Fear Not Selling Anymore

We've grown used to these kind of scare tactics from Al Gore over the years:

"Some of the models suggest to Dr [Wieslav] Maslowski that there is a 75 per cent chance that the entire north polar ice cap, during the summer months, could be completely ice-free within five to seven years."

Unfortunately for Al, these kind of statements no longer get the free pass they once enjoyed:

However, the climatologist whose work Mr Gore was relying upon dropped the former Vice-President in the water with an icy blast.

“It’s unclear to me how this figure was arrived at,” Dr Maslowski said. “I would never try to estimate likelihood at anything as exact as this.”

Mr Gore’s office later admitted that the 75 per cent figure was one used by Dr Maslowksi as a “ballpark figure” several years ago in a conversation with Mr Gore.

It would be interesting to know how many years "several" is. Could it be 5 to 7 years?

Over the last "several" years it has become much more common for the warmenists to talk of impending disaster in terms of "within the decade" rather than "within the century." We are rapidly coming up on a time when we can look at those predictions in a comparison to the reality. At that time, what were likely scare tactics in a gamble to create urgency could be the final nail in the pseudo-religio-science of global warming.

When you bluff, sooner or later you get burned. Al Gore does not seem to have realized yet that the tide has turned against the fear mongerers. That's fine with me, as it will only "hasten the decline."