It was indeed a fascinating programme. Initially the revalations that it contained were pretty devastating to the whole global warming arguments. Unfortunately the motives of some of the contributors, (And the programme makers) are called into question despite them all stating in the program that they are not on the payrolls of any corporations (There's stuff out there about Tim Ball being associated with some corporation's front organisation, but Google is failing me right now). There's even information out there claiming that the 800 year lag does not necessarily mean that CO2 is simply a product of solar warming.

 

Personally, I can only now say that I simply don't know wether man-made global warming does exist. There's so much noise on either side, and not enough real signal. Anyone know if temperature records and CO2 records are publically available? Seems the best solution is to simply look for yourself, but alas I'm no real scientist.

 

I'd say though that the 800 year lag was not the only stand-out moment from the documentary. The other one was, for me, a comment made by the ex-cofounder of Greenpeace. He said something along the lines that our whole culture has developed an unhealthy self-image of human beings being scum. A comment like that does ring a bell in a wasteful culture with a niggling sense of guilt over the all-too-visible inbalances in ways of life across the globe, and in which moral and ethical standards are slowly being eroded away. Perhaps we are perversely looking for ways to blame ourselves for weather catastrophies, believing that we are getting our just desserts for all the plastic wrappers we've discarded and all the oil we've used up flying to holiday destinations.

 

If people are good at anything, then it's seeing themselves at the centre of things.