Is Al Gore Right About Climate Change and CO2 Levels? Exploring the Controversy

[bkelly]

I have been trying to do some reading about climate change and my searches have met with miserable failure. Please provide a few links to help me read about some topics.

In an recent interview with Conan, did Al Gore really say that those rocks far below the surface are millions of degrees hot. The video clips I saw were poor quality, very jerky, and it really did not look like Gore. I am reasonably sure that once you get a few kilometers down, you no longer find what anyone would term, a bunch of rocks.

Most of the people where I work think that climage change is either not happening, or it is definatly not made made. They say, among many things, that the scientific evaluation CO2 in the air over millions of years is wrong. Where can I find the people that make that claim and evaluations as to if they are right or wrong.

There is so much to say about climate change and the politics involved, but I wish to keep the topic as narrow as possible.
1. Did Al Gore really say that? Has Al Gore commented on this media frenzy about millions of degrees?
2. How accurate is the scientific evaluation of CO2 levels in the Earth's long distant past through the present.

I am asking for 1. links where these topics are discussed, and 2. your opinions, but the links first.

Thank you for your time

 

[uart]

I haven't seen the video of Gore saying that but I'd say it's quite possible that he could have said million instead of thousand as a slip of the tongue. It's easy enough to make a slip like that under an interview type situation. Normally someone (eg interviewer) would pick up on a gaff like that and it could be questioned/corrected straight away, but if no one picked up on it then yeah it could easily happen. I doubt that he actually believes that it's millions though.

Personally I'd like to see Al Gores own response to this. If he said he meant to say "thousands" but accidentally said "millions" then I'd be inclined to believe him and leave it at that. Anything else would just be political point scoring (which is of course what it this really about).

 

[Xnn]

I have not seen or heard where Al Gore said what you thought he may have said.
However, I do know that he recently predicted that summer time Arctic Sea ice will be gone within 10 years. IMO, that is a very gutsy announcement as is not supported by most experts.

Anyhow, here is a link from a fairly recent paper on CO2 levels over the past 20 million years and the climates response:

http://www.seas.harvard.edu/climate/seminars/pdfs/tripati.etal.sci.2009.pdf

Also, every few years there is a world wide evaluation of the current scientific basis of climate change. Here is a link to the 2007 evaluation;

http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/contents.html

 

[bkelly]

who says CO2 interpretation is wrong?

Let me re-ask my question. Who says that CO2 is not a green house gas? Who says that it cannot be declared as a significant contributing agent to golbal climate?
Links to sites from or about these people please.
Thank you.