The timing is interesting.
British Court Ruling on Errors in 'An Inconvenient Truth' Resurrects Global Warming Debate
A new story just popped on ABC News that has been described as
An Inconvenient Verdict for Al Gore.
I'd really hoped this debate was over. And yet this is making the rounds, and I was alerted to it from a member of my progressive community that believe it is true.
The verdict couldn't have come at a less convenient time for Al Gore.
One day before Friday's announcement that he was a co-winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, a British High Court judge ruled that Gore's global warming film, "An Inconvenient Truth," while "broadly accurate," contained nine significant errors.
The list follows. I don't believe a judge has the cred to make these judgements (in principle). And I suspect each of these findings could probably be explained by those far better able that I to refute them.
The Alleged Errors Highlighted by High Court Judge Michael Burton:
1.) The sea level will rise up to 20 feet because of the melting of either West Antarctica or Greenland in the near future. (This "Armageddon scenario" would only take place over thousands of years, the judge wrote.)
2.) Some low-lying Pacific islands have been so inundated with water that their citizens have all had to evacuate to New Zealand. ("There is no evidence of any such evacuation having yet happened.")
3.) Global warming will shut down the "ocean conveyor," by which the Gulf Stream moves across the North Atlantic to Western Europe. (According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, "it is very unlikely that the Ocean Conveyor will shut down in the future...")
4.) There is a direct coincidence between the rise in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the rise in temperature over the last 650,000 years. ("Although there is general scientific agreement that there is a connection, the two graphs do not establish what Mr. Gore asserts.")
5.) The disappearance of the snows on Mount Kilimanjaro is expressly attributable to global warming. ("However, it is common ground that, the scientific consensus is that it cannot be established that the recession of snows on Mount. Kilimanjaro is mainly attributable to human-induced climate change.")
6.) The drying up of Lake Chad is a prime example of a catastrophic result of global warming. ("It is generally accepted that the evidence remains insufficient to establish such an attribution" and may be more likely the effect of population increase, overgrazing and regional climate variability.)
7.) Hurricane Katrina and the consequent devastation in New Orleans is because of global warming. ("It is common ground that there is insufficient evidence to show that.")
8.) Polar bears are drowning because they have to swim long distances to find ice. ("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.")
9.) Coral reefs all over the world are bleaching because of global warming and other factors. ("Separating the impacts of stresses due to climate change from other stresses, such as overfishing and pollution, was difficult.")
There was an excellent diary recently (Global Warming: Scientific Consensus Proved Wrong) that addressed how the even the science was too optimistic.
So sad that we are fiddling while Rome burns.
Update: Link to an analysis of the verdict, error by error, by a scientist.