Facts Are Stubborn Things

Al Gore received Academy Awards, or Oscars, for his “documentary”, An Inconvenient Truth. Gore’s film quickly became a gospel of sorts with the Church of Environmentalism, especially with the Global Warming denomination.

Many people have ignorantly fallen into this cultish trap of inaccuracy. Including then British Environment Secretary, David Miliband, who decided it would be a good idea to show An Inconvenient Truth in all British schools, because, as Miliband claimed, the scientific debate over man-made global warming "is over."

And then a funny thing happened, the facts got in the way.

But when Milibrand decided to push this load of crap onto British school children, a father, by the name Stewart Dimmock filed a lawsuit that claimed the movie contained "serious scientific inaccuracies, political propaganda and sentimental mush."

A British High Court judge Michael Burton agreed with the father and ruled Wednesday that Gore's fantasy should be shown in British schools only with “guidance notes to prevent political indoctrination.”

Interestingly, the Nobel Peace Prize panel announced today that Gore was awarded the peace prize for his efforts in producing the movie. Just a thought here, what does global warming have to do with promoting world peace? But I digress.

The Director of a think tank called New Zealand Centre for Political Research, contacted the president of the Academy and asked that the Oscar awarded to Gore’s film be taken back in response to the court ruling. The court found 11 serious inaccuracies in the movie.

According to WorldNetDaily.com, (click here to read the story) Muriel Newman, director of the think tank, told Academy President Sid Ganis and Executive Director Bruce Davis "the situation is not unlike that confronting sports bodies when their sports stars are found to be drug cheats. In such cases, the sportsmen and women are stripped of their medals and titles, with the next place-getter elevated. While this is an extremely unpleasant duty, it is necessary if the integrity of competitive sport is to be protected.”

WorldNetDaily.com also said that Newman “pointed to the British ruling, which requires teachers to tell students of 11 inaccuracies in Gore's film.”

Newman said; "The truth, as inconvenient as it is to Al Gore, is that his so-called documentary contained critical distortions that are quite contrary to the principles of good documentary journalism. Good documentaries should be factually correct. Clearly this documentary is not."

The court ruled the Guidance Notes that Teachers must disclose and make clear to students are:

* The film is a political work and promotes only one side of the argument.

* If teachers present the film without making this plain they may be in breach of section 406 of the Education Act 1996 and guilty of political indoctrination.

* Eleven inaccuracies have to be specifically drawn to the attention of school children.
The inaccuracies, according to the court, are:

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. 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.

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

8. 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.

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

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

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

John Adams, 2^nd President of the United States said;

“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”