Judge rules on "9 errors" of Al Gore's Inconvienient Truth

[andyandy]

A High Court judge who ruled on whether climate change film, An Inconvenient Truth, could be shown in schools said it contains "nine scientific errors".
Mr Justice Burton said the government could still send Al Gore's film to schools - if accompanied by guidance giving the other side of the argument.

A Kent school governor wanted the film banned from secondary schools.

The judge said nine statements in the film were not supported by current mainstream scientific consensus.

snip

Mr Gore's assertion 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 was "distinctly alarmist" and it was common ground that if Greenland's ice melted it would release this amount of water - "but only after, and over, millennia".

Mr Gore's assertion that the disappearance of snow on Mt Kilimanjaro was expressly attributable to global warming - the court heard the scientific consensus was that it cannot be established the snow recession is mainly attributable to human-induced climate change.

Mr Gore reference to a new scientific study showing that, for the first time, polar bears had actually drowned "swimming long distances - up to 60 miles - to find the ice". The judge said: "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." http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7037671.stm

Is Al Gore the Michael Moore of the environmental movement?

it's disappointing that people feel the need to overstate their case, thus handing a wedge to their opponents.....

[andyandy]

The judge said some of the errors were made in “the context of alarmism and exaggeration” in order to support Mr Gore’s thesis on global warming.
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. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article2632660.ece

it would be interesting to see these "errors" in their original context - some seem more like non-rigorous statements rather than errors as such....

[quixotecoyote]

I'm not seeing where the judge disputed any of the actual facts. He's arguing interpretation and context and calling it errors of fact. Quite disappointing.

[JoeEllison]

The "errors" sound more like the sort of right-wing lies about "controversial subjects" we've become rather familiar with. They remind me specifically of the sort of "errors" that the same sort of people find with evolution when they want to put "warning stickers" on biology textbooks.

[PixyMisa]

I haven't seen the film, but if Gore is tying specific events (like Katrina) to global warming, that's lousy science.

[rocketdodger]

The fact that over half of the movie is nothing more than footage of Gore giving a presentation and Gore walking the grounds of his childhood home is indicative of how un-inspiring it really is.

[JoeEllison]

The fact that over half of the movie is nothing more than footage of Gore giving a presentation and Gore walking the grounds of his childhood home is indicative of how un-inspiring it really is.

Yeah, so uninspiring that it won an Oscar... dull dull dull.

[Bob Klase]

Yeah, so uninspiring that it won an Oscar... dull dull dull.

Yes. We know how stringent the requirements are to win an Oscar. And no one ever wins one for political reasons.

[a_unique_person]

And now we're beginning to see the impact in the real world (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retreat_of_glaciers_since_1850). This is Mount Kilimanjaro (http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/edu/dees/V1003/images/Kilimanjao.Ice.jpg) more than 30 years ago, and more recently. And a friend of mine just came back from Kilimanjaro with a picture he took a couple of months ago. Another friend of mine Lonnie Thompson (http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/americasbest/science.medicine/pro.lthompson.html) studies glaciers (http://www.wired.com/news/politics/lifescience/0,71272-0.html). Here's Lonnie with a sliver of a once mighty glacier. Within the decade there will be no more snows of Kilimanjaro (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/09/0923_030923_kilimanjaroglaciers.html).
This is happening in Glacier National Park (http://blogs.ya.com/noxxi/files/Resize_of_lake_grinnel_glacier_grinnel_1910_1997_2 .jpg). I climbed to the top of this in 1998 with one of my daughters. Within 15 years this will be the park formerly known as Glacier.
Here is what has been happening year by year to the Columbia Glacier (http://www.geog.utoronto.ca/info/faculty/harveynew_files/images/North%20America/Columbia%20Ice%20Field,%20Jasper%20%28Alberta,%20C anada%29,%201906%20&%201998%28ww.jpg). It just retreats more and more every year. And it is a shame because these glaciers are so beautiful. People who go up to see them, here is what they are seeing every day now.
In the Himalayas (http://www.panda.org/about_wwf/where_we_work/asia_pacific/where/nepal/news/index.cfm?uNewsID=23717) there is a particular problem because more than 40% of all the people in the world get their drinking water (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4346211.stm) from rivers and spring systems that are fed more than half by the melt water coming off the glaciers. Within this next half century those 40% of the people on earth are going to face a very serious shortage because of this melting.
Italy, the Italian Alps same site today. An old postcard from the Switzerland: throughout the Alps (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/05/sci_nat_how_the_world_is_changing/html/2.stm) we are seeing the same story.
It's also true in South America. This is Peru 15 years ago and the same glacier today.
This is Argentina (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/05/sci_nat_how_the_world_is_changing/html/1.stm) 20 years ago, the same glacier today.
75 years ago in Patagonia on the tip of South America, this vast expanse of ice is now gone.from http://www.hokeg.dyndns.org/AITruth.htm

He states several examples of glacier retreat, there is an issue with one example. :rolleyes:

Kilimanjaro is receeding, partly because of global warming, but also for other reasons. What a beat up.

It's not a reason to ban the film.

[JoeEllison]

Yes. We know how stringent the requirements are to win an Oscar. And no one ever wins one for political reasons.

Are you really that desperate?

[a_unique_person]

Katrina



Now I'm going to show you, recently released, the actual ocean temperature. Of course when the oceans get warmer, that causes stronger storms (http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/03/reactions-to-tighter-hurricane-intensitysst-link/). We have seen in the last couple of years, a lot of big hurricanes. Hurricanes Jean, Francis and Ivan were among them. In the same year we had that string of big hurricanes; we also set an all time record for tornadoes in the United States. Japan again didn't get as much attention in our news media, but they set an all time record for typhoons. The previous record was seven. Here are all ten of the ones they had in 2004. The science textbooks that have to be re-written because they say it is impossible to have a hurricane in the South Atlantic. It was the same year that the first one that ever hit Brazil. The summer of 2005 is one for the books. The first one was Emily that socked into Yucatan. Then Hurricane Dennis came along and it did a lot of damage, including to the oil industry. This is the largest oil platform in the world after Dennis went through. This one was driven into the bridge at Mobile. And then of course came Katrina (http://www.nnvl.noaa.gov/hurseas2005/Katrina1545zC-050828-1kg12.jpg). It is worth remembering that when it hit Florida it was a Category 1, but it killed a lot of people and caused billions of dollars worth of damage. And then, what happened? Before it hit New Orleans, it went over warmer water. As the water temperature increases, the wind velocity increases and the moisture content increases. And you'll see Hurricane Katrina form over Florida. And then as it comes into the Gulf over warm water it becomes stronger and stronger and stronger. Look at that Hurricane's eye. And of course the consequences were so horrendous; there are no words to describe it.



He described exactly what happened. The same thing happened this year, except sparsely populate parts of Mexico got hit. Hurricanes hit the warm gulf and shot up to CAT5 in extraordinarily quick time. Just as Gore stated, it appears that the power of hurricanes is growing. Katrina actually barely survived the path it took across Florida, but quickly reorganised into a very power hurricane. It was fortunate for New Orleans that it just happened to be going through an eye wall replacement cycle when it hit, ortherwise things would have been a lot worse. An ERC happens because a hurricane is so powerful, it rebuilds it's eyewall into an even more powerful storm. While the ERC is happening, it loses a lot of power. For a while there, it was a CAT5 itself. If you think it was bad when it hit, things could quite easily have been a lot worse.

This site appears to be correct about the actual satus of Katrina. It was a monster of a storm.
http://hurricanekatrina-hoax.com/appendix_C.html

Path of Katrina

http://flhurricane.com/googlemap.php?2005s12

[Safe-Keeper]

The fact that over half of the movie is nothing more than footage of Gore giving a presentation and Gore walking the grounds of his childhood home is indicative of how un-inspiring it really is.Yes. There should've been lots of action scenes and creepy stalking of innocent blond ladies. This is an action movie, after all, not a presentation on climate change [/sarcasm].

The movie was very good for a presentation. Turning a stage performance into something worthy of a movie theatre is difficult, but I'd say he managed it. And like it or not, people were inspired.

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.”
Completely correct. Greenland won't melt for millenia yet. The melting should still be prevented, though, for the sake of our descendants who will actually be alive then.

Error two

Gore: Low-lying inhabited Pacific atolls are already “being inundated because of anthropogenic global warming.”I know nothing of this case. Can't comment.

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.Also true. The 'conveyor' is in no danger of shutting down any time soon. Like Greenland, it is not exactly a top priority.

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”.Not quite. He said they correlated. Which they largely do. Co2 affects temperature change. The graphs support that view. They don't support the view that Co2 causes temperature cycles, so this is a bit of a strawman from Gore's side. But they certainly do affect them, and this has been proven by other means than the graphs.

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.How so? How else does snow that's been there for a long time melt than from the environment getting hotter? I honestly don't understand this one.

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.”I don't remember this being in the documentary:o. Can't comment.

Error sevenCovered above.

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”.Splitting hairs. Polar bears are at risk. They live on the North Pole and the North Pole may be ice-free in 50 years. Even if it was true that they're not being affected currently, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out they're in trouble.

Error nineI have no knowledge on this. No comment.

He described exactly what happened. The same thing happened this year, except sparsely populate parts of Mexico got hit. Hurricanes hit the warm gulf and shot up to CAT5 in extraordinarily quick time. Just as Gore stated, it appears that the power of hurricanes is growing. Katrina actually barely survived the path it took across Florida, but quickly reorganised into a very power hurricane. It was fortunate for New Orleans that it just happened to be going through an eye wall replacement cycle when it hit, ortherwise things would have been a lot worse. An ERC happens because a hurricane is so powerful, it rebuilds it's eyewall into an even more powerful storm. While the ERC is happening, it loses a lot of power. For a while there, it was a CAT5 itself. If you think it was bad when it hit, things could quite easily have been a lot worse.First of all, Katrina was a Category 3, I think. It was the storm surge ahead of it that pushed the damage up to those caused by a Category 5 hurricane.

As for it being caused by global warming, this is doubtful. Fueled by warmer waters, possible but far from proven. The theory that hurricanes and precipitation get worse with global warming is so far supported by observation, but whether or not this particular hurricane got as bad as it did due to global warming, we don't know.

Is Al Gore the Michael Moore of the environmental movement? Definitely. He is the 'whistle-blower' who's done a good job getting the problem in a nutshell out to the masses. Whether or not he's been truthful is being debated, but I find he mostly has been. Far more than Micheal Moore, to be sure.

[PixyMisa]

Okay, I'm sold. It's not worth showing in schools. Not with narration that horrible.

[lionking]

Gore makes the same mistakes as many in the green movement by putting forward the worst case, most extreme scenario. This in fact works against his position. When the changes to not occur as quickly and disasterously as predicted, the average joe will conclude that global warming is a crock, which certainly is not the case.

If fact if I were a CT I would conclude that Gore was a disinfo agent!

[a_unique_person]

Realclimate has a critique of the film. Overall, they think he got it right.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/05/al-gores-movie/



How well does the film handle the science? Admirably, I thought. It is remarkably up to date, with reference to some of the very latest research. Discussion of recent changes in Antarctica and Greenland are expertly laid out. He also does a very good job in talking about the relationship between sea surface temperature and hurricane intensity. As one might expect, he uses the Katrina disaster to underscore the point that climate change may have serious impacts on society, but he doesn't highlight the connection any more than is appropriate (see our post on this, here (http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/09/hurricanes-and-global-warming/)).

[a_unique_person]

First of all, Katrina was a Category 3, I think. It was the storm surge ahead of it that pushed the damage up to those caused by a Category 5 hurricane.

As for it being caused by global warming, this is doubtful. Fueled by warmer waters, possible but far from proven. The theory that hurricanes and precipitation get worse with global warming is so far supported by observation, but whether or not this particular hurricane got as bad as it did due to global warming, we don't know.

Yes.

Look at the path, from my link :rolleyes:. It was a cat4 when it hit, it was a cat 5, and it was undergoing an ERC, the temporarily reduces the power of a hurricane. The most powerful hurricanes will undergo an ERC because the force tears the eyewall apart, till a new one is built.

He was using Katrina as an example, and it's a good one. Katrina was barely a cat 1 after it crossed Florida, in very quick time it was a cat 5. That's due to the SST's in the Gulf, which are getting hotter. This year, two more CAT5s happened in the Gulf, but they both hit Mexico instead.

[a_unique_person]

Gore makes the same mistakes as many in the green movement by putting forward the worst case, most extreme scenario. This in fact works against his position. When the changes to not occur as quickly and disasterously as predicted, the average joe will conclude that global warming is a crock, which certainly is not the case.

If fact if I were a CT I would conclude that Gore was a disinfo agent!

It's a problem, especially when you could be wrong if you don't say what the possibilities are. Global Warming is a case of risk management. When you manage risk, do you only cater for what you think you can definitely say will happen, or do you do that bit extra just in case? It was pretty easy for Dubya to sell the US on the Invasion of Iraq, purely on a risk management basis.

[a_unique_person]

On the matter of CO2 in ice cores.



Several of my colleagues complained that a more significant error is Gore's use of the long ice core records of CO2 and temperature (from oxygen isotope measurements) in Antarctic ice cores to illustrate the correlation between the two. The complaint is that the correlation is somewhat misleading, because a number of other climate forcings besides CO2 contribute to the change in Antarctic temperature between glacial and interglacial climate. Simply extrapolating this correlation forward in time puts the temperature in 2100 A.D. somewhere upwards of 10 C warmer than present — rather at the extreme end of the vast majority of projections (as we have discussed here (http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/03/climate-sensitivity-plus-a-change/)). However, I don't really agree with my colleagues' criticism on this point. Gore is careful not to state what the temperature/CO2 scaling is. He is making a qualitative point, which is entirely accurate. The fact is that it would be difficult or impossible to explain past changes in temperature during the ice age cycles without CO2 changes (as we have discussed here (http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/co2-in-ice-cores/)). In that sense, the ice core CO2-temperature correlation (http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/11/650000-years-of-greenhouse-gas-concentrations/) remains an appropriate demonstration of the influence of CO2 on climate.



CO2 is associated with hotter climates, but it does not necessarily cause them, as the ice cores show. It is a point that many people seem to have trouble understanding. CO2 can be a feedback of warming, or a cause of warming. Either way, it is a part of a hotter climate, since it is a greenhouse gas.

[a_unique_person]

The national snow and ice centre has a discussion on the film and some of it's more contentious claims.

http://nsidc.org/news/press/20060706_goremoviefaq.html



Does Al Gore get the science right in the movie An Inconvenient Truth?

We know that a lot of people wonder if the science presented in An Inconvenient Truth is correct. NSIDC scientists Walt Meier and Ted Scambos answered some Frequently Asked Questions about the snow and ice science presented in the movie.
As a scientist who studies the climate, what do you think of the movie?

TED: I think An Inconvenient Truth does an excellent job of outlining the science behind global warming and the challenges society faces in the coming century because of it.
WALT: I agree. I think Gore has the basic message right. But we thought we could clarify a few things about the information concerning snow, ice, and the poles.
The movie shows glaciers calving into the water as Gore discusses the effects of warming on the glaciers. But don't glaciers always calve into the water when they end there?
WALT: Yes, glaciers and ice streams that terminate over water are called tidewater glaciers. They are always calving ice into water; these chunks are one source of icebergs. If things are in equilibrium, there is no loss of ice because what is calved off is replaced by snowfall further up the glacier. However, in recent years, almost all glaciers are in retreat and losing mass. Some glaciers have retreated so far that they no longer reach the water and are no longer considered tidewater glaciers.
See an example of a glacier photograph pair (http://nsidc.org/data/glacier_photo/special_high_res.html).
TED: Just to clarify, Mr. Gore's characterization of recent dynamic events in Arctic glaciers does rest firmly on observational evidence from a variety of sources, not just on glacier pair photos like those mentioned above. It’s true that every glacierized region on Earth is experiencing retreat and thinning.
The movie discusses decreasing sea ice in the Arctic and how it will affect climate and wildlife. Is it really that important?
WALT: Arctic sea ice is something NSIDC watches carefully, especially because of its effect on global climate. Sea ice helps regulate climate because it acts like a mirror, deflecting incoming solar energy and helping to balance the Earth’s temperatures. As the sea ice disappears, dark ocean water is exposed to the sun’s energy, and the Arctic’s ability to cool our planet also disappears.
To learn more about the recent, record-breaking disappearance of sea ice, see NSIDC’s Sea Ice Decline Intensifies press release (http://nsidc.org/news/press/20050928_trendscontinue.html). To learn more about sea ice, its role in climate, and the animals and people that depend on it for survival, see All About Sea Ice (http://nsidc.org/seaice/).
Why doesn't the movie mention anything about the sea ice in Antarctica?
WALT: The Antarctic sea ice is not showing the dramatic downward trend that we are seeing in the Arctic. There are a couple reasons for this. First, the circulation of the atmosphere and oceans isolates the ice-covered ocean around Antarctica, keeping things colder. So, global warming effects have not yet been pronounced there. And, unlike the sea ice in the Arctic, much of which stays around the entire year, most of the sea ice in the Antarctic already melts away during the summer so any summer warming would not have as much of an impact.
However, sea ice around Antarctica plays a key role in ocean circulation by producing dense cold water that sinks to the ocean floor and helps drive the ocean’s "conveyor belt" circulation. Sea ice is also key to biology in the region, which is one of the most productive marine environments in the world. There already have been some changes noted in the timing of when the sea ice forms and melts around the Antarctic Peninsula, which has shown significant warming. This warming contributed to the collapse of the Larson B Ice Shelf in 2002.
To view the animation of the Larson B collapse and to read more about the breakup, see Antarctic Ice Shelf Collapses (http://nsidc.org/iceshelves/larsenb2002/animation.html).
TED: NSIDC studied the collapse of the Larson B Ice Shelf extensively. As Gore mentions in the movie, ice shelves can act almost like a cork in a bottle, holding back the ice behind them. We recently set up a new study to learn how ice shelves melt and collapse. To learn more about the expedition to Antarctica, see the IceTrek Web pages (http://nsidc.org/icetrek/).

[JoeEllison]

He is the 'whistle-blower' who's done a good job getting the problem in a nutshell out to the masses. Whether or not he's been truthful is being debated, but I find he mostly has been. Far more than Micheal Moore, to be sure.

I'd guess that Gore is being honest, and any of these very minor complaints are due to the fact that he's a layman.

[Safe-Keeper]

Gore makes the same mistakes as many in the green movement by putting forward the worst case, most extreme scenario. This in fact works against his position. When the changes to not occur as quickly and disasterously as predicted, the average joe will conclude that global warming is a crock, which certainly is not the case.Agreed. His 'scary' approach is counter-productive. I don't approve of using fear as a weapon in any setting, be it religion, safety, or global warming. AGW has been dubbed 'the left's War on Terror', and with good reason.

[JoeEllison]

AGW has been dubbed 'the left's War on Terror', and with good reason.
The "reason" is because there's nothing whatsoever on "the left" that is anything as bad, so they had to make something up.

[Safe-Keeper]

No, the reason is that like the War on Terror, the anti-AGW movement uses fear as a weapon. This is a completely valid point even though, of course, it has nothing to do with the validity of AGW theory.

[JoeEllison]

No, the reason is that like the War on Terror, the anti-AGW movement uses fear as a weapon. This is a completely valid point even though, of course, it has nothing to do with the validity of AGW theory.

"Fear as a weapon"? Please. Every new report seems to suggest that the scientists have been conservative in their estimates almost every step of the way. :cool:

[PixyMisa]

Gore makes the same mistakes as many in the green movement by putting forward the worst case, most extreme scenario. This in fact works against his position. When the changes to not occur as quickly and disasterously as predicted, the average joe will conclude that global warming is a crock, which certainly is not the case.
This is a real problem, and some right-wing sites - including some that should really know better - are already making hay of this judgement.

[a_unique_person]

No, the reason is that like the War on Terror, the anti-AGW movement uses fear as a weapon. This is a completely valid point even though, of course, it has nothing to do with the validity of AGW theory.

There could be some truth to that.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22478126-2,00.html



CLIMATE change, not terrorism, will be the main security issue of the century, with potential to cause death and destruction on an unprecedented scale, Australia's top policeman believes.

In a surprise foray into the politics of global warming, Australian Federal Police commissioner Mick Keelty described how climate refugees "in their millions" could create a national security emergency for Australia.
His provocative comments, made in a speech in Adelaide last night, are likely to be diplomatically sensitive after he described a scenario in which China was unable to feed its vast population.
Law enforcement agencies would struggle to cope with global warming's "potential to wreak havoc, cause more deaths and pose national security issues like we've never seen before", Mr Keelty said.
"It is anticipated the world will experience severe extremes in weather patterns, from rising global temperatures to rising sea levels," he warned.
"We could see a catastrophic decline in the availability of fresh water. Crops could fail, disease could be rampant and flooding might be so frequent that people, en masse, would be on the move.
"Even if only some and not all of this occurs, climate change is going to be the security issue of the 21st century."
Mr Keelty said the implications for China were especially alarming. By 2040, with global temperatures surging towards a predicted 3C rise, and sea levels up 50cm, the land available in China to grow grain and rice could be reduced by 30 per cent.
"The mass displacement of people, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region, could create a great deal of social uncertainty and unrest in the region.

[a_unique_person]

Lake Chad



http://www.solcomhouse.com/africalchad.htm

In the 1960s, North central Africa's Lake Chad was larger than the state of Vermont but is now smaller than Rhode Island. NASA-funded researchers using computer models and climate data now understand why Africa's freshwater Lake Chad has been disappearing over the last 30 years. Michael T. Coe and Jonathan A. Foley of the University of Wisconsin-Madison cite a drier climate and high agricultural demands for water as reasons why what was once one of Africa's largest freshwater lakes is shrinking. "Lake Chad was about 25,000 square kilometers in surface area back in 1963," Foley noted. Now the lake is about one-twentieth the size it was in the mid 1960s. Their paper titled "Human and Natural Impacts on the Water Resources of the Lake Chad Basin," is being published today in the American Geophysical Union's Journal of Geophysical Research. In their paper, Coe and Foley used an integrated biosphere model (IBIS) with long time-series climate data. They simulated the exchange of energy, water and carbon dioxide between vegetation, soil and the atmosphere, and tracked the changes in Lake Chad since 1953. They input the data from the biosphere model into a hydrological model and were able to estimate changes in river discharge, the amount of water in wetlands and in Lake Chad. Using model and climate data, Coe and Foley calculate that a 30 percent decrease took place in the lake between 1966 and 1975. Irrigation only accounted for 5 percent of that decrease, with drier conditions accounting for the remainder. They noticed that irrigation demands increased four-fold between 1983 and 1994, accounting for 50 percent of the additional decrease in the size of the lake. "NASA Landsat satellite imagery taken of the lake over the last 30 years really capture the model conclusions and visualize them very well," the researchers noted. Lake Chad and the Chari/Logone river system, which transports 90 percent of the runoff generated in the area basin, are important water resources for the local population. The lake is 820 feet (250 m) above sea level and is shared by Chad, Cameroon, Nigeria and Niger. Lake Chad has always undergone seasonal and inter-annual fluctuations because it is less than 23 feet (7 m) deep. In recent decades, during wet periods the lake expands up to 10,000 square miles (25,900 square km). The warming climate and increasing desertification in the surrounding Sahel region have dropped water levels far below the average dry season level of 4,000 square miles (10,000 square km) to only 839 square miles (1,350 square km). The Northern Africa Sahel region has experienced numerous devastating droughts over the last three decades. "Climate data has shown a great decrease in rainfall since the early 1960's largely due to a decrease in the number of large rainfall events," Coe said.



:rolleyes:

I don't know who this judge llistens to, but it doesn't appear to be scientists. It's not all AGW to blame, but that's part of the problem. It's like a four legged table. You take off one leg, and it will probably get a bit wobbly, but still stay up if you help it a bit. You take away another leg, and you know it will fall down. The climate determines so much of what happens to the world and it's eco systems. You add global warming into the usual problems that occur, and it tips systems over the edge, or makes a problem even worse.

[a_unique_person]

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.


There is the issue, but it doesn't mean Gore is wrong. With all these issues, global warming is one more factor that an ecosystem has to contend with. It's like the case of someone going to hospital with an asthma attack. There are plenty of treatments they can use. What if that person has a heart condition too? Suddenly, things are a lot more complex and delicate. It's the same with the reefs, Kilimanjaro, tropical storms, polar bears, sea levels, low lying islands, Lake Chad. Climate is pervasive, everything is affected by it. It's Global Warming that's the issue, simultaneously, every person in every country will be coping with change and damaged eco systems.

[Soapy Sam]

Let's face it. We do not know with 100% certainty what parts of Gore's argument are right and which are wrong. Probably he is part right about most of it and part wrong.
Time will tell.

It's a damnably complex issue , even for the scientists best qualified to comment .
It must be nigh on impossible for a judge.

[mhaze]

Let's face it. We do not know with 100% certainty what parts of Gore's argument are right and which are wrong. Probably he is part right about most of it and part wrong.
Time will tell.

It's a damnably complex issue , even for the scientists best qualified to comment .
It must be nigh on impossible for a judge.

Actually, I think the discussion misses one very important point. Just as Durbin with the Great Global Warming Swindle was criticized about one graph with an error, then he quickly fixed, it, edited the video with the correction. And apologized for the oversight.

The burden is on Gore to fix his errors and "oversights". Not having done so, as science progresses, is problematic and leads to things such as this very thread and the court case over the inaccurate data.

[JonWhite]

A High Court judge who ruled on whether climate change film, An Inconvenient Truth, could be shown in schools said it contains "nine scientific errors".
Mr Justice Burton said the government could still send Al Gore's film to schools - if accompanied by guidance giving the other side of the argument.

A Kent school governor wanted the film banned from secondary schools.

The judge said nine statements in the film were not supported by current mainstream scientific consensus.


Now if only they would apply the same standards of support by mainstream scientific consensus to the promotion of religion in our schools... :rolleyes:

[Safe-Keeper]

"Fear as a weapon"? Please. Every new report seems to suggest that the scientists have been conservative in their estimates almost every step of the way. :cool:Of course. The media, on the other hand, as well as many environmentalists, have been known to... how to put it... use fear as a tool. Of course, the media loves to use fear as a tool and did so long before the AGW scare.