This is a debate which has been going on in Canada and published by the National Post which is reproduced below.

So how did An Inconvenient Truth become required classroom viewing?

Even climate change experts say many of the claims in Al Gore's film are wrong.

Kevin Libin

National Post

Saturday, May 19, 2007

CREDIT:

Al Gore

First it was his world history class. Then he saw it in his economics class. And his world issues class. And his environment class. In total, 18-year-old McKenzie, a Northern Ontario high schooler, says he has had the film An Inconvenient Truth shown to him by four different teachers this year.

"I really don't understand why they keep showing it," says McKenzie (his parents asked that his last name not be used). "I've spoken to the principal about it, and he said that teachers are instructed to present it as a debate. But every time we've seen it, well, one teacher said this is basically a two-sided debate, but this movie really gives you the best idea of what's going on."

McKenzie says he has educated himself enough about both sides of the climate- change controversy to know that the Al Gore movie is too one-sided to be taught as fact. Even scientists who back Mr. Gore's message admit they're uncomfortable with liberties the politician takes with "science" in the film. But, McKenzie says most of his classmates are credulous. His teachers are not much more discerning. "They don't know there's another side to the argument," he says. McKenzie's mother was outraged to find out that Mr. Gore's film was being presented as fact in her son's classroom. "This is just being poured into kids' brains instead of letting them know there's a debate going on," she says. "An educational system falls down when they start taking one side."

The real Gore primer

National Post

Saturday, May 19, 2007

THE MOVIE Images about the possibility of Florida and San Francisco flooding and then the Manhattan skyline, with the World Trade Centre underwater with the predicted rise of the Greenland or Antarctic ice sheets melting.

THE science A sea level rise of four to 12 inches over the next 50 years is predicted in one of the reports by the UN IPCC.

THE MOVIE Dramatic images of Antarctic glaciers collapsing into the sea.

THE science The breaking glacier wall is a normally occurring phenomenon, due to the normal advance of a glacier, according to marine geology experts such as Finland's Boris Winterhalter and Sweden's Wibjorn Karln.

THE MOVIE Mr. Gore stands in front of a large graph showing a predicted 50-year CO2 spike that is as dramatic as the huge temperature swings since the time of the Ice Age.

THE science A rise in temperature of between 1 to 2.3 degrees Celcius is predicted over the next 50 years, according to a report by the UN IPCC. Scientists suggest the "correlating" spikes actually occur 800 years apart, with the massive distance between them distorted because they are shown on two graphs split apart.

THE MOVIE To illustrate his point about the possibility of polar bears drowning and the species endangered, there is an animated image of a lone polar bear swimming in a sea towards a lonely ice-cap

THE science One Canadian polar bear biologist said that although climate change was having an effect on the West Hudson population of polar bears in Canada, of the 13 populations of polar bears, 11 are stable or even increasing in number. Recent polar bear counts in northern Canada show the population is stable.

THE MOVIE As Mr. Gore speaks in hushed tones about another terrible outcome of global warming as the screen shows devastating images of the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.

THE science The top scientist at the National Hurricane Center says global warming does not significantly increase hurricane intensity and even one of Mr. Gore's top advisers, James Hansen, an environmental scientist, said, "We need to be more careful in describing the hurricane story than he is."

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My view is that Al Gore has done a great service in getting the main features of theClimate Warming story across but the film has embellished some of the points too much. If it is to be shown in the classroom and elsewhere this should be discussed. Climate science has changed over the last five years so it is not surprising that there are scientific statements in the film which need modifying if the full truth is to be told.