British Court Rules on Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth"

The following is the text from a brief New York Times article reporting on a British Judge ruling that Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth could be shown in U.K. schools.

British Judge Rejects Ban on Al Gore Film
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
Published: October 11, 2007

A British judge has rejected an effort to ban school showings of “An Inconvenient Truth,” the Academy Award-winning documentary, directed by Davis Guggenheim, about Al Gore’s quest to spur action against global warming, Agence France-Presse reported. But the judge ruled that it should be shown only with guidance notes to prevent political indoctrination. The decision by High Court Judge Michael Burton was in response to an effort by Stewart Dimmock, a father of two and a member of the fringe New Party, to block the government’s pledge to send DVDs of the film to more than 3,500 secondary schools in England and Wales. Mr. Dimmock contended that the film included “serious scientific inaccuracies, political propaganda and sentimental mush.”

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This short "blurb" is the only mention of the outcome of the recent court case decision in the New York Times. The article title certainly makes it seem clear that the judge ruled against the Claimant. There is a mention in the article that the movie can be shown with “guidance notes to prevent political indoctrination.” But what is not represented is exactly what these “guidance notes” need to contain.

The judge found that there were a number of serious inaccuracies or exaggerations in the film that the government’s expert witnesses could not substantiate. In order for the film to be shown Teachers need to make clear that: 1) The Film is a political work and promotes only one side of the argument. 2) If teachers present the Film without making this plain they may be in breach of section 406 of the Education Act 1996 and guilty of political indoctrination. 3) Eleven inaccuracies have to be specifically drawn to the attention of school children.

Here are the inaccuracies highlighted in the Judge’s decision:

• The film claims that melting snows on Mount Kilimanjaro evidence global warming. The Government's expert was forced to concede that this is not correct.
• The film suggests that evidence from ice cores proves that rising CO2 causes temperature increases over 650,000 years. The Court found that the film was misleading: over that period the rises in CO2 lagged behind the temperature rises by 800-2000 years.
• The film uses emotive images of Hurricane Katrina and suggests that this has been caused by global warming. The Government's expert had to accept that it was "not possible" to attribute one-off events to global warming.
• The film shows the drying up of Lake Chad and claims that this was caused by global warming. The Government's expert had to accept that this was not the case.
• The film claims that a study showed that polar bears had drowned due to disappearing arctic ice. It turned out that Al Gore had misread the study: in fact four polar bears drowned and this was because of a particularly violent storm.
• The film threatens that global warming could stop the Gulf Stream throwing Europe into an ice age: the Claimant's evidence was that this was a scientific impossibility.
• The film blames global warming for species losses including coral reef bleaching. The Government could not find any evidence to support this claim.
• The film suggests that the Greenland ice covering could melt causing sea levels to rise dangerously. The evidence is that Greenland will not melt for millennia.
• The film suggests that the Antarctic ice covering is melting, the evidence was that it is in fact increasing.
• The film suggests that sea levels could rise by 7m causing the displacement of millions of people. In fact the evidence is that sea levels are expected to rise by about 40cm over the next hundred years and that there is no such threat of massive migration.
• The film claims that rising sea levels has caused the evacuation of certain Pacific islands to New Zealand. The Government are unable to substantiate this and the Court observed that this appears to be a false claim.

I guess this part of the news was not “fit to print”. Of course there has been some small increases in temperature. But An Inconvenient Truth is so wildly exaggerated and so full of statements that are not true it does a disservice to a productive discussion about global warming and what to do about it.