UK judge finds Gore's movie broadly accurate, approves its' use in schools?

Question

The spin on this has been shameless.

Read the full decision:

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.global-warming/msg/87ffb8db671bf175?

The plaintiffs asked that the film be banned. The judge denied that request, saying.

"The following is clear: i) [the movie] is substantially founded upon scientific research"

"[that global warming is mostly due to man, is dangerous, and can be fixed by man], are all supported by a vast quantity of research"

"I have no doubt that Dr Stott is right "Al Gore's presentation of the causes and likely effects of climate change in the film was broadly accurate."

"It is clear that the Defendant understandably formed the view that AIT was an outstanding film

There were some relatively minor points the judge found inadequate proof for (not that they were wrong), and so he ordered that an appropriate statement be made. That's all.

Scientists agree.

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2006-06-27-gore-science-truth_x.htm

gjtudor - I'll admit Gore has made some statements about the details that go beyond what the IPCC says. The judge said that. Note that 'errors' is in quotes. He wasn't determining whether they were right or wrong, saying only that they went beyond the IPCC.

Will you admit that: global warming is real, mostly caused by us, and a serious threat? Because he also said that, in no uncertain terms.

Answer 1

Humanity has had to deal with people like the global warming nay-sayers for centuries.

They tossed Galileo in prison and nearly burned him at the stake for trying to tell them that the earth revolves around the sun instead of the other way around.
They said (still say) Darwin was wrong (and evil) for saying species are created by natural selection, rather than acts of creation by a god.
The Global warming nay-sayers are just one more in a long tradition of backward-*** foot-draggers.

They are what holds humanity back.

Answer 2

Nice work, Gitudor.

I was frankly shocked at the published reports that the judge OK'd a film with erroneous facts, unfounded statements, and a general terrorist bent and produced by a person who stands to make millions if not billions off the film and off the "Carbon Credits" it tacitly supports.

A man who does not walk the talk; Snopes pointed out that Gore's home is far more ecologically wasteful, just one of them, than President Bush's single residence!!

A man who is reported to have said that he does not care about the lack of fuel and power and those dying of it in Africa because he has to work on the developed nations first, and who wastes energy in Africa throwing a huge concert but does not help the people.

I also am chagrined that the good film that debunks a lot of what Gore's film showed was apparently not even considered; someone failed to bring it up to the judge as a rebuttal, I guess.

Someone also failed to remind the judge that the Consensus has based the warnings on faulty computer programming and data cherry-picking to make things look bad, and have been caught at it.

I am shocked that the judge did not consider anything else, and maybe more so that the lawyers did not present the truth and the full truth to the Judge.

Or even just that there is a simple and cheap solution, if indeed the global warming is harmful, rather than helpful as all the past ones have been...and BTW, the past ones did NOT exterminate the polar bears or the penguins, for some strange reason!!

Nature has shown the way to offset Global Warming, back in the 1890's. with the year without a summer. And Man has shown in the sudden drop in the global warming curves in the 1950-1970 era.

ALL we have to do is put back into the atmosphere some fine dust up high, and reflect the sunlight back out to space! We have the technology right now to do it!!

We can prevent all the Global Warming we desire, or let it proceed at a slower pace, or help the polar bears and drop the global temperature by 2-3 degrees so the northland (and south pole...and northern Europe) all get iced way up again!

We have the technology, but for some reason the "consensus" wants to use political repressions and expensive to the consumer laws and take away our freedom, or money, and our future for new lands and cheaper transportation and more food.

And I do not see why we still listen to scientists have have been found making mistakes, and are stifling any opposition to these people!

Like in the Dark ages, the minority who know are suppressed and threatened to silence. And a good point is that Galileo was a minority of one against the combined political and scientific lackeys of the age. Numbers does not equate necessarily with scientific truth!! Nor especially do politicians jumping on board.

If you look, numbers of scientists and politicians agreeing is NOT necessarily truth! If fact often is not. It is often the maverick who eventually shows that the political scientific "consensus" is really in the wrong, and the people are liberated from the "consensus" choke-hold on truth and sometimes justice.

Did anybody catch the scale of how the CO2 and temperature curves were shown? Not at the larger scale that reveals the consistent offset of CO2 rising AFTER the temperature rise, and continuing up as the temperature turns downward?? Is the truth stifled by pressures from the ruling consensus!!

Or is it that the ruling Consensus merely has more funds to make a flashier presentation with slanted data, concealed computer errors, and deliberately deceiving artwork? And a more expensive lawyer, with Billions involved in the outcome!!

Answer 3

Bob I want to thank you for your continued usage and questions and answers on Yahoo. You really bring a great deal of knowledge and scientific proof to those who are still unaware of the facts surrounding global warming.

A lot of people still see this as a political liberal issue. It is simply not classifiable as a political issue. What is at stake is humanities ability to survive on this planet itself. There is no politics here.

People really need to wake up and see the truth. Anthropogenic climate change is real. This is not cyclic it is happening faster than any changed in the last 1 million years and is caused by us.

I am happy Gore's film is being shown in schools. The time to change our lives as much as possible to lower our carbon footprint with everything we do is now.

There is no debate, there is no politics here. There is simply a planetary emergency that has ramifications on all generations of mankind in the future.

We must act, we must become aware, we must surpass our political mindset and rise up to the challenge that besets us.

Answer 4

I think we should just block out the sun. That way, there would be no more "Global Warming" Simple... and to think all we have to do is just fill the atmosphere with "Inconvenient Truth DVDs" and we can save the planet. Thank You Al Gore!! ;o)

Answer 5

To take a saying from the horses, or in this case, the Gore's mouth...
Its the sun, stupid.

Look at this...Gore claimed to have invented the Internet...now they are com parring him to Galileo!

Answer 6

OK, Bob, and this question doesn’t represent an equally shameless level of spin?

You quote the following…

"The following is clear: i) [the movie] is substantially founded upon scientific research"

But conveniently leave out the rest of that sentence, which reads…

“…albeit that the science is used, in the hands of a talented politician and communicator, to make a political statement and to support a political programme.”

The above is point i) from paragraph 17, but point iii) from the very same paragraph reads…

“iii) There are errors and omissions in the film… and respects in which the film, while purporting to set out the mainstream view (and to belittle opposing views), does in fact itself depart from that mainstream, in the sense of the "consensus" expressed in the IPCC reports.”

The Judge also said in paragraph 19…

“some of the errors, or departures from the mainstream, by Mr Gore in AIT in the course of his dynamic exposition, do arise in the context of alarmism and exaggeration”

So a British judge, in a court of law, has stated that An Inconvenient Truth is alarmist and exaggerated, but still you refuse to accept that fact.

And you have the audacity to call people like me “deniers”.

And as for your final link… scientists are entitled to their opinions, but law courts deal with facts, and the facts show that AIT is (at least in part) alarmist and exaggerated and school children should (rightly) be warned of this fact.




For those who are interested, here is exactly what was said about the errors in An Inconvenient Truth…


The 'Errors'

1. 'Error' 11: Sea level rise of up to 20 feet (7 metres) will be caused by melting of either West Antarctica or Greenland in the near future.

25. This is distinctly alarmist, and part of Mr Gore's 'wake-up call'. It is common ground that if indeed Greenland melted, it would release this amount of water, but *only* after, and over, millennia, so that the Armageddon scenario he predicts, insofar as it suggests that sea level rises of 7 metres might occur in the immediate future, is not in line with the scientific consensus.

2. 'Error' 12: Low lying inhabited Pacific atolls are being inundated because of anthropogenic global warming.

26. In scene 20, Mr Gore states "that's why the citizens of these Pacific nations have all had to evacuate to New Zealand". There is no evidence of any such evacuation having yet happened.

3. 'Error' 18: Shutting down of the "Ocean Conveyor".

27. According to the IPCC, it is very unlikely that the Ocean Conveyor (known technically as the Meridional Overturning Circulation or thermohaline circulation) will shut down in the future, though it is considered likely that thermohaline circulation may slow down.

4. 'Error' 3: Direct coincidence between rise in CO2 in the atmosphere and in temperature, by reference to two graphs.

28. In scenes 8 and 9, Mr Gore shows two graphs relating to a period of 650,000 years, one showing rise in CO2 and one showing rise in temperature, and asserts (by ridiculing the opposite view) that they show an exact fit. Although there is general scientific agreement that there is a connection, the two graphs do not establish what Mr Gore asserts. (In paragraph 36, the Judge also comments wrt this error: “it is common ground that the explanation in AIT is at best materially incomplete”)

5. 'Error' 14: The snows of Kilimanjaro.

29. Mr Gore asserts in scene 7 that the disappearance of snow on Mt Kilimanjaro is expressly attributable to global warming. However, it is common ground that, the scientific consensus is that it cannot be established that the recession of snows on Mt Kilimanjaro is mainly attributable to human-induced climate change.

6. 'Error' 16: Lake Chad etc

30. The drying up of Lake Chad is used as a prime example of a catastrophic result of global warming. However, it is generally accepted that the evidence remains insufficient to establish such an attribution. It is apparently considered to be far more likely to result from other factors, such as population increase and over-grazing, and regional climate variability.

7. 'Error' 8: Hurricane Katrina.

31. In scene 12 Hurricane Katrina and the consequent devastation in New Orleans is ascribed to global warming. It is common ground that there is insufficient evidence to show that.

8. 'Error' 15: Death of polar bears.

32. The only scientific study that either side before me can find is one which indicates that four polar bears have recently been found drowned because of a storm. That is not to say that there may not in the future be drowning-related deaths of polar bears if the trend of regression of pack-ice and/or longer open water continues, but it plainly does not support Mr Gore's description.

9. 'Error' 13: Coral reefs.

33. The actual scientific view, as recorded in the IPCC report, is that, if the temperature were to rise by 1-3 degrees Centigrade, there would be increased coral bleaching and widespread coral mortality, unless corals could adopt or acclimatise, but that separating the impacts of climate change-related stresses from other stresses, such as over-fishing and polluting, is difficult.