Technical Foul, Hand Overplayed

Whoops! Al Gore may have overdone it just a teensy bit this time.
Now even the New York Times, yes that New York Times, notes that perhaps Gore’s apocalyptic science fiction movie "An Incovenient Truth" may have gone too far.
As readers have seen before, the Times regularly rails against anyone who so much as questions the legitimacy of the fast growing new cult of global warming.




Today, however, the Times acknowledges hearing "From a Rapt Audience, a Call to Cool the Hype".
Discreetly tucked into the “Science” section, a piece by William Broad observes…

“Hollywood has a thing for Al gore and his three-alarm film on global warming “An Inconvenient Truth”… But part of his scientific audience is uneasy… these scientists argue that some of Mr. Gore’s central points are exaggerated and erroneous. They are alarmed, some say, at what they call his alarmism.”

(Incidentally, any appearance of the phrase “some say” is to be noted with skepticism but, in this instance, Broad does go on to back up the assertion quite thoroughly.)
Gore’s movie brooks no discussion of or dissent from its central credo that...
1) The earth is heating up catastrophically;
2) This phenomenon is entirely manmade, the result of the sun’s heat being trapped in the atmosphere by carbon dioxide and other gases discharged by power generation, motor vehicles, campfires, …breathing; and
3) The only way to save the world is for people to dismantle CO2 producing industries. (In this mantra, “people” means almost exclusively “the people of the United States.”)
Critics in industrial, political and scientific arenas have taken issue with the fact that most discussion of the need to curtail CO2 emissions does not include the fastest growing emitters of such gases, the rapidly expanding industrial powerhouses China and India, who are also exempted in the Kyoto treaty.
A few have also pointed out that only today’s modern industrial infrastructure, largely internal combustion dependent as it is, makes it possible to feed, clothe and house 300 million people in the United States, and 6 billion on the earth.
Some have even brought up the contradiction that the most avid global warming crusaders also oppose nuclear power.
But the ire of the zealots is most vigorously heaped on those who question… who so much as question… the central tenet that global warming is absolutely, positively, incontrovertibly manmade, not natural, and is destined to bring precisely quantifiable disaster down upon all in the next 20 minutes, or at least in our lifetimes.
It is from that dogmatic certainly, a certainty that ventures well beyond any known facts into the realm of blind religious extremism, that respected scientists including global warming believers, are now trying to distance themselves, as the Times notes.

“Kevin Vranes, a climatologist at the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research at the University of Colorado, said he sensed a growing backlash against exaggeration. While praising Mr. Gore for “getting the message out,” Dr. Vranes questioned whether his presentations were ‘overselling our certainty about knowing the future.’”

Exaggeration?
Well, Gore explains, “I am trying to communicate the essence of it in the lay language that I understand.” Ah, so Gore is of the opinion that the only language the layman understands is “everybody panic! You’re doomed!”
A tempting parallel to "Inconvenient's" diverting detour from reality is a newer cinematic guilty pleasure, the big screen adaptation of the comic book "300" which, in its testosterone fueled retelling of the story of the battle of Thermopylae, manages to make utter hash of the historic facts. Yes, there really was such a battle, and the heroism of Spartan king Leonidas is remembered in Greece to this day. Numerous historic scholars, however, have already weighed in on the extreme degree of artistic license exercised in Frank Miller's comic book version of the tale as well as in the movie.
But hey it's only a movie, right?
A better comparison may be a little-remembered film that, like "An Inconvenient Truth," also won an Oscar for best documentary, 35 years earlier.
It was in 1971 that another blend of science fact and over-the-top speculative science fiction called "The Hellstrom Chronicle" won the Academy Award for best documentary.
“Chronicle" offers a fascinating and, yes, educational look at the world of insects. But it too juices up the drama with a little science fiction hysteria. Its cool bug pictures are wrapped in a doomsaying warning from stern scientist Nils Hellstrom, who cautions that with their superior strength, order, discipline and lack of wasteful emotion or individualism, insects are destined to take over the world.
Much like “Inconvenient Truth,” “Chronicle” does offer a little to recommend it, marvelous photography and a real introduction to a world of science with which much of the audience may be unfamiliar. The silly campfire-worthy scare stories of the grim Dr. Hellstrom merely serve to hold the attention of viewers, many of them young, long enough to make some real science genuinely interesting.
But Hellstrom is a fictional character, played by actor Lawrence Pressman. In the real world, nobody was expected to take seriously his dark pontificating misinterpretation of the real science presented elsewhere in the movie. Nobody was calling for trillions of dollars to be wasted exterminating the world’s bugs.
When Pressman left the set to play in “Shaft” or “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” he didn’t continue his game of “let’s pretend we’re about to be wiped out.”
The Al Gore character, however, really exists. He was, you may recall, a heartbeat and a few hanging chads away from the presidency of the United States. And when the cameras stopped rolling, his role as haranguing firebrand prophet of calamity had only begun. And Gore is indeed calling for trillions of dollars to be wasted addressing a threat which may or may not exist, but which the evidence indicates is nowhere near as dire as he preaches it is.
“Unless we act boldly,” he writes, “our world will undergo a string of terrible catastrophes.” Gore has historically been vague about what, precisely, he means by “acting boldly,” but it is unlikely that switching to overpriced hybrid cars (which, incidentally, still emit suspected greenhouse gases) or microwaving our eyeballs with those hideous pigtail compact fluorescent light bulbs will come remotely close to the reductions in carbon dioxide emissions deemed necessary by the hard core of global warming Luddites.
The unsurprising news that their champion has been fudging the numbers is not helpful.
Even the skeptics proclaim their willingness to listen to reason. In fact, according to the Times, they’re begging for some.

“Bjorn Lomborg, a statistician and political scientist in Denmark long skeptical of catastrophic global warming, said in a syndicated article that the (UN’s climate change) panel, unlike Mr. Gore, had refrained from scaremongering. ‘Climate change is a real and serious problem’ that calls for careful analysis and sound policy, Dr. Lomborg said. ‘The cacophony of screaming,’ he added, ‘does not help.’

Unfortunately, it is the career screamers who currently monopolize the stage, or in this case the movie screen, when it comes to climate change.
The threat of manmade global warming may be real. It may even be urgent. Brutal industrial austerity measures may indeed be warranted. Maybe.
But that case has yet to be made and this “cacophony of screaming” only serves to prevent it from being made.
Assuming the danger really exists, and quick action really is necessary, the rabid shouting is actually making things worse. That may be the greatest lesson the serious scientists offer in their sudden expression of misgiving. Al Gore is, first and foremost, a politician, and a politician well known for tweaking the facts to achieve some dramatic, political, effect. That's not what the world needs now.
If those currently in the forefront of the debate are sincere in their desire to protect humanity from a legitimate danger they really believe exists, they should shut up, step aside, and let the grownups analyze the facts.

March 13, 2007