An Inconvenient Truth to be shown in Australian schools

Georgina Robinson in Sydney Morning Herald reports:

[An Inconvenient Truth] will be used in the English curriculum as part of studies around the theme of sustainability, a spokesman for the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority said.

It is not a required text but will be used by English teachers to "analyse the way language and emotion can be used to convince viewers of a particular position", the spokesman said.

Students may also be directed to undertake their own research on the film's claims, he said.

This sounds like a good idea. The SMH has one of those unscientific polls on it that you can vote yes on.

Robinson joins the long list of journalists who misreported the result of the failed law suit to stop An Inconvenient Truth being shown in British schools.

Judge Burton found the film was "broadly accurate" but contained nine major errors.

Burton did not find that movie contained nine errors, major or otherwise.

Mind you, that's almost accurate compared to Dennis Jensen (the gentleman who thinks that global warming is a spurious as the flat earth theory). Jensen claimed:

"It was deemed not to be fit to be taught as non-fiction,"

Which is exactly the opposite of the truth.

More like this

October 27, 2010 - 12:39PM
Poll: Do you think that Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth should be shown to Australian school children?

Yes 47%
No 53%
Total votes: 3196.
Poll closes in 20 hours.

Over on Jo Colding's blog a poster has urged people to vote no in the SMH poll. I emailed the SMH/Age to let them know the pol might be subject to a fierce tussel so perhaps not representative of the general public.

Its interesting that the denialists just can't ignore Gore. There is something that ignites frothing at the mouth that Hansen et al just don't seem to attract which for me perhaps points to further evidence that the denialist stance is ideologically based. I've had the chance to see both Gore and Clinton (plus Carter) up close in the same place and they seemed pleasant enough (though Carter was the most approachable, ordinary one).

However here is a further completley unreasoned thought. How many public denialists have beards (male that is) compared with climate scientists and advocates? (Whoops! Michale Mann has a beard, but its really a goatee). Al Gore doesn't.

Tim wrote: The SMH has one of those unscientific polls on it that you can vote yes on.

It serves a wider purpose.

Select one answer, move the mouse pointer over the "Vote" button, press and hold down the Return key (or click the left mouse button furiously) to register multiple votes. Clear cookie and repeat. SMH can then impress advertisers with the number of hits their website receives per annum.

Now, who has better boobs: Britney or Megan Fox? Vote!

By ThePowerofX (not verified) on 27 Oct 2010 #permalink

2 Jeremy,

You are so right about the Pavlovian response to Gore. I think it's partly because he was a Democratic VP and then almost beat Bush despite dodgy counting in Florida. Not sure about the beards, though, other than being an age thing.

By TrueSceptic (not verified) on 27 Oct 2010 #permalink

If English teachers wanted to "analyse the way language and emotion can be used to convince viewers of a particular position" on the subject of sustainability, they could also use almost any recent edition of The Australian.

I second many of the above comments. I don't understand the fascination with Gore, either. I saw that a lot in high school - we would watch a TED talk by him or something when we touched on climate change, and by the time I graduated, most students' knowledge on climate change was based entirely on "Oh, that's Al Gore's problem." Unless I had ever blathered on to them :)

He does an okay job (although I cringed during the movie when he explained the greenhouse effect as "the atmosphere getting thicker"). I would recommend other sources as better on climate change, both in their accuracy and in their perceived neutrality - although the Democrat party falls in the middle of the Canadian spectrum (nobody would call him a crazy liberal here, not when there's the NDP around to harass), it's not so in the States, and so much of Canadian culture is trickled down (up?) from the States.

More here - first review I ever wrote for my site.

I reckon teachers would get even more mileage out of showing their students Matt Durkin's "documentary" "Global Warming Swindle".

Its flaws are so numerous and egregious that it does a far better job of exposing the issues than it ever intended...

By Vince Whirlwind (not verified) on 27 Oct 2010 #permalink

Hi Tim, please consider always providing a direct link to the primary source - in this case, [the judge's findings](http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2007/2288.html). You're usually right on the money with this sort of thing. Clicking through blogger's previous entries (often in multiple, annoying steps) to find primary sources is something I associate with bloggers I have far less respect for. Cheers.

Vince,

Thats a really good suggestion but I think once the deniers start thinking about it white flecks might start to gather at the side of their mouths. I would follow it with Jo Nova's Skeptics Handbook and the poems of Ern Malley, just to speed up the process of teaching school children to think critically.

7 Vince,

That's *Martin* (The Shameless Liar) Durkin. It was TGGWS that got me reading climate-related blogs and forums, starting with Channel 4's own science forum (it was first shown on C4).

IMO there has never been a "documentary" programme on UK TV containing such a huge pack of lies. I suspect there was not one true statement in it.

By TrueSceptic (not verified) on 27 Oct 2010 #permalink

The first thing I ever read in detail about AGW was Marano's US senate "minority report". In attempting to verify his references and various claims I became convinced that AGW is a real and serious problem, and that global warming deniers are being led by a bunch of ideologically-driven, anti-intellectual, lying (often to themselves, ie delusional) ratbags.

And I got to this point without Al Gore's help!

I've never read anything by Al Gore nor seen his movie.

To be honest, I couldn't even begin to describe what he looks like, although I have heard that he's fat..

Cue denialists demanding schools start "teaching the controversy".

Kate, increasing CO2 makes the atmosphere optically thicker. It's really hard to communicate the science to people without a scientific background and I think that AIT did a really good job.

By Tim Lambert (not verified) on 27 Oct 2010 #permalink

Does anyone have an email address for Georgina Robinson at the SMH?

Gaz, same here - never seen Al Gore, his movie, nor had any particular interest in US politics; most of my interest in climate change having been piqued after reading the patently false, illogical, and looney nonsense emitted by the Deniers, especially the Martin (sorry to Matt Durkin who's a good bloke) Durkin and the Andrew Bolt crap.

By Vince Whirlwind (not verified) on 27 Oct 2010 #permalink

For a demonstration of the capacity of CO2 to absorb infrared I would refer people to Greenman's recent video, or to [Iain Stewart's video](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ot5n9m4whaw) which illustratess the same thing.

Insofar as CO2 clearly absorbs infrared, adding it to the atmosphere will make it "thicker" with respect to the passage of such radiation.

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 27 Oct 2010 #permalink

Add me to the list of those who had heard of AGW well before he heard of Gore, or his involvement in this issue. We are talking late 1980s for my first encounter with the idea & science of AGW.

I have not seen AIT, and certainly don't base my arguments on anything Gore has said. Not because I think he is wrong, but because I always prefer primary sources, and also because quoting Gore is a sure way to completely derail a debate with deniers. What little rationality & good will they initially bring to the table all too often simply ends up transubstantiating into hysterical accusatory paranoia about fraudulent corrupt scientists, evil socialists and their techno-fascist plans for world government, black helicopters in the night... you all know the routine by now.

Add me to the list of those who had heard of AGW well before he heard of Gore, or his involvement in this issue.

While I've never watched his film or read his book, I have been aware of his work in Futurama. In fact, whenever the denialists bring his girth up, I have to pause a moment and remember that he has a body.

The Judge Burton Test is a well-known materials handling test for journalists.It is obviously much more difficult than it looks.

Don't know much about AIT,but Al did a great cameo or two in 30Rock.

The answer to the *other* question posed @3 is 'Megan Fox'

By Mercurius (not verified) on 27 Oct 2010 #permalink

Yesah I thought Al Gore's cameo in 30 Rock was funny. He sent himself up.........just a question......has anyone here ever seen a denier sending themself up

You can add me to the list of people who have never seen An Inconvenient Truth. You can also add me to the list of people who became a lot more interested in the AGW 'debate' after seeing Durkin's Swindle. It was a real eye opener.

By lord_sidcup (not verified) on 27 Oct 2010 #permalink

> Yes 47% No 53% Total votes: 3196. Poll closes in 20 hours.

Therefore to a 95% confidence limit (+/-5%), most people want AIT to be shown to Australian Children.

(using denialist stats analysis, of course)

> (although I cringed during the movie when he explained the greenhouse effect as "the atmosphere getting thicker").

It's a very accurate way of putting it.

(Optical Depth)[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_depth].

PS as to "teach the controversy", that's fine. Denial of AGW is controversy and it should be taught as such, just not as a rational viewpoint grounded in logical thought.

Is anyone aware of a dataset refuting Miskolczi's claims that atmospheric optical depth hasn't changed over the last decades/centuries? All my searching threw up was a bunch of papers on aerosol optical depth.

Whatever happened to Stuart Dimmock?

22 Jeremy,

Doesn't Anthony Watts send himself up by trying to look like Ron Burgundy?

By TrueSceptic (not verified) on 28 Oct 2010 #permalink

TrueSceptic,

Doesn't count.......It has to be intentional.

Stu, measurements of IR at CO2 wavelengths shows that the intensity of radiation has reduced. Since the gas is pretty much at local thermal equilibrium, this can only be the result of the average temperature reducing through ascention through the atmosphere.

OK, it's not direct measurement, but then again the interior of a solid has never been measured by direct measurement.

>Its interesting that the denialists just can't ignore Gore. There is something that ignites frothing at the mouth....

It must be for the same general reasons as Warmists get their undies in a bunch whenever the name Christopher Monckton is mentioned.

Of course, 'denialists' are not very imaginative people, and can't do much better than to just call Gore 'fat'.

It is left to inventive Warmists to describe Monckton as a 'potty peer', a 'two-bit rhetoric whore', an 'upperclass twit', 'Lord Wingnut', a 'delusional freak and conspiracy nut', an 'egotistic charlatan and fraud', 'a pathological liar', and a 'mischief-making clown', along with the suggestion that 'the Lord [Monckton] could guzzle some DDT'.

By Rick Bradford (not verified) on 28 Oct 2010 #permalink

29 Jeremy,

Or is it funnier when it's not? ;)

By TrueSceptic (not verified) on 28 Oct 2010 #permalink

Agreed Wow (apologies for OT by the way).

I haven't had the inclination to wade through Miskolczi'a mess but I find this argument pops up surprisingly often. I always use the fact that we've measured CO2's (and all GHG's) effects on longwave radiation as proof of greenhouse effect (like that was needed!) but the gist that I get when this topic comes up is the he has 'demonstrated' that compensatory mechanisms undo CO2's effect on optical depth.

What I was charitably call Miskolczi's paper is so dense and cryptic that I don't really know what he's saying, but I've had more than a cursory glace of some rebuttals, particularly Nick Stokes's.

Quoting (emphasis mine):

>So the proof is now, presumably, held to be empirical. But what does empirical mean here? In the paper, Dr M makes frequent reference to plots of 228 points, which seem to have reasonable regression fits. But what are the points? He sometimes talks of (âselectedâ) radiosonde readings, but there isnât much detail offerred. And sometimes of simulations, using his code âHartCodeâ. In this site he assembles the results to prove the main principles, but the claim to their observational nature is somewhat undermined by the fact that he has similar graphs for Mars. It seems clear the results are simulations â how real-world observations fit in is quite unclear.

Hence if someone had actually compiled an observational dataset of infrared optical depth it would no doubt smash Miskolczi's work out of the water, because as long as he can dupe people with impenetrable physics (although some of his errors would be apparent to undergrads), you mainly have to argue against his physics. Much better to be able to simply produce observations discrediting his argument.

Truesceptic,

Nahhhhhhhh......b'cause....... Tina Fey head scripted Al Gore's 30 Rock cameo and she is both funny and hot to boot whereas A. Watts just looks like Ron Burgandy.

He's Ron Burgundy...?

Dammit, who put a question mark on the teleprompter!

33 Jeremy,

So does John Christy. Not that I equate him to Watts, but could there be something about those moustaches?

By TrueSceptic (not verified) on 28 Oct 2010 #permalink

> but the gist that I get when this topic comes up is the he has 'demonstrated' that compensatory mechanisms undo CO2's effect on optical depth.

There are only three ways to reduce the intensity of radiation at gas absorption wavelengths:

1) increase the altitude radiation that leaves the atmosphere is emitted from (whose average power spectrum defines one optical depth). Hence is displaying the measurement of the atmosphere getting optically thicker.

2) lasing, where you lose CO2 photons and pump up another excited state. This may happen in the much thinner Martian atmosphere, but not so much in our troposphere

3) CO2 being uplifted. However, this would turn up in the measurements of CO2 in the atmosphere as a reduction in ground-level CO2 and an increase in upper air. It would also require some invisible sky-fairies who are small enough to lift one CO2 molecule at a time and bored enough to do it.

> > Dr M makes frequent reference to plots of 228 points, which seem to have reasonable regression fits. But what are the points?
> > ...
> > but the claim to their observational nature is somewhat undermined by the fact that he has similar graphs for Mars.

Uhm, this dude hasn't heard of MARTIAN PROBES???

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/main/index.html

http://marsrover.nasa.gov/home/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Polar_Lander

?

Not to mention that if the mars figures were computer models rather than observations doesn't make the radiosondes lifted through earth atmosphere by humans non-existent.

Really, the ignorance shown is frankly astounding.

> Much better to be able to simply produce observations discrediting his argument.

How?

Can I refer you back to my previous statement:

> the interior of a solid has never been measured by direct measurement.

Tell me, have you EVER seen into the interior of, say, a solid lump of rock?

NOBODY HAS.

All that exists is another surface, probably created by the energy you put in to split the solid in the first place.

So, since there is no direct measurement of the solidity of matter, you have to argue against the physics!!!

Really, you're batting for his side here, so please stop.

All we have are indirect measurements if you do not accept the IR intensity measurements from space satellites as direct measurement.

Who the hell is Ron Burgundy?

By John McManus (not verified) on 28 Oct 2010 #permalink

What's your point Wow? That direct measurements of the optical depth of the atmosphere are impossible? I don't think that's true, all you need a source and detector of photons. Perhaps the hard part is attribution of any changed - I don't know, atmospheric physics was always my weak point.

>Tell me, have you EVER seen into the interior of, say, a solid lump of rock?

>NOBODY HAS.

Is every question an invitation to a shouting match? Geez. Besides, there are various techniques for investigating the insides of solids. You cannot see it with your own eyes but you can still know what is in there.

>Really, you're batting for his side here, so please stop.

How exactly am I battling for his side? Please lay it out fully so I can understand the error of my ways sir.

Dennis Jensen is correct.

By Billy Bob Hall (not verified) on 28 Oct 2010 #permalink

> What's your point Wow? That direct measurements of the optical depth of the atmosphere are impossible?

If you define what direct measurements are suitably, which seems to be your thought.

There IS a direct measurement of the optical depth of the earth's atmosphere.

IR intensity at CO2 absorption levels.

Thanks for your considered reply. As I said, I am well aware that we have measured IR intensity at CO2 absorption lengths. And we know the atmosphere is getting optically thicker at those wavelengths.

What I do not understand is how Miskolczi has come to the conclusion that optical thickness is constant overall. Hence I am unable to effectively rebut people who cite his work as the death of global warming (or yet another 'final nail').

Optical thickness is a function of transmittance. Transmittance in the atmosphere is a function of wavelength. Therefore transmittance integrated over the whole spectrum would give you atmospheric optical depth over the whole spectrum. Would this measure not be able confirm or refute Miskolczi's claims?

Stu, again it's looking like talking past each other.

My problem with your statements recently have been these:

> Hence if someone had actually compiled an observational dataset of infrared optical depth .... Much better to be able to simply produce observations discrediting his argument.

Which, if you do believe we have measurements, we already have the "much better".

So why ask for it?

> Hence I am unable to effectively rebut people who cite his work as the death of global warming (or yet another 'final nail').

Uh, yes you have.

CO2 can only radiate at CO2 absorption wavelengths.

When you look through a filter at the earth's atmosphere from the outside, you see they are higher up.

If they are higher up, then there must be more CO2 below than before.

If there is more CO2 then the optical depth of the atmosphere is bigger.

ALTERNATIVELY, don't talk bollocks and realise (and argue) that it is NOT the total optical depth of the atmosphere that makes a blind bit of monkey-dung difference.

What makes the difference is where the top of the atmosphere is.

Because it is at that layer the earth gets rid of its energy.

Arguing how optically thick the atmosphere is is time-wasting bollocks, so stop it.

Well, FWIW, just checked and 61% of people who chose to participate in said unscientific poll agree that an Inconvenient Truth should be shown in schools.

Personally, I think someone (not necessarily Gore) should make a sequel. Fix some of the gaffs, show that things are indeed on track, well, actually worse than expected et cetera. Maybe it could be released the in September of 2016 (10 years after original released), and also perhaps when most of the Arctic will be ice free....

By MapleLeaf (not verified) on 28 Oct 2010 #permalink

I'm all for showing snoozer Al Gore to American kids, they'll cringe every time they hear his name or "global warming" ever again. And if they are going to show AIT in the classroom, I would insist that they show the other fine documentary by Davis Guggenheim the following week. Think the teachers would be on board?

I am pretty sure Miskolczi's model relies on the rest of the spectrum becoming optically thinner - hence a full spectral analysis of the changes in transmittance could be useful. There are other methods to refutation, but as I said the paper is so dense that I couldn't understand most of it so I'll have to defer to what other people have written. For example that Nick Stokes comment I linked to earlier is referenced by RCWiki.

I have to point something out to you here,

Wow earlier:

>increase the altitude radiation that leaves the atmosphere is emitted from (whose average power spectrum defines one optical depth). Hence is displaying the measurement of the atmosphere getting optically thicker.

Wow now:

>ALTERNATIVELY, don't talk bollocks and realise (and argue) that it is NOT the total optical depth of the atmosphere that makes a blind bit of monkey-dung difference.

>What makes the difference is where the top of the atmosphere is.

Eh? The two are linked as you said earlier. So optical depth does make a blind bit of monkey-dung difference. If you're going to criticise me heavily at least be consistent about it.

Still, good chat and all, cheers.

> Eh? The two are linked as you said earlier.

No, they aren't really the same.

After all, the optical depth of the solid ground at IR frequencies is <10um.

What matters is where the 1 optical depth from space down towards the earth is. That's the TOA, that's the balance point, that's important. Not the waste of time of how optically thick the atmosphere is.

Who cares how optically deep the sun is, we don't get any sunlight from it. We get it from 1 optical depth, where the sun's atmosphere is ~5700K. None from 90% down where it's in the millions of K.

I was disappointed by Spooners ignorance as shown in his cartoon.

It's not the first science denial in one of his cartoons. That seems to be his position now.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 29 Oct 2010 #permalink

> After all, the optical depth of the solid ground at IR frequencies is <10um.

Sorry, should read better as "the thickness of one optical depth of the solid ground..."

Nobody's ever proven the optical depth of the sun, but we still know how much heat we're getting from it.

What heat we lose to space doesn't depend on how optically thick the atmosphere is when it's optically deep. Just like the sun. Just like you don't care how deep the ocean is after it gets deeper than 6ft.

I have never seen Al Gores film. But my serious interest in climate change was triggered when a debate on climate change started on the weatherzone forum which from memory was triggered by a poster who had watched this movie.

I have also never actually seen a commentator from the other side accuse Al Gore of being fat.

By Michael Hauber (not verified) on 31 Oct 2010 #permalink

Having followed the link in Deltoid's next post I am sad to say that I have now witnessed my first case of 'Al Gore is fat', and that my last statement is no longer true.

By Michael Hauber (not verified) on 31 Oct 2010 #permalink

Lets hope they show other hollywood classics too.. like "The Ten Commandments' with Charleton Heston. It's good to watch some 'escapist' fiction now and again :-)

By Billy Bob Hall (not verified) on 02 Jan 2011 #permalink