Any other fellow global warming believers see the British judge's ruling on An Inconvenient Truth as pretty...

Question

reasonable?

He criticizes specific points in the movie about exactly how soon and how bad the effects will be, but he acknowledges that it is occurring and man-made.

Gore seems to have gone just a bit overboard, should we start to distance from him in order to get wider support for the movement and actually save the environment?

Answer 1

Yes, the judge only decided that 9 of the hundreds of points in the film were inaccurate. And actually several of these points could be argued - for example, recent studies have shown the polar bear argument to be accurate.

Gore is still useful in that he draws much attention to the issue. Some people will always find a way to deny that there is a problem, regardless of whether or not Gore is involved.

Just as an interesting note, as I write this I have 2 thumbs up and 6 down. The answer below me which is a complete lie and provides no evidence to support it (because none exists) has 6 thumbs up and 1 down.

Just goes to show you that global warming deniers will believe anything as long as it's something they want to hear.

Answer 2

It's more than that, it's solid support for the main things the "skeptics" question.

The judge found that global warming was real, mostly caused by us, a serious problem, and one that can be solved by us.

If someone wants to accept that and quibble about snow on Kilimanjaro, that's fine.

There's no need to "distance" from Gore. He has nothing to do with the science supporting mainstream global warming theory.

JELLO - No judge has ruled on "swindle" because when they get sued, they back down and change the film. The supporters of AIT fought - and won. The judge ruled _against_ the plaintiff in the suit.

However, the TV channel that broadcast "swindle" has effectively found against it.

If you go to their website on the movie you find links to real global warming information. They also have a way to "Ask the Expert" about global warming. The questions go to a respected mainstream scientist who supports (mostly) human responsibility for global warming.

So, why did Channel 4 broadcast it?

"The science might be bunkum, the research discredited. But all that counts for Channel 4 is generating controversy."

http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,2032572,00.html

MARK G - The problem with the polar bears is that this time the climate is changing too fast for them to respond. Do you think the Bush administration would be taking action about polar bears, if they had any way to wiggle out of the issue?

Answer 3

I think it's amazing that we now have a whole catagory dedicated to discussing Global Warming. I read a Blog article that made a lot of sense. Essentially the writer stated think back to 9th Grade Science classes when we discussed the cycle of Ice Ages and Climates on Earth that were either a lot colder then today's climate or a lot warmer then todays climate. That's why I realize this is all bularky about blamming humans on Global Climate changes. We live on a planet that has constant Climate changes.

We are also still melting from an Ice age that occured about 500 years or so ago. Guess what folks? When more Earth is exposed the warmer the climate gets. (Oh and Greenland used to be fertile farmland before the most recent Ice Age.

Answer 4

Gore only did one good thing. Get the word out to become less dependent on foreign oil and start the search for alternate fuel. But what he states is fact is a hypothesis at the moment. So I'll give him that. But yes always distance yourself from a politician. They are greedy, low down dirty mo fo's. I mean is house consumes more electricity in 2 months than the avg person uses in a year.

Dana: The polar bears survived the last warming trend so I'm sure they'll survive this one as well.. Animals are far more resilient than man!! At least they are now a days..lol..

Answer 5

The standard tactic is to over exaggerate the claims of global warming to "raise awareness" in the cause.

Those who study the science have admitted to stretching the truth for the "common good".

This is one of the reasons why there are so many people skeptical of their work.

You should also point out that no judge has ruled any points of the movie "The Great Global Warming Swindle" were inaccurate or exaggerated.

Answer 6

A british Study shows that sateelite data shows that the Earth is cooling off... there is no Global Warming!

Answer 7

The Gods must be laughing
A sample of experts' comments about the science of "An Inconvenient Truth":

But surely Carter is merely part of what most people regard as a tiny cadre of "climate change skeptics" who disagree with the "vast majority of scientists" Gore cites?

No; Carter is one of hundreds of highly qualified non-governmental, non-industry, non-lobby group climate experts who contest the hypothesis that human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are causing significant global climate change. "Climate experts" is the operative term here. Why? Because what Gore's "majority of scientists" think is immaterial when only a very small fraction of them actually work in the climate field.

Even among that fraction, many focus their studies on the impacts of climate change; biologists, for example, who study everything from insects to polar bears to poison ivy. "While many are highly skilled researchers, they generally do not have special knowledge about the causes of global climate change," explains former University of Winnipeg climatology professor Dr. Tim Ball. "They usually can tell us only about the effects of changes in the local environment where they conduct their studies."

This is highly valuable knowledge, but doesn't make them climate change cause experts, only climate impact experts.

So we have a smaller fraction.

But it becomes smaller still. Among experts who actually examine the causes of change on a global scale, many concentrate their research on designing and enhancing computer models of hypothetical futures. "These models have been consistently wrong in all their scenarios," asserts Ball. "Since modelers concede computer outputs are not "predictions" but are in fact merely scenarios, they are negligent in letting policy-makers and the public think they are actually making forecasts."

We should listen most to scientists who use real data to try to understand what nature is actually telling us about the causes and extent of global climate change. In this relatively small community, there is no consensus, despite what Gore and others would suggest.

Here is a small sample of the side of the debate we almost never hear:

Appearing before the Commons Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development last year, Carleton University paleoclimatologist Professor Tim Patterson testified, "There is no meaningful correlation between CO2 levels and Earth's temperature over this [geologic] time frame. In fact, when CO2 levels were over ten times higher than they are now, about 450 million years ago, the planet was in the depths of the absolute coldest period in the last half billion years." Patterson asked the committee, "On the basis of this evidence, how could anyone still believe that the recent relatively small increase in CO2 levels would be the major cause of the past century's modest warming?"

Patterson concluded his testimony by explaining what his research and "hundreds of other studies" reveal: on all time scales, there is very good correlation between Earth's temperature and natural celestial phenomena such changes in the brightness of the Sun.

Dr. Boris Winterhalter, former marine researcher at the Geological Survey of Finland and professor in marine geology, University of Helsinki, takes apart Gore's dramatic display of Antarctic glaciers collapsing into the sea. "The breaking glacier wall is a normally occurring phenomenon which is due to the normal advance of a glacier," says Winterhalter. "In Antarctica the temperature is low enough to prohibit melting of the ice front, so if the ice is grounded, it has to break off in beautiful ice cascades. If the water is deep enough icebergs will form."

Dr. Wibjorn Karlen, emeritus professor, Dept. of Physical Geography and Quaternary Geology, Stockholm University, Sweden, admits, "Some small areas in the Antarctic Peninsula have broken up recently, just like it has done back in time. The temperature in this part of Antarctica has increased recently, probably because of a small change in the position of the low pressure systems."

But Karlen clarifies that the 'mass balance' of Antarctica is positive - more snow is accumulating than melting off. As a result, Ball explains, there is an increase in the 'calving' of icebergs as the ice dome of Antarctica is growing and flowing to the oceans. When Greenland and Antarctica are assessed together, "their mass balance is considered to possibly increase the sea level by 0.03 mm/year - not much of an effect," Karl»n concludes.

The Antarctica has survived warm and cold events over millions of years. A meltdown is simply not a realistic scenario in the foreseeable future.

Gore tells us in the film, "Starting in 1970, there was a precipitous drop-off in the amount and extent and thickness of the Arctic ice cap." This is misleading, according to Ball: "The survey that Gore cites was a single transect across one part of the Arctic basin in the month of October during the 1960s when we were in the middle of the cooling period. The 1990 runs were done in the warmer month of September, using a wholly different technology."

Karlen explains that a paper published in 2003 by University of Alaska professor Igor Polyakov shows that, the region of the Arctic where rising temperature is supposedly endangering polar bears showed fluctuations since 1940 but no overall temperature rise. "For several published records it is a decrease for the last 50 years," says Karl»n

Dr. Dick Morgan, former advisor to the World Meteorological Organization and climatology researcher at University of Exeter, U.K. gives the details, "There has been some decrease in ice thickness in the Canadian Arctic over the past 30 years but no melt down. The Canadian Ice Service records show that from 1971-1981 there was average, to above average, ice thickness. From 1981-1982 there was a sharp decrease of 15% but there was a quick recovery to average, to slightly above average, values from 1983-1995. A sharp drop of 30% occurred again 1996-1998 and since then there has been a steady increase to reach near normal conditions since 2001."

Concerning Gore's beliefs about worldwide warming, Morgan points out that, in addition to the cooling in the NW Atlantic, massive areas of cooling are found in the North and South Pacific Ocean; the whole of the Amazon Valley; the north coast of South America and the Caribbean; the eastern Mediterranean, Black Sea, Caucasus and Red Sea; New Zealand and even the Ganges Valley in India. Morgan explains, "Had the IPCC used the standard parameter for climate change (the 30 year average) and used an equal area projection, instead of the Mercator (which doubled the area of warming in Alaska, Siberia and the Antarctic Ocean) warming and cooling would have been almost in balance."

Gore's point that 200 cities and towns in the American West set all time high temperature records is also misleading according to Dr. Roy Spencer, Principal Research Scientist at The University of Alabama in Huntsville. "It is not unusual for some locations, out of the thousands of cities and towns in the U.S., to set all-time records," he says. "The actual data shows that overall, recent temperatures in the U.S. were not unusual."

Carter does not pull his punches about Gore's activism, "The man is an embarrassment to US science and its many fine practitioners, a lot of whom know (but feel unable to state publicly) that his propaganda crusade is mostly based on junk science."

In April sixty of the world's leading experts in the field asked Prime Minister Harper to order a thorough public review of the science of climate change, something that has never happened in Canada. Considering what's at stake - either the end of civilization, if you believe Gore, or a waste of billions of dollars, if you believe his opponents - it seems like a reasonable request.