An Inconvenient Controversy: Fox & The Wingnuts vs The Peace Prize

[Vyan]

Today Al Gore Jr. has been awarded a Nobel Peace Prize as co-winner with the Intergovernment Panel on Climate Change. This being one of the few times in the last decade that an American has won the prize one would expect that nearly all of America would be rejoicing the same way that we tend to obsessively count our Olympic medals like a miser.

Oops... we did just lost five of those last week didn't we?

Anywho, it appears that not everyons is that happy for Albert. Just this morning the Fixed News and the Right-wing have begun their attack not just on Al Gore, but on the entire Nobel Peace Prize process claiming that it's all biased, political and anti-Bush because recent winners have included Mohamed ElBaradei of the IAEA (who told Bush there we're No Nukes in Iraq and Bush - well - didn't listen) and Jimmy Carter (who has said that for foreign policy Bush is the Worst President Ever because like - He Is!).

For a contest these guys weren't even involved in, they sure are sore losers.

Some Conservatives may be shocked and dismayed to hear it, but it really shouldn't be a surprise that George W. Bush, a man who has advocated and implemented perpetual endless War as the solution to just about every major problem he has faced, has not been seriously considered for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Y'know that thing with "P.E.A.C.E." right there in it's name?

The idea that former Vice-President and 2000 Presidential L.O.S.E.R. Albert Gore Jr. could actually win something - well, y'know, not counting The Oscar and The Emmy - seems have them going slightly over the edge. Again.

Ok, ok... still!

"Look on the bright side: after Arafat, Carter, and Iranian marionette Mohammed ElBaradei, the award couldn’t possibly be more degraded." - Hot Air’s Allahpundit

"Keeping to the trend of politicized awards, the Nobel Peace Prize has been given jointly to Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change." - National Review’s Jay Richards

"The Nobel Prize committee has basically surrendered to hysterics, mass exaggerators, and liars, most of who are not even climatologists or even any type of scientist." - William Teach at Pirate’s Cove

"I wasn’t even aware that they had a Nobel Prize for deceptive rhetoric." - Confederate Yankee

"This continues the trend of the Peace Prize being awarded, not for achievements in spreading peace, but to highlight the Committee’s political agenda." - James Joyner at Outside The Beltway.

Fortunately for them though, they have lots of low friends in high places including apparently one judge in Britain who just yesterday (wow, what a coincidence) has ruled that Al Gore's film "An Inconventient Truth" can not be shown in English Schools without "Guidance Notes" also being included.

In response to this Fox and Friend's Steve Doocy (the blonde-haired guy who actually is Steve Doocy at least according to Steven Colbert last night) was practically giddy.

Doocy: You know, I’m not a scientist. I don’t know if any of that stuff is true. I don’t think any of it’s true. I just know that my daughter watched the movie last week. ... took three shots at George Bush. And my daughter, who’s just 18, was turned off by how it was political. So there you go.

See, their big problem is that it was political? - well don't you know that "Reality has a well-known liberal bias"? (That is according to one well known Steve Doocy fan - also named Steve.)

Guy who is still Steve Doocy: That crazy Jimmy Carter even has one (A Nobel Peace Prize)

Yeah, that's right because we know that people who believe in striving for Peace as an alternative to like - what was it again, oh yeah, WAR - have to be just plain Koo Koo! Who could ever prefer life and prosperity to suffering and death?

Way to show respect for our former Presidents there Stevey, do we need to sick a Senate condemnation his ass or what? Why -oh- why do you HATE AMERICA, Steve?

Somehow they manage to yet again play their well worn victim card and whine that somebody, somewhere had the temerity to dare to Disagree with George W. Bush and that automatically makes them a bunch of Political Haters. Hey man, it's not Al Gore's fault that George W. Bush pissed on the Kyoto Treaty like it was the last piece of uncleared brush on his horseless, cowless Crawford "ranch" just after a long afternoon knocking back a six-pack of near-beer during Sunday Football.

Despite Fox's obsessive paranoia - this Peace Prize Isn't a Referendum on George W. Bush.

Anyway - at one point they state that the Judge found 11 falsehoods within the film, and then at another point they say there are 9 errors.

Er, What?

Ok, Here's me not being a climatologist, but I was found a sample of the 11 So-called Errors on - you guessed it - Newsbusters.

The film claims that melting snows on Mount Kilimanjaro evidence global warming. The Government's expert was forced to concede that this is not correct.

The film suggests that evidence from ice cores proves that rising CO2 causes temperature increases over 650,000 years. The Court found that the film was misleading: over that period the rises in CO2 lagged behind the temperature rises by 800-2000 years.

The film uses emotive images of Hurricane Katrina and suggests that this has been caused by global warming. The Government's expert had to accept that it was "not possible" to attribute one-off events to global warming.

The film shows the drying up of Lake Chad and claims that this was caused by global warming. The Government's expert had to accept that this was not the case.

The film claims that a study showed that polar bears had drowned due to disappearing arctic ice. It turned out that Mr Gore had misread the study: in fact four polar bears drowned and this was because of a particularly violent storm.

The film threatens that global warming could stop the Gulf Stream throwing Europe into an ice age: the Claimant's evidence was that this was a scientific impossibility.

The film blames global warming for species losses including coral reef bleaching. The Government could not find any evidence to support this claim.

The film suggests that the Greenland ice covering could melt causing sea levels to rise dangerously. The evidence is that Greenland will not melt for millennia.

The film suggests that the Antarctic ice covering is melting, the evidence was that it is in fact increasing.

The film suggests that sea levels could rise by 7m causing the displacement of millions of people. In fact the evidence is that sea levels are expected to rise by about 40cm over the next hundred years and that there is no such threat of massive migration.

The film claims that rising sea levels has caused the evacuation of certain Pacific islands to New Zealand. The Government are unable to substantiate this and the Court observed that this appears to be a false claim.

Please notice something here - None of these so-called "errors" happens to be the claim that either Global Warming isn't happening or that it isn't largely A Manmade Phenomenon.

The same is true of the "9 Errors" I found noted on ABCNews.com My non-scientific and mildly snarky comments are italicized.

1.) The sea level will rise up to 20 feet because of the melting of either West Antarctica or Greenland in the near future. (This "Armageddon scenario" would only take place over thousands of years, the judge wrote.) And this judge has a scientific degree in what exactly?

2.) Some low-lying Pacific islands have been so inundated with water that their citizens have all had to evacuate to New Zealand. ("There is no evidence of any such evacuation having yet happened.") Not Yet, but not because they haven't been trying

3.) Global warming will shut down the "ocean conveyor," by which the Gulf Stream moves across the North Atlantic to Western Europe. (According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, "it is very unlikely that the Ocean Conveyor will shut down in the future...") True, but it has already been changed by the increase of fresh water coming from the melting polar ice caps.

4.) There is a direct coincidence between the rise in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the rise in temperature over the last 650,000 years. ("Although there is general scientific agreement that there is a connection, the two graphs do not establish what Mr. Gore asserts.") He simply pointed out tempertates and Co2 have remained in correlation, scientists agree - what's the problem?

5.) The disappearance of the snows on Mount Kilimanjaro is expressly attributable to global warming. ("However, it is common ground that, the scientific consensus is that it cannot be established that the recession of snows on Mount. Kilimanjaro is mainly attributable to human-induced climate change.") It doesn't have to be mainly attributable, only attributable at all!

6.) The drying up of Lake Chad is a prime example of a catastrophic result of global warming. ("It is generally accepted that the evidence remains insufficient to establish such an attribution" and may be more likely the effect of population increase, overgrazing and regional climate variability.) However, Global Warming is still listed as one possible factor in the lake's shrinkage - see below)

7.) Hurricane Katrina and the consequent devastation in New Orleans is because of global warming. ("It is common ground that there is insufficient evidence to show that.") But there has been evidence to suggest that we are experiencing a greater percentage of Category 4 and 5 Hurricanes due to warmer gulf waters - and just what is making the water warmer?

8.) Polar bears are drowning because they have to swim long distances to find ice. ("The only scientific study that either side before me can find is one, which indicates that four polar bears have recently been found drowned because of a storm.") Just because that's all this judge found, doesn't mean that all that there is... see below

9.) Coral reefs all over the world are bleaching because of global warming and other factors. ("Separating the impacts of stresses due to climate change from other stresses, such as overfishing and pollution, was difficult.") Difficult, but not impossible!

Here's the real problem with all of this - the film actually didn't make most of these claims, not exactly - much of this is taken out of context - what the film merely does is quote various sources who had already published studies on the issue, which to this day remain the best available data. Certainly as our understanding of these complex issues increase these views will change and have to be constantly updated, as Mr. Gore has constantly updated his slideshow. Quibbling over the small stuff doesn't change the big picture - which is that Climate Change is Real.

Contrary to this judges claims This is what the film says on it's Science Page (I've included links and quotes from each listed source)

• The number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes has almost doubled in the last 30 years. (NOT that Katrina's strength was a "One off event")

  Source Increasing Destructiveness of Tropical Cyclones.

• Malaria has spread to higher altitudes in places like the Colombian Andes, 7,000 feet above sea level.

  Source: World Health Organization

• The flow of ice from glaciers in Greenland has more than doubled over the past decade.

  Source: American Geophysical Union

• At least 279 species of plants and animals are already responding to global warming, moving closer to the poles.
• Deaths from global warming will double in just 25 years -- to 300,000 people a year.

  Source: World Health Organization

  Measurement of health effects from climate change can only be very approximate. Nevertheless, a WHO quantitative assessment, taking into account only a subset of the possible health impacts, concluded that the effects of the climate change that has occurred since the mid-1970s may have caused over 150 000 deaths in 2000. It also concluded that these impacts are likely to increase in the future.

• Global sea levels could rise by more than 20 feet with the loss of shelf ice in Greenland and Antarctica, devastating coastal areas worldwide.
  Source: Source the Wapo

  While both the Greenland and the Antarctic ice sheets as a whole are gaining some mass in their cold interiors because of increasing snowfall, they are losing ice along their peripheries. That indicates that scientists may have underestimated the rate of disintegration they face in the future.

  ...

  The report concludes that a temperature rise of just 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit "is likely to lead to extensive coral bleaching," destroying critical fish nurseries in the Caribbean and Southeast Asia. Too-warm sea temperatures stress corals, causing them to expel symbiotic micro-algae that live in their tissues and provide them with food, and thus making the reefs appear bleached. Bleaching that lasts longer than a week can kill corals. This fall there was widespread bleaching from Texas to Trinidad that killed broad swaths of corals, in part because ocean temperatures were 2 degrees Fahrenheit above average monthly maximums.

  ...

  Many scientists are also worried about a possible collapse of the Atlantic thermohaline circulation (Gulf Stream), a current that brings warm surface water to northern Europe and returns cold, deep-ocean water south. Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, who directs Germany's Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, has run multiple computer models to determine when climate change could disrupt this "conveyor belt," which, according to one study, is already slower than it was 30 years ago. According to these simulations, there is a 50 percent chance the current will collapse within 200 years.

• Heat waves will be more frequent and more intense. Droughts and wildfires will occur more often.The Arctic Ocean could be ice free in summer by 2050.

  Source: Artic Climate Impact Assesment 2004

• More than a million species worldwide could be driven to extinction by 2050.
  Via Time Magazine

  Scientists have discovered that quiver trees are starting to die off in parts of their traditional range. The species might be in the early stages of moving southward, trying to escape rising temperatures closer to the equator.

  Twenty-six bird species, including this goose, which breeds in the Arctic, are listed by the World Conservation Union as threatened by global warming. Half are seabirds whose food supplies are diminished because of climate changes. The rest are terrestrial species, including several whose coastal habitats are at risk because of rising sea levels.

Also doing my own highly technical search and analysis (using The Google) I found that it's true that a mass evacutation from various Pacific Islands to New Zealands hasn't yet occured, but not because the water isn't rising and threatening their island, it's because New Zealand won't let them all in.

The leaders of Tuvalu—a tiny island country in the Pacific Ocean midway between Hawaii and Australia—have conceded defeat in their battle with the rising sea, announcing that they will abandon their homeland. After being rebuffed by Australia, the Tuvaluans asked New Zealand to accept its 11,000 citizens, but it has not agreed to do so.

Lake Chad is definately shrinking as these satelite photos show. An although Global Warming is not the only factor involved in it's shrikage, it is a factor.

Via the BBC.

There is no single cause for the disappearance of Lake Chad.

Global warming is one factor blamed and local people say rainfall has been steadily reducing by about five to 10mm a year.

"This lake has to be saved; we know the benefit; we know how people have suffered; we know what we have lost
Wakil Bakar" Lake Chad Basin Commission

Other factors include irrigation and the damming of rivers feeding the lake for hydro-electric schemes, which have all combined to devastating effect.

"Desertification is moving southwards," said William Bata Ndahi, director of the Lake Chad Research Institute.

"The water is moving further and further away. We believe desertification has contributed most to the demise of Lake Chad."

This judge argues that drowning of polar bears in the artic was attributed to a storm (and according to the Wall Street Journal the fact that they had to swim so much further than they used to since the Arctic Ice Cap is Shrinking) however the Artic Climate Impact Assesment (which was only the result of four years of work by over 300 scientist) seems to disagree with that assesment.

Global warming could cause polar bears to go extinct by the end of the century by eroding the sea ice that sustains them, according to the most comprehensive international assessment ever done of Arctic climate change.

The thinning of sea ice -- which is projected to shrink by at least half by the end of the century and could disappear altogether, according to some computer models -- could determine the fate of many other key Arctic species, said the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, the product of four years of work by more than 300 scientists.

"The Arctic is really warming now," said Robert Corell, a senior fellow at the American Meteorological Society who chaired the assessment. "These areas provide a bellwether of what's coming to planet Earth."

In Alaska, western Canada and eastern Russia, average winter temperatures have risen as much as four to seven degrees Fahrenheit within the past 50 years, according to the report and are projected to increase an additional seven to 13 degrees over the next century. Winter temperatures have risen faster than summer temperatures, according to Michael MacCracken, chief scientist for climate change programs at the Washington-based Climate Institute, because thin sea ice releases more energy from the ocean into the atmosphere.

It's not like we have clear and concise evidence that the Artic Ice Pack is shrinking at a rate far faster than Scientist have previously projected. Y'know - like pictures and stuff.

Ok, ok, enough!

I'm not going to try and debunk all nine - or does this one go to eleven? - of these arguements because it's pointless. The goal of wingnuts is to keep us in the midst of an endless debate, to keep us arguing and nitpicking over whether or not global warming is the primary cause, or a secondary cause while ignoring that it's still a Cause - whether it was the storm that killed those polar bears or the extra distance they were swimming, or like Both, and ignore the fact that POLAR BEARS AREN'T SUPPOSED TO DROWN - EVER - and whether or not chart 18b in scene 24 of "an inconvenient truth" is consistent with chart 32c in scene 41 (Oh look, we got him this time...that liar) instead of taking action, instead of doing something - Anything about the issue. It should be obvious that if a poor little non-scientist like me with an 8-year-old PC can poke this many holes in this judges ruling in an hour and half, he stands practically no chance on appeal.

Take that man-who-is Steve Doocy, and your black-haired sidekick too.

If (most) scientists are correct and humans have the potential the impact climate change and we at least try - where's the harm? It's very likely our economies will boom as a result of new alternative fuels and conservation technologies. Win-Win.

If on the other hand they're wrong - we lose nothing and still gain these new markets, technologies and will live in a clearner world. Still half a win.

But if they're right and we do nothing - the planet slowly dies peice by peice. Even if we are only mildly impacted, it's an unneccesary negative consequence.

Which path makes the most sense?

And by the way, Al Gore still has a Nobel Peace Prize and George W. Bush doesn't.

Vyan

This Just In: Fox News is now saying Al Gore has done nothing for "Peace" and instead the Prize should be given to - drum roll - General Petreaus!?

Hey, Stop that Snickering!!

Don't you know that escalating a pointless misguided mismanaged war we should have never gotten into in the first place is the only true pathway to peace?

What's that?

"Next they'll be saying he should get an Oscar and an Emmy for his Congressional "Performance" too?"

Not a chance.

Ok, maybe a Tony Award since it was nothing more than an elaborate fantastical play! I'd give it "Four Stars" if he didn't already have a set on his shoulders.

[Ron Green]

1. Wow. A tour de force. Gotta K&R this.

[depakid]

2. Nothing that Fox or the far right says could suprise me

Yet there they are spewing filth, mockery and dishonesty all over cable and TV every day, to the exclusion of almost anything else.

[truebrit71]

3. Simply superb.

Very well done and quite witty.

[gratuitous]

4. A very good precis

And there's some part of me that can't help but feel that if the major news media in this country had a better set of priorities, this kind of obsessive, nit-picking fault-finding could be turned on the Bush administration for a change.

Because I find it highly curious that the media can make definitive pronouncements on alleged "errors" in the Gore movie that can, by extension completely discredit the entire scientific community, while egregious prevarications out of the mouths of administration officials (Gonzales, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bush, et al ad nauseam) are always excused or elided until it can be established what the speaker's "intent" was, or if they really knew that we knew all kinds of exculpatory facts when they told their lies. Then, with a shrug of their collective media shoulders, they figure that no one can really know whether Alberto or Donald or Dick or George were actually lying, because we don't know if they intended to lie.

[greenman3610]

5. excellent and timely, and here's some more

very good piece covering the same territory with
some new information

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2007/10/an_error_is_not_the_same_thing.php

Let's look at what Burton really wrote (my emphasis):

Mr Downes produced a long schedule of such alleged errors or exaggerations and waxed lyrical in that regard. It was obviously helpful for me to look at the film with his critique in hand.

In the event I was persuaded that only some of them were sufficiently persuasive to be relevant for the purposes of his argument, and it was those matters - 9 in all - upon which I invited Mr Chamberlain to concentrate. It was essential to appreciate that the hearing before me did not relate to an analysis of the scientific questions, but to an assessment of whether the 'errors' in question, set out in the context of a political film, informed the argument on ss406 and 407. All these 9 'errors' that I now address are not put in the context of the evidence of Professor Carter and the Claimant's case, but by reference to the IPCC report and the evidence of Dr Stott.

If you noticed the quotation marks around 'error' then you are more observant than all of the journalists I listed above. Burton is not saying that there are errors, he is just referring to the things that Downes alleged were errors. Burton puts quote marks around 'error' 17 more times in his judgement. Notice also the emphasised part -- Burton is not even trying to decide whether they are errors or not. This too seems to have escaped the journalists' attention. (And yes, that was Bob Carter mentioned there.)

So what is Burton assessing in his judgement? Well, s407 says that where political issues are involved there should be "a balanced presentation of opposing views" so Burton states that the government should make it clear when "there is a view to the contrary, i.e. (at least) the mainstream view". Burton calls these "errors or departures from the mainstream".

So contrary to all the reporters' claims Burton did not find that there were 9 scientific errors in AIT, but that there were nine points that might be errors or where differing views should be presented for balance.

[Catchawave]

6. Did you hear what John McCain said today ?

.......Republican presidential candidate John McCain said the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, announced Friday, should have gone to someone else other than former Vice President Al Gore.

"I would have liked to see that prize go to the Buddhist monks who are suffering and dying in Burma," McCain said after a speech this morning in Davenport.......

UnFreakinBelievable!

K&R for the honor bestowed on Al Gore today :toast:

[Evergreen Emerald]

7. Excellent post...kicked and recommended

[ima_sinnic]

8. bookmarked, k & r

:thumbsup: :yourock:

[Norma Druid]

9. Why They Can´t Stand a Gore Win

Part of the media reaction here is fear and guilt. If Gore is really an intelligent, helpful human being, what does this say about them and the way they have treated him? What would happen if he (gasp) became president or even gained some other high office where he could influence FCC rulings and things like that? These people know they personally have torn a great man down to the status of roadkill. He just happened to be a strong figure standing in the way of their turn to the right to please their bosses. Several news networks seem to be owned by corporations like General Electric whose major business is NOT news. They have other, revenue-producing irons in the fire, and the news folks must bow to them. This is why they will never tell the truth about the 2000 and 2004 elections.
I am one of the many who would love to see Gore run again, but I can understand why he might not want to. Who wants to take that kind of a beating twice? Can anyone win against the relentless ad hominem slime of the MSM? Hillary Clinton is game to try, but we´ll have to put in twice as much work for her to overcome the media slime.
Also, global warming is a cause quite as important as being president and with potentially longer lasting consequences. That said, any Democrat who gets elected and does not put Mr. Gore in a position of authority is a fool.