London's often trigger-happy Independent reports today that Al Gore is criticizing climatologists for not reaching a strong consensus on global warming soon enough. That's a switch. The quotes that reporter Jonathan Owen provided, lifted apparently from a forward to a new edition of Gore's Earth in the Balance, may have lost some of their context, however...
Here's what the Independent says warrants the headline "Too little, too late: Gore blames scientists for climate crisis"
In an extraordinary outburst aimed at America's failure to tackle global warming, Al Gore says that if scientific agreement on the climate crisis had been reached sooner it would have been easier to "galvanise the public and persuade Congress to act".
The failed presidential candidate claims that the stronger scientific consensus he knew was about to emerge meant "we in the US were about to shift into high gear in addressing the climate crisis". Mr Gore argues that if he had made it to the White House, he would have been able to use the office as a "bully pulpit" to achieve change.
"The nature and severity of the climate crisis had seemed painfully obvious to me for quite a long time," claims Mr Gore, writing in a new foreword to a revised edition of his book, Earth in the Balance, being published this week.
In a swipe at the scientific community, he says: "I wish that we could have had in the 1990s the deafening scientific consensus that has emerged in more recent years."
That's it. Perhaps the G man is expressing some frustration with the reluctance of some climatologists to better communicate the state of the science until after he forced the issue with An Inconvenient Truth. I would tend to agree with the notion that there was a general consensus that the "balance of evidence" suggested anthropogenic climate change represented a threat to society as far back as the first half of the 1990s. But one could just as easily read that last excerpted sentence as a lament for a lack of consensus itself. In that case, he was hardly taking a "swipe" at science.
Indeed, the rest of the story deals with Gore's frustration, not with scientists, but with George W. Bush and his administration.
Is this just another example of the Independent sexing up another climate story? Wouldn't be the first time. Back when the book was first released in 1992, the Independent's reviewer called the book 'The frankest and most important publication by a current politician I have read in a long time.'
In any case, we shall see in the days ahead.
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Maybe.
It is not the job of science to reach a consensus. It is to reach the truth. Lines of evidence may have pointed one way as far back as the early 90s, but science is effective because it is contentious and conservative.
We don't exist to make any politician's life easier, not even ones we might admire. So Al can bugger off, if he is bitching at scientists. That he is seems sort of unclear from your analysis, and I like Al, and admire that he at least includes science in his quest(s) for power.
But the point stands- I can't see anything good coming from scientists cozying up to any party or pol such that we are afraid to look them in the eye and say "Despite good intentions, and your general good understanding of the problem, you are full of shit here, and here, and here...".
Agreed. Just another trying to distort the realities to undermine Global Warming efforts and Al Gore.
AEI no doubt behind that one , which is why all the right wing blogs have jumped on it...as they do with all the lies they try to spread.
Time for a COOL change
Gore
2008
I think scientists tend to think they come out with their stuff and people just act... just like that, no pushing, just everybody reads all the climatology journals (cause "everybody I know reads the climatology journals") and they then act. They're surprised that it takes more than journal articles to get people to understand and to act, esp. when there's an opposition, well-funded and media-connected, to spread FUD. It's naive, maybe even to the point that it's foolish, but I just don't think they tend to realise how much work it is to get accurate info out to regular folks and get the political wheels moving.
Well I don't know about anyone else, but my non-climatologist experience is that the warnings were sufficient well over fifteen years ago for my family to significantly change our behaviour, and to be baffled at the lack of more general or coordinated action.
I was convinced, and I don't read the journals. I guess my advantage is that I understand the utter irrelevance of a handful of dissenters in science - there will always be dissenters. I could read news stories, then get to the idiot attempt to be "fair and balanced" by interviewing a self-important "me against the world" denialist, and just filter that part out.
I really feel for the poor bloody scientists on this one. They've been warning and warning and warning, but people don't bloody listen. What do you expect them to do? Take over? Take out ads? I mean, it's well known that scientists make vast amounts of money, surely they could have spent a bit on publicity? /rolleyes
This whole thing wonderfully highlights a flaw in democracy: it relies on people. People are idiots. When your system relies on a majority, but the majority either don't understand the issues or are just looking out for number one, you're screwed.
(...not that there's anything better than Democracy out there, not that I know of, anyway. Again, the problem is people (I want that in my obituary). I'm holding out for an alien invasion. It's our only chance for rational rule).