Congratulations Al Gore! You may (did) have already won the Nobel Peace Prize! Your lovely little film, despite its atrocious inaccuracies, has elevated the discussion of a weighty scientific topic to religious fervor! This prize, I regret to inform you, will be shared by a legion of scientists who know where their bread is buttered. The members of the IPCC have graciously allowed the policy makers in the UN to sanitize their analysis and recommendations to fit within the present environmental world view.
Gore's film has been censured by the British high court as being unsuitable for educational purposes without substantial caveats and clarifications. The facts surrounding climate on the earth are complex and variable. Simplistic assumptions by anyone place the individual in the likely spot of being incorrect. I certainly believe there is a cyclic nature to climate on this planet. I am NOT convinced that the reasons for the present change (if any) are due to human generated circumstances.
Let's be clear, reducing the input of all emissions into the atmosphere is a good thing. Just as the Malthusians were wrong about apocalyptic consequences from population growth, the prospect for error among the anthropogenic sect exists. Science needs debate. It needs debate in which theories are challenged and validated in the most scrupulous manner. I believe that this is occurring in the scientific community, however, as our media attempts to report on this issue - they get it horribly wrong.
There are web sites in which anyone who challenges the origins of current climate conditions is labeled a "denier". This is an extremely inflammatory term in which individuals are lumped with the likes of Holocaust deniers. A denier is someone who, against overwhelming evidence and facts, refuses to accept some issue. There are deniers in South Africa who refuse to acknowledge the mechanisms by which HIV infections occur or convert into AIDS. There are deniers within Islam who refuse to acknowledge the rights of women as equal members of the human race. Individuals who question the theories and hypothesis of climate science are not deniers. They may be skeptics, of which I am one, but hardly deniers.
As Mr. Gore assumes the position as high priest of the current cult of climatology, be assured that the one sided emphasis in this debate will accelerate.
4 comments:
um. wow. bitter much? what, you see the Nobel Prize as a consolation prize to the guy who the majority of the country voted for?
There is a great thread over at Datalounge which starts out thusly (and yes, there are many freaks and flamers, but what a great opening quote...)
"Al Gore. Man.
We're like the cheerleader who had to pick between the halfback and the awkward kid.
Naturally, we picked the halfback.
And now we live in our trailer and clean up his beer bottles, while we watch the awkward kid on TV talking about the fortune he made in computers
We think about what might have been. But in our hearts, we know we got exactly what we wanted. And exactly what we deserved."
Sigh.
Al Gore belongs to the whole planet now. The Presidency would be a step down. "
The link to the entire thread is here: http://www.datalounge.com/
cgi-bin/iowa/forum/thread/gossip/
5532642/page-1.html
But remember, this is also coming from someone sitting all alone and dateless on in East Anglia on an UNSEASONABLY WARM Friday Night, waiting for UGLY BETTY to start. Sigh.
Gore is the bitter one, I am afraid. While no one denies his right to pursue his passion - he is much like the ill-famed Rachel Carson who so vehemently cmapainged against DDT and thus bears the burden of 20 million souls lost to bad science and alarmist policy.
Gore lost for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that no one believed him. The peace prize is a political nomination, subjective in the extreme. How will the 1100 plus scientists of the IPCC divide their prize money?
Continued praise for Gore may feel good - however it is horribly misplaced. We live in a world where subjective experience means more than reasoned analysis. It is a place careening about on the rudder of soundbites, YouTube videography and flat out bad science.
PS - In fact, the Nobel Prize would make it harder for gore to challenge Hillary - perhaps the Clintons bought out the committee...
My only response to Al Gore's triumph.
Hee hee!!
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