The Fact-Checker, by Michael Dobbs

Will you revoke the pinocchio rating when those "errors" turn out to be true (if they aren't already? i.e., when pacific islands are evacuated, when snowmelt on Kiliminjaro is linked to global warming, and when polar bears drown due to increased swimming distances at sea?

The latter two items are very questionable... already.

Both the UK court case and this tangent seems much ado about very very little... especially as global warming is ongoing... with demonstrable impacts on the poles, per US drought & heatwaves, etc.

http://www.newscientist.com/blog/environment/2007/08/el-nio-not-responsible-for-us-heatwave.html

Pretty lame to use the politically charged term pinochio (sp?) with Gore because of all the attacks/baggage about his prior supposed "fibs." Stick to facts, which are interesting.

Sounds like a na na na na na moment. Were you sticking your tongue out when you wrote this?

Thank you for pointing out the nature of so many political arguments - the ad hominem attack - attacking the speaker and not the speaker's argument.

So much of what we see these days is that: "Don't believe him, he's just an SUV-driving tree-hugging democrat"; "Don't believe her, she's just a ignorant money-grubbing republican";

It would be nice if people actually stuck to debating facts.

I award "The Fact Checker" 5 Pinnochios for its reasoning of giving Al Gore 1 Pinnochio.

You make me laugh. The Post has engaged in Ad Hominem attacks on Al Gore for the past 10 years. That is a very well documented assertion, as the Daily Howler has attested. Your 'fact-checking' reminds me more of nit-picking, of compulsively obsessing about the speck of sawdust in Al Gore's eye while persisting in your blindness to the plank in your own.

Having read this series it still seems to me that Fact Checker got its clock cleaned in rebuttal and cannot accept being hoisted by its own petard.

I agree with Mr. Hominem. Reading these entries, I am amazed by how many people want to slam the messenger, instead of debating intelligently based on facts.

Dobbs never supported one side or another, and he is right to bring this up. He is right to bring this up because there are MANY people out there - thoughtful, intelligent people - who do not trust Gore and don't subscribe to his views. I am not one of them. I believe we must do something about the desacration of this planet. But just because you want Gore to be right, or global warming to be real, you cannot accept anything that even suggests the facts might be otherwise. That kind of attitude makes Hitler look like a paradigm of tolerance.

Great job fact checker. I love this debate, and agree with hilda. I can't believe how much we accept without checking facts.
Now, can we please start looking into healthcare and the war?

The melting of the snows on Kiliminjaro have been scientifically shown to be caused by clear cutting of the trees around the mountain, which allowed warmer air to flow up and melt the snows and glaciers.

Yes, this does in fact mean Man is at fault. This is also what is called a micro-climatic change, something that is also occurring in metropolitan areas. It is not global warming.

Did anyone see John Stossel's "Give Me a Break" report on 20/20 this week? The very impressive timeline Gore showed with CO2 emissions and global temperature was misinterpreted. Actually, CO2 emissions have risen AFTER temperature increases, not the other way around. That's worth at least 3 Pinocchios. I'm sure most people have good intentions here. If you believe man is wreaking havoc on the environment, you might buy in to Gore's thesis without question. WE SHOULD ALWAYS ASK QUESTIONS. DO NOT JUST ACCEPT ALLEGED FACTS. Where politics and money are involved, you'd best be a skeptic. Please.

So British judges without any scientific training are now accepted as scientific authorities by the Post? I suspect this is a special arrangement for Mr. Gore.

PS: Michael, you say that there would not be ad hominum attacks, yet, you end your article with one. How about a quote from one of the "skeptics" in rebuttal to Prof Foley for balance? Or was that simply some red meat to keep the liberals from assualting you for daring to take on their icon, who he himself refuses to debate anyone who doesn't believe mankind is all at fault (while refusing to change his lifestyle to match his rhetoric?)

Please do not debate Global Scamming, I mean Global Warming, with it's adherents. It is arguing with zealots and that is never productive. When they make their juvenile arguments and ludicrous conclusions, just nod knowingly, pry their suckers off your shoulder with the blunt edge of a spoon, leave them there arguing as well for the aliens among us and just continue on with business as usual.

It's frankly absurd to pretend that the political views of the plaintiff are irrelevant. He and his backers are not on a quest for scientific accuracy.

You do yourself no favors by referring to the quote from Kalee Kreider an "ad hominem" attack.
It would be one thing if she simply referred to Dimmock as an "anti-environmentalist," or a "stupid fool" or averred that he was "part of a vast CO2-emitting conspiracy."
But she did not, and in the snippet you cite, she did not engage in an ad hominem attack. She referred to the plaintiff as funded by, and presumably acting at the behest of, parties interested in barring Gore's film from public exhibition. She is not simply attacking the messenger, but rather as noted above, raising questions about the motives underlying the debate.

Such reckless use of language does not help you when you seek to portray the article as neutral, objective and non-partisan (and I'm willing to presume that your motives are as honorable as you claim).

I think your "fact checking" is suspect, in that you say things are false that are not proven false; rather they are subject to interpretation about the specified origin of the item, not the basic fact that the climate changes can be attributed to actions by man. Take the polar bear example: you are giving weight to alternative theories that are not proved to disproving a theory that is equally plausible. The underlying fact is that an increasing number of polar bears are dying and the cause is attributable to climate change.

Up to this point I've assumed your facts are correct when you fact-check. I will no longer assume that your biases haven't seeped into the text.

Stick, I mostly agree, however, despite it being mostly a waste of time, it is like debating the Truthers: you cannot give them free reign to put their crazy theories out there without rebuttal.

it would seem obvious as to whether or not there is global warming: simply ask justice burton or matthew perry.
i live in manitoba, a part of canada noted for its very cold winters. i HAVE noticed it has gotten much (that is, very noticeably) warmer over the past 20 yrs. and it is true the further north you travel the warmer the winters have become.
if you had spent as much time and effort to discredit president bush's assertions re; weapons of mass destruction, you wouldn't be embroiled up to your necks in a never ending war.

It amazes me that so many people confuse facts with truth. In most cases a documentary does no more than show in the best light those opinions and facts to which the author subscribes and, if they are shown at all, contrary views in poor light by linking them with non-mainstream people or ideas. That is not to say that what is shown in An Inconvenient Truth is not accurate, but it is very definitely slanted in a partisan manner. It portrayed a rather complex issue in simplified terms using a significant number of anecdotes and tugged heart strings. It purports to conclude that there is no credible debate on the overall causes of global warming and raises apocalyptic visions as a goad to support a political agenda. This is not to say that it is necessarily incorrect, but it is disingenuous to call it "truth."

I noticed the Fact Checker does not address his introduction of the term "significant" in characterizing the alleged errors in Mr Gore's film in the original column. I believe his slip was showing and he hopes no one will notice. I did. I don't think I'm alone.

"This is not to say that it is necessarily incorrect, but it is disingenuous to call it 'truth.'"

Is it also disingenuous to call it "inconvenient?"

By your standard and that of the Fact Checker we can pick any documentary at all and tear it to pieces by demonstrating a lack of omnipotence. I'm quite happy to predict that the future will look back on this debate as fiddling while Rome burned.

I wish you'd subject everything Bush and Cheney say about Iran and Iraq to your "fact checking." They'd have to hire extra personnel to lug around their noses!

It's important to look at what climatologists have to say about this issue: see www.realclimate.com. Hello?: the issue of how temperature preceded CO2 increase in interglacial periods versus the reverse today was discussed some time ago at realclimate. As for the current issue of Gore's accuracy, here is a recent post by Gavin Schmidt and Michael Mann(apologies for quoting at length):

Convenient Untruths
10/18/07: We are very disappointed that the Washington Post has declined to run an op-ed placing the alleged 9 'errors' in a proper scientific context, despite having run an extremely misleading news article last week entitled "UK Judge Rules Gore's Climate Film Has 9 Errors".

Last week, a UK High Court judge rejected a call to restrict the showing of Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth (AIT) in British schools. The judge, Justice Burton found that "Al Gore's presentation of the causes and likely effects of climate change in the film was broadly accurate" (which accords with our original assessment). There has been a lot of comment and controversy over this decision because of the judges commentary on 9 alleged "errors" (note the quotation marks!) in the movie's description of the science. The judge referred to these as 'errors' in quotations precisely to emphasize that, while these were points that could be contested, it was not clear that they were actually errors (see Deltoid for more on that).

There are a number of points to be brought out here. First of all, "An Inconvenient Truth" was a movie and people expecting the same depth from a movie as from a scientific paper are setting an impossible standard. Secondly, the judge's characterisation of the 9 points is substantially flawed. He appears to have put words in Gore's mouth that would indeed have been wrong had they been said (but they weren't). Finally, the judge was really ruling on how "Guidance Notes" for teachers should be provided to allow for more in depth discussion of these points in the classroom. This is something we wholehearted support - AIT is probably best used as a jumping off point for informed discussion, but it is not the final word. Indeed, the fourth IPCC report has come out in the meantime, and that has much more up-to-date and comprehensive discussions on all these points.

A number of discussions of the 9 points have already been posted (particularly at New Scientist and Michael Tobis's wiki), and it is clear that the purported 'errors' are nothing of the sort. The (unofficial) transcript of the movie should be referred to if you have any doubts about this. It is however unsurprising that the usual climate change contrarians and critics would want to exploit this confusion for perhaps non-scientific reasons.

In the spirit of pushing forward the discussion, we have a brief set of guidance notes of our own for each of the 9 issues raised. These are not complete, and if additional pointers are noted in the comments, we'll add them in here as we go along.

Ice-sheet driven sea level rise Gore correctly asserted that melting of Greenland or the West Antarctic ice sheet would raise sea levels 20ft (6 meters). In the movie, no timescale for that was specified, but lest you think that the 20 ft number is simply plucked out of thin air, you should note that this is about how much higher sea level was around 125,000 years ago during the last inter-glacial period. Then, global temperatures were only a degree or two warmer than today - and given that this is close to the minimum temperature rise we can expect in the future, that 20 ft is particularly relevant. The rate at which this is likely to happen is however highly uncertain as we have discussed previously.

Pacific island nations needing to evacuate Much of Tuvalu is only a few feet above sea level, and any sea level rise is going to impact them strongly. The impacts are felt in seemingly disconnected ways - increasing brine in groundwater, increasing damage and coastal erosion from tides and storm surges, but they are no less real for that. The government of Tuvalu has asked New Zealand to be ready to evacuate islanders if needed, and while currently only 75 people per year can potentially be resettled, this could change if the situation worsened.
In the movie there is only one line that referred to this: "That's why the citizens of these pacific nations have all had to evacuate to New Zealand", which is out of context in the passage it's in, but could be said to only be a little ahead of it's time.

Climate impacts on the ocean conveyor The movie references the Younger Dryas event that occurred 11,000 years ago when, it is thought, a large discharge of fresh water into the North Atlantic disrupted the currents, causing significant regional cooling. That exact scenario can't happen again, but similar processes are likely to occur. The primary unresolved scientific issue regards how quickly the circulation is likely to change as we move forward. The model simulations in the latest IPCC report show a slowdown in the circulation - by about 30% by 2100 - but there is much we don't understand about modeling that circulation and future inputs of freshwater from the ice sheets, so few are willing to completely rule out the possibility of a more substantial change in the future. Further discussion on what this really means and doesn't mean is available here and here.

CO2 and Temperature connections in the ice core record Gore stated that the greenhouse gas levels and temperature changes over ice age signals had a complex relationship but that they 'fit'. Again, both of these statements are true. The complexity though is actually quite fascinating and warrants being further discussed by those interested in how the carbon cycle will react in the future. We've discussed the lead/lag issue previously. A full understanding of why CO2 changes in precisely the pattern that it does during ice ages is elusive, but among the most plausible explanations is that increased received solar radiation in the southern hemisphere due to changes in Earth's orbital geometry warms the southern ocean, releasing CO2 into the atmosphere, which then leads to further warming through an enhanced greenhouse effect. Gore's terse explanation of course does not mention such complexities, but the crux of his point-that the observed long-term relationship between CO2 and temperature in Antarctica supports our understanding of the warming impact of increased CO2 concentrations-is correct. Moreover, our knowledge of why CO2 is changing now (fossil fuel burning) is solid. We also know that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, and that the carbon cycle feedback is positive (increasing temperatures lead to increasing CO2 and CH4), implying that future changes in CO2 will be larger than we might anticipate.

Kilimanjaro Gore is on even more solid ground with Kilimanjaro. In the movie, the retreat of Kilimanjaro is not claimed to be purely due to global warming , but it is a legitimate example of the sort of thing one expects in a warmer world, and is consistent with what almost all other tropical mountain glaciers are doing. There is indeed some ongoing discussion in the literature as to whether or not the retreat of ice on Kilimanjaro is related to the direct effects (warming atmospheric temperatures) or indirect effects (altered patterns of humidity, cloud cover, and precipitation influencing Kilimanjaro's ice mass) of climate change, and that argument isn't yet over. But these arguments would be of more relevance if (a) we were not witnessing the imminent demise of an ice field that we know has existed for at least the past 12,000 years and (b) most of the other glaciers weren't disappearing as well.

Drying up of Lake Chad It is undisputed that Lake Chad has indeed shrunk rapidly in recent decades. While irrigation and upstream water use are probably contributing factors, the dominant cause is the reduction of rainfall across the entire Sahel from the 1950s to the 1980s and with rainfall today still substantially below the high point 50 years ago. There is substantial evidence that at least a portion of this drying out is human-caused. A few recent papers (Held et al, PNAS; Chung and Ramanathan and Biasutti and Giannini) have addressed causes ranging from Indian Ocean changes in sea surface temperature to the increase in atmospheric aerosols in the Northern hemisphere. Gore uses this example to illustrate that there are droughts in some regions even while other areas are flooding. Unfortunately this is exactly what the models suggest will happen.

Hurricane Katrina and global warming Katrina is used in the film as a legitimate illustration of the destructive power of hurricanes, our inability to cope with natural disaster, and the kind of thing that could well get worse in a warmer world. Nowhere does Gore state that Katrina was caused by global warming. We discussed this attribution issue back in 2005, and what we said then still holds. Individual hurricanes cannot be attributed to global warming, but the statistics of hurricanes, in particular the maximum intensities attained by storms, may indeed be.

Impact of sea ice retreat on Polar bears As we presaged in August, summer Arctic sea ice shattered all records this year for the minimum extent. This was partially related to wind patterns favorable to ice export in the spring, but the long term trends are almost certainly related to the ongoing and dramatic warming in the Arctic. Polar bears do indeed depend on the sea ice to hunt for seals in the spring and summer, and so a disappearance of this ice is likely to impact them severely. The specific anecdote referred to in the movie came from observations of anomalous drownings of bears in 2004 and so was accurate. However, studying the regional populations of polar bears is not easy and assessing their prospects is tough. In the best observed populations such as in western Hudson Bay (Stirling and Parkinson, 2006), female polar bear weight is going down as the sea ice retreats over the last 25 years, and the FWS is considering an endangered species listing. However, it should be stated that in most of the discussions about polar bears, they are used as a representative species. Arctic ecosystems are changing on many different levels, but it is unsurprising that charismatic mega-fauna get more press than bivalves. In the end, it may be the smaller and less photogenic elements that have the biggest impact.

Impact of ocean warming on coral reefs Corals are under stress from a multitude of factors; overfishing, deliberate destruction, water pollution, sea level rise, ocean acidification and, finally, warming oceans. The comment in the movie that rising temperatures and other factors cause coral bleaching is undoubtedly true. Bleaching episodes happen when the coral is under stress, and many examples have been linked to anomalously warm ocean temperatures (Australia in 1998 and 2002, all over the Indian Ocean in recent years). Corals are a sobering example of how climate change exacerbates existing vulnerabilities in eco-systems, potentially playing the role of the straw that breaks the camel's back in many instances.
Overall, our verdict is that the 9 points are not "errors" at all (with possibly one unwise choice of tense on the island evacuation point). But behind each of these issues lies some fascinating, and in some cases worrying, scientific findings and we can only applaud the prospect that more classroom discussions of these subjects may occur because of this court case.

How about turning your zeal for accuracy and lies on George W. Bush and various members of his administration, who have engaged in wholesale lying on the most important matters of state, including most notably Iraq and the demonstrably bogus reasons for going to war?

The problem with the judge requiring absolute proof of these claims is that there isn't even absolute proof that tobacco causes cancer or what gravity really is. So it is easy to discount Gore because we don't have absolute proof of some of the things he says. We will never get absolute proof that Greenland will melt and raise sea levels until it really happens, but that does not mean Gore is lying. That means that scientific certainty is never complete. That means that there is disagreement over specific details. I bet, even on many of the so-called errors that the judge ruled on, that Gore will turn out to be right, unfortunately. It is silly to do an article like this, making Gore out to be a liar. The judge himself did not have absolute proof that his ruling was correct. The evidence is unclear and will be until the global warming is past repair. All the scientific community and Gore can do is point the way. Why doesn't this reporter fact check what the global warming deniers are saying and show how they have no proof that they are right.

The argument that man is causing global warming is still under debate, remember all of these green house gases were going to cause an ice age (or so we thought 30 years ago). Yes the climate is changing, but it has always changed, which is why we have had inter-glacial periods in our history. The idea that there is a baseline climate on the planet is absurd and not based in fact. Good job fact checker about reviewing the comments of the judge and the response by the Gore team, I would have given them a 2 but all-in-all a fair representation of the argument and areas of question.

It would be swell if you could focus on some of Bush's big lies instead of these hair splits of the Dems that seem to have caught your fancy in this new era of truthiness now that the neocons are on the defensive.

This must make you feel like a big, big man.

Good for you!

A poke in the eye for Gore!

So, I assume you'll run "fact checker" against that global warming apologist from Europe? I think he's Dutch or something. (No irony intended!)

What? You will not run "fact checker" against a global warming apologist, but will devote all your resources to finding less-than-a-handful of "fudge" from a 90-minute documentary?

Honest to God, how many points of fact were presented in Gore's movie? And how many are "fudge"? Care to give us a percentage?

Maybe you're not such a big, big man after all.

Your analysis seems to miss the forest for the trees. So what if a few of the details are inaccurate. If this film can raise awareness on an issue that has serious earth altering consequences, then so be it. Let's just hope the policy-makers in DC agree that the film is "braodly accurate" and actually get to work on solving the issue.

The no-fact-checker has already trashed Gore twice on this - the last time he was handed his head in his own basket because of his sloppy thinking and inability to tell a "fact" from "spin". He was reamed a new one, well-deservedly.
Well it seems the ole no-fact-checker couldn't stand not having the last word, so he now gives Gore one pinochio. The same ONE p. he gave a day or two ago for a person who actually had ZERO facts in their argument.

Another GD media elite concern troll with a hatchet job for Gore. Man, I wonder where the post gets 'em all? As far as I can tell you have to have Gore Derangement Syndome (thanks to P.Krugman) to get hired by the old gray prostitute... errrr...I mean Lady.

If the Fact Checker had only awarded no Pinocchios, I bet he'd have gotten loads of talk radio mentions.

Am I the only person who thinks that this is just the latest example in a history of repeated incompetence on the part of the Fact Checker and feel like the whole thing just ought to be cancelled?

I mean really -- we're about to head into the election season, and a Fact Checker who seems so unable to dispassionately discharge their job just has no place here.

Rene said "The evidence is unclear and will be until the global warming is past repair." How do you repair something that isn't broken? The earth is operating as it has for millions of years, the climate is changing as it always has, the tectonic plates are moving as they always have, the ocean currents are changing as they always have, islands are being created as they always have, islands are disappearing as they always have, species are evolving and going extinct as they always have. It is pure arrogance to believe that human beings are above nature. We are part of the complex eco-system that is this planet, not separate from it.

I'm just glad you've rebounded from the embarrassment of your "General Betrayus" take-down. That was a pretty sad beginning.

But this piece was actual fair-and-balanced in a non- brain-dead sense, and actually stuck to the core rules you established for this feature. Keep up the good work.

Mr. Teach you yourself blame the melting snow on man.I am not one the subscribes to the idea that Global Warming is entirely the fault of man.Man alone isn't causing it.Man also isn't doing anything to help reverse it.
You call it micro climatic change.Wouldn't it stand to reason that enough micro climatic change would have an effect on Global Warming as a whole?

You are obviously splitting hairs on this issue. Why don't you read some articles about this? Polar bears are swimming great distances because of the melting of the ice shelf. The floes they feed from are gone. Someone better Pinocchio your Pinocchio finder.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article767459.ece

"# [The movie] promotes partisan political views (that is to say, one-sided views about political issues);

# Teaching staff must be careful to ensure that they do not themselves promote those views;

# In order to make sure of that, they should take care to help pupils examine the scientific evidence critically (rather than simply accepting what is said at face value) and to point out where Gore's view may be inaccurate or departs from that of mainstream scientific opinion;"

Well, if its politcally partisan that gravity exists should we not teach it? Just because an issue about our global wellbeing has been politicized because of industrial and energy interests doesn't mean we shouldn't teach things supported by data. When will we see a documentary disproving Gore point by point with the scientific method? Thats what I thought.

What I find shocking about the whole global warming "debate" (there is none among scientists) is the spectacular arrogance required for a non-scientist, like myself, to assert that his/her judgment is more valid than a broad consensus in the scientific community. It's equality run amok. This fact-checker article is an example. Even a lay person like myself can understand the scientific process; it relies in this case upon the gradual accretion of evidence, some of which may ultimately turn out to not support the hypothesis, but which, in its totality, is incontrovertible.

I award you One Graham-Rolling-In-Her-Grave for having the worst online feature of any major newspaper in the United States.

"The Population Bomb" - 1972

"The Coming Ice Age" - 1973

"The Crash of '79" - 1977

"Y2K" - 1999

Gore is just on emore in a line of self-promoting hucksters selling sky is falling snake oil to the rubes.

The sum of these disputed 'facts' amount nothing when compared to the overwhelming evidents presented. It's little different than sending a person to prison for lying under oath for stating that he's 6' tall when in 'fact' he's 6 foot and one eight of an inch tall.
But, such is the republican way - if you can't beat the sum of the impact, then change the subject to the ignorant fringe.

The sum of these disputed 'facts' amount nothing when compared to the overwhelming evidents presented. It's little different than sending a person to prison for lying under oath for stating that he's 6' tall when in 'fact' he's 6 foot and one eight of an inch tall.
But, such is the republican way - if you can't beat the sum of the impact, then change the subject to the ignorant fringe.

The fact checker get 6 pointy noses for promoting ignorance by trivializing the overall statement.

So let me get this straight: In the month or so Fact Checker has been in existence, you have awarded the same number of Pinocchios to Al Gore as to George Bush ("Boots on the Ground" 10/9). Oh, that's rich.

When are you going to do a fact check on Bush or Cheney? Those that deny the signs of global warning are in denial so they won't have to give of their gas guzzlers, or stop polluting the landscape. They can't see past their noses how this will affect their children and grandchildren. They are also probably in that 25% that approve of the was Bush is doing his job.

I thought this was a fair analysis. The single Pinnochio represents that Gore's argument is essentially right. The handful of questionable claims are virtually inevitable when a layperson makes a movie for laypeople about science, and the Fact Checker's rating reflected the fact that the general thrust of the movie represents mainstream scientific thought.

My main quibble is that the headline and prominent placement of this article on the Post's site both contribute to the suggestion that Gore is not to be trusted when, frankly, his account of climate change is more scientifically accurate and informed than any other prominent political figure in America.

The "Fact Checker" should rename himself the "Nit Picker", and then go ahead and award Al Gore one Nit, for getting ahead of himself on the evacuation of Tuvalu.

A quick internet search of less than 5 minutes, while eating lunch, produced the following: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/tv.html#Issues- this is the CIA website, which states, in part, "Tuvalu is concerned about global increases in greenhouse gas emissions and their effect on rising sea levels, which threaten the country's underground water table; in 2000, the government appealed to Australia and New Zealand to take in Tuvaluans if rising sea levels should make evacuation necessary"

See also,HTTP://WWW.TUVALUISLANDS.COM/NEWS/ARCHIVED/2001/2001-07-28.HTM, which inlcudes the following- "TUVALU'S SOS AND THE PACIFIC SUCCESSES IN BONN

Saturday: July 28, 2001

by Kalinga Seneviratne

Singapore (IPS/PINA Nius Online, 28 July 2001)

While 180 governments were locked in intense negotiations on the climate change pact in Germany, the small South Pacific country of Tuvalu sent out an international SOS signal.

Officials of Tuvalu, which has a population of 11,000, asked Australia and New Zealand if they would be willing to allow the Pacific island nation's citizens to migrate there if the islands continue to sink due to rising sea levels, and become uninhabitable.

Tuvalu is made up of nine atolls of about 26 sq km, and several of the islands are fast shrinking. In the last decade, rising sea levels have claimed one percent of the land and some claims are that Tuvalu will be wiped off the map within the next 50 years.

The plea from tiny Tuvalu made it clear that the effects of climate change are already being felt....."

If I can find that sort of stuff (along with plenty more) in a few minutes while eating lunch at my desk, why can't the Fact Checker be bothered to do it for pay? Let's see- the government of a nation initiates talks with other governments in order to address the perceived need to find a home for their population, because of rising sea levels. The CIA lists sea level rise as an issue for the country. Might that not at least be mentioned in your discussion? No, the nation has not yet been totally abandoned, but then again, the flick never said that it had been.

I believe there are some overstatements in the movie- but the failure of The fact Checker to bother to investigate some of these items does not bode well for this columns independence and integrity.

"The debate is over..."

When exactly WAS there a debate? Gore's been saying that since 1989. It's the same propaganda technique used by all con men..."EVERYBODY knows that (fill in the blank)is true (so are you an idiot?)." It's just a crude intimidation technique, nothing more.

"All the experts agree..."

Translated: Just shut up.

Another scam technique. All the experts agreed that the earth was flat 500 years ago. All the experts agreed that Isaac Newton had figured out the laws of Physics...until Einstein.

Gore: "The only people who question Global Warming are controlled by BIG OIL (cue Dracula music)."

In other words, I don't want to debate the facts. I'll just try to intimidate you with word bombs and public humiliation from the mob I've drummed up.

"The majority of climate scientists agree that Global Warming is real and man-made."

Sure. Scientists are people. Even if oyu disagree, it's human nature not to want to subject yourself to public ridicule and have your career threatened by going against the politically correct dogma.

Just ask Galilleo.

I second the post above. Why hasn't Fact Checker fact checked the latest newspaper claims by the Danish political scientist, Bjorn Lomberg? Is it because he presented those claims on the front page of the WaPo Outlook section?

Of all the things to fact check at this moment in history, you're focusing on this?

This "fact check" is a classic example of a false controversy. It uses the same technique that tobacco companies used to argue that "It has not been proved that smoking causes cancer". This same method of argumentation has been used by creationists to try to impose the teaching of their religious beliefs about creation in the public schools.

Anyone who has a scientific education can find areas in "An Inconvenient Truth" where scientific simplifications were made. Those simplifications inevitably are slightly inaccurate. Those inaccuracies can then be "exposed" and a false debate created.

However, this false debate is fundamentally dishonest. The larger truth is that global warming is happening and that human activity is causing most of it. Thousands of scientific papers support Al Gore's basic point. The "debate" is bogus.

The author should go back to reporting on politics. She may think that this is an ad hominem attack, but I conclude she is incompetent to pass judgment on matters of science. (S)he clearly doesn't have a basic understanding of how science works.

"I award "The Fact Checker" 5 Pinnochios for its reasoning of giving Al Gore 1 Pinnochio."

I concur!

" I do so with no pretense of scientific expertise"
This admission by the "Fact Checker" tells us really all we need to know. Well, I do have some expertise. I have co-authored three books on environmental issues and have been studying the issue for 30 years. There is no debate in the scientific community over the reality of climate change. The only debate is among persons who "do so with no pretense of scientific expertise."
And I also agree with those who say they wish you and your newspaper would apply one tenth the effort to exposing the lies and incompetence of the Bush regime that you have applied to nitpicking Gore's film.

I'd like to amplify Jim's note above. Your use of the phrase "ad hominem" is not only incorrect, it's misleading. Your statement "So what if the plaintiff in the British case was "funded by...fossil fuel interests" " is absurd. A fairly brief study of the issue of climate change would show that there is almost no dispute among scientists over the key issue of major human impacts on climate change, and that the only reason there is a "debate" on the issue is because of money spent by fossil fuel interests.

That's not ad hominem, that's the story. If the Washington Post was covering a local city councilperson who supported a zoning change from which he would profit, the story would be pretty clear. But when major corporate interests are involved, the Post plays it differently.

For that matter, to compare the Post to Soviet-era Pravda is not an ad hominem attack, but an observation that both newspapers, though staffed by well meaning journalists, in certain cases always bow to the powers that be. (Impending attacks on oil-rich countries come to mind...)

An ad hominem attack would be calling the "Fact Checker" stupid or a coward. Recognizing the reality of corporate power over your professional life is just realism. We all have limits and prejudices, and we all tend to deal with the system around us in a way that promotes our survival. Exxon Mobil trumps Al Gore, and the Post's pages reflect that.

Fact Checker,

It seems you lack the maturity, vision and intellectual honesty for this particular task. You're focusing more on those mean people who pointed out the problems with your original swipe at Gore than on the larger issues. If you're going to set yourself up as a "fact checker," then you need to train yourself to be rigorously objective and fair, and learn to keep your own biases and ego out of the mix. You are continuing to spin the story, selectively choosing what and who is worthy of taking seriously, in a rather sad effort to support the conclusions about Gore and yourself that you would like to be true. A stronger education in scientific method would have done you a lot of good.

Sorry to join the chorus of mean, vituperative people out to hurt your feelings, but you really need to grow up.

The timing of this article -- finding very minor flaws in a powerful and successful film -- would be highly suspect, except that WaPo has been on this insane drive to destroy Gore and Clinton for years, so its not a debatable point at all: by prominently displaying this pipsqueak Judge's decision on the morning of Gore's complete triumph and vindication, the intent of this article was to distract from the obvious fact of global warming and Gore's success in delivering the message. Mission accomplished.
And since you don't pay attention to ad hominum attacks, this is a good opportunity to observe that you're a worthless tool.

And yes, THAT (my comment above) was an ad hominem attack. Very different from pointing out who is financially supporting a course of action and how they might be profiting from it.

Scientists sympathetic to Gore have effectively conceded several errors or omissions in the movie:

Your inclusion of the drowning polar bears point in this section is simply wrong. Gore isn't making an error or an omission here. He's citing scientific studies to back up the claim and while the conclusion may not be definitive, it's very strong and certainly not disproven.

tony the pitiful copywriter: good name. your remark was pitiful

JD: You are repeating yourself. Didn't you say the same basic thing a blog or two ago? You seem to have only one song and that is to slam fact checker. Here's a thought: if you READ and then THINK about these matters, and about what is being said here, you might actually be able to contribute in an intelligent manner.

Complete waste of time to go after some minor things here--anyone who watches weather patterns knows how much damage global warming has done already and how much more will be done in the future. Instead of going after Gore, the fact checker should look at the Cheney/Bush regime and the look-alike line-up of guys who want to follow in the footsteps of Bush and Cheney. This is particularly true for Giuliani with respect to presidential power overreach and warmongering. See also,
http://www.reflectivepundit.com/reflectivepundit/2007/10/abuse-of-presid.html

Hey Fact Checker:

How about fact checking anything that the President states in his speeches or the White House "fact" sheets that are periodically issues, instead of attacking Al Gore, who currently runs nothing of importance in this country.

Please. Thank you.

The award of one - or any pinocchios - is so blatantly ridiculous on its face that I can now say with certainty this is the last time I will click on a link to the Fact Checker series or anything written by Michael Dobbs. Meanwhile, the Washington Post will certainly be my last choice of online news sources. If ignorance is bliss Michael Dobbs must be in a constant state of ecstasy.

There is a reason that the Gore squad won the Nobel for Peace, not the Nobel for Science. Its is a generous and obvious cause that they champion, but certainly one that when used as the basis for policy, needs to be weighed with factual evidences, or the lack thereof.

what does a film on global warming have to do with world peace?

What office is Al Gore running for, exactly? Have the actual candidates stopped saying things? How is this useful in a political campaign?

So Al Gore receives the same one pinnochio (for making mistakes/slightly shading the truth) as Rudy Giuliani did the other day for pulling facts out of thin air (???)- Rudy should have had at least 3!

Please reevaluate your definition for one pinnochio!!

Fact-Checker:
Harry Reid suggested that that "global warming" is partly responsible for the California forest fires. Others say global warming causes a cold winter. And of course "everyone" says its man's fault i.e America's, and that we are all going to drown, die and/or starve, if we don't listen to Al Gore, even though a small percentage of the CO2 comes from man. With all this laughable paranoia surrounding this issue, do you really think you'll get "reasoned, civilized debate" on this film? You seemed a little surprised at the amount of anger generated against you from the true-blue. Remember, some religious followers get a little excited when you question any part of the their dogma, which apparently includes questioning any aspect of a film by a former VP which is described by his own supporters as "pretty accurate for the American movie industry." With friends offering praise like that, guess you don't need enemies.

"I award Al Gore one Pinocchio." After scientists say that 'Inconvenient Truth' is 90% accurate who the hell are you to award Gore a Pinocchio!

You say "Now that the smoke has cleared away a bit, I feel more confident about reaching some conclusions.

I do so with no pretense of scientific expertise, merely as a detached and hopefully fair-minded non-expert who has listened to both sides make their case."

To hell with your "... detached and hopefully fair-minded non-expert...". After 1200 UN Panel scientist say with 99% accuracy the humans are responsible for global warming I DO NOT want a "...detached and hopefully fair-minded non-expert..." to say anything or award Gore a Pinocchio!

From here on I will never click the Fact Checker again!

I believe associating an icon which connotes a lie, Pinocchio, to scientific evidence that may be somewhat gray around the edges is more misleading than the evidence they are claiming to be non-quantifiable with all certainty.
California is on fire and of course one would be a Pinocchio if one alluded to this being a result of global warming. Instead, these fires started by a downed power line, arson, and embers that blew wildly in 50 MPH Santa Ana winds.
If we held the Bible to such scrutiny we would have a cult based upon uncountable Pinocchio's - and this would reduce its followers to cult statis, which is much more accurate given their propensity to support senseless wars of aggression and the unfettered buggering young boys.
With the right witnesses the truth can be slayed beyond reason. Take for example a jury that didn't convict OJ Simpson of murder with so much DNA evidence and circumstantial evidence - after all the victims blood on his shoes, in his car, tracked into his home, you know, it could have been, after all, planted. If you believe that, I've got a planet to sell you - slightly used, greatest species die off in 100,000,000 years, but its still got lots of good rotations left on it.

Man you can really get a reaction if you dare question he Gospel of Global Warming As Told to God by Al Gore. That Sunni-Shi'a divide in Iraq is nothing compared to the verbal car bombing that ensues if one commits the apostasy of not accepting everything that the Man Made Global Warming cult as the True And Final Word. Well sorry folks butthose scientists are only riding a grant funding gravy train shilling their expertise for the ducats of the anti-West, anti-globalization, anti-indutrialization Luddites. BTW it's not named Greenland because it's always been covered with ice. I remain gloriously committed to CO2 production through the profligate use of hydrocarbon fuel. I am SUV, watch me spew. Surf's up, dudes.

The Post should be embarassed at this contribution to the debate about global warming, which amounts to a tengental and irrelevant conversation about Al Gore's preceived 'truthiness.'

The bottom line is that you are speaking of 'facts,' which do not exist as such in any scientific debate. Scientific discussions rely on probabilities, weight of evidence, and consensus, not 'facts.' the closest thing you will get to 'fact' is consensus by a group of technically comepetent and trained scientists. This condition has been satisfied.

You are rearranging deck chairs on the titanic, and shouldn't be proud of that.

As much as I wanted this column to work out, because it IS a very interesting idea, the Fact Checker has gone VERY far afield of fact checking here....

Oh, and since when has pointing out that someone is surreptitiously using the court system to further a political agenda an ad-hominem attack...? How many Pinocchios does that assertion win the Fact Checker?

Al Gore has created a dark number of years for Science and for Schools. Almost none of what he or the IPCC says is based on basic research of fitting real data to a theoretical framework and verifying based on experimentation.

It is based on computer models which are constantly "readjusted" as new data comes in that violates the pre-conceived ideas they hope to prove.

Where you guys when that zealous fratboy coward of a president lied us into war ? Or gave way the treasury to enrich his buddies? Or......i could go on but whats the use. The Washington Post has become a tool of the neocons and they will continue to print this crap to keep their buddies in power and enrich themselves with cocktail weinies and large bundles of stolen cash.

Pointing out a conflict of interest is not the same thing as an ad hominem attack. There might be some cases which could be described as both, but they remain fundamentally different acts. It's also not an ad hominem attack to once again say that this column is shameful in its embrace of a facile contrarian attitude and lack of understanding of context. Why not submit Gore's critics (most of whom are wildly off base) to something like the same analysis?

This article is just weird -

"Pinnocchio" indicates an intentional lie.
When 99% of the scientific community agrees with the problem of Global warming and over 90% of the facts Gore presented have not been disputed (in my opinion, that seems like a good batting average for anyone)it seems intentionally inflammatory to repeatedly use 'fact checker' to create a controversy where this none. Why? because and energy industry funded lawsuit got one judge to attach a disclaimer to the showing of his film in British Schools? I can't imagine what kind of life Gore would have to live to survive the kind of obsessive perfection the fact checker expects. Particularly in comparison to the real Pinocchios among us. The Pinocchios that trick an entire country in to this war without end, the Pinocchios that have destroyed our justice department, The Pinocchios that have driven our country to the brink of financial ruin and left us beholden to China to bail us out.

"John A. Bailo:" Science evolves. Faith is what you want if you wish to stagnate under one, immutable point of view.

It's "fair" crap like this that caused me to cancel my Sunday Washington Post and subscribe to a different newspaper.

I suggest anyone wishing to investigate the "fair" treatment of Al Gore from 1999-on check out The Daily Howler (http://www.dailyhowler.com/). The evidence of media bias against Gore is overwhelming.

What the ???? Showing graphs of Florida underwater, using sea level rises of 1000% greater than your co-Nobel Prize winning panel predicts, gets 1 Pinocchio?

I think this verdict is very reasonable.

However, I don't like the blurring of any distinction between "errors" and "omissions". There is a significant difference between the two, and any judge ought to appreciate that significance (and it was negligent of the judge in this case to make this mistake), and any fact checker ought to as well (how can you check "facts" without doing so?).

I do think Gore deserves the one point for his misstatement on the evacuations. Though governments of several nations have lobbied New Zealand and Australia to accept refugees as part of evacuation plans, Gore's statement in this case was clearly an "error".

I really don't see any "errors" with regard to the science. I believe it is worth considering here the significant "omissions" however. Some of these omissions may have given wrong impressions, although the statements themselves weren't factually incorrect. I think that by omitting a time line on sea level rise, for example, many viewers may have gotten the wrong impression of the likely time line. And he should have mentioned, when discussing the "ocean conveyor", that scientists believe that even a dramatic change there would not likely lead to an ice age this time, though it could have other serious environmental consequences.

I'm less in agreement on the examples used of the polar bears, Kilimanjaro, and the Chad lake. There is plenty of scientific evidence in support of Gore's actual statements on all three. Any documentary film will come with a point of view. The fact that some of these points can be debated doesn't make them "errors". And spending time on these side debates would not have added to the film, and would have distracted from its purpose.

On Kilimanjaro, here is a good explanation of why global warming likely is an important factor. On the polar bears, the very study cited concluded that drowning was "likely" related to climate change effects. See news reports here and here. Do the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal also get Pinocchios for these news reports? It is an unreasonable standard to suggest that every opinion expressed by Gore must have a scientific consensus behind it. There is certainly no consensus that Gore's positions on these issues was incorrect. Both you and the judge should have made it clear that there were no "errors" at all here on the science.

That said, I have no problem with awarding Gore one or even two Pinocchios for the evacuation comment and for the significant omissions. But I'd also award at least one to the judge who repeatedly refers to errors and "errors" when he means omissions, and whose decision is so consistently misleading about what Gore actually said. And I would award one to the Fact Checker for getting so many of the facts wrong from the initial piece, especially the misquote on the top of the first one which falsely puts the words "in the near future" into Gore's mouth, and into the film, where the phrase simply does not exist.

Do you not understand that this requires a correction under normal journalistic standards? Do you not understand that this is as plainly in error as anything in Gore's film?

This is what you wrote in that first piece:

'AL GORE:

The melting of ice in either West Antarctica or Greenland would result in a sea-level rise of up to 20 feet "in the near future."

--Oscar-winning movie, "An Inconvenient Truth."'

It's just flat out false. Again, I find this verdict reasonable. But, for the sake of your own credibility as an arbiter of facts, I would think that you can't consider this matter resolved until you've taken some responsibility for your own factual errors made while addressing this difficult topic.

Michael Dobbs is even more of a little man than I thought.

This fact-checking process needs to be curtailed. When the environmental crazies, we-hate-humans-global warming radicals, and the 2000-election-was-rigged zombies spew out their venomous message, facts only get in their way. Personally,I agree that you should not have awarded Gore 1 Pinocchio;How about changing to a picture of a large Brahma Bull
defecating in a pasture? That would more aptly describe the Gore Hysteria. Nobel Peace Prize?...wasn't that once awarded to the great humanist Yassir Arafat? After the 1972 Munich slaughter, I believe.

US Lakes drying up - California burning - Artic ice disappearing - New Orleans drowned - Increased tornadic activity - 11 warmest years on record have all occurred since 1990 - And Gore is given a pinocchio.

I'm sure his life is complete.

Fact Checker's performance to date:

"1+1 = 2"
-Al Gore
1 Pinocchio from the Fact Checker

"1+1 = 273"
-Rudy Guiliani
1 Pinocchio from the Fact Checker

It seems the media in all its forms these days spends more time trying to discredit the people who are acting in earnest for the betterment of our country and the world. Nearly every journalist, whether video, audio, or print, considers themself an expert, learned critic. If they took
a good look and championed some of the
works others are doing to improve our lot, they might find there are people,even some politicians, who have a handle on things they are talking about. In other words, research before you ridicule.

« PRIZES AND PLANS. HE'LL JUST HAVE TO SETTLE FOR BEING THE MOST POWERFUL MAN IN IRAQ. »

FACT-CHECK?

So I've generally been into the idea behind the Fact Checker column over at the Washington Post. Until today, when they decided to take Al Gore's winning the Nobel Prize as an opportunity to do a "fact check" on An Inconvenient Truth, and ... not actually check any facts. Instead, they publish portions of a court decision in the U.K. where a judge decided that there were portions of the movie that exaggerated reality. Note: This is a legal decision, not a comprehensive scientific study; the Post actually does no fact-checking; there is no actual science involved here; and the conclusion they reach is that "There are good arguments on either side."

Then for more information, they point you to the official An Inconvenient Truth site, the website of the widely debunked counter film The Great Global Warming Swindle (which has even been disavowed by one of the main scientists featured in it), a broadly criticized counter article from the New York Times, and a site supporting the guy who brought the lawsuit to court. If you're counting, that's three sites that aim to take down the movie and ... the movie's own site. Which equals zero independent scientific evaluation. Thanks, Washington Post, for this significant contribution to the conversation.

--Kate Sheppard

Two pinnochios to you, too, on your discussion of the judge's use of "error" in the opinion. It is technically true and misleading. I copied the opinion and tried to search for error. I don't claim to be foolproof, but here is what I found:
1. The bulk of the time the Judge used "errors" [in quotes].
2. 4 times he did not but clarified that in that context he meant "deviation from mainstream" which he concludes that Gore implied he never did (Is that accurate - did Gore suggest that nothing in his film was not mainstream approved by the IPCC?)
3. Twice he was merely summarizing the contention of the counsel challenging the film.
4. Twice he said errors or "may be errors", leaving errors outside quotes.

From all this, it is clear to me that the judge was indeed using error in a special sense (as implied by putting quotes around it).

Normally, I would just give this one pinnochio, but since you decided to specially engage and criticize your readers on this point for being wrong, when in any sensible view they were right, it deserves 2.

the Posts' Michael Dobbs, actually does no fact-checking...

he placing opinion as fact...

where are your scientific credentials that allow you to be a reliable interpreter of information ??

had any statistics ? environmental science ? geology ? thermodynamics ?

and why do the regular neo conartists have such an impetus to attack a Nobel Prize winner ????

could it be the Petroleum Institute named as a perpatrator in the MOVIE, "An Incovenient Truth!"

could it be big OIL in DC, otherwise known as EXXON-MOBIL....

could it be the GRAND OIL THEFT und DRUG RUNNING SCHEME operating out of IRAQ y Afghanistan ????

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...........

of course not, this is all about liberals and conservatives....

F.O. punter....get your facts straight.

.

UK court says Gore is a fraud. August 2007 Update: Man-made Catastrophic Global Warming Not True. Further, flawed NASA Global Warming data paid for by George Soros. Hansen is a political hack of George Soros. In order to be an intelligent reader you must have a basic knowledge. Please do your own homework; a starting point http://www.InteliOrg.com/

PS - The judge in his opinion makes clear that his test for "mainstream" is in accord with IPCC findings. Nothing wrong with that standard, except that most of these findings were effectively made several years ago given the process of review, quibbling and acceptance, so they cannot in any sense reflect the latest research.
It takes a lot of hubris to assess pinnochio without a lot of general scientific background and without going and reading the relevant underlying articles

What a pleasant surprise to find my impression that your paper should be called the "Washington Pest" is exaggerated. Thank you for giving me reason to appologize for that misconception.

I do take issue with the author's assertion that certain affiliations are "irrelevant." Certain "ad-hominem" attacks are justified, as for example when a person is of such disreputable character that relying on his assertions is foolish.

I would merely assert that ad-hominem attacks ALONE are insufficient, unless the individual is known to be unreliable. Otherwise, it may still be purdent to listen to them, though with caution advised. If there's truth to them, they may very well be relevant, if not in themselves sufficient.

In Gore's case, I don't think it is at all "irrelevant" that his carbon offset scam stands to make billions if he can get legislation pushed through requiring people to purchase said snake-oil.
http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2007/03/inconvenient-offset-quick-recap-records.html

That points to a pretty glaring conflict of interrest which is very "relevant" to the discussion.

Still, do Gore's assertions have any merit?

No. Everything I've learned about "global warming" suggest that humans are no more able to add to it than they are to make a hurricane worse by spitting into it. And we are no more able to stop g.w. than we are to stop a hurricane by blowing against it, even with Al Gore's hot air helping us.

Anyway, thanks again for a well done critical evaluation of such an important topic, and for showing me that there's still hope for W.P.

Also, if anyone wants to see what the experts who Gore wants you to believe don't exist are saying, try this.
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/story.html?id=c47c1209-233b-412c-b6d1-5c755457a8af

How inconvenient! . . . and be sure to read the REST of the series.

(NOTE: Gore's nose should be a whole LOT longer than drawn.)

« PRIZES AND PLANS. HE'LL JUST HAVE TO SETTLE FOR BEING THE MOST POWERFUL MAN IN IRAQ. »

FACT-CHECK?

So I've generally been into the idea behind the Fact Checker column over at the Washington Post. Until today, when they decided to take Al Gore's winning the Nobel Prize as an opportunity to do a "fact check" on An Inconvenient Truth, and ... not actually check any facts. Instead, they publish portions of a court decision in the U.K. where a judge decided that there were portions of the movie that exaggerated reality. Note: This is a legal decision, not a comprehensive scientific study; the Post actually does no fact-checking; there is no actual science involved here; and the conclusion they reach is that "There are good arguments on either side."

Then for more information, they point you to the official An Inconvenient Truth site, the website of the widely debunked counter film The Great Global Warming Swindle (which has even been disavowed by one of the main scientists featured in it), a broadly criticized counter article from the New York Times, and a site supporting the guy who brought the lawsuit to court. If you're counting, that's three sites that aim to take down the movie and ... the movie's own site. Which equals zero independent scientific evaluation. Thanks, Washington Post, for this significant contribution to the conversation.

--Kate Sheppard

What could possibly be more ad hominem than to award Gore a Pinocchio -- accusing Gore of lying? And all of this talk about vituperation is also ad hominem -- people's tone and emotional state doesn't invalidate their claims.

The fact is that, for all 9 of the judge's points, he put the word "error" in quotes. And the fact is that none of these points, with the possible exception of the evacuation, are considered to be errors by climate scientists.

Just consider the polar bears: a study estimated that 40 bears were in the water during a storm and that most perished; 4 carcasses were found. The judge somehow concluded that only 4 polar bears have ever drowned. And why were the bears in the water? The study indicated that the long distances they have to swim to find pack ice is a major factor. Duh. Those who accuse Gore of an error here are grossly in error themselves -- as all the evidence indicates, polar bears /are/ dying because of the breakup of the ice.

"I do so with no pretense of scientific expertise, merely as a detached and hopefully fair-minded non-expert who has listened to both sides make their case."

Your lack of scientific expertise is relevant here -- this simply isn't how science operates. One does not "listen to both sides", one examines the evidence and makes the best inference from it. Particularly, when the vast majority of climate scientists and scientific organizations say one thing, and a handful of people with a strong political agenda and vested financial interest say another, simply listening to both sides is sure to lead one astray, and is not "fair minded" in any real sense.

A quick internet search of less than 5 minutes, while eating lunch, produced the following: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/tv.html#Issues- this is the CIA website, which states, in part, "Tuvalu is concerned about global increases in greenhouse gas emissions and their effect on rising sea levels, which threaten the country's underground water table; in 2000, the government appealed to Australia and New Zealand to take in Tuvaluans if rising sea levels should make evacuation necessary"

============

Ah, but "fact-checkers" (the quotes count) don't do research, they just "listen" to "both sides". Well, that leads them to "shading the truth" A LOT -- which is what Michael "long nosed hypocrite" Dobbs has done here.

Challenging Gore on Global Warming is like focusing on Johnny Carson's well structured TV "test bed" when Uri Geller was the on who claimed the ability to bend spoons.

Gore's advocacy relies on studies, surveys and peer-reviewed scientific articles published in refereed scientific journals. His naysayers provide no such data and rely on their peculiar brand of "common sense" to dismiss arguments rather than provide their own independent scientific analysis.

The next time Bjorn Lomborg spouts off, put his statements under the microscope. Do the same when Dick Cheney opens his mouth. In fact, aren't fact checkers supposed to be used on ALL of your printed stories. What ever happened to "journalism?"

If you give Al Gore one Pinocchio for a film that is almost completely accurate, then how many Pinocchios would Bush deserve for his assertions about global warming (or virtually any other subject, for that matter)? You wouldn't be able to fit all of them on this page. Let's have a little sense of fairness and proportionality here.

Different presentations have different audiences and different purposes. A statement that is correct and accurate in high school science class might not sufficiently precise for a risk assessment in a major engineering project. An engineer, planning public infrastructure, may have a view that is absolutely correct from a engineering perspective, but which might be disputed by a climatologist at a university. (Who does not have to sign drawings and post performance bonds.) While a public planner might have a view that understands both the engineering perspective and the scientific perspective.

An Inconvenient Truth (AIT) balances these different viewpoints. In general, it is consistent with the IPCC, however in some places it uses more current data, or more specialized data. On some points, AIT generalizes for teaching purposes. (After all, the IPCC certainly glossed some key points in its Summaries for Policy Makers!) In some places the AIT uses the engineer's and planner's perspective in looking forward. That is not consistent with the IPCC's view of the data , but it is not wrong! After all very few of the IPCC panel are registered professional engineers that can sign designs on which people's lives depend. IPCC data informs engineering, but it is engineering and planning that makes modern society possible. Gore would have been remiss if he had ignored that view.

We are remiss if we ignore that view.

It is truly frightening to consider what it will take to convince Gore's most emphatic detractors that Anthropogenic Climate Change is real. And that they consider being right worth the risk of being wrong.

For now, I can only hope they enjoy this huge boon, that they are able to find nine inconsistencies in an argument they have utterly lost.

The fellow calling himself "a scientist" thinks that in 5 minutes he can find a definitive answer to the problem. He needs to be informed that his Tuvalunacy could easily be debunked with a little more research.

the " . . . satellite record show[s] that the sea level has actually fallen four inches around Tuvalu since 1993 when the hundred-million dollar international TOPEX/POSEIDON satellite project record began."
http://www.pacificmagazine.net/issue/2002/02/01/is-tuvalu-really-sinking

Read the rest of the article to find out the rest of the story.

Just because someone is frightened doesn't mean his fears are justified.

I give this propaganda piece 4 Pinocchios for building another mountain about nothing out of a mole hill. It is blatantly dishonest in its attempt to smear Al Gore and his movie, "An Inconvenient Truth."

WaPoo, we are wise to all the stupid little tricks you play to distort reality and smear the people who are doing the most good in this world.

This is yet another perfect example of why your circulation is going down the drain, which is where it belongs.

You owe Al Gore an apology.

CON MEN AND THEIR SHELL GAMES

Keep the rube's attention focused away from what is really going on.

1. (GW conmen assert): "There will be more heat deaths if global temperatures rise."
(THE WHOLE PICTURE): "It's estimated that by 2050, global warming will cause almost 400,000 more heat-related deaths each year. But at the same time, 1.8 million fewer people will die from cold."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/05/AR2007100501676.html

2. (GW conmen assert): "The Arctic is melting because of global warming."
(ACTUALLY): "The Arctic is almost as warm now as it was seventy years ago. Unsurprisingly, Arctic ice has diminished. But, as Polyakov et al.show, the long-term changes are 'generally statistically insignificant' But there's more ice in Antarctica now. It seems that points more to a natural, cyclical variation on a global scale when one pole diminishes while another gains.
http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2007/10/03/nh-sea-ice-loss-its-the-wind-says-nasa/

And that is just the tip of the, eh, ice-berg, as it were.

the sea level has actually fallen four inches around Tuvalu since 1993 when the hundred-million dollar international TOPEX/POSEIDON satellite project record began."
http://www.pacificmagazine.net/issue/2002/02/01/is-tuvalu-really-sinking

Read the rest of the article to find out the rest of the story.

Just because someone is frightened doesn't mean his fears are justified.

Posted by: yonason | October 25, 2007 06:14 PM

I give your comment four Pinocchio's too.

Your comment implys ocean levels are falling instead of rising. That is patently false. All coastal cities around the world are in danger of being flooded out within the next 100 years. That is the scientific truth.

Posted by: yonason | October 25, 2007 06:22 PM

Please stop posting lies that have been scientifically disproved. Your last comment is off the Pinocchio scale.

Global warming is real. The ice caps are melting. The oceans are rising. There will be more deaths caused by global warming than by the cold.

This is the irrefutable truth if we do not stop using fossil fuels immediately.

CON MEN AND THEIR SHELL GAMES II

Keep the rube's attention focused away from what is really going on.

3. (GW conmen assert): "Global warming caused the Arctic to melt."
(THE REALITY): NASA says that "The Arctic did not melt fast because of warmer weather, but wind:"
http://blogs