My apologizes for not writing yesterday...I was working hard on a big blog entry which I finally got up at HuffingtonPost. I felt there was a need to clarify my views on Al Gore's scientific accuracy--especially with respect to hurricanes--and I've taken the occasion of Gore's recent testimony to do so. My two cents: There are definitely things that you can critique about An Inconvenient Truth in this regard. But when you put Gore alongside critics like Joey Barton and Jimmy Inhofe, there's simply no doubt who takes the science seriously, and who doesn't.
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Randy Olson is a Harvard ('84) trained marine biologist with field experience on the Great Barrier Reef, in the Antarctic, the US Virgin Islands, and elsewhere. He even spent a little time with Jacques Cousteau.
But an extensive career in marine biology was not to be.
Randy started…
Chris wrote in Huffington post: "I for one would have preferred to see Gore include this important caveat in his book and film--both for the purpose of completeness and so as to prevent possible misimpressions."
Possible misimpressions? Kinda like the ones you helped create by attacking Gore in your earlier post rather than the hack at the Times? Or Lomborg? I wanted so much to be relieved when I read your Huffington Post, (I've been a fan of yours for some time!) to feel you were at least a little concerned about what Somerby called you out on. But it doesn't seem you are. It appears to me that you still do not get it. It seems to me you're more concerned about saving face. What a bummer. (by the way, today's Daily Howler is well worth the read.)
One caveat that seems to be getting only modest mention is aerosols. There seems to be a widespread expectation that if global warming is having a detectable effect on tropical cyclones, trends in all basins should be qualitively similar. But Mann and Emanuel showed that aerosols are necessary to explain trends in Atlantic TCs. And aerosols are not well-mixed.
Actually, if you put Gore alongside scientists he's been at least as prescient as they have and he's been willing to take the shitstorms that have come his way.
In a serious world, that ought to count for something, like a stout defense above all else.
But, nooooo.
That would be political.