Gore Pulls CRED Data From Talk

February 23rd, 2009

Posted by: Roger Pielke, Jr.

Andy Revkin at the New York Times asked Al Gore’s office for their comments on Gore’s use of data from CRED in Belgium in recent versions of his talk to illustrate the impacts of human-caused climate change on disasters. In response, Gore’s office has said that they will pull the slide, as it does not have a scientific foundation.

Kudos to Al Gore who has demonstrated a commitment to scientific accuracy in his presentation. However there are still some issues with their response. Here is how Gore’s office responded to Revkin as related at Dot Earth (please visit their for embedded links):

I can confirm that historically, we used Munich Re and Swiss Re data for the slide show. This can be confirmed using a hard copy of An Inconvenient Truth. (It is cited if you cannot recall from the film which is now several years old!). We became aware of the CRED database from its use by Charles Blow in the New York Times (May 31, 2008). So, it’s a very new addition.

We have found that Munich Re and other insurers and their science experts have made the attribution. I’m referring you particularly to their floods section/report [link, link] Both of these were published in a series entitled “Weather catastrophes and climate change-Is there still hope for us.”

We appreciate that you have pointed out the issues with the CRED database and will make the switch back to the data we used previously to ensure that there is no confusion either with regards to the data or attribution.

As to climate change and its impacts on storms and floods, the IPCC and NOAA among many other top scientific groups have indicated that climate change will result in more extreme weather events, including heat waves, wildfires, storms and floods. As the result of briefings from top scientists, Vice President Gore believes that we are beginning to see evidence of that now.

Switching from the CRED dataset to Munich Re (and Swiss Re) data does not solve the basic problem. As we found in an expert workshop organized in 2006 with Munich Re — The Munich Re dataset has exactly the same problems as the CRED dataset. Attribution of the role of greenhouse gas driven climate change in the increasing economic costs of disasters has yet to occur. So using a different dataset does not address the underlying problem.

So when Al Gore’s office says . . .

We have found that Munich Re and other insurers and their science experts have made the attribution.

. . . they are either cherry picking the selective views of a few people or simply mistaken. The scientific workshop that I co-organized with Peter Hoeppe of Munich Re concluded the following, with unanimous agreement among participants (PDF):

Because of issues related to data quality, the stochastic nature of extreme event impacts, length of time series, and various societal factors present in the disaster loss record, it is still not possible to determine the portion of the increase in damages that might be attributed to climate change due to GHG emissions.

We also published this view in Science:

Bouwer, L.M., Crompton, R.P., Faust, E., Höppe, P., and Pielke, Jr., R. A., 2007. Confronting Disaster Losses, Science, Vol. 318, November 2, p. 753. (PDF).

So while Gore’s office was right to pull the CRED information from their talk as lacking a scientific basis, the continuing reliance on data from Munich Re does not solve the basic issue, which is that attribution of the increasing toll of disasters to human-caused climate change remains speculative at best and not supported by science. To the contrary, increasing societal exposure and growing wealth in vulnerable locations are the overwhelming drivers of the increasing losses, a conclusion well supported by many studies. Here is a test to see how far Gore is willing to go in maintaining standards of accuracy in his talk.

Now that Gore has admitted that including the slide based on CRED data was a mistake, it raises a more fundamental: How could it be that Al Gore presented obviously misleading information before a large audience of the world’s best scientists, which was then amplified in a press release by AAAS, and none of these scientists spoke up?

18 Responses to “Gore Pulls CRED Data From Talk”

    1
  1. Climate Research News » Gore Pulls Slide of Disaster Trends Says:

    [...] Prometheus: ‘Gore Pulls CRED Data From Talk’ [...]

  2. 2
  3. Paul Biggs Says:

    “Kudos to Al Gore who has demonstrated a commitment to scientific accuracy in his presentation.” LOL! There’s a first time for everything!

  4. 3
  5. Kmye Says:

    Mr. Gore closed out his comments at today’s energy summit by claiming that Venus and Earth were identical planets but for the fact that life emerged on Earth, that the carbon sequestration driven by that emergence was the primary root of the extreme differences in temperature and atmospheric composition between the two, and that those who emit carbon on this planet are risking causing our planet to become Venus-like in the above respects.

    I haven’t found a transcript yet, but it appears this isn’t the first time he’s made this claim, a quick google of Gore and Venus shows.

    I think kudos to Gore for striving for scientific accuracy may be a little premature…

  6. 4
  7. cah95046 Says:

    “Now that Gore has admitted that including the slide based on CRED data was a mistake, it raises a more fundamental: How could it be that Al Gore presented obviously misleading information before a large audience of the world’s best scientists, which was then amplified in a press release by AAAS, and none of these scientists spoke up?”

    Nobody wants to pull the plug on AGWCC funding. If it is not a crisis then funding my suffer.

  8. 5
  9. Sylvain Says:

    “How could it be that Al Gore presented obviously misleading information before a large audience of the world’s best scientists, which was then amplified in a press release by AAAS, and none of these scientists spoke up?”

    Asking the question, gives the answer. Double standard.

    A scientist cannot be against the consensus and be honest.

    A scientist can also, like you, be with the “consensus” and be honest, but end up being catalogued as a denier.

    The third option, which is why I’m very cynic about climate science, can be like Al Gore, lie and still be called a savior, because those lie are comforting the scientist.

  10. 6
  11. Al Gore versus George Will :: CEJournal Says:

    [...] ignoring a vast body of literature that does not.” In fact, Fleck and two other authors on a scholarly paper published last fall in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society found that “rather [...]

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  13. TokyoTom Says:

    Now that Gore has admitted that including the slide based on CRED data was a mistake, it raises a more fundamental: How could it be that Al Gore presented obviously misleading information before a large audience of the world’s best scientists, which was then amplified in a press release by AAAS, and none of these scientists spoke up?

    Now let’s think really, really hard:

    - maybe, during Gore’s long presentation they didn’t notice Gore making an unsupportable attribution of increased damages to climate change (because they hadn’t really thought about the issue before);

    - maybe, they thought Gore’s implication as to a future linkage between climate change and damages was fair, even if no existing linkage has yet been fully nailed down;

    - maybe, some did notice but just didn’t think it worth their time to make any public comment about it;

    - maybe, some commented privately to Gore; and

    - maybe, some thought this atttribution issue would be just the thing for you, and didn’t want to steal your thunder.

    Then again, maybe, as cah95046 and Sylvain suggest, they are all in a conspiracy together to deceive all of mankind – in order to both protect their funding and to be perceived as saviors of mankind.

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  15. Paul Biggs Says:

    You’re right Tokto Tom – if scientists admit that there is little or no threat from the ‘harmless naturally occuring aerial plant food trace gas’ – we’re gonna throw even more money at them, aren’t we? And we might pay non-scientist Gore $200,000 instead of $100,000 for his each of his erroneous presentations.

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  17. mauriziomorabito Says:

    Roger

    You are mistaken. Scientists in attendance did “speak up” in their own way. From the AAAS news report:

    “The audience responded with a standing ovation that lasted over a minute, until Gore had left the room.”

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  19. Sylvain Says:

    TT,

    Without having a conspiracy, there are beliefs, which people, including scientist, like to be comforted or reinforced. Anyone is more likely to accept exaggerations when they support their belief.

    What I still have a hard time to explain is why there is such a high doom and gloom view of the climate at the moment.

    For sure, the climate has always concerned human and about everything that is predicted by the AGW crowd, flood, drought and other extreme event, were the everyday (year) reality about 125-150 years ago. 1845-46 was when the last great famine occurred in Europe.

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  21. Jim Clarke Says:

    I followed the link in #6 and read about the comparison between George Will’s column (for which he was eviscerated by the AGW blogosphere) and Al Gore’s speech, for which he was given a standing ovation by scientists.

    In the comparison, George Will’s column is said to be a ‘howler’ and entirely innaccurate, while Gore was said to make just one mistake. Well, I invite you to read what George Will said, if you haven’t already:

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/13/AR2009021302514.html?sub=new

    George Will did not make any statement about what scientists thought in the 1970s, but quoted the media from the 1970s. Here are my two favorite quotes, but there are many others:

    “The world’s climatologists are agreed” that we must “prepare for the next ice age” (Science Digest, February 1973). Because of “ominous signs” that “the Earth’s climate seems to be cooling down,” meteorologists were “almost unanimous” that “the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century,” perhaps triggering catastrophic famines (Newsweek cover story, “The Cooling World,” April 28, 1975).”

    The current claim is that the majority of scientists in the 1970s never believed the Earth was in a long term cooling trend…but how could that be true? Is it really possible that the mainstream media could make bold, declarative statements about what the majority of scientist believed when the reality was just the opposite?

    Oh…the irony here is so rich. George Will is crucified as an idiot for quoting the mainstream media of the 1970s on scientific consensus by people who are constantly quoting the mainstream media on scientific consensus today; using the current quotes as one of the main reasons we should all believe we are headed for a climate change disaster!

    So which is it? Can we trust the mainstream media when they tell us about scientific consensus? If yes, then don’t these bloggers owe Mr. Will an apology? If no, then shouldn’t they shut up about what the ‘majority of scientists’ believe today? Or is this just another example that rational arguments no longer have a place in the climate change debate?

    The reality is that George Will was accurate in his editorial. If jounalists want to claim that quoting journalists is a terribly stupid thing to do, then I guess we shouldn’t read them anymore!

    Now, about Al Gore’s speech…

  22. 12
  23. Jim Clarke Says:

    About 14 minutes into the video of Al Gores speech…

    http://www.aaas.org/meetings/2009/program/lectures/media/gore.ram

    …he gets around to talking about energy and climate change. The first thing he says about energy is obviously untrue. He says that fossil fuels are expensive and alternative fuels are free! If he means that there is no charge for the wind and the sun, then he must also admit that there is no charge for oil or natural gas. The cost of any fuel is the expense in converting that fuel into usable energy, in which case fossil fuels are by far the cheapest for society. Mr. Gore is blatantly inaccurate from the beginning.

    In minutes 16-20. Mr. Gore than gives a misrepresentation of the battle between Galileo and the Church. Most of the scholars in the church already agreed with the science of the sun centered solar system. They did not argue with the evidence. Galileo was not imprisoned because he held such sun centered beliefs, but for more political reasons that had little to do with science. Again Gore is inaccurate in his representation of science history, prefering to recite a myth.

    Next he shows a slide depicting the relative thinness of the Earths atmosphere, arguing that it really isn’t very big at all and therefore, it is easy to see how humans can alter it! While science tells us that all life, including human life, impacts its environment (the atmosphere), the relative size of the atmosphere in a photograph from space is irrelevant and scientifically and emotionally misleading. It is propaganda.

    Around minute 22 he starts to compare the Earth and Venus, indicating that the only difference between the two is that life developed on Earth and captured the carbon from the atmosphere while life did not develop on Venus, leaving the carbon in the atmosphere. Hence, Earth is a garden while Venus is an inferno. Excuse me! Any middle school science teacher worth his or her salary would correct little Johnny for making such broad and unfounded statements! Yet, Al Gore, in a room full of scientists, gets a pass!

    I am a third of the way through the video and Al Gore has yet to say anthing that is scientifically accurate, other than CO2 molecules absorb infrared radiation. The rest has been irrelevant and/or innaccurate propaganda!

    I haven’t even gotten to the part about natural disasters! He makes a false and misleading claim about some disaster statistics, but agrees to change them to other disaster statistics and make some more false and misleading claims about those. This is somehow depicted as an example of his unending devotion for the TRUTH!

    When Roger writes “Kudos to Al Gore who has demonstrated a commitment to scientific accuracy in his presentation.” it makes my head spin! Al Gore uses ’science’ as a weapon for a political agenda, twisting it beyond recognition to fit his goals. Perhaps he got a standing ovation because he was speaking in front of the American Association for the Advancement of SCIENTISTS. I can not think of any other explanation, as his ’science’ is atrocious!

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  25. Parse Error Says:

    “A scientist can also, like you, be with the “consensus” and be honest, but end up being catalogued as a denier.”

    This indeed something which I find quite disturbing, that Mr. Pielke is usually included among the “deniers” despite supporting the “consensus,” merely for not supporting the radical political agenda which seems to otherwise go hand in hand with it. Was the science ever relevant at all, at least outside of the scientific community? If some miraculous discovery occurred this week which irrefutably proved that CO2 was not a hazard at all, would the protesters pack their signs into their single occupant SUVs or their private jets and return to their 6,000+ square foot homes where each and every room is packed with kilowatt devouring luxury electronics? Will the politicians abandon all efforts to levy new aggressive regressive taxes? Do any of them really care about what does or does not harm the planet, or are they just hypocritically using the modern human civilization which they benefit from more than most as a scapegoat for the emptiness of their own lives?

  26. 14
  27. Gore Pulls Slide Linking Rise in Natural Disasters to Global Warming Says:

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  28. 15
  29. TokyoTom Says:

    Jim, it’s clear that Will has overstated the “70s colling” meme: http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=get-abstract&doi=10.1175%2F2008BAMS2370.1&ct=1

    My own view is that George Will’s real dishonesty has nothing to do with the science, but his implication that Julian Simon’s bet with Paul Ehrlich over future commodities prices cut in favor of his “skepticism” when in fact it goes the other way.

    Simon won because he knew that propoerty rights and market forces would be working both to alter demand and to draw more supplies to the market; where as with climate there are no property rights in the atmosphere (which is an open-access commons) and no liability associated with GHG emissions, etc., so there is simply no market working to lower our climate forcing or for geo-engineering, or to compensate those who find they are compelled to adapt.

    In short, Will displays a stunning ignorance of how markets work, and when they don’t. In the case of climate change, the “neo-Malthusians” are 100% right about the absence of market mechanisms.

  30. 16
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