2007-03-21 21:12:55 -
DALLAS, March 21 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- While former Vice President Al Gore did his best to limit his exposure to serious critiques in today's Congressional hearings, a scholar with the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) says "he cannot hide from the various mistakes, misstatements and outright falsehoods in his movie and books on global warming."
"The inconvenient truth for Gore is that there is significant evidence that human activity is not the driving force behind climate change," said NCPA Senior Fellow H. Sterling Burnett. "Conversely, the policy prescriptions Gore promotes
are likely to do considerable harm to the economy while having little impact on the climate."
According to Burnett, there are several instances where Gore is out-of- step with science. For example:
-- Various scientists report the earth has gone through a number of
warming and cooling periods that were entirely natural, and that solar
activity is most likely the driving force behind global warming. Over
the past 500,000 years, warming has consistently preceded increases in
greenhouse gases by hundreds and even thousands of years, and at other
times, the earth's temperature has declined for millennia while
greenhouse gases continued to rise.
-- In his movie "An Inconvenient Truth," Gore implies that human-caused
global warming is instigating a decline in the snow pack on Mount
Kilimanjaro. However, according to studies in the International Journal
of Climatology and the Journal of Geophysical Research, the retreat
began in the late 19th century -- before most human greenhouse gases
were emitted. It is largely due to the decline in precipitation
(snowfall) on the mountain, as a result of the clearing and burning of
the rainforests at its base for agriculture.
-- The movie also implies that human-caused global warming poses a threat
of extinction to polar bears. Yet polar bear populations have thrived
in warm periods in the past and current polar bear numbers have
increased dramatically, from around 5,000 polar bears in the mid-
century to between 22,000 and 25,000 today. Most polar bear populations
are either stable or increasing.
-- Gore has implied that in the near future global warming threatens to
melt the glaciers of Greenland and the Antarctic Ice Cap raising sea
levels between 20 and 40 feet, swamping coastlines and creating 200
million refugees. However, the 2007 IPCC report provides a high
estimate of only 17 inches of sea level rise in the next century --
less than half its previous high estimate. And a 2005 study in the
Journal of Glaciology by a NASA scientist concludes the glacial loss is
occurring slowly: 0.05 millimeters on average per year. At that rate,
it will take a millennium for the oceans to rise 5 centimeters (roughly
2 inches) and 20,000 years to rise a full meter.
"A simple search of the hundreds of peer reviewed articles addressing climate issues belies his claim of a scientific consensus," said Burnett. "Almost every day a new report comes out citing scientists raising concerns about Gore's overstatements, radical exaggeration of the evidence and politicization of climate science."
The NCPA is an internationally known nonprofit, nonpartisan research institute with offices in Dallas and Washington, D.C. that advocates private solutions to public policy problems. We depend on the contributions of individuals, corporations and foundations that share our mission. The NCPA accepts no government grants.
Source: National Center for Policy Analysis
