The Inconvenient Truths About “An Inconvenient Truth”

Hearty congratulations and support from Clameur de Haro to Deputy Phil Rondel, who in the States last Tuesday warned the increasingly supine Minister for Education Sport & Culture, James Reed, that “An Inconvenient Truth”, that provenly inaccurate, meretricious farrago of cod science produced by that execrable peddler of false green eco-wackery propaganda Al Gore, should not be shown in Jersey schools.

Mr Rondel’s reported comment about the judicial objections to its showing in UK schools, while correct, doesn’t go halfway towards describing the full extent of the criticism heaped on it from the Bench.

In 2007, Mr Justice Burton, sitting in the Administrative Division of the High Court, ruled that showing the film, without both correction of its errors and presentation of the alternative hypothesis, breached the 1996 Education Act and constituted political indoctrination. Not only did nine inaccuracies specifically have to be drawn to the attention of school audiences, but more importantly, not all of the film’s inaccuracies were considered, as Burton J requested only a sample for the purposes of considering the case.

Clameur de Haro’s readers can see here the summary of the judgement, and the links to the ancillary submissions. They really should be read, in full, to derive a complete picture of the extent of the errors and fallacies peddled as incontrovertible truth.

Since that time, even more, and serious, flaws, both scientific and in biased selectivity of data, have come to light. To recount just a few -

Mann’s infamous “hockey stick” temperature graph, on which Gore relied so much, was confirmed and subsequently accepted even by the IPCC as being a fraud: firstly omitting, then dramatically under-representing the Mediaeval Warming Period, and secondly being based on a computer algorithm which generated the desired headline-grabbing hockey stick result no matter what data was fed into the algorithm.

In claiming far more frequent use of the Thames Flood Barrier and increased flooding on the East Coast of England (due, naturally, to global warming [sic]), Gore presented flood instance statistics going back to 1930. Highly selective, and suspiciously so – had he gone back just two years earlier, to 1928, he would have had to include the worst Thames flood on record, which occurred during a period of cooling temperatures, and he neglected to mention that the East Coast of England has been geologically sinking at the rate of several inches a year, both from general slow subsidence and the extraction of water from naturally-formed underground reservoirs.

His apocalyptic predictions for the melting of the entire Antarctic ice sheet turned out to have been predicated only on data for the c.7% of the entire Antarctic land mass constituted by the Antarctic Peninsula, but which Gore then extrapolated to apply to the whole. The Antarctic Peninsula is now considered to merit a different climate classification from the rest of the continent under the Köppen climate classification system, due to the influence which the Antarctic Circumpolar Current has on it, while the main ice sheet of the entire Antarctic Continent, accounting for something in excess of 80% of all the world’s ice, is both thickening and cooling.

The best summary of all the main scientific errors and all the flawed conclusions can be found in this paper, entitled “35 Inconvenient Truths – The Errors in Al Gore’s Movie” prepared for the Science and Public Policy Institute. It too should also be read, in full, by anyone with even the remotest connection to the possibility that Gore’s discredited fallacy-fest should be foisted on to impressionable young minds as though it was established and undisputed fact, and without any qualification.

According to the Jersey Evening [sic] Post’s report, Mr Reed responded with nothing more than a typically weasel-worded reply to the effect that he would pass on Mr Rondel’s concerns to his department.

That is just not good enough. Mr Reed is, whether he likes it or not, the repository of both a statutory duty and a moral responsibility to deliver an education system to the Island’s children free from the blatantly biased and inaccurate propaganda of the type of which Gore’s film is such a baleful example. And with the scandal of Climategate and the revelations of data manipulation and concealment in the Climate Research Unit currently breaking all around us (has he not heard of this?), for him not to undertake to give it his urgent personal attention and ensure that the film is not shown in schools without further reference back, is little short of a grave dereliction of duty.

At one time Clameur de Haro was disposed to think quite favourably of Mr Reed, but no more. Recent events, in particular his reactions to the suspensions/discipline issue, his denial of falling primary school standards, and his falling in with the majority criminality-excusing view on the withdrawal of anonymity from young violent offenders, give the distinct impression of a minister who has gone native and become house-trained, and a minister who has quite visibly been captured by the triumvirate of producer interests which dominate the education industry – his department’s civil servants, the teaching unions, and the fashionable educational theorists - so his reaction is, regrettably, not surprising. He is beginning to look ineffective, and out of his depth.

So – once again – plaudits to Deputy Rondel for raising this issue: Clameur de Haro pleads with him not to let the matter rest.

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Question - Anthropogenic Global Warming: Myth or Reality? Answer - Myth

Clameur de Haro has been travelling extensively to both London and Brussels of late, but was fortunate on Thursday November 12 to attend the lecture and subsequent debate in Westminster organised by The Spectator entitled “Global Warming: Myth or Reality?”. The principal speaker was Professor Ian Plimer, Professor of Geology at the University of Adelaide and Emeritus Professor of Earth Sciences at the University of Melbourne, prominent anthropogenic climate change sceptic, and author of the recently-published book “Heaven and Earth”, which brilliantly contrasts the proven science on climatic and geological changes to the Earth throughout its existence with the current green politics of climate alarmism propaganda.

One notable absentee, though, was Guardianista eco-prophet and all-round militant enviro-Greenie, George (“the science is settled”) Monbiot, who, although invited, tellingly declined to come and engage in debate with a proper scientist.

In a masterful presentation, Prof. Plimer depicted the huge geological and climatic changes which have been a constant feature of up to 4½ billion years of Earth history. He explained how massive changes had taken place in the constituents of the atmosphere, driven by factors as diverse as: life itself, the introduction of oxygen to the atmosphere, the exchanges of gases between the atmosphere and the oceans, and tectonic plate movement causing massive changes in ocean currents (including the isolation of Antarctica, allowing for permanent glaciation on that continent), and how all these have changed climate throughout the Earth’s existence.

Emphasising that the Earth has in fact had prolonged periods when it was much, much colder than today, he described six major glaciations / Ice Ages, and pointed out that during no fewer than five of them, levels of atmospheric CO2, including during the cooling phases, were actually higher - as much as 10 times higher - than today, while at other times it was much warmer than today, with the whole Earth, poles as well, enjoying tropical conditions – not surprising, as the Earth is fundamentally a warm, wet, greenhouse, volcanic planet.

Professor Plimer went on to show that, despite the fact that the extent of cooling experienced since just 1998 has significantly negated the rise in temperatures over the previous 30 years (with the fall from January 2007 to January 2008 being the steepest one-year fall since 1880), despite the fact that present temperatures are 7°C below most of the last 500 million years, and despite the fact that atmospheric CO2 is only one ten-thousandth more than it was in 1750, the IPCC tells us that an increase of merely 2°C would be disastrous, leading to a runaway greenhouse effect, ocean acidification, the dissolution of all crustacea in the oceans, and the death of coral – and all because of man-made CO2.

As he stated, what the militant enviro-Greenie / warmist-alarmist religion cannot explain is why none of these disasters seems to have occurred at earlier periods of Earth history when the Earth was much warmer, and the atmosphere was much, much richer in CO2. As Professor Plimer pointed out, far from being a pollutant, CO2 is an entirely natural trace gas in the atmosphere, which is essential to life, and to plant growth: today’s atmosphere is in fact relatively impoverished in CO2 compared to most of the Earth’s history. Higher levels of CO2 would increase both rates of biomass generation and crop yields, and as Professor Plimer also pointed out, throughout human history, warming periods have coincided with increasing food production, life expectancy and prosperity, while cold periods have produced conflict-causing population migrations, poverty and famine.

Professor Plimer admitted that the causes of climate change over geological history are not entirely well understood, but that the main factors appear to be solar irradiance and variations or oscillations in the Earth’s orbit leading to long-term climate cycles, other astronomical factors including gas and dust in space, super-volcanic activity, changes in cloud cover and cloud formation possibly linked to cosmic ray activity, and tectonic plate movement leading to major changes in ocean currents. In the face of all these factors, he said, the idea of fixating on one single trace gas in the atmosphere essential for life, then accusing it and finding it guilty of total responsibility for climate change, is an absurdity bordering on madness.

On one point though, Clameur de Haro disagreed with Professor Plimer. The latter urged the audience to eschew the linguistic tactics so enthusiastically espoused by the militant enviro-Greenie / warmist-alarmist religion who talk about “fighting climate change” or “the war on CO2 emissions”; in his view the language of war has in his view no place in science, because science is simply a process of discovery, with one hypothesis being replaced by another as refuting evidence becomes incontrovertible.

Clameur de Haro would agree with this if science was the only, or even the main factor in the climate change debate as put forward by the warmist enviro-doomsters. But it isn’t. The debate from their side is much more about the opportunity to impose collectivist politics, socialist economics and the inherently flawed Greenist religion which the affectations of concerned environmentalism conveniently conceal.

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The Nature of Libertarianism

Discussions with blog commenters and non-commenting e-mailers alike, about recent blogposts on The Political Compass – where CdeH sits well into the economically neo-liberal / socially libertarian quadrant - and the labels attaching to various positions on the economic and social spectrums, prompt Clameur de Haro to elaborate at greater length on the “libertarian” label.

It’s a label frequently directed towards him, and usually from the Green Left, from where it’s intended to be pejorative much more often than not. So, and especially from the CdeH viewpoint that differences on the left-to-right economic scale have become secondary to the truly great political divide of our times, namely that between those who favour collectivism and those who favour individual freedom, it’s apposite to elucidate the libertarian philosophy in a bit more detail.

For that, it’s hard to improve on this recent exposition by the American libertarian writer (and blogger) Bella Gerens.

Picking some randomer from some other part of the political spectrum who advocates a single vaguely libertarian idea in isolation and therefore calling him a libertarian, does not, in fact, make him a libertarian.

Meanwhile, spouting your interpretation of libertarianism as only “Hands off my Lexus, you socialist taxer/green hippy”, or only “freedom from taxation” does not, in fact, mean that is what libertarianism is. I don’t even own a Lexus, and the tax I personally pay is not overly onerous.

The truth is that advocates of freedom are found all over the political spectrum, but the only true libertarians are the ones who advocate it at all times, in all circumstances, from the bedroom to the wallet – who believe that ‘freedom from’ is the only state of being consistent with the dignity and majesty of humankind.

‘Freedom from’ is the most important part of that ideology. Freedom from coercion: freedom from interference: freedom from oppression.

‘Freedom to’ is where the misunderstandings enter.

People on the authoritarian right choose to think that libertarians are advocating freedom to burgle, rob, rape, murder – because they choose to read ‘freedom’ to mean ‘freedom to do whatever you please.’ People on all of the left choose to think libertarians are advocating exploitation, pollution, callousness, and the primacy of making (and keeping) money above all else – because they also choose to read ‘freedom’ to mean ‘freedom to do whatever you please.’

And both sides think that libertarians consider the laws we have prohibiting these activities to be a restriction on freedom.

When will they realise that they don’t understand?

Libertarians believe you should be free from coercion – and also that you must not coerce anyone else.

Libertarians believe you should be free from interference – and also that you must not interfere with anyone else.

Libertarians believe you should be free from oppression – and also that you must not oppress anyone else.

Because these are to be universal freedoms: what you do not wish done to you, you must not do to anyone else.

For the libertarian, there is no ‘freedom to.’ Freedom represents an absence, the absence of force and fraud. It does not represent a licence to do anything, or a right or entitlement, except the absolute human right not to be forced or defrauded.

"Freedom to’ is where conflict enters the system. ‘Freedom to’ often becomes assumed to be a right: a right to a family, a right to cheap healthcare, a right to a job, a right not to starve. In this way non-libertarians argue that poverty constitutes a lack of freedom, because poor people are not, to use the most extreme example, free to eat. And so, a non-libertarian may say, their right to eat must override someone else’s freedom from coercion.

A libertarian may say: “are the poor victims of coercion, interference, or oppression?” If so, it must stop – and then they may be able and allowed to provide themselves with food. Thus not only are the freedoms of the poor restored, they are helped without obviating anyone else’s freedoms.

No conflict exists; the principles of freedom are not only maintained, they are extended.

And for holding this principle, for advocating it, and for trying to practise it in their daily lives, libertarians are vilified as believing only “Hands off my Lexus, you socialist taxer/green hippy”. Libertarians, who are concerned primarily with the heights of dignity and achievement all humans could reach, if only they were freed from coercion, interference, and oppression, are called ’selfish’ and ‘misanthropic.’

It’s hard to see how self-professed Green-Leftists can position themselves as being inclined towards libertarianism socially.

Greenism is fundamentally an authoritarian and egalitarian-collectivist creed. In the name of an allegedly overarching necessity - nothing less than the preservation of our planet – Enviro-Leftists demand that governments coerce and forcefully organise all populations into collective compliance with their will. The very salvation of the Earth itself is only possible, they say, if their remedies are applied through the force of the authoritarian state. We must all, they insist, henceforth live, work, play, travel, dress, eat, and house ourselves only as they order us to if we are to survive. Never has there been such a gift of an excuse as that comprised by enviro-fanaticism for collectivists in power to coerce, oppress and interfere with the rest of us.

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More Selectively Alarmist Statistics About Climate Change

According to the latest report from Save The Children, up to 250,000 children “could” die in the next year from the effects of climate change: so of course its Policy Director has predictably called for stringent measures to “tackle climate change” at the upcoming Copenhagen GreenMarxFest Conference. It sounds (and it would be) a horrifying number, but, as so often in the smoke and mirrors world of climate alarmism, all is not necessarily as it seems.

Note, first of all the use of that word “could”, which usually, in the context of climate change statistics, means that the quoted figure is actually (1) the most extreme extrapolation of (2) the largest value in (3) the highest range of all possible outcomes. M’Noble Lord Stern of course is the supreme exponent of this statistical technique scare tactic and led the way with it in 2006.

Sadly, between 10 and 11 million child deaths occur annually. Research by both The Lancet and the World Health Organisation, shows that more than 70% of those, that’s 7 million at least, come from just six causes: pneumonia, diarrhoea, malaria, neo-natal sepsis, premature delivery or asphyxia at birth. UNICEF has calculated that malaria alone kills about 3000 per day just in sub-Saharan Africa, which adds up to approximately 1 million each year.

It’s been demonstrated time and time again that we could all but eliminate malaria and deliver clean water for drinking and cooking to every single person on this planet: and that we could do it for a tiny fraction of the trillions that the Green Religionists demand Western liberal democracies allocate to hobbling their free-market, enterprise economies and imposing state-authoritarian restrictions on freedom, all in a paroxysm of guilt and in the name of “fighting climate change”.

No doubt the 2 million or so children who will die from malaria and diarrhoea in 2010 will do so comforted by the knowledge that 20,000 assorted charlatans, dupes, freeloaders and hangers-on spent much of December 2009 expending much hot air in diligently considering their plight.

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