The former vice-president has won plaudits around the world for his work on global warming, publicized in a best-selling book, an Oscar-winning movie, Power Point lectures, and now the Nobel Peace Prize. By coincidence, the announcement of the Nobel coincided with the conclusion of a months-long court case in Britain examining whether An Inconvenient Truth can be shown to British school children. The judge ruled this week that the movie can be shown in classrooms, but only if accompanied by teacher guidance notes balancing Gore's "one-sided views."
After listening to government witnesses, environmental campaigners, and skeptics on global warming argue their case, the judge described Gore's film as "broadly accurate" in its presentation of climate change. At the same time he also listed
nine significant errors in the movie which, he said, reflected a general context of "alarmism and exaggeration" surrounding climate change.
The nine objections were as follows:
- Burton found that Gore's assertion of a rise in sea-levels caused by the melting of icebergs in Antarctica was overly "alarmist."
- Gore claimed that the disappearance of year-round snow from the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa was expressly attributable to global warming. The court was not convinced. According to Burton, the scientific "consensus" is that the reasons for the snow recession on Kilimanjaro cannot be established.
- Gore cited a scientific study showing that polar bears had drowned by "swimming long distances--up to 60 miles--to find the ice." Evidence backing up this claim was not produced to the British court. The judge wrote that the only scientific study shown to him indicated "that four polar bears have recently been found drowned because of a storm."
- Gore attributed Hurricane Katrina to global warming. The judge found that there was "insufficient evidence to show that."
- The Gore movie depicted the drying up of Lake Chad as a prime example of the effects of global warming. Expert testimony in front of the British court suggested that "far more likely causes" were "population increase, over-grazing, and regional climate variability."
- Gore suggested an "exact fit" between the rise in carbon dioxide levels and the rise in temperatures over a period of 650,000 years. According to the judge, scientists generally agree that there is "a connection," between the two phenomena, but claims of an "exact fit" cannot be established.
- An "Inconvenient Truth" claimed that low-lying inhabited Pacific atolls are already being "inundated because of anthropogenic global warming." The judge said that he found no evidence of any evacuation of population from the islands because of global warming.
- The movie suggested that global warming could shut down "the Ocean Conveyer," a process by which the Gulf Stream is carried over the North Atlantic to Western Europe. The judge cited a study by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which concluded that it was "very unlikely" that the Ocean Conveyer would be shut down completely, although it might slow down.
- Gore argued that coral reefs all over the world were bleaching because of global warming and other factors. The judge said that it was very difficult to separate out the impact of stresses on coral reefs caused by climate change and factors, such as over-fishing and pollution.
uh.. you're kidding, right? 
