Climate Wars

Synopsis: Gerry Northam delves into the politics that often underlie the science of climate change.
In the UK, the government’s chief science adviser has called global warming a greater threat than international terrorism; but in the US a leading politician calls it "possibly the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people".

However, the solutions to global warming could involve a major shift in the world economies and industrial infrastructure - to reduce dependence on the fossil fuels causing the shift in temperatures - and so the science of climate change is politically charged. International actions therfore become as dependent on diplomatic twists of fortune as on what the experts have to advise.
Language: English
Country: Great Britain
Year of release: 2005
Year of production: 2004
Notes: Broadcast in 2 parts on Radio 4 on 13/1/2004 and 20/1/2004
Subjects: Environmental science; Politics & government
Keywords: climate change; economic issues; global warming; international relations; United States of America; Kyoto agreement; political issues

Title: Science, The
Synopsis: Two Harvard astronomers became the toast of Washington as they attacked the consensus view that global warming is a problem, and argued that humanity has survived similar episodes as recently as the Middle Ages.
Gerry Northam charts the genesis and fate of this research, how it has been taken up by Washington conservatives, and the highly enflamed debate that followed.
Duration: 40 mins
Title: Action, The
Synopsis: The Kyoto protocol was meant to be the first step towards stopping and reversing global warming, but when the US declared it would have nothing to do with it in 2001, the treaty looked dead. That’s what the US administration argued at the time. But with Russia perhaps on the brink of signing the protocol, despite a fog of words suggesting the opposite, and with the rest of the industrialised world and even individual states in the USA moving ahead with climate measures, it may be that Washington gets left behind.
Duration: 40 mins

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