Thursday, April 11, 2013

On Al Gore's Claim of Consensus

Back in 2010, George Mason University did a survey in which they questioned nearly 1,400 meteorologists from the American Meteorology Society and the National Weather Association. They asked them if they thought that the increasing warming of the past 150 years was "mostly caused by natural events" or "mostly caused by human activities". The results of the survey were quite surprising and more than a little "inconvenient". 63% of the respondents said that they thought that natural factors were the primary cause and only 31% claimed that that human activity was. Consensus conshmensus, apparently........................................................................................PS. A subsequent survey from the American Meteorology Society itself substantiated the findings and were actually even more devastating; this study finding that only 24% of the meteorologists polled agreed with the claim that human activity is the primary cause of global warming. 24% and dropping, methinks.

10 comments:

dmarks said...

Some inconvenient and irrefutable truths about Al Gore:

1) He lost the election in November 2000 due to the choices voters made in the polling places. To claim otherwise is to ignore how people voted.

2) It is completely correct to paraphrase Gore's claim made in that CNN interview with the summary that he said he invented the Internet. Anyone who claims otherwise shoud be made to eat a dictionary.

3) Gore is a Jr and Bush isn't. Look it up.

4) Gore did not invent OR create the Internet. Others did so before he got to Congress.

5) Gore's use of the "consensus" word is a bizarre untrue meaning that has nothing to do with definition.

6) Gore strongly meets any definition of "plutocrat", being a rich man who was in power position #2 in America's ruling elite, and because he has used his political power to put forth policies which has resulted in his amassing significant amounts of personal wealth.

Jerry Critter said...

You realize, of course, that there is a big difference between a meteorologist (weatherman) and a climatetologist (climate scientist).

I don't believe that Gore ever claimed consensus from meteorologists.

Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

dmarks, I'm not quite as down on Gore overall as you are but, yeah, on this one, very little if any of what he asserted in "An Inconvenient Truth" stands up to scrutiny.

Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

Meteorologists are more than "weathermen", Jerry. Meteorology is one of the four main branches of the earth sciences (along with geology, oceanography, and astronomy) and a fair number of these individuals actually have advanced degrees in science (Piers Corbyn, for example, has a PhD in astrophysics).......And a lot of climatologists disagree with Mr. Gore as well; Roy Spencer, Pat Michaels, Tim Ball, John Christy, just to name a couple.

Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

Jerry/dmarks, in a 2003 survey by Bray and von Storch (2 individuals who are actually sympathetic to anthropogenic global warming), only 34.7% of climate scientists agreed (9.4% strongly, 25.3% moderately) with the statement, "climate change is mostly the result of anthropogenic causes". There really doesn't seem to be any sort of true consensus here (though, yes, there probably is A human factor at work here).

dmarks said...

Will: You are probably more with me on Gore than you think. #3 isn't a criticism of Gore because I've never heard Gore ignorantly call Bush "Junior". Yet a lot of mindless Bush-bashers do so.

#2 and #4 Gore comes out OK on. He later corrected himself and admit he mispoke. In another category altogether are the Gore worshipers who insist his gaffe is true.

#5 we agree on, that's the point of the post. And #6 too, as you have pointed out a lot Gore using the global warming hoax to get rich.

That probably leaves us with the most difference on #1 perhaps.

Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

#1 is tricky and ironic. The way that I understand it, the recount that Gore wanted, Bush would have won and the recount that Bush wanted, Gore would have won. Am I at least somewhat close?

dmarks said...

What was being counted in the later redundant recounts? Whatever it was, it probably did not reflect the way people voted. I saw the photos of the floors in the vote counting places covered with chads that the counters had punched out in the process of altering the ballots. The machine count was probably the most accurate, as it did not include such tampering or human imagination conjuring votes where there were not one.

Regardless, it ended up that there were 4 vote counts, and Gore lost each one. Wasn't it clear after the 2nd one that it had become a roll of the dice, and Gore was going to keep demanding a do-over until he finally got one he wanted?

Also, Florida law required a quick recounting of the ballots by a certain deadline. The later redundant counts were well past the deadline and this illegal. A good law, really, put in place to prevent such ballot tampering as occured.

dmarks said...

And one more more inconvenient facts on Al Gore:

7) The Presidential administration Gore was in went to war against a country that had never attacked us (Americans in the homeland, or troops serving overseas) or even threatened to at all. This isn't true for the Bush administration, which went to war against two countries which had attacked us in the homeland or our troops overseas.

dmarks said...

At this point, perhaps the more controversial point might be claim of Gore's consciousness.