An Inconvenient Truth

[Donut.Hole]

<sigh>

 

You guys have bought into old data. For example, his house being so inefficient. When it was brought to his attention, he made improvements and completely retrofitted it.

 

Here's a story I saw about him recently:

 

http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/i_video/main500251.shtml?id=3980795n

 

 

 

Also, a follow-up on that house inefficiency charge at roughly 2 minutes into the next link:

 

http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/i_video/main500251.shtml?id=3974164n

 

 

Didn't realise that you posted when I was replying. I see, so it appears that Gore does care. And if he's a hypocrite, so? He's still promoting a good cause.

[iNow]

He's a hypocrite for living in that house, flying in the plane...ALONE!

If he cared that much he would...plane-pool...

 

See post number 21...

[antimatter]

Whoops,

I guess we all missed iNow's post in the heat of the debate,

sorry about that!

[iNow]

Whoops,

I guess we all missed iNow's post in the heat of the debate,

sorry about that!

 

No worries. However, what you're calling "debate," I see more akin to a public stoning.

[Donut.Hole]

He's a hypocrite for living in that house, flying in the plane...ALONE!

If he cared that much he would...plane-pool...

 

Hehe, plane-pooling. I know, it looks bad that he's using a jet alone, but maybe his busy speech-giving schedule doesn't allow for long airport waits?

 

It's kinda odd that Gore uses more black power than the average American, but he's using it to . . . convince others not to.

[antimatter]

Hehe, plane-pooling. I know, it looks bad that he's using a jet alone, but maybe his busy speech-giving schedule doesn't allow for long airport waits?

 

It's kinda odd that Gore uses more black power than the average American, but he's using it to . . . convince others not to.

 

Ironic, eh?

 

No worries. However, what you're calling "debate," I see more akin to a public stoning.

 

I'm actually not entirely sure how we went from GW, to Al Gore, but I'm just giving my opinion of him.

[Donut.Hole]

No worries. However, what you're calling "debate," I see more akin to a public stoning.

 

Sry, my fault. Was just a question that began to dominate the thread. Alright, back on the topic of the accuracy of Gore's data.

[Phi for All]

But what about his power-guzzling house and lifestyle?

I don't have his kind of money. I don't know anyone that rich who doesn't seem like a power-guzzler by comparison.

 

I think you need to admit that when you saw the documentary and then heard people criticize his lifestyle you pictured him telling us all to stop wasting energy so he could hoard it all for himself. It's a knee-jerk reaction and it's hard to stop.

He's a hypocrite for living in that house, flying in the plane...ALONE!

If he cared that much he would...plane-pool...

Oh, I'm sure Secret Service would love that! How many trees do you want to chop down for the paperwork on plane-pooling with Al Gore?

 

*You* may think him a hypocrite, but I cut him some slack. He could have done anything, ANYTHING after being VP, but when the top job fell through he chose to make the world aware of what he'd found out over the course of his career. I was going to do it but everybody thought Al was a better spokesman, enviable house and all.

[Donut.Hole]

Erm, I know that I should respect my elders, especially you, Phi, but could we get back on topic? Any more contributions to the topic of whether Gore's apocolyptic future will really happen in a decade?

[swansont]

Erm, I know that I should respect my elders, especially you, Phi, but could we get back on topic? Any more contributions to the topic of whether Gore's apocolyptic future will really happen in a decade?

 

Who said it would happen in a decade?

[bascule]

Erm, I know that I should respect my elders, especially you, Phi, but could we get back on topic? Any more contributions to the topic of whether Gore's apocolyptic future will really happen in a decade?

 

By 2020 there will be nearly 2 billion humans without access to safe drinking water.

 

Does that count as an apocalyptic future?

[Donut.Hole]

By 2020 there will be nearly 2 billion humans without access to safe drinking water.

 

Does that count as an apocalyptic future?

 

Yes, very. Although it might be off topic, I'd really like to know more about this. Nearly 2 billion will be unable to be confident about the water they drank?

 

Seems like the future looks grim. Are there any ways to prevent them? Are there no easy answers?

[iNow]

Yes, very. Although it might be off topic, I'd really like to know more about this. Nearly 2 billion will be unable to be confident about the water they drank?

 

I learned of the name Brian Fagan on the Daily Show a few weeks ago. He's written a book called "The Great Warming: Climate Change and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations." It appears to be a very historical view of how past droughts have caused many civilizations in human history to war with one another and ultimately fail. It sounds as if it's a great read, and not littered with the usual inherent politicization that most GW books are. Check it out.

 

 

The clip which alerted me to the book:

 

Brian Fagan | The Daily Show | Comedy Central

 

 

The author's site:

 

Brian Fagan

 

 

Amazon:

Amazon.com: The Great Warming: Climate Change and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations: Brian Fagan: Books

 

 

Reviews from the Amazon link:

Global warming is hardly new; in fact, the very long-term trend began about 12,000 years ago with the end of the Ice Age. Anthropologist Fagan (The Little Ice Age) focuses on the medieval warming period (ca. 800-1300), which helped Europe produce larger harvests; the surpluses helped fund the great cathedrals. But in many other parts of the world, says Fagan, changing water and air currents led to drought and malnutrition, for instance among the Native Americans of Northern California, whose key acorn harvests largely failed. Long-term drought contributed to the collapse of the Mayan civilization, and fluctuations in temperature contributed to, and inhibited, Mongol incursions into Europe. Fagan reveals how new research methods like ice borings, satellite observations and computer modeling have sharpened our understanding of meteorological trends in prehistorical times and preliterate cultures. Finally, he notes how times of intense, sustained global warming can have particularly dire consequences; for example, by 2025, an estimated 2.8 billion of us will live in areas with increasingly scarce water resources. Looking backward, Fagan presents a well-documented warning to those who choose to look forward. Illus., maps. (Mar.)

 

Climate has been making history for a very long time, though historians have rarely paid much attention to it. But as it turns out, a few less inches of rain, a change in temperature of just a degree or two can make all the difference in how human events unfold. The Great Warming demonstrates that although human beings make history, they very definitely do not make it under circumstances of their own choosing.

 

 

"Drought is the pink elephant in the room that nobody seems to bring up when it comes to the global warming debate."

 

 

 

Here are a few good links that you should spend some time with if you are genuinely curious:

 

http://environment.about.com/od/globalwarming/a/waterinvesting.htm

http://www.peopleandplanet.net/doc.php?id=671&section=14

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0305-05.htm

http://audreyapple.blogspot.com/2006/12/oohlooks-like-rain-kids-go-get-your.html

http://taiwansecurity.org/Reu/2005/Reuters-011105.htm

http://www.worldwatch.org/node/1661

http://www.iags.org/n0813043.htm

http://www.peopleandplanet.net/doc.php?id=2819

http://www.ourplanet.com/imgversn/94/rast.html

http://www.lenntech.com/specific-questions-water-quantities.htm

[SkepticLance]

When I first saw Al. Gore's film, I was appalled and disgusted by how bad the science was. The only thing he got correct was that the world is warming, and human activity is likely to be the cause, at least over the last half century or so.

 

He reversed cause and effect, with graphs of warming periods during the last million year long ice age, saying that increases in CO2 caused the warming, when the graph clearly showed the warming preceded the CO2 increase.

 

He used a graph of current warming, which he extended into the future by doubling the slope, and said this was a scientific prediction.

 

He was totally alarmist throughout, with no evidence to support that alarmism.

 

When the film was sent to a large number of British schools, there was a court action brought by someone who felt as I do - that such lousy 'science' should not be taught. The results are below.

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=486969&in_page_id=1770&in_a_source

 

The nine errors of Al Gore listed in the Daily Mail article were :

 

1. Sea level rise of 20 foot in the near future

2. Low lying Pacific atolls have already been evacuated

3. The Gulf Stream will shut down

4. Graphs of warming and CO2 rise over 650,000 years showed an 'exact' fit.

5. Snow on Mt. Kilomanjaro being lost due to global warming

6. Drying up of Lake Chad due to global warming

7. Hurricane Katrina caused by global warming

8. Polar bears drowned due to swimming too far after loss of ice

9. Coral reef bleaching due to global warming

[iNow]

Yeah, I was mad when 10,000 BC didn't actually represent 10,000 BC, too.

 

Stupid movies not living up to my expectations. WTF is wrong with those film makers? I mean, has anyone even bothered to check the historical accuracy of Lord of the Rings? It's not even supported by the fossil record. I'm totally disgusted.

 

 

 

More seriously, for one who claims to be so personally offended by the dramatic nature of information sharing, Lance sure has exaggerated the nature of the errors.

 

According to the BBC, there are nine documented errors in the film "An Inconvenient Truth," which was put together by several more people than just this year's shared Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore. Teachers in the UK who wish to show the film in a classroom simply must describe these nine errors to the class before viewing. The rest is pretty spot on. Here's the story:

 

BBC NEWS | UK | Education | Gore climate film's 'nine errors'

 

 

Here are the referenced errors for those interested:

 

Al Gore told there are nine inconvienient truths in his film - Times Online

 

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.

[SkepticLance]

There are two kinds of fiction used in the movies. The first is honest fiction, purely for entertainment, where the fact that what is being shown is not true is fully admitted. Lord of the Rings is a good example. The second kind is known as lying.

 

Al Gore did not do his homework, or he set out to deliberately deceive. I cannot know which. Those errors are not minor. They are massive.

 

The tenth error, not mentioned by the judge was his projection of future warming. Anyone in science knows that graphs are rarely angular. Normally, the slope of a graph that is linear in nature will change, when it does, by a curve. Al Gore showed the warming we all know about over the past 30 years, at 0.18 Celsius per decade, which approximates a straight line. He then projected it into the future at something close to double the slope - perhaps 0.3 Celsius per decade, with the transition being a sharp angle.

 

That was totally unjustified, and there is no evidence today of any increase of that amount - or any amount. Warming still continues at about 0.18 C per decade. The simple fact is that, while anthropogenic global warming is real, the way Al Gore portrayed it was unscientific, inaccurate and alarmist.

[iNow]

Al Gore did not do his homework, or he set out to deliberately deceive.

 

Where is your evidence that Al Gore was deliberately deceptive? How is it possible for you to have such unquestionable insight into someone else's mindset?

 

</rhetorical question to show the ignorance of the suggestion>

 

 

Those errors are not minor. They are massive.

Your subjective label is just that... subjective. You seem to treat your personal interpretation of "minor" and "massive" as somehow important to the rest of us. They are not... I assure you.

 

 

Anyone in science knows that graphs are rarely angular.

What does this mean? Additionally, why does this matter?

 

Normally, the slope of a graph that is linear in nature will change, when it does, by a curve.

If a graph is representative of a given dataset, how is it possible that you can suggest what is "normal" or what a graph "should" look like? A graph is simply a plot of data points.

 

I'm confused, and it's your fault for being confusing.

 

 

 

The simple fact is that, while anthropogenic global warming is real, the way Al Gore portrayed it was unscientific, inaccurate and alarmist.

You continue to act as if your subjective interpretation has some sort of merit. I've got news for you. I (and others) don't care what you think. You are arguing with rhetoric, not substance.

 

Unless, of course, you wish to define "deliberately deceptive," "minor," "massive," "angular" graphs, "normal," "unscientific." You are a condescending twit, Lance, and your points would have greater merit if you defined the terms you consistently use as the premises supporting them.

[SkepticLance]

iNow said

 

"Where is your evidence that Al Gore was deliberately deceptive? "

 

In fact, I said he did not do his homework or he deceived. Either/or.

 

On the graph of warming. I am sorry if I was not clear in my wording. The graph of warming as has occurred over the past 30 years approximates a straight line. When Al Gore extrapolated that graph, he did not extrapolate by extending the straight line, or even curving it upwards. He simply added to the graph by putting another straight line in at about twice the slope. His graph states, in effect, that from 2005 onwards, global warming will go at double the rate.

 

In fact, it has not done so, and there is no indication that it will do so any time in the next few years. Nor did Al Gore have any sound scientific reason for presenting his extrapolation of the warming graph in that way. For this reason, the graph is dishonest. Whether Al Gore intended to tell a lie or simply was carried away by his own enthusiasm, I cannot say. I do know it was most unscientific.

 

iNow,

I have, at times, criticized the tactics you use in debate. The statement below :

 

"You are a condescending twit, Lance"

 

is not a criticism of tactics. It is a pure insult. A pure ad hominem attack. Not a good look, and not something to attract sympathy for your views.

[Phi for All]

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.

Is it just me or does this "error" seem like a total Strawman? When did Gore mention evacuation? Why would "inundation" be equivalent to "evacuation". And I don't remember the atolls Gore mentioned as having any population at all. He just referenced them to show how a temperature rise affects ocean levels.

The statement below :

 

"You are a condescending twit, Lance"

 

is not a criticism of tactics. It is a pure insult. A pure ad hominem attack. Not a good look, and not something to attract sympathy for your views.

Agreed, no more Flaming, warning issued.

[iNow]

iNow said

 

"Where is your evidence that Al Gore was deliberately deceptive? "

 

In fact, I said he did not do his homework or he deceived. Either/or.

Okay, in that case, you presented a false dichotomy. Whatever. I used the quote button, so your comment was right there for context. I could equally have pointed out the subjectivity and lack of evidence about your "not doing homework" comment as well.

 

 

 

 

Is it just me or does this "error" seem like a total Strawman?

 

My interpretation of the nine errors was that they either did nothing to detract from the primary thrust of the presentation, or were (like you mentioned) strawmen anyway. That really is the primary reason I brought in the extra information after it was presented originally by skepticlance. It helps to bring some context, as opposed to just a short list.

[swansont]

We've gone through this before. The judge was not pointing out any flawed science; that wasn't his job. It was a legal assessment based in politics.

 

It should be noted that the judge was not, in fact, pointing out scientific errors; he termed the movie "broadly accurate." What he was doing was pointing out where the movie deviated with the consensus view (i.e. the IPCC), because of the political implications (which is the point of the law that was being applied. (what will be interesting is how many anti-GW people parade this ruling around, unaware of the implicit acceptance of the IPCC report as truth)

 

From Burton's ruling:

"It was essential to appreciate that the hearing before me did not relate to an analysis of the scientific questions, but to an assessment of whether the 'errors' in question, set out in the context of a political film, informed the argument on ss406 and 407. All these 9 'errors' that I now address are not put in the context of the evidence of Professor Carter and the Claimant's case, but by reference to the IPCC report and the evidence of Dr Stott."

 

There's a reason he put "error" in quotes in many places throughout the document. They are what Downes alleged to be errors. The judge did not rule them to be scientific errors, as claimed by the artricle.

 

Some scientific analysis of the the judge's points

 

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2007/10/update_on_the_nine_alleged_err.php

[SkepticLance]

It is worth remembering that the film was not a science movie. It was a film made for political and environmental agitator purposes. Al Gore is not, and never has been, a scientist. He was a politician, and has moved into environmental agitator status. Both categories are not known for sticking to the proper scientific approach. Both categories are prone to 'manipulating' data to create their own version of reality.

 

The film is an example of that. The errors are not those a good scientist would make. I have said that the underlying message is correct - that anthropogenic global warming is true. However, with films made for political purposes it is important that we are prepared to be sceptical of the detail.

[iNow]

Swansont's link covers the issue quite well. Thank you for sharing it again.

 

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2007/10/update_on_the_nine_alleged_err.php

[Sparky]

The Earth has been around for billions of years and has gone though many changes. If you start off from the point of the Industrial Revolution then humans have only been polluting the planet for roughly 200 years. I don't think that in such a short time humanity could have done this much damage. For all we know this could just be a hot spell in the Earth's natural cycle and in about a hundred years we go though a new Ice Age. We can point at all this evidence about global warming, but human interferance has not been around in sufficent numbers to give a clear cut study. More comparative infomation is needed before we can say for sure that Global Warming is our fault or a natural cycle.

[insane_alien]

Sparky, we are actually in a cold spell for the earths historic average, also, the amount of gases we have pumped into the atmosphere have had an effect. on both the composition and behaviour.