DebateGate
General Category => 3DHS => Topic started by: Amianthus on October 11, 2007, 04:34:21 PM
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Alan Ferguson, The Province
Published: Thursday, October 11, 2007
In his dreams, Al Gore wins the Nobel peace prize and is propelled into the White House on a wave of popular acclaim.
His waking moments these days are probably slightly less euphoric.
A judge in Britain's High Court has ruled that Gore's apocalyptic movie on climate change, An Inconvenient Truth, should come with a warning that it promotes "partisan political views" and is riddled with errors.
The case was brought by truck driver Stewart Dimmock, who accused the British government of "brainwashing" children by requiring that Gore's movie be shown in schools.
While Judge Michael Burton declined to ban the movie outright, he did order the government to rewrite its guidelines to highlight the movie's falsehoods.
These were identified in court as follows:
Gore's claim: A retreating glacier on Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania is evidence of global warming.
Finding: The government's expert witness conceded this was not correct.
Gore: Ice core samples prove that rising levels of carbon dioxide have caused temperature increases.
Finding: Rises in carbon dioxide actually lagged behind temperature increases by 800-2000 years.
Gore: Global warming triggered Hurricane Katrina, devastating New Orleans.
Finding: The government's expert accepted it was "not possible" to attribute one-off events to global warming.
Gore: Global warming is causing Africa's Lake Chad to dry up.
Finding: The government's expert accepted that this was not the case.
Gore: Polar bears had drowned due to disappearing Arctic ice.
Finding: Only four polar bears drowned, due to a particularly violent storm.
Gore: Global warming could stop the Gulf Stream, plunging Europe into a new ice age.
Finding: A scientific impossibility.
Gore: Species losses, including coral reef bleaching, are the result of global warming.
Finding: No evidence to support the claim.
Gore: Melting ice in Greenland could cause sea levels to rise dangerously.
Finding: Greenland ice will not melt for millennia.
Gore: Ice cover in Antarctica is melting.
Finding: It is, in fact, increasing.
Gore: Sea levels could rise by seven metres, causing the displacement of millions of people.
Finding: Sea levels are expected to rise by about 40 centimetres over 100 years.
Gore: Rising sea levels caused the evacuation of Pacific islanders to New Zealand.
Finding: The court observed that this appears to be a false claim.
Canadian students who have been force-fed Gore's fantasy in classrooms across the nation may have some awkward questions for their credulous teachers in the wake of the British court case.
On the other hand, it may already be too late.
The damage has been done.
alan.f@telus.net
http://www.canada.com/topics/news/story.html?id=50e42b47-ca21-47c1-bbb1-caf456348677&k=21371 (http://www.canada.com/topics/news/story.html?id=50e42b47-ca21-47c1-bbb1-caf456348677&k=21371)
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That's interesting, I was aware of the Kilimanjaro falshood, but not the others. There was a big scandal at the University of Washington in Seattle because one of the climate change researchers had released some rather shoddy data about falling snowpack levels and deglaciation in the Cascades, especially the N. Cascades. There are a lot of undocumented, conflicting, and factually erroneous factors in the debate to call it settled one way or another.
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:D
What's the source on that, The National Enquirer? They talk all about the government's experts but did the defence's experts miss the bus to the trial?
That judge is a moron.
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What's the source on that, The National Enquirer?
I posted a link.
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I think every one of those "findings" by the government are bullshit.
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I think every one of those "findings" by the government are bullshit.
Thanks for your opinion. I'll note that it conflicts with science.
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I think every one of those "findings" by the government are bullshit.
Thanks for your opinion. I'll note that it conflicts with science bought and paid for by OIL COMPANIES.
You left off part of your sentence. I helped you out there.
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You left off part of your sentence. I helped you out there.
My sentence was correct when I wrote it. Your rewrite made it incorrect.
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You left off part of your sentence. I helped you out there.
Ah yes, the oil companies are paying to have the ice cap of Antarctica increased in size. Why? Because they want to frak with the global warming experts, obviously. There are probably Freemasons behind this. And they're probably using money left by Prescott Bush. Oh, and that guy who really was on the grassy knoll, he's probably involved as well.
(I know, I know, I'm being sarcastic again, but sometimes I just can't help myself.)
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might not be true
no evidence
false claim.
yada
yada yada.
TWO WORDS: NOBEL. PRIZE.
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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. :-[
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It is big news here, with the native son winning a Nobel Prize and all.
I watched Gore's movie, it was quite good. I mean, Michael Crichton wrote a fictional novel on the conspiracy of Global Warming and then did a lecture tour on why Global Warming is false. At least Gore uses scientific studies ;)
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There are really two issues to start with, to wit:
Is there global warming?
What caused global warming?
It is pretty obvious that there is global warming, and that it will be disruptive to a greater or lesser degree of many people on this planet.
Either humans caused global warming, or it didn't. Despite Ami's "science", the National Geography Society agrees with Al Gore that it does exist and we are causing it. I think it is best to go with the National Geography Society's experts that those unearthed by Ami.
The assumption is that what we cause, we can ameliorate by ceasing to do certain things, like lowering emissions of the 1 to 1?% of the atmosphere that is not Oxygen, Nitrogen or trace gases, such as CO2, Methane and such.
But the REALLY IMPORTANT QUESTION is despite who caused it, what can we do to reduce it?
After all, a doctor's job is to cure the disease, not to clobber the patient with the responsibility of eating the wrong foods, sleepijng with the wrong people, or allowing themselves to be bitten by the wrong bugs. The cure is more important than the cause.
I seriously doubt that the US ratwing has the power to discredit Al Gore's Nobel Prize. They didn't manage to make him look unworthy of the Oscar, either.
Eventually, the dinosaurs will die off and become extinct. The rest of the world sees them fading from view pretty rapidly.
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Either humans caused global warming, or it didn't. Despite Ami's "science", the National Geography Society agrees with Al Gore that it does exist and we are causing it. I think it is best to go with the National Geography Society's experts that those unearthed by Ami.
I didn't have to "unearth" them - most of them work on the various global change projects sponsored by the government. You know, the guys who are paid by the government to study global change?
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You know, the guys who are paid by the government to study global change?
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Would these guys be scientists hired by the Juniorbush administration, by the way?
Are you saying that by virtue of getting a paycheck from the US govt., that I should consider them more credible than other scientists on the payrol of the National Geographic Society?
I would wager that if they found the opposite was true, and they had been hired by the Clinton Administration, you would be pointing this out as a reason to disbelieve whatever they said.
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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 ;)
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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.
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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.
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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."
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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.
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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...
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<<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.
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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.
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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?
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<<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.
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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?
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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<<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.>>
More nitpicking combined with a highly selective imprecision. Brilliant technique, Ami. Starting with the lawyerly "explicitly endorsed." Whatever the hell THAT means, and leaving aside how many "inexplicitly endorsed." "Several" actually opposed the consensus view. Precise as you were on the "13" who "explicitly endorsed" and the "913" who "remained," you suddenly run out of precision on the number who "actually opposed." Smart. Convenient.
Your whole post is built on that technique. I don't have the time to go through it line-by-line, I've shown the way and anyone who wants to further beat this dead horse can amuse himself or herself by so doing. Bottom line, despite all your "severals" and "explicits," is that the consensus is what it is and your anti-manmade-global-warming "scientists" are just a motley collection of genuine mavericks and total sell-outs. The odds of their being correct and everyone else being wrong are comparable to the odds on me being elected President of the United States of America. Real-life decisions have to be made on the basis of the prevailing best scientific opinion available, not on the one-in-a-million possibility that a bunch of nuts just might be right after all.
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All I gotta say, it only takes one person to disagree with the "consensus" opinion to make Gore a liar.
And that was only on one point. There were a number of other lies in Gore's movie.
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Global warming or not, I don't doubt that the human race will survive. But that is not the point.
Gore's point is that unless we do something, Global warming will be more destructive and changes must take place now because the process does not have brakes, and action must be taken NOW.
It is fine to say that there is no reason to be alarmist, but that is wrong. Human beings do not move unless they are seriously alarmed. It took major panic to get DDT, tetraethyl of lead and asbestos out of the environment, and Gore's film was exactly what was needed.
Intelligent design has no chance of winning any Nobel Prize. No one pays any attention to the Intelligent design clowns outside the US, nor should they.
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<<All I gotta say, it only takes one person to disagree with the "consensus" opinion to make Gore a liar.
<<And that was only on one point. There were a number of other lies in Gore's movie.>>
Yeah. A number. WHAT number?
I gotta laugh at the childish response, Ami. If there were a thousand truths and three lies in the movie; and if each of the truths were ten thousand times more important to the future of humanity than all of the lies; then Ami would zero in on the three petty lies and completely ignore every single truth in the film. Which is just hilarious. Fortunately, the rest of the film's audience doesn't seem to be that dumb. The difference between you and they would be that they have something you don't and never will: a sense of proportion.
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Yeah. A number. WHAT number?
The judge found, what, 13? Maybe more?
Besides, the basis of the movie is that "scientists have reached a consensus" that humans are the main cause of global warming - and virtually all scientists that study global change themselves say that statement is not true.
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Gore's point is that unless we do something, Global warming will be more destructive and changes must take place now because the process does not have brakes, and action must be taken NOW.
The best science I can find on this subject suggests the planet is not headed for cataclysmic change, and whatever we might to do slow the process will have a minuscule effect at best. So there is no reason whatever to be alarmist about it.
It is fine to say that there is no reason to be alarmist, but that is wrong. Human beings do not move unless they are seriously alarmed. It took major panic to get DDT, tetraethyl of lead and asbestos out of the environment, and Gore's film was exactly what was needed.
Um, no. We need to make decision based on a rational assessment of the fact, not lies and fearmongering. So no, Gore's film is not what was needed. And I shouldn't have to point out that the alarmist warnings about D.D.T. resulted in a ban so complete that millions of people die every year from malaria that could be prevented by use of D.D.T. Not exactly the sort of footsteps I want to follow.
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<<Besides, the basis of the movie is that "scientists have reached a consensus" that humans are the main cause of global warming - and virtually all scientists that study global change themselves say that statement is not true.>>
I don't really follow the science of it all that closely, but it sure sounds like someone is playing word games here. Whether the cause is mankind or not, it should be pretty obvious that if it's a problem, then mankind should bestir itself and find the solution. How smart do you have to be to know that dumping billions of tons of toxins and particulate matter into the environment, which may or may not cause global warming but probably does, has got to stop now. The focus on global warming is just a part of it. Toxic pollution is the other part.
I'm also not impressed with the waffling around "reached a consensus" and the "virtually all" that say it's not true. Once they fall short of unanimity, a "consensus" is, semantically, up for grabs. What if it's a solid majority but not a consensus? What if someone denies consensus when there's only one hold-out in a thousand? If there's a reasonably broad majority of informed scientific opinion backing the idea, then as far as I'm concerned, the idea is well enough established for action to be taken on it. (BTW, as I'm sure you already know, "informed" scientific opinion means opinion that agrees with me.)
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(BTW, as I'm sure you already know, "informed" scientific opinion means opinion that agrees with me.)
Yes, I know. If there are 5 scientists that agree with you, and 5,000 that don't, then only those 5 are "informed."
I figured that out quite some time ago. It's the basis of all your arguments.
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Usually it's the other way around, but you have the general idea.
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Usually it's the other way around, but you have the general idea.
When it comes to your claims regarding science, it's usually the way I described it.