From A Rapt Audience, A Call To Cool The Hype

Hollywood has a thing for Al Gore and his three-alarm film on global warming, An Inconvenient Truth, which won an Academy Award for best documentary. So do many environmentalists, who praise him as a visionary, and many scientists, who laud him for raising public awareness of climate change.

Don J. Easterbrook, a geology professor, has cited “inaccuracies” in “An Inconvenient Truth.”

But part of his scientific audience is uneasy. In talks, articles and blog entries that have appeared since his film and accompanying book came out last year, these scientists argue that some of Mr. Gores central points are exaggerated and erroneous. They are alarmed, some say, at what they call his alarmism.

I dont want to pick on Al Gore, Don J. Easterbrook, an emeritus professor of geology at Western Washington University, told hundreds of experts at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America. But there are a lot of inaccuracies in the statements we are seeing, and we have to temper that with real data.

Mr. Gore, in an e-mail exchange about the critics, said his work made the most important and salient points about climate change, if not some nuances and distinctions scientists might want. The degree of scientific consensus on global warming has never been stronger, he said, adding, I am trying to communicate the essence of it in the lay language that I understand.

Although Mr. Gore is not a scientist, he does rely heavily on the authority of science in An Inconvenient Truth, which is why scientists are sensitive to its details and claims.

Criticisms of Mr. Gore have come not only from conservative groups and prominent skeptics of catastrophic warming, but also from rank-and-file scientists like Dr. Easterbook, who told his peers that he had no political ax to grind. A few see natural variation as more central to global warming than heat-trapping gases. Many appear to occupy a middle ground in the climate debate, seeing human activity as a serious threat but challenging what they call the extremism of both skeptics and zealots.

Kevin Vranes, a climatologist at the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research at the University of Colorado, said he sensed a growing backlash against exaggeration. While praising Mr. Gore for getting the message out, Dr. Vranes questioned whether his presentations were overselling our certainty about knowing the future.

Typically, the concern is not over the existence of climate change, or the idea that the human production of heat-trapping gases is partly or largely to blame for the globes recent warming. The question is whether Mr. Gore has gone beyond the scientific evidence.

Hes a very polarizing figure in the science community, said Roger A. Pielke Jr., an environmental scientist who is a colleague of Dr. Vranes at the University of Colorado center. Very quickly, these discussions turn from the issue to the person, and become a referendum on Mr. Gore.

An Inconvenient Truth, directed by Davis Guggenheim, was released last May and took in more than $46 million, making it one of the top-grossing documentaries ever. The companion book by Mr. Gore quickly became a best seller, reaching No. 1 on the New York Times list.

Mr. Gore depicted a future in which temperatures soar, ice sheets melt, seas rise, hurricanes batter the coasts and people die en masse. Unless we act boldly, he wrote, our world will undergo a string of terrible catastrophes.

He clearly has supporters among leading scientists, who commend his popularizations and call his science basically sound. In December, he spoke in San Francisco to the American Geophysical Union and got a reception fit for a rock star from thousands of attendees.

He has credibility in this community, said Tim Killeen, the groups president and director of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, a top group studying climate change. Theres no question hes read a lot and is able to respond in a very effective way.

Some backers concede minor inaccuracies but see them as reasonable for a politician. James E. Hansen, an environmental scientist, director of NASAs Goddard Institute for Space Studies and a top adviser to Mr. Gore, said, Al does an exceptionally good job of seeing the forest for the trees, adding that Mr. Gore often did so better than scientists.

Still, Dr. Hansen said, the former vice presidents work may hold imperfections and technical flaws. He pointed to hurricanes, an icon for Mr. Gore, who highlights the devastation of Hurricane Katrina and cites research suggesting that global warming will cause both storm frequency and deadliness to rise. Yet this past Atlantic season produced fewer hurricanes than forecasters predicted (five versus nine), and none that hit the United States.

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