"Our greatest responsibility is to be good ancestors."

-Jonas Salk

Thursday, October 11, 2007

Barton vs Gore: Discuss

Apparently, there has been a judgement rendered in the UK regarding the showing of An Inconvenient Truth in UK public schools, and it's a mixed blessing. A Judge Burton has listed nine points of "guidance" that British teachers must bring to the classroom in order to show the film.

Thanks to James for the tipoff.

Are the nine points fair? That's a bit much for discussion in a blog format, so I set up a quick wiki for the purposes of conversation. We'll see if this works out or fizzles, or worse, if it takes off too far and I get swamped by administrivia. Consider it an experiment. Anyway, rather than trying to get to the bottom of all nine points, why not try to see how far you can get with one of them?

It seems likely that if we do a good job of this, the final result could be contributed as a collaborative RealClimate article.

(And remember, as we say in Austin, Barton Springs Eternal.)

Update: The majority appears to believe the judge is called Burton, not Barton, though the latter appears in many places. As far as I know, Burton does not spring eternal.

More Important Update: Excellent discussions at Stoat, Deltoid (thanks, john), and New Scientist

DailyKos pitches in with the progressive Democrat p.o.v.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Michael, are links to an AIT transcript and to the full text of the judge's decision (inc. briefs if possible) available? It's hard to have a nuanced discussion without them. Also, the point should be made up front that comparing AIT to the AR4 is a slightly unfair exercise since the former pre-dates even the draft of the latter by at least a year. IIRC Gore's slide show does get updated, so it would be interesting to see what the current contents are relative to the issues highlighted in the ruling.

Michael Tobis said...

The ruling is already linked. Don't know about a film transcript. Anyone?

Is Mr. Gore listening?

Michael Tobis said...

Is it Burton or Barton? This Times of London article has it both ways.

As far as I know, Burton does not spring eternal.

Anonymous said...

Here's the Monnett polar bear drowning paper.

May I have the keys to the kingdom, pretty please?

Anonymous said...

Just to note that the judge makes it clear in the last sentence of paragraph 34 that he thinks only the first two (rapid sea level rise and Pacific Island evacuation) are actual errors since in his view they "are at any rate apparently based on non-existent or misunderstood evidence." The others he tags for not being in line with the AR4 or Phil Stott's evidence (whatever that was).

Anonymous said...

Monnett et al posters are here.

Anonymous said...

In this case, Tim Lambert has already posted a fine, detailed analysis in:
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2007/10/an_error_is_not_the_same_thing.php

One may build on that.

Anonymous said...

Steve, there are several versions of the transcript online: 1 2 and I took a few notes myself when I watched AIT at my daughter's school yesterday. I am coming to the realisation that there may be several versions of the DVD out there. I can tell you more later. In a time crunch at the moment.

Suffice to say that I have added a note at Stoat about this, and will repaste the reference here:

"Dear William,
FYI the AIT book itself is so-o-o-o boring (!), Marlo Lewis at the Competitive Enterprise Institute wrote his own user manual, providing detailed (legal-style) arguments against Gore's points. Very convenient for Downes in assessing the film, I would suggest.
cei.org/pages/ait_response-book.cfm
You can find Tuvalu, Kilimanjaro, the polar bear reference and more in that training manual for AIT sceptics.

Michael, it is Burton. The ruling is here Dimmock v Secretary of State for Education & Skills [2007] EWHC 2288 (Admin) (10 October 2007)