An Inconvenient Truth

Demonstrating the insular liberal world of New York public television, PBS late-night talk show host Charlie Rose hosted an interview for Al Gore in front of a very supportive draft-Gore-for-president audience at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan and then made it his Friday night national television broadcast. He asked Gore if the election was stolen in Florida, if Gore would consider running in 2008 now that he's speaking his mind freely without consultants, and how the network news elite has played a part in "The Assault on Reason."

The whole thing had the air of Bravo's Inside the Actors Studio, with Charlie Rose playing James Lipton and a supportive audience bathing the guest in adulation. Rose began with an effusive tribute, reading purple prose about how right he is on the issues and how graciously accepted defeat in 2000 (apparently leaving out the six weeks of desperate pleading and lawyering?) from two liberal columnists from The Washington Post and a liberal venture capitalist:

Here’s an item the anthropogenic global warming alarmists in the media aren’t going to share with the citizenry: Colorado’s Pikes Peak is having its snowiest spring in at least ten years.

Doesn't really fit into a "The Planet is Facing Imminent Doom as a Result of Climate Change" agenda, does it?

Regardless, the Colorado Springs Gazette reported Thursday (emphasis added throughout):

Last May, Teresa Taylor was watching climbers pad up to the summit of Pikes Peak in shorts and sneakers. This year, she’s warning everyone that beyond Barr Camp, you’d better be dressed for the worst.

How delicious. The article frigidly continued:

This is way too funny, folks, and requires all potables, combustibles, and sharp objects to be properly stowed.

There was a meeting of Al Gore sycophants in Marin, California, on Wednesday. And, rather than liberal, Northern California attendees coming on environmentally-friendly bicycles, by horseback, or in hybrid vehicles, the parking lot at the Marin Civic Center was filled with gas-guzzling SUVs, trucks, and minivans.

Was this just another example of the party to the left living the “Do as I Say, Not as I Do” good life?

Well, judge for yourself based on the following pictures courtesy of zombietime (h/t LGF):

Last week, NewsBusters readers were introduced to Portland, Maine’s fabulous fifteen-year-old, Kristen Byrnes, whose website “Ponder the Maunder” marvelously takes on anthropogenic global warming myths including those being advanced by soon-to-be-Dr. Al Gore.

As will be revealed post haste, this newest – and likely youngest – member of the growing list of folks skeptical about man’s role in climate change actually walks the walk better than she talks the talk.

Yet, despite her youth and precocious scientific acumen, it seems quite unlikely that she’ll be sitting down with Matt Lauer or Diane Sawyer any time soon to discuss her research concerning one of the most popular subjects on the media’s front-burner. Why?

Because a prediction that she made last month concerning Australia's drought has marvelously borne fruit making the scientists employed by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change look a bit foolish.

To set this up, here’s what the IPCC Summary for Policymakers report released on April 7 predicted regarding Australia (emphasis added):

The British showed it in March. The Swedes in April. Now, the Aussies are going to air it.

When will American television?

In this case, “it” refers to the British documentary “The Great Global Warming Swindle” (video available here) which presents the other side of the climate change debate the media and folks like soon-to-be-Dr. Al Gore don’t want you to hear.

As reported by News.com.au (emphasis added throughout):

The international press is currently enthralled with the Cannes Film Festival, and the usual celebrity suspects who push the agenda of the Left at such events. Bradley Jacobs, an editor for "Us Weekly," appeared on Monday's "American Morning" and reported on two such celebrities and their current projects - Leonardo DiCaprio and Michael Moore. Jacobs was particularly enthusiastic about Moore and his last two film projects, and gushed, "I was a big fan and proponent of ‘Fahrenheit 9/11,' and I have to say that I thought ‘Sicko' was even better."

Jacobs, who was reporting live from Cannes, even went so far to make a personal appeal of sorts for "Sicko," the latest film from Moore.

Video (0:59): Real (1.61 MB) or Windows (1.83 MB), plus MP3 (870 kB).

As Al Gore and his band of not so merry global warming alarmists in buses and in the press try to convince Americans that they need to alter behaviors in order to save the planet, an inconvenient truth is being cynically withheld: this is going to cost a lot of money.

Of course, one of the delicious hypocrisies is that these are the same people who decry the current economic boom as only helping the rich, and state regularly and fervently that the poor and middle-class are being left behind.

At the same time, such mid- to lower-level wage earners should be saddled with exorbitant additional expenses to shelter them from a wolf that might never come knocking at their doors.

Makes sense, right?

With that in mind, the Chicago Tribune’s Laurie Goering wrote a fabulous piece recently exposing some of the potential costs of this exercise that most media don’t want you to know (emphasis added throughout, h/t Benny Peiser):

Have you noticed that most of the articles you see that are skeptical about man’s role in climate change come from foreign publications based in countries like Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada?

Why do you think that is?

Are the American press too emotionally attached to the issue -- and, in particular, the chief spokesman, soon-to-be-Dr. Al Gore -- to even consider the possibility that the debate isn't over, and that their role as journalists is supposed to be to further discussion rather than squelch it?

While you ponder, an editor for Australia’s The Age, Melanie Griffin, published an absolutely delicious article Sunday slamming the upcoming "Live Earth" concerts about to be thrown in the name of global warming alarmism (emphasis added throughout):

Here’s something that is almost a metaphysical certitude: no major American newspaper, in the midst of all the current global warming hysteria, would dare do a front-page feature article questioning the merits of Al Gore’s schlockumentary “An Inconvenient Truth.”

Yet, there it was Saturday, covering almost two-thirds of the front page of Canada’s National Post, right smack in the middle, with a big picture of the Global Warmingist-in-Chief, surrounded by the shocking headline:

Even Climate Change Experts Say Many of the Claims in Al Gore’s Film Are Wrong. 

So How Did it Become Required Classroom Viewing?

Think you’ll see that some day on the front page of the New York Times, Washington Post, or USA Today?

While you ponder, the article was just as skeptical (emphasis added throughout):

Honestly, the arrogance of some Hollywood liberals knows no bounds. As they live in their million dollar mansions, and jet-set around the world in a manner that 99.99 percent of the population can’t fathom, these folks have the gall to tell others how they should alter their lives for the benefit of the planet.

The most recent example is Leonardo DiCaprio, the 32-year-old actor that has absolutely no formal training in geology, climatology, meteorology, or anything in any way related to complex earth sciences.

In fact, in the picture to the right, DiCaprio could easily be answering a question about just how much education he has in these or related subjects, as according to Wikipedia, Leo never attended college.

Yet, he has the unmitigated audacity to claim in his new film that if we don’t listen to him and other scientifically uneducated folks like soon-to-be-Dr. Al Gore, we’re all going to die.

As reported by The London Paper (emphasis added throughout):

There was a summit between Russia’s Vladimir Putin and the leaders of the European Union on Friday that yielded as little results as it did attention from America’s media.

One of the issues on the table was whether Russia is going to provide more energy resources to EU nations starved for such.

Didn’t hear about this?

Well, that’s not surprising, for in the midst of the media’s ongoing attempts to create global warming hysteria while pushing the U.S. to participate in the Kyoto Protocol, our press have little interest in reporting how energy politics across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans are threatening economies around the globe.

Contrary to most American media that ignored this dicey subject, the BBC covered the following Associated Press article Friday (emphasis added):

Better strap yourself in for a dose of alternate reality, for a rock legend has actually come out against Al Gore’s upcoming concerts to promote global warming hysteria.

Can’t be, you say?

Well, Britain’s The Sun reported Saturday (h/t Glenn Reynolds):

THE WHO's ROGER DALTRY [sic] has blasted the big Wembley gig Gore is organising to raise awareness of global warming.

Shocked? There’s much more, although readers should be cautioned about imminent vulgarity in the quotes (emphasis added throughout):

Here’s a disturbingly inconvenient truth: Students at Roger Williams University in Briston, Rhode Island, were forced to watch Al Gore’s global warming schlockumentary if they wished to graduate.

Think I’m kidding?

As reported by Young America’s Foundation (h/t NBer Dahlia Travers. Also, please watch the following video of Fox News’ Neil Cavuto interviewing one of these students on the May 9 “Your World”):

The air continues to seep out of the global warming consensus balloon, ladies and gentlemen.

Meet Augie Auer, the former University of Wyoming professor of atmospheric science turned New Zealand meteorologist who isn’t buying what soon-to-be-Dr. Al Gore and his band of not so merry global warming alarmists are selling.

As reported by the New Zealand Timaru Herald (emphasis added throughout):

Here is a story that should make every parent proud, even those on the left side of the aisle.

A high school student up in Portland, Maine, created a website for extra credit in her Honors Earth Sciences class. Called “Ponder the Maunder,” fifteen-year-old Kristen Byrnes took on the subject of global warming, and was eventually asked to examine the veracity of Al Gore's schlockumentary “An Inconvenient Truth.”

In her piece, Byrnes quickly demonstrated what few in the media, especially Gore sycophants Laurie David, Sheryl Crow, and Leonardo DiCaprio, were able to grasp about this farcical film (emphasis added throughout):

A few weeks ago, NewsBusters reported on the environmental think tank that believes having too many children is bad for the planet.

Comedian Jimmy Kimmel must have gotten wind of this daffy position, for his crew (time unknown) created a wonderful parody of Al Gore’s schlockumentary wherein the former vice president ties the global warming problem to various behaviors by children.

Entitled “An Inconvenient Youth,” this brief segment is guaranteed to even get a chuckle out of Gore sycophants like Laurie David and Sheryl Crow.

However, the reader is cautioned that this is a bit raw, and possibly offensive though well-intentioned (video available here, grateful h/t to NBer Hero Squad).

Do you hear that hissing sound? That’s the balloon that soon-to-be-Dr. Al Gore and his band of not so merry alarmists have floated concerning a scientific consensus on man’s role in global warming losing air.

As the media continue to pound the table about the debate being over, another state climatologist has come out of the closet so to speak to voice his views about all things climate change.

As reported by the Columbus, Mississippi, Commercial Dispatch Wednesday (emphasis added throughout, h/t NBer dscott):

Did you happen to see the reports last week predicting that summer temperatures in the southeastern part of the country could reach 110 degrees by the year 2080?

Well, according to a study just released by the Roger Pielke, Sr. Research Group, the media took “an otherwise interesting and informative research article” published in the Journal of Climate and translated it “into an almost hysterical claim of future weather.”

For those that missed it, here is an example of the hysteria as published by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Wednesday in a piece marvelously titled “Ready for 110 Degrees? NASA Warns Climate Change Could Cook Atlantans” (emphasis added):

Those who have been following the manmade global warming debate are well aware that every time the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issues another dire pronouncement, the media report the bad news every hour on the hour.

However, what if a new scientific study concluded that the IPCC cherry-picked data concerning CO2 levels in the past in order to make it look like today’s levels are out of the ordinary. Would the media report that?

Well, an article written by scientists Dr. Tim Ball and Tom Harris of the Natural Resources Stewardship Project was published on Monday making exact this claim (emphasis added throughout):

When President Bush receives protests as he travels abroad, it’s front-page headline news. Yet, when former Vice President Al Gore is so protested, the media couldn’t care less.

Although the Associated Press did report Gore’s visit to Buenos Aires, Argentina, to speak at a biofuels conference Friday, virtually no American media outlet picked up the story:

As Gore spoke, outside the hotel demonstrators on bicycles and wearing surgical masks chanted slogans against multinational agribusinesses, saying the biofuel boom will cause deforestation and turn arable land into deserts.

Sadly, there wasn't a lot of details in this piece about the actual protests. Thankfully, I received the following La Nacion article by e-mail yesterday with a translation that offered a lot more insights into the matter:

This one is really too funny, folks, and definitely requires all potables, combustibles, and sharp objects be properly stowed (grateful and humorous h/t to NBer dscott).

Despite all the carping and whining by folks like soon-to-be-Dr. Al Gore and his not so merry band of sycophant devotees about global warming killing polar bears, there is actually a baby boom occurring in this species in Canada’s eastern Arctic.

As marvelously reported May 3 by the Christian Science Monitor (emphasis added throughout):

As NewsBusters reported here and here, CNN’s Headline News last Wednesday broadcast a special on global warming hosted by Glenn Beck.

In it, Beck exposed multiple mistakes in soon-to-be-Dr. Al Gore's schlockumentary "An Inconvenient Truth," as well as identified many of the fallacies and misnomers surrounding the Kyoto Protocol.

For those that missed it, “Exposed: The Climate of Fear” is now up at YouTube.

The links in six parts are (h/t NB member dscott):

Global warming derangement syndrome has taken a disturbing turn for the worse, as The Sunday Times published an article May 6 stating that parents should only have two children in order to avert climate change.

I kid you not.

The piece, despicably titled “Having Large Families ‘is an Eco-crime,'” unbelievably began:

HAVING large families should be frowned upon as an environmental misdemeanour in the same way as frequent long-haul flights, driving a big car and failing to reuse plastic bags, says a report to be published today by a green think tank.

Amazed? That was only the beginning (emphasis added throughout):

If you missed it last night, Glenn Beck’s skeptical program about anthropogenic global warming, “Exposed: The Climate of Fear,” aired on CNN Headline News.

In it, Beck skewered many of the misnomers advanced by global warming alarmists, especially soon-to-be-Dr. Al Gore (full transcript available here).

Video (3:05): Real (2.28 MB) or Windows (1.90 MB), plus MP3 (2.83 MB).

One particularly delicious segment occurred early in the program as Beck presented the facts about the Kyoto Protocol that few on the left care to recall, especially former Vice President Gore:

The May 1 Variety reported that Warner Independent Pictures has snapped up the domestic distribution rights to Leonardo DiCaprio’s "documentary" "11th Hour," with Warner Brothers Pictures International scooping the overseas rights. The supposed documentary is produced and narrated by the former teen idol turned environmental activist, and based on what he said at a Natural Resources Defense Gala that I blogged about here at Newsbusters, the “message won’t be diluted by our having to yell over oil-company-funded ‘scientists’ .” It will be another so-called “documentary” disguised as propaganda (docuganda) like “An Inconvenient Truth” that is portrayed as legitimate evidence of anthropogenic global warming. Who needs to waste time endlessly debating AGW, when a slickly packaged promotional movie can change more minds? Variety describes the film:

Docu (sic) explores what it will take for humans to make a difference ecologically before it is too late. A variety of leading scientists, thinkers and leaders are interviewed in the film, including Stephen Hawking, former CIA topper James Woolsey and former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev.

While scientists in Great Britain try to get the documentary “The Great Global Warming Swindle” edited to fit their agenda as reported by NewsBusters, Swedish television will air the unedited program Friday.

As NewsBusters reported about this documentary when it was first broadcast in England last month ("Swindle" video available here, emphasis added):

With American media falling all over themselves in unbridled adoration for soon-to-be-Dr. Al Gore while they generate totally unwarranted hysteria over climate change, it seems impossible to imagine a televised documentary debunking the junk science surrounding this issue.

This raises an obvious question:

This is really hysterical: a group of scientists has sent a letter to the producer of the British documentary “The Great Global Warming Swindle” (video available here) demanding that changes be made to the film before the DVD version is released.

Yet, despite the egregious errors and factual misstatements made by soon-to-be-Dr. Al Gore in his schlockumentary “An Inconvenient Truth,” no such call occurred when it was released on DVD.

Why the double standard?

Regardless of the obvious hypocrisy, the Associated Press reported (h/t NB member Sick-n-Tired, emphasis added throughout):

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Soon-to-be-Dr. Al Gore is training people to give his global warming slide presentation at places like “schools, Rotary clubs and nursing homes” around the country.

I kid you not.

As reported by USA Today (emphasis added throughout):

Meet, no, not Al Gore, but Gary Dunham, 71, a grandfather from Texas who was the first of 1,000 Americans Gore trained to deliver his Oscar-winning An Inconvenient Truth slide show to schools, Rotary clubs and nursing homes around the nation.

Scared yet? Well, brace yourselves, for it’s much worse than you can imagine:

A few weeks ago as the world awaited the release of the most recent report from the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, some well-known scientists were quoted as saying that the media’s sensationalistic coverage of the issue was interfering with a reasoned discussion on the topic.

Their thinking was that the more the press and Hollywoodans suggest that the problem is so dire that the world is coming to an end, the more likely the public will develop a sense of futility about the issue, and just begin to ignore it.

A fine example of exactly what these scientists were talking about was published in the most recent issue of New York magazine (h/t radio host Mike Church). In fact, Kurt Andersen’s article sounded such hyperbolic alarm that he had the gall to suggest that “fat, spoiled, 21st-century Americans” only have a 50-50 chance of possessing the “requisite gumption and discipline” to solve the problem (emphasis added throughout, apologies in advance for Andersen’s vulgarity):