Irish Journalist Phelim McAleer vs. Al Gore

What happens when a feisty Irish journalist asks Al Gore an inconvenient question?



The venue was a conference of the Society of Environmental Journalists that took place in Madison, Wisconsin. The basis for the question is this:

Two years ago, British High Court Justice Michael Burton characterized Gore's film as "alarmism and exaggeration in support of his political thesis." The court, responding to a case filed by a parent, said the film was "one-sided" and could not be shown in British schools unless it contained guidelines to balance Gore's attempt at "political indoctrination."

The judge based his decision on nine inaccuracies in the movie.

It isn't as though Gore wasn't aware that his inconvenient truths are, well, not entirely true, as Patrick Goodenough, International Editor of CNS News reported at the time:

Gore himself -- as the court heard -- has spoken about the need to overstate the case when faced by skepticism.

"In the United States of America, unfortunately we still live in a bubble of unreality," he said in one often-cited May 2006 interview. "Nobody is interested in solutions if they don't think there's a problem. Given that starting point, I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous it is." (Read more . . .)

Granted, it's a little hard to see from this "bubble of unreality" I'm living in, but I think that means it isn't so dangerous after all. Good to know.

By the way -- about those polar bears -- evidently Gore didn't get this word:

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service estimates that the polar bear population is currently at 20,000 to 25,000 bears, up from as low as 5,000-10,000 bears in the 1950s and 1960s. A 2002 U.S. Geological Survey of wildlife in the Arctic Refuge Coastal Plain noted that the polar bear populations “may now be near historic highs.” The alarm about the future of polar bear decline is based on speculative computer model predictions many decades in the future. And the methodology of these computer models is being challenged by many scientists and forecasting experts. (LINK) [Emphasis added.]

Yeah, when Gore "over-represents", seems he doesn't fool around. But conveniently, he has those hard-core "journalists" to protect him from McAleer's darned inconvenient questions.


Phelim McAleer is the director of the film Mine Your Own Business, which is about environmentalism, and a new documentary, Not Evil Just Wrong, that addresses global warming alarmists. He has written for The Economist and the Financial Times. You can also find him on Breitbart, where he recently asked some inconvenient questions of celebrities at the "Age of Stupid" premier in New York.