Advocate wrote:Gore has done an invaluable job in publicizing a very important point of view.
I agree, what he has done is publicizing an important pov. An important but bogus pov. Like food manufacturer publicizing the efficiency of their fat trimming diets.
Here are some points that are plainly WRONG in his film. You can reject the credibility of the author if you like, but you can easily check if these critiques or justified or not. Check Al Gore numbers & facts then check the science's numbers & fact. Very easy.
List of Al Gore's distorsions in An Inconvenient Truth
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Claims Thompson's reconstruction of climate history proves the Medieval
Warm Period was "tiny" compared to the warming observed in recent
decades. It doesn't. Four of Thompson's six ice cores indicate that several
decades of the Medieval Warm Period were as warm as or warmer than any
recent decade.
Calls carbon dioxide the "most important greenhouse gas." Water vapor is the
leading contributor to the greenhouse effect.
Claims Venus is too hot and Mars too cold to support life due to differences in
atmospheric CO2 concentrations (they are nearly identical), rather than
differences in atmospheric densities and distances from the Sun (both huge).
Claims scientists have validated the "Hockey Stick" climate reconstruction,
according to which the 1990s were likely the warmest decade of the past
millennium and 1998 the warmest year. It is now widely acknowledged that
the Hockey Stick was built on a flawed methodology and inappropriate data.
Scientists continue to debate whether the Medieval Warm period was warmer
than recent decades.
Assumes that CO2 levels are increasing at roughly 1 percent annually. The
actual rate is half that.
Assumes a linear relationship between CO2 levels and global temperatures,
whereas the actual CO2-warming effect is logarithmic, meaning that the next
100-ppm increase adds less heat than the previous 100-ppm increase.
Claims the rate of global warming is accelerating, whereas the rate has been
constant for the past 30 years?-roughly 0.17°C/decade.
Blames global warming for Europe's killer heat wave of 2003?-an event
caused by an atmospheric circulation anomaly.
Blames global warming for Hurricane Catarina, the first South Atlantic
hurricane on record, which struck Brazil in 2004. Catarina formed not because
the South Atlantic was unusually warm (sea temperatures were cooler than
normal), but because the air was so much colder it produced the same kind of
heat flux from the ocean that fuels hurricanes in warmer waters.
Claims that 2004 set an all-time record for the number of tornadoes in the
United States. Tornado frequency has not increased; rather, the detection of
smaller tornadoes has increased. If we consider the tornadoes that have been
detectable for many decades (F-3 or greater), there is actually a downward
trend since 1950.
Blames global warming for a "mass extinction crisis" that is not, in fact,
occurring.
Blames global warming for the rapid coast-to-coast spread of the West Nile
virus. North America contains nearly all the climate types in the world?-from
hot, dry deserts to boreal forests, to frigid tundra?-a range that dwarfs any
small alteration in temperature or precipitation that may be related to
atmospheric CO2 levels. The virus could not have spread so far so fast, if it
were climate-sensitive.
Cites Tuvalu, Polynesia, as a place where rising sea levels force residents to
evacuate their homes. In reality, sea levels at Tuvalu fell during the latter
of the 20 th century and even during the 1990s, allegedly the warmest decade
of the millennium.
Claims sea level rise could be many times larger and more rapid "depending on the choices we make or do not make now" concerning global warming. Not so. The most aggressive choice America could make now would be to join Europe in implementing the Kyoto Protocol. A leading climate modeler
estimates the treaty would avert only 1 cm of sea level rise by 2050 and 2.5 cm by 2100.
Accuses Exxon Mobil of running a "disinformation campaign" designed to
"reposition global warming as theory, rather than fact," even though two
clicks of the mouse reveal that Exxon Mobil acknowledges global warming as a fact.
Claims Bush hired Phil Cooney to "be in charge" of White House
environmental policy. This must be a surprise to White House Council on
Environmental Quality Chairman James Connaughton, who hired Cooney and was his boss at the CEQ.
Claims the European Union's emission trading system (ETS) is working
"effectively." In fact, the ETS is not reducing emissions and operates as a
wealth transfer scheme.
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