How Al Gore Distorts Climate Science and Energy Policy – Al Gore has provided a target-rich environment of deceptions in his new movie.
Guest essay by Dr. Roy Spencer
After viewing Gore’s most recent movie, An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power, and after reading the book version of the movie, I was more than a little astounded. The new movie and book are chock-full of bad science, bad policy, and factual errors.
So, I was inspired to do something about it. I’d like to announce my new e-book, entitled An Inconvenient Deception: How Al Gore Distorts Climate Science and Energy Policy, now available on Amazon.com.
After reviewing some of Gore’s history in the environmental movement, I go through the movie, point by point.
One of Gore’s favorite tactics is to show something that happens naturally, then claim (or have you infer) that it is due to humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions. As I discuss in the book, this is what he did in his first movie (An Inconvenient Truth), too.
For example, sea level rise. Gore is seen surveying flooded streets in Miami Beach.
That flooding is mostly a combination of (1) natural sea level rise (I show there has been no acceleration of sea level rise beyond what was already happening since the 1800s), and (2) satellite-measured sinking of the reclaimed swamps that have been built upon for over 100 years in Miami Beach.
In other words, Miami Beach was going to have to deal with the increasing flooding from their “king tides”, with or without carbon dioxide emissions.
Gore is also shown jumping across meltwater streams on the Greenland ice sheet. No mention is made that this happens naturally every year. Sure, 2012 was exceptional for its warmth and snow melt (which he mentioned), but then 2017 came along and did just the opposite with record snow accumulation, little melt, and the coldest temperature ever recorded in the Northern Hemisphere for a July.
The fact that receding glaciers in Alaska are revealing stumps from ancient forests that grew 1,000 to 2,000 years ago proves that climate varies naturally, and glaciers advance and recede without any help from humans.
So, why is your SUV suddenly being blamed when it happens today?
The list goes on and on.
Some of what Gore claims is just outright false. He says that wheat and corn yields in China are down by 5% in recent decades. Wrong. They have been steadily climbing, just like almost everywhere else in the world. Here’s the situation for all grain crops in China:
And that lack of rainfall in Syria that supposedly caused conflict and war? It didn’t happen. Poor farmers could no longer afford diesel fuel to pump groundwater because Assad tripled the price. Semi-arid Syria is no place to grow enough crops for a rapidly growing population, anyway.
I also address Gore’s views on alternative energy, mainly wind and solar. It is obvious that Gore does not consider government subsidies when he talks about the “cost” of renewable energy sometimes being cheaper than fossil fuels. Apparently, he hasn’t heard that the citizens pay the taxes that then support the alternative energy industries which Gore, Elon Musk and others financially benefit from. If and when renewable energy become cost-competitive, it won’t need politicians and pundits like Mr. Gore campaigning for it.
To counter what is in movie theaters now, I had to whip up this book in only 2 weeks, and I didn’t have a marching army of well-funded people like Gore has had. (Too bad he didn’t have someone doing fact-checking.) Despite my disadvantage, I think I present a powerful case that most of what he presents is, at the very least, very deceptive.
Your book could be written from the comments on these blogs.
BTW I’m not so sure the deception was inconvenient except for those who have been victimized by its adherents and their promulgated policies.
You actually saw the movie…and…read the book?…………………….
What’s it going to cost to get this out of your head now?
He was wearing those glasses approved for watching the eclipse, so no problem.
Just a little Schnapps, and then sleep it off. Dr Roy can handle it.
g
Ha, a very terrifying thought Latitude.
Here is my Inconvenient Music Video I made in honor of Al Gore’s new movie.
LOL! Great job.
Was that Chicken Little in your Minnesota for Global Warming video?
noaaprogrammer
Chicken Little was not in our first videos, this is where he made his first appearance.
😎 😎
(But I don’t think Al’s belly was big enough.8-)
Elmer, I have loved every one of your music videos but This might be about the best. Great fun and good job!!!
Thanks Lenore.
I wonder if Gavin Schmidt will read it from behind a curtain.
No he’s the kind that wants to be out in front of the curtain; even after the entire audience has left the Opera House.
G
“I was more than a little astounded”
I don’t know why – it’s AlGore, after all.
I watched about 1/2 of first inconvenient truth….almost died watching it……so i’m sorry to hear that Roy had to suffer watching the second one…..
I’m eating lunch in my truck right now with the engine running and the A/C running too. I don’t feel guilty Mr. Gore. My sandwich was good too. 👍🏻😜
That’s OK. I’m quite confident Algore does the same thing; maybe 2-sandwich lunches, even.
I’m not sure Al knows what a Sandwich is !
g
In a related story:
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/state-department-science-envoy-quits-with-not-so-secret-message-for-trump-impeach/ar-AAqB8ch?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=mailsignout
Glad you were here as long as you were.
Oh well, looks like we disagree too much.
Outright shame you have to leave.
Don”t let the door hit you in the derier on your way out.
Remember your statements about values.
I don’t think you understand those words.
Do more and say less next time.
Don’t support lies in the name of truth.
And don’t forget to examine an entire issue, before framing it with your narrow focus.
Not doing this makes you look stupid.
Clearly, you need work in this area.
Exit with dignity, unfortunately, is a disguise for your failure.
“… a professor of energy at the University of California …” says all one needs to know.
Very creative, Robert. 🙂
I concur fully with your assessment of Al Gore and his new documentary, which is the same trash he peddled with An Inconvenient Truth. Just garbage and straight up lies and obfuscating of the truth to the less educated masses. The damage he has done to legitimate natural and human caused climate change research is tragic and has set that scientific inquiry back a generation. There is no doubt history will bear this out which is the only saving grace in all of this. In hindsight, one can only say that he would have made a terrible President had he won the 2000 election. Perhaps Gorge W Bush didn’t handle Iraq properly, but if Al Gore had implemented his climate malfeasance as he states he would’ve, economic growth would have stalled into a full blown depression by 2008 and a very long time before any recovery.
“I concur fully with your assessment of Al Gore and his new documentary, which is the same trash he peddled with An Inconvenient Truth. Just garbage and straight up lies and obfuscating of the truth to the less educated masses. The damage he has done to legitimate natural and human caused climate change research is tragic and has set that scientific inquiry back a generation.”
Let’s give credit where credit is due: Gore couldn’t do anything without the creators of the bogus, bastardized Hockey Stick surface temperature charts giving him his talking points. That’s the only “evidence” Gore or any other alarmist can point to. Without the Hockey Stick charts, Gore couldn’t say “hotter and hotter” and “hottest year evah!”. He would have nothing to scare people with.
Gore is just the messenger, he didn’t create the message, but he has certainly contributed his part to the great harm the CAGW lie has done to humanity.
I just hope to see him and the others *proven* wrong in my lifetime. Gore and the other alarmists have already been proven wrong, as far as I’m concerned, but I think more definitive prove is in the future. That will be a very bad day for the Left and their totalitarian dreams of controlling and dictating to all the people in the world.
“Gore is just the messenger, he didn’t create the message, but he has certainly contributed his part to the great harm the CAGW lie has done to humanity.”
TA…your statement sounds like you are being a bit of an apologist for Al Gore. Don’t forget that Al Gore was Vice President from the early 1990’s to 2000. The hockey stick graph wasn’t born until 1998, nearer the end of his Vice Presidency support for the Global Warming agenda and that graph never would have got the traction it did had it not been for VP Gore and his climate agenda throughout the 1990’s. The ‘global warming-climate change’ movement didn’t even really start until 1988 when James Hansen at NASA gave his infamous 20 minute testimony to Congress about 1988 being warmer than average due to AGW.
Al Gore, then a young member of Congress, began organizing some of the first Congressional hearings on climate change in the early 1980s, which featured Hansen’s input. As more studies suggested a link between burning fossil fuels and climate change, the media gave the issue greater coverage throughout the decade and really started in earnest in 1992 with the first Earth Day at the Rio Summit. By then Al Gore was VP and threw his political weight behind the movement.
While James Hansen is considered the grand daddy of the movement and Michael Mann his protege with the hockey stick graph a decade later, neither would have gained such prominence if it had not been for Senator Gore organizing these Congressional hearings on global warming in the 1980’s. And later, VP Gore politicalizing the global warming and climate change industry into what it is today.
Don’t make Al Gore sound like just some Johnny come lately to the CO2 AGW party. His fingerprints are all over this fiasco from the beginning, with the political architecture he created being the foundation for the modern climate change debate we are currently in.
A man who graduated in Divinity will be well versed in the concept of sin and dogma.
Divinity is not so good when it comes to interpreting scientific data.
He seems to be a highly political version of “Hellfire and Damnation” preachers.
There was a young fellow from Trinity
Who found the cube root of infinity.
But it gave him such fidgits
To add up the digits,
He chucked math
And took up divinity
So much for his credentials, and no wonder Al has whipped this into a religion. It all he knows.
Scientology is a made up religion what made its founder very, very rich. I think Gore is jealous.
RCS, Gore flunked out of Divinity School. Now we know why.
Gore never graduated from his divinity program, he quit early on when he found out it wasn’t the job training curriculum he thought it was when he signed up. He decided to pursue his Godhood without the benefit of a degree.
In the interest of accuracy, Mr Wendt meant to write “without benefit of an advanced degree.”
Gore had a bachelor’s degree from Harvard when he entered divinity school.
This is the same as his previous film.
We have it from the British court. Al Gore’s previous movie was a work of political indoctrination. There’s good reason to believe this one is too. I would say that Dr. Spencer is on solid ground.
“We have it from the British court. Al Gore’s previous movie was a work of political indoctrination. There’s good reason to believe this one is too. I would say that Dr. Spencer is on solid ground.”
Dr. Spencer should send a copy of his book to the judge. It may help the judge with Gore’s new movie. The judge has to protect British school children from the lies Gore tells in his movies, otherwise the children may think their future is in jeopardy, which no doubt would traumatize them greatly, for no good reason.
Good for Dr. Spencer. I am going to gift a few copies to ‘special’ friends.
Umm, about your title..
The climate deception depends on the eagerness of its audience to be deceived – to quote my younger self:
… but meets the political need for players like Gore et al because people cannot be held hostage to the threat of a good thing happening if they don’t knuckle under…
( http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/11/04/warmism-credible-politics-incredible-science/ )
So your title should surely have been “A Convenient Deception” should it not?
The British Court should mandate a new subtitle for the movie and title for the book, before it can be widely distributed in that country. I suggest … Truth In The Toilet
Better still:
?raw=1
Everyone should buy a copy and send it to their local school committee members before they try to use his new “movie” to indoctrinate children the way some did with his first “movie”.
Anybody in US politics quoting Gores new flick to argue the case for global warming?
Are there any Republicans in that picture? (Jenner says he is, but actions speak louder than words.)
Great selection of pictures, Mike. You could also add Connecticut U.S.Senator Richard Blumenthal’s picture to that list and use the title “Vietnam veteran”.
And Obama with “Nobel Peace Prize Winner.”
Sorry I forgot to add the title to the array of photos – “Why liberals are so confused.”
What do you expect, Al Gore to change his AGW mantra,
“A zebra does not change its spots.”
as the man said so himself.
He might actually have said that. link Some folks think it’s one of the 700 stupidest things ever said.
“That flooding is mostly a combination of (1) natural sea level rise (I show there has been no acceleration of sea level rise beyond what was already happening since the 1800s), and (2) satellite-measured sinking of the reclaimed swamps that have been built upon for over 100 years in Miami Beach.”
from: http://www.rsmas.miami.edu/news-events/press-releases/2016/new-study-shows-increased-flooding-accelerated-sea-level-rise-in-miami-over/
“The average rate of sea-level rise increased by 6 millimeters per year over the last decade – from 3 millimeters per year before 2006 to 9 millimeters per year after 2006.”
So Gore is not “factually” wrong on your first point. (It seems you might be.) But what is important is that he is at least reporting a simple scientific observation.
If you actually want to be factual, just looking at the sea level graph above, the rate of sea level rise probably increased at least a dozen time. But, it also decreased at least a dozen time as well. Just pick your start and end points to ‘prove’ which ever position you would like.
See those art deco hotels in the picture behind Gore…..they were built in the 1930’s…..there’s a reason they all have 10-12 steps going up……that street has always flooded….When the street was built, they knew it would flood twice a year at king tides, it was decided too expensive to raise it…so it was designed to flood twice a year
“When the street was built, they knew it would flood twice a year at king tides,”
And it doesn’t flood at any other time than at the high tide. Isn’t that correct?
If that’s the case, that it is all related to the tides, then why is sea level rise even seriously discussed with regard to this issue?
“To quantify the flood hazard in Miami Beach, the UM Rosenstiel School researchers analyzed tide and rain-gauge records, media reports, insurance claims, and photos of flooding events on Miami Beach and in Miami since 2006. The insurance claims and media reports helped the researchers pinpoint the date and type of flood events. ”
Wow, sounds scientific. Did sea level rise at the same rate up the eastern coast of FL? Doubt it.
millimeters per year — what a joke.
He is factually wrong because he attributes all this sea rise to global warming. Sea level rises in the area have fluctuated wildly over the years and are greatly affected by ocean currents and subsidence.
Yes. Al Gore is lying by omission. He is, in fact, the person who is both den-ying and twisting facts.
SkS kidz like ReallySkeptical too often jump into supporting Al Gore. Step back onto middle ground. Al Gore is just making money by spreading lies. His business is ‘green’ energy which he sells by spreading alarmism.
That the scientific community is so unwilling to shoot Al Gore down, is telling on the political climate. Left wing or whoever you call them have managed to create an atmosphere where optimistic scientists are unwilling to open their mouth. Only some tenured old academics have the guts to do that. We will regret this later on, and people will be wondering what magic Al Gore and other alarmists were doing. But the answer does not lie in Al Gore, it is the spirit of this time.
Thanks Dr. Roy,
If I remember right during the 2000 presidential election Gore’s campaign tried to bring up Bush’s college grades implying he wasn’t smart enough to be president. It wasn’t long after the election that Gore’s grades were leaked and he actually got worst grades that Bush. That’s a pretty low mark on which to expect anything factual related to science from Mr. Gore. I haven’t read your book yet but will do so shortly.
A person who thinks the earth’s core is millions of degrees hot, is not necessarily stupid – he makes a lot of more money than me – but clearly not competent to teach me on climate.
The Original Mike M; V. V. good, we live in frightening times indeed. I’m listening to Howlin’ Wolf to keep away the darkness, it’s working so far.
Dr Spencer,
Interesting points are brought forward in this. But a small question remains that perhaps you could shed a little light on for me.
In the article you stated
then added a chart of “China Grain Crop Yields…1961 – 2014”
Presumably this would be for ALL grain crops (oats, Rice, etc) and not just Corn and Wheat.
Would you happen to have one displaying the data for just Corn and Wheat?
Sincerely…
Google is your friend. See figure 2 on page 5 of http://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/8/12/1198/pdf
That gives a bar graph of different grains, updated to 2013
Bryan you are clearly unwilling to look at the reference that I provided. If you would do so, you would see the error of what Gore stated. Much better to inform yourself than continuing to troll.
HINT: If you click on the pdf website it will take you to, or download the document. The pages are numbered in the lower right hand corner so easy to follow the page numbers to find page 5.
Fundy, I looked at what you linked but apparently my earlier reply thanking you for the information didn’t post last night.
I assure you that I’m not trying to “TROLL” the board. I simply was asking about chart shown.
The question was about the article specifying Al Gore’s remarks regarding specifically Wheat and Corn production in China but the chart was for ALL grain crops combined. I was more curious if the chart used might have been posted by mistake (since it is like an apples & oranges vs Total Tree Fruit comparison). and if there was one that indicated just Wheat and Corn.
A comparisonlike this is kinda like the other side saying that the world is roasting when only the winter temps in the arctic region is 3-5c warmer.
Bryan A. He sourced his charts from UN FAO with a link. You could go there (free and public) and get any data or combinations of data you want (some are selfies, like adding just two of all cereal grains, but easy to do in Excel downloads) yourself. I did, extensively, in writing ebook Gaia’s Limits over 3 years. Published in 2012. Even double checked FAO (never trust any source) using China and India naional equivalents. Formthings like pulses and potatoes. Trivia quiz, Bryan. What country produces the most potatoes. Bonus point: what country is second. Hint, neither answer is Russia or US.
Roy said he had not gotten his fossil fuel denier check, and did this book voluntarily in just two weeks. May I respectfully suggest you get off your lazy butt and start contributing your own skeptical analyses, rather than whining that Dr. Spencer did not do enough for your personal satisfaction. Or perhaps you are just a warmunist troll complaining that Dr. Spencer did not do it the ‘correct’ way you would have, if you had.
In 2014 China was number one and India was number two for potato production.
And BTW I wasn’t whining I was simply asking if he had the particular info for the two specific items noted as Al Gore falsehoods rather than the ALL GRAINS chart used since the article specified Wheat and Corn and the chart specified ALL grains. Wheat and Corn production could have been down but offset by significant increases in soy, rice, and other grains and cereals. Just an honest question is all.
Ristvan,
If he did source his charts from UN FAO there’s is certainly nothing in the article explaining such. In fact, the only “link” in the entire post is to his new book on Amazon. (Which I certainly will read) Perhaps it is following these articles on Kindle instead of PC but I see no reason why some links would show up and others not.
That being said, I find no links to the chart source in the post.
Thank you for indicating the chart source though, it is appreciated.
Appologies Ristvan if you feel like I overstepped asking a simple question regarding the published content of an article.
I do hope that you realize just how Gore Like your comment to and about me was though.
How does Al Gore respond when questioned about the content of his statements?
“Are you a Denier?”
How did you respond when I asked Dr Spencer a question about the content of his article?
“”(pp) Are you a Warmunist Troll??””
Bryan;
Let’s say you go to a site and find that corn is down over the last 5 years, if total is up that means they are growing something other than corn on those fields presumably for economic reason. Up is up the mix wouldn’t matter. I doubt corn is down but Roy provide the relevant info either way.
Up is up, as you say, but the particular statement was about All Gore presenting false statements regarding Wheat and Corn production being down. If wheat and Corn are down 5% but offset by other grain production, then Gore was honest. If both Wheat and Corn were not down 5% but still down Gore was misleading or misinformed. But if either Wheat or Corn were up Gore is peddling untruths.
Gore makes his money off the “movement.” These aren’t polemics or documentaries – they’re advertisements.
Global Greening
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/carbon-dioxide-fertilization-greening-earth
Thank you Dr. Spencer!
The past 30 years have likely featured the best weather/climate for growing crops in 1,000 years. Add in the very beneficial increase in CO2 and it’s great contribution to agricultural productivity and world food production has been soaring higher.
Obviously technological advances have made great strides too…….but nobody has repealed the scientific law of photosynthesis:
Sunshine +H2O +CO2 +Minerals = Sugars(food) +O2
Substituting “pollution” for “CO2” and making up stats like Al Gore does or programming computer models with extreme conditions that are not happening may have snookered millions of gullible humans to think the opposite but CO2 continues to reign supreme as a beneficial gas for life on this planet.
There was a man named Al Gore
Who lied, and then lied some more
His Inconvenient Truth,
So bad it was uncouth
But mostly, it was a big bad bore.
Thanks Dr Roy – bought it, read it, using it to argue with warmunists