Eric Steig from Washington University states that the film gets the fundamental science right. The minor factual errors do not undermine the main message of the film, which explains the theory that increasing carbon dioxide causes a warming tendency in the lower atmosphere.

There is no question that Al Gore's 2006 documentary An Inconvenient Truth is a powerful example of how scientific knowledge can be communicated to a lay audience. What is up for debate is whether it accurately presents the scientific argument that global warming is caused by human activities. Climate change experts express their opinions on the scientific validity of the film's claims in articles just published online in Springer's journal, GeoJournal.

An Inconvenient Truth is about Al Gore's campaign to educate citizens about global warming and inspire them to take action. The papers in GeoJournal agree that it does an excellent job of raising public awareness of man-made global warming and explains why increased atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases lead to warming.

They also agree that its main weakness is that it tries to use individual extreme events, such as Hurricane Katrina, to prove the existence of global warming.

In the first opinion piece, Eric Steig from Washington University states that the film gets the fundamental science right. The minor factual errors do not undermine the main message of the film, which explains the theory that increasing carbon dioxide causes a warming tendency in the lower atmosphere.

John Nielsen-Gammon from Texas A and M University also agrees that the main scientific argument presented in the movie is for the most part consistent with the weight of scientific evidence. He comments that unfortunately, it neglects all information that can be gained from computer models, and instead relies entirely on past and current observational evidence. This increases the film's emotional impact but weakens the scientific argument.

David Legates from the University of Delaware addresses assertions about trends in precipitation, floods, droughts and storms in particular. He concludes that there are significant errors in the film, owing to alarmism and exaggeration, which give a false impression of both the current state of climate change and that the science is settled.

In another paper, Roy Spencer from the University of Alabama in Huntsville also discredits the scientific validity of the documentary. In his view, the film's main omission is that while humans are almost certainly responsible for global warming, there are other natural causes of climate variability which the film does not address. In his opinion, the "real inconvenient truth is that science has no idea how much of recent warming is natural versus the result of human activities".

After providing a succinct summary of the state of climate change science, Gerald North from Texas A and M University concludes the debate by stating that although there are some inaccuracies and exaggerations in the film, on the whole it represents mainstream scientific views on global warming.

Steven Quiring, also from Texas A and M University and author of the issue's introduction, comes to the conclusion that whether scientists like it or not, An Inconvenient Truth has had a much greater impact on public opinion and public awareness of global climate change than any scientific paper or report.

SPX/Terra

Now this is something you can get your teeth into!!!!! If the environment doesn't come right, all your rhetoric goes straight down the drain!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanx One-information, heard of the movie somewhere sometime last year and never took interest, I will however make it a point in getting to watch it sooner than later, sounds pretty interesting, makes you wonder, How ready is Namibia in terms of disaster management, what scale can we handle and in this whole global warming issues, what are the predictions for southern Africa, what impacts are we looking at? how much awarness is needed on this issue in the southern hamisphere, is our government attending to anything in this field? Let's talk then!!!

Nicholas Stern, the author of a key climate change report, said in an interview published Thursday that he and his team "underestimated" the risks of global warming.

Speaking to the Financial Times, former World Bank chief economist Stern also defended the conclusions in his 2006 report, which has been criticised by some economists and climate change sceptics, including former British finance minister Lord Nigel Lawson.

Stern's 700-page report estimated the effects of climate change at up to a fifth of worldwide gross domestic product if nothing was done.

"We underestimated the risks ... we underestimated the damage associated with the temperature increases ... and we underestimated the probability of temperature increases," he told the business daily.

"The damage risks are bigger than I would have argued ... We can't be precise about what it would be like but you can say it would be a transformation."

He said that if he were writing the report in the current circumstances, he would have "emphasised the importance of good policy and how bad policy puts up the costs (of cutting emissions)."

Among the "bad" policies Stern listed was the use of grain and sugar to make biofuels.

He also dismissed critics of his report, who have alleged that he over-estimated the costs of inaction and under-estimated the costs of action.

"Subsequent reports, (from) McKinsey (a consulting firm), the International Energy Agency, the (United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), have pointed to the (Stern report's) costs of action being roughly in the right ballpark," he said.

"Nothing (since) has led me to revise the cost of action."

Climate Science

By Matthew Knight
for CNN


LONDON, England -- Climatology was once a small and often overlooked branch of science. But important discoveries made as early as the 19th century have contributed to what is the most important field of scientific study in the world today. Listed below are some key dates in climate change history.


April 2008: Negotiators from 180 countries are attempting to draft a plan against global warming. According to a UN official these climate change talks could lead to the most complicated treaty in history.

1824

French physicist Joseph Fourier is first to describe a "greenhouse effect" in a paper delivered to Paris's Académie Royale des Sciences.

1861

Irish physicist John Tyndall carries out research on radiant heat and the absorption of radiation by gases and vapors including CO2 and H2O. He shows that carbon dioxide can absorb in the infrared spectrum, and it can cause a change in temperature. Tyndall famously declares: "The solar heat possesses. . . the power of crossing an atmosphere. But when the heat is absorbed by the planet, it is so changed in quality that the rays emanating from the planet cannot get with the same freedom back into space. Thus the atmosphere admits of the entrance of the solar heat, but checks its exit. The result is a tendency to accumulate heat at the surface of the planet."

1896

Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius first proposes the idea of a man-made greenhouse effect. He hypothesizes that the increase in the burning of coal since the beginning of industrialization could lead to an increase in atmospheric CO2 and heat up the earth. Arrhenius was trying to find out why the earth experienced ice ages. He thought the prospect of future generations living "under a milder sky" would be a desirable state of affairs.

1938

British engineer Guy Stewart Callendar compiles temperature statistics in a variety of regions and finds that over the previous century the mean temperature had risen markedly. He also discovers that CO2 levels had risen 10 percent during the same period. He concludes that CO2 was the most likely reason for the rise in temperature.

1955

John Hopkins University researcher Gilbert Plass proves that increased levels of carbon dioxide could raise atmospheric temperature. By 1959 Plass is boldly predicting that the earth's temperature would rise more than 3 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century.

In the same year chemist Hans Suess detects the fossil carbon produced by burning fuels, although he and Roger Revelle - director of the Scripps Institute of Oceanography - declare that the oceans must be absorbing the majority of atmospheric carbon dioxide, they decide to conduct further research.

1958

Revelle and Suess employ geochemist Charles Keeling to continuously monitor CO2 levels in the atmosphere. After only two years of measurements in Antarctica an increase is visible. The graph becomes widely known as the Keeling Curve and becomes an icon of global warming debate and continues to chart the year on year rise in CO2 concentrations to this day.

1970

The first "Earth Day" takes place on April 22nd across America. Twenty million people participate in the event organized by Democratic Senator Gaylord Nelson. It follows and precedes a series of U.S. Department for Energy reports highlighting concern about global warming

1979

The first World Climate Conference is held in Geneva attended by a range of scientists and leads to the establishment of the World Climate Program.

1985

Scientists at the World Climate Program conference at Villach in Austria confidently predict that increased CO2 concentrations will lead to a significant rise in the mean surface temperatures of the earth. A hole in the ozone layer is discovered over Antarctica.

1987

Officially the hottest year on record to date. Three years later the 1980s is confirmed as the hottest decade since records began.

1988

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is set up by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). The IPCC will provide reports based on scientific evidence which reflect existing viewpoints within the scientific community.

Parts of the Mississippi river are reduced to a trickle and Yellowstone National Park becomes a tinderbox. In June, Dr James Hansen of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies delivers his famous testimony to the U.S. Senate. Based on computer models and temperature measurements he is 99 percent sure that the [human caused] greenhouse effect has been detected and it is already changing the climate.

1990

The IPCC delivers its first assessment on the state of climate change, predicting an increase of 0.3 °C each decade in the 21st century -- greater than any rise seen over the previous 10,000 years.

1992

The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development -- better known as the Earth Summit -- takes place in Rio de Janeiro attended by 172 countries. It is the first unified effort to get to grips with global warming and leads to negotiations which result in the Kyoto Protocol.

1995

The hottest year on record. Four years later the 1990s are confirmed as the hottest decade in 1000 years.

The IPCC report for that year states that "the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate."

1997

The Kyoto Protocol: Industrialized countries agree to cut their emissions of six key greenhouse gases by an average of 5.2 percent. Under the terms of the agreement each country -- except developing countries -- commits to a reduction by 2008 -- 2012 compared to 1990 levels. Notably, the U.S. Congress vote 95 to 0 against any treaty which doesn't commit developing countries to "meaningful" cuts in emissions.

2001

Newly elected U.S. President George W. Bush renounces the Kyoto Protocol stating that it will damage the U.S. economy. The third IPCC report declares that the evidence of global warming over the previous 50 years being fueled by human activities is stronger than ever.

2003

Europe experiences one the hottest summers on record causing widespread drought claiming the lives of over 30,000 people.

2005

Following ratification by Russia -- the 19th country to do so -- in November 2004, the Kyoto Protocol becomes a legally binding treaty. America and Australia continue their refusal to sign up claiming reducing emissions would damage their economies.

2007

175 countries in total have ratified the Kyoto Treaty. Under new Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, Australia ratifies the treaty. The IPCC report for a fourth time states that "warming of the climate is unequivocal" and that the levels of temperature and sea rise in the 21st century will depend on the extent or limit of emissions in the coming years.

Former vice-president Al Gore and the IPCC jointly win the Nobel Peace Prize for services to environmentalism.

2008

160 square miles of the Wilkins Shelf breaks away from the Antarctic coast. Scientists are concerned that climate change may be happening faster than previously thought.

Following the Bali talks/roadmap, negotiators from 180 countries launch formal negotiations towards a new treaty to mitigate climate change at the Bangkok Climate Change Talks.

2009 - 2011: The formal negotiations towards a treaty to mitigate climate change at the "Bangkok Climate Change Talks" break down repeatedly!!!!
2012: Nothing!!!!!

Oh Pietro - I can relate to your sentiment, but let us not be too cynical... if there's money to be made with going green, then capitalism will turn over a green leaf. "The markets" will shift resources to greener technologies because it makes business sense. St least that is what I hope and what I think is ultimately our only hope.

Comrade_0007 - You mean "Let the chance of making a quick buck not stand in the way of behaving environmentally responsible?????????????????"

The year 2008 is halfway to the deadline for reaching the Millennium Development Goals. Despite some progress, they will not be achieved if current trends continue. Aid promises are predicted to be missed by $30bn, at a potential cost of 5 million lives. Starting with the G8 meeting in Japan, rich countries must use a series of high-profile summits in 2008 to make sure the Goals are met, and to tackle both climate change and the current food crisis. Economic woes must not be used as excuses: rich countries’ credibility is on the line.
Summary
No one has to be poor in 2008. No woman need die giving birth for want of simple medical care. No child should die of pneumonia because of a lack of medicine. No girl should have to watch her brothers leave to go to school while she stays at home. No family should see floods wash away its food. No woman should have to watch her children risk their lives drinking dirty water, or go to sleep with empty bellies.
This year, 2008, is the halfway point towards the deadline for reaching the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), agreed by 147 nations in the year 2000. They focus on tackling poverty, hunger, gender inequality, education, health, water, sanitation, and the environment. These goals were not chosen as impossible dreams. They were chosen because they are realistic targets that, with concerted action, can and should be reached – and in fact exceeded – in order to banish extreme poverty to the history books.
Table 1: The Millenium Development Goals (MDGs) (see attached pdf)

Remarkable progress is possible, even in the poorest countries. In Rwanda the number of children dying from malaria has been cut by two-thirds in the last two years alone. If you are born in Tanzania today, you are 25 per cent less likely to die by your first birthday than your sister born just four years ago. The Global Fund to fight HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria, which was created at the last G8 held in Japan in 2000, has to date distributed 30 million anti-malarial bednets, and is saving 3000 lives a day.
The most powerful driver of these transformations is the realisation that change is indeed possible: despair in poor countries and apathy in rich ones are the greatest obstacles. In Malawi, consistent economic growth, government subsidy for fertilisers that contributed to record harvests, mass distribution of free AIDS drugs and falling numbers of those infected, a 50 per cent salary increase for nurses, and free primary education for every child have all contributed to a palpable sense of optimism in the country. Compared with just six years ago when the country was gripped by a food crisis, this is amazing progress. There is so much further to go; some eversals and setbacks are inevitable. But the first ingredient of success is the belief that it is within reach.
It is these successes that make the wider failure of progress towards the MDGs all the more unacceptable. Rapid increases in food prices threaten to reverse what gains have been made, thus driving millions back below the poverty line. At half time, instead of coasting to victory, the world is staring at defeat. Rich countries are not the only reason for this failure. Poor-country governments can and should do far more, and Oxfam works with activists and citizens across the developing world to demand change from their leaders.
But rich countries continue to control 60 per cent of the world economy and have generated 60 oer cent of the world’s accumulated carbon emissions. They are the ones who make or break trade or climate negotiations depending on what concessions they give and what demands they make on developing countries. They are the ones producing most of the arms. They are the creditors demanding that illegitimate and crippling debts are repaid: often debts incurred paying for those same arms. But with this great power comes great responsibility. They have a strong obligation to use their money and power to stop doing harm and instead to make the world a fairer, better place. When they do act, for example on debt cancellation or on provision of treatment for those living with HIV and AIDS, lives are saved.
By 2010 we need to see $150bn in additional high-quality annual aid in order to reach the MDGs.(1) To go beyond the MDGs, to end poverty and not just halve it, rich countries must finally fulfil their promise, made in 1970, to give 0.7 per cent of their income as aid. In an unprecedented move, the leaders of all the major multilateral agencies, including the World Bank, the United Nations (UN), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the European Commission (EC) have jointly published, in May 2008, a detailed investment plan for Africa, which shows clearly the specific life-saving interventions that could be made if the aid promised at the G8 in Gleneagles were delivered.
Action by rich countries to end poverty is not just a moral imperative: a more prosperous and safer developing world is in the interests of everyone. It means more markets and trading partners. It undermines the threat of armed conflict and terrorism. It reduces the pressure for economic migration. It enables the world to act together to tackle global crises such as climate change and disease.
Sadly, despite these compelling arguments, rich-country leaders more commonly prefer to hide behind promises, polemic, and short-term self-interest.
During the next few months, a series of important opportunities present themselves in which leaders can take action to restore their crumbling credibility. As this year’s G8 chair, Japan must press the rich countries to take action at their meeting in July. Beyond the G8, the emergency MDG meeting called by the UN Secretary-General for September, the Ghana Aid Summit the same month, and the Financing for Development Conference in Doha in November are all important accountability opportunities. These meetings should present action plans, backed by finance, to deliver on the MDGs. The climate change summit in Poznan in Poland in December then offers the chance of a fair deal on climate. The millions of campaigners in rich and poor countries who want action on poverty and inequality have not gone away and will make their presence felt this year, and every year, until leaders meet the challenge.
Oxfam has a six-point agenda for the G8 and other rich-country leaders for these critical meetings. They must follow this set of steps, and follow them now:
1 Stop burning food and start supporting poor farmers
2 Mend broken aid promises
3 Support health, education, water and sanitation for all
4 Climate change: stop harming and start helping
5 Put women and girls first
6 Prioritise security for sustainable development
The recent rapid increases in food prices mean untold misery for millions, with despair and anger leading to riots worldwide. The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) has estimated that biofuels explain 30 per cent of the recent increase in food prices.(2) The IMF has calculated that 50 per cent of the increase in consumption of major food crops is attributable to the rapid increase in the use of US corn for biofuels. Unless new targets to further increase biofuel use are frozen, this will get worse and not better. The rich cannot burn food while the poor world starves. They must revisit support for biofuels that drive food prices higher. At the same time humanitarian aid and long-term investment in agriculture, including subsidised seed and fertiliser, should be rapidly increased and further supported through fair trade rules.
Aid should be going up, not down. Rich countries give just over half as much of their income as they did in 1962. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has confirmed Oxfam’s prediction that rich countries could miss their 2010 promise of $50bn in extra annual aid by as much as $30bn – money that could save 5 million lives. Rich-country leaders have produced nearly a trillion dollars to bail out their reckless banks, yet cannot find $30bn in aid. Many people are tired of broken promises and implausible excuses. If Spain can increase its aid by 33 per cent in one year, then so can Japan, Germany, France, and the UK. It is simply untrue that giving 0.7 per cent of the country’s income as foreign aid is not affordable or politically feasible. Aid must be radically improved in quality, too. We need to see French aid spent on basic health and education, not squandered on scholarships to the Sorbonne and other French universities. Aid must support government plans, not donor pet projects, and aid commitments must be made for years, not months.
This year is the tenth anniversary of the first major protest of Jubilee 2000 at the Birmingham G8 in 1998. Debt cancellation is the best thing the G8 has ever done for poor countries, under huge pressure from this worldwide campaign. It has led to a doubling of social spending in many countries. But the process has now slowed to a crawl and many more countries need relief. Bangladesh has had no cancellation and is still paying rich countries $2m a day. The rules must also be changed to ensure that a new debt crisis does not emerge, and to punish irresponsible lenders who write cheques to dictators and demand payment from poor people.
Essential public services – health, education, water, sanitation – are lethal weapons in the fight against poverty and inequality. Massive progress has been possible with the free and universal provision of these basic services. To pay for this, funds must be forthcoming from rich nations: they should support government plans for free universal public services. They must stop attracting health workers away from poor countries and defending their drug companies’ profits rather than affordable medicines for all.
Climate change is already hitting poor people first and worst, causing increased droughts and floods and threatening livelihoods. Although not directly included in the MDGs, 2015 is also a critical milestone in efforts to combat climate change. The brutal reality is that unless the global trend of greenhouse-gas emissions growth is reversed by 2015, our chances of avoiding unmanageable climate impacts will be very poor. This will have direct life or death consequences for the poorest, most vulnerable people around the world.
Climate is likely to dominate this year’s G8 discussions, but it looks unlikely that the G8 leaders will resolve to support an ambitious post-2012 agreement under the UN. China will be painted as one of the big problems. In fact, rich-country emissions have created the problem in the first place. They have the responisbility to cut their emissions fast and deep as well as to help people in poor countries adapt to the already unavoidable impacts of climate change. At the G8, some money to help poor countries adapt will be announced by the UK, USA, and Japan, but a large part is going to be taken from existing aid budgets, and in the case of the UK will actually be loans. Poor countries face a triple injustice: they have to pay the price for rich countries’ pollution, the little money to help them is being diverted from urgently needed development aid promises, and they are being asked to repay it with interest. This is completely unacceptable; rich countries must come up with at least $50bn a year to compensate poor countries for their dirty carbon habit.
Poverty is literally man-made. Men hold most of the power in the world, and must take responsibility for the brutal poverty and insidious inequality that is the blight on the lives of so many. Prioritising equality for women and girls is a prerequisite of any progress. Ending poverty will require money and dedicated UN leadership.
Poverty, and particularly inequality between different groups, contributes to many of the world’s 31 major armed conflicts. In the next five years, any of the poorest countries in the world could have a one in six chance of civil war, with women worst affected. G8 governments are some of the biggest arms dealers and the flood of unregulated arms undermines the potential of tackling poverty. Currently, spending on arms is 12 times more than spending on aid. If this were reversed, poverty and insecurity could be ended. The world needs a fully enforced Arms Trade Treaty.
The G8 and other rich nations have the power and the opportunity to make poverty history. They have the power to end the current food crisis and to tackle climate change. It is not yet too late, but it will be if rich nations don’t act soon.

Oxfam/ReliefWeb