…60 leading international climate change experts recently wrote a letter to urge Canada’s new Prime Minster to carefully review global warming policies, warning that “Climate change is real’ is a meaningless phrase used repeatedly by activists…

British Judge Bruises Al Gore’s Movie

Critics of “An Inconvenient Truth” include Al Gore’s political opponents, global warming skeptics and even rank-and-file scientists. But the former vice president waited until today for a detailed review from a high court in Britain.

Asked to ban the film from secondary schools, Judge Michael Burton refused, as long as “serious scientific inaccuracies, political propaganda and sentimental mush” were explained at screenings, Agence France-Presse reported.

The bill of particulars that he issued, posted to the Web site of the plaintiff’s political party, had 11 points. Here’s the first and possibly most stinging, courtesy of The Times of London:

Al Gore: A sea-level rise of up to 20 feet would be caused by melting of either West Antarctica or Greenland “in the near future”.

The judge’s finding: “This is distinctly alarmist and part of Mr Gore’s ”wake-up call“. It was common ground that if Greenland melted it would release this amount of water - “but only after, and over, millennia.”

In an e-mail obtained by The New York Times in March, Al Gore answered earlier criticisms that were echoed by the judge today. Here’s a few excerpts from William J. Broad’s article:

Mr. Gore, in an e-mail exchange about the critics, said his work made “the most important and salient points” about climate change, if not “some nuances and distinctions” scientists might want. “The degree of scientific consensus on global warming has never been stronger,” he said, adding, “I am trying to communicate the essence of it in the lay language that I understand.”

But is his work fundamentally accurate?

Stewart Dimmock Challenges the World According to Gore

[snip] Gore and his allies pretend all serious-minded scientists agree with them and that only simpletons or charlatans disagree. [snip]

Al Gore and other global warming enthusiasts are fond of reciting that 2,611 scientists have signed a letter stating that global warming poses a serious and real threat. Yet, only about one in ten of the so-called 2611 scientists had scientific expertise. And only 5 out the 2,611 so-called scientists had training in climate, weather or other atmospheric sciences. That is less than 1/2 of one percent. Excuse me, for being underwhelmed.

Perhaps more revealing is that Gore’s list of “scientists” included landscape architects, psychologists, lawyers, a philosopher, a dermatologist, a gynecologist, and a diplomat. On this flimsy basis, as only Al Gore can, he tells us that the “debate is over” and that there is complete agreement.

The truth is that more than 17,000 scientists (not landscape architects, dermatologists or diplomats) have signed a petition stating, in part, that “there is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate.” This petition was circulated by the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, an independent research foundation that is not funded by industry. This petition was signed by more than 2,100 physicists, geophysicists, climatologists, meteorologists, and environmental scientists and by more than another 4,400 scientists with expertise on carbon dioxide’s effects on plant and animal life.

An inconvenient truth that Gore has failed to reveal are his low grades in Environmental Science when he was in college. [snip]

That’s not all. Gore lied about living on a farm; in 1984, he didn’t work to defeat “big” tobacco. Of course we can thank him for the internet, right?

Archived in: Al Gore, Canada, Environmentalism, France, Global Warming, Oregon, Science