Jennifer, just because something appears in OLO doesn't make it right, it makes it arguable. OLO is a forum. It is about debate. It is about thesis, antithesis and synthesis. It is about falsifiability. It is about giving consenting adults access to as much information as possible and letting them make their minds up. It is about publishing lots of material that its editor thinks is twaddle, but that other people think is insightful, because it would be arrogant to assert one's absolute rightness, not to mention stupid.

One of the problems with the mainstream media is not that they are biased, but that they don't cover the range of information that they should. We've probably published more anti-Gore material than anyone else, so I don't see what the problem is with publishing this pro-Gore piece. Any student using the site for research is not only going to come across this, but two pieces by Bob Carter that say the opposite. I think the only other piece that is supportive of Gore is by Brian Bahnisch.

And the comments section on two of these articles would give the reader a clear view of what the Chief Editor (me) thinks, so a researcher would know it's not some sort of house opinion (if they think that's important, which I don't).

Look at the huge amount of research and development into biofuels, wind, and solar, taking place world-wide today. The successful development of these alternatives promises to benefit consumers at the expense of monopolies. And if the motivation for this research (anthropogenic global warming and peak oil) turns out to be nonsense, then the consumer is still a winner. That cannot be said for some of the Australian initiatives, like the dinosaur resusitation that is geosequestration, the prospect of having expensive nuclear power stations that are obsolete before they are completed, the protectionist policy toward ethanol, and the abandonment of Australia's biodiesel industry. Perhaps some of the global warming denialists could comment on the waste of these initiatives?

Sea level rise is a more touchy subject, given the value of property threatened, though any trend is unlikely to become apparent for many years yet. But even if there is no sea level rise, much coastal development is still at risk from storm surges. A cyclone and associated storm surge similar to that of 1950 striking the Gold Coast today would wipe out 70,000 homes, for example. Another triumph of greed.

Perseus might note that the 11,000 year melt time (for the Greenland Ice Sheet?) was determined by a computer model. I guess that computer models should only be given credence when they give results that please you.

Jennifer I am glad you have come out in support of Bolt. You have outed yourself. Now what motivates you? Are you also seeking the warm glow (pardon the pun) of Coalition approval? In my opinion you have done harm to the debate on the utilisation of water in Australia and have not exactly distinguished yourself with respect to the climate change debate mainly, in my opinion, because of the intolerance and rigidity of your views. Think again, you are obviously not stupid. In my view you have a lot to give outside of your current ideological mindset.
Bruce Haigh

GrahamY:

1. That abstract was not published in a science journal and hence was not in the 928 articles Oreskes considered. After I wrote that post, Media Watch did an item on the same Bolt piece, and Peiser admitted that he got that one wrong:

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2006/10/peiser_admits_he_was_97_wrong.php

And whether it was 0, 1 or 2 articles out 928 does not affect the point Gore was making: that the debate about whether humans are causing global warming that you see in the popular media just does not appear in the peer-reviewed scientific literature.

2. You're missing the point. Revelle didn't doubt the existence of man-made warming -- after all he was the one who discovered it in the first place. In 1991 Revelle did not think that drastic action was needed yet. This does not contradict anything Gore says in his movie -- Gore said he learned about the existence of global warming from Revelle, not that Revelle convinced him that drastic action was needed in 1991.

3. Gore cited Severinghaus and Severinghaus responded "I would like it to go on record that Bolt's abuse of my science is not done with my approval"

http://www.scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2006/10/bolts_abuse_of_science.php

4. I guess you didn't bother reading the linked article by Eric Steig. Steig's area of research is ice cores, but hey, what would he know? Steig and other climate scientists have stated that Gore got the science right. Possibly because he listened to what the scientists said.

Graham, I'm curious: are there any other areas of scientific research where you think all the scientists are wrong?

I'll just deal with Perseus 5-10, since I already did GrahamY 1-4:

5. Sea levels are currently rising at 3mm/year. 11,000 years of that gives 33m of sea level rise, not 6m. And, of course, if Greenland starts melting in a serious way the rate of sea level rise will increase a lot. In any case, Gore did not say how long it would take to get 6m of sea level rise, so what he said was not wrong.

6. This is just incoherent. Because there are some folks who migrate for reasons other than sea level rise it does not follow that no-one is migrating because of rising sea levels.

7. Bolt didn't say that he was providing perspective, he claimed that Gore was wrong. And not even you are prepared to argue that Gore got this one wrong.

8. The RealClimate post, far from providing "no evidence" provides plenty. Those coloured, underlined bits of text are what we call "links". Click on them and you get taken to peer-reviewed journal articles and longer posts with references. You know, evidence.

9. Gore did not claim 30 new diseases due to global warming. Did you even see the movie?

10. I did say that Bolt was wrong for giving an alternative explanation -- I said that Bolt's alternative explanation was wrong and I explained why?

I think I'm running up against the word limit, so more at my blog:

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2007/01/rotflmao.php

When reading Lambert one must always bear in mind that scoring political points is his primary goal; thus his science is consistently misleading.

As it will take only one error on his part to invalidate Lambert's contention that Bolt got none of his 10 points right, I will address only the point with which I am most familiar; no.6: Tuvaluans being forced by rising seas to flee to New Zealand. (This single but glaring error being cause to regard as dubious the inclusion of Lambert's post in a best posts round-up.)

Tide gauges have indeed indicated a rise in sea level. This in itself tells us nothing about circumstances on the ground in Tuvalu and Lambert fails to link to any such evidence. Such information is available, however, in an EU funded SOPAC study of coastal processes in Tuvalu published in April 2006, which summarizes the situation on the main island as follows:

"No difference can be detected between the overall position of the coastline in 2003 and 1984. However, additional work undertaken to determine longer term trends on this coast revealed obvious differences in the position of the coastline between 2003 and 1943 and 1941. It appears that Fongafale Lagoon coast has in fact prograded towards the lagoon some 25 to 30 m over the last 60 years."

Admittedly the study does not focus directly on sea level rise but it does pay special attention to sea water intrusion, which is blamed on local human activities and not on sea level rise. The study also finds that the islands of the archipelago are, if anything, growing.

Regardless, as the debunker it is up to Lambert to provide evidence proving Bolt wrong -- it simply isn't good enough for Lambert to offer sea level rise figures that are greater than Bolt's. Other than that Lambert cites nothing more than anecdotal evidence for Tuvaluans having fled rising seas (see part two following). Not good enough.

End part one. See: http://www.sopac.org/data/virlib/ER/ER0054.pdf