Propagandists Shouldn’t Throw Stones

The August 7 article, “Gore: polluters finance research to cast doubt on global warming” is a perfect microcosm of alarmist double-speak. Scientists have shown that nearly every assertion in Al Gore’s film “An Inconvenient Truth” is false, and yet Gore has the nerve to call opposing facts “propaganda.”

For example, scientists have shown that Antarctica is gaining rather than losing ice ( http://www.journals.royalsoc.ac.uk/content/38315t2244r5w3m4/fulltext.pdf and http://www.ipcc.ch/WG1_SPM_17Apr07.pdf), that Greenland is undergoing long-term cooling rather than warming (http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2006/2005JD006810.shtml), that the Gulf Stream is in no danger of shutting down ( http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/314/5802/1064a and http://environment.newscientist.com/article/mg19225763.900.html), that Africa’s deserts are shrinking rather than growing (http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn2811 and http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/articles/V10/N13/C2.jsp), that there has been no link established between tornadoes and global warming ( http://www.ipcc.ch/WG1_SPM_17Apr07.pdf), that hurricanes are no more prevalent now than in the past ( http://www.newsdaily.com/TopNews/UPI-1-20070502-19042700-bc-us-hurricanes.xml and http://www.magazine.noaa.gov/stories/mag184.htm), and that Mt. Kilimanjaro’s glacier retreat is unrelated to any global warming ( www.nature.com/nsu/031117/031117-8.htm and http://www.americanscientist.org/template/AssetDetail/assetid/55553/page/1).

Al Gore, who is funding your propaganda machine?

James M. Taylor (taylor@heartland.org) is senior fellow of environment policy at The Heartland Institute.