Al Gore’s Peace Prize
Al Gore receives the Nobel Peace Prize - for what? Misrepresenting the facts about “Global Warming,” that’s what. I am amazed that this man, who claimed to have invented the Internet, would win a coveted Peace Prize for what amounts to a PowerPoint presentation that is riddled with inaccuracies, misstatements and outright misrepresentations. So much so, that a “British court recently found his film, An Inconvenient Truth, to be politically biased and ruled teachers must warn students of that bias before showing the film.” (Source: Gore’s price: A fraud on the people, Union Leader, October 14, 2007).
–The film claims global warming is responsible for the gradual retreat of the alpine glacier atop Africa’s Mount Kilimanjaro. Scientists have conclusively demonstrated no such link exists.
–The film presents graphs indicating that fluctuating carbon dioxide levels have always preceded and caused global temperature fluctuations. In fact, temperature changes have always preceded carbon dioxide changes.
–The film suggests global warming caused Hurricane Katrina. Few hurricane experts believe this, and substantial scientific evidence indicates global warming is having no impact on hurricane frequency or intensity.
–The film asserts global warming is causing Central Africa’s Lake Chad to dry up. In fact, land use practices are causing the drying up of Lake Chad, and Central Africa is in an unusual and prolonged wet period.
–The film asserts global warming is leading to polar bear deaths by drowning. Yet the only documented drowning deaths occurred due to a freak storm, and polar bear numbers are growing substantially.
–The film claims global warming threatens to halt the Gulf Stream and initiate a new ice age. The vast majority of scientists who have studied the issue have determined such a scenario is implausible.
–The film asserts global warming is causing the destruction of coral reefs through bleaching. Scientists have identified other causes for coral bleaching and have additionally noted bleaching is a natural process by which coral continually selects ideal symbiotic algae.
–The film asserts Greenland is in danger of rapid ice melt that will raise sea levels by 20 feet or more. The scientific consensus is that any foreseeable Greenland ice melt will be gradual and will take centuries to substantially raise sea levels.
–The film asserts the Antarctic ice shelf is melting. In fact, only a small portion of Antarctica is getting warmer and losing ice mass, while the vast majority of Antarctica is in a prolonged cold spell and is accumulating ice mass.
Also highlighted in court arguments was Al Gore’s admission in Grist Magazine that “I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous it [global warming] is.”
The British High Court’s ruling also stated, “As a result of the partisan political nature of Gore’s film, school teachers will not be allowed to show the movie without telling their students the film is scientifically controversial.”
Mr. Taylor further observed, “The British High Court properly recognized that Al Gore’s movie is nine parts political propaganda and one part science (Emphasis added). Virtually every assertion that Gore makes in the movie has been strongly contradicted by sound science…The British court decision should guide teachers in the U.S. to similarly treat Gore’s movie as the inaccurate and misleading propaganda tool that it is.”
In addition, The Sydney Morning Herald reported on October 14, 2007 that Dr. William Gray, one of the world's foremost meteorologists, has called the theory that was the basis for Al Gore’s sharing the Nobel Peace Prize "ridiculous,” stating that it is being promulgated by "people who don't understand how the atmosphere works". On the very day the Nobel Committee honored Al Gore, Dr. Gray, who is a pioneer in the science of seasonal hurricane forecasts, told a packed lecture hall that humans are not responsible for the warming of the earth. "We're brainwashing our children," he said, adding, "They're going to the Gore movie [An Inconvenient Truth] and being fed all this. It’s ridiculous.”At his first appearance since the award was announced in Oslo, Mr. Gore said, “We have to quickly find a way to change the world’s consciousness about exactly what we’re facing,” while Dr. Gray said that a natural cycle of ocean water temperatures - related to the amount of salt in ocean water - is responsible for the global warming. He also said that the same cycle meant a period of cooling would begin soon and last for several years. “We’ll look back on all of this in 10 or 15 years and realize how foolish it was,” Dr Gray added.During his speech to a crowd that included a host of professional meteorologists, Dr. Gray further said that those who had linked global warming to the increased number of hurricanes in recent years were in error, citing statistics that show there were 101 hurricanes from 1900 to 1949, in a period of cooler global temperatures, compared to 83 from 1957 to 2006 when the earth warmed. “The human impact on the atmosphere is simply too small to have a major effect on global temperatures,” he noted.Dr. Gray also commented, “It bothers me that my fellow scientists are not speaking out against something they know is wrong…But they also know that they’d never get any grants if they spoke out. I don’t care about grants.” Cycles of Global Warming and Cooling In an article titled, “Gored,” Harry Jackson, Jr. noted that thirty years ago the earth was thought to be moving into another ice age, but “we are now told the world is on the verge of unprecedented global warming...there have been four climate change scares; a concern over global cooling beginning in 1895, followed by fears of global warming in 1929, only to be replaced by alarm over global cooling; now we are back to global warming.” (Townhall.com, October 15, 2007). The Nobel Peace Prize and Politics Perhaps the most troubling aspect of the Nobel Peace Prize award to Al Gore is the blatant political nature of the process. How is it possible that the Nobel Committee could honor a man whose work is challenged as nothing more than political hype and not award the prize to a retired Roman Catholic Polish woman who saved 2,500 Jewish children from the “ovens,” providing them with false documents and hiding them from the Nazis at the risk of her own life?This is the same Committee, incidentally, that nominated Benito Mussolini, Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler – and awarded the Peace Prize to Yasser Arafat, a founder of modern terrorism and suicide bombing. (glennbeck.com, October 12, 2007).From my vantage point, awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to Al Gore not only further diminishes the stature of the award itself but reveals that it is politically motivated as well.
© 2007 Harris R. Sherline, All Rights Reserved
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