A British judge has refused to ban former US Vice-President's Oscar-winning film "An Inconvenient Truth" from classrooms, but has said the film contains serious scientific inaccuracies. Mr Justice Burton ruled that the film could be screened at schools as long as it carried a note explaining nine inaccuracies contained in it.
The case against the film was brought by Stewart Dimmock, the father of two children who said the film could “brainwash” children.
"I conclude that the claimant substantially won this case by virtue of my finding that, but for the new guidance note, the film would have been distributed in breach of sections 406 and 407 of the 1996 Education Act", the judge said. The judge also awarded Dimmock over two-thirds of his legal costs expected to be £200,000.
The nine inaccuracies in the film, according to Mr Justice Barton include:
* Film: Melting of Greenland or West Antarctica could cause a sea-level rise of sea-level rise of up to 20 feet.
The judge called this distinctly alarmist and said that if Greenland melted the amount of water could rise “but only after, and over, millennia.”
* The Judge found no evidence to indicate the film's claim that low-lying Pacific atolls are “being inundated because of anthropogenic global warming.”
* The Judge also dismissed the film's premise that global warming would result in "shutting down the Ocean Conveyor."
* Gore's film said that melting of snow on Mt Kilimanjaro was human induced effect of global warming, but the Judge said scientific evidence pointed to the contrary.
* On the drying up of Lake Chad, the judge said, “It is apparently considered to be far more likely to result from other factors, such as population increase and over-grazing, and regional climate variability.”
* The Judge also said there was no evidence Hurricane Katrina resulted from global warming.
* The judge frowned on the film's assertion that polar bears were drowning for want of ice
* The film attributed bleaching of coral reefs to global warming, but the judge said the IPCC report had already touched on this aspect.
Mr Dimmock was elated by the ruling. "If it was not for the case brought by myself, our young people would still be being indoctrinated with this political spin," he observed. "I am elated with today's result, but still disappointed that the film is able to be shown in schools."
