I get a lot of email from publicist types that I ignore. Often it’s someone pushing a product that they want to tie into a new movie or TV show – they’ll “pitch” me editorial ideas. Most of the time it’s pretty inane stuff, like cookbooks tying into The Sopranos or something like that. But today I got an email direct from the depths of hell itself, and it ties into today’s DVD release of Al Gore’s documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. Here is the exchange, presented verbatim:
From Christine Hall-Reis
Contact:
Christine Hall, 202.331.2258
GORE ‘INCONVENIENT TRUTH’ DVD DOGGED BY FALSEHOODS
CEI Policy Expert Refutes Global Warming Alarmism
Washington, D.C., November 21, 2006—Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” documentary is scheduled for a Tuesday DVD release, but here’s what won’t be included in the purchase price: the actual truth. In a new short video series, PowerPoint presentation, and forthcoming book, CEI Senior Fellow Marlo Lewis, Jr. rebuts a few false and misleading Gore claims.
CARBON DIOXIDE
· GORE: “We have vastly increased the amount of carbon dioxide—the most important of the so-called greenhouse gases.”
· THE TRUTH: Using a misleading and manipulative picture, Gore wants us to think we’re literally seeing carbon dioxide pour out of smokestacks. But carbon dioxide is as invisible as oxygen. More important, carbon dioxide is a form of fertilizer for plants. Literally hundreds of scientific observations show that plants raised in carbon dioxide-enriched environments grow faster, larger, and produce more fruit. Get the full story.
HURRICANES
· GORE: “Textbooks had to be re-written in 2004. They used to say, ‘It’s impossible to have hurricanes in the South Atlantic.’ But that year, for the first time ever, a hurricane hit Brazil.”
· THE TRUTH: Gore would have us believe that global warming and the associated rise in sea surface temperatures created Hurricane Catarina, the first hurricane on record ever to strike Brazil. Here’s what really happened. In 2004, Brazil had the coldest summer months in 25 years; the air was so much colder than the water that it caused the same kind of heat flux from the water to the air that fuels hurricanes in warm seas. Get the full story.
RATE OF GLOBAL WARMING
· GORE: “And in recent years the rate of [global warming] increase has been accelerating."
· THE TRUTH: That’s just plain wrong. Over the last 30 years, the warming rate has been remarkably constant—about 0.17 degrees Celsius per decade. And for 25 years before that, the world was actually cooling! The actual rate of warming is modest and non-accelerating. A better title for a documentary about global warming would be: “Apocalypse Not!” Get the full story.
GREENLAND ICE SHEET
· GORE: “When the [melt-]water reaches the bottom of the ice, it lubricates the surface of the bedrock and destabilizes the ice mass, raising fears that the ice mass will slide more quickly toward the ocean.”
· THE TRUTH: Seems plausible, but only because Gore rips images out of their context. The photograph and diagram shown in the documentary come from a NASA study published in Science magazine in 2002. The study found that “moulins”—vertical water tunnels formed from pools of melt water at the surface of the ice sheet—accelerate glacial flow in the summertime, but the increase in speed over the entire year is no more than a few percent. Get the full story.
CEI is a non-profit, non-partisan public policy group dedicated to the principles of free enterprise and limited government. For more information about CEI, please visit our website at www.cei.org.
From: Devin Faraci [mailto:devin@chud.com]
Sent: Tuesday, November 21, 2006 12:34 PM
To: Christine Hall-Reis
Subject: Re: news release: GORE ‘INCONVENIENT TRUTH’ DVD DOGGED BY FALSEHOODS
Fuck you.
From: Christine Hall-Reis
To: Devin Faraci
Sent: Tuesday, November 21, 2006 12:23 PM
Subject: RE: news release: GORE ‘INCONVENIENT TRUTH’ DVD DOGGED BY FALSEHOODS
Excuse me? What is it you are unhappy about? It seems to me that is a rude response.
From: Devin Faraci [mailto:devin@chud.com]
Sent: Tuesday, November 21, 2006 12:41 PM
To: Christine Hall-Reis
Subject: Re: news release: GORE ‘INCONVENIENT TRUTH’ DVD DOGGED BY FALSEHOODS
Sorry, I get rude about receiving flat out bullshit and nonsense in my email. Fuck you and all the people like you who are in any way, shape or form involved in disinformation campaigns that will ruin the lives of generations to come. Non-partisan my ass.
Get cancer.
d
From: Christine Hall-Reis
To: Devin Faraci
Sent: Tuesday, November 21, 2006 12:32 PM
Subject: RE: news release: GORE ‘INCONVENIENT TRUTH’ DVD DOGGED BY FALSEHOODS
Devin, while I am happy to remove you from our list, that is really quite rude an intemperate of you. You have us all wrong. Why don’t you give me a call and we’ll talk about it?
Cheers,
Christine
From: Devin Faraci
To: Christine Hall-Reis
Sent: Tuesday, November 21, 2006 1:05 PM
Subject: Re: news release: GORE ‘INCONVENIENT TRUTH’ DVD DOGGED BY FALSEHOODS
You’re a bullshit right wing "think tank" funded by petroleum money and car companies who backs right wing lunatic and asshole John Stossel and who works to "debunk" global warming. You’ve worked against sound environmental policy for over a decade. You’re an evil bunch of cretins who use poor science and misrepresentation to push forward an awful, destructive agenda.
Yes, please remove me from your list. Then please consider removing yourself from the list of the living.
d
Click here to learn more about the Competitive Enterprise Institute and how they lie about global warming while taking money from Exxon, Texaco and car manufacturers. Consider giving Christine Hall-Reis a call at the number listed in her first email to tell her what you think about bullshit groups that spread lies for corporate masters.
Buy An Inconvenient Truth on DVD by clicking here. Watch the movie and learn the truth.