Not too long ago, Al Gore initially agreed to, and then refused to sit for a joint-interview/debate with noted environmental scientist (and global warming skeptic) Bjorn Lomborg. He also made some statements to the effect that the press should report on the issue of global warming without publishing dissenting views.
He’s all about free speech and free exchange of ideas, is our Al.
I’m wondering if Al Gore - who lately has endured a woman falling upon her knees before him, begging him to make another White House run (oh, please, do that, sir, right after we impeach Bush), and who clearly seems, despite his Hillaryesque denials, to have such a run in mind - would be amenable to a public debate with this 15 year old high school student who is impressively and credibly debunking Gore’s entire “Inconvenient Truth” by using actual science - imagine that!
According to the step-father who is wisely watching her back:
Kristen is one of those kids that never cease to amaze. During the 4 months she wrote this paper, she maintained a grade point average of 4.0 while participating on her school’s track and field team. Her most recent batch of progress reports average 98.4% with 100% in 4 classes. All of her classes are honors or college prep…If you disagree or feel there is incompleteness in any section, please identify the section with your comments. Please source your information. If you source a scientific study, you will need to attach it with any peer reviews and rebuttals that were published. She has stated that she will consider comments and make adjustments to her essay where appropriate.
Somehow I doubt that Gore-adoree Girls like Katie Couric or Joy Behar or Oprah Winfrey would deign to interview this student or feature her impressive work, which includes many graphs and some experimentation, or that Matt Lauer or Larry King will be seeking out her dissent, and that’s a shame, but you should check it out and encourage others to do so, as well.
Aside from the scientific information Byrnes lays out, she takes “An Inconvenient Truth” apart, almost scene-by-scene, concurring with what she believes Gore got right, and convincingly taking a baseball bat to what she thinks he gets wrong.
An excerpt:
Farther into the movie, Al explains the greenhouse gas effect. He presents a graphic that shows the sun’s rays heating the Earth’s surface resulting in infrared rays going from the Earth’s surface and back into space. His graphic suggests that some of the outgoing radiation is reflected from the top of the atmosphere and back to Earth. This idea is the basis of anthropogenic (man made) global warming theory. He fails to mention that this effect has never been measured, only calculated, and by scientists on one side of the debate. This is one of the most hotly debated issues in the global warming debate. Not only does this issue involve complicated theoretical quantum physics, but water vapor absorbs infrared radiation. As is often the case in global warming presentations, he forgets that water vapor is by far the most abundant greenhouse gas; 3 to 4 percent of the atmosphere. And this is important because at most, man-made greenhouse gases are 1/ 10,000 of Earth’s atmosphere.
With his description of greenhouse gases he presented a cartoon clip of the innocent sunrays being beaten up by the Greenhouse Gasses. But is water vapor really a bad thing?
Al also discusses the late Charles Keeling, a scientist who measured atmospheric carbon dioxide for many years. Al accurately describes how the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere rises and falls with the seasons and why. He shows how Dr. Keeling measured a steady rise in carbon dioxide as the years went by, a trend often called the Keeling Curve. While some people still dispute the levels of man-made carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, I do not. For many years, carbon dioxide has been measured in many places and by many means; the results are almost identical in almost every instance.
http://gaw.kishou.go.jp/wdcgg/PlotData.php
Next, Al gets right to business showing some of the worlds receding glaciers. According to the national Snow and Ice Data Center, most glaciers around the world are receding. But when you look at scientific studies on individual glaciers you begin to understand that temperature is not always the cause and that all of the glaciers that Al mentions have been retreating for over 100 years.
She concludes:
It’s easy to see why Al gore’s movie should not be shown in schools. An Inconvenient Truth is a political commercial that misrepresents a whole area of science. He admittedly uses scare tactics to get people to listen then shows them a professional slide show that blames every thing bad on so called man made global warming.
Al did not make and publicize this movie because he cares; something obvious when you consider his own lifestyle. He did not make this movie to run for president. This movie has grossed over 60 million dollars to date and it hasn’t even made it to cable. Al charges over $100,000 per slide show. But the real money that Al will make is through his new company, Generation Investment Management, a company that seeks to establish the rules and licensing for the new carbon-trading scheme. We have all heard of politicians who lie for money and power; it looks as if Al did not retire after all.
Well, sir, if you wouldn’t debate Lomborg, will you debate Byrnes?
May 25th, 2007 at 1:51 pm
[...] Will Gore debate Kristen Byrnes on Global Warming? [...]
May 25th, 2007 at 2:35 pm
Here In My Car, I Feel Safest Of All…
Last summer, Jonah Goldberg wrote:The No. 1 movie in America today is a fun, family-friendly romp of a cartoon about sending Jews to the gas chamber. Just kidding. Its actually the movie Cars by Pixar. But according to some people,……
May 25th, 2007 at 2:45 pm
Oh, the poor dear. She really needs someone with HTML and graphics expertise to clean up the presentation. It’s all good work, but it looks so bad…
May 25th, 2007 at 6:08 pm
“We have all heard of politicians who lie for money and power; it looks as if Al did not retire after all.”
Well, if she said that about me, I certainly wouldn’t debate her. The last thing I want to do is debate someone who publicly calls me a money corrupted liar before I even get into the room. Like G.K. Chesterton, I read old books of logic and there such debating tactics are called argumentem ad homenium, and rightly discouraged. And a few postings back I quoted an equally gratuitously vituperative comment of yours about Al.
Has it ever occured to Ms. Byrne that the people in public life that she disagrees with might genuinely hold some of their beliefs for no reason other than that they think them true? Is the mere fact that she does not think them true a licence for such flyting I have quoted above?
And I would ask Ms. Byrne exactly whose views are so “objective” as to meet her fastidious standards of “what should be shown in schools”. When I can read or view the work of her list of “scientific authorities” who should be permitted to speak, I will know much better whether I should take her views of the dangers of Al Gore to education seriously.
I, for one, am old and hoary enough to remember when education was a “marketplace of ideas” where all views were welcome if they were subject to critical scrutiny from other points of view. Critical scrutiny, moreover, of the content of the view, and not the imputed motives of the person who holds it.
May 25th, 2007 at 6:12 pm
Well, considering I don’t know a single adult who always gets it all right, in terms of comportment and manners, and that includes me…and even you, Joseph, although you are more mannerly than most…I think we can excuse a 15 year old from not getting it just right, don’t you? As to the rest of it…been in a classroom, lately? Free exchange of ideas…hmmm what a concept.
May 26th, 2007 at 12:44 pm
“Another laughable scare tactic”…
He named a noxious weed after a German botanist he disliked [Siegesbeckia orientalis, after Johann Siegesbeck, who had called his work loathesome harlotry] and the entire toad family after a French rival — names we still use today, writes Robert…
May 26th, 2007 at 4:45 pm
No, I haven’t been in a classroom. And you flatter me with the complement on my civility. My own political frustration and it’s consequent souring of my temper was a major reason why I stopped blogging a year ago. As to Global Warming, I think the issue is essentially moot.
Let’s assume, notionally, that the warming data is “natural”, though the key issue is not the fact of warming but the staggering speed of recent changes, which, by all accounts, is unprecedented and one of the key reasons for suspecting it is not “natural” but due to human activity. Even if we make this assumption, the implications are still clear. All such periods of warming or cooling have had direct and disturbing consequences for human civilization. So if a faster rate of change, “natural” or not, is combined with the typical time such changes last, this implies the greatest such disruption in human history. Who is preparing to meet it?
The frank fact is that the open agenda behind calling Global Warming “natural” is the notion that we need to do absolutely nothing to prepare to meet it. This issue is part and parcel of a larger agenda of doing absolutely nothing to respond to a whole host of human problems which are also increasing at a staggering rate, including, by the way, the emergence of a dynamic and violent strain of Islamic fundamentalism, for all the hot air [a major greenhouse gas] being constantly released about a “war on terror”.
So far, even with the clear demonstration in the last election that this point of view is a minority one, the prevention of the United States government from seriously addressing any of these problems has been a resounding success. Why? Because, in a democracy, real change requires major and overwhelming public consensus. A large enough minority, shouting “No!” is all that is really needed to prevent such a consensus from forming.
I personally do not think such a consensus will form until the most devastating impact of the climate change on ordinary American life has already transpired. It is moving far too fast and thirty percent of the public shouting “No!” is more than enough to prevent responding to it. Frankly, this is why personal invective such as Ms. Byrne’s is not a “mistake” in the least. It is rather, a highly effective political tactic in the bloody internecine war the United States decended into after the election of 1964. She has learned well and the virtual world we are writing in has no shortage of teachers for her.
This is why I think the issue is moot. Individually, there are a few human beings who can learn without having to make mistakes to do so. Collectively, humanity learns only by making the most major of mistakes and continuing to make them right up to the edge of unrecoverable disaster.
Global Warming will not be fixed until the oil runs out, nor will violent Islamic fundamentalism, or most of the other problems, for that matter. And by the time the oil runs out all the damage done by all of them will have run its course.
Coming to this conclusion led me to see that my own anger was essentially profitless and misplaced and my own invective bad for my long term future. So, really, all I can say to Ms. Byrne is: enjoy the world you are helping to make. For you have already learned well how best to influence it.
But she might consider that I have no monetary interest in these issues to corrupt me, I say what I think because I think it true, and I think I was very wise not to have fathered any children to live in the same future that she will live in.
May 28th, 2007 at 5:08 pm
[...] H/T to The Anchoress. [...]
May 29th, 2007 at 7:06 am
From the Mouths of Babes: Climate Analysis That Ac…
The lack of attention to water vapor and clouds as massive sources of uncertainty in climate models is a glaring omission in most coverage of global climate. We hear much about CO2 (because it enables an elaborate and wholly synthetic sin-guilt dynam…..
June 11th, 2007 at 7:46 am
Global Warming And The Disappearing Cameltoe…
Camels and Cameltoes are in danger and the media decided to turn its back to the cameltoe crisis.
One of the obvious results of global warming is elevated temperatures and hotter summers.
The African Sahara being already one of the driest and hottest …
June 17th, 2007 at 12:47 pm
[...] her Web site, “Ponder the Maunder.” One blogger, The Anchoress, is pushing for Gore to debate Byrnes on global warming. Should this debate ever occur, The Stiletto hopes someone films it so [...]
October 4th, 2007 at 4:03 pm
[...] Hmmm…prescient! Maybe I should start listening to him and his friends about “manmade” global warming? [...]
November 20th, 2007 at 6:27 am
Excellent post about the nature of consensus. I think that many bloggers not only have not a clue about how science works — they don’t seem to even have a clue that they don’t have a clue. And that’s bad . . .
You can see more about this here, “Will the Debate on Global Warming Ever be Over”