Gore ‘Inconvenient Truth’ Film Contains Nine Factual Errors, UK court decision finds

Gore ‘Inconvenient Truth’ Film Contains Nine Factual Errors, UK court decision finds

Newly-minted Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore’s film, An Inconvenient Truth contains nine significant errors of fact which absent guidance and an opposing point of view, would be sufficient to ban the film from being shown in UK schools.

The case was brought by school governor Stewart Dimmock.

The BBC has more:

Mr Justice Burton told London’s High Court that distributing the film without the guidance to counter its “one-sided” views would breach education laws.

The Department for Children, Schools and Families was not under a duty to forbid the film, provided it was accompanied by the guidance, he said.

“I conclude that the claimant substantially won this case by virtue of my finding that, but for the new guidance note, the film would have been distributed in breach of sections 406 and 407 of the 1996 Education Act”, he said.

The nine errors alleged by the judge included:

• Mr Gore’s assertion that a sea-level rise of up to 20 feet would be caused by melting of ice in either West Antarctica or Greenland “in the near future”. The judge said this was “distinctly alarmist” and it was common ground that if Greenland’s ice melted it would release this amount of water – “but only after, and over, millennia”.
• Mr Gore’s assertion that the disappearance of snow on Mount Kilimanjaro in East Africa was expressly attributable to global warming – the court heard the scientific consensus was that it cannot be established the snow recession is mainly attributable to human-induced climate change.
• Mr Gore’s reference to a new scientific study showing that, for the first time, polar bears had actually drowned “swimming long distances – up to 60 miles – to find the ice”. The judge said: “The only scientific study that either side before me can find is one which indicates that four polar bears have recently been found drowned because of a storm.”

Gore climate film’s ‘nine errors’

See also, Do several convenient half-truths make “An Inconvenient Truth”?

If anyone in blogurbia has a link to the complete decision, please post it in comments below.

Copyright © 2007 Henry Edward Hardy