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Friday, August 25, 2017

Marc Morano: Review of Al Gore’s ‘An Inconvenient Sequel - Truth to Power’


I went to a local suburban mall cineplex on a Saturday night to see Gore’s sequel. There were only about 12 other people in the theater to watch. The film held many surprises and a very satisfying ending. Who would have thought that a film that featured weather disasters and apocalyptic predictions of climate doom would have a happy ending!

The ending has a stand up and cheer moment when President Donald Trump announces the U.S. is exiting the UN climate pact. It also features Trump announcing the end to EPA “climate regulations” and reveals that former President Barack Obama’s global warming agenda was being dismantled. Just when you think the U.S. is doomed to give up sovereignty, and become entangled in the most expensive treaty in world history, along comes the hero of the film, Trump, restoring sanity to the U.S. domestic and international climate policy.
The movie has a satisfactory ending because Trump the UN pact is tossed into the dustbin of history. A crowd pleasing moment for Americans.

The film opens with a fantastic montage of completely rational comments from climate skeptics like Trump, Senator James Inhofe, John Stossel and others ridiculing climate change claims. Then the viewer is bombarded with 90 minutes of the light comedy of Gore implying that a UN climate agreement — the most expensive treaty in world history — will somehow save humanity and warning us that weather disasters are going to come for us unless we support the pact.

But, all begins and ends well in Gore’s climate thriller this time around. Skeptics open the film and in a triumph mocking climate claims and skeptics end the film by dismantling the climate agenda.

It was a tour de force to see the U.S. executive branch under Trump returned to a pro science agenda by rejecting the witchcraft based beliefs that EPA regulations and UN climate treaties can alter global temperature and the frequency of storms.

A few surprises of Gore’s sequel include that him actually praising fossil fuels and India rejecting limits on fossil fuels for moral reasons because they want to develop their nation. See: Gore praises fossil fuels for having ‘tremendous benefits’ – ‘Poverty has declined, living standards increased’

Of course, in between the rousing opening and joyful denouement of the film, lies the rest of the film. And in that chunk of film, there are many inaccurate and outrageous climate claims typical of Gore are made. Gore’s claim have been taken apart by climate scientists. Climatologist Dr. Roy Spencer ripped Gore’s sequel, calling it “Chock-full of bad science, bad policy, and factual errors.”  Spencer explained on August 19, that after viewing the film, “I was more than a little astounded. The new movie and book are chock-full of bad science, bad policy, and factual errors. I was inspired to do something about it. I’d like to announce my new e-book, entitled An Inconvenient Deception: How Al Gore Distorts Climate Science and Energy Policy, now available on Amazon.com.” “What I am opposed to is misleading people with false climate science claims and alarming them into diverting vast sums of the public’s wealth into expensive energy schemes,” Spencer wrote.

In perhaps the most maudlin and shocking scenes of the film, Gore features himself walking through graveyards, grisly scenes of body-bags, and grieving families of the victims of 2013’s Typhoon Haiyan that devastated the Philippines, killing over 6000 people. This was perhaps the most single most disgusting moment of the sequel. The viewer cannot help but feel that Gore is shamelessly exploiting the victims and using their pain to score unscientific political points about Typhoon Haiyan.

The science does not back Gore’s claims at all. Meteorologist Dr. Ryan Maue rejected any such links of Haiyan to human activity. “Over past 1,000 years, Philippines have been hit by 10-20 thousand tropical cyclones. Don’t be so arrogant to believe man caused Haiyan,” Maue wrote in 2013. Maue demolished claims made by Gore and others that Typhoon Haiyan was “strongest storm ever.” “Fact: Haiyan is 58th Super Typhoon since 1950 to reach central pressure of 900 mb or lower from historical records,” Maue wrote. “50 of 58 Super Typhoons with pressure of 900 mb or lower occurred from 1950-1987 — only 8 in past 25 years,” he added.

FACT CHECKING AL GORE’s SEQUEL

Climate Depot lists some of the key climate falsehoods in Gore’s sequel.

#Gore sequel claim:  9/11 Memorial Flooding in NYC: The Inconvenient Sequel features the 9/11 Memorial in New York City flooding from Hurricane Sandy in 2012. The video clips are used as vindication of Gore’s warning in his first 2006 film “An Inconvenient Truth” that NYC was going to flood due to rising sea levels.

Second, Gore is completely conflating two different events and tricking viewers into thinking he accurately called it.  As Fox News reporter John Stossel explaind: “Gore creatively misremembers his own movie.”  Stossel explained: “Gore claims ‘the most criticized’ part of the film was his assertion that the 9/11 memorial site would flood. Then, during Hurricane Sandy, it did! But Gore creatively misremembers his own movie. He had claimed the World Trade Center would flood because of a permanent 20-foot sea-level rise. Actual scientists called that nonsense. It would take hundreds of years for such a thing to possibly happen. But since the area flooded, briefly, Gore spins that as confirmation of his exaggerations.”

Statistician Bjorn Lomborg, weighed in and noted: “Gore still trying to scare you into saving the world. Gore’s “sequel misses a few inconvenient facts,” Lomborg added.  “Gore’s prescriptions—for New York and the globe—won’t work. He claims the answer to warming lies in agreements to cut carbon that would cost trillions of dollars. That would not have stopped Sandy. What New York really needs is better infrastructure: sea walls, storm doors for the subway, porous pavement,” Lomborg added.

#Gore sequel claim: – Gore Saves the UN Paris Pact: The last part of the film features Gore intensely lobbying for the UN Paris climate pact in December 2015. The film shows Gore lobbying India to sign on to the pact and portrays his role as the savior of the treaty by getting India solar technology from U.S. firm.

Reality Check: Portraying Gore as the key to saving the UN climate pact in 2015, has been heavily disputed. See: Sequel depicts Gore clinching 2015 UN Paris deal – But top Indian diplomat says Gore’s claim is nonsense  –   
Via E;E News wire: Viewers of the long-awaited sequel to “An Inconvenient Truth” walk away from the film with the impression that former Vice President Al Gore brokered a deal with India that saved the Paris climate accord in 2015…Gore presents this quid pro quo in another Paris cellphone call to Goyal, in which he says SolarCity’s offer is good “if in return for this India removed its potential objections to the climate treaty.” “I am not aware of any such linkage, and neither are my colleagues in the negotiating team,” said Ajay Mathur, one of India’s top negotiators in Paris. “None of us recall any discussion in the negotiating team on any such linkage; I don’t recall an offer of solar technology being discussed at all.”

#Gore sequel claim: All bad weather caused by ‘climate change – Gore walks the viewer through endless scary climate claims and anecdotal images of floods and hurricanes while Gore attempts to link the bad weather to “global warming.” In just about every media interview to promote his sequel, Gore repeats his stock line: “We’re seeing every night on the television news now a nature hike through the Book of Revelation.” Gore added: “We’ve got a — 70 percent of Florida’s in drought today. Missouri declared an emergency just a couple of days ago because another — of another one of these. And they keep on coming.” 

Reality Check: Analysis: Nearly all extreme weather is declining or at or near record lows – Drought drops to record lows in U.S. as nearly all extreme weather is either declining or at or near record lows. “It is not just droughts that are at or near record levels. On almost every measure of extreme weather, the data is not cooperating with the claims of the climate change campaigners. Tornadoes, floods, droughts, and hurricanes are failing to fit in with the global warming narrative.”

“Drought in the U.S. fell to a record low (in Spring 2017), with just 6.1% of the lower 48 states currently experiencing such dry conditions, federal officials announced Thursday. That’s the lowest percentage in the 17-year history of the weekly U.S. Drought Monitor report,” USA Today reported on April 27. (Ironically, climate activists had declared California to be in a permanent drought: Flashback 2016: Warmist wrong claim: ‘Thanks El Niño, But California’s Drought Is Probably Forever’)

Former Vice President Al Gore has made extreme weather warnings a staple of his climate change activist. See: Al Gore on the Weather: ‘Every night on the news now, practically, is like a nature hike through the book of Revelations’

But it is not just droughts that are at or near record levels. On almost every measure of extreme weather, the data is not cooperating with the claims of the climate change campaigners. Tornadoes, floods, droughts, and hurricanes are failing to fit in with the global warming narrative.

Below is a complete rundown of the very latest on extreme weather conditions: Update data from the 2016 Climate Depot report: Skeptics Deliver Consensus Busting ‘State of the Climate Report’ to UN Summit

Floods: ‘Floods are not increasing’: Dr. Roger Pielke Jr. slams ‘global warming’ link to floods & extreme weather – How does media ‘get away with this?’ – Pielke Jr. on how extreme weather is NOT getting worse: ‘Flood disasters are sharply down. U.S. floods not increasing either.’ “Floods suck when they occur. The good news is U.S. flood damage is sharply down over 70 years,” Pielke explained.
Extreme weather used to be blamed on ‘global cooling’ in the 1970s and early 80s Flashback NOAA 1974: ‘Extreme weather events blamed on global cooling’ – NOAA October 1974: ‘Many climatologists have associated this drought and other recent weather anomalies with a global cooling trend and changes in atmospheric circulation which, if prolonged, pose serious threats to major food-producing regions of the world’

#Gore sequel claim: ‘Climate change’ causes war & terrorism – The Syrian drought was due to man-made climate change and helped spark the civil war which led to the rise of the terror group ISIS.

Reality CheckGore’s claims that a global warming caused drought caused the crisis harkens back to the 1930s. See: 1933 claim: ‘YO-YO BANNED IN SYRIA – Blamed For Drought’ – Real Science’s Tony Heller: “In 1933, drought was blamed on Yo-Yos. Eighty years later, modern Yo-Yos blame drought on CO2.”
Latest science refutes global warming/drought claims: Globally, ‘there has been little change in drought over the past 60 years.’

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Climatologist Dr. Roy Spencer rejected Gore’s Syrian claims. “And that lack of rainfall in Syria that supposedly caused conflict and war? It didn’t happen. Poor farmers could no longer afford diesel fuel to pump groundwater because Assad tripled the price. Semi-arid Syria is no place to grow enough crops for a rapidly growing population, anyway,” Spencer wrote.


#Gore sequel claim: Bad weather, floods, and extremes are unprecedented – In his film, Gore claims “unprecedented” storms and extreme weather events. “We’ve had 11 once in a thousand year downpours in the U.S. just in the last ten years,” he has claimed in media interviews. 

Reality Check: The reality is that on every major extreme weather measure, hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, droughts, there is either no trend on 50-100 time scales or there is declining trends. Through a mix of cherry-picking between global incidents and U.S. events, Gore picks and chooses random events and regional trends that fit his climate doom narrative, without noting that the continental U.S. is only about 1.5% of earth’s surface.
Gore implies that basically every storm is now proof of global warming and he hypes so-called 1 and 100/1000 year extreme weather events. What he does not explain is your chance of the winning the lottery is very low, but the chance of someone, somewhere winning the lottery are very high. So the Gore essentially hypes “lottery winners” of extreme weather events and tries to imply these events are increasing and happening everywhere. Lottery and casino ads do the same by showing all the winners and implying you are just one ticket or spin away from joining the lucky winners. Gore is trying to scare the public that they are one bad weather event away from doom and only EPA and the UN Paris climate pact (which his lobbying saved) can save us!

Climate skeptic Jo Nova, had this to say after sitting through a 90-minute Gore presentation on his film:

Gore’s only effort to scientifically connect those dots was to quote a few scientists opinions, while ignoring thousands of others, most historical accounts and 2 billion years of paleohistory. Cherry-picked extremes.

The long tenuous chain of cause and effect was glossed over repeatedly with handwaving. The system was the most complex on earth, yet somehow scientists know what causes what. The chain of influence goes like this: fossil fuels make CO2, CO2 makes heat, heat causes droughts and more humidity, which in turn causes floods, intense rain, nastier storms, stickier roads, sliding mud, rising seas, etc etc blah-de-blah.

Has there ever been a year on Earth when there wasn’t a drought somewhere and a flood somewhere else?  This is a never ending game for Gore. Until we get perfect weather on Earth, on all 150 million square kilometers terra firma, he will always be able to say “boo”.

Climatologist Dr. Roy Spencer: South Carolina Flooding is NOT a 1 in 1,000 Year Event – But a once on 1,000 year event? Sorry, but there is no way to determine that…there are simply not enough rainfall statistics over a long enough period of time to establish such a claim…Unfortunately, there seems to be an trend toward classifying events as “1 in 1,000 years”, when there is no way of knowing such things…For some areas the current flood is no doubt a 1 in 100 year event, or even worse. But remember, it is perfectly normal to have a 1 in 100 year event every year…as long as they occur in different locations. That’s how weather records work.

Feds declare no climate link to floods in 2015 – South Carolina’s ‘1000 year flood’ only a 10 year flood! U.S. Geological Survey: ‘No linkage between flooding & increase in GHGs’ –  Dr. Robert Holmes, USGS National Flood Hazard Coordinator:  ‘The data shows no systematic increases in flooding through time’ – ‘USGS research has shown no linkage between flooding (either increases or decreases) and the increase in greenhouse gases. Essentially, from USGS long-term streamgage data for sites across the country with no regulation or other changes to the watershed that could influence the streamflow, the data shows no systematic increases in flooding through time.’ 1000 year flood? ‘The majority of USGS streamgages had flood peaks that were less than 10-year floods.’ –  ‘Analysis show NO indication that a 1000-year flood discharge occurred at any USGS streamgages’

NOAA bastardizes science in Louisiana rain modeling study – Climatologists, data, & history refute NOAA’s claims
Climatologist Dr. Roger Pielke Sr. slams NOAA study as ‘manipulation of science for political reasons.’ ‘NOAA should be embarrassed.’


Pielke Sr.: ‘From under reviewed paper to NOAA PR to USA Today. A dismaying example of manipulation of science for political reasons.’


Climate Depot’s Marc Morano on new NOAA study: “No matter how hard federally funded climate activist scientists at NOAA try to bend and twist models and data to make it appear the invisible hand of ‘global warming’ has a role in almost every weather event, the facts refute their claims.”


Real Climate Science website’s Tony Heller’s analysis: NOAA rain modeling study ‘has no scientific basis, and ignores all available actual data’ – ‘Man-Made Modeling Abuse Increases The Odds Of NOAA Fraud’ –  ‘The NOAA study has no scientific basis, and ignores all available actual data. Software models can be written to produce any result the author wants to produce. They are not evidence of anything other than deep corruption at NOAA.’ – ‘There has been no increase in heavy rains in Louisiana.’



#Gore sequel claim: Global warming causing fish to swim in streets of Miami – “I went down to Miami and saw fish from the ocean swimming in the streets on a sunny day. The same thing was true in Honolulu just two days ago, just from high tides because of the sea level rise now.”  Miami has unprecedented flooding and fish are now swimming in the streets. Gore in his sequel and in numerous media interviews hypes the fact that Miami has “fish from the ocean” swimming in “the streets of Miami-Dade and Delray, Ft. Lauderdale.” The film features Gore walking around the flooded streets of Miami with big boots on.

Reality Check: Gore very cleverly tries to present his “science by anecdote” in the sequel. Instead of showing scientific charts revealing the alleged acceleration of sea levels in Miami due to man-made global warming, Gore instead has a man in the film just say he has lived there all his life and never saw anything like it. That is Al Gore’s version of “scientific truth.” (And a very common “error” in the climate change debate. See: Flashback 1933 : Australia’s Chief Weather Expert: Belief In Climate Change Is An ‘Error Of Human Memory’ – ‘When people compare the present with the past, they remember only the abnormal’

But lucky for readers of this report, scientific data is available and trumps a man’s recollection of 40 years ago.

Climatologist Dr. Roy Spencer debunked Gore’s claims on Miami and sea level. “One of Gore’s favorite tactics is to show something that happens naturally, then claim (or have you infer) that it is due to humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions,” Spencer wrote. “For example, sea level rise. Gore is seen surveying flooded streets in Miami Beach,” Spencer added.

Spencer: “That flooding is mostly a combination of (1) natural sea level rise (I show there has been no acceleration of sea level rise beyond what was already happening since the 1800s), and (2) satellite-measured sinking of the reclaimed swamps that have been built upon for over 100 years in Miami Beach.”
Spencer concluded: “In other words, Miami Beach was going to have to deal with the increasing flooding from their ‘king tides’, with or without carbon dioxide emissions.”
“Miami Beach occurs during high tides called ‘king tides,’ due to the alignment of the Earth, sun and moon. For decades they have been getting worse in low-lying areas of Miami Beach where buildings were being built on reclaimed swampland,” Spencer added.

As the Daily Caller has reported, “Miami Is Sinking, But That Doesn’t Mean Sea Levels Are Rising” –”The problem is caused by a naturally occurring event known as a king tide, a rare event when the sun and moon align on the same side of the Earth during a high tide, and the extra gravitational pull produces tides much higher than normal.”

Miami Beach Public Relations Manager Melissa Berthier told The Daily Caller News Foundation that “flooding only happens during ‘king tides,’” which take place around April and October. She did go on to say that if enough rain falls during high tide, light flooding can occur. But reiterated floods do not happen as a normal occurrence during Miami Beach’s high tides. King tides happen when the sun and moon align on the same side of the Earth, and their resulting combined gravitational pull produces tides much higher than normal. Berthier said king tides bring flooding to Miami Beach twice a year, with the fall tide being “more severe” than the spring. Witness King Tides says on its website that “[King tides] aren’t part of climate change; they are a natural part of tidal cycles.” For reference, Miami receives just under 52 inches of rain a year, according to U.S. climate data.
AnotherAnalysis Debunks Absurd Sea Level Rise Claims About South Florida – Sea level rise in the Miami area is not accelerating and it is rising at a rate of about 1 foot per century.
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“Gore has previously said there has been a three-inch sea level rise since 1992 when Hurricane Andrew struck Florida. But tidal gauges and satellite altimeters show only a sea level rise of 1.2 mm per year. That would be about 28 mm since 1992, or 1.1 inches. He was off nearly 300 percent. Gore also brought up the unique phenomenon in Miami that allow “fish from the ocean to swim on the streets of Miami-Dade and Delray, Ft. Lauderdale.” But that assertion has no basis in fact, wrote the Miami Herald when President Obama made the same claim.”

When a reporter challenged Gore about his sea level rise claims in Miami, Gore was not tolerant. See: ‘You are a denier’ Gore abruptly ends UK reporter’s Q&A after question on sea level  UK Spectator journalist Ross Clark on his encounter with Gore: “As soon as I mention Professor Wdowinski’s name, he counters: ‘Never heard of him — is he a denier?’ Then, as I continue to make the point, he starts to answer before directing it at me: ‘Are you a denier?’ When I say I am sure that climate change is a problem, but how big a one I don’t know, he jumps in: ‘You are a denier.’ That is a strange interpretation of the word ‘deny’, I try to say. But his PR team moves in and declares ‘Time’s up’, and I am left feeling like the guy in Monty Python who paid for a five-minute argument and was allowed only 30 seconds. On the way out, a frosty PR woman says to me: ‘Can I have a word with you?’ I wasn’t supposed to ask difficult questions, she says, because ‘this is a film junket, to promote the film.’”

Sea levels have been rising since the last ice age ended more than 10,000 years ago. There is currently no acceleration in sea level rise.

Former NASA Climatologist Dr. Roy Spencer in 2016: “Sea level rise, which was occurring long before humans could be blamed, has not accelerated and still amounts to only 1 inch every ten years. If a major hurricane is approaching with a predicted storm surge of 10-14 feet, are you really going to worry about a sea level rise of 1 inch per decade?

Climatologist Dr. Judith Curry of Georgia Institute of Technology: ‘Sea level will continue to rise, no matter what we do about CO2 emissions.’ – ‘The IPCC figure 3.14 suggests that there is no acceleration, given the large rates of sea level rise in the first half of the 20th century.  Until we have an understanding of variations in decadal and multi-decadal sea level rise, we can’t make a convincing argument as to acceleration.’

Meteorologist Tom Wysmuller: ‘For the past 130 years there has been ZERO acceleration in sea-level rise as directly measured by tide gauges in tectonically inert areas (land neither moving up nor down), even as CO2 has risen almost 40% in the same period.’

Global sea level rise from tide gauges (1.6 mm/year) is half of that claimed from satellites (3.2 mm/year). Which is right? – ‘There is no acceleration of the increase’ – [Climate Depot Note: According to tide gauges, Sea Level is rising LESS than the thickness of one nickel (1.95 mm thick) per year or about the thickness of one penny (1.52 mm thick) a year. According to satellite info it is rising slightly more than two pennies a year (3.04 mm)]

#Gore sequel claim: Greenland is melting away causing dangerous sea level rise – “Greenland, for example, has been losing one cubic kilometer of ice every single day.” Gore hypes one hot day in Greenland in 2016 to back up his claims, along with successive images of melting Greenland ice. 

Reality Check: 2017: Greenland Ice Mass Increases To Near Record – Arctic Ice Reaches Normal Range (May 24, 2017) – The vast majority area of Greenland has seen surface snow and ice gain over the past 9 months. Moreover, Arctic temperatures for now are below normal. Winter snow and ice cover trend for the Northern Hemisphere has in fact been trending upwards since statistics started. And when one applies the 30-year weather mean used to define climate, the winter trend since 1987 is strongly upwards. So is the autumn trend. This 2017 winter was well above average, ranking in the top 10. The vast majority area of Greenland has seen surface snow and ice gain over the past 9 months. Moreover, Arctic temperatures for now are below normal…The big development in recent Arctic news is the “recovery” of Arctic sea ice extent, which now is back in the normal range.
Climatologist Dr. Roy Spencer refuted Gore’s Greenland claims. “Gore is also shown jumping across meltwater streams on the Greenland ice sheet. No mention is made that this happens naturally every year,” Spencer wrote. “Sure, 2012 was exceptional for its warmth and snow melt (which he mentioned), but then 2017 came along and did just the opposite with record snow accumulation, little melt, and the coldest temperature ever recorded in the Northern Hemisphere for a July,” Spencer added.

“The fact that receding glaciers in Alaska are revealing stumps from ancient forests that grew 1,000 to 2,000 years ago proves that climate varies naturally, and glaciers advance and recede without any help from humans. So, why is your SUV suddenly being blamed when it happens today?” Spencer asked.

Other analysis show Gore’s Greenland claims lacking scientific integrity.

BUSTED: Claim of Greenland Warmest Temperature Record of 75°F Challenged By Data – Climate analyst Paul Homewood: ‘It is evident that there are two recording stations at Nuuk. No serious meteorologist would declare a record just based on one, when the other was so much different. In any event, 75F (23.9C) is not even a record. According to DMI, the highest temperature recorded at Nuuk was 24.2C, back in July 1908. ..Using the official DMI data, April 2016 was indeed the warmest April on record at Nuuk, at a boiling hot 0.6C. However, this was only 0.2C warmer than the next warmest April, set in 1953. Joe ignores the fact that April 2015 and 2014 were two of the coldest on record, or the fact that Aprils in the 1930s and 40s were just as warm as in recent years.’

Analysis of Greenland temperatures finds they ‘were just as high in 1930s & 40s as they have been in recent years’ – Recent Summer temps are lower – Summer ‘temperatures since 2000 for the main part are, if anything, lower then the 1930s and 40s’
Climatologists: ‘The death of the Greenland disaster story’ – ‘Taming the Greenland Melting Global Warming Hype’ – Climatologists: ‘Humans just can’t make it warm enough up there to melt all that much ice’

We have heard Greenland melt fears many times in the past.
Flashback 1939: Scientist warns of ‘catastrophic collapse’ of Greenland’s ice – ‘Greenland’s Glaciers Melting, Says Scientist’ – Harrisburg Sunday Courier – December 17, 1939 – Swedish Geologist Prof. Hans Ahlmann: “It may without exaggeration be said that the glaciers, like those in Norway, face the possibility of catastrophic collapse.”
Flashback 1947: Warming in Arctic, Antarctic & Greenland to cause sea level ‘rise in catastrophic proportions’ – Flashback 1947: ‘Danger seen in mysterious warning of Arctic Climate’ – May 31, 1947 – Warwick Daily News – “A mysterious warming of the climate is slowly manifesting itself in the Arctic, and if the Antarctica ice regions and the major Greenland ice caps should reduce at the same rate as the present rate of melting should reduce at the same rate as the present rate of melting oceanic surfaces would rise in catastrophic proportions and people living in lowlands along the shores would be inundated, said Dr. Hans Ahlmann, noted Swedish geophysicist, in a speech at the University of California Geophysical Institute.


#Gore sequel claim: Roads are melting due to global warming! – Roads are melting somewhere in the world due to rising temperatures. In his talks promoting his film, Gore features these images from India to show how global warming is melting roads.

Al Gore, Gudjarat, India. Melting roads, heatwaves, climate change.

Reality Check: Australian climate skeptic Jo Nova rebuts: “NDTV shows a video where this man’s shoes stick to the hot road and fall off. (Watch the video at the link). Call me a skeptic. I’ve bounded across searing bitumen roads here in Australia, and this man is not behaving as if the pavement is blisteringly hot. Would you put your hand down? Note the “Highlights” in the NDTV story: “Tar on roads melts in Valsad, Gujarat, temperature was only 36 degrees”. Yeah. yeah. That’s “body temperature”. Terrifying.

Nova continues: Most likely the melting roads are due to sloppy road construction and cheap materials instead of our fossil fuel emissions. Tar was melting at just 40C in India, according to the Times of India, due to “improper mixing of bituminous” materials. “According to the UK-based Road Surfaces Treatment Association, most roads will start melting at a temperature of 50 degrees celsius. Roads in the United Arab Emirates are made of special “polymer modified binders“ which keep them solid up until around 80 degrees celsius.”

#Gore sequel claim: Wildfires are out of control –  “We’ve got these wildfires that become mega fires now.”

LA Times: Gov. Brown’s link between ‘climate change’ and wildfires is unsupported, fire experts say – But scientists who study climate change and fire behavior say their work does not show a link between this year’s wildfires and global warming, or support Brown’s assertion that fires are now unpredictable and unprecedented. There is not enough evidence, they say.

Another Climate Apocalypse Prediction Goes Up In Smoke – – Forest fires claims – ‘Since 1970 — the period over which climate scientists tell us the impacts of anthropogenic climate change should be most evident — there has been a statistically significant declining — not increasing — trend in the number of forest fires across Canada’
‘Overall, there appears to be no evidence that the climate change induced forest fire apocalypse is upon us in Canada, a fact which agrees with the trends in the United States and other analyses of climate data in these two countries.’


#Gore sequel claim: Wind & Solar energy revolution happening now – “We have had tremendous benefits from our reliance on fossil fuels. Poverty has declined, living standards have increased and we still depend on them for more than 80% of world’s energy,” Gore said during his media tour and in the film. In the sequel, Gore claims that a wind and solar energy revolution was now happening globally.

Reality Check: But history shows that over the past 100 years, the energy mix has not changed all that much. Reality Check: In 1908, fossil fuels accounted for 85% of U.S. energy consumption. In 2015, more or less the same


#Gore sequel claim: UN Paris Pact is critical to fighting ‘climate change’ – In the sequel, Gore presents the UN Paris climate pact as some sort of monumental achievement to fight “climate change.” The film depicts Gore as a hero for tirelessly lobbying to secure it’s agreement in December 2015.

Reality Check: Even Gore has been forced to concede the UN Paris pact is purely symbolic and would not “save” the world.  Former Vice President Al Gore was forced to admit  that the UN Paris climate accord was a symbolic effort and merely “sends a very powerful signal.” Gore once again spun a series of climate falsehoods in just a few short sound bites. Gore appeared on “Fox News Sunday” with host Chris Wallace on Sunday to lament President Donald Trump’s withdraw from the UN Paris Climate treaty. . (Also see: Science Wins! Trump stomps on climate religion, withdraws from UN pact & Climate Depot’s New ‘Talking Points’ Report – A-Z Debunking of Climate Claims)

WALLACE: “You would agree that even if all 195 nations, now 194, met their targets, it still wouldn’t solve the problem.”

GORE: “That is correct. However, it sends a very powerful signal to business and industry and civil society, and countries around the world.” (Full Fox News Transcript & Video)

Gore’s admission echoes scientists skeptical of global warming and many  other critics of efforts to save the climate through government regulations. University of Pennsylvania Geologist Dr. Robert Giegengack noted in 2014, “None of the strategies that have been offered by the U.S. government or by the EPA or by anybody else has the remotest chance of altering climate if in fact climate is controlled by carbon dioxide.”



Danish statistician Dr. Bjorn Lomborg, the President of the Copenhagen Consensus Center: “We will spend at least one hundred trillion dollars in order to reduce the temperature by the end of the century by a grand total of three tenths of one degree…the equivalent of postponing warming by less than four years…Again, that is using the UN’s own climate prediction model.” “But here is the biggest problem: These minuscule benefits do not come free — quite the contrary. The cost of the UN Paris climate pact is likely to run 1 to 2 trillion dollars every year.” Lomborg Blasts UN Paris Treaty’s $100 Trillion Price Tag For No Temp Impact: ‘You won’t be able to measure it in 100 years’ – Bjorn Lomborg: The debate about the UN Paris Agreement is “about identity politics. It’s about feeling good… but the climate doesn’t care about how you feel.” – Bjorn Lomborg on UN climate deal: ‘This is likely to be among most expensive treaties in the history of the world’

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Gore sequel claim: Devastating Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines was result of global warming – Typhoon/Hurricane Yolanda (AKA: Haiyan) was unprecedented and linked to man-made global warming. In perhaps the most maudlin and shocking scenes of the film, Gore features him walking through graveyards, grisly scenes of bodybags, and grieving families of the victims of 2013’s Typhoon Haiyan that devastated the Philippines, killing over 6000 people.

Reality Check: This was perhaps the most single most disgusting moment of the sequel. The viewer cannot help but feel that Gore is shamelessly exploiting the victims and using their pain to score unscientific political points about Typhoon Haiyan. The science does not back Gore’s claims at all.

Meteorologist Dr. Ryan Maue rejected any such links of Haiyan to human activity. “Over past 1,000 years, Philippines have been hit by 10-20 thousand tropical cyclones. Don’t be so arrogant to believe man caused Haiyan,” Maue wrote in 2013.

Maue demolished claims made by Gore and others that Typhoon Haiyan was “strongest storm ever.” “Fact: Haiyan is 58th Super Typhoon since 1950 to reach central pressure of 900 mb or lower from historical records,” Maue wrote. “50 of 58 Super Typhoons with pressure of 900 mb or lower occurred from 1950-1987 — only 8 in past 25 years,” he added.
Extreme Weather expert Dr. Roger Pielke Jr.: ‘Tropical cyclones, including the most powerful ones, have not become more common in the Philippines’– Pielke Jr.: ‘I am unaware of any scientific report that has linked the burning of fossil fuels to more powerful typhoons, whether they have hit the Philippines or not.’



Dr. Roger Pielke Jr.: ‘Today’s NYT’s Coral Davenport claims detection & attribution of Philippine typhoon trends to GHGs. Data say otherwise’ – Pielke Jr.: ‘Are Philippine typhoons more common/intense on climate time scales? Clearly no’
Storm expert Brian McNoldy of U. of Miami: ‘We don’t get to pick and choose which storms are enhanced by a warmer climate and which ones aren’t’

Meteorologist Dr. Ryan Maue: ‘Over past 1,000 years, Philippines have been hit by 10-20 thousand tropical cyclones. Don’t be so arrogant to believe man caused Haiyan.’

Maue demolishes claims that Typhoon Haiyan was ‘strongest storm ever’ – ‘Fact: Haiyan is 58th Super Typhoon since 1950 to reach central pressure of 900 mb or lower from historical records’ — Maue: ’50 of 58 Super Typhoons with pressure of 900 mb or lower occurred from 1950-1987 — only 8 in past 25 years’

Strongest storm ever? ‘Haiyan ranks at number 7 among the strongest storms ever to have hit the Philippines’

UN IPCC: ‘There is low confidence in any observed long-term (40 years or more) increases in tropical cyclone activity (ie intensity, frequency, duration).’  Its authoritative Fifth Assessment Report added in September 2013 there have been ‘no significant observed trends in global tropical cyclone frequency over the past century’.

Prof. Roger Pielke Jr.: ‘The scientific evidence does not presently support claims of attribution of the effects of greenhouse gas emissions on tropical cyclone behavior with respect to century-long trends ‘much less the behavior of individual storms’ – “In practical terms, on timescales of decision making a signal that cannot be seen is indistinguishable from a signal that does not exist – ‘I am not convinced that 3 mm/year of sea level rise is a big issue in the magnitude of disaster losses’

Gabe Vecchi, a research oceanographer with NOAA, said that if global warming altered Haiyan, it did not do so to a significant extent. ‘I expect that the contribution of global warming to Haiyan’s extreme intensity is likely to have been small, relative to other factors like weather fluctuations and climate variability.’

Pielke Jr.: ‘Given this data, substantial research on it and a strong IPCC consensus does anyone really want to debate that typhoon disasters have become more common?’

Bjorn Lomborg: ‘Facts don’t support climate-change-caused-typhoon-Haiyan. Strong typhoons declining 1950-10.

Real Science website: ‘There have been 35 cyclones in the last 800 years that have killed more than 10,000 people. Thirty-three occurred with CO2 below 350 PPM. The deadliest one in 1970 was blamed on global cooling at the time’

#Gore sequel claim: ‘Hottest year’ and ‘Hottest decade’ prove ‘global warming’ – Gore features claims of “hottest year” on record and “hottest decade” to imply to viewers that temperature are unprecedented in the modern era.

Reality Check: Global temperatures have been holding nearly steady for almost two decades (nearly 18 years according to RSS satellite data).

While 2005, 2010, and 2015 were declared the ‘hottest years’ by global warming proponents, a closer examination revealed that the claims were “based on year-to-year temperature data that differs by only a few HUNDREDTHS of a degree to tenths of a degree Fahrenheit – differences that were within the margin of error in the data.”

In other words, global temperatures have essentially held very steady with no sign of acceleration. The media and climate activists hype ‘record’ temperatures that are not even outside the margin of error of the dataset as somehow meaningful.

Even former NASA climatologist James Hansen admitted ‘hottest year’ declarations are “not particularly important.” MIT climate scientist Dr. Richard Lindzen ridiculed ‘hottest year’ claims in 2015. “The uncertainty here is tenths of a degree. When someone points to this and says this is the warmest temperature on record, what are they talking about? It’s just nonsense. This is a very tiny change period,” Lindzen said. “If you can adjust temperatures to 2/10ths of a degree, it means it wasn’t certain to 2/10ths of a degree.” 11 So-called ‘hottest year’ claims are just a fancy way of saying that the ‘global warming pause’ has essentially continued.

EPA Says That The Worst Heat Waves Occurred in The 1930s– Via RealScience.com: According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, the 1930s had (by far) the worst heatwaves in US history. ‘Heat waves occurred with high frequency in the 1930s, and these remain the most severe heat waves in the U.S. historical record’
Meanwhile, climate models continue to predict too much warming.
image
Climatologist Dr. Pat Michaels: ‘When Will Climate Scientists Say They Were Wrong?’ – ‘Day after day, year after year, the hole that climate scientists have buried themselves in gets deeper and deeper. The longer that they wait to admit their overheated forecasts were wrong, the more they are going to harm all of science.’


#Gore sequel claim: Gore claims that wheat and corn yields are down in China by 5% in recent decades.

Reality Check: Climatologist Dr. Roy Spencer challenged Gore’s claims. “Some of what Gore claims is just outright false. He says that wheat and corn yields in China are down by 5% in recent decades. Wrong. They have been steadily climbing, just like almost everywhere else in the world,” Spencer wrote.

Spencer: “Here’s the situation for all grain crops in China”:
Gore sequel claim: Tropical diseases like Zika virus are spreading due to climate change – The Zika virus and other tropical diseases are spreading and will spread due to “global warming.” Gore’s film hypes the impact on pregnant women and their babies.
Reality Check: A 2016 study found that tropical disease transmission of dengue and Zika suggests “transmission might decrease with greater warming.”

Excerpt: “But now researchers are reporting that the incidence of the disease (and Zika as well) could actually be reduced with warming climate change.”

Climate change “also may reduce the incidence of dengue in some areas,” said Dr Harley, an epidemiology researcher at the ANU Research School of Population Health. … The findings are also relevant to other mosquito-borne viruses including Zika because the mosquitoes that carry dengue also transmit the Zika virus. … “There is significant concern in countries on the margin of the tropical areas where dengue is mainly found, that with global warming dengue and other mosquito-borne viruses such as Zika will encroach and become common,” Dr Harley said. … “Previous projections have suggested that climate change will increase transmission of mosquito-borne diseases globally. … “Our work, using a mathematical model based on Queensland conditions, suggests that dengue transmission might decrease with greater warming.”

Climate Depot Note: “Global warming” has also been simultaneously blamed for increasing the spread of malaria while also decreasing the spread.


Or it it?


Gore sequel claim: Renewable energy like solar and wind are cheaper and ready to take over now for fossil fuels.

Reality Check: Climatologist Dr. Roy Spencer debunks Gore’s energy claims.
“It is obvious that Gore does not consider government subsidies when he talks about the ‘cost’ of renewable energy sometimes being cheaper than fossil fuels. Apparently, he hasn’t heard that the citizens pay the taxes that then support the alternative energy industries which Gore, Elon Musk and others financially benefit from. If and when renewable energy become cost-competitive, it won’t need politicians and pundits like Mr. Gore campaigning for it,” Spencer wrote.

#Related Links: 

Al Gore accused of using ‘weather-porn to fuel superstitious belief’ in Aussie speech – Aussie climate blogger JoNova attended Gore’s Melbourne speech: ‘What I saw was nearly a whole hour of primal weather-porn – gratuitous, non-stop, scenes from the apocalypse, glowing clouds boiled about incandescent forests, and giant drains in the sky emptied massive clouds in a flash. Glaciers crumbled before our eyes.  Poor victims were stuck in boiling tar on hot roads, they crawled out of mud … Biblical is the word.’

JoNova: ‘Following in the footsteps of a million years of witchdoctors, the message was that the weather is worse than ever and he know how to stop it. His only effort to scientifically connect those dots was to quote a few scientists opinions, while ignoring thousands of others, most historical accounts and 2 billion years of paleohistory. Cherry-picked extremes.’

What I saw was nearly a whole hour of primal weather-porn – gratuitous, non-stop, scenes from the apocalypse,  glowing clouds boiled about incandescent forests, and giant drains in the sky emptied massive clouds in a flash. Glaciers crumbled before our eyes.  Poor victims were stuck in boiling tar on hot roads, they crawled out of mud slides, and were dragged in spectacular rescues from cars being swallowed by turbulent floods. Biblical is the word.

Gullible, naïve devotees gushed, awed, and murmured collective fear as Al spun a story of record doom and disaster with a google hit-list of extreme weather snaps. Al offered almost no graphs, long term data, or paleostudies. Few in the audience seemed to realize it was just a grab bag of the latest disaster-fest, and if a million people had had mobile phones in 10,000BC, the footage from then might have looked exactly the same or even worse, as Gore milked pretty much every weather event in the news to sell the salvation of renewables.

Marc Morano is the executive director and chief correspondent of the Washington-based ClimateDepot.com - and can be read on-line HERE

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good review. Especially because I thought it would just be 90 minutes of Al Gore saying I was wrong, I am so, so sorry.

ross pelham said...

Al Gore should be charged with inciting fear and spreading falsehoods that the idiot left wing ers are using to ruin everyones lives ,what the punishment should be something severe including public shaming???

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