British court case punches holes in Al Gore's fantasy climate movie

[sirs]

TWO WORDS:   NOBEL.   PRIZE.

I think that we are going to quickly see the Nobel Prize become a victim of Right Wing rhetoric, where it suddenly will be worthless and inconsequential.  No, really. Just wait and see. 

Ooooo Ooooo, lemme be the 1st.  I think we can now safely conclude that to be nominated for a "Nobel Peace Prize", you need to have a consistent public record of decrying any and all American involvement in foreign policy and/or advotate the position that America (and/or Israel) is the chief obstacle to whatever global crisis is being spearheaded currently.  And it definately helps your winning chances greately if a Bush is in office, and you've been able to insult, demean, and demagogue either the U.S. and or the President on a routine basis. 

Follow those guidelines and the "Nobel Peace Prize" could be yours       

[_JS]

Let's test Sir's "guidelines" shall we?

During the Elder Bush's term here were the winners:

1989: Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama
1990: Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev
1991: Aung San Suu Kyi - whose name you should all know right now, considering what is going on in Burma
1992: Rigoberta Mench?

The most controversial would be Menchu, whom most people have never heard of. She was somewhat discredited for altering her background in her autobiography. But the man who discovered the alterations acknowledged that her reports on the atrocities of the Guatemalan military were accurate.

Now, let's look at Bush the Lesser's tenure:

2001: United Nations & Kofi Annan
2002: Jimmy Carter
2003: Shirin Ebadi
2004: Wangari Maathai
2005: Mohamed El Baradei & the IAEA
2006: Muhammad Yunus
2007: Albert Gore Jr.

The only one that probably irked Bush was El Baradei because at the time the administration was pressing to have him removed at the United Nations.

So Sirs must be right about Israel.

But wait, in 1994 Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin both won Nobel peace prizes. AND in 1978 Menachem Begin won a Nobel Peace Prize. So the tiny country of Israel has won three Nobel Peace Prizes.

But yeah...throw down the victim card, it sure as hell won't be the first time and I'm willing to bet it won't be the last.

[Amianthus]

Would these guys be scientists hired by the Juniorbush administration, by the way?

Actually, most of them were hired under the Clinton administration. That's when the global change projects did most of their staffing up. That's when I was hired as well.

[Michael Tee]

I guess when it comes to good hard science, an obscure British trial judge trumps the Nobel Prize Committee hands down anytime!!! 

NOT.

ROTFLMFAO.  Of course, now that the Nobel Prize Committee has pronounced on the matter, the right-wing crazies' task is clear:  trash the Nobel Prize.  Kinda like when John Kerry, a combat veteran, dared to challenge the combat-averse Bush and his draft-dodging VP, the way forward was obvious:  trash Kerry's service to his country.  Those medals aren't medals.

There is no reality but the reality declared by the right-wing crazies.  Nothing else means anything, nothing else even exists.  This weekend is gonna be hilarious, watching the fruit-bats trying to wing their blind way out of this one.  "The Nobel Prize is shit.  Alfred Nobel was a commie.  And a fag.  And an Islamofascist."

[Brassmask]

Via Wikipedia:

The Nobel Peace Prize (Swedish and Norwegian: Nobels fredspris) is the name of one of five Nobel Prizes bequeathed by the Swedish industrialist and inventor Alfred Nobel. According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize should be awarded "to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses".

I suppose one could say that doing the most to build fraternity between nations or reducing standing armies would be seen as UNAMERICAN by some here but that this doesn't say anything about being particularly anti-American.

[Amianthus]

I guess when it comes to good hard science, an obscure British trial judge trumps the Nobel Prize Committee hands down anytime!!! 

Didn't realize Gore had a won a Nobel Prize for one of the sciences...

[Michael Tee]

<<Didn't realize Gore had a won a Nobel Prize for one of the sciences...>>

No, the Nobel Prize Committee hands out Peace Prizes for any swindle constructed on a foundation of junk science as long as it fools enough suckers and trashes America.  That's because they're not only stupid tree-hugger dupes but because they lack any access at all to informed scientific opinion.

[Xavier_Onassis]

So the tactic is to swiftboat the Nobel Peace Prize, even though Al Gore is not actually running for anything. BUT SOMEDAY HE MIGHT.

Nobel was disturbed that his invention and mass production of TNT and dymamite had caused so much death and destruction in the world, so he donated money to prizes to improvethe human condition.

I think we can easily say that the world is somewhat better off because of Nobel's efforts.

The swiftboating of Nobel will definitely not be recognized beyond the borders of the US and possibly not even beyond the borders of ratwing talk radio.
 I am imagining that Rush will have no other topic for a goodly spell. It will make O'Reilly's day, as well.

Anyone that disbelieves Rigoberta Menchu's claims that the Guatemalan Army in the 1960's through the 1980's did not have as its motto "Wake the town and shoot the people" does not have any awareness of Guatemalan history or politics whatever.  Giving her the Prize and the resultant cutoff in investments from abroad was a major factor in the oligarchy holding free elections.

I was in Guatemala City in 1982, and heard machine gun fire about every 10 to 20 minutes throughout the night. I am pretty sure it was not coming from any rebels. People told me they did this as they drove through certain neighborhoods to keep people inside.

[Amianthus]

No, the Nobel Prize Committee hands out Peace Prizes for any swindle constructed on a foundation of junk science as long as it fools enough suckers and trashes America.  That's because they're not only stupid tree-hugger dupes but because they lack any access at all to informed scientific opinion.

Since when is scientific merit any criteria for a Nobel Peace Prize?

[Michael Tee]

<<Since when is scientific merit any criteria for a Nobel Peace Prize?>>

I dunno, I kinda thought there was some integrity to the process.  As in not wanting to award a prize for an environmental campaigner who built his campaign on fraud and deceit.  Or on junk science. 

I just didn't realize what a bunch of unsophisticated and uneducated hicks the Prize Committee was - - OF COURSE they'd give their prize to a guy whose entire campaign is based on junk science, never bothering to check this out with anyone other than their old high-school science teacher.

You're right, of course - - WTF would the Nobel Prize Committee care if their Peace Prize were awarded to a guy who cooked all his own books and used junk science to fraudulently trick the world into believing that global warming was due to preventable human behaviour.  It's not as if they had any integrity to defend or even enough basic intelligence to recognize the potential problem.  Ya know who the next Nobel for Science is going to?  The Discovery Institute for its pioneering studies on Intelligent Design.

[Amianthus]

Ya know who the next Nobel for Science is going to?  The Discovery Institute for its pioneering studies on Intelligent Design.

Again, refresh me on which science prize Gore won?

[Amianthus]

I just didn't realize what a bunch of unsophisticated and uneducated hicks the Prize Committee was - - OF COURSE they'd give their prize to a guy whose entire campaign is based on junk science, never bothering to check this out with anyone other than their old high-school science teacher.

Yeah, I'm sure the Nobel Peace Prize committee knows more about atmospheric science than a professor at MIT:

Richard S. Lindzen, the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Science at MIT, wrote:

?A general characteristic of Mr. Gore's approach is to assiduously ignore the fact that the earth and its climate are dynamic; they are always changing even without any external forcing. To treat all change as something to fear is bad enough; to do so in order to exploit that fear is much worse.? - Lindzen wrote in an op-ed in the June 26, 2006 Wall Street Journal

Gore?s film also cites a review of scientific literature by the journal Science which claimed 100% consensus on global warming, but Lindzen pointed out the study was flat out incorrect.

??A study in the journal Science by the social scientist Nancy Oreskes claimed that a search of the ISI Web of Knowledge Database for the years 1993 to 2003 under the key words "global climate change" produced 928 articles, all of whose abstracts supported what she referred to as the consensus view. A British social scientist, Benny Peiser, checked her procedure and found that only 913 of the 928 articles had abstracts at all, and that only 13 of the remaining 913 explicitly endorsed the so-called consensus view. Several actually opposed it.?- Lindzen wrote in an op-ed in the June 26, 2006 Wall Street Journal.

And another:

Former University of Winnipeg climatology professor Dr. Tim Ball reacted to Gore?s claim that there has been a sharp drop-off in the thickness of the Arctic ice cap since 1970.

"The survey that Gore cites was a single transect across one part of the Arctic basin in the month of October during the 1960s when we were in the middle of the cooling period. The 1990 runs were done in the warmer month of September, using a wholly different technology,? ?Tim Ball said, according to the Canadian Free Press.

I can come up with plenty more. Guess these universities all hire idiots, huh?

[Michael Tee]

No, the universities don't hire idiots. 

Fact is, you (or the business interests whose megabuck stream depends on their continuing ability to pollute the earth) cherry-pick the handful of (a) mavericks or (b) whores, who are willing to buck mainstream scientific opinion in return for (a) the thrill of bucking the majority or (b) mega-bucks.   How convenient - - there are still a handful of them around.  Maybe even a few hundred.  Out of thousands and tens of thousands whom you DON'T quote.  Whom you NEVER quote.  Cute trick.  Fools nobody - -  but cute nevertheless.  Oh - - I know: Galileo went against the mainstream; Einstein went against the mainstream.   Well:  maybe your handful are the Einsteins and the Galileos of the 21st Century.  I won't be around long enough to find out.  I wouldn't bet on it, though - - the real Einsteins and Galileos are few and far between.  Likelier than not, your conservative savants are probably just a bunch of fools and/or sold-out losers.

[Amianthus]

Whom you NEVER quote.  Cute trick.  Fools nobody - -  but cute nevertheless.  Oh - - I know: Galileo went against the mainstream; Einstein went against the mainstream.   Well:  maybe your handful are the Einsteins and the Galileos of the 21st Century.  I won't be around long enough to find out.  I wouldn't bet on it, though - - the real Einsteins and Galileos are few and far between.  Likelier than not, your conservative savants are probably just a bunch of fools and/or sold-out losers.

I can't quote 'em all.

I will point out this: "only 13 of the remaining 913 explicitly endorsed the so-called consensus view. Several actually opposed it."

Not exactly a consensus view if only about 1.4% endorse it explicitly is it?

The point being (in this case) - Gore claimed that every article agreed with him, while the truth is that several disagree with him and only a small percentage explicitly agree with him.

[Universe Prince]

might not be true

no evidence

false claim.

yada

yada yada.

TWO WORDS:   NOBEL.   PRIZE.

I was not aware science could be trumped by the awarding of a Nobel Peace Prize.

Yes, I know folks from the political right are probably going to criticize the prize going to Al Gore, but that certainly isn't any worse than watching folks from the left talk as if the Nobel Prize somehow makes Al Gore infallible. Either the science supports Gore or it doesn't. And as best I can discover, it does not. Yes, there is global warming, but then there have always been cycles of global warming and cooling as any elementary student learning about various ice ages can tell you. Are humans contributing to global warming? Quite probably. Are we headed for global disaster as a result? No, we are not. Yes, the climate will change, but then it is always changing. The natural balance of the planet is always, always in flux. There is no single state that defines how things should be, and we humans would be stupidly short-sighted to think that there would be. Are there things we can and should do to help protect the environment, absolutely. We should indeed try to make our presence here something that works in balance with the whole because we will damage ourselves and our children if we do not. But that doesn't mean we need to be in a panic about global warming. Al Gore wants to be an alarmist and the Nobel folks apparently think that deserves a prize. That seems like reason enough to criticize the Nobel Peace Prize going to Al Gore. We need a rational approach to how we live in the environment, not scare tactics and AMBE.