The 35 Errors In "An Inconvenient Truth" - Part 5

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.”

The Facts:

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.

The photo of the stranded polar bear(seen above) was one of a couple that were used time and again by environmentalist groups to pull at the heartstrings of the viewer and win them over to their side of the arguement. This, however, has been debunked by the photographer.

ERROR 9 Coral reefs "bleaching" (This was the final point ruled on by the British High Court.)

Gore says coral reefs are “bleaching” because of “global warming.”

The Facts:

There was some bleaching in 1998, but this was caused by the exceptional El Nino Southern Oscillation that year. Two similarly severe El Niño's over the past 250 years also caused extensive bleaching. “Global warming” was nothing to do with it.

Supported by:

New research from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shows the seas rapidly cooled from 2003 to 2005.