A Convienent and Selective Truth

Philosophy Forums Society, Government, and Economics
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June 28, 2006
A convenient and selective truth

Proclaiming that, “the nations top climate scientists,” give Al Gore’s movie, “five stars for accuracy,” this AP story gives the convenient impression of unanimous agreement of all our nation’s top climate scientists. But how many scientists exactly did this reporter interview to achieve such an all encompassing endorsement?

A Convenient Endorsement for Gore

The nation's top climate scientists are giving An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore's documentary on global warming, five stars for accuracy. ~wired.com, AP story

Really? Wow. How impressive…

Actually, the title really does say it all. This article is yet another great example of journalistic malfeasance (or perhaps laziness). Luckily, I sometimes skim more than just the headline.

The former vice president's movie -- replete with the prospect of a flooded New York City, an inundated Florida, more and nastier hurricanes, worsening droughts, retreating glaciers and disappearing ice sheets -- mostly got the science right, said all 19 climate scientists who had seen the movie or read the book and answered questions from The Associated Press.

Incredibly, our nation only has 19 climate scientists! This is news! Perhaps this should be the real focus of the article because having only 19 climate scientists in America seems to put an enormous climate science workload burden on this nation’s 19 climate scientists.

Did I mention we only have 19 climate scientists in this nation of 250+ million? Yeah, it seems odd to me as well.

And did I mention that all 19 agree with every detail of Al Gore’s absurd premises? Kind of fishy, eh? That’s what I said too, so I kept reading.

The AP contacted more than 100 top climate researchers by e-mail and phone for their opinion. Among those contacted were vocal skeptics of climate change theory. Most scientists had not seen the movie, which is in limited release, or read the book.

But those who have seen it had the same general impression: Gore conveyed the science correctly; the world is getting hotter and it is a manmade catastrophe-in-the-making caused by the burning of fossil fuels.

So, just for review… ‘attempting’ to contact 100 sources for their opinion is exactly the same as getting all their opinions. And if all 19 of those who just happen to have seen the movie or read the book, and miraculously respond to your invitation to give their opinion, all agree 100% with Al Gore, well, then it’s ok, journalistically speaking, to say that the nation’s top climate scientists all agree.

See how that works?
Posted by Eric Simonson at June 28, 2006 03:00 AM


Riddle me this...how has our Earth managed to heat up after [b]6 ICE AGES?[/b]
2

Lots and lots of methane produced by cows?

3

Or wolly mammoths!

From National Geographic.com

news.nationalgeographic.com/news … seals.html

Ancient Seal Remains Reveal Warmer Antarctica, Study Says
Adrianne Appel
for National Geographic News
June 26, 2006

In an Antarctic “ghost town,” freeze-dried whiskers, skin, and bones provide evidence that the South Pole was a much warmer place not too long ago, a new study reveals.

The 1,000- to 6,000-year-old elephant seal remains were found in abandoned breeding colonies in a now barren region of Victoria Land on the Antarctic coast near the Ross Sea (map of Antarctica).

* Penguin Decline in Antarctica Linked With Climate Change (2001)
* Antarctic Wildlife at Risk From Overfishing, Experts Say (2003)
* Antarctica Virtual World

The discovery, scientists say, is the first hard evidence for a warming period in the region between 2,300 and 1,100 years ago.

An earlier warming period, between 6,000 and 4,000 years ago, has been recognized by other researchers and is believed to have been widespread, at least throughout the Southern Hemisphere.

But evidence for this more recent warming had not been observed until now, says Brenda Hall, a glacial geologist at the University of Maine in Orono.

“Nobody has seen the warming we have noted—certainly not in the Ross Sea, of this magnitude and duration observed—in the seal record,” Hall said.

Hall and co-authors present their work in today’s issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Seal and Penguin Switch

Elephant seals are named for their huge size—adult males can be as heavy as 4 tons (3.6 metric tons)—and for the males’ inflatable, trunklike snout (photo: elephant seals battle for mates).

The animals were heavily hunted in the 19th century and currently number about 600,000.

Southern elephant seals thrive in a sub-Antarctic climate and require a coastal home where they can move between land and sea to breed and molt.

Today many of the marine mammals live near Antarctica, on Australia’s Macquarie Island and the U.K.'s South Georgia Island. On these islands they have suitable temperatures and ready access to open water.

Ancient Seal Remains Reveal Warmer Antarctica, Study Says
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The modern Ross Sea coast is much too cold for southern elephant seals to survive. The region is so dry that there is almost no snow on the ground and the only visible vegetation is lichens and algae.

The shore is locked in ice year-round, and the ice opens up a few kilometers offshore for only one to two months.

* Penguin Decline in Antarctica Linked With Climate Change (2001)
* Antarctic Wildlife at Risk From Overfishing, Experts Say (2003)
* Antarctica Virtual World

“If you visit this place, it’s hard to ever imagine it being warmer,” Hall said.

But the latest evidence shows that elephant seals did live in the Ross Sea area thousands of years ago.

What’s more, during the two periods when elephant seals were present, other Antarctic denizens, Adélie penguins, apparently disappeared from the region.

The penguins prefer a colder climate than the elephant seals, so their disappearance is another clue that temperatures were warmer at those times.

Hall says the most recent warming period was likely the warmer of the two, “based on the fact that the elephant seals were most abundant and occupied the most southern sites.”

Critter Climate Records

Climatologists know little about the climate history of certain areas of the Antarctic, because there are very few records.

Using animal remains as clues to climate history is an uncommon technique and is not what Hall’s team originally set out to do.

The team was in the region a few years ago studying the age of the beaches when they happened to notice bits of skin and hair in the beach sediment.

The team wasn’t sure what creatures’ remains they had found, so they sent samples to laboratories for DNA testing. The results were puzzling.

“We thought, This is really strange. If they are elephant seals, what are they doing here?” Hall said.

The team later found several naturally mummified adult males and pups in the region.

Hall believes the presence of multiple seals across different age groups means the animals definitely lived and bred in the region and were not there by accident.

Hall also says her findings of a warmer South Pole in the past do not detract from evidence that the region’s dramatic warming trend over the last 30 years is being driven by human contributions (related video: “Antarctica’s Big Meltdown”).

“One way to look at it is there are natural Earth cycles and man-made cycles. I’ve been looking at natural cycles,” she said.

“If we know the past, we can better predict into the future and maybe understand what we do that may interfere with the natural cycle.”

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sorry, I just want to make absolutely sure of what’s going on here. Are you attacking the journalism around Al Gore’s movie, or are you disputing the fact that the earth is heating up at an alarming rate, a rate faster than we’ve ever seen before, and that it is a direct result of human activity?

Let me make this absolutely clear, there is no controversy, climatology agrees, the world is getting warmer, and part of that is as a result of human activities. That’s the simple fact of the matter.

What isn’t so simple is the fact that certain people just won’t get on board. For whatever reason, they just don’t want to be part of the solution… they wan to continue being part of the problem. Which are you?

cheers,
gemty

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I’m pointing out that there were twisting of facts about how many scientists agree with Gore’s predictions in his movie and that the earth has gone through 6 Ice Ages. I believe that there is a problem but I’m not going to jump on blindly, I would like some questions answered.

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The real problem isn’t that the climate changes but rather how quickly it is changing because of human polution