So should anyone really rely on the accuracy of information in this movie as a comment on the environment? Of course we shouldn’t for the following reasons –

·            He was a politician. Al found himself talking to the controversial rock star Courtney Love at a Hollywood party, Mr. Gore attempted to charm her by telling her he was a fan. Rather than just accepting the easy compliment, Love cross-examined him. "He goes 'I'm a really big fan'," said Love. "And I was like 'Yeah, right. Name a song, Al'." The answer came limply back: "I can't name a song; I'm just a really big fan." Politicians will say anything to get a vote.

·
He has a documented history of exaggeration. He is after all the guy who claims he “invented the Internet” (sic).

Now this does not mean that everything he says is rubbish, far from it, like most discussion about the environment the most important thing is the conclusions you reach. So here is a critique of Big Al’s scary movie. And you might say the same things that I say above about almost any politician worldwide; if there is one characteristic of politicians it is insincerity. It’s just Big Al is an easy target.

1.       An Inconvenient Truth says that in the short term we can expect the sea level to rise about 20 feet if Greenland melts. In a statement from the joint science academies in 2005, they said that due to melting ice from the poles and sea water expansion from an increased ocean temperature the sea could rise between 0.1 and 0.9 metre (4 to 35 inches). The joint academies are The National Academy of Sciences in the US and The Royal Society in England and similar groups in France, Germany, Japan, Italy, Canada, Russia, India and Brazil.

2.       Gore says the Earth's atmosphere is relatively thin, and then declares, "The problem we now face is that this thin layer of atmosphere is being thickened by huge quantities of carbon dioxide."  Unfortunately for Al the thickness is not the issue. Carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas produced by fossil-fuel combustion and forest fires, has molecular bonds that vibrate on the same wavelengths at which infrared energy radiates upward from Earth's surface; the vibration warms the CO₂, trapping heat. The main atmospheric gas, nitrogen, does not absorb energy on those wavelengths. It is the chemistry of carbon dioxide, not its density, which matters.

3.       Gore takes the moral high ground in the movie stating that accumulating greenhouse gases is unethical. Of course you could also say last century’s consumption of oil, gas and coal raised living standards in many parts of the world.

4.       He says you can see aerosol concentrations in ice core samples from Antarctic change over a two year period due to the US Clean Air Act. False

5.       He projects the temperature for 2100 at 10°C higher than at present due to Antarctic changes between glacial and interglacial temperatures. (Differences between the ice ages and warmer periods between ice ages). Most scientists don’t accept this.

With his movie, Al is almost claiming he invented the Environment. And you have to remember that when Al was Vice President, what did he and Bill Clinton do about the environment? Sure Clinton signed the Kyoto Protocol in 1998 and George W. Bush cancelled it when he became president.  So let’s just look at what happened rather than relying on a report in the New York Times or some other newspaper (because the media and journalists have agendas just like politician’s do).

Bill signed the protocol but did not submit it to the US Senate for ratification (by two thirds majority) which he should have done under the US Constitution. And it would not sign because the Protocol could not guarantee that it would not harm the U.S. economy and that it require meaningful participation by developing countries (China and India). 

When President Bush headed off to face environmental critics in Europe in 2001, he fired a parting shot at the global warming treaty he rejected. He called the Kyoto Protocol unrealistic, costly and "fatally flawed." In that assessment, he had some unexpected supporters –the Clinton administration experts.  Economists from the Clinton White House now concede that complying with Kyoto's mandatory reductions in greenhouse gases would be difficult — and more expensive to American consumers than they thought when they were in charge.  That reassessment helped fuel Bush's decision to reject the Kyoto treaty, said Lawrence Lindsey, the president's economic adviser. –USA Today   06/11/2001.

At the time, the Clinton White House estimated that the cost of reaching the Kyoto target was relatively low - about $US7 billion to $US12 billion a year starting in 2008. An average household's energy bills would go up $US70-$110 a year and gasoline prices would go up 6 cents a gallon. The US Department of Energy said they would go up 66 cents a gallon but hey, what would they know. Clinton announced that from 2008 the US would reduce CO2 levels to 1990 levels.

To keep his cost estimates down, President Clinton envisioned an emissions-trading system in which countries unable to meet the greenhouse-gas reduction targets would get credits for helping other nations exceed the standards. The idea was that when all the treaty's members averaged out their emissions, the world's total output would meet a global target. He also assumed that China and India would participate in the emissions-trading scheme even though they had not signed the Kyoto Protocol.

So why did Clinton sign the Protocol? With Bill Clinton, reality was perceived. If it seems like you are doing the right thing even though you know it will not get passed by the US Senate, go ahead and do it anyhow. It makes you feel good and others feel good about you. Clinton was a vain man (particularly around women, although not Hilary) and he would not be President when it had to start working.  In 1997 the Senate voted 95-0 against even considering the treaty and warned President Clinton not to even send it up to them, saying the United States shouldn't sign anything that would, quote, 'result in serious harm to the economy of the United States.'

And Big Al was the environmental extremist who helped with these negotiations. He did not negotiate what President Clinton announced but 7% less than the 1990 levels. So he screwed the American people after Clinton had already screwed them. Of course both Clinton and Gore when on the campaign trail in 1992 promised to cut CO2 to 1990 levels by 2000. In 2000 the year Clinton left office CO2 levels increased by 3.1% and in 2002 under George W Bush CO2 levels where 2.5% below this.

I should also point out to those who say George W. Bush is in the pockets of the big oil companies, that these companies donated $US6 million to the Clinton/Gore campaign.

As they say, is talk is cheap.

 Al wrote an article in a Newsweek special edition dated December 2006-February 2007 called “The Energy Electranet”.  In this the geniuses that is Big Al suggests that we create an energy Intranet where rather than relying on central power generating plants. “Societies of the future will rely on small, diversified and renewable sources of energy, ranging from windmills and solar photovoltaic’s to second-generation ethanol and biodiesel production facilities“….   “Off-grid applications of renewable power sources can provide energy for the 3 billion people now stuck in poverty”.

So rather than relying on a number of bigger power generation facilities Al will have one at each house or every street corner. Gee that sounds reliable Al!

In the last newsletter I sent to you I mentioned that the only renewable resource that will provide reliable baseload power is hydro. So maybe seeing it rains so much in New Zealand we should put mini power generators in the storm water pipes.