UK Court Said Schools Must Warn of Bias in 'An Inconvenient Truth'

News Busters ^ | 10/4/2007 | Lynn Davidson

[Fawn]

Conveniently, the American media is largely ignoring a significant statement from a UK High Court judge who said Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” promotes “partisan political views” and the schools should treat it as such.

As a result the British government was forced to rewrite their website and their “guidance” and will need to issue a warning before showing the film.

As NewsBusters reported, truck driver, part-time school official and father of two Stewart Dimmock brought a High Court action to ban the film from UK schools, claiming it is “unfit for schools” because it contains scientific inaccuracies, “sentimental mush” and is politically biased.

The movie was distributed to more than 3500 schools for children aged 11 to 14-year-olds in “Climate Change Packs.”

Even though the wire services AP and UPI covered this story, it has largely gone unreported in America, unlike in England. UK’s Daily Mail covered the story in this October 3 article (bold mine throughout):

 

Schools will have to issue a warning before they show pupils Al Gore's controversial film about global warming, a judge indicated yesterday.

Mr Justice Burton is due to deliver a ruling on the case next week, but yesterday he said he would be saying that Gore's Oscar-winning film does promote 'partisan political views'. 

This means that teachers will have to warn pupils that there are other opinions on global warming and they should not necessarily accept the views of the film.

The article actually addressed the lack of facts backing up "An Inconvenient Truth":

But during the three-day hearing the court heard that the critically-acclaimed film contains a number of inaccuracies, exaggerations and statements about global warming for which there is currently insufficient scientific evidence.”  

This is rather amazing news, considering how the movie is thought of as environmental scripture. While it was a win for science, it wasn’t a total success. Hearing about “An Inconvenient Truth’s” scientific inaccuracies won’t stop the British government from continuing to teach it to kids:

Children's Minister Kevin Brennan said last night: 'The judge's decision is clear that schools can continue to use An Inconvenient Truth as part of their teaching on climate change in accordance with the amended guidance, which will be available online today.

'We have updated the accompanying guidance, as requested by the judge to make it clearer for teachers as to the stated Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change position on a number of scientific points raised in the film.' 

 So, to avoid being accused of using scientifically inaccurate material by the courts, instead of stating that many of Gore’s “facts” were debunked by scientists, the government simply directed teachers to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which happened to be a primary source for Gore’s movie.

That’s a slick dodge.

The lack of US media attention isn't surprising. The media don’t have a good record reporting the movie’s fallacies, why would they report a judge calling it partisan? 

 

(ht The Monkey Tennis Center)

Lynn is a contributor to NewsBusters. Contact her at tvisgoodforyou2 AT yahoo DOT com

 

[Fawn]

CNN weatherman considers Gore's An Inconvenient Truth fiction

[lilylangtree]

Well, this is certainly interesting development that won’t see much media coverage.

[Fawn]

Pray for that CNN weatherman that he isn’t fired and blacklisted! LOL

[Deb]

I knew I shouldn’t have bought all those wiggly light bulbs.

[henkster]

There’s nothing wrong with the wiggly light bulbs. If they are cheaper in the long run, great. I’ll buy as many as I’ve got sockets for. BUT...it should be done on a free-market basis, not mandated by the government.

I wish we’d have a judge with a backbone to issue a similar order in the U.S. My son’s honors biology class was forced to sit through that bilge. He knows algore is not a scientist, and the film is not science. He also knows what the Medieval Warm period was, too.

[USFRIENDINVICTORIA]

The wiggly bulbs are probably cost-effective in warmer parts of the U.S. In most of Canada, they won’t actually save much, if any, energy — because it’s usually cold out when it’s dark & the heat an ordinary bulb gives off is useful.

Despite that; ordinary bulbs will soon be banned in Canada because doing so gives people the impression that “something is being done about global warming”. The sad thing is that a lot of people actually seem to believe that switching light bulbs is all that is required to meet Kyoto targets. If most people had any idea how much “fighting global warming” will cost them, there’d be revolts.

[Berlin_Freeper]

So why bother showing it at all since it is flawed and misleading?

[popdonnelly]

Oh, the Humanity!

We need courts like this in this country.

[britemp]

‘In most of Canada, they won’t actually save much, if any, energy — because it’s usually cold out when it’s dark & the heat an ordinary bulb gives off is useful.’

There was a scientist on BBC Radio 4 a few weeks ago who calculated that during an average year of average temperatures in Britain, if people turned up their heating to exactly compensate for the heat energy-saving light bulbs do not give out compared to conventional ones, the net result was more energy used, not less.

[britemp]

‘So why bother showing it at all since it is flawed and misleading?’

Because kids are quite bright and can spot charlatans a mile off? :)

[protest1]

The government should also send out copies of “The Great Global Warming Swindle” to every school to redress the political bias.

http://www.greatglobalwarmingswindle.co.uk/

[libstripper]

There’s nothing wrong with the wiggly light bulbs. If they are cheaper in the long run, great. I’ll buy as many as I’ve got sockets for. BUT...it should be done on a free-market basis, not mandated by the government.

True enough. That's why I have them in about half the sockets in my house. The other really big benefit is that I don't have to change bulbs anywhere near as often. For businesses and governments that can be a huge advantage since the labor cost of repeatedly changing incandescent bulbs can be many times the energy cost savings.

[xcamel]

FReepmail me to get on or off

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partial re-post

[Berlin_Freeper]

“Because kids are quite bright and can spot charlatans a mile off?”

If you like. I think it is a waste of their educational day.

[USFRIENDINVICTORIA]

That’s probably true in some cases. The radiant heat that an ordinary light bulb puts out warms anyone it shines on (slightly) — and can make you feel comfortable at a (slightly) lower room temperature.

[LachlanMinnesota]

The president of our local power company told me that for a large part of the winter they do not heatr the power company office because the heat from the lighting fixtures provided more than enough heat. They sometimes left them on during the night and kept the place warm when heating fuel prices were high.