Tuesday 9 October 2007

Bore's baloney battered in British court

Most of you have probably already heard that a British High court found last week, to put it bluntly, that Al Gore's film is little more than political propaganda.

Responding to plaintiff Stewart Dimmock, who objected to the film's "serious scientific inaccuracies, political propaganda and sentimental mush" being shown in British schools, Justice Burton agreed that Al Gore's science fiction climate porn promotes "partisan political views" -- which under British law would normally make it unlawful to show in schools -- and decided that the film may only be shown if the government's guidance notes for the film are rewritten to make clear the film "promotes partisan political views" and contains "eleven serious inaccuracies." Notes the (UK) Daily Telegraph:
The surprise move [to require guidance notes to be rewritten] was a result of concerns voiced by the judge during the hearing that Gore's critically-acclaimed work contained statements about global warming for which there was currently insufficient scientific evidence. The judge also queried whether the film might appear to promote partisan views, rather than provide information about climate change, and thus make showing it in schools - without further efforts to counterbalance it - a breach of the 1996 Education Act [which forbids the showing of partisan political propaganda in schools].
The news and the "eleven serious inaccuracies" will be no surprise to readers of this blog, but it's worth being reminded of the level of deception:
  1. The film claims that melting snows on Mount Kilimanjaro evidence global warming. The Government’s expert was forced to concede that this is not correct.
  2. The film suggests that evidence from ice cores proves that rising CO2 causes temperature increases over 650,000 years. The Court found that the film was misleading: over that period the rises in CO2 lagged behind the temperature rises by 800-2000 years.
  3. The film uses emotive images of Hurricane Katrina and suggests that this has been caused by global warming. The Government’s expert had to accept that it was “not possible” to attribute one-off events to global warming.
  4. The film shows the drying up of Lake Chad and claims that this was caused by global warming. The Government’s expert had to accept that this was not the case.
  5. The film claims that a study showed that polar bears had drowned due to disappearing arctic ice. It turned out that Mr Gore had misread the study: in fact four polar bears drowned and this was because of a particularly violent storm.
  6. The film threatens that global warming could stop the Gulf Stream throwing Europe into an ice age: the Claimant’s evidence was that this was a scientific impossibility.
  7. The film blames global warming for species losses including coral reef bleaching. The Government could not find any evidence to support this claim.
  8. The film suggests that the Greenland ice covering could melt causing sea levels to rise dangerously. The evidence is that Greenland will not melt for millennia.
  9. The film suggests that the Antarctic ice covering is melting, the evidence was that it is in fact increasing.
  10. The film suggests that sea levels could rise by 7m causing the displacement of millions of people. In fact the evidence is that sea levels are expected to rise by about 40cm over the next hundred years and that there is no such threat of massive migration.
  11. The film claims that rising sea levels has caused the evacuation of certain Pacific islands to New Zealand. The Government are unable to substantiate this and the Court observed that this appears to be a false claim.
Notes Australian Andrew Bolt, "The new Guidance Notes, very grudgingly amended, are here. Would that even this small gesture was matched by Australian schools." And would it be mathced too by partisan Gore supporters worldwide, and by those New Zealand politicians whose "buttons" were "pushed" by Gore's seductive spin and who are now so enthusiastically selling us down the river.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The New Zealand Government should make similar objections that Food Miles propoganda is also being taught in UK schools - that too is pseudo-scientific political propoganda.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for that. I look forward to 'Campbell Live' shouting it from the rooftops!

And we're in the semis, too!!

Greg said...

I'm still waiting for the 1990s terror Ebola to kill me.