Jennifer Marohasy

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Gore’s Nine Errors in AIT – UK Judge

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The errors are listed in this article:

Judge attacks nine errors in Al Gore’s ‘alarmist’ climate change film

Another brief article here:

Gore hails climate film ruling

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. SJT says

    Hang on, didn’t we already have this topic?

    Why don’t we look at the Mt Kilimanjaro claim.

    from the text of the film, available here

    http://www.hokeg.dyndns.org/AITruth.htm

    ”

    * And now we’re beginning to see the impact in the real world. This is Mount Kilimanjaro 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 studies glaciers. Here’s Lonnie with a sliver of a once mighty glacier. Within the decade there will be no more snows of Kilimanjaro.
    * This is happening in Glacier National Park. 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. 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 there is a particular problem because more than 40% of all the people in the world get their drinking water 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 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 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.”

    Al Gore lists eight glacial areas being affected by warming. The judge rules that one may not be directly atrributable to global warming.

    So what? He got it mostly right, and even then research indicates global warming is partly the cause of the receeding glaciers on Kilimanjaro.

  2. SJT says

    The judge agrees with AGW.

    “Despite finding nine significant errors the judge said many of the claims made by the film were fully backed up by the weight of science. He identified “four main scientific hypotheses, each of which is very well supported by research published in respected, peer-reviewed journals and accords with the latest conclusions of the IPCC”.

    In particular, he agreed with the main thrust of Mr Gore’s arguments: “That climate change is mainly attributable to man-made emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide (‘greenhouse gases’).”

    The other three main points accepted by the judge were that global temperatures are rising and are likely to continue to rise, that climate change will cause serious damage if left unchecked, and that it is entirely possible for governments and individuals to reduce its impacts. ”

    http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/corporate_law/article2633838.ece

  3. Luke says

    Looks like Tim Lambert over at Deltoid has done a mega review on this one:

    http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2007/10/an_error_is_not_the_same_thing.php#more

    Two comments of interest after the loooong rebuttal:

    Stoat: “who also notices that “this judgment has been badly, consistently and lazily reported” and:

    AIT is in some danger of becoming a cuckoo overshadowing what it is supposedly explaining. Skeptics can find it very convenient to attack the film, and thereby pretend they are attacking the basic science.”

    hmmmm

    And of course the Scientific Alliance. Some stuff I never knew.

    Oh yea and Prof Carter in there for some good advice. Gee those New Zealanders are punching well above their weight in the denialist olympics – gold gold gold for NZ.

  4. melaleuca says

    Justice Burton went to great lengths to point out that he wasn’t identifying scientific errors at all. Biggsy is being somewhat less than robust with the truth by claiming otherwise.

  5. James Mayeau says

    Glacier retreat is a proxy for precipitation in all of those cases, not just Kilimanjaro.
    The judge ruled correctly.

    I could just as easily find eight glaciers which have advanced. This proves nothing. Propaganda.

  7. Paul Biggs says

    melaleuca – I’ve provided 2 links to news paper articles, not written by me – about the final court judgement on the Gore film being shown in schools.

    It’s clear – to show the film as is with the intended guidance notes would breach section 406 of the Education Act 1996.

  8. SJT says

    Paul

    did you read Deltoid’s comment? The reference to ‘errors’ was the claimed errors, by the claimant.

    A long list was wittled down to nine ‘errors’, but that is what the claimant called them.

    ”

    Mr Downes produced a long schedule of such alleged errors or exaggerations and waxed lyrical in that regard. It was obviously helpful for me to look at the film with his critique in hand.

    In the event I was persuaded that only some of them were sufficiently persuasive to be relevant for the purposes of his argument, and it was those matters – 9 in all – upon which I invited Mr Chamberlain to concentrate. 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.”

    The ‘errors’ are mostly debatable over the extent to which climate change is responsible. Lake Chad, for example is drying up due to misuse and climate change.

    Al Gore perhaps should have worded his claims better. The film will still be shown. The only ‘error’s that really stand out are sea level and the Gulf Stream. Both are possibilities, and in the context of risk management, should be mentioned. Greenland, if it is just up to melting, will take a long time, but ice shelf collapses are possible and do happen, which could speed up the process significantly.

  11. Luke says

    The only trouble with Lambert is that he says the denialists pegged.

    “Skeptics can find it very convenient to attack the film, and thereby pretend they are attacking the basic science”

  12. rog says

    So anybody who finds Gore partisan is a sceptic?

    This is the fundamental flaw in the whole mess, its a political rant clothed in GW. And the judge found it to be so;

    “AIT promotes partisan political views (that is to say, one sided views about political issues)”

  13. rog says

    Amazing how the press are all over Gore, I guess when he calls the film “An Inconvenient Truth” and a truck driver takes the film to court and the judge finds it to contain untruths…he had it coming to him.

  14. Luke says

    Oh boring – he got knicked for 70 in a 60 zone not dangerous driving. Don’t be a legal alarmist !

    Anyway it’s all a diversion.

  17. chrisgo says

    Congratulations to big Al.
    He joins other worthies like Wangari Maathai, Jimmy Carter, Yasser Arafat, Rigoberta Menchú, Henry A. Kissinger, Anwar Sadat, Cordell Hull, Linus Pauling, Egas Moniz, David Baltimore, Philipp Lenard and William Bradford Shockley.
    However, I admire him more for having the British Government defend a High Court action against a florid ad. for his carbon credit scam.

  19. Luke says

    Come on Rog – it’s a put up job. Dimmock isn’t interested in truth in schools.

    “The BBC did not mention Dimmock’s own political connections: Dimmock is a member of the political group, the New Party. The founder and chair of the New Party is Robert Durward, whose party is so right-wing it has been labeled “fascist” by the Scottish Tories.

    More importantly, there is a cross-fertilisation between the New Party and Durward’s other pet project – he is the founder of the anti-environmental Scientific Alliance. Both the New Party and Scientific Alliance work closely with the PR company Foresight Communications.

    The Alliance is one of the leading sceptic organizations in the UK, that campaigns against climate change, against Al Gore’s film and promotes the heavily criticized alternative film “Great Global Warming Swindle”.

    It has also forged links with skeptics in the US. For example in 2005, the Alliance held a conference on Climate Change called “Apocalypse No: Assessing Catastrophic Climate Change.”

    Leading climate skeptics such as Richard Lindzen, Fred Singer Nils-Axel Morner and Benny Peiser spoke. The keynote speaker was David Bellamy, the British naturalist, who believes climate change is “poppycock”. At the time the Alliance’s Scientific Advisory Forum also included Sallie Baliunas, one of the world’s leading climate sceptics.”

    http://priceofoil.org/2007/10/11/revealed-the-hidden-agenda-behind-al-gore-film-attack/

    Ture or not? Any dissenting views?

  21. Paul Biggs says

    You’re getting carried away again Luke – judgment was made on the basis of the arguments put forward, not who made them, or how it was funded. Going to court is expensive – any suggestions as to where to obtain funding to get justice? It seems you have to go to court to get AIT criticised.

  22. chrisgo says

    ‘David Bellamy, the British naturalist, who believes climate change is “poppycock”.’
    Posted by: Luke at October 12, 2007 08:08 PM
    Uh-uh.
    He said “humans burn[ing] fossil fuels, which release increased levels of carbon dioxide – the principal so-called greenhouse gas – into the atmosphere, causing the atmosphere to heat up” is poppycock.

  24. SJT says

    Did anyone read the judgement?

    # I turn to AIT, the film. The following is clear:

    i) It is substantially founded upon scientific research and fact, albeit that the science is used, in the hands of a talented politician and communicator, to make a political statement and to support a political programme.

    ii) As Mr Chamberlain persuasively sets out at paragraph 11 of his skeleton:

    “The Film advances four main scientific hypotheses, each of which is very well supported by research published in respected, peer-reviewed journals and accords with the latest conclusions of the IPCC:

    (1) global average temperatures have been rising significantly over the past half century and are likely to continue to rise (“climate change”);

    (2) climate change is mainly attributable to man-made emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide (“greenhouse gases”);

    (3) climate change will, if unchecked, have significant adverse effects on the world and its populations; and

    (4) there are measures which individuals and governments can take which will help to reduce climate change or mitigate its effects.”

    These propositions, Mr Chamberlain submits (and I accept), are supported by a vast quantity of research published in peer-reviewed journals worldwide and by the great majority of the world’s climate scientists. Ms Bramman explains, at paragraph 14 of her witness statement, that:

    “The position is that the central scientific theme of Al Gore’s Film is now accepted by the overwhelming majority of the world’s scientific community. That consensus is reflected in the recent report of the IPCC. The role of the IPCC is to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant to understanding the scientific basis of risk of human-induced climate change, its potential impacts and options and adaptation and mitigation. Hundreds of experts from all over the world contribute to the preparation of IPCC reports, including the Working Group I report on Climate Change 2007: The physical Science basis of climate change, published on 2 February 2007 and the most recent Mitigation of Climate Change, the Summary for Policy-makers published by Working Group III on 4 May 2007. A copy of both documents are annexed to the Witness Statement of Dr Peter Stott. The weight of scientific evidence set out by the IPCC confirms that most of the global average warming over the last 50 years is now regarded as “very likely” to be attributable to man-made greenhouse gas emissions.”

    For the purposes of this hearing Mr Downes was prepared to accept that the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report represented the present scientific consensus.

  28. SJT says

    The judge, who people seem to agree with here in his critique of AIT, also accepts the IPCC to be the authority on the matter of AGW.

  29. mccall says

    re: Dr Lambert on “basic science” in climatology? You must be joking?

    He’s even more inept at thermodynamics than Mr Rabett! When he’s therm-stumped on Deltoid, he kicks it to Mr Rabett to save him. That hasn’t worked out for either … thermodynamic blog carnage.

    I’d say, “nice try” — but it wasn’t.

  30. Schiller Thurkettle says

    Why debate this? Everyone knows the Gore film is chock full of lies and evasions.

    That’s why the Nobel is now the equivalent of an Oscar.

  31. SJT says

    Thermodynamics seems to be the meme of the day around the denier blogs.

    I doubt most of those raving on about it would understand what they are even saying.

  32. mccall says

    “… are even saying.”

    How could you tell? It’s obvious, those both ignorant and understanding of thermodynamics are completely safe from the catastrophic AGW interest group. AIT worship is a terrific proxy for this — much higher correlation than BCPs are to temperature (but I digress).

  33. SJT says

    I’m just wondering why the headline for this topic wasn’t.

    “Judge says Gore mostly right”

  37. SJT says

    Did you read that article, Paul?

    “George Monbiot, an environmentalist and critic of Monckton, said: “He is trying to take on the global scientific establishment on the strength of a classics degree from Cambridge.””

    People attack the IPCC and Gore, Monckton thinks he knows better than the scientists.

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