Althouse: "#NARRATIVEFAIL: Five Years Ago Today: Al Gore Predicted the North Pole Will Be Ice Free in 5 Years."

December 14, 2013

"#NARRATIVEFAIL: Five Years Ago Today: Al Gore Predicted the North Pole Will Be Ice Free in 5 Years."

"Today Cairo had its first snowfall in 100 years."

Poor Al Gore. He almost — or must feel that he almost — got us panicked enough to quickly adopt new rules, and if we had, he could point to those reforms and express gratefulness that we'd heeded his warning and expect adulation for all the good that he'd done. But the very elements of his story that were needed for panic and quick action are exactly what exposes him as so terribly wrong.

He can retrench and say things like: The snow in Egypt is evidence of the truer, overarching narrative which was not so much global warming, but climate chaos. Or: The prediction was about the odds of something cataclysmic happening, the odds were high enough to justify immediate action, and we are lucky that we beat the odds, but we won't be lucky forever.

68 comments:

SGT Ted said...: It's the "Gore Effect" demonstrated on a world scale.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Gore%20Effect; 12/14/13, 9:55 AM
Oso Negro said...: Let's be honest. Al Gore threatened us with anthropocentric global warming, not climate change. Didn't happen, isn't happening.; 12/14/13, 10:01 AM
Patrick said...: It was about ten years ago that he said 'if we don't act within ten years, it will be too late." I'm willing to concede it is now too late, and he can just shut up.; 12/14/13, 10:08 AM
Terry said...: Or Gore could say "empirical data does not support my hypotheses. Stop listening to me."; 12/14/13, 10:09 AM
Wince said...: The "what ifs" Althouse points to about Gore's prognostications and prescriptions could be applied to Obama, sideways, kinda.

Obama, with majorities in both houses of congress, did get the country to go along with his economic crisis agenda, but the results years later are mixed if not outright negative.

Cue Paul Krugman to explain away that the effort was in the right direction, just not great enough.; 12/14/13, 10:10 AM
madAsHell said...: Yes, but you obviously don't understand the difference between weather, and climate.

yeah....me neither.

Full disclosure: I voted for Gore in 2000.
Thank God he lost.; 12/14/13, 10:11 AM
Heartless Aztec said...: An Ice Age is over due. Pray for Global Warming.; 12/14/13, 10:20 AM
Diogenes of Sinope said...: I have a very low opinion of Gore. His motive was to make as much money as possible, his tool was environmental propaganda, he succeeded wonderfully.; 12/14/13, 10:21 AM
Tank said...: Does he have to give his Oscar back yet?; 12/14/13, 10:23 AM
Heartless Aztec said...: An Ice Age is over due. Pray for Global Warming.; 12/14/13, 10:24 AM
n.n said...: Activists normally use emotional appeals, coercion (e.g. litigation), and other soft tactics for their work. With the global warming/cooling/change (drop "anthropogenic") campaign, their goals were ostensibly buoyed by undeniable scientific (i.e. hard) evidence. Unfortunately, their advocacy preceded the science, and their selection of framing has been counterproductive.

The behavior of a system which is incompletely or insufficiently characterized, and has an unwieldy composition, may be characterized as a chaotic process, which inherently limits forecasts to a limited frame of reference. Statistical methods are only valid within this frame, which may shift suddenly as undetermined or unpredicted sources and sinks affects its evolution.

They should have focused on adaptation. They should have framed it as a human rights concern. Unfortunately, with their support lent to aborting several million human lives annually, their motives are impure, and their credibility is suspect.; 12/14/13, 10:31 AM
traditionalguy said...: The trace gas co2 has never had any effect on warming the earth's atmosphere as every rational scientist knows. To have con-men science professors knowingly pretend that falsified data and computer models programed to produce a hoax result of warming is absolutely a criminal activity.

The atmosphere has been cooling for 22 years. What we actually facing from that is a disaster of cold and massive snow fall that actually does kill people. They had it right in 1974.

Gore has always been the epitome of a legalistic Southern Baptist preacher of guilt for made up sins.

But Obama and Gang are using the CO2 hoax to implement a world collective government by decrees using carbon credits as the new world currency. They want to control all energy use to control human life itself.; 12/14/13, 10:33 AM
Chef Mojo said...: Ole Ra just ain't getting it up like he used to, and Gaia is goin' all chilly on him.

Meanwhile, Al Gore, sitting on Gaia's ever chillier tit, looks around and blinks with a frown. Looks up at the sky at Ra, and says, "Who the hell are you?"; 12/14/13, 10:33 AM
kimsch said...: As Greenpeace tries scare tactics with an advertisement starring Santa (Jim Carter, Downton Abbey's butler) warning of the imminent cancelation of Christmas due to the melting of the North Pole, it snows in Cairo and Jerusalem.; 12/14/13, 10:36 AM
Scott said...: Al Gore could care less if he is correct. He made a truckload of money peddling nonsense to people who wanted what he said to be their received truth.

In that regard, Al Gore no different from conservative talk show hosts, race grievance hustlers, and motivational seminar speakers. It's an industry with no name. What would you name it.; 12/14/13, 10:43 AM
Skeptical Voter said...: The Goracle was a fraud, pure and simple.

A sort of modern day Elmer Gantry and an out and out huckster But then I'm probalbly a warmest science "denier". Better that than a bilious bozo spouting purest bunkum.; 12/14/13, 10:51 AM
Levi Starks said...: Lets all pitch in and send him on an expenses paid trip to the pole of his choice.; 12/14/13, 10:57 AM
gk1 said...: I think the warmists have only managed to "prove" their theory is unfalsfiable at this point. No matter what is happening with the weather its because of green house gases that need to be regulated by our intellectual betters. Lets stop pretending what this is really about.; 12/14/13, 10:57 AM
pm317 said...: Al Gore is an opportunist. But there are funny things happening on the weather front every where. Could some scientist analyze it with credibility?; 12/14/13, 10:57 AM
Big Mike said...: Lefties worry about consensus, righties worry about reality. For the past several years neither has supported Anthropogenic Global Warming.; 12/14/13, 10:57 AM
SteveR said...: Its still shaping our executive branch/DC Circuit Court, politicized and non scientific regulatory policy.; 12/14/13, 10:57 AM
Michelle Dulak Thomson said...: SGT Ted,

I wondered myself whether Gore wasn't after all on a worldwide speechifying tour. The entire US is unseasonably cold, and it seems to have spread overseas.; 12/14/13, 10:58 AM
Sam L. said...: Terry (@10:09), you ignorant slut! AlGore cannot get his mouth around those words.

And I'm reading the Arctic ice is increasing. DAMN that AlGorebull Worming!; 12/14/13, 11:13 AM
donald said...: This fat ass is why tar and feathering was invented.; 12/14/13, 11:20 AM
Carl said...: What a pity we didn't spend all that money studying the Sun instead of the small extra measure of CO2 that combustion adds to the carbon cycle each year. Now we're all just praying she wakes up next cycle, or it could start to get awfully cold.

Silver lining: Southern California real estate could come back in a big way.; 12/14/13, 11:22 AM
Bob Boyd said...: The same bunch who were content to have Al Gore interpret scientific data for the public were also content with the choice of Jantjie as sign language interpreter at Mandela's memorial service; 12/14/13, 11:32 AM
ddh said...: Losing the presidency by a handful of votes knocked Al Gore's world off its hinges. "If I had only done x, I would be President instead of the loser that I am. But if I save the world, I won't be a loser. I'm a better man than Clinton, and I love my wife."

If Gore had been President, the first setback would have had a similar impact on his mind, and Lieberman would have ended up as President under the provisions of the 25th amendment.; 12/14/13, 11:35 AM
Jupiter said...: One thing Al Gore isn't is poor.; 12/14/13, 11:54 AM
Bob Boyd said...: According to sources inside Gore's organization who requested anonymity, the climate change activist and former Vice President became so upset, after seeing televised reports of snow fall in Egypt, that he was literally chasing his second chakra around the hotel suite with a hockey stick.; 12/14/13, 12:21 PM
William said...: Marx made a number of explicit predictions about the future of capitalism. The fact that they never came true never lessened the belief of his followers.......I don't know enough to quantify Gore's stupidity on this issue, but I note in passing that phrenology, eugenics, penis envy, dialectical materialism et al were all espoused and propagated by men much smarter Han Al Gore.; 12/14/13, 12:38 PM
eddie willers said...: I have a very low opinion of Gore. His motive was to make as much money as possible

I don't attribute to malice that which may be more adequately explained by stupidity.; 12/14/13, 12:40 PM
Lewis Wetzel said...: Atmospheric CO2 is currently at ~ 394 PPM. Obviously we don't want it to get too high, though it has been as high as 4,000 PPM in the distant past (Ordovican).
Imagine that the current cold or flat temps continue, and the AGW people become laughing stocks. They revoke Al Gore's prizes, and all the AGW proponents change their uniforms and hide in their basements like Nazis in the summer of '45.
Then, some time later, they use better science and determine with near absolute certainty that there really is a tipping point at 500 PPM? We'll likely be there in sixty years or so.
No one will listen, they've heard it all before, and the Earth burns up, not because people are stupid and scientists are smart, but because people are smart and scientists are stupid.; 12/14/13, 12:49 PM
EdwdLny said...: Being a skeptic of everything promoted by the "elites", I didn't buy his rubbish from the get go. Neither he nor any of the other bellowing proponents live the life that they desire to force on us. From gore, to Hansen, to any of the Hollywood idiots have given up anything or altered their lifestyles. Despite the imminent demise of the planet they all continue to live in huge energy eating homes, fly around the world promoting their climate rubbish, in private planes no less. Not a one of them walk the walk, well, save one. Other than he they are all the same energy hog, CO2 spewing hypocrites they've always been. Ed Begley Jr at least lives the life and follows those precepts to reduce his CO2 production. The rest ? Pompous hypocritical asses. Some like gore, Hansen, are just more vocal.; 12/14/13, 12:49 PM
SomeoneHasToSayIt said...: Fuck Al Gore, and all those who enable him.

One of the top schadenfreudes of all time, though, is that he lost the Presidency because he failed to carry his home state. I smile to think that that probably still bothers him, and no amount of ill-gotten money gains can help.; 12/14/13, 1:03 PM
Elliott A said...: Millions starve because all our excess grain becomes ethanol. Gore's ultimate legacy will be the lost lives of millions in underdeveloped nations caused by the climate scare; 12/14/13, 1:15 PM
Carl said...: But don't worry, comrades. You can be 100% sure that the frailty of lefty predictions about climate will not dent in the slightest their confidence in their predictions about, say, the benefits of socialized healthcare or shovel-ready green jobs infrastructure spending.

After all, the very definition of a progressive is someone who thinks the past holds no lessons for the future. They are constitutionally incapable of learning from experience.; 12/14/13, 1:37 PM
Anonymous said...: Please bear in mind that weather isn't climate. Except when we need something to spook you with.; 12/14/13, 1:57 PM
jimspice said...: Hello great-great-grandchildren that found this comment by searching for my name on the old-timey internet archive from the distant future.

Do you see what idiocy we were dealing with back then/now? Sorry we could not have done more to prevent the calamity that is facing you and yours, but there were just too many stupid people in positions of power bolstered by stupid people egging them on. Again, sorry. We tried.; 12/14/13, 2:17 PM
Original Mike said...: Hello great-great-grandchildren that found this comment by searching for my name on the old-timey internet archive from the distant future.

Do you see what idiocy we were dealing with back then/now? Sorry we plunged the world into an unprecedented economic depression for the sake of a few hundredths of a degree in temperature decrease, but there were just too many stupid people in positions of power bolstered by stupid people egging them on. Again, sorry. We tried.

FYP; 12/14/13, 2:39 PM
jimspice said...: So OM, your grandchildren are going to know all the fictional screen identities you used?; 12/14/13, 3:01 PM
Michael said...: You can barely see your hand in front of your face in China's many large cities because of the pollution. But just drive a prius in Madison Wisconsin and all good. Your sanctimony alone will waft away the smog in Xian.; 12/14/13, 3:09 PM
Paul said...: To Gore, no evidence is evidence. And no proof is proof. And regardless of the outcome we were lucky.

The logic of a huckster.

Simple, no?; 12/14/13, 3:10 PM
Smilin' Jack said...: Well, of course the North Pole isn't ice-free. Obama saved us from that catastrophe.; 12/14/13, 3:36 PM
FullMoon said...: If only there were a way for climate hysterics to declare victory, and still tax us for carbon abuse....; 12/14/13, 3:53 PM
MadisonMan said...: Is there a reason to believe that predictions made five years ago are as accurate as those made today? It's fun to make fun of Gore, of course.

However, if you are not alarmed about the ongoing changes in oceanic chemistry, you are burying your head in (potentially snow-covered) desert sands. 1 2.

I can envision many ways that a warmer Earth might lead to more glaciers, for example. I'll be deuced, though, if I can see a way out of the coming changes due to sequestration of Calcium Carbonate (used by shell-makers) by free hydrogen atoms.

Enjoy your seafood while you can. Hard luck to the 15% of the world that gets their protein from the Seas.; 12/14/13, 4:16 PM
Original Mike said...: "However, if you are not alarmed about the ongoing changes in oceanic chemistry, you are burying your head in (potentially snow-covered) desert sands."

That's the problem with crying wolf (AGW). When the wolf does come, no one will listen.; 12/14/13, 4:34 PM
Gahrie said...: Hello great-great-grandchildren that found this comment by searching for my name on the old-timey internet archive from the distant future.

Do you see what idiocy we were dealing with back then/now? Sorry we failed to understand that we were actually in the middle of an ice age and wasted billions that could have been better spent improving people's lives, but there were just too many stupid people in positions of power bolstered by stupid people egging them on. Again, sorry. We tried; 12/14/13, 5:13 PM
MadisonMan said...: @OMike: I don't recall crying wolf, myself, other than pointing people to data. I think letting others draw their own conclusions based on facts is, in general, a good thing.

I find the potential for ocean damage to be really really alarming though. Maybe I'll be wrong, but it's hard to argue about the basic (no pun intended) chemistry of what's going on. And when you look at regions where CO2 concentrations are naturally very high -- near volcanic vents -- and look at the productivity of the ocean there, and compare it to the productivity of the ocean elsewhere, and then just project forward in time based on how CO2 concentrations are increasing. Well, then I start to ponder the future.

No one would want their blood pH to drop by even 20%. And yet the pH of the ocean has dropped by far more than that.; 12/14/13, 5:20 PM
Diogenes of Sinope said...: Malice, Gore is not that stupid and made way too much money by his actions to have been happenstance.; 12/14/13, 5:28 PM
The Godfather said...: I once liked Al Gore. Whenever it was that he first sought the Dem. presidential nomination (1988?) he seemed pretty reasonable and moderate. That was before he discovered the money to be made by selling snake oil by the tankerful.

I've never seen the sense in worrying about CAGW (catastrophic anthropogenic global warming). Even if it's a real risk, there's absolutely nothing we can do about it, because we don't have a dictatorial, all-powerful, world government, and short of that there's no way to impose the regulations that might reduce carbon emissions drastically enough to change the future predicted by Gore, et al. All we get are inadequate programs (i.e., inadequate in terms of preventing global warming) that have deleterious effects on other aspects of our lives (like converting food to fuel, for example).

I'm a Christian, so I hope Al's future is for a really hot place, where he'll feel right at home.; 12/14/13, 5:34 PM
MadisonMan said...: Even if it's a real risk, there's absolutely nothing we can do about it

You underestimate Man's power.

Everyone working towards a goal can accomplish great things.

Sometimes I'm optimistic!; 12/14/13, 5:39 PM
Lewis Wetzel said...: Madisonman, you don't think that National Geographic and the Seattle Times are scientific publications, do you?; 12/14/13, 5:41 PM
Strelnikov said...: He can literally say anything since he is a sociopath with no conscience and believes he is infallible.

You know, like Jim Jones or Hitler.; 12/14/13, 6:01 PM
Michael said...: Madison Man. I read both of the articles you linked and thank you. I am not a scientist but .... It seems both articles focus on studies of marine life impacted by carbon emissions from undersean volcanic vents. Both in shallow waters. The scientists then extrapolate the local data to the entire ocean, all the oceans. They may well be right , but I sense there was a Eureka moment when carbon dioxide was noted as the cause of acidification, a chance to crank up the grant writing. I wonder about the levels at the bottomof the Marianas Trench.; 12/14/13, 6:06 PM
MadisonMan said...: Terry, define your term. What is a scientific publication?

If you question the conclusions of what I've cited, why not say so?

The chemistry of ocean pH when the overlying atmosphere includes more and more CO2 is quite well understood. How that affects animals that build shells -- and other animals -- has been observed directly in the ocean near CO2 seeps.

Even non-scientific news organs can report on this, you know, and get facts correct.; 12/14/13, 6:07 PM
Strelnikov said...: From Despair, Inc., 12/13/13:

“Today in 2000:

Al Gore concedes the presidential election, vowing to reinvent himself as the country”s most beloved fat bearded guy.

He is 66% successful.”; 12/14/13, 6:12 PM
Strelnikov said...: AWG appeals to the Left because it encapsulates their most cherished, religiously held beliefs:

1) Man is the most powerful force in the universe; but
2) Man is inherently evil so its activities will naturally produce evil results; but
3) If we can only take control of everything we can change the world for the better. We're that powerful.

Combined with that, the Left won't face the following realities:

1) Weather is not climate;
2) Climate is a dynamic system, constantly in a state of flux; and
3) The weather of their childhoods will not necessarily remain unchanged.

Don't bother to try to talk to any of them on this or any of the their other religious beliefs.; 12/14/13, 6:19 PM
MadisonMan said...: I wonder about the levels at the bottom of the Marianas Trench

Isolated as they are from the surface, the deep waters of the Marianas are not likely to be contaminated, if you will, by the higher CO2 levels in the atmosphere.

Not yet. Eventually overturning occurs, of course.; 12/14/13, 7:09 PM
MadisonMan said...: By the by, despite the occurrence of an isolated event in December, November was the warmest in a particular data set.; 12/14/13, 7:34 PM
Lewis Wetzel said...: "Terry, define your term. What is a scientific publication?"

Not a newspaper or National Geographic magazine.

"If you question the conclusions of what I've cited, why not say so?"

Because I don't question their conclusions, I question their ability to have a conclusion that is meaningful in important matters.
Let me check.
Okay, back.
Neither of the articles was written by a scientist. They are what are called 'popular magazines' or 'popular publications'. What did you think they were, peer-reviewed journals?
I am curious about you, Madisonman. Are you the sort of person who makes up his mind on, say, the validity of scientific research by seeing what the New Yorker's journalists have to say about it?; 12/14/13, 7:41 PM
glenn said...: Or Al could say "Hey, I swindled all you AGW suckers out of a billion dollars, dumped my chubby wife, got a Hollywood sweetie and a mansion at the coast" flip the bird and walk away.; 12/14/13, 7:57 PM
Kirk Parker said...: Eddie,

"I don't attribute to malice that which may be more adequately explained by stupidity. "

Touché! Gore either flunked out, or withdrew from, divinity school.

Now, to clarify: as a Christian, I have no quarrel with anyone who starts on the process toward ordination and then decides it's not, after all, their calling. (In fact I know one or two ordained people who, imho, should have made that decision.)

But as a friend who graduated M.Div. from one of the most respected seminaries in the country at that same time pointed out to me, this was during the Viet Nam War era when grad school was a ticket to a deferment. The average person has no idea what kind of "interesting" persons inhabited America's theological seminary student bodies at that time, and how highly motivated most of them were to get good enough grades to stay in school! The fact that Gore bailed in that climate suggest many things, few of them to his credit.; 12/14/13, 8:29 PM
Anonymous said...: I still can't figure out how global warming keeps making it colder. As for me, I'd much rather have global warming that global cooling.

I just watched a film last night from Redbox called, "Colony" which wasn't a very good movie. However, I found out once again that the world froze over because global warming.

Idiots.; 12/14/13, 9:20 PM
MadisonMan said...: Terry, the answer to your question is No.

I think it's ridiculous, however, to discount an article because it's not written by a scientist. Some of the scientists I know (meteorologists and oceanographers) are absolutely dreadful communicators.

There is something wrong with my scientific knowledge if I cannot discern the truth of an article from either a peer-reviewed journal or a blog or a magazine. Given that it is often my job to know...; 12/14/13, 9:53 PM
Original Mike said...: @MadisonMan: My "cry wolf" comment was not directed at you personally. But it is a fact that anybody who expresses skepticism at the AGW (er, ACG) story is disparaged and demeaned. Maybe the AGW wolf is real and maybe not (I'm open minded on the question). But if the real wolf actually turns out to be ocean acidification, or something else, those who've been bullied over AGW are not going to be receptive to listening to this new threat. And I, for one, will know who to blame for humanities deaf ears.; 12/14/13, 10:06 PM
Captain Curt said...: @MadisonMan: The sea critters that use calcium carbonite evolved in CO2 levels 15-20 times higher than present levels. The heavily buffered ocean chemistry will not permit wide swings in pH. Atmospheric CO2 levels several times higher than we have today will not lower the pH to anything like that seen near vents.

Recent experiments with elevated but realistic CO2 levels above typical ocean systems have not shown any detrimental effects on carbonate formation.; 12/15/13, 7:28 PM
Anonymous said...: Mr. Gore is laughing all the way to the bank. He and his priesthood have managed to outsell even the indulgences of the medieval church to the (increasingly less) educated citizens. Nothing quite like another religion and god (gaia no less) – and their bible (so called refereed publications.. where we’ve never seen a greater amount of fraud – and lack of rigor in those disciplines.. There must be a Martin Luther out there somewhere).

Amusing how all this all really got rolling with Messrs. Gore and Clinton telling Ken Lay they could and should prepare for a carbon market, and its subsequent trading and speculation, and Enron was well positioned to arbitrage the sheeple who foolishly believed you could deregulate the wholesale power market while regulating and capping consumer prices - and couldn't believe when an Enron (among others) made them suffer (chose not to deliver power at a below market price, and worse had the gall to laugh at them and the result - on the record).; 12/15/13, 10:10 PM
Irv said...: Gore's Global Warming Secret

You'll never guess what initially inspired Al Gore's "temperature" mania - the one that's raised our tempers.
Well, Gore is from Tennessee where you can hear Bible belt preachers warning about "Hell fire" in the next life.
And Gore, concerned about this life, is surrounded by those who also know about the prediction in Revelation (chapter 16) of the coming time when a change in the sun will result in humans being "scorched with great heat"!
It wouldn't be convenient if folks were to discover that Gore, a liberal, was influenced by the handbook closely associated with Christian fundamentalists!
If Tennessee fundy preachers could look at the same predictions-packed apocalyptic book and stretch forward in time some future events, Gore could surely do the same thing and stretch forward the "great heat" and turn it into cold cash.
All of us are well aware of the incredible influence that the Gore-orrhea plague has had on the whole world including the White House!
But Gore's overlooked another Bible verse which says that "there is nothing hid that shall not be revealed."
The real "inconvenient truth" is that the SS Al Gore is now stuck in ice - and what we need is a Gorebreaker!; 1/10/14, 3:16 AM