A Convenient Lie: A Brief Glimpse Into Al Gore's Picture Book Of Misanthrope

The hysteria surrounding global warming is gaining popularity by leaps and bounds due to Al Gore's recently published manual for tree-huggers called An Inconvenient Truth. Upon finishing this book, the truth was more than evident: global warming does not exist.

With Gore making such powerful statements like: "The atmosphere is thin enough that we are capable of changing its composition", "Also in 2004, the all-time record for tornadoes in the United States was broken", and "Almost 30% of the CO2 released into the atmosphere each year is a result of the burning of brushland for subsistence agriculture and wood fires used for cooking.", one would think that he would leave some kind of way to validate his ground-breaking claims. Not so: Gore's 325 page book has a grand total of 37 in-text citations. Thomas Sowell's book, Black Rednecks and White Liberals, has exactly 289 in-text citations within the first 63 pages alone; Gore's book has two. If global warming is such an eminent threat to the safety of all mankind and if it is as blatantly destructive as Gore says it is, why can't he - at least - provide a legitimate amount of references?

Beyond the book's weak credibility, An Inconvenient Truth relies heavily on appeals to authority: "What makes this kind of dishonesty intolerable is that there is so much at stake. On June 21, 2004 48 Nobel Prize-winning scientists accused President Bush and his administration of distorting science. By ignoring scientific consensus on critical issues such as global climate change, [President Bush and his administration] are threatening the Earth's future." Out of those 48 scientists' listed none were meteorologists, oceanographers, climatologists, or geologists. In fact; out of the 48 scientists that Gore names, none have any expertise involving the environment! Instead, Gore goes on to name his "authorities" as 12 chemists, 19 physicists, and for some unknown reason, 12 biomedical scientists. The "48 Nobel Prize-winning scientists" may seem like enough credibility; the only problem is that every one of his "authorities" are unqualified to make pronouncements about our atmosphere. Furthermore, 48 scientists (even if they are unqualified) is very small when it stands next to the 15,000 qualified scientists who signed a petition in 1997 against the signing of the Kyoto treaty because "There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate."

The holes in Gore's reasoning do not stop with his appeals to authority; Gore goes on to make absurd appeals to emotion. He accomplishes this by dedicating 12 pages of An Inconvenient Truth to the devastation of hurricane Katrina. The most memorable segment of those 12 pages was a photograph showing a dead child face down in a large puddle. Surely, if human productiveness caused global warming then it must have, in turn, caused the hurricane which resulted in the death of that young adolescent. Gore's use of that picture as a rhetorical tool not only says an infinite amount about his character, but also demonstrates that he cannot prove his case with the only things that matter: facts and evidence. Instead of providing proof, Gore must resort to using heart wrenching photographs in an attempt persuade the public that global warming does exist and does pose an immediate threat. It appears that Gore is willing to do whatever it takes, misleading or not, to push the deceitful agenda of global warming.

Gore is serious enough about global warming to classify the dangers of it next to terrorism: "Is it possible that we should prepare for other serious threats in addition to terrorism? Maybe it's time to focus on other dangers as well." The very act of Al Gore appealing to fear, emotion and authority is rationally invalid and confirms his inability to legitimately make his case for the existence of global warming. What side of the global warming debate you are on is irrelevant; Gore resorts to using rhetorical babble instead of facts to persuade the public of his message.

Considering Gore's poor documentation and his illogical appeals to authority and emotion, one might expect that whatever evidence he provides will be suspect. One would be correct. For one of the examples Gore attempts to "prove" the existence of global warming's impact with a pair of pictures taken of Mt. Kilimanjaro. What Gore points out is how that the level of snow has drastically decreased from the first picture - taken in 1970 - to that of the second picture, taken in 2000. This may seem rationally cohesive to some, but there is one segment of vital information that is missing here - literally - from this picture: the time of the year that each picture was taken. Gore fails to notify the reader of whether the pictures are both taken during the winter or if one is taken in the summer, or for that matter, some other season. If the second picture was taken in any other season besides winter, less snow would have to be expected.

The two independent photographs of Mt. Kilimanjaro are just one of the countless deceptive examples Gore uses throughout his book in an attempt to persuade the reader that "The climate crisis is indeed, extremely dangerous. In fact is it a true planetary emergency."

After hundreds of years of driving ourselves out of a primitive, muddy, dirt-filled existence, Gore wants to push us - face first - back into it. After endless generations of senselessly praying for rain, Gore wants to force us to get back onto our knees. After years of successful production and human progress, Gore wants us to trade in our mansions and skyscrapers for cob huts and tree forts. An Inconvenient Truth is an attempt to make man feel guilty for all of his past successes and to strip man of any future accomplishments by advocating legal restrictions on the usage of the environment as a means of production. People everywhere need to know that the truth isn't as inconvenient as Gore would like it to be.

(Thanks: GVH & Victoria)