And the winner is …

A few weeks ago, the least surprising of all the academy awards went to Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth. To be a bit cruel, the lightweights who make up the Hollywood elite—people who wouldn’t know a real scientific study from a porn movie—became entranced with the “Goracle’s” grossly inaccurate and overly hysterical view of global climate change.

But no matter, the MSM—long convinced that global warming is being caused by human-produced CO2 (Gore’s claim)—celebrated the award as yet further validation of the half truths and distortions contained in Gore's documentary.

To their credit, UK’s Channel 4 has produced a scientifically accurate documentary that worries that “the global warming alarm is now beyond reason.” The hour and a quarter TV documentary presents interviews with eminent climatologists from around the world, provides the science in a cogent manner, and suggests that what we’re experiencing is The Great Global Warming Swindle. If you’re convinced that global warming is an impeding catastrophy, spend the time to view the whole thing. It just might change your mind.

The climate change folks continually make reference to climate models as the basis for all of their dire predictions. As one scientist in the Channel 4 documentary states” “All it takes is one assumption to be wrong and the model is all wrong.” Virtually all climate changes models overly emphasize the importance of CO2, even though sun cycles and water vapor have a significantly greater affect on climate and correlate far more strongly with the average temperature of the earth. In fact, if you examine the science, it appears that CO2 is a function of temperature, not the other way around. Stated another way, historical data collected over thousands of years (including the ice core data that the Goracle so prominently features) indicates that rising temperatures result in increased CO2 output from natural sources (e.g., the ocean), not the other way around. These natural sources produce hundreds of times more CO2 that humans ever could or ever will.

A technical aside: For those who have viewed An Inconvenient Truth, I'm sure you'll recall Gore's lengthy discussion of CO2 vs. temperature using a full-wall electronic display of ice core data over tens of thousands of years. Here's what's interesting -- it appears that the graphs were constructed to purposely mislead the viewer. The CO2 and temperature were not overlaid (one on top of the other), but rather placed one above the other. The viewer sees the shape of the graphs (which are similar) and assumes that Gore's claim of cause and effect is obvious. However, it just might be an optical illusion. If the temp trace were lowered to the same level as the CO2 curve, it appears that it would lag the CO2 curve just slightly. Temp rises, then CO2 increases! As a consequence, Gore's argument falls apart.

It appears that “modelers are less concerned with producing a forecast that is accurate than to produce one that is interesting” to the media. Dramatic results are required, hence ridiculous predictions of a 20-foot ocean rise, mega-hurricanes, cities under water, and a complete disregard for accurate science.

Another scientist comments:

The analogy that I might use is my car is not running very well, but I’m going to ignore the engine – which is the sun – and I’m going to ignor the transmission – which is the water vapor – and instead, I’m going to focus on one lug nut on the right rear wheel – which is the human produced CO2. The science is really that bad.”

Why does all of this misinformation get so much play? At the beginning of the documentary there’s a quote worth noting:

“Because world communism failed and the [Berlin] wall came down, a lot of peaceniks and political activists moved into the environmental movement bringing their neo-Marxism with them and learned to use green language in a very clever way to cloak agendas that actually had more to do with anti-capitalism and anti-globalization that they had to do anything with ecology or science.”

Obviously some right wing neo-con from the Bush administration or maybe Rush Limbach said this, right? Think again, the speaker is Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace.

In the conclusion to the documentary, Channel 4 addresses the argument that goes, “What’s the harm. It’s better to be safe than sorry.” Problem is, the restrictions imposed as a result of the bad science espoused by climate change fanatics hurt the world poorest people the most. Again, Greenpeace’s Patrick Moore comments:

[One of the most pernicious aspects of the global warming movement] “is the implied romantization of the peasant life and the idea that industrial societies are the destroyers of the world.

Possibly without meaning to, the global warming movement has become the strongest force in preventing development in the developing countires.

I wonder if Al Gore is proud of that.