Day By Day© by Chris Muir.

June 07, 2006

Al Gore: A Knight in Shining Armor...

Chicken Little would be proud.

Al Gore...former senator, former vice president, president who-would-have-been, has been transformed into our savior...riding his white horse and brandishing his sword in hope of wiping out what has become his cause celebre: global warming.

While at the Cannes Film Festival for his, er, documentary "An Inconvenient Truth," he was treated like a real movie star, red carpet and all. Arianna Huffington has become Gore's unofficial publicist with glowing commentary like this.

He is also being hailed by the media and other like-minded folks about how brave he is for coming out against the evil corporate forces that be to spread his message of gloom, doom, and disappearing shorelines. Out of all the movie reviews I scanned, I only saw two negative ones, including this one by Kyle Smith at the New York Post. Roger Ebert practically wets his pants in urging us to see this important film, saying "there is no other view that can be defended." Al Gore is, in fact, the left's next poster boy for Truth.

But how hard is it to be brave when you know those who will be reporting on your cause are all on your side?

Meet William M. Gray. One of the country's most prominent hurricane researchers, he is one of many to come out and say that hurricane activity as a side effect of global warming (according to the film), is a load of bunk.

Like many hurricane forecasters, Gray rejects the theory that the recent uptick in storms is due to climate change. He points out that the U.S. had an unusually low number of storms from the 1970s to the end of the century and says the law of averages is simply catching up. But he goes further and dismisses the view — accepted as fact by most scientists — that recent warmer temperatures are caused by man-made greenhouse gases.

"It's one of the greatest hoaxes ever," Gray says of global warming, theorizing that it's an alarmist hypothesis made to snare research dollars. Gray believes that climbing temperatures are caused by cyclical warming in the oceans, and that the globe will cool down again in the next 10 to 15 years.

Right. We know the later dinosaurs lived during a very humid and tropical time on Earth. Were they to blame for it? Is that why they went extinct?

Robert Tracinski, writing for Real Clear Politics, wants to know how this affects Gore's status as soothsayer:

So if the splashy movie-poster claim of An Inconvenient Truth turns out to be dubious and hotly contested--very far from an established "truth"--where does that leave Al Gore's status as the brave truth-teller? A fawning New York Times profile on Gore admits that he avoids "making direct causal links that most scientists say are impossible to substantiate" but instead "uses imagery and implication" to make his case. That's about the most tasteful description of the methods of a flim-flam artist I have ever read.

Roger Pielke, another climatologist, is concerned about the lack of debate on the subject. From David Harsanyi's column in the Denver Post:

Pielke contends there isn't enough intellectual diversity in the debate. He claims a few vocal individuals are quoted "over and over" again, when in fact there are a variety of opinions.

"Quite frankly," says Pielke, who runs the Climate Science Weblog (climatesci.atmos.colostate.edu), "I think the media is in the ideal position to do that. If the media honestly presented the views out there, which they rarely do, things would change. There aren't just two sides here. There are a range of opinions on this issue. A lot of scientists out there that are very capable of presenting other views are not being heard."

Al Gore was in Bill Clinton's shadow in the 1990s. He failed to clinch the presidency in 2000. Global warming has become his ticket to fame, fortune and popularity (not to mention his fortune in Google stock).

Why would he let a little intellectual debate and honesty get in his way?