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Truth proves inconvenient for Al Gore at Copenhagen
The former US Vice-President over-egged his claim of an ice-free Arctic within five years
Al Gore, the former US Vice-President and now figurehead of the green movement , came up against an inconvenient truth of his own making yesterday when he claimed that the Arctic could be completely ice-free within five years.
Gore, who narrated the Oscar-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth, became embroiled in a spin row when he spoke at the climate change summit in Copenhagen. He told delegates that new computer modelling suggests that by 2014 there is a 75 per cent chance the entire polar ice cap will melt in the summertime.
But Gore faced an embarrassing climbdown last night after the Californian climatologist on whose work the prediction was based, Dr Wieslaw Maslowski, refuted his claims.
Gore had told the conference that record melting of Polar and Himalayan ice could deprive more than a billion people of access to clean water. Talking about Dr Maslowski's work in forecasting the effects of global warming, Gore said: "These figures are fresh, I just got them yesterday."
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 the former vice-president.
Last night Dr Maslowski, a research professor at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, told the Times: "It's unclear to me how this figure was arrived at. I would never try to estimate likelihood at anything as exact as this."
Dr Maslowki said that his latest results give a six-year projection for the melting of 80 per cent of the ice, but he said he expects some ice to remain beyond 2020. "I was very explicit that we were talking about near-ice-free conditions and not completely ice-free conditions in the northern ocean."
Meanwhile climate change negotiators worked through the night to try to rescue plans for a global agreement. Five hours of negotiation time were lost yesterday when developing countries walked out in protest over the lack of progress on their demand for legally binding emissions targets from rich nations.
Several heads of state - including Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown - will arrive in the Danish capital today ahead of a hoped-for historic deal on Friday. ·
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Gore is not a figurehead of the green movment, he is a politician who jumped on the bandwagon, and a hypocrite to boot. He gives ammunition to idiots like Kevin above who are thus able to rubbish the actual, real science that proves human caused global warming leading to the climate change we are already experiencing. Deniers will grow increasingly marginalised as reality creeps into their selfish refusal to accept the need for us all to start behaving responsibly. Gore is irrelevent and self serving, and, contrary to what a lot of the denial squad [linked inexorably to the god squad] belive, awareness of climate change began long before he was aware of it, a long time before. He should try living the lifestyle rather than that of the squandering rich filth. Kevin, so-called Climategate is gone, rubbished, yesterday's news. It's been answered thoroughly already, where have you been, asleep? And you should decide whether Gore is a self serving climate alarmist or a puppet. And YOU charge Gore with not knowing what he's talking about! Since when did you become an expert?
He may not be the perfect scientist but we have to address this issue and anyone who campaigns to tackle global warming is a good guy in my book.
Gore charges US$125,000 for an appearance then walks off the stage refusing to field questions. He also make $millions trading carbon credits, his own invention.Anyway, as I sit here and its -21C outside, up from -34C yesterday, I wonder where he gets the idea the ice caps will melt? Next time they have a climate conference it should be in Saskatoon or Edmonton ( which had a low of -46 C yesterday), in December or January. Bring your furs !
Gore is a politician.
To him all truth is an "Inconvenient Truth"!
The man is an utter charlatan making a mega-fortune trading on the fears of a brainwashed public.
>> Several heads of state - including Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown
Nice one Kevin. The scare-meister himself puts his foot in it up to the unmentionables. As if the Vikings did not settle Greenland in the Medieval Warm Period 1000 years ago (as if they did not name it 'Greenland'...), because it was habitable when the Northern hemisphere was warmer then...and this is not even science, it is just history! Still, in the kingdom of the blind the one-eyed man is king.
Gore has no idea what he is talking about. He also thinks the temperature of the earth is millions of degrees some few kilometres down (cf. surface of sun 6000 degC). When asked about Climategate, he said that it was all superseded because the latest emails were over 10 years old. Well, he didn't read them then did he? - they go from 1996 right up to last month. He is just parroting nonsense. His books and film are full of errors and spin. He never debates any issues because he would be immediately exposed as an ignoramus. He is just a willing puppet spreading deception - not that he's doing it pro bono, you understand: he's a willing climate alarmist because he has positioned himself (like Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the UN IPCC) to make a personal fortune of hundreds of millions of dollars out of us through it all. He's just a self-serving and disgusting hypocrite.