Slashdot Mirror
Gore's Staff Says He Was Misquoted On Hexametric Hurricanes
jamie writes "In a story on Thursday, Slashdot and its readers had a little fun at the expense of Al Gore, who was quoted as saying that the hurricane severity scale was going to go to 6. A correction was made the next day. The author of the piece that Slashdot linked now writes 'I retract the balance of my criticism.' Turns out Gore was misquoted. Luckily for Gore, this is the first time he's been ridiculed for something he didn't actually say. Well, except for Love Story, Love Canal, farm chores, and everyone's favorite, inventing the internet. (The original Slashdot story is here and its central link now includes the Washington Post's correction.)"
From Ezra Klein's update on his earlier piece: "I'm out-of-town and so away from my tape recorder. So I asked Gore's staff about the line and they have Gore saying: 'The scientists are now adding category six to the hurricane ... some are proposing we add category 6 to the hurricane scale that used to be 1-5.' That doesn't offend my memory of the discussion and it's entirely possible I missed Gore's qualifying sentence while trying to keep up. If so, that's my fault, and I apologize."
The press nowadays is more a lapdog of the establishment than a watchdog. What about Gore's ridiculous claim that his propaganda film predicted the effects of Hurricane Sandy, or that hurricanes are more extreme now? Klein let those statements pass without a contrary word. Besides, no matter how you spin what he said, it's factually ignorant. There is no top end to a Cat 5 hurricane classification, so no need for a higher rating.
If thou see a fair woman pay court to her, for thus thou wilt obtain love
Hmm, maybe if you are constantly having to engage in a lawlerly defense of your claims, then the problem might not lie outside of yourself ...
Regardless of how seriously you choose to take Gore's comments, his central message is that humanity changing the climate in ways that will have serious negative implications for ourselves. That is not a message that is easy to dispute. Personally, I find Jared Diamond's approach to communicating these issues to be much more effective (see his book "Collapse"). Diamond is not over the top and frequently tries to be optimistic (which, oddly, makes his message even more hard-hitting). The point is that if you over-use your resources really bad things begin to happen. This has happened many times in the past without fossil fuels. Examples include: Easter Island, the Anasazi, the Maya, and the Sumerians.
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You're suffering from confirmation bias. You dislike Gore, possibly because of his politics, and thus will tend to believe the worst of him in any situation, regardless of the evidence.