Almost an Inconvenient Truth - Judge

zod

Taken from http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article2632660.ece

Error one
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.”
Error two
Gore: Low-lying inhabited Pacific atolls are already “being inundated because of anthropogenic global warming.”
Judge: There was no evidence of any evacuation having yet happened.
Error three
Gore: The documentary described global warming potentially “shutting down the Ocean Conveyor” - the process by which the Gulf Stream is carried over the North Atlantic to western Europe.
Judge: According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), it was “very unlikely” it would be shut down, though it might slow down.
Error four
Gore: He asserted - by ridiculing the opposite view - that two graphs, one plotting a rise in C02 and the other the rise in temperature over a period of 650,000 years, showed “an exact fit”.
Judge: Although there was general scientific agreement that there was a connection, “the two graphs do not establish what Mr Gore asserts”.
Error five
Gore: The disappearance of snow on Mt Kilimanjaro was expressly attributable to global warming.
Judge: This “specifically impressed” David Miliband, the Environment Secretary, but the scientific consensus was that it cannot be established that the recession of snows on Mt Kilimanjaro is mainly attributable to human-induced climate change.
Error six
Gore: The drying up of Lake Chad was used in the film as a prime example of a catastrophic result of global warming, said the judge.
Judge: “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.”
Error seven
Gore: Hurricane Katrina and the consequent devastation in New Orleans to global warming.
Judge: There is “insufficient evidence to show that”.
Error eight
Gore: Referred to a new scientific study showing that, for the first time, polar bears were being found that had actually drowned “swimming long distances - up to 60 miles - to find the ice”.
Judge: “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 was not to say there might not in future be drowning-related deaths of bears if the trend of regression of pack ice continued - “but it plainly does not support Mr Gore’s description”.
Error nine
Gore: Coral reefs all over the world were bleaching because of global warming and other factors.
Judge: The IPCC had reported that, if temperatures were to rise by 1-3 degrees centigrade, there would be increased coral bleaching and mortality, unless the coral could adapt. But separating the impacts of stresses due to climate change from other stresses, such as over-fishing, and pollution was difficult

tampopo

Yeah, I saw that myself on the ten o'clock bbc news.

There was a scheme in England where some education board bought loads of dvds of Inconvenient Truth and distributed it to schools. I emailed the story from yahoo.com to a friend in Dublin City Council. He promptly went and bought 25 copies!!!

I must cut and paste this post and let him know!!!

lostexpectation

not bad ,could have been worse for the docu...

I've never gotten this whole sea level rise by metres thing....

this did always feel like alarmism

were there not floods on the maldives last year

I mean did he really say katrina was because of global warming on a scientific basis or did he say cos it happened last year? and it could be cause of general trend of worsening storms in the area...

the co2 graph, when there are other factors no ****, but this was film about man made influence of global warming so thats fine

also the polar bares was this an anecdote or scientific claim by gore?

I guess the question is would you show al gore in science class? cos some of the things he said don't have studies to back em up? are they supposed to show a retort film, cos most of them are utter crap and baloney

the theory of global warming is as strong as ever

Capt'n Midnight

So the Judge is saying that everything else in the film is 100% accurate

Global warming is a theory so what about Kansas ?