Still, not all the responses have been positive.
Some reviewers went so far as to call for censorship.
Neither Mr. Durkin nor Mr. Nelson were surprised.
“There’s something bigger going on behind the climate thing, beyond the narrow arguments about whether it’s true that [carbon dioxide] causes all this stuff—which, of course, it doesn’t,” Mr. Durkin told The Epoch Times. “There’s almost a blanket ban on skepticism on mainstream television.
“It’s a kind of Marxism, I suppose. There’s an entire class of people who have an interest in high levels of taxation and high levels of regulation, in what might broadly be termed the ‘publicly funded establishment’ and the ‘education establishment.’”
Mr. Nelson concurred. “There’s a big difference between the climate realists and the other side,” he told The Epoch Times. “[Climate alarmists] are constantly reporting us and tattle-telling on people that don’t agree with them.
Censorship Unchecked
Immediately after Vimeo removed Mr. Durkin’s film, he reached out to the platform, “You know, I’m a reasonably well-known, veteran filmmaker, award-winning,” he said. “And I told them [via an electronic form], ‘Look, all the archive and music is cleared. We see absolutely no reason whatsoever why this was suspended. We’ve got a lot of good scientists in it.”“A lot of people said they couldn’t believe it was being censored,” Mr. Nelson said. “But I never got an official response from anybody.”
Mr. Durkin didn’t get a response, either. “About 12 hours after I reached out, it went back up again. But we don’t know why. I presume that some ‘greens’ complained about it and that they automatically took it down. Fair dues to Vimeo that they put it back up, though, that was good.”
Vimeo wasn’t the only platform to take action against “Climate: The Movie.” On March 22, Food Lies, which has 44,000 subscribers, reported that when they first shared the movie on their channel, YouTube “immediately” removed it, and Food Lies had to seek special permission to repost.
When the report was granted, YouTube added the following contextual warming, “Climate change refers to long-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns. Human activities have been the main driver of climate change, primarily due to the burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil, and gas,” and included a link to the United Nations’ “What is Climate Change?” website.
Further, Mr. Nelson said he believes Google is censoring the movie’s website. “We may have been shadow-banned, but we can’t prove it either way,” he said. “I don’t think Google wants to direct people to our site.”
However, Mr. Nelson and Mr. Durkin agree that the purchase of Twitter by Elon Musk in 2022 changed the social media censorship game.
“I love the fact that X is open right now, and we’re able to talk freely on X,” Mr. Nelson said. “Because just two years ago, if this had come out when we were all suppressed, it would have made a big difference.”
“[Social media] is not so much a problem,” Mr. Durkin said. “Social media is leaky enough now that it gets out there.
“The bigger point is that I pitched this idea to the BBC and Channel Four about a year before I [was on Tom Nelson’s podcast]. Why, I have no idea. I knew they'd say no, but I think I wanted to satisfy myself. And, of course, they did say no.”
Mr. Durkin said that even if a station wanted to air a story expressing skepticism about the “climate crisis,” broadcast regulators in Canada, and the UK can destroy that station.
Paying the Social Cost
When asked why “Climate: The Movie” has received such pushback, Mr. Durkin said it boils down to what he terms the “New Class.”“Many of these characters have built their careers on the climate scam,” he said. “I mean, their reputations, their livelihoods, everything depends on it, and so they feel enormously threatened.
“But beyond that, there’s this kind of political-ideological movement; it’s not just about the weather. And the people who promote it—most of science is publicly funded, and lots of scientists are involved directly with publicly funded institutes—are part of that publicly funded establishment, so they have that worldview.
“You know, if you look at the political analysis of people in universities, they are 99 percent Democrats, or left-wing even.
“And it’s now de rigueur in those circles to hate Trump, to believe that more regulation is a civilized thing, to think that public backing for the arts, is a good thing, and so on and so forth. And when you come out and say that you don’t think the climate thing is true, you’re not just making a narrow point about the medieval warm period, or the geological record, on temperature, you’re saying something much bigger, ideologically.
“You’re saying that maybe Trump’s not so bad. And the Second Amendment is a good idea. And you’re suddenly lumping yourself in with the deplorables and people in pickup trucks. And if you’re in Britain with Brexiteers. You’re putting yourself in a whole other social caste, as it were.”
Mr. Durkin said that before the release of the film “The Great Global Warming Swindle,” in 2007, which the head of science at Channel Four asked him to make, he was considered to be one of the “hottest science documentary producers around,” and was regularly tasked by Channel Four to produce films. But after that film’s release, it took three years before Channel Four asked him back.
He said the regular invites to dinner parties and social gatherings in London“media and academic types” dried up.
“My wife was extremely cross. There was a huge backlash, and she has really bad memories of the immediate aftermath of putting ‘Swindle’ out, and that’s why she was very, very reluctant to have me make another film,” Mr. Durkin said.
The New Class
Mr. Durkin, who is publishing a book that takes a deep dive into the “New Class,” said one of the characteristics of that group is they consider themselves to be part of the intelligentsia. By that, he means those who have a university degree that has “very little application in the real world.”“They hate capitalism because capitalism hates them, and the market hates them,” he said. “If you do a degree in sociology, what use are you to man or beast? If I’m running a lawnmower company, I do not need anyone with a degree in sociology.
“So, they resent that they’re not well received in the marketplace. And historically, they’ve embraced the state because it provides them with an income and a gratifying grand title if they’re working for some big government agency or forum: for the U.N., or an NGO, or for NOAA, or whatever.”
Mr. Durkin said the class is at odds with the working class and is “enormously powerful” because it’s part of the publicly funded establishment.
“Until we understand that they are a particular group, they have a particular set of interests, and those interests involve taking away our money and taking away our freedom, then we’re in trouble,” he said.
“I keep telling people, incredibly, in the US and the UK, more than twice as many people work in government as work in manufacturing.
“If you told some American in the early part of the 19th century that that could ever happen, they would have thought you were absolutely nuts.”
