9 Inconvenient… Un-Truths

It is April 26, and I woke up to snow this morning. As of 5PM it is 41 degrees, which is the average LOW temp for the day, (reports say it will be below freezing tonight) - the average high is in the low-mid 60’s. We only had a dusting on the lawns around here, and it had almost all melted by early afternoon, but parts of northern Minnesota were dumped on with another 12 to 18 inches of snow overnight.

Faced with the fact over the last few years that temperatures seem to actually be declining, global-warming folks have tried to get away from that term, and instead try to foist “global climate change” on us as a way to try and control our lives. And the front man for this charge, the poster-child if you will, Al Gore continues to reap the rewards of his movie An Inconvenient Truth.

So as a way of “doing my part”, I thought I would point out some … we’ll be kind for a moment and call them ‘factual errors’ … presented in the movie and give you some information you can follow up with on your own.

It starts out because of a suit brought by a parent that led to the British government ruling that if the movie was going to be shown to British school children, a disclaimer must be made that the film is scientifically controversial.

Nine major lies passed off as science were cited by the British Parliament:

1. The film claims global warming is responsible for the gradual retreat of the alpine glacier atop Africa’s Mount Kilimanjaro. Scientists have conclusively demonstrated no such link exists.
2. The film presents graphs indicating that fluctuating carbon dioxide levels have always preceded and caused global temperature fluctuations. In fact, temperature changes have always preceded carbon dioxide changes.
3. The film suggests global warming caused Hurricane Katrina. Few hurricane experts believe this, and substantial scientific evidence indicates global warming is having no impact on hurricane frequency or intensity.
4. The film asserts global warming is causing Central Africa’s Lake Chad to dry up. In fact, land use practices are causing the drying up of Lake Chad, and Central Africa is in an unusual and prolonged wet period.
5. The film asserts global warming is leading to polar bear deaths by drowning. Yet the only documented drowning deaths occurred due to a freak storm, and polar bear numbers are growing substantially.
6. The film claims global warming threatens to halt the Gulf Stream and initiate a new ice age. The vast majority of scientists who have studied the issue have determined such a scenario is implausible.
7. The film asserts global warming is causing the destruction of coral reefs through bleaching. Scientists have identified other causes for coral bleaching and have additionally noted bleaching is a natural process by which coral continually selects ideal symbiotic algae.
8. The film asserts Greenland is in danger of rapid ice melt that will raise sea levels by 20 feet or more. The scientific consensus is that any foreseeable Greenland ice melt will be gradual and will take centuries to substantially raise sea levels.
9. The film asserts the Antarctic ice shelf is melting. In fact, only a small portion of Antarctica is getting warmer and losing ice mass, while the vast majority of Antarctica is in a prolonged cold spell and is accumulating ice mass.

The Science & Public Policy Institute took this a few more steps and they itemize 35 of the scientific errors and exaggerations in Al Gore’s movie, starting out with the above nine and going on from there. It is rather detailed and a fairly long read which you can check out on their website or download as a PDF file.

To try and be a bit balanced, you can also check out a disection of the above article by the folks at globalwarming-factorfiction.com which has a five-part review of the SPPI’s findings. They seem to pretty much agree with the SPPI, even though they say some of the items may be a bit over-zealous. But all-in-all they agree there are about 20 or so ‘factual-errors’ in the film.

35 Inconvenient Truths: The errors in Al Gore’s movie [Science & Public Policy Institute]
35 Inconvenient Truths: The errors in Al Gore’s movie - Part 1 of 5 [Global Warming - Fact or Fiction]
Al Gore told there are nine inconvienient truths in his film [Times Online]
British Court Rules Al Gore Film Exaggerated Climate Claims [FOXNews.com]