Al Gore’s spokesman and “environment advisor,” Ms. Kalee Kreider,
begins by saying that the film presented “thousands and thousands of
facts.” It did not: just 2,000 “facts” in 93 minutes would have been
one fact every three seconds. The film contained only a few dozen
points, most of which will be seen to have been substantially
inaccurate. The judge concentrated only on nine points which even the
UK Government, to which Gore is a climate-change advisor, had to admit
did not represent mainstream scientific opinion.
Ms. Kreider then states, incorrectly, that the judge himself had never
used the term “errors.” In fact, the judge used the term “errors,” in
inverted commas, throughout his judgment.
Next, Ms. Kreider makes some unjustifiable ad hominem attacks on Mr.
Stewart Dimmock, the lorry driver, school governor and father of two
school-age children who was the plaintiff in the case. This memorandum,
however, will eschew any ad hominem response, and will concentrate
exclusively on the 35 scientific inaccuracies and exaggerations in
Gore’s movie.
Ms. Kreider then says, “The process of creating a 90-minute documentary
from the original peer-reviewed science for an audience of moviegoers
in the U.S. and around the world is complex.” However, the single
web-page entitled “The Science” on the movie’s official website
contains only two references to articles in the peer-reviewed
scientific journals. There is also a reference to a document of the
IPCC, but its documents are not independently peer-reviewed in the
usual understanding of the term.
Ms. Kreider then says, “The judge stated clearly that he was not
attempting to perform an analysis of the scientific questions in his
ruling.” He did not need to. Each of the nine “errors” which he
identified had been admitted by the UK Government to be inconsistent
with the mainstream of scientific opinion.
Ms. Kreider says the IPCC’s results are sometimes “conservative,” and
continues: “Vice President Gore tried to convey in good faith those
threats that he views as the most serious.” Readers of the long list of
errors described in this memorandum will decide for themselves whether
Mr. Gore was acting in good faith. However, in this connection it is
significant that each of the 35 errors listed below misstates the
conclusions of the scientific literature or states that there is a
threat where there is none or exaggerates the threat where there may be
one. All of the errors point in one direction – towards undue alarmism.
Not one of the errors falls in the direction of underestimating the
degree of concern in the scientific community. The likelihood that all
35 of the errors listed below could have fallen in one direction purely
by inadvertence is less than 1 in 34 billion.
We now itemize 35 of the scientific errors and exaggerations in Al
Gore’s movie. The first nine were listed by the judge in the High Court
in London in October 2007 as being “errors.” The remaining 26 errors
are just as inaccurate or exaggerated as the nine spelt out by the
judge, who made it plain during the proceedings that the Court had not
had time to consider more than these few errors. The judge found these
errors serious enough to require the UK Government to pay substantial
costs to the plaintiff.
|
ERROR 1
Sea level "rising 6 m"
|
Gore says that a sea-level rise of up to 6 m (20 ft) will be caused by
melting of either West Antarctica or Greenland. Though Gore does not
say that the sea-level rise will occur in the near future, the judge
found that, in the context, it was clear that this is what he had
meant, since he showed expensive graphical representations of the
effect of his imagined 6 m (20 ft) sea-level rise on existing
populations, and he quantified the numbers who would be displaced by
the sea-level rise.
The IPCC says sea-level increases up to 7 m (23 ft) above today’s
levels have happened naturally in the past climate, and would only be
likely to happen again after several millennia. In the next 100 years,
according to calculations based on figures in the IPCC’s 2007 report,
these two ice sheets between them will add a little over 6 cm (2.5
inches) to sea level, not 6 m (this figure of 6 cm is 15% of the IPCC’s
total central estimate of a 43 cm or 1 ft 5 in sea-level rise over the
next century). Gore has accordingly exaggerated the official sea-level
estimate by approaching 10,000 per cent.
Ms. Kreider says the IPCC estimates a sea-level rise of “59 cm” by
2100. She fails to point out that this amounts to less than 2 ft, not
the 20 ft imagined by Gore. She also fails to point out that this is
the IPCC’s upper estimate, on its most extreme scenario. And she fails
to state that the IPCC, faced with a stream of peer-reviewed articles
stating that sea-level rise is not a threat, has reduced this upper
estimate from 3 ft in 2001 to less than 2 ft (i.e. half the mean
centennial sea-level rise that has occurred since the end of the last
Ice Age 10,000 years ago) in 2007.
Ms. Kreider says the IPCC’s 2007 sea-level calculations excluded
contributions from Greenland and West Antarctica because they could not
be quantified. However, Table SPM1 of the 2007 report quantifies the
contributions of these two ice-sheets to sea-level rise as representing
about 15% of the total change.

The report also mentions the possibility that there may be an
unquantified further contribution in future from these two ice sheets
arising from “dynamical ice flow.” However, the Greenland ice sheet
rests in a depression in the bedrock created by its own weight,
wherefore “dynamical ice flow” is impossible, and the IPCC says that
temperature would have to be sustained at more than 5.5 degrees C above
its present level for several millennia before half the Greenland ice
sheet could melt, causing sea level to rise by some 3 m (10 ft).
Finally, the IPCC’s 2007 report estimates that the likelihood that
humankind is having any influence on sea level at all is little better
than 50:50.
The judge was accordingly correct in finding that Gore’s presentation
of the imagined imminent threat of a 6 m (20 ft) sea-level rise, with
his account of the supposed impact on the present-day populations of
Manhattan, the Netherlands, Bangladesh, etc., etc, was not a correct
statement of the mainstream science on this question.
|
ERROR 2
Pacific islands "drowning"
|
Gore says low-lying inhabited Pacific coral atolls are already being
inundated because of anthropogenic global warming, leading to the
evacuation of several island populations to New Zealand. However, the
atolls are not being inundated, except where dynamiting of reefs or
over-extraction of fresh water by local populations has caused damage.
Furthermore, corals can grow at ten times the predicted rate of
increase in sea level. It is not by some accident or coincidence that
so many atolls reach just a few feet above the ocean surface.

Ms. Kreider says, “The IPCC estimates that 150 million environmental
refugees could exist by the year 2050, due mainly to the effects of
coastal flooding, shoreline erosion and agricultural disruption.”
However, the IPCC cannot be basing its estimate on sea-level rise,
since even its maximum projected rise of just 30 cm (1 ft) by 2050
would not cause significant coastal flooding or shoreline erosion.
There are several coastlines (the east coast of England, for instance)
where the land is sinking as a consequence of post-ice-age isostatic
recovery, or where (as in Bangladesh) tectonic subduction is similarly
causing the land to sink. But such natural causes owe nothing to
sea-level rise.
There have been no mass evacuations of populations of islanders as
suggested by Gore, though some residents of Tuvalu have asked to be
moved to New Zealand, even though the tide-gauges maintained until
recently by the National Tidal Facility of Australia show a mean annual
sea-level rise over the past half-century equivalent to the thickness
of a human hair. The problem with the Carteret Islands, mentioned by
Ms. Kreider, arose not because of rising sea levels but because of
imprudent dynamiting of the reefs by local fishermen.
In the Maldives, a detailed recent study showed that sea levels were
unchanged today compared with 1250 years ago, though they have been
higher in much of the intervening period, and have very seldom been
lower.

A well-established tree very close to the Maldivian shoreline and only
inches above sea level was recently uprooted by Australian
environmentalists anxious to destroy this visible proof that sea level
cannot have risen very far.
|
ERROR 3
Thermohaline circulation "stopping"
|
Gore says “global warming” may shut down the thermohaline circulation
in the oceans, which he calls the “ocean conveyor,” plunging Europe
into an ice age. It will not. A paper published in 2006 says: “Analyses
of ocean observations and model simulations suggest that changes in the
thermohaline circulation during the last century are likely the result
of natural multidecadal climate variability. Indications of a sustained
thermohaline circulation weakening are not seen during the last few
decades. Instead, a strengthening since the 1980s is observed.”
Ms. Kreider, for Mr. Gore, says that “multiple scientists” have claimed
that we cannot exclude the possibility of the disruption or shutdown of
the Conveyor. Disruption, perhaps: shutdown, no. It is now
near-universally accepted that the thermohaline circulation cannot be
and will not be shut down by “global warming,” and the film should have
been corrected to reflect the consensus.
|
ERROR 4
CO2 "driving temperature"
|
Gore says that in each of the last four interglacial warm periods it
was changes in carbon dioxide concentration that caused changes in
temperature. It was the other way about. Changes in temperature
preceded changes in CO2 concentration by between 800 and 2800 years, as
scientific papers including the paper on which Gore’s film had relied
had made clear.
Ms. Kreider says it is true that “greenhouse gas levels and temperature
changes in the ice signals have a complicated relationship but they do
fit.” This does not address Gore’s error at all. The judge found that
Gore had very clearly implied that it was changes in carbon dioxide
concentration that had led to changes in temperature in the
palaeoclimate, when the scientific literature is unanimous (save only
for a single paper by James Hansen, whom Gore trusts) to the effect
that the relationship was in fact the other way about, with a carbon
dioxide feedback contributing only a comparatively insignificant
further increase to temperature after the temperature change had itself
initiated a change in carbon dioxide concentration.
The significance of this error was explained during the court
proceedings, and was accepted by the judge. Gore says that the 100 ppmv
difference between carbon dioxide concentrations during ice-age
temperature minima and interglacial temperature maxima represents “the
difference between a nice day and a mile of ice above your head.” This
would imply a CO2 effect on temperature about 10 times greater than
that regarded as plausible by the consensus of mainstream scientific
opinion (see Error 10).
Ms. Kreider refers readers to a “more complete description” available
at a website maintained by, among others, two of the three authors of
the now-discredited “hockey stick” graph that falsely attempted to
abolish the Mediaeval Warm Period. The National Academy of Sciences in
the US had found that graph to have “a validation skill not
significantly different from zero” – i.e., the graph was useless.
|
ERROR 5
Snows of Kilimanjaro "melting"
|
Gore says “global warming” has been melting the snows of Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa. It is not.
The melting of the Furtwangler Glacier at the summit of the mountain
began 125 years ago. More of the glacier had melted before Hemingway
wrote The Snows of Kilimanjaro in 1936 than afterward.
Temperature at the summit never rises above freezing and is at an
average of –7 Celsius. The cause of the melting is long-term climate
shifts exacerbated by imprudent regional deforestation, and has nothing
to do with “global warming.”
Ms. Kreider says, “Every tropical glacier for which we have documented
evidence shows that glaciers are retreating.” However, a recent survey
of the glaciers in the tropical Andes shows that they were largely
ice-free in the past 10,000 years, except on the very highest peaks.
The mere fact of warming or melting, therefore, tells us nothing of the
cause.
Ms. Kreider says, “Global warming exacerbates the stresses that
ecosystems (and humans) are already experiencing.” However, since the
temperature at the summit of Kilimanjaro remains below freezing and has
not risen in 30 years, “global warming” is not “exacerbating the
stresses” at the summit of Kilimanjaro.
|
ERROR 6
Lake Chad "drying up"
|
Gore says “global warming” dried up Lake Chad in Africa. It did not.
Over-extraction of water and changing agricultural patterns dried the
lake, which was also dry in 8500BC, 5500BC, 1000BC and 100BC. Ms.
Kreider says, “There are multiple stresses upon Lake Chad.” However,
the scientific consensus is that at present those “stresses” do not
include “global warming.”
|
ERROR 7
Hurricane Katrina "man made"
|
Gore says Hurricane Katrina, that devastated New Orleans in 2005, was
caused by “global warming.” It was not. It was caused by the failure of
Gore’s party, in the administration of New Orleans, to heed 30 years of
warnings by the Corps of Engineers that the levees – dams that kept New
Orleans dry – could not stand a direct hit by a hurricane. Katrina was
only Category 3 when it struck the levees. They failed, as the
Engineers had said they would. Gore’s party, not “global warming,” was
to blame for the consequent death and destruction.
Ms. Kreider says, “Mr. Gore has never addressed the issue of climate
change and hurricane frequency.” What Gore actually says, however,
addresses the frequency not only of hurricanes but also of typhoons and
tornadoes –
“We have seen in the last couple of years, a lot of big
hurricanes. Hurricanes Jean, Francis and Ivan were among them. In the
same year we had that string of big hurricanes; we also set an all time
record for tornadoes in the United States. Japan again didn’t get as
much attention in our news media, but they set an all time record for
typhoons. The previous record was seven. Here are all ten of the ones
they had in 2004.”

For the record, however, the number of Atlantic hurricanes shows no
trend over the past half century; the number of typhoons has fallen
throughout the past 30 years; the number of tornadoes has risen only
because of better detection systems for smaller tornadoes; but the
number of larger tornadoes in the US has fallen.
|
ERROR 8
Polar bear "dying"
|
Gore says a scientific study shows that polar bears are being killed
swimming long distances to find ice that has melted away because of
“global warming.” They are not. The study, by Monnett & Gleason
(2005), mentioned just four dead bears. They had died in an exceptional
storm, with high winds and waves in the Beaufort Sea. The amount of sea
ice in the Beaufort Sea has grown over the past 30 years. A report for
the World Wide Fund for Nature shows that polar bears, which are
warm-blooded, have grown in numbers where temperature has increased,
and have become fewer where temperature has fallen. Polar bears evolved
from brown bears 200,000 years ago, and survived the last interglacial
period, when global temperature was 5 degrees Celsius warmer than the
present and there was probably no Arctic ice-cap at all. The real
threat to polar bears is not “global warming” but hunting. In 1940,
there were just 5,000 polar bears worldwide. Now that hunting is
controlled, there are 25,000.
Ms. Kreider says sea-ice “was the lowest ever measured for minimum
extent in 2007.” She does not say that the measurements, which are done
by satellite, go back only 29 years. She does not say that the
North-West Passage, a good proxy for Arctic sea-ice extent, was open to
shipping in 1945, or that Amundsen passed through in a sailing vessel
in 1903.
|
ERROR 9
Coral reefs "bleaching"
|
Gore says coral reefs are “bleaching” because of “global warming.” They
are not. There was some bleaching in 1998, but this was caused by the
exceptional El Nino Southern Oscillation that year. Two similarly
severe El Ninos over the past 250 years also caused extensive
bleaching. “Global warming” was nothing to do with it.
Ms. Kreider says, “The IPCC and other scientific bodies have long
identified increases in ocean temperatures with the bleaching of coral
reefs.” So they have: but the bleaching in 1998 occurred as a result
not of “global warming” but of a rare, though not unique, severe El
Nino Southern Oscillation.
|
ERROR 10
100 ppmv of CO2 "melting mile-thick ice"
|
Gore implies that the difference of just 100 parts per million by
volume in CO2 concentration between an interglacial temperature maximum
and an ice-age temperature minimum causes “the difference between a
nice day and having a mile of ice above your head.” It does not. Gore’s
implication has the effect of overstating the mainstream consensus
estimate of the effect of CO2 on temperature at least tenfold.
Temperature changes by up to 12 degrees C between glacial minima and
interglacial maxima, but CO2 concentration changes by no more than 100
ppmv. Gore is accordingly implying that 100 ppmv can cause a
temperature increase of up to 12 degrees C. However, the consensus as
expressed by the IPCC is that 100 ppmv of increased CO2 concentration,
from 180 to 280 ppmv, would increase radiant energy flux in the
atmosphere by 2.33 watts per square meter, or less than 1.2 degrees
Celsius including the effect of temperature feedbacks.
|
ERROR 11
Hurricane Caterina "manmade"
|
Gore says that Hurricane Caterina, the only hurricane ever to strike
the coast of Brazil, was caused by “global warming.” It was not. In
2004, Brazil’s summer sea surface temperatures were cooler than normal,
not warmer. But air temperatures were the coldest in 25 years. The air
was so much colder than the water that it caused a heat flux from the
water to the air similar to that which fuels hurricanes in warm seas.
|
ERROR 12
Japanese typhoons "a new record"
|
Gore says that 2004 set a new record for the number of typhoons
striking Japan. It did not. The trend in the number of typhoons, and of
tropical cyclones, has fallen throughout the past 50 years. The trend
in rainfall from cyclones has also fallen, and there has been no trend
in monsoon rainfall.
|
ERROR 13
Hurricanes "getting stronger"
|

Gore says scientists had been giving warnings that hurricanes will get
stronger because of “global warming.” They will not. Over the past 60
years there has been no change in the strength of hurricanes, even
though hydrocarbon use went up six-fold in the same period. Research by
Dr. Kerry Emanuel, cited by Ms. Kreider, has been discredited by more
recent findings that wind-shear effects tend to nullify the
amplification of hurricane strength which he had suggested, and, of
course, by the observed failure of hurricanes to gain strength during
the past 60 years of “global warming.”
|
ERROR 14
Big storm insurances losses "increasing"
|

Gore says insurance losses arising from large storms and other
extreme-weather events are increasing, by implication because of
“global warming.” They are not. Insured losses, as a percentage of the
population of coastal areas in the path of hurricanes, were lower even
in 2005 than they had been in 1925. In 2006, a very quiet hurricane
season, Lloyds of London posted their biggest-ever profit: £3.6 billion.
|
ERROR 15
Mumbai "flooding"
|

Gore says flooding in Mumbai is increasing, by implication
because of “global warming.” It is not. Rainfall trends at the two
major weather stations in Mumbai show no increase in heavy rainfall
over the past 48 years.
|
ERROR 16
Severe tornadoes "more frequent"
|

Gore says that 2004 set an all-time record for tornadoes in the US.
More tornadoes are being reported because detection systems are better
than they were. But the number of severe tornadoes has been falling for
more than 50 years.
|
ERROR 17
The sun "heats the Arctic ocean"
|
Gore says that ice-melt allows the Sun to heat the Arctic Ocean, and a
diagram shows the Sun’s rays heating it directly. It does not. The
ocean emits radiant energy at the moment of absorption, and would
freeze if there were no atmosphere. It is the atmosphere, not the Sun
that warms the ocean. Also, Gore’s diagram confuses the tropopause with
the ionosphere, and he makes a number of other errors indicating that
he does not understand the elementary physics of radiative transfer.
|
ERROR 18
Arctic "warming fastest"
|

Gore says the Arctic has been warming faster than the rest of the
planet. It is not. While it is in general true that during periods of
warming (whether natural or anthropogenic) the Arctic will warm faster
than other regions, Gore does not mention that the Arctic has been
cooling over the past 60 years, and is now one degree Celsius cooler
than it was in the 1940s. There was a record amount of snow cover in
the Northern Hemisphere in 2001. Several vessels were icebound in the
Arctic in the spring of 2007, but few newspapers reported this. The
newspapers reported that the North-West Passage was free of ice in
2007, and said that this was for the first time since records began:
but the records, taken by satellites, had only begun 29 years
previously. The North-West Passage had also been open for shipping in
1945, and, in 1903, the great Norwegian explorer Amundsen had passed
through it in a sailing ship.
|
ERROR 19
Greenland ice sheet "unstable"
|

Gore says “global warming” is making the Greenland ice sheet unstable.
It is not. Greenland ice grows 2in a year. The Greenland ice sheet
survived each of the previous three interglacial periods, each of which
was 5 degrees Celsius warmer than the present. It survived atmospheric
CO2 concentrations of up to 1000 ppmv (compared with today’s 400 ppmv).
It last melted 850,000 years ago, when humankind did not exist and
could not have caused the melting. There is a close correlation between
variations in Solar activity and temperature anomalies in Greenland,
but there is no correlation between variations in CO2 concentration and
temperature changes in Greenland. The IPCC (2001) says that to melt
even half the Greenland ice sheet would require temperature to rise by
5.5 degrees C and remain that high for several thousand years.
|
ERROR 20
Himalayan glacial melt waters "failing"
|
Gore says 40% of the world’s population get their water supply from
Himalayan glacial melt waters that are failing because of “global
warming.” They don’t and they are not. The water comes almost entirely
from snow-melt, not from ice-melt. Over the past 40 years there has
been no decline in the amount of snow-melt in Eurasia.
|
ERROR 21
Peruvian glaciers "disappearing"
|
Gore says that a Peruvian glacier is less extensive now than it was in
the 1940s, implying that “global warming” is the cause. It is not.
Except for the very highest peaks, the normal state of the Peruvian
cordilleras has been ice-free throughout most of the past 10,000 years.
|
ERROR 22
Mountain glaciers worldwide "disappearing"
|

Gore says that “the ice has a story to tell, and it is worldwide.” He
shows several before-and-after pictures of glaciers disappearing.
However, the glacial melt began in the 1820s, long before humankind
could have had any effect, and has continued at a uniform rate since,
showing no acceleration since humankind began increasing the quantity
of CO2 in the atmosphere. Total ice volumes in three of the last four
Ice Ages were lower than they are today, and “global warming” had
nothing to do with that.
|
ERROR 23
Sahara desert "drying"
|

Gore says terrible tragedies are occurring in the southern Sahara
because of drought which he blames on “global warming.” There is no
drought caused by “global warming.” In 2007 there were record rains
across the whole of the southern Sahara. In the past 25 years the
Sahara has shrunk by some 300,000 square kilometers because of
additional rainfall. Some scientists think “global warming” may
actually mitigate pre-existing droughts because there will be more
water vapor in the atmosphere. Before 1200 AD there were frequent,
prolonged and severe droughts in the Great Plains. Since 1200 AD, there
has been more rainfall. Likewise, the US has had more rainfall since
the 1950s than it had in the earlier part of the 20th Century, when the
great droughts which were then common were described by John Steinbeck
in The Grapes of Wrath. South African rainfall was also more stable in
the second half of the 20th Century, when human effect on climate is
said to have become significant, than in the first half.
|
ERROR 24
West Antarctic ice sheet "unstable"
|

Gore says disturbing changes have been measured under the West
Antarctic ice sheet, implicitly because of “global warming.” Yet most
of the recession in this ice sheet over the past 10,000 years has
occurred in the absence of any sea-level or temperature forcing. In
most of Antarctica, the ice is in fact growing thicker. Mean Antarctic
temperature has actually fallen throughout the past half-century. In
some Antarctic glens, environmental damage has been caused by
temperature decreases of up to 2 degrees Celsius. Antarctic sea-ice
spread to a 30-year record extent in late 2007.
|
ERROR 25
Antarctic Peninsula ice shelves "breaking up"
|
Gore says half a dozen ice shelves each “larger than Rhode Island” have
broken up and vanished from the Antarctic Peninsula recently,
implicitly because of “global warming.” Global warming is unlikely to
have been the cause. Gore does not explain that the ice shelves have
melted before, as studies of seabed sediments have shown. The Antarctic
Peninsula accounts for about 2% of the continent, in most of which the
ice is growing thicker. All the recently-melted shelves, added
together, amount to an area less than one-fifty-fifth the size of Texas.
|
ERROR 26
Larsen B Ice Shelf "broke up because of
'global warming'"
|
Gore focuses on the Larsen B ice shelf, saying that it completely
disappeared in 35 days. Yet there has been extensive ice-shelf break-up
throughout the past 10,000 years, and the maximum ice-shelf extent may
have been in the Little Ice Age in the late 15th century.
|
ERROR 27
Mosquitoes "climbing to higher altitudes"
|

Gore says that, because of “global warming”, mosquitoes are climbing to
higher altitudes. They are not. Most recent outbreaks have been at
lower levels than those of a century and more ago. He says that Nairobi
was founded 1000 m above sea level so as to be above the mosquito line.
It was not. In the period before anthropogenic warming could have had
any significant effect, there were ten malaria outbreaks in Nairobi,
one of which reached as far up as Eldoret, almost 3000 m above sea
level. Malaria is not a tropical disease. Mosquitoes do not need
tropical temperatures: they need no more than 15 degrees Celsius to
breed. The largest malaria outbreak of modern times was in Siberia in
the 1920s and 1930s, when 13 million were infected, 600,000 died and
30,000 died as far north as Arkhangelsk, on the Arctic Circle. There is
no reason to suppose that malaria will spread even if the climate
continues to become warmer.
|
ERROR 28
Many tropical diseases "spread through
'global warming'"
|
Gore says that, as well as malaria, “global warming” is spreading
dengue fever, Lyme disease, West Nile virus, arena virus, avian flu,
Ebola virus, E. Coli 0157:H7, Hanta virus, legionella, leptospirosis,
multi-drug-resistant TB, Nipah virus, SARS and Vibrio Cholerae 0139. It
is doing no such thing. Only the first four diseases are insect-borne,
but none is tropical. Of the other diseases named by Gore either in his
film or in the accompanying book, not one is sensitive to increasing
temperature. They are spread not by warmer weather but by rats,
chickens, primates, pigs, poor hygiene, ill-maintained air
conditioning, or cold weather.
|
ERROR 29
West Nile virus in the US "spread through
'global warming'"
|
Gore says that West Nile virus spread throughout the US in just two
years, implicitly because of “global warming.” It did not. The climate
in the US ranges from some of the world’s hottest deserts to some of
its iciest tundra. West Nile virus flourishes in any climate. Warming
of the climate, however caused, does not affect its incidence or
prevalence.
|
ERROR 30
Carbon dioxide is "pollution"
|
Gore describes carbon dioxide as “global warming pollution.” It is not.
It is food for plants and trees. Tests have shown that even at
concentrations 30 times those of the present day even the most delicate
plants flourish. Well-managed forests, such as those of the United
States, are growing at record rates because the extra carbon dioxide in
the atmosphere is feeding the trees. Carbon dioxide, in geological
timescale, is at a very low concentration at present. Half a billion
years ago it was at 7000 parts per million by volume, about 18 times
today’s concentration.
|
ERROR 31
The European heat wave of 2003 "killed 35,000"
|
Gore says, “A couple of years ago in Europe they had that heat wave
that killed 35,000.” Though some scientists agree with Gore, the
scientific consensus is that extreme warm anomalies more unusual than
the 2003 heat wave occur regularly; extreme cold anomalies also occur
regularly; El Niño and volcanism appear to be of much greater
importance than any general warming trend; and there is little evidence
that regional heat or cold waves are significantly increasing or
decreasing with time. In general, warm is better than cold, which is
why the largest number of life-forms are in the tropics and the least
number are at the poles. A cold snap in the winter following the
European heat wave killed 20,000 in the UK alone. Though the IPCC says
150,000 people a year are being killed worldwide by “global warming,”
it reaches this figure only by deliberately excluding the number of
people who are not being killed because there is less cold weather. In
the US alone, it has been estimated that 174,000 fewer people are being
killed each year because there are fewer episodes of extreme cold.
|
ERROR 32
Pied flycatchers "cannot feed their young"
|
Gore says “The peak arrival date for migratory birds 25 years ago was
April 25. Their chicks hatched on June 3, just at the time when the
caterpillars were coming out: Nature’s plan. But 20 years of warming
later the caterpillars peaked two weeks earlier. The chicks tried to
catch up with it, but they couldn’t. So they are in trouble.” Yet
adaptation is easy for the flycatchers: they merely fly a few tens of
kilometers further north and they will find caterpillars hatching at
the appropriate time. Besides, though Gore does not say so, what is bad
news for the pied flycatchers is good news for the caterpillars, and
for the butterflies they will become.
|
ERROR 33
Gore's bogus pictures and film footage
|
In the book accompanying Gore’s film, the story of the pied flycatchers
and the caterpillars is accompanied by a picture of a bird feeding her
hungry chicks. However, closer inspection shows that the bird is not a
pied flycatcher but a black tern; and that she is not carrying a
caterpillar in her beak, but a small fish. Gore similarly misuses
spectacular footage of a glacier apparently calving off enormous slabs
of ice into the sea – footage that is often shown on television to
accompany stories about “global warming.” However, the glacier in
question is one that is known to be advancing – and to be doing so more
rapidly and more often than previously. It is in southern Argentina,
where its snout crosses – and eventually dams, Lake Argentino. Water
builds up behind the ice dam and eventually bursts it, causing the
spectacular collapse of ice into the lake that is so misleadingly used
as the iconic image of the effect of “global warming” on glaciers. The
breaking of the ice dam used to occur every eight years or so: now,
however, it occurs every five years, not because of “global warming”
because of the regional cooling of the southern Atlantic.
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ERROR 34
The Thames Barrier "closing more frequently"
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Gore says that rising sea levels are compelling the operators of the
Thames Barrier to close it more frequently than when it was first
built. They are not. The barrier is indeed closed more frequently than
when it was built, but the reason has nothing to do with “global
warming” or rising sea levels. The reason is a change of policy by
which the barrier is closed during exceptionally low tides, so as to
retain water in the tidal Thames rather than keeping it out. Yet even
the present leader of the official Opposition in the UK Parliament
recently used a major speech as the opportunity to mention today’s more
frequent closing of the Thames Barrier as though it were a matter of
grave concern.
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ERROR 35
"No fact...in dispute by anybody."
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Gore says that his prediction that the atmospheric concentration of
carbon dioxide will rise to more than 600 parts per million by volume
as soon as 2050 is “not controversial in any way or in dispute by
anybody.” However, not one of the half-dozen official projections of
growth in CO2 concentration made by the IPCC shows as much as 600 parts
per million by 2050.
Conclusion
35 serious scientific errors
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