RW'ers get suckered by Marxist "film-maker."

[Archae]

On anotehr message board, a "conservative" posted this article:

http://www.lse.co.uk/ShowStory.asp?story=CZ434669U&news_headline=global_warming
_is_lies_claims_documentary

'Global Warming Is Lies' Claims Documentary
Sunday, 4th March 2007, 11:04

Accepted theories about man causing global warming are "lies" claims a
controversial new TV documentary.

The Great Global Warming Swindle - backed by eminent scientists - is set to
rock the accepted consensus that climate change is being driven by humans.

The programme, to be screened on Channel 4 on Thursday March 8, will see a
series of respected scientists attack the "propaganda" that they claim is
killing the worlds poor.

Even the co-founder of Greenpeace, Patrick Moore, is shown, claiming
African
countries should be encouraged to burn more CO2.

Nobody in the documentary defends the greenhouse effect theory, as it
claims
that climate change is natural, has been occurring for years, and ice
falling
from glaciers is just the spring break-up and as normal as leaves falling
in
autumn.

A source at Channel 4 said: "It is essentially a polemic and we are
expecting
it to cause trouble, but this is the controversial programming that Channel
4
is renowned for."

Controversial director Martin Durkin said: "You can see the problems with
the
science of global warming, but people just dont believe you its taken ten
years to get this commissioned.


Now, this is the director's previous work:


Martin Durkin
In 1997 television producer Martin Durkin from the TV company Kugelblitz
made a series for Channel 4 called Against Nature, which targeted
environmentalists, presenting them as 'the new enemy of science' and as
comparable to the Nazis. They were responsible, the series argued, for the
deprivation and death of millions in the Third World. (Crimes against
Nature , The Revolution Has Been Televised )

Channel Four had to broadcast a prime-time apology after Against Nature
drew the wrath of the Independent Television Commission which ruled,
'Comparison of the unedited and edited transcripts confirmed that the
editing of the interviews with had
indeed distorted or misrepresented their known views. It was also found
that the production company had misled them... as to the format, subject
matter and purpose of these programs.' (See CHANNEL 4 SAVAGED BY
TELEVISION WATCHDOG )

(snip)

Monbiot writes, 'The assistant producer of Against Nature, Eve Kaye, was
one of the principal coordinators of the RCP/LM. The director, Martin
Durkin, describes himself as a Marxist, denies any link with LM, but
precisely follows its line in argument. The series starred Frank Furedi,
previously known as Frank Richards, LM's regular columnist and most
influential thinker, and John Gillott, LM's science correspondent, both
billed as independent experts. Line by line, point by point, Against Nature
followed the agenda laid down by LM: that greens are not radicals, but
doom-mongering imperialists; that global warming is nothing to worry about;
that "sustainable development" is a conspiracy against people; while
germline gene therapy and human cloning will liberate humanity from
nature.'

http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=39

[GreenZoneLT]

1. Yeah, Marxist environmentalism is scary

I've read stuff by Marxists who claim we could sustain a global population MUCH larger than we currently do, apparently because there's no lack of real estate for high-rise apartment buildings. Their ecological math works about as well as their economics and sociology.

[Odin2005]

3. The Marxists are stuck in the Industrial Age, sane socialists like myself have moved on.

It's time for a socialism for the Information Age.

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. Why do you think they've been 'suckered'?

They agree with Durkin. He and the interviewees all think global warming is a scam made up by scientists - who, in their eyes, are presumably of the 'mad and cackling' type you used to see in bad horror movies. The conservative on the message board presumably agrees with him too.

That Durkin was once a Marxist is pretty irrelvant. He's been a film-maker (why the quotes around that?) for some time. But if you follow up the links in the GMWatch article to 'Living Marxism', you'll find that publication became libertarian in its outlook (and abbreviated itself to 'LM' because the reference to Marxism was getting embarrassing in the late 90s). It eventually went bankrupt when it falsely accused a British TV news team of making up evidence about Bosnian Serb atrocities - so they sued it for libel. It also denied the genocide in Rwanda. All in all, the people Durkin makes documentaries with are a rum bunch.

The thing is, a lot of Marxists, in the early 90s, saw the USSR disappear, China turn semi-capitalist, and their theories become pretty unpopular - because they seemed to have been proved wrong. So they turned their hands to other things. For instance, Mick Hume, the ex-editor of Living Marxism, is now a columnist in The Times, which is centre-right, and owned by Rupert Murdoch. And he fits right in there.