An inconvenient lie

The wingnuts just never give up, do they? They continue to argue that climate change is “a lie”, despite the lack of any credible scientific evidence to support them. In fact, all credible scientists support the fact of climate change, the only arguments are over things like the speed of that change, its likely immediate impact and possible preventive action.

Recently, a judge in London issued a ruling that, while admitting the overall validity of Al Gore's documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” and of climate change itself, nevertheless found what he called “significant errors” in the film. Among those “errors” were that Gore didn't say what atolls, specifically, were abandoned and he didn't provide proof that polar bears were drowning because they can't find sea ice.

The supposed errors the judge found were themselves overstated. Some things, like specific numbers of drowned polar bears, are unknowable, but with the Northwest Passage through the Arctic Ocean open for the first time in recorded history this past Northern Hemisphere summer, experts have stated it is happening and has happened. There is debate over the cause of bleaching of coral, the drying of Lake Chad and the lack of snow on Mt. Kilimanjaro, but that doesn't mean that climate change isn't the cause, as the judge implied. His harshest ridicule was reserved for the prospect of rapid sea level rise. However, just this year scientists discovered that the Greenland ice sheet is melting faster than previously thought. In sum, the judge's ruling was filled with errors, too.

Nevertheless, it provided the sort of fodder that wingnuts look to exploit to promote their views. To help use this ruling to attack the movie, right wing NZ radio host Larry Williams turned to NZ politician Muriel Newman, a former MP for the right wing ACT Party, who has set up a far right “internet think tank”.

After beginning the discussion by calling the film “propaganda” and “political spin”, Williams and Newman went on to describe the film or its content using words like: Reckless, alarmist, nonsense, wrong, lie (twice), exaggerate (3 times), falsehood/fiction/fabricated (9 times), and Newman also claimed it was an attempt at “brainwashing” children (apparently indirectly quoting one of the British litigants).

Williams pointed out that “to be fair” the judge upheld the existence of climate change, which Newman described as “very disappointing.” She advocated that a right wing counter documentary be shown on television and in schools, and Williams rightly pointed out that film is filled with errors (to say the least!), to which Newman responded it was “no worse” than Gore's award wining documentary.

I found this ironic because moments before she'd claimed that in an interview Al Gore had said, according to Newman, “that it was quite okay to exaggerate to get the message across, so he knew it was fiction.” As it happens, she was exaggerating what Gore said (read it for yourself here). In any case, on Newman's planet it's obviously okay when the far right exaggerates.

The comments left on the discussion area of Newman's website are filled with climate change deniers and other neo conservative rubbish. Her website polls routinely find that 90 percent or more of respondents favour various right wing positions. Obviously, she can't be blamed for what her followers think and say, but apparently the centre and left are required to repudiate Al Gore for every misplaced comma in “An Inconvenient Truth”.

Those are only two examples where Newman (and Williams) hold the centre and left to different standards than they do the right. This is why reasoned debate with the far right is impossible, and attempts at compromise are futile. No matter what, in their eyes they're always indisputably “right”.

I think in the future I'll do what I normally do and immediately turn off the radio if I hear Williams voice (actually, the three NZ radio hosts who make me do that are all on NewstalkZB; two of them use guests who reinforce their right-wing views and treat them as if they're impartial). I also don't pay attention to the nonsense spewed by Newman, whose neo conservative rubbish is mere noise most of the time. Clearly I've been correct on both counts. How convenient for me

To hear the radio segment for yourself, go here and look for “How convenient is the truth?” An MP3 of that and other political segments from NewstalkZB can be found there. For a less biased critique of the ruling and film, go here.
Update 13/10/07: I had the misfortune of seeing part of Fox "News" Channel's morning (US) programme last night, and while gloating at the judges weird ruling on "An Inconvenient Truth", they reported that "a New Zealand think tank" (the one Newman heads, obviously) was calling for Gore to hand back his Oscar (Newman actually said the Academy should rescind it). Fox "News" was trying to make it sound as if a huge groundswell of reasonable, rational people were making this demand, rather than the usual handful of far right windbags, and of course they didn't bother to report that Newman's "think tank" is a collection of neo conservative climate change deniers. But this isn't a surprise: When does Fox "News" channel ever worry about being fair and balanced?