But, but, it got an academy award. It must be true.
ZitatIt’s been nearly one decade since former Vice President Al Gore released his film “An Inconvenient Truth.” It sent shockwaves through American politics and emboldened environmental activists to push for more regulations on American businesses.
Gore warned increasing carbon dioxide emissions would spur catastrophic global warming that would cause more extreme weather, wipe out cities and cause ecological collapse. To stop global warming, humans needed to ditch fossil fuels and basically change every aspect of their lives.
Watching “An Inconvenient Truth” is sort of like going back in time. Back to a world where flip phones were cool and “Futurama” was still putting out new episodes. A world where a bitter presidential candidate was trying to rebrand himself as an environmental crusader.
But have Gore’s warnings, which were alarming to many in 2006, come true?
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One of the first glaring claims Gore makes is about Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa. He claims Africa’s tallest peak will be snow-free “within the decade.” Gore shows slides of Kilimanjaro’s peak in the 1970s versus today to conclude the snow is disappearing.
Well, it’s been a decade and, yes, there’s still snow on Kilimanjaro year-round. It doesn’t take a scientist to figure this out. One can just look at recent photos posted on the travel website TripAdvisor.com.
In 2014, ecologists actually monitoring Kilimanjaro’s snowpack found it was not even close to being gone. It may have shrunk a little, but ecologists were confident it would be around for the foreseeable future.
“There are ongoing several studies, but preliminary findings show that the ice is nowhere near melting,” Imani Kikoti, an ecologist at Mount Kilimanjaro National Park, told eturbonews.com.
“Much as we agree that the snow has declined over centuries, but we are comfortable that its total melt will not happen in the near future,” he said.
Gore Left Out The 15-Year “Hiatus” In Warming
Gore also claims temperature rise from increases in man-made carbon dioxide emissions were “uninterrupted and intensifying.” He goes on to claim heatwaves will become more common, like the one that killed 35,000 people across Europe in 2003.
Sounds terrifying — until you actually look at what happened to global temperature after Gore’s film was released. Global temperatures showed little to no warming trend after Gore released his film. In fact, surface temperature data showed no significant global warming for a period of about 15 years, starting in the early 2000s.
Satellite-derived temperature data showed, until the recent El Niño, no statistically significant warming trend for more than 21 years.
Gore’s movie was released right in the middle of the so-called global warming “hiatus.”
The Weather Hasn’t Gotten Worse
Gore also famously predicted storms would become more frequent and intense as man-made emissions warmed the oceans.
“And of course when the oceans get warmer, that causes stronger storms,” Gore said in his film. “That same year that we had that string of big hurricanes, we also set an all-time record for tornadoes.”
Polar bears became a focal point for environmentalists after former Vice President Al Gore featured them in his 2006 global warming documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth". According to Al, Chicken Little, and assorted hysterics the bears were disappearing because of global warming.