UK judge slams Gore's climate campaign

Al Gore’s climate change campaign which led to him being awarded the Nobel Prize today was criticised as one-sided sentimental mush which could lead to global instability, not peace.

The former vice president’s Oscar-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth attracted criticism from a High Court judge in the UK who pointed out its “nine scientific errors” and “one-sided” view of the issues.

And critics said Mr Gore’s campaign to tackle climate change was a recipe for poverty and conflict.

On Wednesday, Mr Justice Barton sitting at London’s High Court said some of the errors in Mr Gore’s work had arisen in “the context of alarmism and exaggeration” to support the former US vice-president’s thesis on global warming.

The judge said that before the film could be shown in UK schools, it might be necessary for the Department of Children, Schools and Families to make clear to teaching staff that some of Mr Gore’s views were not supported or promoted by the Government, and there was “a view to the contrary”.

The judge set out nine alleged errors in the film in which statements were made that were not supported by the current mainstream scientific consensus.

He added: “The Armageddon scenario he predicts, insofar as it suggests that sea level rises of seven metres might occur in the immediate future, is not in line with the scientific consensus.”

Mr Gore said he was “gratified” with the court’s ruling and added that the “nine scientific errors” highlighted by the judge were only a “handful” amid “thousands of other facts in the film”.

The court’s ruling that the film could be shown in schools if it was accompanied by new guidelines marked a substantial legal victory for father-of-two Stewart Dimmock, a Kent school governor and a member of political group the New Party, who accused the Government of “brainwashing” children with propaganda by showing the former US vice president’s film in the classroom.

But Mr Dimmock failed in his bid to get the film totally banned from schools, arguing that its promotion of partisan political views was “irremediable” and contained scientific inaccuracies and “sentimental mush”.

Asked what he thought of Mr Gore’s Nobel prize, Marlo Lewis, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, told CNN: “I was not surprised but I was also displeased.

“I don’t think that Al Gore’s policies, which the Nobel committee celebrated and mentioned as one of the reason for giving him the award lead to peace.

“Rather I think those policies lead to global instability and political strife, within nations and between nations.

“Basically what Al Gore and the global warming crusade want to do is put an energy starved planet on a diet.

“And this is a recipe for poverty and poverty does not lead to peace. It leads to conflict.”

Mr Lewis, who is author of A Sceptic’s Guide to An Inconvenient Truth, went on: “An Inconvenient Truth is basically a lawyer’s brief for a political agenda. It’s completely one-sided.

Gore only mentions or cites studies which support his point of view. He then exaggerates in many cases the evidence that he presents. In some cases he’s just plain wrong.

“He’s gotten people talking about it and we can give him credit for that, but the way he’s gotten people to talk about it is manipulative and misleading.”