Is Al Gore's Movie Scientific Nonsense?

What can I say? I have always been a good steward over the land that we live upon. I support anti-pollution legislation when it is needed. I also would love to see more fuel efficient motor vehicles or even vehicles that could run without ever having to use any fossil fuels. Burning of coal to produce electricity could be a thing of the past if we would support valuable scientific research. I’m afraid however that many scientists are caught up in the nonsense that is global warming right now and don’t seem to have any time for such things as fuel efficiency or our ability to find replacements for our fossil fuel dependency. Maybe I’m wrong, but apparently global warming has become so important that our very lives are endangered and New York, Florida, California, and other coastal states are about to be swallowed up by the sea. If this is indeed imminent, then I would understand our scientists having no time for such silliness as mentioned.

I have recently been involved in a back and forth online “discussion” concerning global warming and the movie that Al Gore has “invented”. (I don’t know whether invented is correct here or not and I’m sure that someone will remind me that the word invented was “invented” by Al Gore, but that he didn’t directly invent it but was only involved in it’s inception and that he won awards and the love of many as he “invented” it. Pun certainly intended.) Anyway, On June 27th two articles appeared in the news. One declared that scientist gave Al Gore’s movie 5 stars for accuracy. The second story basically debunks the claims of the other article. The first story goes on to say that 100 scientists were contacted either by phone or email. That is a very leading sentence. It doesn’t say that all 100 responded to this contact and as a matter of fact the article only cites 19 scientists actually making any comment.
One of the “scientists” was apparently a good friend of Al Gore’s and for no other reason I have to believe his statements might be a bit jaded at best. The article included the following lines: “Robert Corell, chairman of the worldwide Arctic Climate Impact Assessment group of scientists, read the book and saw Gore give the slideshow presentation that is woven throughout the documentary. "I sat there and I'm amazed at how thorough and accurate," Corell said. "After the presentation I said, 'Al, I'm absolutely blown away. There's a lot of details you could get wrong.' ... I could find no error."

Let me dissect this statement just a little. The first part of the quote says, “I sat there and I'm amazed at how thorough and accurate,”. That’s it! Does anyone see exactly what is so thorough and accurate and what Al’s old buddy was so amazed about? What did the rest of this statement really say? How about, “….. those craftsmen were who built this wonderful chair.” So the full sentence would look like this. “I sat there and I'm amazed at how thorough and accurate those craftsmen were who built this wonderful chair.” Maybe that sounds totally stupid to you if you are an Al Gore fanboy, but if an author leaves an open ended statement like this in their article, then they have to expect the reader to fill in the blanks. You’ll no doubt argue that what he was talking about was the accuracy of Al Gore’s facts in the movie. Why would you be right to assume that and I would be wrong to assume he was referring to the chairs and their craftsmen? This type of open ended statement fits perfectly into an article about global warming. Since there are no genuine “facts” to base this whole argument upon, the open ended statement fits right in.

The second part of the statement ends with another open ended statement. “There's a lot of details you could get wrong.' ... I could find no error." Note that between the word wrong’ and I there is a lot of ……. before he says, “I could find no error.” That means there is something missing within that space. What if the blanks should have included the words, “As far as the way you spelled your name in the credits,”. That would say nothing about any “facts” pertaining to global warming or anything else. The complete statement would then say, “There's a lot of details you could get wrong. As far as the way you spelled your name in the credits, I could find no error." Once again, leaving an open ended statement in any article completely ends any credibility the article could have had. This article says nothing and all because the author left these blanks in the middle of “quotations”. Quotations are supposed to be exact words that the person being quoted has said. This article, being ambiguous at best, provides no ammunition for those on the side of Al Gore and the “science” of his global warming movie. As a matter of fact, it gives the opposition reason to doubt the movie represented any “facts” at all.

The articles referred to are at:

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/06/27/gore.science.ap/index.html
http://www.speroforum.com/site/article.asp?idCategory=34&idsub=127&id=4208&t=AP+wrongly+claims+scientists+praise+Gore's+movie