Former Senator Al Gore assembled a group of scientists to back up his claim that human produced CO2 is changing the world's climate for the worse. But are the scientists he collected for his film "An Inconvenient Truth" climatologists or just experts in other fields? Tom Harris writing for the Canada Free Press does the legwork
...[What] Gore's "majority of scientists" think is immaterial when only a very small fraction of them actually work in the climate field.
Even among that fraction, many focus their studies on the impacts of climate change; biologists, for example, who study everything from insects to polar bears to poison ivy. "While many are highly skilled researchers, they generally do not have special knowledge about the causes of global climate change," explains former University of Winnipeg climatology professor Dr. Tim Ball. "They usually can tell us only about the effects of changes in the local environment where they conduct their studies."
This is highly valuable knowledge, but doesn't make them climate change cause experts, only climate impact experts.
So we have a smaller fraction.
But it becomes smaller still. Among experts who actually examine the causes of change on a global scale, many concentrate their research on designing and enhancing computer models of hypothetical futures. "These models have been consistently wrong in all their scenarios," asserts Ball. "Since modelers concede computer outputs are not "predictions" but are in fact merely scenarios, they are negligent in letting policy-makers and the public think they are actually making forecasts."
So why did Al Gore avoid using actual Climatologists when preparing his argument and film and book? Because actual climatologists disagree with his conclusions.
Professor Bob Carter of the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at James Cook University, in Australia gives what, for many Canadians, is a surprising assessment: "Gore's circumstantial arguments are so weak that they are pathetic. It is simply incredible that they, and his film, are commanding public attention."
What is professor Bob Carter's position on the cause of Global Climate change?
In January 2006 Carter told The Australian that "atmospheric CO2 is not a primary forcing agent for temperature change," arguing instead that "any cumulative human signal is so far undetectable at a global level and, if present, is buried deeply in the noise of natural variation". [5]
But why take Professor Carter's word for it?
Appearing before the Commons Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development last year, Carleton University paleoclimatologist Professor Tim Patterson testified, "There is no meaningful correlation between CO2 levels and Earth's temperature over this [geologic] time frame. In fact, when CO2 levels were over ten times higher than they are now, about 450 million years ago, the planet was in the depths of the absolute coldest period in the last half billion years." Patterson asked the committee, "On the basis of this evidence, how could anyone still believe that the recent relatively small increase in CO2 levels would be the major cause of the past century's modest warming?"
Patterson concluded his testimony by explaining what his research and "hundreds of other studies" reveal: on all time scales, there is very good correlation between Earth's temperature and natural celestial phenomena such changes in the brightness of the Sun.
..."The breaking glacier wall is a normally occurring phenomenon which is due to the normal advance of a glacier," says [ Dr. Boris] Winterhalter [former marine researcher at the Geological Survey of Finland and professor in marine geology, University of Helsinki]. "In Antarctica the temperature is low enough to prohibit melting of the ice front, so if the ice is grounded, it has to break off in beautiful ice cascades. If the water is deep enough icebergs will form."
Professor Carter, it turns out, is only one among many who dispute Gore's conclusions and evidence.
Carter is one of hundreds of highly qualified non-governmental, non-industry, non-lobby group climate experts who contest the hypothesis that human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are causing significant global climate change.
The bottom line
Carter does not pull his punches about Gore's activism, "The man is an embarrassment to US science and its many fine practitioners, a lot of whom know (but feel unable to state publicly) that his propaganda crusade is mostly based on junk science."
You see, in science, if there is disagreement among major players about a theory then you can not claim "this is what science tells us". You can at best say "this is what some scientists believe may be occurring."
But in this case, it seems, that the majority of the scientists whose expertise is actually climate change, the verdict appears to go against Gore's claims.
The fact that Al Gore did not include the consensus opinion of the actual experts in the field which was under consideration means that Gore is presenting the conclusion he wants you to hear not the conclusions supported by the evidence.
And that may be a lotta things, but it ain't science.
