Trial for an inconvenient truth?

Question

Seeing as so many sceptics seem so sure that "An inconvenirnt truth" is flawed, why has the public education system not been taken to court for showing it, as in the UK?

In a sceptics' position, that would be the responsible thing to do wouldn't it?

Jello; I'd say it lost nine battles, and won the war.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/educa...

It's still going out to every school in the country. The teacher will have to advise that nine points in the film are incorrect, hardly i big deal considering the total running time.

Politicians lie, get used to it.
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Answer 1

The film was taken to court where it lost.

"Mr Justice Burton said former US vice-president Al Gore's film, An Inconvenient Truth, was 'one-sided' and would breach education rules unless accompanied by a warning."

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23416151-details/Judge+attacks+nine+errors+in+Al+Gore's+'alarmist'+climate+change+film/article.do

Answer 2

Randy has just about said it all for me. I have a Masters degree in ecology and 30+ years experience working in environmental science. I was disgusted by Gore's film. His half truths, half lies, distortions and exaggerations being presented to the public as scientific fact. While we expect this sort of behaviour in politics, it is not the scientific way. I first became sceptical about anthropogenic global warming when I was in Antarctica a few years ago, and was told by the scientists there that it was getting colder, not warmer as the media and politicians were telling us.
As I looked deeper into the subject, reading scientific journals and articles in scientific press, I became more and more sure that the 'man made' part of the story has been grossly exaggerated.
I read only yesterday from an official EU document that CO2 is the main greenhouse gas, when anybody with any scientific competence knows tha water vapour is the main greenhouse gas, accounting for 95% of the effect.

Answer 3

Within the United States it is legal to produce a film called a documentary which is in reality a political statement. Michael Moore's 911 is another such example.

In England the suit occurred because the government can dictate what is taught to children. In this case a father made the assertion that, Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" is unfit for schools because it is politically biased and contains serious scientific inaccuracies and sentimental mush. In their system of education this proceeded to a High Court action.

The presiding Justice Burton will make a final ruling within a week but has already stated that the film does promote partisan political views. This is resulting in the government education system having to amend their Guidence Notes 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 1966 and guilty of political indoctrination.
3.) Eleven inaccuracies have to be specifically drawn to the attention of school children.

The eleven inaccuracies are:
1. 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.
2. The film suggests evidence from ice cores covering the last 650,000 years proves that rising CO2 causes temperature increases. The court found that the film was misleading due to the fact that the actual evidence from those ice cores demonstrate that the CO2 rises actually followed temperature increases by 800 to 2000 years and so could not have been causative.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. The film blames global warming for species losses including coral reef bleaching. The Government could not find any evidence to support this claim.
8. 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.
9. The film suggests that the Antarctic ice covering is melting, the evidence was that it is in fact increasing.
10. 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.
11. The film claims that rising sea levels has caused the evacuation of certain Pacific islands to New Zealand. The Government is unable to substantiate this and the Court observed that this appears to be a false claim.


This film is a terrible propaganda film that could drive people away from actually understanding global climate change and making preparations for changes that are coming and that are beyond the efforts of man to cause or change.

Answer 4

Belief in GW is like belief in a religion. Those who believe are True Believers and no amount of facts will change their minds. The film is almost pure hysterical propaganda, as the court said, it has major flaws. It comes from a political Leftist who lost a presidential election because the people in the state he represented would not vote for him.

The Nobel prise has been awarded due to political considerations more than it has been awarded for real accomplishments.

Government schools are places of indoctrination in whatever those who control the schools want. I'm glad the UK has a law that prevents inaccurate information from being used to indoctrinate children.

Answer 5

I saw it in my Environmental Science class about four weeks ago so yeah its still legal to play. And it is the best documentary i have seen EVER. I loved it. Might of been boring because Al Gore has such a monotoned voice but it was so interesting to me and i think that Al Gore is doing the right thing and spreading the news about Global Warming.

And why do people criticize Al Gore if hes spent his whole life dedicated to Global Warming. No one would be getting at him if he wasn't a politician right eh?

Answer 6

Because this is BS. Go look at the so-called errors Gore is supposed to have made. Every one is a valid, verified scientific fact.

Further, in his comments ths "judge" (who has no scientific knowledge by his own admission) misrepresented things Gore said (translation: the judge lied). For example, he siad Gore claimed that the Grennland icecapt would melt raising the seal level 21 feet. What Gore ACTUALLY said was that IF the icecap were to melt entirely, it would raise the sea level by 20 feet. He did not claim that would necessarily happen.

In other words, this is just more of the skeptics BS--its just tha tthe mouthpiece this time happens to be an unethical jurist.

Answer 7

What?? Why?? Its a documentary. It has scientific backing and while it maybe flawed...but that is still a hypothesis. An educational learning tool can be flawed...but also refined. It is an important and useful tool for kids and teachers to use to learn about the environment and at an age when they can draw conclusions and prove or disprove the global warming phenomenon. These are future scientists,environmentalists,
ecologists. They derserve the right to observe this doc.

Answer 8

If it's good enough for Nobel Laureates, then it's good enough for me.

"Mr. Gore was not here, but his name came up frequently. And the Nobel winners, far from nitpicking “An Inconvenient Truth,” the film chronicling his climate campaign, seemed to embrace it."

Answer 9

Its entertainment. It was not produced as a documentary. Read the verbage on the trailer.

Answer 10

Unfortunately, there is no US Law barring "political indoctrination" in our schools, therefore ignorant and misinformed teachers can shovel any drivel they want into our children's minds, and the only defense we have is to be informed parents and teach our children to challenge the AGW Orthodoxy.

Once we get AGW Advocacy declared a religion (what else do you call a belief system based on faith, not facts?) then we'll have grounds to sue when Father Gore's movie is shown.