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COMMENTARY
October 13, 2007
Theatre d'absurd
We (royal we) awoke yesterday morning to the following citation from the Nobel Committee, awarding their Peace Prize for 2007, not to us for our thoughtful columns on Iraq, Afghanistan, and the global menace of “Islamism” (we were not even nominated!) -- but to Al Gore:“Al Gore has for a long time been one of the world's leading environmentalist politicians. He became aware at an early stage of the climatic challenges the world is facing. His strong commitment, reflected in political activity, lectures, films and books, has strengthened the struggle against climate change. He is probably the single individual who has done most to create greater worldwide understanding of the measures that need to be adopted.” I gather Mr Gore has to share it with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Well, I should try to be magnanimous about this. They join distinguished company: Yasser Arafat, Le Duc Tho, Archbishop Tutu, Kofi Annan, Jimmy Carter, the Pugwash Conferences, and, -- oh right, and Mother Teresa (“for creating awareness of poverty”), and the Dalai Lama. For some reason, Che Guevara was overlooked. And what about Henry Kissinger? Yes, he shared the prize with Le Duc Tho, as co-author of the memorable Vietnam peace accords. That was the peace that launched ten thousand little boats, as its Vietnamese beneficiaries seized every means at their disposal to remove themselves from the Communist paradise that followed the extraction of American troops. Some of them actually tried to swim out of Vietnam, after the last creaking sampan disappeared over the horizon. And more of them were drowned in the first day after the fall of Saigon, than in the entire history of global warming. Now, Le Duc Tho may have been the diplomatic face of one of the great mass-murdering regimes of history, but I nevertheless carry a microscopic tinge of respect for him. There were apparently depths to which he would not stoop, and he actually declined the Nobel Peace Prize. I doubt very much Al Gore will decline. A bit of a sociopath like his old boss Bill Clinton, he will enjoy the adoring company at Oslo City Hall, and the distance from his critics, including the High Court judge in England who, last week, noted instances of “alarmism and exaggeration” in Mr Gore's documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth.” The judge further specified nine inconvenient truths about the film, i.e. howling “scientific inaccuracies” purposefully designed to feed that alarmism. That is to say, nine points at which Mr Gore's film goes demonstrably beyond even the alarmism and exaggeration that are intrinsic to the IPCC's reports. Example: world sea levels are not going to rise 20 feet, until the entire ice cap of Greenland melts, and that would take thousands of years even if we put it under heat lamps. Example: the Gulf Stream is not expected to shut down under any of the naive computer models the IPCC has presented. Example: two graphs Mr Gore showed in the film, implying an exact fit between rising CO2 levels and atmospheric temperatures over 650,000 years, show in fact no such thing, and their juxtaposition was the equivalent of card-sharping. Et cetera. Mr Gore won an Oscar for that film earlier this year from all the climatologists in Hollywood. He now has only to win a Darwin Award to complete his Trifecta. Mr Justice Burton, that English judge, was pulled into the controversy because the British government had ordered 3,500 copies of the documentary to be distributed to schools, as part of a national campaign to brainwash children in the 11-to-14 year age group. An English school governor objected to having his own children indoctrinated in this way, and found himself a team of lawyers. The judge ruled the government could distribute the film, but only if accompanied by documents setting out the scientific inaccuracies it contains, and stating that it is political propaganda. I do not like to see the law brought in to adjudicate scientific claims, and had I my druthers (which I seldom do), I would just show the kids Mr Gore's documentary without comment. And then, show them another documentary, such as “The Great Global Warming Swindle,” and invite them to debate. I realize this marks me as old-fashioned. David Warren
© Ottawa Citizen
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