Many people are asking me about the recent ruling by a High Court Judge in the United Kingdom in relation to the screening of An Inconvenient Truth in all UK Schools. The Judge’s ruling was in response to a challenge brought by a Kent school governor to block the UK government’s plan to screen the documentary in more than 3,500 schools in England and Wales.
The Judge declined to ban the film, agreeing that Mr Gore’s film was “broadly accurate” in its presentation of the causes and likely effects of climate change. However the Judge did identify nine errors (dubbed the “Nine Inconvenient Untruths”) that were made in the film. These included:
- Claim that sea levels could rise by up to 20ft in the “near future”;
- Claim that the gulf stream would shut down;
- Claim that the drying of Lake Chad was due to climate change;
- Claim that Polar Bears are drowning due to reduced arctic ice;
- Claim that Pacific Atolls had been evacuated due to rising sea levels;
Despite finding these errors the judge said many of the claims made by the film were fully backed up by the weight of science. He identified “four main scientific hypotheses, each of which is very well supported by research published in respected, peer-reviewed journals and accords with the latest conclusions of the IPCC”.
In particular, he agreed with the main thrust of Mr Gore’s arguments: “That climate change is mainly attributable to man-made emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide (‘greenhouse gases’).”
The other three main points accepted by the judge were that global temperatures are rising and are likely to continue to rise, that climate change will cause serious damage if left unchecked, and that it is entirely possible for governments and individuals to reduce its impacts.
Al Gore in Palo Alto, Calif. talking about the Nobel Peace Prize he was awarded in conjunction with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Photo by Peter DaSilva for The New York Times