Inconvenient Truth
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7040370.stm
I have spent much of the last two decades of my journalistic life warning about the potential dangers of
climate change, but when I first watched Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth I felt a flutter of unease.
Not because the central message - that climate change is happening and almost certainly caused by
mankind - is untrue; but because in several points of the film, Mr Gore simply goes too far by asserting
or implying facts that are contentious.
...and later...
The vice-president cleverly lures the viewer into making the calculation that CO2 drove historical climate
change by presenting graphs and asking the audience if they fit.
The movie is product of a political debate - as is the court case.
Well, the graphs do fit - but what Mr Gore fails to mention in the film is that mainstream scientists believe
that historically the temperature shifted due to our changing relationship with the Sun, with warmer
climes unlocking CO2 from the oceans, which amplified global temperature rise.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/soundoff/comment.asp?articleID=335254&source=mypi
Posted by CommonSenseSeattle at 10/12/07 7:37 a.m.
Entirely consistent with the downfall of the Nobel Peace Price.
Al Gore wins because he makes a movie that has factual errors, misleads the public, and terrorizes
elementary school children who now have nightmares that their world is ending. Al Gore joins Nobel
prize winner Yassar Arafat, a real murderer and terrorist. Gore also joins Nobel prize winner Jimmy
Carter, the worst president in history, an anti-semite, anti-american, terrorist sympathizer, reposonible
for putting the Mullahs in power in Iran.
climatesci.atmos.colostate.edu
http://www.denverpost.com/harsanyi/ci_3899807
Dr. William Gray
Gray is skeptical of current theories of anthropogenic global warming.
He has written:
Despite the global warming of the sea surface of about 0.3 C that has taken place over the last 3
decades, the global numbers of hurricanes and their intensity have not shown increases in recent years
[except] for the Atlantic. [1]
On October 12, 2007, the same day that former American Vice President Al Gore and the United
Nations climate panel were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for work related to global warming, Gray
gave a speech at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte criticizing their work. [2] Addressing a
crowd of 300 including meteorology students and professional meteorologists, he stated that humans
were not responsible for the warming of the earth and complained that "We're brainwashing our
children".
Gray explained that a natural cycle of ocean water temperatures - related to the amount of salt in ocean
water - was responsible for the global warming that he acknowledges has taken place. That same cycle
means a period of cooling would begin soon and last for several years.
Gray, whose own annual forecasts of the number of tropical storms and hurricanes are widely
publicized, also said those who had linked global warming to the increased number of hurricanes in
recent years were in error. He cites statistics showing that there were 101 hurricanes from 1900 to 1949,
in a period of cooler global temperature, compared to 83 from 1957 to 2006 when the earth warmed.[3]
"It bothers me that my fellow scientists are not speaking out against something they know is wrong," he
said. "But they also know that they'd never get any grants if they spoke out. I don't care about grants."
The retired Dr. Gray said that his beliefs had made him an outsider in popular science. [4]
ALEX BEAM
MIT's inconvenient scientist
By Alex Beam, Globe Columnist | August 30, 2006
Speech codes are rare in the industrialized, Western democracies. In Germany and Austria, for
instance, it is forbidden to proselytize Nazi ideology or trivialize the Holocaust. Given those countries'
recent histories, that is a restraint on free expression we can live with.
More curious are our own taboos on the subject of global warming. I sat in a roomful of journalists 10
years ago while Stanford climatologist Stephen Schneider lectured us on a big problem in our
profession: soliciting opposing points of view. In the debate over climate change, Schneider said, there
simply was no legitimate opposing view to the scientific consensus that man - made carbon emissions
drive global warming. To suggest or report otherwise, he said, was irresponsible.
Indeed. I attended a week's worth of lectures on global warming at the Chautauqua Institution last
month. Al Gore delivered the kickoff lecture, and, 10 years later, he reiterated Schneider's directive.
There is no science on the other side, Gore inveighed, more than once. Again, the same message: If
you hear tales of doubt, ignore them. They are simply untrue.
I ask you: Are these convincing arguments? And directed at journalists, who are natural questioners and
skeptics, of all people? What happens when you are told not to eat the apple, not to read that book, not
to date that girl? Your interest is piqued, of course. What am I not supposed to know?
Here's the kind of information the ``scientific consensus" types don't want you to read. MIT's Alfred P.
Sloan professor of meteorology Richard Lindzen recently complained about the ``shrill alarmism" of
Gore's movie ``An Inconvenient Truth." Lindzen acknowledges that global warming is real, and he
acknowledges that increased carbon emissions might be causing the warming -- but they also might not.
``We do not understand the natural internal variability of climate change" is one of Lindzen's many
heresies, along with such zingers as ``the Arctic was as warm or warmer in 1940," ``the evidence so far
suggests that the Greenland ice sheet is actually growing on average," and ``Alpine glaciers have been
retreating since the early 19th century, and were advancing for several centuries before that. Since
about 1970, many of the glaciers have stopped retreating and some are now advancing again. And,
frankly, we don't know why."
When Lindzen published similar views in The Wall Street Journal this spring, environmentalist Laurie
David, the wife of comedian Larry David, immediately branded him a ``shill." She resurrected a
shopworn slur first directed against Lindzen by former Globe writer Ross Gelbspan, who called Lindzen
a ``hood ornament" for the fossil fuels industry in a 1995 article in Harper's Magazine.
I decided to check out Lindzen for myself. He wasn't hard to find on the 16th floor of MIT's I.M.
Pei-designed Building 54, and he answered as many questions as I had time to ask. He's no big fan of
Gore's, having suffered through what he calls a ``Star Chamber" Congressional inquisition by the then
senator . He said he accepted $10,000 in expenses and expert witness fees from fossil- fuel types in the
1990s, and has taken none of their money since.
He's smart. He's an effective debater. No wonder the Steve Schneiders and Al Gores of the world don't
want you to hear from him. It's easier to call someone a shill and accuse him of corruption than to
debate him on the merits.
While vacationing in Canada, I spotted a newspaper story that I hadn't seen in the United States. For no
apparent reason, the state of California, Environmental Defense, and the Natural Resources Defense
Council have dragged Lindzen and about 15 other global- warming skeptics into a lawsuit over auto-
emissions standards. California et al . have asked the auto companies to cough up any and all
communications they have had with Lindzen and his colleagues, whose research has been cited in court
documents.
``We know that General Motors has been paying for this fake science exactly as the tobacco companies
did," says ED attorney Jim Marston. If Marston has a scintilla of evidence that Lindzen has been
trafficking in fake science, he should present it to the MIT provost's office. Otherwise, he should shut up.
``This is the criminalization of opposition to global warming," says Lindzen, who adds he has never
communicated with the auto companies involved in the lawsuit. Of course Lindzen isn't a fake scientist,
he's an inconvenient scientist. No wonder you're not supposed to listen to him.
Alex Beam is a Globe columnist. His e-dress is beam@globe.com.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/living/articles/2006/08/30/mits_inconvenient_scientist?mode=PF
Another climatologist which disagrees with Al Gore is Reid Bryson of the University of Wisconsin in
Madison.
The following is from: http://www.sepp.org/Archive/weekwas/2005/Jan.%208.htm
Global Warming? by Reid A. Bryson Ph.D., D.Sc., D.Engr.(1)
The Built-in Nonsense Detector:
Hardly a day goes by without a news article in the paper containing a reference to someone's opinion
about "Global Warming". A quick search of the Internet uncovers literally hundreds of items about
"Global Warming". Issues of atmospheric science journals will normally have at least one article on
climatic change, usually meaning "Global Warming" or some aspect thereof. Whole generations of
graduate students have been trained to believe that we know the main answers about climate change
and only have to work out the details.
Why then do I bother you by introducing this section with such a ludicrous title?
I do it because, as one who has spent many decades studying the subject professionally, I find that
there are enormous gaps in the understanding of those making the most strident claims about climatic
change. In order to read the news rationally, the educated reader needs a few keys to quickly sort the
patently absurd from the possibly correct. I propose to supply some of those keys to give the reader at
least a rudimentary nonsense detector.
Some Common Fallacies
1. The atmospheric warming of the last century is unprecedented and unique. Wrong. There are literally
thousands of papers in the scientific literature with data that shows that the climate has been changing
one way or the other for at least a million years.
2. It is a fact that the warming of the past century was anthropogenic in origin, i.e. man-made and due to
carbon dioxide emission. Wrong. That is a theory for which there is no credible proof. There are a
number of causes of climatic change, and until all causes other than carbon dioxide increase are ruled
out, we cannot attribute the change to carbon dioxide alone.
3. The most important gas with a "greenhouse" effect is carbon dioxide. Wrong. Water vapor is at least
100 times as effective as carbon dioxide, so small variations in water vapor are more important than
large changes in carbon dioxide.
4. One cannot argue with the computer models that predict the effect of a doubling of carbon dioxide or
other "greenhouse gasses". Wrong. To show this we must show that the computer models can at least
duplicate the present-day climate. This they cannot do with what could be called accuracy by any stretch
of the imagination. There are studies that show that the average error in modeling present precipitation
is on the order of 100%, and the error in modeling present temperature is about the same size as the
predicted change due to a doubling of carbon dioxide. For many areas the precipitation error is 300-400
percent.
5. I am arguing that the carbon dioxide measurements are poorly done. Wrong. The measurements are
well done, but the interpretation of them is often less than acceptably scientific.
6. It is the consensus of scientists in general that carbon dioxide induced warming of the climate is a
fact. Probably wrong. I know of no vote having been taken, and know that if such a vote were taken of
those who are most vocal about the matter, it would include a significant fraction of people who do not
know enough about climate to have a significant opinion. Taking a vote is a risky way to discover
scientific truth.
So What Can We Say about Global Warming?
We can say that the Earth has most probably warmed in the past century. We cannot say what part of
that warming was due to mankind's addition of "greenhouse gases" until we consider the other possible
factors, such as aerosols. The aerosol content of the atmosphere was measured during the past
century, but to my knowledge this data was never used.
We can say that the question of anthropogenic modification of the climate is an important question -- too
important to ignore. However, it has now become a media free-for-all and a political issue more than a
scientific problem. What a change from 1968 when I gave a paper at a national scientific meeting and
was laughed at for suggesting that people could possibly change the climate! (2)
1 Emeritus Professor of Meteorology, of Geography and of Environmental Studies. Senior Scientist,
Center for Climatic Research, The Gaylord Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies (Founding
Director), the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
2. Bryson, R. A. and W. M. Wendland, 1968: "Climatic Effects of Atmospheric Pollution," in Proceedings
of AAAS Annual Meeting, Global Effects of Environmental Pollution (Singer, ed.), pp. 130-138, Dallas,
Texas, December 26-31, 1968. Also as "Climatic Effects of Atmospheric Pollution," S. Fred Singer (ed.),
1970; The Changing Global Environment, pp. 139-147, 1975.
They call this a consensus?
Lawrence Solomon, Financial Post
Published: Saturday, June 02, 2007
http://www.financialpost.com/story.html?id=c47c1209-233b-412c-b6d1-5c755457a8af
www.theclimatebet.com
Christopher Monckton, in his speech at the Cambridge Union in 2007, provided a point-by-point audit of
the inputs to the predictions made by Al Gore in An Inconvenient Truth. The speech, with question and
answer session, is available on DVD from the Science and Public Policy Institute site.
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/apocalypseno-dvd.html
Ian Miller, who wrote the book: "The Real Inconvenient Truth: Seven Environmental Catastrophes
Liberals Don't Want You to Know About." I know one of them was the DDT deal. He also talked about
how awful Gore's message has been - the poor Inuits are being overtaken by polar bears (the
population has grown from 10,000 in the 1960s (I think) to over 25,000 now). The polar bear was just
designated as being an endangered species, so the Alaskans have to put up with them being in their
garbage dumps, etc, because they are searching for food because they have overrun their natural
habitat. But, the poor things are floating on ice floes with nowhere to go, right??
I also heard a while back that the gal who created those "ice floes" for Gore's movie made them out of
styrofoam, and recently admitted it.
Climatebot
Next
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7040370.stm
I have spent much of the last two decades of my journalistic life warning about the potential dangers of
climate change, but when I first watched Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth I felt a flutter of unease.
Not because the central message - that climate change is happening and almost certainly caused by
mankind - is untrue; but because in several points of the film, Mr Gore simply goes too far by asserting
or implying facts that are contentious.
...and later...
The vice-president cleverly lures the viewer into making the calculation that CO2 drove historical climate
change by presenting graphs and asking the audience if they fit.
The movie is product of a political debate - as is the court case.
Well, the graphs do fit - but what Mr Gore fails to mention in the film is that mainstream scientists believe
that historically the temperature shifted due to our changing relationship with the Sun, with warmer
climes unlocking CO2 from the oceans, which amplified global temperature rise.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/soundoff/comment.asp?articleID=335254&source=mypi
Posted by CommonSenseSeattle at 10/12/07 7:37 a.m.
Entirely consistent with the downfall of the Nobel Peace Price.
Al Gore wins because he makes a movie that has factual errors, misleads the public, and terrorizes
elementary school children who now have nightmares that their world is ending. Al Gore joins Nobel
prize winner Yassar Arafat, a real murderer and terrorist. Gore also joins Nobel prize winner Jimmy
Carter, the worst president in history, an anti-semite, anti-american, terrorist sympathizer, reposonible
for putting the Mullahs in power in Iran.
climatesci.atmos.colostate.edu
http://www.denverpost.com/harsanyi/ci_3899807
Dr. William Gray
Gray is skeptical of current theories of anthropogenic global warming.
He has written:
Despite the global warming of the sea surface of about 0.3 C that has taken place over the last 3
decades, the global numbers of hurricanes and their intensity have not shown increases in recent years
[except] for the Atlantic. [1]
On October 12, 2007, the same day that former American Vice President Al Gore and the United
Nations climate panel were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for work related to global warming, Gray
gave a speech at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte criticizing their work. [2] Addressing a
crowd of 300 including meteorology students and professional meteorologists, he stated that humans
were not responsible for the warming of the earth and complained that "We're brainwashing our
children".
Gray explained that a natural cycle of ocean water temperatures - related to the amount of salt in ocean
water - was responsible for the global warming that he acknowledges has taken place. That same cycle
means a period of cooling would begin soon and last for several years.
Gray, whose own annual forecasts of the number of tropical storms and hurricanes are widely
publicized, also said those who had linked global warming to the increased number of hurricanes in
recent years were in error. He cites statistics showing that there were 101 hurricanes from 1900 to 1949,
in a period of cooler global temperature, compared to 83 from 1957 to 2006 when the earth warmed.[3]
"It bothers me that my fellow scientists are not speaking out against something they know is wrong," he
said. "But they also know that they'd never get any grants if they spoke out. I don't care about grants."
The retired Dr. Gray said that his beliefs had made him an outsider in popular science. [4]
ALEX BEAM
MIT's inconvenient scientist
By Alex Beam, Globe Columnist | August 30, 2006
Speech codes are rare in the industrialized, Western democracies. In Germany and Austria, for
instance, it is forbidden to proselytize Nazi ideology or trivialize the Holocaust. Given those countries'
recent histories, that is a restraint on free expression we can live with.
More curious are our own taboos on the subject of global warming. I sat in a roomful of journalists 10
years ago while Stanford climatologist Stephen Schneider lectured us on a big problem in our
profession: soliciting opposing points of view. In the debate over climate change, Schneider said, there
simply was no legitimate opposing view to the scientific consensus that man - made carbon emissions
drive global warming. To suggest or report otherwise, he said, was irresponsible.
Indeed. I attended a week's worth of lectures on global warming at the Chautauqua Institution last
month. Al Gore delivered the kickoff lecture, and, 10 years later, he reiterated Schneider's directive.
There is no science on the other side, Gore inveighed, more than once. Again, the same message: If
you hear tales of doubt, ignore them. They are simply untrue.
I ask you: Are these convincing arguments? And directed at journalists, who are natural questioners and
skeptics, of all people? What happens when you are told not to eat the apple, not to read that book, not
to date that girl? Your interest is piqued, of course. What am I not supposed to know?
Here's the kind of information the ``scientific consensus" types don't want you to read. MIT's Alfred P.
Sloan professor of meteorology Richard Lindzen recently complained about the ``shrill alarmism" of
Gore's movie ``An Inconvenient Truth." Lindzen acknowledges that global warming is real, and he
acknowledges that increased carbon emissions might be causing the warming -- but they also might not.
``We do not understand the natural internal variability of climate change" is one of Lindzen's many
heresies, along with such zingers as ``the Arctic was as warm or warmer in 1940," ``the evidence so far
suggests that the Greenland ice sheet is actually growing on average," and ``Alpine glaciers have been
retreating since the early 19th century, and were advancing for several centuries before that. Since
about 1970, many of the glaciers have stopped retreating and some are now advancing again. And,
frankly, we don't know why."
When Lindzen published similar views in The Wall Street Journal this spring, environmentalist Laurie
David, the wife of comedian Larry David, immediately branded him a ``shill." She resurrected a
shopworn slur first directed against Lindzen by former Globe writer Ross Gelbspan, who called Lindzen
a ``hood ornament" for the fossil fuels industry in a 1995 article in Harper's Magazine.
I decided to check out Lindzen for myself. He wasn't hard to find on the 16th floor of MIT's I.M.
Pei-designed Building 54, and he answered as many questions as I had time to ask. He's no big fan of
Gore's, having suffered through what he calls a ``Star Chamber" Congressional inquisition by the then
senator . He said he accepted $10,000 in expenses and expert witness fees from fossil- fuel types in the
1990s, and has taken none of their money since.
He's smart. He's an effective debater. No wonder the Steve Schneiders and Al Gores of the world don't
want you to hear from him. It's easier to call someone a shill and accuse him of corruption than to
debate him on the merits.
While vacationing in Canada, I spotted a newspaper story that I hadn't seen in the United States. For no
apparent reason, the state of California, Environmental Defense, and the Natural Resources Defense
Council have dragged Lindzen and about 15 other global- warming skeptics into a lawsuit over auto-
emissions standards. California et al . have asked the auto companies to cough up any and all
communications they have had with Lindzen and his colleagues, whose research has been cited in court
documents.
``We know that General Motors has been paying for this fake science exactly as the tobacco companies
did," says ED attorney Jim Marston. If Marston has a scintilla of evidence that Lindzen has been
trafficking in fake science, he should present it to the MIT provost's office. Otherwise, he should shut up.
``This is the criminalization of opposition to global warming," says Lindzen, who adds he has never
communicated with the auto companies involved in the lawsuit. Of course Lindzen isn't a fake scientist,
he's an inconvenient scientist. No wonder you're not supposed to listen to him.
Alex Beam is a Globe columnist. His e-dress is beam@globe.com.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/living/articles/2006/08/30/mits_inconvenient_scientist?mode=PF
Another climatologist which disagrees with Al Gore is Reid Bryson of the University of Wisconsin in
Madison.
The following is from: http://www.sepp.org/Archive/weekwas/2005/Jan.%208.htm
Global Warming? by Reid A. Bryson Ph.D., D.Sc., D.Engr.(1)
The Built-in Nonsense Detector:
Hardly a day goes by without a news article in the paper containing a reference to someone's opinion
about "Global Warming". A quick search of the Internet uncovers literally hundreds of items about
"Global Warming". Issues of atmospheric science journals will normally have at least one article on
climatic change, usually meaning "Global Warming" or some aspect thereof. Whole generations of
graduate students have been trained to believe that we know the main answers about climate change
and only have to work out the details.
Why then do I bother you by introducing this section with such a ludicrous title?
I do it because, as one who has spent many decades studying the subject professionally, I find that
there are enormous gaps in the understanding of those making the most strident claims about climatic
change. In order to read the news rationally, the educated reader needs a few keys to quickly sort the
patently absurd from the possibly correct. I propose to supply some of those keys to give the reader at
least a rudimentary nonsense detector.
Some Common Fallacies
1. The atmospheric warming of the last century is unprecedented and unique. Wrong. There are literally
thousands of papers in the scientific literature with data that shows that the climate has been changing
one way or the other for at least a million years.
2. It is a fact that the warming of the past century was anthropogenic in origin, i.e. man-made and due to
carbon dioxide emission. Wrong. That is a theory for which there is no credible proof. There are a
number of causes of climatic change, and until all causes other than carbon dioxide increase are ruled
out, we cannot attribute the change to carbon dioxide alone.
3. The most important gas with a "greenhouse" effect is carbon dioxide. Wrong. Water vapor is at least
100 times as effective as carbon dioxide, so small variations in water vapor are more important than
large changes in carbon dioxide.
4. One cannot argue with the computer models that predict the effect of a doubling of carbon dioxide or
other "greenhouse gasses". Wrong. To show this we must show that the computer models can at least
duplicate the present-day climate. This they cannot do with what could be called accuracy by any stretch
of the imagination. There are studies that show that the average error in modeling present precipitation
is on the order of 100%, and the error in modeling present temperature is about the same size as the
predicted change due to a doubling of carbon dioxide. For many areas the precipitation error is 300-400
percent.
5. I am arguing that the carbon dioxide measurements are poorly done. Wrong. The measurements are
well done, but the interpretation of them is often less than acceptably scientific.
6. It is the consensus of scientists in general that carbon dioxide induced warming of the climate is a
fact. Probably wrong. I know of no vote having been taken, and know that if such a vote were taken of
those who are most vocal about the matter, it would include a significant fraction of people who do not
know enough about climate to have a significant opinion. Taking a vote is a risky way to discover
scientific truth.
So What Can We Say about Global Warming?
We can say that the Earth has most probably warmed in the past century. We cannot say what part of
that warming was due to mankind's addition of "greenhouse gases" until we consider the other possible
factors, such as aerosols. The aerosol content of the atmosphere was measured during the past
century, but to my knowledge this data was never used.
We can say that the question of anthropogenic modification of the climate is an important question -- too
important to ignore. However, it has now become a media free-for-all and a political issue more than a
scientific problem. What a change from 1968 when I gave a paper at a national scientific meeting and
was laughed at for suggesting that people could possibly change the climate! (2)
1 Emeritus Professor of Meteorology, of Geography and of Environmental Studies. Senior Scientist,
Center for Climatic Research, The Gaylord Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies (Founding
Director), the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
2. Bryson, R. A. and W. M. Wendland, 1968: "Climatic Effects of Atmospheric Pollution," in Proceedings
of AAAS Annual Meeting, Global Effects of Environmental Pollution (Singer, ed.), pp. 130-138, Dallas,
Texas, December 26-31, 1968. Also as "Climatic Effects of Atmospheric Pollution," S. Fred Singer (ed.),
1970; The Changing Global Environment, pp. 139-147, 1975.
They call this a consensus?
Lawrence Solomon, Financial Post
Published: Saturday, June 02, 2007
http://www.financialpost.com/story.html?id=c47c1209-233b-412c-b6d1-5c755457a8af
www.theclimatebet.com
Christopher Monckton, in his speech at the Cambridge Union in 2007, provided a point-by-point audit of
the inputs to the predictions made by Al Gore in An Inconvenient Truth. The speech, with question and
answer session, is available on DVD from the Science and Public Policy Institute site.
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/apocalypseno-dvd.html
Ian Miller, who wrote the book: "The Real Inconvenient Truth: Seven Environmental Catastrophes
Liberals Don't Want You to Know About." I know one of them was the DDT deal. He also talked about
how awful Gore's message has been - the poor Inuits are being overtaken by polar bears (the
population has grown from 10,000 in the 1960s (I think) to over 25,000 now). The polar bear was just
designated as being an endangered species, so the Alaskans have to put up with them being in their
garbage dumps, etc, because they are searching for food because they have overrun their natural
habitat. But, the poor things are floating on ice floes with nowhere to go, right??
I also heard a while back that the gal who created those "ice floes" for Gore's movie made them out of
styrofoam, and recently admitted it.
Climatebot
Next
Climatebot
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