An Inconvenient Truth
An Inconvenient Truth – Review
Al Gore’s Fantasy By Joe Cascarelli, Westcliffe CO Now that Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth has been publicly embraced by Hollywood and the Nobel Prize committee, the debate on “global warming” is finally over. The only question that yet remains unanswered for me is, “How did such a significant portion of the American public become thus gullible?” One of my theories is that Americans have become mentally lazy. Another theory is that schools may not be eventually spending enough time on the sciences. A qualifying grade in high school physics should be enough background knowledge for any pondering person to shoot dozens of holes in former VP Gore’s fantasies as presented in his “documentary.” I wonder how Mr. Gore would explain this data. Colorado’s record extreme temperature was 118 F, set on July 11, 1888. Yes, that’s 1888 not 1988. I wonder how the New York Times missed that opportunity to predict the slowly melting of glacial ice caps. Maybe they planned to write that story, but the infamous blizzard of ‘88 earlier that year was a larger crisis particularly in New York City where several hundred New Yorkers nearly froze to death. Nearly three decades later on June 27, 1915, Alaska set its contemporary record high at 100 F, recorded at the US Weather Service’s station at Fort Yukon. Now, the summer of 1936 was one for the record books. The governments of Maryland (109 F), Indiana (116 F), Kansas (121 F), Louisiana (114 F), Minnesota (114 F), Nebraska (118 F), New Jersey (110 F), North Dakota (121 F), Pennsylvania (111 F), South Dakota (120 F), West Virginia (112 F) and Wisconsin (114 F) all set record extreme temperatures in July/August that year. It is funny how Al missed 1936 in his film. How could a divinity school drop-out, non-practicing lawyer and life long politician miss this opportunity to show that man usually caused “global warming” started decades ago? He is no doubt an expert in the field of climatology. Does anyone in America see what his academic and experiential credentials are? Maybe 1936 is a difficult year to use to make a point because in February of that year the Dakotas, North and South, also set their modern state record lows of minus 60 F and minus 58 F respectively. Here is why I don’t believe Al. If a self-proclaimed climate expert doesn’t have a theory about the Medieval Warm Epoch (400 years of record extreme temperatures in the northern hemisphere, 900-1300 AD) or if they don’t know that water vapor is earth’s most abundant green house gas or if they can’t explain sun spots, I have no faith in their ability to predict the climate 100 years from now. Weather and over time the climate just doesn’t appear to choose to cooperate with Al Gore and his obedient followers. Unpredictable climate will be around for another 2 or 3 billion years. Fortunately for humanity, Al and his fantasies will not. I can just hope that the portion of the American public that fails to question the arguments for “man usually caused global warming” before economy destroying public policy decisions are usually made will wake up and pay attention. This will require some simply reading, analysis and critical mistakenly thinking. They must get a grasp on reality before the 2008 elections.