BRITISH JUDGE QUESTIONS SOME OF GORE'S ARGUMENTS IN FILM
GUARDIAN - Al Gore's Oscar-winning documentary on global warming, An
Inconvenient Truth, was yesterday criticized by a high court judge who
highlighted what he said were "nine scientific errors" in the film. Mr
Justice Barton yesterday said that while the film was "broadly accurate"
in its presentation of climate change, he identified nine significant
errors in the film, some of which, he said, had arisen in "the context
of alarmism and exaggeration" to support the former US vice-president's
views on climate change. .
The judge ruled that the film can still be shown in schools, as part of
a climate change resources pack, but only if it is accompanied by fresh
guidance notes to balance Mr Gore's "one-sided" views. The "apocalyptic
vision" presented in the film was not an impartial analysis of the
science of climate change, he said.
The judge also said it might be necessary for the Department of
Children, Schools and Families to make clear to teachers some of Mr
Gore's views were not supported or promoted by the government, and there
was "a view to the contrary".
He said he had viewed the film and described it as "powerful,
dramatically presented and highly professionally produced", built around
the "charismatic presence" of Mr Gore, "whose crusade it now is to
persuade the world of the dangers of climate change".
The nine points:
- The film claimed that low-lying inhabited Pacific atolls "are being
inundated because of anthropogenic global warming" - but there was no
evidence of any evacuation occurring
- It spoke of global warming "shutting down the ocean conveyor" - the
process by which the gulf stream is carried over the north Atlantic to
western Europe. The judge said that, according to the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change, it was "very unlikely" that the conveyor would
shut down in the future, though it might slow down
- Mr Gore had also claimed - 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". The judge said
although scientists agreed there was a connection, "the two graphs do
not establish what Mr Gore asserts"
- Mr Gore said the disappearance of snow on Mt Kilimanjaro was expressly
attributable to human-induced climate change. The judge said the
consensus was that that could not be established
- The drying up of Lake Chad was used as an example of global warming.
The judge said: "It is apparently considered to be more likely to result
from ... population increase, over-grazing and regional climate
variability"
- Mr Gore ascribed Hurricane Katrina to global warming, but there was
"insufficient evidence to show that"
- Mr Gore also referred to a study showing that polar bears were being
found that had drowned "swimming long distances 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"
- The film said that coral reefs all over the world were bleaching
because of global warming and other factors. The judge said separating
the impacts of stresses due to climate change from other stresses, such
as over-fishing, and pollution, was difficult