS

The ISI Web of Science (WoS) is a database of almost 9000 peer-reviewed journals – see: http://scientific.thomson.com/products/wos/. The database covers publications between 1970 and the present day.

All references to “ISI WoS” in the following section mean that the source of the information being cited was this database.

Dr Philip Stott

The programme wrongly identified Dr Stott as “Professor Philip Stott, Dept. of Biogeography, University of London”. However, the University of London has never had a Department of Biogeography (see http://tinyurl.com/2ukxr4).

He is a Professor Emeritus (having retired in 2004, see http://tinyurl.com/22omnr. of Biogeography, at the School of Oriental and African Studies (see http://tinyurl.com/2y9jb9); a Social Sciences college of the University of London which does not contain a Science Faculty. He has only had 9 peer-reviewed articles published since 1970, and all those concern forests in tropical regions; with nothing on climatology or the impacts of climate change (ISI WoS).

Dr Stott could not, therefore, objectively be considered to be a leading scientist; still less a climate expert: and nor does he have any known expertise in English history. [Note: It should also have been mentioned in our complaint that Dr Stott has never had any involvement with the IPCC, on which he commented as an “authority” in the film.] Yet he was given a great deal of air time on the Channel 4 programme, to talk about climate science and English history.

Dr Frederick Singer

Contrary to his billing in the programme, Singer was never a director of the US National Weather Service. In fact, he was Director of the US National Weather Satellite Center, and only between 1962 and 1964 (see http://tinyurl.com/yqbmjl).

He is also no longer a Professor, having retired as Professor of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia, in 1994.

He has published 43 articles since 1970 (ISI WoS). However few of these papers have presented original scientific research, and even fewer concerned climate: most have concerned policy.

Two papers on climate that he co-authored in 2004 have been found to have used cherry-picked data and to have been seriously flawed on a number of other counts (see http://tinyurl.com/2jf7l4).

As well as global warming, he also expresses scepticism about the link between CFCs and the ozone hole (see http://tinyurl.com/26guvf); and between second- hand smoke and cancer (see http://tinyurl.com/3by65a).

Continued …