Al Gore. The convenient lie?

Question

I wouldn't listen to Al Gore if I were you.

There are a few problems with his little Hollywood film...

- Gore promoted the now-debunked "hockey-stick" graph temperature chart for the last 1,000 years in an attempt to prove man's overwhelming impact on the climate, and attempted to debunk the significance of the medieval warm period and little ice age.

- Gore insisted on a link between increased hurricane activity and global warming that most scientist believe does not exist.

- Gore asserted that today's Arctic is experiencing unprecedented warmth while ignoring that temperatures in the 1930's were as warm or warmer.

- Gore said that the Antarctic was warming and losing ice but failed to note, that this is only true of a small region and the vast bulk has been cooling and gaining ice.
- Gore hyped unfounded fears that Greenland's ice is in danger of disappearing.
- Gore erroneously claimed that the ice cap on Mt. Kilimanjaro is disappearing due to global warming, though satellite measurements show no temperature change at the summit, and the peer-reviewed scientific literature suggests that desiccation of the atmosphere in the region caused by post-colonial deforestation is the cause of the glacial recession.

- Gore made assertions of massive future sea level rise that is way outside of any supposed scientific "consensus" and is not supported in even the most alarmist literature.

- Gore incorrectly implied that a Peruvian glacier's retreat is due to global warming, while ignoring the fact that the region has been cooling since the 1930's and other glaciers in South America are advancing.

-Gore blamed global warming for water loss in Africa's Lake Chad, though NASA scientists had concluded that local water-use and grazing patterns are probably to blame.

- Gore inaccurately said that polar bears are drowning in significant numbers due to melting ice when in fact 11 of the 13 main groups in Canada are thriving, and there is evidence that the only groups that are not thriving are in a region of the Arctic that has cooled.

- Gore did not tell viewers that the 48 scientists whom he quoted as having accused President Bush of distorting science were part of a political advocacy group set up to support the Democrat Presidential candidate, John Kerry in 2004.

The above is a quote from here... http://ff.org/centers/csspp/pdf/20061121... where you can also see the sources that support the conclusions.

Some politicians talk about "Global Dimming", but this theory has simply been put forward to try and explain why the observed rise in global temperature over recent years has been significantly lower than the alarmists predicted, but there isnoevidence for this. There is also the "Ocean Notion" which is the idea that the missing temperature has been sucked up by the sea. (To be released at some future time with "cataclysmic" results, of course!). This could only happen if theworld got much colder

In my opinion, the reason why the alarmists' predictions are turning out to be way off the mark, is simply because the science is bad and the "consensus" is wrong.

Answer 1

What is it they say about imitation? The sincerest form of flattery?

In that case 'mick t', I'm very flattered! :)

The information above is my answer to this question from 4 months ago... http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AtwPQNwY74RmSMnXCfnSE8YhBgx.?qid=20070215085832AAfZW3u&show=7#profile-info-732377059a42b1f6cce3defc091bde68aa

I didn't get Best Answer though. In fact I only got a Bad Rating for it :(

The reason that the link doesn't work is because Yahoo! Answers truncates long links, so if you cut and paste them they won't work.

Here is the link... http://ff.org/centers/csspp/pdf/20061121_gore.pdf

This is a response from Christopher Monckton, in response to Al Gore's criticism of Monckton's article in the Telegraph about global warming - which is linked to in my sources below.

Oh, and EnragedParrot, there are 4 pages of sources in the article, so you can spend many happy hours looking them all up! :)

To answer some of your comments...

"Now, the debate surrounding the famous Mann et al graph (which, as I mentioned earlier, is ancient history now), is highly technical and not at easily understood by lay people like you and me."

You mentioned it earlier? Really? I didn't notice. Anyway, the debate is not highly technical at all. Just have a look at page 9 of this... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/graphics/2006/11/05/warm-refs.pdf;jsessionid=5UJEQYNKR40JJQFIQMFSFFOAVCBQ0IV0 It shows the result of the Mann et al climate model when completely random data is fed into it. Using the "Garbage in. Garbage out" rule, you'd expect to get nonsense, yes? Well, you don't. You get hockey-stick graphs! This isn't highly technical at all. Just one look at the results demonstates that the Mann et al hockey-stick graph is valueless.

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Which hockey-stick? The one Gore used, of course i.e. the Mann et al graph mentioned above. Yes there have been other graphs, but none looked as good as Mann's which is why Gore used it, and why, incidentally, the IPCC used it in their 2001 report, reproducing it no less than 6 times! A fact that the IPCC still haven't apologised for.

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What do you mean "What of it?"? He's lying! That's what of it! The point is that Gore presents these things as *facts*. You end your answer saying that the film had "one or two minor misrepresentations". But this isn't a minor misrepresentation, this is blatantly untrue. Climate change is *not* causing an increase in the number of hurricanes and there is little evidence to suggest the it's increasing hurricane intensity either. And the Katrina/New Orleans disaster was nothing whatsoever to do with global warming, but that's not what Gore says, is it?

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Arctic temperatures in the 1930's were as warm or warmer. Source is NCDC Arctic Temp Anomalies: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/sciencepub/arctemp.txt

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"the overall trend is negative." Is it? Even the IPCC admit that the Antarctic is not warming. See page 9 of their latest SPM.

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Do you need a source for this? As it says, Gore hyped unfounded fears that Greenland's ice is in danger of disappearing. He based this on the fact that two of Greenland's biggest outlet glaciers doubled their mass-loss rates in 2004. But a single year of increased melting is not a valid reason to suppose that the whole lot is about to suddenly melt! Is this another of your "one or two minor misrepresentations"? Sure enough, Howat et al (2007) report that the glaciers' mass-loss rates "decreased in 2006 to near previous rates." So, it turns out that he *was* wrong. Shock!

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Kilimanjaro - A brief search reveals this webpage... http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1311202003 This is from 2003, 3 years before Gore's film, and it is already suggesting the cause may be deforestation. So, if there was already doubt (at the very least) about the cause of Kilimanjaro's melting snowcap, why did Gore present it as proof positive of global warming? Yet another "minor misrepresentation"? Oh and satellite data shows that the summit is *not* warming - so no, climate change would not appear to be contributing.

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"weren't out of the range of possible outcomes"? He said 20m, didn't he? The IPCC's 2001 report was predicting a *worst* case scenario of less than 1m (If memory serves, it was something like 90cm), and they've now more than halved that to 43cm. And remember, that's their *worst* case. Gore's 20m is ridiculous! Surely you're not going to claim that over 20 times the IPCC's highest estimate is just a "minor misrepresentation"?

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You say "Climate change would affect it in exactly the same way whether this climate change was human caused or not. Making the point not especially informative." OK, agreed - so why did Gore mention it? You're skirting the issue here.

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"glaciers are now shrinking on average." No they aren't. 90% of the world's glaciers are in Antarctica, and, as already mentioned, Antarctica isn't warming. Again, Gore is exaggerating.

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You say "Polar bears aren't an especially good proxy for global climate." followed by "So I don't see how the point is important." Yet again, it's important because Gore suggests that polar bears *are* a good proxy for global climate. So he's lying not once, but twice here! Polar bear numbers do not reflect climate change and anyway, their numbers are *not* falling - see http://meteo.lcd.lu/globalwarming/Taylor/last_stand_of_our_wild_polar_bears.html

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You say "I see no reason to believe that simply because the 48 scientists belonged to an advocacy group ... their conclusion must automatically be dismissed" I doubt very much that you would say the same thing about a group of scientists funded by ExxonMobil? Thus, you, and Gore, believe that it's ok for a group to be biassed only if they support the AGW theory. That is not at all reasonable.

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You then say "The rise in global temperature over the years has been almost =exactly= what was expected..." WHAT! I'm stunned that you can make this claim. The "expected" rise has been way out every single time. Hansen predicted in 1988 a rise of between 0.25C and 0.45C by 2000. According to NCDC the rise was actually 0.06C, so Hansen was way out! And currently, of course, we've had no rise in termperature since 1998 - how many of your oh-so-accurate Global Warming Alarmist predictions predicted *that*? The truth is, they've got it wrong, every single time.

You continue: "Since global warming theory has had astounding success in predicting future changes I'm afraid I have to disagree. The science is obviously good and the consensus is most probably right." As mentioned above, the truth is quite the opposite. The theory has actually been an astounding failure. Frankly, I'm amazed that you could possibly have got this so wrong! Thus, the science is quite obviously bad and the (non-existent) consensus is almost certainly wrong.

Given the blatant errors in the film, I think there is every reason to dismiss the entire thing as garbage. Even Gore himself admits that he's lied in it. He says; “…I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual solutions on how dangerous it (global warming) is…” (See http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=4938 ) An “over-representation of factual solutions” is, in layman’s terms, “a lie”.

It works fine for its intended purpose. It is nothing more than propaganda, an attempt to scare people into jumping on the global warming bandwagon.

Answer 2

Open your eyes and look around at what is happening to this planet before it is too late for all of us. What is wrong with trying to get people to stop destroying this planet? Al Gore is doing the right thing, I am not a Michael Moore fan at all, but Al Gore is wonderful!

Answer 3

The real problem is global cooling. Solar scientists predict that, by 2020, the sun will be starting into its weakest Schwabe solar cycle of the past two centuries, likely leading to unusually cool conditions on Earth.

Beginning to plan for adaptation to such a cool period, one which may continue well beyond one 11-year cycle, as did the Little Ice Age, should be a priority for governments. It is global cooling, not warming, that is the major climate threat to the world, especially Canada. As a country at the northern limit to agriculture in the world, it would take very little cooling to destroy Canadian food crops.

Answer 4

Exactly! Science has never been decided by consensus in the past. Consensus does not equal fact. Proving a theory true through experiments is the only way that you can show that it is true. That's the reason that Evolution is still classified as a theory. I don't see how anyone could trust statistics in which key periods have been pointedly ignored. How do you expect it to be accurate if not all of the available data is reflected?

Al Gore's documentary was not made for the benefit of the earth, but simply for political gain. It's disturbing to see just how dim-witted people are to take what he says as unarguable proof, freak out about it, sell their house and buy a Prius or something of the like.

On the subject of Polar bears, they have been around far longer than we have, and have lived through much worse. They will get through it if they are able to adapt, if not they will go extinct, just as every species who disappeared. That's not something we can change, other than to raise them in captivity.

My parents always told me that you could tell when a politician was lying to you...it's whenever their lips are moving. I'd say that definitely holds true in Gore's case.

I found a hilarious article on theonion.com, and I don't think I'd be surprised if something like that happened.

Answer 5

I think that Al Gore got caught up in the common mistake that all people do... We forget that earth itself is a living organism, it balances it's life forms, Nature works to keep that balance we never look at it that way... When we work hard we heat up that is what is going on today, If nature is working that hard we are failing to see what it's working against... nature seeks to be balanced, if we want to see a correlation between these heat periods and what it's fighting look for the religious activity. if we check the religious influence to Gore's hockey stick theory we should see the correlation, the difference to day is that the influence of the catholic religion is an epidemic level world wide, it's creating imbalances everywhere so now the "warming" is not isolated incidences or place, but global.

Answer 6

The sun is out ... its hot .... the sun goes behind a cloud...its cold..... Perhaps the sun is the cause of global warming, as happened in the middle ages and cooling during ice ages etc .... The need to reduce the use of fossil fules and the Global Warming scare is about continuity of energy supply .... how do we drive when the oil runs out? It also seem to account for a small invasion of Iraq!!

Answer 7

Good work! I always found it weird that the alarmist enviromental wacko's first were pitching global cooling, then did a complete 180 and now claim global warming.
Not every scientist believes this hype, for everyone that pushes the theory of GW, I can find one against it. By the way, America is not the biggest polluter(as one answerer claimed). Richer countries (U.S., Canada, European nations ect) are hands down the leaders in cleaner emissons. They are usually regulated by regulatory bodies such as O.S.H.A. and EPA, or their European counterparts. The Major polluters are China, Mexico, Thailand, N. Korea and Guatamala. These are countries with little or no regulatory agencies that can insure proper air scrubs in smoke stacks, and hazerdous gases are at acceptable levels (mercury, methane, Co2, ect.) .
If the U.S. enacted half of the regulations being pitched by the left, Bread would be $5 a loaf, gas $10 a gal. ect. it would only punish ourselves, while the major polluters continue to pollute as normal.
Why can't the U.N. step in and work with these countries to find a suitable solution, instead of Americans taking it in the backside? Why does the U.S. pay 1/4 of the total gross the U.N. takes in (we only get one vote) if we can't have any pull or influence? This GW trend will wear off quickly (I hope) once the cost of "everything" goes sky high. But by then, it might be too late.

Answer 8

If you believe that we do not live in a time of global climate change, and that the changes are a result of or are heavily influenced by man's activity; then you are a moron.
It is not an insult, I am using the word in it's literal sense.

Al Gore's science is open to debate, his premise and bulk of evidence is not. You can nit-pick all you want, the global climate couldn't care less. And neither could I because with people like you around there is no hope for change, and we probably do not deserve a second chance if we all think like you.

Brian.
Do you work for a Texas republican think-tank or do you really believe your own nonsense?

Answer 9

I didn't listen to him. But since most of the arguments you made are really quite common and all faulty I thought I'd try and refute them for you.

Now, the debate surrounding the famous Mann et al graph (which, as I mentioned earlier, is ancient history now), is highly technical and not at easily understood by lay people like you and me. So it's my opinion that anyone taking a side in whether the graph is good or not are simply choosing their position ideologically, not scientifically. You don't understand the arguments by against any more than I do, so coming right out and accusing the whole thing of being debunked is simply ludicrous.

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Which hockey stick graph are you referring to? There have been dozens made using climate modeling and proxy data which all show the exact same thing. One of them being shown faulty means nothing, the rest are as valid as ever.

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What of it? There were many (certainly not a majority) of climate scientist at the time who did believe that the recent hurricane activity was associated with climate change.

Of course this doesn't mean anything anyway. I assume you aren't trying to deny that the climate =is= changing, since that's established fact. So if you agree that the climate is changing, and that climate change had any effect on the recent hurricane activity, it would have affected it regardless of whether the change was man made or not.

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Please show me a source of this information, since I've never heard anything of the kind.

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Yup. That small region being the outer rim. The interior is growing due to increased precipitation from warmer temperatures, not because it's colder there. And the rate of melting is many times faster than the rate of growth, so the overall trend is negative.

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Sources again please.

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Neither Gore nor many scientists at the time the film was made were aware of the full cause of Kilimanjaro's ice melting. It's now more fully understood and known to be primarily caused by post-colonial deforestation in the area. Although there's no reason to think climate change hasn't played at least some small role.

Once again, if you believe that climate change is happening at all, and that the ice on Kilimanjaro would have been affected by climate change so far, it would have been affected regardless of who's behind the change.

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His predictions were certainly on the extreme end but they certainly weren't out of the range of possible outcomes.

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See above paragraph. Climate change would affect it in exactly the same way whether this climate change was human caused or not. Making the point not especially informative.

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Glaciers grow and the retreat, no one ever said they didn't. Scientists aren't saying that each and ever glacier must undergo shrinkage, only that glaciers are now shrinking on average. So some if fact could actually be growing.

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Polar bears aren't an especially good proxy for global climate. Whether or not their numbers are growing is influenced by more factors than climate change. So I don't see how the point is important.

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Your link is broken, but I see no reason to believe that simply because the 48 scientists belonged to an advocacy group (which group, might I ask?) their conclusion must automatically be dismissed. There were several reports from scientists claiming their work had been censored by the current administration.

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The rise in global temperature over the years has been almost =exactly= what was expected, so I don't see what point you're trying to make here.

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Since global warming theory has had astounding success in predicting future changes I'm afraid I have to disagree. The science is obviously good and the consensus is most probably right.

So yes, while there were one or two minor misrepresentations in the film, there's no reason to dismiss the entire thing as garbage. I recommend doing more research into the theory if you're really interested in the science of global warming but, but as a primer for general audiences it works just fine.

Answer 10

Actually, the science is rather good and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have taken a long time & some very careful work to come to their recommendations to policy makers.

Suggest you check it out rather than having a pop at Gore the middle man