Nine inconvenient untruths, rules High Court judge about Al Gore’s film, according to reports in Times Online 11 October 2007. British High Court judge Sir Michael Burton identified nine incorrect claims in Al Gore’s film on global warming An inconvenient truth, in his judgement on a challenge brought by a school governor over whether the film should be shown in British schools. The School governor described Gore’s film as “a political shock-you-mentary”.
The Judge said that the film should be allowed to be shown, but it should be accompanied by guidance notes that balance Gore’s “one sided” views. The false claims listed in the judgement are: Sea levels could rise by 20ft (6m) in the near future; Pacific atolls have been evacuated; the drying out of Lake Chad, the decrease in snow on Mt Kilimanjaro and Hurricane Katrina and coral bleaching are the result of man-made global warming; the Gulf Stream would stop flowing; changes in carbon dioxide levels and global temperatures were an exact fit for the past 65,000 years; and polar bears are drowning due to lack of ice in the Arctic.
Editorial Comment: It is interesting that most of the media reports centred on the fact that the High Court allowed the film to be shown in schools, not on the scientific errors or on the new guideline recommended by the judge. If creationists made a film with that many false claims, there would, quite rightly, be howls of outrage, but Al Gore gets an Oscar and a Nobel Prize. There is no doubt that climate change is real, but it has been real for thousands of years, and will continue until the end of the world, just as God told Noah: “As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease”. Political scare tactics are not going to change this. (Ref. politics, education, law)
Evidence News 31 October 2007