Inconvenient Lies
I am watching Al Gore's movie on Showtime HD.
It is incredibly dishonest.
He shows the 650K-year graph of CO2 and temperature, and says CO2 increases cause temperature increases, when in fact we don't know that, and in fact the temperature rises sometimes preceded the CO2 increases.
He said, "When I was in Antarctica I saw [ice core samples] ... and the guy looked at it. He said right here is where the US Congress passed the Clean Air Act. ... you can see the difference with the naked eye. Just a couple of years after that law was passed, it's very clearly distinguishable." There is no truth to that claim. He may have seen a discoloration of some kind, but there's no science to attribute that to changes in CO2 or pollutant levels in the atompshere, let alone to the Clean Air Act.
(I had not heard this claim of Gore's until tonight, and I literally laughed out loud when he said it. I Googled it, and thankfully, others had picked up on it long before I saw it.)
One of my favorites is when he said, "of course, when the oceans get warmer, that causes stronger storms." He even blamed Katrina on global warming, because, you see, the storm picked up speed when it hit the warmer waters of the gulf, which would not have have been so warm without global warming! And look at all the devastation global warming caused! Except, of course, that the devastation was primarily the direct result of poor human engineering and planning, but more importantly, his science is incredibly misleading: it is the difference in temperature that fuels storm strength, and if both air and water temperature increase proportionately, then there's no reason to think that storm strength will increase as a result.
I am only a half hour into the movie and I am bored with its propaganda. The main theme, of course, is that Gore really does not have the science to back up his claims. That's why he does not superimpose the CO2 and temperature graphs, so you can't easily see temperature rises precede CO2 rises. But it doesn't stop him from flat-out claiming what science cannot claim: that CO2 increases are causing temperature increases.
Part of Gore's introduction in the movie is telling, I think:
Yes, because good scientists "intuit." I don't mean to demean Mr. Revelle, who may be a fully competent scientist. But then as now, we do not have the actual science to make the claims that CO2 is causing global warming, or even that man is causing CO2 increases. We just don't have the science. But we can feel it!
And the real thing of it is that while not having proof is not necessarily a terrible problem for scientists, it is in this case, because there is conflicting evidence. If all the evidence pointed to anthropogenic global warming, maybe it would not matter that science cannot prove it. But there is conflicting evidence, and a lot of it (not to mention alternate theories that do not suffer the problem of conflicting evidence).
The current mainstream global warming theory is a good theory, but it is simply far from proven. We have a theory about causes and effects, and most of the data fits the theory, so we say, "it must be right." That's not proof. I think maybe we pick that theory because we want to feel like we can do something, and it's one of the only theories that gives the potential for that opportunity. But whatever the reasons, we just do not know.
So Gore has to display the graphs in a deceptive way and lie about what they say. He has to claim he can "see" the difference in the core samples with his "naked eye." Because despite what Gore says, the debate is not over. Among real scientists, among intelligent and open-minded people, the debate continues.
It is incredibly dishonest.
He shows the 650K-year graph of CO2 and temperature, and says CO2 increases cause temperature increases, when in fact we don't know that, and in fact the temperature rises sometimes preceded the CO2 increases.
He said, "When I was in Antarctica I saw [ice core samples] ... and the guy looked at it. He said right here is where the US Congress passed the Clean Air Act. ... you can see the difference with the naked eye. Just a couple of years after that law was passed, it's very clearly distinguishable." There is no truth to that claim. He may have seen a discoloration of some kind, but there's no science to attribute that to changes in CO2 or pollutant levels in the atompshere, let alone to the Clean Air Act.
(I had not heard this claim of Gore's until tonight, and I literally laughed out loud when he said it. I Googled it, and thankfully, others had picked up on it long before I saw it.)
One of my favorites is when he said, "of course, when the oceans get warmer, that causes stronger storms." He even blamed Katrina on global warming, because, you see, the storm picked up speed when it hit the warmer waters of the gulf, which would not have have been so warm without global warming! And look at all the devastation global warming caused! Except, of course, that the devastation was primarily the direct result of poor human engineering and planning, but more importantly, his science is incredibly misleading: it is the difference in temperature that fuels storm strength, and if both air and water temperature increase proportionately, then there's no reason to think that storm strength will increase as a result.
I am only a half hour into the movie and I am bored with its propaganda. The main theme, of course, is that Gore really does not have the science to back up his claims. That's why he does not superimpose the CO2 and temperature graphs, so you can't easily see temperature rises precede CO2 rises. But it doesn't stop him from flat-out claiming what science cannot claim: that CO2 increases are causing temperature increases.
Part of Gore's introduction in the movie is telling, I think:
I had a college professor named Roger Revelle who was the first person to have the idea to measure the amount of carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere. He saw where the story was going. After the first few years of data, he intuited what is meant, for what is yet to come.
Yes, because good scientists "intuit." I don't mean to demean Mr. Revelle, who may be a fully competent scientist. But then as now, we do not have the actual science to make the claims that CO2 is causing global warming, or even that man is causing CO2 increases. We just don't have the science. But we can feel it!
And the real thing of it is that while not having proof is not necessarily a terrible problem for scientists, it is in this case, because there is conflicting evidence. If all the evidence pointed to anthropogenic global warming, maybe it would not matter that science cannot prove it. But there is conflicting evidence, and a lot of it (not to mention alternate theories that do not suffer the problem of conflicting evidence).
The current mainstream global warming theory is a good theory, but it is simply far from proven. We have a theory about causes and effects, and most of the data fits the theory, so we say, "it must be right." That's not proof. I think maybe we pick that theory because we want to feel like we can do something, and it's one of the only theories that gives the potential for that opportunity. But whatever the reasons, we just do not know.
So Gore has to display the graphs in a deceptive way and lie about what they say. He has to claim he can "see" the difference in the core samples with his "naked eye." Because despite what Gore says, the debate is not over. Among real scientists, among intelligent and open-minded people, the debate continues.
"It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt."
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