Al Gore has been nominated jointly with Canadian Inuit activist Sheila Watt-Cloutier for the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, to be announced later today. Here’s some food for thought in advance of the announcement.

From The Times of London today:

Al Gore’s award-winning climate change documentary was littered with nine inconvenient untruths, a judge ruled yesterday.
An Inconvenient Truth won plaudits from the environmental lobby and an Oscar from the film industry but was found wanting when it was scrutinised in the High Court in London.
Mr Justice Burton identified nine significant errors within the former presidential candidate’s documentary as he assessed whether it should be shown to school children.
… In what is a rare judicial ruling on what children can see in the class-room, Mr Justice Barton was at pains to point out that the “apocalyptic vision” presented in the film was politically partisan and not an impartial analysis of the science of climate change.
… The analysis by the judge will have a bearing on whether the Government can continue with its plan to have the film shown in every secondary [high] school. He agreed it could be shown but on the condition that it was accompanied by new guidance notes for teachers to balance Mr Gore’s “one-sided” views.
… The first mistake made by Mr Gore, said Mr Justice Burton in his written judgment, was in talking about the potential devastation wrought by a rise in sea levels caused by the melting of ice caps.
The claim that sea levels could rise by 20ft “in the near future” was dismissed as “distinctly alarmist”. Such a rise would take place “only after, and over, millennia”.
… Mr Gore’s suggestion that the Gulf Stream, that warms up the Atlantic ocean, would shut down was contradicted by the International Panel on Climate Change’s assessment that it was “very unlikely” to happen.
The drying of Lake Chad, the loss of Mount Kilimanjaro’s snows and Hurricane Katrina were all blamed by Mr Gore on climate change but the judge said the scientific community had been unable to find evidence to prove there was a direct link.
The drying of Lake Chad, the judge said, was “far more likely to result from other factors, such as population increase and overgrazing, and regional climate variability”.
The judge also said there was no proof to support a claim that polar bears were drowning while searching for icy habitats melted by global warming. The only drowned polar bears the court was aware of were four that died following a storm.

An Inconvenient Truth is the third-highest grossing documentary ever in the United States, taking in more than $23 million. It has so far earned $49 million at the box office worldwide It was shown at the Sundance Film Festival and won an Oscar this year for Best Documentary, Features.

The companion book written by Gore has been on The New York Times bestseller list since June 11, 2006.