Mr. Gore is at it again… in an interview he says (emphasis mine):
I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous it is, as a predicate for opening up the audience to listen to what the solutions are, and how hopeful it is that we are going to solve this crisis.
This can be taken one of two ways, I think… either that he is over representing his facts (which is probably true) or that he feels like the presentations themselves should be over-represented meaning, I suppose, that there should be a lot of presentations. The Global Warming debate has suffered from too many on Gore’s side who have been lying and exaggerating the data for too long. I would not be surprised if this was the case here as well. (Not to mention how much greenhouse gas this man has emitted to fly around the globe giving a powerpoint presentation… but his own hypocrisy aside….)
One of the most frustrating things for an intelligent and critical reader is in the publications that support the theory that human activity has a tremendous impact on the climate. I’ve taken enough statistics to know that we don’t have a large enough sample size to make that determination with any degree of certainty. Nevertheless, here’s a quote from just such an article:
The report explicitly asks whether the IPCC assessment is a fair summary of professional scientific thinking, and answers yes: “The IPCC’s conclusion that most of the observed warming of the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations accurately reflects the current thinking of the scientific community on this issue”
So let’s look at the number of layers of abstraction heaped on that “finding”… first, we have the “most of the observed warming” caveat… then “of the last 50 years” which is such a statistically small time-frame given the age of the earth as to be ridiculous, that’s not even enough for the planet to have correct the problem (if it is capable of doing so). Then… “is likely to have been”… not “was” but “maybe was”. Then we’re talking about the “current thinking” of the scientific community. I realize that this form of “thinking” bears more weight than the normal kind that you or I do, but it’s telling that they don’t use stronger words.
…and that’s globally, which includes the tremendous output of developing nations. Law of diminishing returns suggests that the more we try to cut emissions, the greater each incremental step is going to cost. Maybe we should start where we have the most to gain?
Oh well. What do you expect?
