Coming on the heels of Al Gore's Nobel Prize, a former New Zealand MP has asked the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to strip the producers of An Inconvenient Truth of the Oscars they won. MP Muriel Newman argues that the movie should have been in the Best Drama category rather than the Best Documentary category.
She made the request following the ruling by a British judge that a balanced view had to be presented alongside a showing of Gore's overtly political movie in British classrooms.
The judge's ruling was based on a number of inaccuracies and embellishments of the truth:
The first mistake made by Mr Gore, said Mr Justice Burton in his written judgment, was in talking about the potential devastation wrought by a rise in sea levels caused by the melting of ice caps.
The claim that sea levels could rise by 20ft “in the near future” was dismissed as “distinctly alarmist”. Such a rise would take place “only after, and over, millennia”.
Mr Justice Burton added: “The armageddon scenario he predicts, insofar as it suggests that sea level rises of seven metres might occur in the immediate future, is not in line with the scientific consensus.”
A claim that atolls in the Pacific had already been evacuated was supported by “no evidence”, while to suggest that two graphs showing carbon dioxide levels and temperatures over the last 650,000 years were an “exact fit” overstated the case.
Mr Gore’s suggestion that the Gulf Stream, that warms up the Atlantic ocean, would shut down was contradicted by the International Panel on Climate Change’s assessment that it was “very unlikely” to happen.
The drying of Lake Chad, the loss of Mount Kilimanjaro’s snows and Hurricane Katrina were all blamed by Mr Gore on climate change but the judge said the scientific community had been unable to find evidence to prove there was a direct link.
The drying of Lake Chad, the judge said, was “far more likely to result from other factors, such as population increase and overgrazing, and regional climate variability”.
The judge also said there was no proof to support a claim that polar bears were drowning while searching for icy habitats melted by global warming. The only drowned polar bears the court was aware of were four that died following a storm.
Similarly, the judge took issue with the former Vice-President of the United States for attributing coral bleaching to climate change. Separating the direct impacts of climate change and other factors was difficult, the judgment concluded.
See Also:
Court Identifies Eleven Inaccuracies...
State of Fear
Global Warming Controversy
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