“Overselling our certainty about knowing the future.”

*

The Global Warming Crisis hype is the Lysenkoism of our age.

Politics trumps science.

Inconvenient facts such as the Holocene Maximum and the Medieval Warm Period are studiously and vigorously ignored. They have to be ignored. They make a mockery of the whole Global Warming movement.

~~~

Kevin Vranes, a climatologist at the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research at the University of Colorado, said he sensed a growing backlash against exaggeration. While praising Mr. Gore for “getting the message out,” Dr. Vranes questioned whether his presentations were “overselling our certainty about knowing the future.”

Typically, the concern is not over the existence of climate change, or the idea that the human production of heat-trapping gases is partly or largely to blame for the globe’s recent warming. The question is whether Mr. Gore has gone beyond the scientific evidence.

“He’s a very polarizing figure in the science community,” said Roger A. Pielke Jr., an environmental scientist who is a colleague of Dr. Vranes at the University of Colorado center. “Very quickly, these discussions turn from the issue to the person, and become a referendum on Mr. Gore.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/13/science/13gore.html?ei=5090&en=2df9d6e7a5aa6ed6&ex=1331438400&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all

Al Gore is on record advocating the exaggeration of the Global Warming data. Of course, Al Gore is a politician, not a scientist. The exaggeration of data and the selective use of data to persuade is too often common tools of the trade for politicians like Al Gore.

Truth for a politician is a question of consensus, not of facts. Facts don't give a flying fig for consensus. If a consensus chooses to believe that the earth is flat, or that the sun orbits the earth, or that the stars are just pinpricks in the bowl of heaven, the facts will not change their minds to accommodate the consensus.

~~~

(Reporter) question: There's a lot of debate right now over the best way to communicate about global warming and get people motivated. Do you scare people or give them hope? What's the right mix?

(Al Gore) answer: I think the answer to that depends on where your audience's head is. In the United States of America, unfortunately we still live in a bubble of unreality. And the Category 5 denial is an enormous obstacle to any discussion of solutions. Nobody is interested in solutions if they don't think there's a problem. Given that starting point, I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous it is, as a predicate for opening up the audience to listen to what the solutions are, and how hopeful it is that we are going to solve this crisis.

Over time that mix will change. As the country comes to more accept the reality of the crisis, there's going to be much more receptivity to a full-blown discussion of the solutions.
http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2006/05/09/roberts/index.html

Emphasis added