Hannah Devlin, Ben Webster,
Philippe Naughton in Copenhagen
The Times [UK]
December 15, 2009
Al Gore’s office admitted that the percentage he quoted in his speech was from an old, ballpark figure
There are many kinds of truth. Al Gore was poleaxed by an inconvenient one yesterday.
The former US Vice-President, who became an unlikely figurehead for the green movement after narrating the Oscar-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth, became entangled in a new climate change “spin” row.
Mr Gore, speaking at the Copenhagen climate change summit, stated the latest research showed that the Arctic could be completely ice-free in five years.
In his speech, Mr Gore told the conference: “These figures are fresh. Some of the models suggest to Dr [Wieslav] Maslowski that there is a 75 per cent chance that the entire north polar ice cap, during the summer months, could be completely ice-free within five to seven years.”
However, the climatologist whose work Mr Gore was relying upon dropped the former Vice-President in the water with an icy blast.
“It’s unclear to me how this figure was arrived at,” Dr Maslowski said. “I would never try to estimate likelihood at anything as exact as this.”
Mr Gore’s office later admitted that the 75 per cent figure was one used by Dr Maslowksi as a “ballpark figure” several years ago in a conversation with Mr Gore.
The embarrassing error cast another shadow over the conference after the controversy over the hacked e-mails from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit, which appeared to suggest that scientists had manipulated data to strengthen their argument that human activities were causing global warming…
…Perhaps Mr Gore had felt the need to gild the lily to buttress resolve. But his speech was roundly criticised by members of the climate science community. “This is an exaggeration that opens the science up to criticism from sceptics,” Professor Jim Overland, a leading oceanographer at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said…
The article continues here.
H/T Anthony G. Martin of Columbia Conservative Examiner
And, from Phelim McAleer at Not Evil Just Wrong:
“Gore Refuses to Correct Mistakes”
…Mr. Gore says he cares a lot about science and scientific accuracy. His whole theory of Climate Alarmism depends on it but today at the United Nations Copenhagen Climate Conference he refused several opportunities to correct the record when asked about his errors by journalist and film maker Phelim McAleer. Instead his Press Secretary grabbed McAleer’s microphone to stop questions being put to the vice-president.
In the melee a UN security guard also disconnected McAleer’s microphone.
This came a few days after an armed security guard ordered McAleer to stop filming at a press conference where he was asking prominent climate alarmist Stephen Schneider questions about Climategate.
It seems inconvenient questions are being increasingly discouraged by the UN and the climate establishment.
Read the entire article and watch the video at Not Evil Just Wrong.
