I have previously said all I have to say about Al Gore’s mockumentary An Inconvenient Truth, or so I thought. In fact I have posted several rebuttals, critiques and rebukes of his pet film. It is these critiques which are now making a small, mostly ignored noise.

His scare tactics and demagoguery depend on loose interpretation and misrepresentations more then hard science, and that is what his critics claim makes his Oscar Nomination either a deliberate fraud, or a case of selective enforcement of Oscar Standards for political gain.

Via CNS News:

Al Gore’s movie on climate change is likely to win an Oscar for best documentary on Sunday even though it arguably violates the Academy’s own criteria and should be disqualified, critics say.

But, they argue, the way in which the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences has handled the issue in the past shows a clear political bias.

Documentaries that distort reality and shade the truth are insulated from criticism so long as they advance left-wing causes like global warming and gun control, said independent filmmaker Dan Gifford, a former Oscar nominee and Emmy Award winner.

According to the “rule 12″ standard for documentary films established by the Academy, while it is permissible to employ storytelling devices such as re-enactments, stock footage, stills and animations, the emphasis must be on fact and not fiction.¹

The critics argue that in the case of “An Inconvenient Truth,” the criteria are not met.

One might be tempted to shrug and say “Who Cares” on hearing this. It is just an Oscar, it is not like it is a big deal.

But it is for a couple reasons.

The movie is staunchly supported and defended by Al and others as being 100% factual and accurate, and therefore it must be headed because it’s conclusions are so desperate and dire. If the movie is proven to be an exaggeration or inaccurate it also challenges the conclusions at the core of the movie.

This is a serious problem for Gore and the GW Alarmists. Over and over again critics have shown how they amplify the worst case scenarios and claim it to be irrefutable fact, but in this case, Gore seems to have not only taken the worst case scenarios as his baselines, he has transcended the, with exaggerations to a point of utter ridiculousness.

Take the case of the polar bears:

One point of contention in Gore’s movie is animated footage of a polar bear struggling to find stable sea ice. Gore has argued that human-induced global warming is directly impacting polar bears’ habitat and sea ice in particular. Consequently, he suggests, polar bears are forced to swim longer distances and sometimes drown in the process.

“A new scientific study shows that for the first time they’re finding polar bears that have actually drowned swimming long distances - up to sixty miles - to find the ice,” Gore says in the movie.

The scene falls apart when you find out that they are basing that on the carcasses of 4 dead polar bears fished out of the ocean. They also conveniently ignore:

That episode took place after a severe storm, he noted, but Gore makes no reference to a storm during the film’s animated polar bear sequence.

Neither does Gore provide a reference to the study or the evidence to back his claim. His cute animation is considered enough. And it was effective, the imagery was devastating. But false.

Gore “crosses a line” that takes his documentary from fact to fiction by flatly claiming polar bears are drowning, when in reality, there is no hard evidence to substantiate his claim, Berlau said.

In past years, the Academy has applied “very strong standards against the manipulation of animal scenes in film,” Berlau said.

He cited as an example a 1958 Disney documentary “White Wilderness,” which won an Oscar but was subsequently discredited. Film crew had apparently induced lemmings to jump off a cliff in an effort to highlight the species’ suicidal behavior.

If those standards were still in effect, “An Inconvenient Truth” would be disqualified, Berlau said.

Is this selective enforcement of Rule 12? Are they ignoring the facts? Gore has wiggle room in that the way that some reporters can hide behind obvious false stories and claim they are substantiated by credible anonymous sources.²

Dan Rather and Memo-gate anyone?

And then there is the matter of the Sea Level claims:

Another area in the movie that has raised eyebrows is Gore’s suggestion that climate change could lead to a 20-foot sea level rise, jeopardizing coastal areas of the U.S., including Florida and Manhattan.

The film shows computer-generated images of water flowing into New York City and covering the area where the World Trade Center once stood, as Gore draws a link between global warming and 9/11.

“Is it possible that we should prepare against other threats besides terrorists?” he asks. “Maybe we should be concerned about other problems as well.”

But climate experts who have spoken with Cybercast News Service scoff at the “alarmist” claim.

Even the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), supposedly the basis of scientific “consensus” on the issue, does not project sea rise levels anywhere near 20 feet.

Instead, the IPCC predicts a sea level rise by the end of the 21st century of between 0.3 feet and 2.8 feet with a “central value” of 1.5 feet.

2.8 feet versus 20 feet. An easy mistake, I am sure.

Gore has his defenders of course:

“Sometimes it is necessary to be subjective when exploring a part of reality and to put your best interpretation on events,” Shashoua³ said. “Rule 12 should not get in the way so long as the filmmaker is not playing fast and loose with the material. A little creative license is necessary, especially when actual footage is not available.”

Gore’s film passes muster in Shashoua’s view, because the film is built around a college lecture, and it “doesn’t stretch the truth to show Gore using devices in the same manner a professor might.”

But that raises my hackles just as bad. Are not College Lectures supposed to be factually based? Why would a lecturer distort the facts as a part of a lecture? I don’t buy this as a defense at all.

Part of the drama and problems exist because the average person has a completely different understanding of what a documentary is. To the average person, it is a reality based presentation of fact. Various definitions are:

1. Non-fiction narrative without actors.
2. photographs, a film, television or radio programme that give facts and information about a subject.

But here is how Hollywood sees it:

1. Refers to film or video that explores a subject in a way the public expects to be factual and accurate. Documentaries may be balanced by including various viewpoints, or they may be subjective, offering the viewpoint and impressions of one producer.

And there we see it. Gore and his ilk have a vision about the corruption and eventual death of the world at the hands of the reckless and irresponsible humans who plague and infest its surface, much as termites infest a house to its eventual ruin.

And throughout the last 50 years or so they have stopped at nothing to stop the humans regardless of whether there are legitimate facts to support it, giving birth to Junk Science. DDT was bad.⁴ Nuclear Power is bad. We are facing Global Cooling.

It goes on and on. And the latest and greatest of these belongs to Global Warming Alarmists. Not Global warming Scientists, that study the every changing atmosphere and try to understand it, but the scientists who sit upon huge grants and make their living on preconceptual science.

Of course expecting the Oscar Committee to buck the conventional wisdom and political correctness is simply unrealistic.

Remember Bowling for Columbine? Another distorted mockumentary the Oscars honored.⁵

Remember you read it here first: When Al wins the Oscar, and then wins the Nobel Peace Prize⁶ please do not act surprised when he stops denying he is planning a Whitehouse run, and by the acclaim of his peers and the International Community, he humbly accepts the nominations for the Presidency.

With those awards under his belt and this movie on peoples minds, he is a near sure thing. And frankly, that would be more then just inconvenient.

1. An eligible film is defined as a theatrically released non-fiction motion picture dealing creatively with cultural, artistic, historical, social, scientific, economic or other subjects. It may be photographed in actual occurrence, or may employ partial re-enactment, stock footage, stills, animation, stop-motion or other techniques, as long as the emphasis is on fact and not on fiction. [back]
2. Despite the fact that a source is not really credible when you cannot verify its credibility… [back]
3. Michael Shashoua, an entertainment journalist and member of the Gen Art Film Festival Screening Committee in New York City… [back]
4. http://www.junkscience.com/ddtfaq.html… [back]
5. http://www.spinsanity.org/columns/20021119.html… [back]
6. It says something interesting when you can lie on film, cause international panic and argument, and then get nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize… [back]

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