Al Gore's climate film contain's 'nine scientific errors', says UK judge
London, Oct.11 : A British judge has said that former U.S. Vice President Al Gore's climate change film " An Inconvenient Truth", contains nine scientific errors, and is now debating whether it should be screened at schools in England, Wales and Scotland.
High Court Justice Burton said the Gordon Brown Government could still send the film to schools, if it was accompanied by guidance giving the other side of the argument.
According to the BBC, he was ruling on an attempt by a Kent school governor to ban the film from secondary schools.
The judge said nine statements in the film were not supported by mainstream scientific consensus.
Mr. Justice Burton told London's High Court that distributing the film without the guidance to counter its "one-sided" views would breach education laws.
The Department for Children, Schools and Families was not under a duty to forbid the film, provided it was accompanied by the guidance, he said.
"I conclude that the claimant substantially won this case by virtue of my finding that, but for the new guidance note, the film would have been distributed in breach of sections 406 and 407 of the 1996 Education Act", he said.
The nine errors alleged by the judge included:
Gore's assertion that a sea-level rise of up to 20 feet would be caused by melting of ice in either West Antarctica or Greenland "in the near future".
The judge said this was "distinctly alarmist" and it was common ground that if Greenland's ice melted it would release this amount of water - "but only after, and over, millennia".
Gore's assertion that the disappearance of snow on Mount Kilimanjaro in East Africa was expressly attributable to global warming - the court heard the scientific consensus was that it cannot be established that the snow recession is mainly attributable to human-induced climate change.
His reference to a new scientific study showing that, for the first time, polar bears had actually drowned "swimming long distances - up to 60 miles - to find the ice". The judge said: "The only scientific study that either side before me can find is one which indicates that four polar bears have recently been found drowned because of a storm."
The case was brought by school governor Stewart Dimmock, from Dover, a father of two.
His lawyers described the ruling as a "landmark victory".
The judge awarded Mr Dimmock two-thirds of his estimated legal costs of over 200,000 dollars, against the government. (ANI)