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Al Gore is a Brave Truth Teller?
RealClearPolitics ^ | June 7, 2006 | Robert Tracinski

Posted on 06/06/2006 9:58:46 PM PDT by RWR8189

Al Gore is trying to resurrect his environmentalist crusade--and, perhaps, his political career--with a new film that depicts him as a courageous voice in the wilderness, speaking up for "an inconvenient truth" that challenges the entrenched political establishment.

This is, of course, laughable. Everyone knows that the global warming theory is the dogma of the entrenched establishment. We know this because we are relentlessly barraged with global warming hysteria from political leaders, the mainstream media, and the government-scientific complex. We are constantly told that we are in imminent danger of dying from everything as catastrophic as massive flooding or as trivial as runaway poison ivy.

What the general public may not have heard about is the courageous band of researchers who are the ones actually speaking up for science in the face of this global warming juggernaut. Ironically, some of the reporting prompted by Gore's film has allowed some of these scientists to be heard--and we ought to listen.

Let's look at just one scientific issue: Gore's claim that global warming is causing an increase in the frequency and intensity of hurricanes. It's fair to single out this claim, because that is what the filmmakers have done. Posters for An Inconvenient Truth feature an arresting image of the swirling storm-clouds of a hurricane emerging from an industrial smokestack.

But the truth about this claim is very inconvenient for Al Gore and the environmentalists. The Washington Times published an article surveying a number of top hurricane scientists, whom it found to be "divided" on the merits of Gore's claim. Chris Landsea of the National Hurricane Center even doubts that hurricane intensity has increased as much as claimed over the past thirty years, pointing out that scientists couldn't accurately measure hurricane wind speeds until 1984. We don't know how much of the increase in Category 4 and Category 5 hurricanes recorded in recent years is due to an actual increase or whether it is, as he puts it, an "artificial increase," an illusion produced by our improved ability to measure hurricanes.

Meanwhile, Phil Klotzbach, a hurricane forecaster at Colorado State University, points out that increased hurricane activity in the Atlantic has been balanced out by a decrease in the number of tropical storms in the Pacific. "When these two regions are summed together, there has been virtually no increase in Category 4-5 hurricanes."

The May 30 Los Angeles Times carries a profile on Klotzbach's mentor, Colorado State University professor emeritus William M. Gray, who pioneered the science of forecasting hurricane activity. The article notes: "Like many hurricane forecasters, Gray rejects the theory that the recent uptick in storms is due to climate change. He points out that the US had an unusually low number of storms from the 1970s to the end of the century and says the law of averages is simply catching up." At age 76, this distinguished scientist is devoting his retirement to refuting the entire notion that global warming is caused by human activity, an idea he describes as "one of the greatest hoaxes ever." Gray is "not one to just go along with the crowd," Klotzbach concludes.

Now isn't that interesting? It turns out that the man taking an independent stand and refusing to "just go along with the crowd" on global warming is not a lifelong politician rewarded with a fawning documentary and inside-the-beltway adulation--but rather a distinguished scientists who is a global warming skeptic.

So if the splashy movie-poster claim of An Inconvenient Truth turns out to be dubious and hotly contested--very far from an established "truth"--where does that leave Al Gore's status as the brave truth-teller? A fawning New York Times profile on Gore admits that he avoids "making direct causal links that most scientists say are impossible to substantiate" but instead "uses imagery and implication" to make his case. That's about the most tasteful description of the methods of a flim-flam artist I have ever read.

But not to worry, another New York Times article tells us, because two new studies have confirmed the link between global warming and hurricanes. Have you ever noticed this little trick used by global warming scaremongers? They will insistently repeat a claim for five years--then tell you that it is justified by a study released last Tuesday. Maybe so, but how does that justify their making that claim five years before it was "proven"? And as for the new "proof," even the New York Times report admits that "neither the authors nor other climate experts say it is conclusive." The reporter even gives the last word to a skeptic--Stanley Goldenberg of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration--who dismisses the new papers: "There's going to be an endless series of articles from this circle that is embracing this new theology built on very flimsy interpretation."

I guess some of the truth is starting to get a hearing--no matter how inconvenient that might be for Gore and company.

 

Robert Tracinski writes daily commentary at TIADaily.com. He is the editor of The Intellectual Activist and TIADaily.com.



TOPICS: Editorial; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: algore; bore; climate; climatechange; globalwarming; gore; goron; iinventedeverything; insomniacure; lies; manbearpig; mbp; notruth; wacko; zzzzz
alt

Well, my work here is done. I've killed ManBearPig, and now I must save the world from something else. Maybe I'll make a movie. A movie starring me. Then people will take me super serial!

1 posted on 06/06/2006 9:58:51 PM PDT by RWR8189
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To: RWR8189

'global warming'

This morning's forecast-mid 40's in Michigan.


2 posted on 06/06/2006 10:19:54 PM PDT by Westlander (Unleash the Neutron Bomb)
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To: RWR8189

3 posted on 06/06/2006 10:24:05 PM PDT by dead (I've got my eye out for Mullah Omar.)
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To: RWR8189

Al Gore is a Brave Truth Teller?

WOW!!! so I AM the queen of Sheba!!!


4 posted on 06/06/2006 10:26:56 PM PDT by BruceysMom (.I'm hot & not in a good way, menopause ain't for sissies.)
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To: BruceysMom

The media is sure treating him like he is. they are giving him plenty of air time.

And no doubt, the sheeple will follow.


5 posted on 06/06/2006 10:30:27 PM PDT by Nathan Zachary
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To: RWR8189
Algore's talent: broadcasting the obvious at the exact instant it becomes irrelevant.

Well, this formulation needs work. What I mean is that he adopts what he assumes his allies believe at the instant those views are abandoned as cliche's.

Have you ever seen Tom Wolfe's cartoon "The Man Who Peaked Too Soon?" Algore is the man who peaked too late.
6 posted on 06/06/2006 10:50:14 PM PDT by tsomer
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To: RWR8189
al-Gore is to truth what Hillary is to class. Antithesis.
7 posted on 06/06/2006 11:07:08 PM PDT by TheWasteLand
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To: BruceysMom
WOW!!! so I AM the queen of Sheba!!!

My father is the Czar of Russia. So there.
8 posted on 06/06/2006 11:55:26 PM PDT by carumba (The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you've got it made. Groucho)
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To: carumba

WOW!!! so I AM the queen of Sheba!!!

My father is the Czar of Russia. So there.

I AM KING OF THE UNIVERSE


9 posted on 06/07/2006 1:09:44 AM PDT by hdstmf
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To: RWR8189

Al Gore reminds me of Stuart Smalley


10 posted on 06/07/2006 1:21:11 AM PDT by LeoWindhorse
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To: BruceysMom
Your Majesty!
11 posted on 06/07/2006 1:33:47 AM PDT by highlander_UW (I don't know what my future holds, but I know Who holds my future)
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To: TheWasteLand

So, what is the synthesis of Gore:truth and Hillary:class? Both of them are lefties and thus should have some understanding of dialectical materialism, they should know.

Perhaps they should whimper out the truth rather than banging out their lies.


12 posted on 06/07/2006 4:04:49 AM PDT by dhuffman@awod.com (The conspiracy of ignorance masquerades as common sense.)
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To: RWR8189
If Al Gore had been alive thousands of years ago --
he would have insisted humans were causing the retreat of the ice sheet that covered Wisconsin.

Bad...bad...bad humans.

13 posted on 06/07/2006 4:21:16 AM PDT by syriacus (Which humans does Gore accuse of causing the Ice sheets to retreat from Wisconsin?)
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To: BruceysMom
"Al Gore is a Brave Truth Teller?

WOW!!! so I AM the queen of Sheba!!!"

...and I better get to a rest room at noon, because if all this is true then theres going to be a monkey flying out of my butt.

14 posted on 06/07/2006 4:39:21 AM PDT by libs_kma (USA: The land of the Free....Because of the Brave!)
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To: Nathan Zachary

Michael Medved is predicting that Hollywood will award Gore with the Oscar for Best Documentary at next year's Academy Awards ceremony. The lovefest is just beginning.


15 posted on 06/07/2006 4:53:16 AM PDT by IndyTiger
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To: RWR8189
"Our country has come a long way: first we had George Washington, who couldn't tell a lie. Then we had Bill Clinton, who couldn't tell the truth. And now we have Al Gore, who can't tell the difference..."Jay Leno
16 posted on 06/07/2006 5:31:24 AM PDT by Doogle (USAF...8th TFW...Ubon Thailand...408thMMS..."69"...Night Line Delivery...AMMO!!)
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To: libs_kma; BruceysMom; Doogle

LOLOLOL! You folks had tea coming out my nose this morning!


17 posted on 06/07/2006 6:07:36 AM PDT by alwaysconservative (My memory's not as good as it used to be. Also, my memory's not as good as it used to be.)
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