Majority Press Release

Contact: MARC MORANO (marc_morano@epw.senate.gov) 202-224-5762, MATT DEMPSEY (matthew_dempsey@epw.senate.gov) 202-224-9797



AP INCORRECTLY CLAIMS SCIENTISTS PRAISE GORE'S MOVIE

June 27, 2006

The June 27, 2006 Associated Press (AP) article titled "Scientists OK Gore's Movie for Accuracy" by Seth Borenstein raises some serious questions about AP's bias and methodology.

AP chose to ignore the scores of scientists who have harshly criticized the science presented in former Vice President Al Gore's movie "An Inconvenient Truth."

In the interest of full disclosure, the AP should release the names of the "more than 100 top climate researchers" they attempted to contact to review "An Inconvenient Truth." AP should also name all 19 scientists who gave Gore "five stars for accuracy." AP claims 19 scientists viewed Gore's movie, but it only quotes five of them in its article. AP should also release the names of the so-called scientific "skeptics" they claim to have contacted.

The AP article quotes Robert Correll, the chairman of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment group. It appears from the article that Correll has a personal relationship with Gore, having viewed the film at a private screening at the invitation of the former Vice President. In addition, Correll's reported links as an "affiliate" of a Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm that provides "expert testimony" in trials and his reported sponsorship by the left-leaning Packard Foundation, were not disclosed by AP. See http://www.junkscience.com/feb06.htm

The AP also chose to ignore Gore's reliance on the now-discredited "hockey stick" by Dr. Michael Mann, which claims that temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere remained relatively stable over 900 years, then spiked upward in the 20th century, and that the 1990's were the warmest decade in at least 1000 years. Last week's National Academy of Sciences report dispelled Mann's often cited claims by reaffirming the existence of both the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age. See Senator Inhofe's statement on the broken "Hockey Stick." (http://epw.senate.gov/pressitem.cfm?party=rep&id=257697 )

Gore's claim that global warming is causing the snows of Mt. Kilimanjaro to disappear has also been debunked by scientific reports. For example, a 2004 study in the journal Nature makes clear that Kilimanjaro is experiencing less snowfall because there's less moisture in the air due to deforestation around Kilimanjaro.

Here is a sampling of the views of some of the scientific critics of Gore:

Professor Bob Carter, of the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at James Cook University in Australia, on Gore's film:

"Gore's circumstantial arguments are so weak that they are pathetic. It is simply incredible that they, and his film, are commanding public attention."

"The man is an embarrassment to US science and its many fine practitioners, a lot of whom know (but feel unable to state publicly) that his propaganda crusade is mostly based on junk science." - Bob Carter as quoted in the Canadian Free Press, June 12, 2006

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.

Roy Spencer, principal research scientist for the University of Alabama in Huntsville, wrote an open letter to Gore criticizing his presentation of climate science in the film:

"...Temperature measurements in the arctic suggest that it was just as warm there in the 1930's...before most greenhouse gas emissions. Don't you ever wonder whether sea ice concentrations back then were low, too?"- Roy Spencer wrote in a May 25, 2006 column.

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.

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Gary
85 300D Ivory, 202,000
Beatus exsisto Jesu, verus et Deus verus Vir

How do we know that the climate change is man-made?

There is no way to proove what the atmosphere temperatures have been over the last million years. We can acuratly log back into the 1600's, somtimes as early as the 1400's. 600 years is barely a picometre on the Earths timeline.

The human form has changed and survived for 600,000 years. We will adapt.

And frankly, when the next iceage or heat age comes around in ~8000 years, I don't think I'll be alive to worry about it.

Mr Gore's movie presents one side of this argument at best, is pure propoganda at worst.

Still the other side should be heard before making a decision.

I have not seen the movie, don't wish to. I have heard enough and read enough about it to know what its about.

__________________
1999 SL500
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
2007 Tiara 3200

Marc Morano is Senior Staff Writer for CNSNews.com and is previously known as Rush Limbaugh’s “Man in Washington,” as reporter and producer for the Rush Limbaugh Television Show, as well as a former correspondent and producer for American Investigator, the nationally syndicated TV newsmagazine.

Nuf said

That's right, shoot the messenger and ignore the facts... Al Gore is a buffon.

Does this make the story untrue?

B

There is no question that nature has the capacity to adapt, and that our climate has changed dramatically and repeatedly over the ages. However, the alarming part about the present climate change issue is the *speed* at which the climate is changing. One specific and undeniable fact is the dramatic increase in CO2 in parts per million since the onset of the Industrial Revolution, circa 1800. This increase is particularly apparent in the data sets available since 1960. I know that a lot of people don't believe the "hockey stick" graph because we don't have accurate data going back to the 1400s. However the data available since 1800 is irrefutable.

It takes time for nature to adapt to climate change, and this time is measured in millenia depending on the age of a generation of a specific species. The changes the earth is presently undergoing are taking place too fast for nature to adapt and will have a significant impact on life on earth at some point from the middle to later part of this century. Yes, humanity will survive. But how many of us? And what will that world look like? Will it be one you want to live in, assuming you have the resources available to survive the new conditions.

Lindzen is a crank who is paid damn good money to propogate those opinions.

Ross Gelbspan, journalist and author, wrote a 1995 article in Harper's Magazine which was very critical of Lindzen and other global warming skeptics. In the article, Gelbspan reports Lindzen charged "oil and coal interests $2,500 a day for his consulting services; [and] his 1991 trip to testify before a Senate committee was paid for by Western Fuels and a speech he wrote, entitled 'Global Warming: the Origin and Nature of Alleged Scientific Consensus,' was underwritten by OPEC."

More at:

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_S._Lindzen

S'Funny, people give Noam Chomsky a hard time, pooh-poohing his MIT cred. but Lindzed is prominently featured as an MIT scientist...

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1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

My favorite MIT alums



The planet is warming, our industrial systems probably had something to help it along . . . the debate is over how much is mea culpla and how much is Mother Nature having a "hot flash."

Embrace the debate, check the source, just don't ignore it, Pollyanna.

The leading wisenheimers of our time. Love those guys.

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1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

Please do some more research on this topic, your "facts" are not anything of the kind. Here's a hint, correlation does not equal causation. The data from 1800 on is not irrefutable and the hockey stick has been disproven, several stories on such this last week. If you do believe in the irrefutableness of the 1800 to present data please explain how with our current instrumentation and techniques we can detect a change in global mean temperature of 0.006C, much less attribute said "irrefutable" change to man.

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-livin' in the terminally flippant zone

Whoa there skippy! Lindzen has gone from "a guy who doesn't quite write convincingly" to "a paid schill"? And this doesn't make sense because people bad mouth Noam Chomsky and Lindzen yet they both work at MIT?

Amazing! How can this be? The world is so unfair...

Ok, here's food for thought:

Noam Chomsky is a linguist. He's even a professor in that field employed by MIT. As such he's pretty good at it reportedly - I don't know because I'm not a linguist. I've read some people think he's allright at it and some think he's got flawed theories. Problem is, Mr. Chomsky makes the bulk of his money (excellent capitalist that he is) and is most well known for several things - none of which is linguistics.

Now lets switch gears a little here. Dr. Lindzen is actually a meteorologist. How about that! The man opines in an area where he is actually an expert. Rather than say, elaborating on the evilness of nudist entymologists, an area that is not his field or expertise - similar to what Chomsky does. Shocking!

Now lets have a look at Sourcewatch, a subsidiary of the Center for Media and Democracy. We learn from this source, stated above, that Dr. Lindzen can't be trusted because a reporter wrote an article in Harper's Magazine that was critical of those who didn't accept anthropogenic global warming hook line and sinker. Gosh! A reporter. Worse yet, the man has accepted money from "Big Oil"! So, we have a reporter who's worst accusation against a man is that he doesn't believe the established religion and that he has taken money from oil companies. But wait, lets go a little bit down from the story and look to the external links. Here's one http://hcr3.isiknowledge.com/author.cgi?id=2422 that details Dr. Lindzen's extensive academic career and organizations to which he belongs. Among the many are the National Academy of Sciences, The American Meteorological Society and so one. You know what? The guy has also won many awards in his field of expertise. I'm willing to go out on a limb here and bet that he's even published an article or two in his field of study.

So, who to believe??? The reporter, who's only evidence that Dr. Lindzen's professional opinion is silly is because he's accepted some money from the oil industry or Dr. Lindzen who actually works in the field and researches the data. Hmmmmmmmmm, I think I'm gonna risk extreme disapproval from the Church of the Holy Earth and go with the scientist, and science, on this one. His hypotheses seem to more accuratly match the available data than does the opinion of His Eminence Al Gore I.

BTW, if you'll do a little research you'll see that Lindzen's hypothesis regarding the reduction of storms with the advent of global warming (i.e. a reduction in global temperature delta) rather than the increase (as has been stated by Bishop Robert Kennedy) is actually physically sound.

But hey, don't let the facts get in the way of a good myth, call the man and ask him your questions, I'm sure he can explain things to you. Here's his number (617) 253-2432.

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-livin' in the terminally flippant zone

Puh-lenty of Rush's stuff is weighted heavily to obfuscatory, partial tellings of the facts. Many examples of that. No, I'm not going to find them for you.

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1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

I don't need to see no damn movie...

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1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

Sir, I feel obligated to correct you. The proper spelling is "buffoon".