From RationalWiki

Gore's Law states, as coined by Terence of blog "Long Ago And Not True Anyway" in March 2008:

“ ” As an online [1] As an online climate change debate grows longer, the probability that denier arguments will descend into attacks on Al Gore approaches 1.

Immediately after making the post, commenters proceeded to nitpick at Gore — thus proving his point.

Why Gore's Law is relevant [ edit ]

The problem with attacking Al Gore is that he has absolutely fuck all to do with the science of climate change, no matter his carbon footprint,[note 1] PMRC involvement, Manbearpig, etc. You really can't find a better instance of poisoning the well. He could live in a mud hut and walk everywhere and they'd call him a hypocrite because the aglets on his shoelaces were made of plastic, a petroleum product.

Common examples and the reasons they are fallacious include:

Al Gore is a Democrat.

Even if this were a problem, association fallacy. It's the equivalent of a leftie rejecting calls for alternative energy because T. Boone Pickens wants it too.

Al Gore stands to profit from climate change mitigation. Conflict of interest!

This old saw. If money drove the science, then the Koch brothers would make it rain all over the science world, and this debate would have ended a long time ago. Also, if you see Al Gore making money as a bad thing, this is an appeal to motive and an argument from adverse consequences.

There are number of errors made in Al Gore's film.

Fallacy fallacy. Just because a sub-set of his arguments could be proven wrong doesn't mean that anthropogenic global warming isn't happening.[note 2] Gore is a politician with zero academic expertise in climatology;[note 3] all he did was put the scientific consensus into Hollywood format.

If Al's claims were at all genuine, he would lower his standard of living. He doesn't practice what he preaches!

When you see wildly-exaggerated claims like Gore telling people to "turn off all the lights in your house", you know they got their "facts" from conservative talk radio. Go look up the list of tips from An Inconvenient Truth: it's simple stuff like "check your tire pressure" and "buy energy-efficient light bulbs".

In Laanta's words:

"Al Gore could be short, evil and fond of child sacrifice. He could emit more CO2 snoring at night than Christopher Monckton does all year. And his movie could be even more inaccurate than The Great Global Warming Swindle. But this wouldn't change a thing."[1]

Was An Inconvenient Truth Nobel-worthy? It's certainly debatable. While Gore was awarded for popularizing the issue to the general public, others believe he received too much credit because the data involved was never his in the first place.[2]

See also [ edit ]

Notes [ edit ]