When Al Gore was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on October 12, 2007 for his promotion of his new religion of man-made Global Warming, I was reminded of the time when Milli Vanilli was awarded the Grammy for Best New Artist back in 1990. For those of you who don’t remember Milli Vanilli, they were a group who had five insipid songs that were popular back in 1989-1990, and, as it was later revealed, were fronted by two male models from Germany who couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket and so had to lip synch to the songs actually being performed in the background by others. Of course, we didn’t know that they were frauds back in 1990, we just knew that the music was terrible. My disappointment when they won the Grammy award was only offset later when it was revealed that they were just pretty faces and that the bad music was someone else’s fault and that they had to return the award. Well! There appeared to be some justice in the universe after all.
But now Al Gore is the pretty face that has hijacked the work of a bunch of homely scientists who worked behind the scenes on the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC.) Worse, he’s not only stolen the credit for their work, he’s also distorted the results of their studies to the point of being unrecognizable, causing many of those same scientists to request that their names be removed from the report.
Nearly every single point that Al “Milli Vanilli” Gore makes in his book and movie is contradicted by the science in the report made by the IPCC (NOT in the Summary for Policy Makers, which was written by politicians and NOT the scientists):
1. CO2 is that dirty smoke pouring out of chimneys? Nope – CO2 is an invisible gas that is at worst plant food.
2. Global warming is causing the glaciers to recede? Nope – a drop in ambient moisture is causing some glaciers to recede in the Northern Hemisphere.
3. Global warming will cause drinking water to be in short supply for 40% of the world? Nope – in most of the world, drinking water comes from melting snow and the annual average snowfall has been increasing.
4. Our summer temperatures are higher now than ever before in the history of the world? Nope – our summers are not as warm as they were during the medieval times.
5. An increase of CO2 in our atmosphere is causing the atmosphere to trap more heat? Nope – the relation is the opposite – the increase in global temperatures is causing the oceans to release more CO2 into the atmosphere.
6. Global warming is causing more frequent and more violent hurricanes? Nope – as the average global temperature increases, decreasing the temperature differential between the arctic and the tropic, hurricanes will decrease in frequency and ferocity.
7. Global warming causes more frequent and more violent tornados? Nope – the same goes for tornados as goes for hurricanes. Besides which, the frequency of strong tornados has decreased since 1940.
8. Global warming has caused droughts in Africa and North America? Nope – local consumption of water from local lakes and over pumping of aquifers has, on a localized basis, caused some droughts.
9. Man-made Global Warming has caused the polar ice caps to melt? Nope – natural variations in the earth’s temperature cycle are variously causing the Artic to warm and then cool. Greenland, for example, is cooler today than during the Viking times when they settled there, grew crops, and named it “Greenland.”
10. Polar bears are drowning in significant numbers due to Global Warming? Nope – populations of polar bears are presently increasing, and they didn’t go extinct during the medieval warming period between the Ice Age and the Little Ice Age in the 1800’s.
11. Global warming is harming populations of birds and bugs? Nope – all populations of birds and bugs and crops and people are thriving in a slightly warmer environment.
12. Malaria is migrating north and increasing due to Global Warming? Nope – mosquitoes that carry malaria have no problem in the cold north, as evidenced by the malaria epidemics in Russia and Alaska during the 1800’s; malaria is presently increasing around the world due to the decrease in the application of effective pesticides like DDT.
13. The Antarctic ice shelf is melting? Nope – when studied as a whole, the ice shelf in Antarctica is increasing.
14. Global warming will cause the sea levels to rise 20 feet, wiping out all coastal areas? Nope – the IPCC predicts that the sea could rise a maximum of 4 inches, but probably something less, and that is due to shifting tectonic plates.
15. If the US would adopt the Kyoto Protocol, Global Warming could be averted? Nope – if the US Congress ratified the Kyoto treaty, signed by President Clinton in the late 90’s, world-wide emissions would only increase as the US shut down our power plants and factories and they moved to China, India, and Brazil, which are exempted from the Kyoto treaty, and which emit far worse gases than CO2 (NOx and Sox – the cause of acid rain.)
16. If the European Union can adopt the Kyoto Protocol, why can’t the US? Actually, since ratifying the Kyoto Treaty, the European Union’s emissions have only increased, and more dramatically than those in the US. They have only been able to “meet” their emissions targets by taking retroactive credit for Great Britain’s switch from old coal fired power plants BEFORE signing the treaty.
17. We can switch to non-emitting power sources economically? Nope – the lowest, pie-in-the-sky estimates for the cost of abandoning our clean coal fired power, which include the presumption of new inventions in the future, is $2,000,000,000,000 per year – 17% of our GDP.
And finally, why do these weathermen think they can predict the average Earth’s temperature to within 1° 100 years into the future, when they aren’t that accurate on this week’s predictions? Plus, if this 1° increase were so terrible, why are Americans migrating by the thousands from the Great White North down to the Sun Belts in Florida, California, Arizona, and St. George, Utah? Let’s see Al “Milli Vanilli” Gore tackle that one! The answer is, he can’t. And I’m looking forward to the day that he has to return his Nobel Peace Price in shame and slink off to be ridiculed in the history books.
