Inaccuracies in Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth
From the UK site of a new political party calling itself…”The New Party”. (Call it what it is, eh?)
The decision by the government to distribute Al Gore’s film An Inconvenient Truth has been the subject of a legal action by New Party member Stewart Dimmock. Although a full ruling has yet to be given, the Court found that the film was misleading in 11 respects and that the Guidance Notes drafted by the Education Secretary’s advisors served only to exacerbate the political propaganda in the film.
In order for the film to be shown, the Government must first amend their Guidance Notes to Teachers to make clear that 1.) The Film is a political work and promotes only one side of the argument. 2.) If teachers present the Film without making this plain they may be in breach of section 406 of the Education Act 1996 and guilty of political indoctrination. 3.) Eleven inaccuracies have to be specifically drawn to the attention of school children.
The inaccuracies are:
* The film claims that melting snows on Mount Kilimanjaro evidence global warming. The Government’s expert was forced to concede that this is not correct.
* The film suggests that evidence from ice cores proves that rising CO2 causes temperature increases over 650,000 years. The Court found that the film was misleading: over that period the rises in CO2 lagged behind the temperature rises by 800-2000 years.
* The film uses emotive images of Hurricane Katrina and suggests that this has been caused by global warming. The Government’s expert had to accept that it was “not possible†to attribute one-off events to global warming.
* The film shows the drying up of Lake Chad and claims that this was caused by global warming. The Government’s expert had to accept that this was not the case.
* The film claims that a study showed that polar bears had drowned due to disappearing arctic ice. It turned out that Mr Gore had misread the study: in fact four polar bears drowned and this was because of a particularly violent storm.
* The film threatens that global warming could stop the Gulf Stream throwing Europe into an ice age: the Claimant’s evidence was that this was a scientific impossibility.
* The film blames global warming for species losses including coral reef bleaching. The Government could not find any evidence to support this claim.
* The film suggests that the Greenland ice covering could melt causing sea levels to rise dangerously. The evidence is that Greenland will not melt for millennia.
* The film suggests that the Antarctic ice covering is melting, the evidence was that it is in fact increasing.
* The film suggests that sea levels could rise by 7m causing the displacement of millions of people. In fact the evidence is that sea levels are expected to rise by about 40cm over the next hundred years and that there is no such threat of massive migration.
* The film claims that rising sea levels has caused the evacuation of certain Pacific islands to New Zealand. The Government are unable to substantiate this and the Court observed that this appears to be a false claim.
Now THAT’s inconvenient, right Al?
You failed to mention that the judge quite clearly expressed that the movie won’t be banned from schools, as Dimmock demanded, because the detected errors were minor in nature and that the movie contains four main messages that are very well and truthfully documented: That climate change is made by man, that temperatures will rise further, that the climate change will have bad consequences and that it is possible for governments and individuals to do something about it.
Frankly I am underwhelmed anytime Judges get involved in scientific issues. This instance is in the category of a “man bites dog” story, where at least SOME science penetrated the labyrinthine legal mind.
As far as the “affirmative” points mentioned, climate change is made primarily first, last and primarily by the sun, and its variations. (Yes, the sun is a VARIABLE star!)
Not only THAT, there actually is a climate effect (with the mechanism described) from astronomical effects from OUTSIDE of the solar system, where cosmic ray variations changes the amount of overall cloud cover…hence, changes our climate…significantly in some cases. This science IS out there!
Anything we could do by accident, or by intent is insignificant compared to that. Temperatures rising? Maybe so…but not from US!
Climate change with “bad” consequences? It was measurably warmer during the middle ages (for example), and conditions were BETTER in most ways that count.
I COULD go on at length, and get way more specific (after teaching chemistry, physics, and geophysical sciences for 25 years I DO know how to find and understand scientific publication without filtering through AlGor or some politically motivated UN commission), and I expect to post on this more in the future (as I already have in teh past) as specific stuff comes out.
As far as playing “tit-for-tat” argument, I have found the “Pig Rule” rapidly comes into play: “Never mud wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty, and the pig likes it.”
“Do something about it”…
Well we can ALWAYS DO SOMETHING (even if it’s a meaningless fruitless gesture). We can obviously determine that our present global climate is optimum for human existence and since we have such a deep understanding of all of the variables involved we can not only accurately PREDICT weather for more than 48/72 hours but we can CONTROL our climate and all it’s variables (solar, tectonic, volcanic, etc) to maintain our optimum climate forever! We will no longer have to adapt to change as we become the gods we once worshipped. (Yeah, right…)
For a more constructive look at what we can do that doesn’t involve destroying our economy, creating more poverty and creating International Commissions look here http://www.lomborg.com/