How accurate is Al Gore's "An Inconvient Truth"?

Question

Can you cite any absolute truths or errors?

Answer 1

Please spare a moment to share your views on climate change.

http://www.misterpoll.com/polls/342594

Answer 2

9 minor errors were found to be made in the movie, about less than 1% of all the film's conjectures. The judge who ruled in the case also noted that the fundamental science behind the movie remained intact, despite these minor errors.

Answer 3

I found the movie persuasive but I can see the 'truth' on the roads, the air, the water and the sky.

Global warming is a reality and we've got the glaciers, tsunamis and earthquakes to prove it. It's all inter-connected.

Answer 4

The film got a few details wrong, but got the basic science right, which is what's important.

"The nation's top climate scientists are giving An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore's documentary on global warming, five stars for accuracy."

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/200...

A British judge concluded the film contained up to 9 errors, but was "broadly accurate" and "substantially founded upon scientific research and fact."

http://mediamatters.org/items/2007101700...

Answer 5

Very inaccurate.

The UK courts have determined 9 basic errors in the movie. These errors are so bad that they require schools to tell people that it is not a documentary, but a political film.

http://nzclimatescience.net/images/PDFs/...

Those were the easy to prove errors. Here is a more comprehensive list of 35 errors. Pretty much every thing he said is either an out right lie, or half truth.

http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images...

Answer 6

It is pretty acurate.

Answer 7

The master of science has to learn one thing. The top scientists are paid by Al Gore.

Answer 8

Not accurate...but good fictional fun entertainment just the same, in much the same way 'War of the Worlds' was.

Lots of errors...one is his portrayal of the polar bear being endangered.  Fact is...this couldn't possibly be an error, more likely a lie.  Polar bears are thriving and doing very well with their numbers the highest ever!  They are more marine than land animals actually, and can't sink due to the natural bouyancy of their fur, which is actually not hair bit air-filled vessels.  They aren't starving as Al Gore said. But what the heck...he's lovable so people flock to him anyhow.

Answer 9

not very. did you know he graphs and pictures where taken in summer time. and a polar bear can swim for 30 hours straight. dont you think that they would be able to relize they where on an ice burg before they floated that far out? i also like how gore flys in huge plains, and SUV's.

Answer 10

An inconvienent truth is a propaganda film.  It is based on some science but is grossly exagerated.  If you watch it I would recommend the great global warming swindle to go along with it.  While the great global warming swindle has many errors too it is slightly better than an inconvienent truth.  An english court(with a judge who believes in global warming) found that the film contained 9 major errors and if it was shown in schools had to be labeled propaganda.  

A few of the errors of the top of my head are are:

-Gore implies that Co2 has driven temperature for hundereds of thousands of years.  This is simply untrue.  Ice core records show that Co2 increases AFTER the temperature goes up.

-Gore says that sea level will rise 20 FEET causing massive flooding in Miami, New York and San Francisco.  The U.N. predicts a MAXIMUM rise of 23 INCHES.

-Gore says that temperatures this century are the highest in the past 1000 years.  Many scientists believe that the medieval warm period was at least as warm if not warmer than today.

William Gray, world famous scientist for his work on hurricanes said "We're brainwashing our children. They're going to the Gore movie An Inconvenient Truth and being fed all this. It's ridiculous"

http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/g...

Richard Lindzen, Proffesor of meterology at MIT says this:

http://online.wsj.com/article_print/SB11...

Roy Spencer the state climatologist of Alabama wrote this open letter to Gore:

http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=...

Answer 11

Terribly inaccurate.

Answer 12

It's interesting that the "skeptics" cite the British court decision.  So I'll assume they support it.  It says Gore has the following four things right:

Global warming is real, mostly caused by us, a serious problem, and capable of being solved by us.  The nine "errors" (the judge used the quotes, too.  he said he wasn't saying they were wrong, just not fully proven) involved minor local points like snow on Mt. Kilimanjaro.  Someone sued to prevent the movie from being shown in British schools.  THEY LOST, and the movie won.

Read the full decision here:

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admi...

"It is clear that the Defendant understandably formed the view that AIT was an outstanding film, and that schools should be enabled to show it to pupils."

Answer 13

Clips of the movie are actually scenes taken from another (I believe "The Day After Tomorrow").

Also there were polar bears digitized into the movie.

Answer 14

You're approaching science from the wrong perspective.  The phrase "absolute truths" belong in the realm of religion, not science.  All science is tentative and open to change if new evidence becomes available.

The movie got the basics correct (e.g. rising CO2, human caused, warming earth is result, potential serious problems), but had a few segments which are often interpreted wrong (e.g. Katrina caused by GW, NYC under water in near future).

As an introduction to the subject for someone not interested in reading the scientific literature themselves, it's a reasonably good movie.  But I think the one done for the Discovery Channel is actually better and more informative.

http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/glo...

Answer 15

The entire film is accruate.

A note: if you watch the film--then check on the supposed errors that the "skeptics" accuse the film of containing, you  will notice a 100% correlation:

In every single case these "skeptics" took a condtional statement (that is, one that specifically stated some particular thing MIGHT happen or prove to be the case) and then di d the following

  a) misrepresented wha tth efilm said by saying the statment had been made as a fact, not a hypothesis

  b) then claimed that the supposed statment  was in error.

To put it a bit more succinctly: the "skeptics" who have claimed  "An Inconvenient Truth"  contains a large number of errors are damned liars.

Answer 16

Al Gore owns a carbon credit trading company . Do you think he would leave any doubt as to whether  global warming is real . I doubt it .

Answer 17

as far as i know, there are are no errors.

it may be that some of the speculations are not fully supported.

the pictures of receding glaciers are "absolute truths".