buehrer

After listening to government witnesses, environmental campaigners, and skeptics on global warming argue their case, the judge described Gore's film as "broadly accurate" in its presentation of climate change. At the same time he also listed nine significant errors in the movie which, he said, reflected a general context of "alarmism and exaggeration" surrounding climate change.Obviously, it is impossible to adjudicate this argument with a quick post. But it is worth while at least taking a look at the judge's nine objections to the Gore movie, which are as follows:1. Burton found that Gore's assertion of a rapid rise in sea-levels caused by the melting of icebergs in Antarctica was overly "alarmist." 2. Gore claimed that the disappearance of year-round snow from the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa was expressly attributable to global warming. The court was not convinced. According to Burton, the scientific "consensus" is that the reasons for the snow recession on Kilimanjaro cannot be established. 3. Gore cited a scientific study showing that polar bears had drowned by "swimming long distances--up to 60 miles--to find the ice." Evidence backing up this claim was not produced to the British court. The judge wrote that the only scientific study shown to him indicated "that four polar bears have recently been found drowned because of a storm." See early news story on bear drownings here. 4. Gore attributed the Hurricane Katrina devastation to global warming. The judge found that there was "insufficient evidence to show that." 5. The Gore movie depicted the drying up of Lake Chad as a prime example of the effects of global warming. Expert testimony in front of the British court suggested that "far more likely causes" were "population increase, over-grazing, and regional climate variability." 6. Gore suggested an "exact fit" between the rise in carbon dioxide levels and the rise in temperatures over a period of 650,000 years. According to the judge, scientists generally agree that there is "a connection," between the two phenomena, but claims of an "exact fit" cannot be established. 7. An "Inconvenient Truth" claimed that citizens of some low-lying inhabited Pacific atolls "have all had to evacuate to New Zealand" because of the inundation of their islands caused by global warming. The judge said that he found no evidence of "any such evacuation having yet happened." 8. The movie suggested that global warming could shut down "the Ocean Conveyer," a process by which the Gulf Stream is carried over the North Atlantic to Western Europe. The judge cited a study by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the co-winner of the Nobel Peace prize, which concluded that it was "very unlikely" that the Ocean Conveyer would be shut down completely, although it might slow down. 9. Gore argued that coral reefs all over the world were bleaching because of global warming and other factors. The judge cited the IPCC view that it was difficult to separate the impact of stresses on coral reefs caused by climate change "from other stresses such as over-fishing and pollution."