It’s enough to make you weep… October 12, 2007
Posted by Ian in environment, misc..trackback
Today Al Gore won a share of the Nobel Peace Prize with the IPCC… Quite frankly, I’m not sure why this upsets me I mean when I think about the other people who have won this award…
And for those of you out there celebrating – don’t be too smug a British Judge thinks Al might have stretched the truth a little too much in An Inconvenient Truth (from the Torygraph):
Mr Gore claims that 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 said: “This is distinctly alarmist and part of Mr Gore’s “wake-up call”. He agreed that if Greenland melted it would release this amount of water – “but only after, and over, millennia”.”The Armageddon scenario he predicts, insofar as it suggests that sea level rises of seven metres might occur in the immediate future, is not in line with the scientific consensus.”
The film claims that low-lying inhabited Pacific atolls “are being inundated because of anthropogenic global warming” but the judge ruled there was no evidence of any evacuation having yet happened.
The documentary speaks of global warming “shutting down the Ocean Conveyor” – the process by which the Gulf Stream is carried over the North Atlantic to western Europe. Citing the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the judge said that it was “very unlikely” that the Ocean Conveyor, also known as the Meridional Overturning Circulation, would shut down in the future, though it might slow down.
Mr Gore claims 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”. The judge said that, although there was general scientific agreement that there was a connection, “the two graphs do not establish what Mr Gore asserts”.
Mr Gore says the disappearance of snow on Mt Kilimanjaro was directly attributable to global warming, but the judge ruled that it scientists have not established that the recession of snow on Mt Kilimanjaro is primarily attributable to human-induced climate change.
Oh just in case anyone is wondering what the hell global warming has to do with peace the prize committee says:
Indications of changes in the earth’s future climate must be treated with the utmost seriousness, and with the precautionary principle uppermost in our minds. Extensive climate changes may alter and threaten the living conditions of much of mankind. They may induce large-scale migration and lead to greater competition for the earth’s resources. Such changes will place particularly heavy burdens on the world’s most vulnerable countries. There may be increased danger of violent conflicts and wars, within and between states.
I think what upsets me the most about this is that there are places in the world – like Burma, Afghanistan, Zimbabwe – who are truly trying to tame violence and bring peace and prosperity, but instead it is awarded to a body of the UN that is proficient in writing press releases and a man who prattles on about how we’re all going to die unless we make sacrifices, but then lives in a massive house and flys from speaking engagement to speaking engagement in a private jet. In fact that’s the thing that bothers me the most about famous people who crusade for causes like this – they expect all of us to do the sacrificing but seem unwilling to make any sacrifices themselves…
rant over.
Do you often make up complete fabriations such as you did with what you said Gore said in his movie or do you sometimes research your material and make objective and reasoned statement? I saw An Inconvenient Truth and at no time did Gore state that Greenland would lose its ice sheet “in the near future” or that the graphs were “an exact fit” and for that matter, the judge never said that Gore was being “an alarmist”. These are rehashed words used by other bloggers, but are not accurate – try doing some honest homework for a change before you pollute the blogosphere.
The great thing about the blogosphere is that we get to pick and choose what we read. It’s good because of the broad spectrum of thoughts and ideas. If one is offended by the views expressed on a particular blog and views it as pollution, then one simply should refrain from reading it or engage the author in respectful debate.
Drew,
Obviously you missed the quote. I was only quoting what was written elsewhere. Now I will be honest I didn’t see An Inconvenient Truth nor do I intend to. The point of including that quote was to show that not everyone buys the details of Gore’s hook, line and sinker.
It is interesting though that you essentially ignored the reason behind my complaint about Gore winning and focused on something someone else wrote (clearly marked as such, I might add). If you think it’s okay that Gore flies around in a private jet, lives in a huge house and buys indulgences instead of making real sacrifices that is your business but to me it is unacceptable to reward such behaviour.
Well, first of all, while I haven’t seen the move either (by choice), I have seen the Al Gore errors quoted so often — and even by those who agree with him — that I don’t think anyone can question the accuracy of the quotes.
And I agree that is unacceptable to reward Gore’s unacceptable behavior, which actually extends for further than even hinted at by your comment, Ian.
But if you look at the whole Nobel issue, Alfred Nobel was a socialist, despite his great wealth. He was the inventor of dynamite, blasting caps, and gel explosives, but endowed a peace prize. So Gore, who borders on being a socialist and lives a life at least as oddly incongruent as Nobel, seems a suitable winner of the prize. Unfortunately, most people see it differently — they think it makes Gore look like a good guy.
Of course, many scientists (including one I met at Newfoundland’s fabulous Johnson Geo Center) willingly acknowledge that there is really no way to know if the warming trend is being effected in any way by our activities, as we are in fact still in the warming period after the last mini-Ice Age. So instead of whining, why aren’t we talking about ways to cope with the fact that the earth changes, whether we like it or not.
Oh — and I absolutely agree that it’s the guy with the press agent who gets noticed, not the folks working at ground level in really bad places to stop the problems.
So thanks for the post.