One day before the Nobel Peace Prize award announcement, a British High Court judge ruled that Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” contained nine errors. The film has received many criticisms both positive and negative. Since the documentary came out however, there has been a significant increase of awareness in global warming that did not exist before the movie came out. Al Gore has helped create a social awareness in millions if not billions of people. The issue of global warming is not something new but Al Gore is simply educating people about it. No matter how hard people try to do good, there will always be other people trying to find fault. Yes, Al Gore probably lives in a really big house and flys a private jet every so often and he is contributing to some carbon emission but what about the tons of carbon emission that have been saved due to the impact and awareness that his film has created? Then on the other hand, many people want him to run for President as well. Just let the man do his job in saving the planet. Below are the nine alleged errors highlighted by High Court Judge Michael Burton.

1.) The sea level will rise up to 20 feet because of the melting of either West Antarctica or Greenland in the near future. (This “Armageddon scenario” would only take place over thousands of years, the judge wrote.)

2.) Some low-lying Pacific islands have been so inundated with water that their citizens have all had to evacuate to New Zealand. (”There is no evidence of any such evacuation having yet happened.”)

3.) Global warming will shut down the “ocean conveyor,” by which the Gulf Stream moves across the North Atlantic to Western Europe. (According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, “it is very unlikely that the Ocean Conveyor will shut down in the future…”)

4.) There is a direct coincidence between the rise in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the rise in temperature over the last 650,000 years. (”Although there is general scientific agreement that there is a connection, the two graphs do not establish what Mr. Gore asserts.”)

5.) The disappearance of the snows on Mount Kilimanjaro is expressly attributable to global warming. (”However, it is common ground that, the scientific consensus is that it cannot be established that the recession of snows on Mount. Kilimanjaro is mainly attributable to human-induced climate change.”)

6.) The drying up of Lake Chad is a prime example of a catastrophic result of global warming. (”It is generally accepted that the evidence remains insufficient to establish such an attribution” and may be more likely the effect of population increase, overgrazing and regional climate variability.)

7.) Hurricane Katrina and the consequent devastation in New Orleans is because of global warming. (”It is common ground that there is insufficient evidence to show that.”)

8.) Polar bears are drowning because they have to swim long distances to find ice. (”The only scientific study that either side before me can find is one, which indicates that four polar bears have recently been found drowned because of a storm.”)

9.) Coral reefs all over the world are bleaching because of global warming and other factors. (”Separating the impacts of stresses due to climate change from other stresses, such as overfishing and pollution, was difficult.”)

Via ABCNews 

This is for a energy bill  that promotes changes for our environment and for demanding a fuel economy standard of 35 mpg by 2020. More info can be found at http://www.pewfuelefficiency.org.

Here is a video from Treehugger showing the effects of leaving appliances and electronics plugged into wall outlets. What I don’t get is why there aren’t more power surge protectors or gadgets that will kill the power to an outlet with a button. There are adapters that plug into outlets that have a light switch that you can turn on and off, but I haven’t really seen power surges that work the same way. The only ones I know of are here.

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If you would like to make a difference and make money, here are two contests held by a local bay area company called HIP Investor. The first contest called Launch My Career: HIP Scorecard Competition for Students, is for high school and college students and professors and awards the winners with $1000 for creating your own scorecard of 10-15 companies within an industry or theme. If you are passionate about a specific theme, then why not write about it and have a chance at being heard? The winning team will even have the chance to present their findings to a team of sustainability experts in 2008.

How HIP is it? is a monthly contest for rating your favorite or most hated product awarding the winner $100 and a chance to have your writing published. If there is a product that you think is the best invention in helping the fight for global warming or is the worst in causing global warming, write about it and make a $100!

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Last week, EcoTuesday was held at the Green Building Exchange in Redwood City. It was a little different from the normal San Francisco scene and probably attracted interest from people in the peninsula. There were free Countrytyme cocktail drinks made from Square One Organic Vodka as well as free Mateveza beer, a Yerba Matte Ale. The speaker at this event was Bill Coleman, COO of Planktos, an ecosystem restoration company that I covered here. He spoke about what the company was doing to help fight global warming as well as answer any questions that the audience had for him and about Planktos.

See more pictures here.