January 23, 2020 - Al Gore raved about climate at Davos yesterday. “This is Thermopylae. This is Agincourt. This is Dunkirk. This is the Battle of the Bulge. This is 9/11,” he said.

Al Gore

Let’s review some of Gore’s predictions as compiled by J. Frank Bullitt in August 2019:

- Sea levels could rise as much as 20 feet. He didn’t provide a timeline, which was shrewd on his part. But even if he had said 20 inches, over 20 years, he’d still have been wrong. Sea level has been growing for about 10,000 years, and, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, continues to rise at most about one-eighth of an inch per year.

- Storms are going to grow stronger. There’s no evidence they are stronger nor more frequent.

- Mt. Kilimanjaro was losing its snow cap due to global warming. By April 2018, the mountain glaciers were taking their greatest snowfall in years. Two months later, Kilimanjaro was “covered by snow” for “an unusually long stint. But it’s possible that all the snow and ice will be gone soon. Kilimanjaro is a stratovolcano, with a dormant cone that could erupt.

- Point of no return. If we have truly gotten this far, why even care that “virtually all” of the Democratic candidates have agreed that global warming is a top issue? If we had passed the point of no return, there’d be no reason to maintain hope. The fact Gore’s looking for a “savior” from among the candidates means that even he doesn’t believe things have gone too far.

- Polar bears being forced off the planet. A year after the movie, Gore was found claiming that polar bears’ “habitat is melting” and “they are literally being forced off the planet.” It’s possible, however, that there are four times as many polar bears as there were in the 1960s. Even if not, they’ve not been forced off the planet.

- Ice-free Arctic. Also in 2007, Gore started making “statements about the possibility of a complete lack of summer sea ice in the Arctic by as early as 2013,” fact-checker Snopes, which leans so hard left that it often falls over and has to pick itself up, said, before concluding that “Gore definitely erred in his use of preliminary projections and misrepresentations of research.”

Now let’s look at Gore’s history:

-“This is Thermopylae.” The Greeks lost at Thermopylae to the Persian horde. Not sure what the climate lesson is.
   

- “This is Agincourt.” Agincourt was an important victory of the English against the French in the Hundred Years War. But in the end the Hundred Years War was just a battle between two rival royal dynasties for control of France.” Agincourt was no existential battle for humanity.
   

- “This is Dunkirk.” Dunkirk was a daring and improbable rescue of some 335,000 soldiers from the disastrous 1940 Battle of France. It did not decide the outcome of World War II, however. Solar panels are not nearly as inspiring.
   

- “This is the Battle of the Bulge.” The desperate Nazi thrust into the Ardennes in December 1944 was doomed from the outset. General George S. Patton heroically raced to the rescue of the trapped 82nd Airborne at Bastogne, but the outcome of the war had already been determined. IsGore is trying to compare CO2 to the Nazis?
   

- “This is 9/11.” 9/11 was a surprisingly successful terrorist attack vs. global warming… about 1.1C of warming (maybe) over the past 150 or so years. Not sure what Gore is getting at.

What Al Gore should have sad about climate is: “This the Salem Witch Trials. This is the Emperor’s New Clothes. This is Bernie Madoff.”

Mass hysteria, obvious total bullsh*t, and fraud are much closer to the climate mark than famous battles and terrorism.