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PrintJuly 14, 2009
Clearly It's Al Gore Who's In Denial
In the past we’ve questioned former Vice President Al Gore’s honesty (Gore's Deceptive Rolling Stone Interview); his use of intimidation tactics and character assassination to promote his lies (Gore's Grave New World); his proclivity for championing policy based wholly on erroneous facts (Gore Celebrates Israel's 60th With Whoppers) and, ultimately, his very soundness of mind (Al Gore's Global Warming Therapy). So comments he made to an Australian reporter last weekend which betrayed an evident disconnect with reality, while certainly mind-boggling, were by no means astonishing.
During a Melbourne interview discussing his trip down-under to pressure the Rudd government toward carbon emissions trading legislation (h/t Climate Depot), Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Heather Ewart forced Gore to do something from a distance he has steadfastly refused to do face-to-face --- address his growing hordes of detractors:
HEATHER EWART: When you were last visiting Australia, you were riding high on the success of your documentary 'Inconvenient Truth'. What has happened since then though is there have been a number of respected scientists who have suggested that perhaps you've been a little too alarmist and loose with the facts. Has that dented the credibility in any sense of what you're on about?
AL GORE: I don't agree with that assessment. I think that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which is the world scientific authority on this issue, has been saying exactly the same things that I have been saying.
Of course, as a colossal group of U.N. bureaucrats controlling a substantially smaller group of rented scientists, the only thing the IPCC is the world authority on is the corrupting of climate science for political gain. As we’ve reported time and time again, the latest IPCC synthesis report, much-hyped-and-hallowed by alarmists and media-drones alike, represents the combined work of only 52 UN scientists -- as carefully cherry-picked as they were micromanaged. Surely, the 255-page U.S. Senate Minority Report containing the IPCC-countering findings of more than 13 times that number (now over 700 dissenting -- including many current and former U.N. IPCC -- scientists) holds more authoritative weight to climate realists.
Okay, so Ewart wasn’t about to challenge the exalted IPCC’s scientific standing, but she did indirectly challenge Gore’s claim that the U.N panel was on board with the imminent planetary destruction depicted in his film:
“There was also, though, a British judge who ruled that there were in fact, I think, nine errors when it was challenged in court?”
And Gore’s response was that of a man in complete denial:
“Well, the ruling was in my favor. There have been a number of deniers trying to say that this isn't real. Of course there are always going to be that, but the overwhelming majority of the scientists who've looked at this have said, ‘We've got to confront this.’"
In his favor? In October of 2007, the British High Court found that Gore’s film “represents 'partisan political views' and must be treated as such by teachers in British schools.” The judge mandated that teachers wishing to project the film in class must inform students that “some of Mr. Gore's views were not supported or promoted by the Government, and there was ‘a view to the contrary’".
The decision was based on Mr. Justice Burton’s assessment that the film included at least nine errors “in which statements were made that were not supported by the current mainstream scientific consensus.” The judge labeled Gore’s predictions of sea-level rise of up to 20 feet “distinctly alarmist.” Even the IPCC projected a far less catastrophic global mean sea level rise of between 0.09 and 0.88 meters from 1990 to 2100. He questioned the warning that “low-lying inhabited Pacific atolls are being inundated because of anthropogenic global warming," as there “was no evidence of any evacuation having yet happened.” Also challenged were the film’s claims that global warming had caused Hurricane Katrina, polar bear drowning, Central Africa's Lake Chad to dry up, and the disappearance of snow on Mt Kilimanjaro.
And in two of his challenges, the judge directly quoted the same IPCC that Gore claims says “exactly the same things” he does. The movie warned of global warming "shutting down the [Meridional Overturning Circulation] Ocean Conveyor," the process by which the Gulf Stream is carried over the North Atlantic to western Europe. But Burton pointed out that the IPCC found such an event to be "very unlikely."
The movie also stated that global warming was bleaching coral reefs all over the world. Burton again cited the IPCC’s report that such bleaching would occur only if coral failed to adapt, a point somehow omitted by Gore.
The initial court action was initiated by a father-of-two who accused the Government of "brainwashing" children with propaganda by presenting Gore’s sci-fi film as science. The judge’s ruling, as described today by attorney John Day, who represented the plaintiff, found "An Inconvenient Truth wasn't fit to be shown in British schools without suitably corrected guidance which drew attention to the errors in the film and its political partisanship."
The IPCC agrees with him? The British Court ruling was in his favor?
From where does he muster the unmitigated gall to refer to tens of thousands of skeptical scientists and a growing majority of unalarmed Americans as the deniers?
