Polar bears? Censorship? Al Gore, Phelim McAleer Joust at Enviro Journalism Conference

Image Credit: NOAA

Those who were at Al Gore's keynote address to SEJ's 19th annual conference Friday witnessed the brief "town hall" moment during the Q&A, when a questioner sparred with Gore over whether he would acknowledge alleged errors in his Oscar-winning film, "An Inconvenient Truth." 

The questioner challenged Gore's characterization of polar bears as endangered and asserted the bears' numbers were on the rise.  Gore and the questioner jawed back and forth briefly; then the questioner was asked to yield the microphone to other questioners and sit down.  

He refused, clinging to the mic, until the sound was cut off.

The questioner was Phelim McAleer, co-director/producer of an independent film, "Not Evil Just Wrong," which purports to tell "the true cost of global warming hysteria."  His verbal jousting with Gore already is being portrayed on conservative blogs as another example of Gore dissembling.  McAleer tweeted Friday about having his mike cut off as he tried to pose difficult questions to Gore, who's become a lightning rod to conservatives opposed to doing anything about climate change.

Some may wonder how he was able to get in a position to try to pick a public argument with Gore.  Others may wonder why he was cut off..

I was the "bouncer" at the mic who asked McAleer to sit down - not because he challenged Gore, but because his time was up.  I was stationed there to see that SEJ's ground rules for Q&A at our conference sessions were followed.

The Q&A ground rules, as explained at the beginning of the session, were the same as at all conference sessions - only SEJ members and working journalists get to ask questions, and the questions should be just that, not speeches.  Brief followups also are permitted.

Phelim qualified as a member, apparently - he was wearing the requisite blue member badge.  And he identified himself as an independent documentary producer.  His question was entirely within the bounds of the ground rules, even if challenging to Gore.  Hell, we like tough questions, don't we?   

It was what followed that prompted me to ask him to sit down.

McAleer asked Gore if he'd done anything to correct "errors" a British judge had found in Gore's movie. Gore responded, though he declined to addess the alleged inaccuracies, saying the film had been approved overall for showing in schools in the UK.  

McAleer then said Gore had misrepresented the status of polar bears as endangered from melting Arctic sea ice and alleged that the bears' numbers were increasing.  The two jousted back and forth, saying the same thing repeatedly, so, with perhaps a dozen people waiting their chance to ask questions as well, I went to McAleer and asked him to sit down.  

After a brief tug of war over the mic, it was cut off, and he sat down.

[As for McAleer's assertions that polar bears are increasing and unthreatened by global warming, an article debunking climate-change skeptics' claims that the bears are thriving was published in a 2008 issue of SEJournal. - Ed.]

Later, in the foyer, I spoke to McAleer, wanting to be sure he understood why he'd been cut off.  He accused me and SEJ of censoring a journalist, and observed that we were shielding our speaker from tough questions.  I responded that he had been free to ask his question and even got a chance to follow it up, but that he didn't have a right to monopolize the Q&A.  He said he was simply trying to get Gore to answer his question.  I told we gave him a chance to ask it, but we couldn't guarantee an answer to his satisfaction, and with both Gore and him simply repeating themselves, fairness dictated that he yield the mic to others waiting to pose their questions.

You can see and/or hear for yourself what happened, as Gore's speech was videotaped, and McAleer had an associate there filming as well.  A clip already has been posted on conservative sites, and I suspect if it hasn't already, the mic cutoff will be cast by the same folks as a case of SEJ being "in the tank" for Gore, censoring those who would challenge him over the scientific evidence that climate change is real and that it's driven by human activity.  

I wanted you to know the rest of the story.

Comments

[Brian Angliss]

Thanks, Tim, for the head's up on what really happened. I posted a link to your explanation at a couple of sites where bloggers were accusing SEJ of censorship. I don't expect the serious climate partisans to care or to change their minds, but I hope that at least a few reasonable people will.

[Tim Naylor]

In all fairness, Gore never answered his question on what he plans to do about the errors. It's also a nice change compared to the hall pass environmental journalists have given Gore. I applaud McAleer for showing the debate on matters of science is never over and in Gore's case has never begun. Environmental journalists are to Gore what mainstream journalism was to Bush in the days leading up to the Iraq war - lacking skeptical backbone.

[Ken Ward Jr.]

From what I saw on the video, McAleer asked a reasonable question. Gore dodged it. And I think all of the journalists in the room knew that. What followed was silly, and if I had been one of those in line to ask Gore a question, I would have thanked Tim Wheeler for cutting him off.

I hope my fellow SEJ members asked the Vice President other tough questions. Gore appeared in my state a while back to tout his film, but the event was closed to the media -- as most of Gore's events in recent years have been.

[Greg]

The SEJ is a joke as is AL G. There will never be any tough question asked by the SEJ as they are corrupt as much or more than BIG Al.

[J. Michael McCutcheon]

Is former Vice President Al Gore still receiving $125,000 per Global Warming speech?

That’s $250,000 a day if his bookers can grab him a morning or afternoon gig.

One quarter of a million dollars a day.

Wow.

Presented as a self-giving, relentless 'crusader' to save the planet and even as a 'savior' in some UN circles, that is a lot of 'greening' of Al’s bank accounts don't you think?

It is no small wonder why we have never seen Al Gore run for his Democratic Party’s ticket to be President of the USA.

As usual, ‘follow the money’ and discover 'the (real) truth'.

Next to 'Y2K', do I now smell an even bigger hoax that is being perpetrated on mankind?

Just wondering.

Don't shoot the messanger. ;)

[novaculus]

So you silenced the only critic of Gore's self-serving AGW schtick who has been able to ask him a pointed question about his grossly inaccurate AGW propaganda piece in a public forum in recent memory. (Gore's "people" make sure he is never exposed to such challenges, apparently knowing well he cannot answer without lying.)

You facilitated Gore's disingenuous dodging, and your vindication is that the rules were designed to make sure the speaker would never have to answer an inconvenient question. Just dodge once, and the liar is home free.

Once again the utter lack of scientific integrity and personal of the AGW true believers is on full display. Bravo. I hope you are so very proud of yourself.

[Tim Wheeler]

Hey, Mike -

Don't worry, we don't believe in shooting the messengers.We're the messengers - though we don't merely tell you what you want to hear. Al Gore didn't get a dime from us to speak, and he had to agree to take questions from us - something he's been loath to do until very recently. That's why Phelim McAleer, theclimate skeptics' Michael Moore, got a chanceto get some video of him sparring with Gore.

- Tim Wheeler, reporter, The Baltimore Sun; board member, Society of Environmental Journalists

[Tim Wheeler]

Novaculus -

We give a Gore critic a rare opportunity to ask him a question in a public, videotaped forum, and to follow it up - and you focus only on the fact that we didn't let him monopolize the QA. Amazing. Would I have liked to see Gore get more pointed questions? Yes, but Phelim McAleer is not the only member of SEJ.

- Tim Wheeler, reporter, The Baltimore Sun; board member, Society of Environmental Journalists

[Mark E. Gillar]

I've met and interviewed Phelim McAleer. He is a very caring man who is trying to help the victims of environmentalism gone overboard. His new film should be a good one.

http://www.hootervillegazette.com/noteviljustwrong.html
http://www.hootervillegazette.com/evilal.html

[Frankie]

I believe your rendering of what happened is accurate. I believe Al Gore will never answer a hard question, as he is a poseur (I mean really, what is the common responsce to a gw skeptic? "Are you a scientist" of course!). Finally, I never saw a Convenient Truth since my high school brainwashing sessions had concluded a good number of years ago, but I believe it relied a good deal on the Mann fraud. If this is the case, it would seem to me that a serious organization would not want him to speak, free or otherwise, unless if was to do precisely what Phelim McAleer did.

[tmaxPA]

If I might address some of the skeptic's concerns:

Q: Why won't Al Gore acknowledge the errors in his movie?

A: Because there were none. As he pointed out, the British court did approve "An Inconvenient Truth". The list of quibble points, although described routinely as "errors", are in fact simply points which are not supported by scientific evidence identified in the movie. It doesn't mean they are errors, that they aren't true, or even necessarily that they aren't supported by scientific evidence; just that they were not sufficiently justified (in a presumably conservative judge's mind) by information provided within the movie itself. The mere fact that detractors and deniers regularly describe them as "errors in the movie" shows clearly the vacuous and even delusional nature of their position.

[Marla Cone]

For those left wondering, the polar bear question isn't easily answered. Some populations are declining, others aren't. And any wildlife biologist would tell you that annual counts aren't reliable for any species, anyway. Scientists look instead at cub survival, breeding rates, body weight, fragmentation of habitat, etc. For example in Svalbard, where no hunting is allowed, there was a drop in breeding females that may be linked to extremely high PCB levels. Hormonal changes and immune effects have been documented in the bears. The USFWS under Bush declared polar bears a threatened species, and those decisions usually are not based much on population counts.

Anyone writing about this should talk to Andy Derocher, who has captured thousands of polar bears to monitor their health and contaminants. He's now at University of Alberta.

Some of the science:


http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19754681?ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18717367?ordinalpos=25&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

http://actionbioscience.org/environment/derocher.html

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19603643?

Marla Cone
Environmental Health News

[Ben]

Thank you for the frank account of the speech. The accusations of censorship are unfortunate. If the skeptics do not comply with the rules, how can they complain when the warmists do?

Frankie, you have an interesting point. However, you are forgetting on which side the proof should lie. The IPCC and Mr. Gore are suggesting multi-trillion dollar expenditures of time and money to avert global warming. Is it unreasonable to ask for the same standard of evidence that is needed to win a court case? A preponderance of evidence is necessary in civil court, and proof beyond a reasonable doubt is necessary to convict a person stealing a candy bar. Mr. Gore's case falls far short. CO2 is linked to global warming only by climate models and theory, and those are little more than supposition and hand-waving. The impact estimates are even more vapid, relying on hypothetical effects derivded from hypothetical weather reports about 100 years from now.

If that is all that it takes to convince you, then you are a far more trusting man than I.

[Valerie Brown]

I am an SEJ member and was in the room when McAleer asked the question and Gore didn't answer it. I find this whole conversation tiresome.

Gore is not the person who first understood the physics and chemistry of the greenhouse effect.

Thousands of scientists have been studying global warming for decades, using multiple approaches and methodologies. There is a vast body of empirical evidence supporting the hypothesis that humans have significantly altered what was a relatively stable climate regime, and that we do not know what we have wrought.

What Gore IS is a politician, admittedly a wonkish one, and the person who brought the scientific synthesis to people all over the world, and helped break the rigidity of the political climate that has kept us from preventing the worst and adapting to the inevitable for at least 20 years. So taking him to task about the science of global warming and the biological status of polar bears is just silly.

Certainly we need to continue to ask hard questions about where we go from here and how much it will cost, but accusing Gore of corrupting our tender youth is just a distraction.

McAleer can be said to have finessed a nice bit of publicity for his film.

[Sally Deneen]

Here's how McAleer should've asked his followup question to Gore, which may have avoided the flap altogether:

http://j.mp/2cKIC4

[Paul Descartes]

To avoid poisoning the well, I'll refrain from commenting on Mr. Gore's motivations. The science behing AGW is not clearly understood. That's the point. Our climate is far too chaotic to make such simplistic assertions.

Think about this folks, the models are only as accurate as the inputs. If we don't know all of the inputs, or how to assess them accurately, how can we derive valid outputs? Many of the inputs are still being debated as yet. The science isn’t finalized, and no valid conclusion can be reached at this point IMO.

Erudite understanding of the underlying models, physics, climatology, etc aren't required to be a valid skeptic. Any member of the SEJ should take some refresher courses in Research Methods and Statistics 101 to better prepare yourself.

[4Deuce]

So, the message to me here is: If you ask a difficult question of Gore - one for which he has no answer - all he needs to do is the verbal sidestep and rope-a-dope for a few minutes until the quesioner's time is up... Then then the (rare, diffuclt) question is ignored, the one asking it dismissed and space is made for the next Global Warming Gore disciple to ask a softball question of the Guru Gore.... Frabkly, such rare opportunites only make Gore look more sinsiter and more like a snake oil salesman wearing a bowler hat and a skinny moustache... He is a fraud - and an intellectual coward to boot.

[Ecotretas]

Al Gore doesn't like questions, because he doesn't know the answers. And since you journalists don't ask him, he is on the way to his New World Order...
Ecotretas

[james Hollett]

Tim Wheeler "the rest of the story.." is just another lie. Gore did not answer the queestion. Watch the video. So your "Times Up!" response is just another hoax.

[Sam Malone]

First it was global "warming", but the Earth has actually been cooling since 1961. So now its climate change. We know the truth now about Gore's fake graphs and lies, it's all a scam to collect a tax on something plants use to create oxygen, and something every living thing exhales,it would be a global tax collected to fund Global Governance.
Didn't you hear about the Hacked e mails proving fraud was committed by the company the UN uses for it's data Mankind Moon of the UN announcing Global Government is here, WAKE UP PLEASE OUR FUTURE DEPENDS ON IT
IT"S A SCAM!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Daryl]

We now know the HOAX! Hypocrite Al Gore should be ashamed of himself on many counts.