Tuesday, September 1, 2009

The 35 Errors in "An Inconvenient Truth" - Part 13

ERROR 33 Gore's bogus pictures and film footage

1.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.

2. 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.” (As seen above).

The Facts:

1. 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.

2. 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” but because of the regional cooling of the southern Atlantic.

ERROR 34 The Thames Barrier "closing more frequently"

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.

The Facts:

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.

ERROR 35 "No fact...in dispute by anybody."

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.”


The Facts:

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.

So Lord Monkton categorically dissected each of the errors in question and compared them with the real world facts (as they stand), yet more disturbingly a believer like Professor Matthew England is so blinded by his adoration for Gore that he can find not even one. This from a man of science claiming to be looking after the best interests of the wider community in this debate, rather than the best interest of seeking more funding arrangements.

No comments:

Post a Comment