UPDATE: Some commenters seem to think Al is being treated unfairly. Gore press policy might be the reason we see this sort of thing happening. See the update below the “read more” line.
Seems that former Vice President Al Gore doesn’t like the cameras when people ask tough questions about the Arctic Sea ice, or Climategate, or er, anything. Lunch is more important than telling those pesky Fox News viewers how wrong they are.
Ambush journalism? Seemed good enough for CBS 60 minutes back when they were a real news program. Watch the video.
Alternate link if you are having trouble seeing the first:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmzCY-9lo6g
Here’s Al on the “ambush journalism” 60 Minutes show when the conditions are favorable to him:
No, Al would never associate himself with an outfit that does “ambush journalism“.
===================================================
UPDATE: Some WUWT readers may remember this post I did back in 2008:
Gore to press: Stay Out!
Credit: Robert Vamosi / CNET Networks
One blogger, Tim Wilson, with press credentials writes:
Gore, who reportedly receives $100,000 for personal appearances, apparently has a standard contract that bans the fourth estate from all of his speeches. No one seems to know why, and we can’t ask — on account of we’re out here, and he’s in there.
So with such a policy and contract language, is it any surprise that Gore would not talk to a Fox News reporter and the only opportunity the reporter had would be in a hallway?
Gore’s Contract:
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2007/0717071gore1.html
4 billion trolls can’t be wrong 🙂
When someone refuses to answer questions, I have all the information I need.
4 billion (19:45:25) :
so claims of no warming over 15 years are no longer valid.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
There has been no statistically significant warming for 15 years.
That’s the truth.
Your suggestions are what is not valid.
@4 billion (20:11:20) :…..nvm, apparently, while sea level rise is going to be our impending doom, we were(I was) considering it wrong………http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/04/13/ipcc-sea-level-prediction-not-scary-enough/#comment-367475
As always, the alarmist crowd changes the goal posts before one can really sink their teeth into an alleged potential catastrophe. (yeh, mixed metaphors)
4 billion (20:11:20) :
Sea Ice charts from the early in the previous century show Arctic ice was nowhere near the current summer time lows.
Well, if your information is correct then it is because that time frame was closer to the Little Ice Age. So there would have been more ice in the Arctic.
But one more thing….. you folks are always telling us we can rely on non-instrument information. But here you are relying on some. I guess when it serves your purposes you do it. If it hurts your purposes you don’t.
4 billion (20:11:20) :
Projected Sea level rise by the IPCC
Just one last thing, and that’s it for my exchanges with you here; aren’t there ‘-gate’ problems with the IPCC? Because I’ve been seeing a lot of about that for a few months now.
The answer is yes, there’s lots of problems with the IPCC.
Moderators, that’s fine if you don’t post those. I don’t care at all either way. But I just meant it is a morgue around here without tallbloke, emsmith, etc.. Whatever, lol
“How come FOX doesn’t ask him about why we just had the hottest March on record?”
Might just have something to do with the peak of the latest El Nino, when global temperatures are around 0.7 degrees C warmer than ‘normal’ – just like the last El Nino in 1998 and the next one in 2xxx.
Just one of those inconvenient truths.
4 billion (18:35:26) said:
“Rising sea levels will constitute a pretty effective ‘liquidation plan’, a 1 meter sea level rise will cause about 600 million people to become refugees, the resulting chaos would no doubt lead to severe loss of Human life.”
This is a joke, right? 600 million REFUGES from a 1 meter rise in sea levels over a hundred years or more (now changed to 30 years by the alarmists)? A rise so slow and imperceptible, that people could periodically simply step a few inches back and continue business as usual?
In any event, these predictions are ridiculous, and have been wrong for a quarter century. Have you seen any sea level rise ANYWHERE in that time? And don’t tell us about the supposedly drowning Maldives, the biggest hoax going, or a man-made sandbar (misrepresented as an “island” by AGW propagandists) in India submerging from all the development around it.
Take a trip to Key West. Duval Street goes from end-to-end, and it just as dry now as it was when it was first cleared. Key West is at sea level, flat as pancake, and always in danger from hurricanes and their flooding. But, when the storms pass, the water goes back to normal.
The doomsayers of today are no different from those of every other generation; there are just more of them. Their negative beliefs about climate mirror their negative beliefs about everything.
If he refuses to answer questions or debate,then this is what he will get,and quite right too
Amino Acids in Meteorites (21:32:29) :
4 billion (19:45:25) :
so claims of no warming over 15 years are no longer valid.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
There has been no statistically significant warming for 15 years.
That’s the truth.
Your suggestions are what is not valid.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………
I am only working with ball park figures, the warming between 1995 and 2009 was 93% statistically significant at around 0.14 degC, now with the warming of 2010 the trend is bumped up to 0.17 degC putting the warming over the magical 95% line of statistical significance.
About that “no press allowed” sign. Is that Gore NOT hiding the decline (to comment)?
James Sexton (21:41:08) :
@4 billion (20:11:20) :…..nvm, apparently, while sea level rise is going to be our impending doom, we were(I was) considering it wrong………http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/04/13/ipcc-sea-level-prediction-not-scary-enough/#comment-367475
As always, the alarmist crowd changes the goal posts before one can really sink their teeth into an alleged potential catastrophe. (yeh, mixed metaphors)
The IPCC didn’t include Sea level rise due to melting Ice, seems weird, but whatever. So for the sake of not moving the goal posts we should ignore the recently observed Ice melt from Greenland and Antarctica?
REPLY: Yes, becuase it occurs only in a small percentage of the total area.
Moderators… please… troll alert… 4 Billion…can’t… breath…
Statistics is a precise thing. To pull out your +15 potion of linear trend and claim it as statistically significant is just pure fantasy. That ain’t statistics.
Must…stop…feeding…
Al Gore educating the media (BBC) about journalism :
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/hardtalk/8340238.stm
Steve in SC (15:46:10)
Wow, you got to meet Cheney too?!
@Amino Acids in Meteorites (17:55:58) :
@richard Hill (16:30:57)
Don’t forget that another reason why the “experts” relied upon by scientifically illiterate politicians are of one voice on AGW, is the fact that they were specifically selected and appointed just BECAUSE they were / are alarmists.
That has been the case since Thatcher appointed the warmist crooks John Houghton & Crispin Tickell to advise her. Major, Blair & Brown have carried on the same process. Alarmists to a man. Chosen as such.
And (heaven forfend) if we get Prime Minister Dave Boy at Downing Street next month, he’s already got Zac Goldsmith and the Fiends of the Earth lined up to advise him.
[C’mon, people! DON’T feed the trolls!]
REPLY: Yes, becuase it occurs only in a small percentage of the total area.
Greenland’s area of ice loss is increasing:
Spread of ice mass loss into northwest Greenland observed by GRACE and GPS
Greenland’s main outlet glaciers have more than doubled their contribution to global sea level rise over the last decade. Recent work has shown that Greenland’s mass loss is still increasing. Here we show that the ice loss, which has been well-documented over southern portions of Greenland, is now spreading up along the northwest coast, with this acceleration likely starting in late 2005.
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2010/2010GL042460.shtml
Animation of expanding Greenland ice loss from Wahr 2010
http://lemond.colorado.edu/~wahr/greenland.movie.mpeg
REPLY: Still insignificant
The last thing Big Al needs is lunch. Some exercise wouldn’t go astray either.
L Ron Hubbard has nothing on Mr Gore as i think Mr Gore realised that aliens and AGW don’t mix.
I’m going to side with Gore on this one. Ambush journalism isn’t journalism, it’s sensationalism. The man is a buffoon and a huckster, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t right in this case.
Lunch is more important than telling those pesky Fox News viewers how wrong they are.
I guess so, as it looks like he has never missed a hot meal yet!
It was so close to calling him President. Now you see he was only a few chad short of winning. I am happy to call him Vice president in exchange for Never calling him President. Now that would have been an ugly tipping point.
I do think the “Vice” part of his title is understated by about 430%.
Anthony,
I think, in the interests of civil and constructive conversation, I sense an opportnity here. What if there were style recommendations for WUWT like the following:
1.) If you are talking about a trend specify the dates for it
2.) When talking about temperature specify the temp set being used or at the very least surface vs. sat
3.) If talking about ice extent specify Arctic/Antarctic and summer (September) vs. winter (March)
4.) Same goes for TSI reconstructions – some are more variable than others as demonstrated by the recent Svalgaard-Scafetti discussion
As well demonstrated by that horrible IPCC chart posted recently, in many data sets just about any trend can be demonstrated – saying “the trend is X” without specifying the timeframe just adds to the confusion.
The same goes for the temp sets (depending on what you want to say/show you will probably have a favorite)… and I think it was an article by Joe Romm that accused the “anti-science” crowd of focusing on the wrong ice extent (meaning arctic max) – I guess out of the 4 (actic/antarctic max/min) there is only one “right” one but anyway. Debating the relative importance of X vs. Y measures for describing something (Z) is a valid conversation, but that’s different than saying Z is doing this (because of X) without specifying X as your basis of analysis… when Y implies something different.
I’m not saying these should be binding rules or anything, just recommendations. It just seems like there is a lot of unnecessary/recurring arguing/confusion because people fail to specify what they’re talking about. In my world (I work for really big corporation – which is not Big Oil/Coal/T in case that’s important) the mantra is to look for opportunities in every challenge and, to me, this seems like an opportunity to make the conversations here more constructive – even if it’s only for the active commenters (like me).
Cheers!
@Glenn Skankey (15:31:29): “Do you seriously think he [Gore] should have taken time out to sit down with that reporter who was chasing him around and do an interview on the spot?”
Why not? Monckton showed us how it’s done. See the video Amino Acids posted at 16:24:01. Alternatively, he could accept the invitation to appear on O’Reilly’s show (and don’t tell me you consider Gore’s “I’ll consider it” sincere).