An Inconvenient Error

From an article published yesterday, we read about another inconvenient piece of misinformation by Al Gore -- the self appointed climate guru at large:

There are many kinds of truth. Al Gore was poleaxed by an inconvenient one yesterday.

The former US Vice-President, who became an unlikely figurehead for the green movement after narrating the Oscar-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth, became entangled in a new climate change “spin” row.

Mr Gore, speaking at the Copenhagen climate change summit, stated the latest research showed that the Arctic could be completely ice-free in five years.

In his speech, Mr Gore told the conference: “These figures are fresh. Some of the models suggest to Dr [Wieslav] Maslowski that there is a 75 per cent chance that the entire north polar ice cap, during the summer months, could be completely ice-free within five to seven years.”

Nothing new here, this is the same old alarmist propaganda that he has been methodically spewing in robotic fashion, since his loss to George Bush in the 2000 Presidential Election. But wait, there seems to be some discrepancy as we read further in the article:

...the climatologist whose work Mr Gore was relying upon dropped the former Vice-President in the water with an icy blast.

“It’s unclear to me how this figure was arrived at,” Dr Maslowski said. “I would never try to estimate likelihood at anything as exact as this.”

So, a scientist would never try to pinpoint a prediction like this? Most scientists I have ever known are not likely to narrow their focus on little to anything, much less try to make bonehead predictions out of desperation.

And it is desperation that Al must be feeling right now. With the release of the CRU e-mails, the cooler than expected climate much of the world is seeing right now, and the defections of more scientists (from the "settled science" community to that of the doubtful), he's feeling the pressure.

Imagine the crow he was forced to eat, as reported later on in the same article:

Mr Gore’s office later admitted that the 75 per cent figure was one used by Dr Maslowksi as a “ballpark figure” several years ago in a conversation with Mr Gore.

The embarrassing error cast another shadow over the conference after the controversy over the hacked e-mails from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit, which appeared to suggest that scientists had manipulated data to strengthen their argument that human activities were causing global warming.

Imagine the crow that must be shared with the world leaders who have stepped out on the limb with Gore. I wonder what goes through Gordon Brown's mind. He is the one who once said that those of us who do not sign on to Al's way of thought are like "flat-earthers".

Or how about Nicolas "we must act" Sarkozy? This is the man who once said concerning a deal on climate change, "You cannot want to have the rights of great economic powers that you are becoming and abstain from your responsibilities. A great power has both rights and responsibilities, and this point is not open to negotiation." (This quote is from more than a year and a half ago, but the same impatience is prevailing in Copenhagen today.)

Al doesn't think much about negotiation. Nor does he like to answer questions from skeptical reporters either, as is evidenced by this scene:



Body language says it all. He looked like Bernie Madoff not wanting to incriminate himself, on camera.

At some point, when does it become criminal to perpetuate one of the costliest hoaxes ever? The family in Colorado is being made to pay for their hoax, due to the cost of the search and rescue mission. When will Al be made to pay?