KEY POINTS:
Here is an earlier selection of Your Views:
Lance Pawley
Here in North Island New Zealand we have had a big storm every July, sometimes two, (early and late July) for as many years as I have been paying attention, (35), and a lot longer according to old seamen I've known. It's called winter! Cows burping or farting, fossil fuel burning or whatever have nothing to do with it!
Hayden Nash
Mankind has been around for 10,000 years.
Weather patterns have been recorded for the last 150 years. How many times before the 150 years of recorded weather patterns has the world's weather been on swings and roundabouts?
One volcanic eruption spews out as much CO2 as USA does in a year. I refuse to believe global warming is man made. We're still coming out of the last ice age why else are there polar caps and glaciers? In a few thousand years, the magnetic fields will change again (but will be caused by mankind of course, due to high cellphone usage) the polar ice caps will come back, and the cycle will start anew.
If you really want to say that everything's going faster, how about blaming the plant life for not growing fast enough to soak up CO2.
Bruce Spence
For a start the initial question begs ridicule. Putting silly examples such as skinny whales and Al Gore aside, the evidence is overwhelming that Global Warming is a fact. An overwhelming majority of leading scientists from every western country are convinced by the evidence. The evidence has come from observation as well as ice, rock and soil cores that have revealed a wealth of information about what the world was like thousands of years ago. It includes a coincidence of unprecedented events all over the world, not just in our own backyard. It is public knowledge that every major global insurance company is preparing for it, even multinational mining companies such as BHP and Rio Tinto acknowledge it. Even military experts in the major powers are planning for it, using future scenarios. But there are still some flat-earthers who still prefer to deny it. New Zealand, sadly, appears to be still locked the "loopy world" of denial. Get over it. It is happening and even New Zealand will be affected. How we will all be affected should be the question.
Kathie B
Nobody can deny that climate change is occurring. The point of contention is the cause of this change man-made or natural process? I've watched Al Gore's slick and facile self-promotion and propaganda video "An inconvenient truth" and I found it light on facts and heavy on assumptions. I strongly recommend watching "The Great Global Warming Swindle" which is available on You Tube. If you want properly referenced facts and to see the faces of real and reputable scientists who stand by those facts then this is the documentary to watch.
Philip W
The arrogance of some people who espouse the view that there is man-made global warming is astounding in it's naivety and stupidity. There is no and can be no proof that CO2 emissions contribute in the way that Al Gore et al suggest. And to take a sensible, yet contrary view, makes me a heretic! Global warming is a trendy fad that will pass along like many other global things before possibly not as quickly, including such things as global death by SARS and Bird Flu sweeping the world. Anyone care for eugenics? That had many, many scientists and educated people supporting it didn't make it right.
Brian Berry
It's not just Al Gore. It's the majority of the scientific community. The only ones in denial are those that are profiting in some way.
Dan
The only thing Big l is right about is the gullibility of all that believe in chicken little.
Mike Simons
Al Gore is the worst type of self-seeking publicity addict. The earth warms and cools as part of its normal cycle, and this can be seen in the geological record. Where Gore is being scurrilous is in perpetuating the myth that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is to blame, and every time we drive to work we are personally responsible for this pseudo-catastrophe. The fact is 95 per cent of greenhouse gas is water vapour, and without carbon dioxide in the atmosphere all plant life will die. By all means reduce your energy use, oil is running out. But don't tell me you are saving the planet by cycling to work.
B W Kenyon
Nothing to do with Al Gore, he is just an opportunist cashing in on what is a perfectly natural and normal climate change which has happened many times in the history of this planet before man knew anything about fossil fuels.
Alan
Global warming has been changed to climate change which we seem to get four times a year already. Al Gore can keep his garbage. One volcano causes more damage to atmosphere. It seems someone must be making a lot of money out of this scare mongering.
Julian
I can not believe the arrogance exuding from the people that claim that Global Warming is not a direct man-made thing. This 'she'll be right' attitude just astounds me. Climate change does have cycles, I would agree, but not at such a rapid rate, scientist would mostly agree that at this rate of warming, 100 years from now, many Pacific Islands will be under water. Can anyone point me in the direction where this has happened on such a grand scale in the 300 years of weather recordings started. This water level increase is widely agreed upon, and is measured by the affect people themselves. Natural phenomena like El Nino do not occur as regular as current weather events have. I am saddened that my child has to inherit a world that detractors of Al Gore would help destroy, I vote to send such people to Mars when Nasa send their next probe, they would feel right at home.
Dan Jones
Of course Al Gore is right, along with the massive majority of the world's climate scientists. This, however, is sloppy journalism of the standard I have come to expect from the scientific illiterates at the Herald. No, two skinny whales is not evidence for climate disruption, nor are they required to make the case. Just for once, I would like to see someone asking a climate change sceptic some hard questions. The burden of proof is on them. To be a climate change sceptic is to say that 10,000 years of chopping down/burning forests, agriculture, population growth, and massive release of carbon has had no effect on the climate. Yet they are allowed to state this idiotic position with no challenges. Start doing your job, NZ Herald.
Jeff
I'm thinking they are skinny because they are competing with us for food. As we fish one species after another into extinction, we take away the food source of another. Or could it be they are simply burning calories trying to avoid the Japanese harpoons. Either way, the way we treat this planet is a disgrace so whether global warming is real and if it is real whether it is human induced, I don't care, but it is waking a lot of people up to how we treat our environment. We are supposed to be an intelligent species but what other species ruins their environment to a point that it can't sustain it.
Tamblin
Yes Al Gore, is right, but in the same way it took world leaders about two decades to accept the science, and do something about the hole in the ozone layer, it is the same deal with the ever-thickening CO2 band. Let's just hope we have two decades for social-change/attitudes to do it's thing. Al Gore says that we don't have two decades. But hey life is a gamble. What do we care about our children? We would rather spend two years debating whether we should assault our children or not. We have far more important subjective things to concentrate on, than accepting scientific facts.
Dill
Global warming is caused only by stronger activity of the Sun. Human influence is so tiny and negligible when compared with the nature.
Pam
No, I think weather is weather and these things have always happened. I'm not into the scare tactics of Al Gore and his cronies.
P. Blake
Is Al Gore right? Talk about mind control in the mass media? If the lie is often enough and big enough people will accept it as the truth. (Perhaps an inconvenient truth.) The world over ,in the summer there will be droughts and heat waves, in the winter there will be storms and floods and sometimes these things happen in between. Have a bit of faith in the old earth she's been around for a long time, ice melts because that's what ice does. It also reforms again, because that's what ice does. Think about it.
Peter Watkins
There was some wind and rain. Auckland's infrastructure showed how poor it is.
Ben
Climate change is occurring alright but as always Al Gore blaming it on humans is a bit far fetched. What Northland and Auckland experienced and what the USA is going through has been happening naturally for millions of years this time human civilisation stands in nature's path. We can not stop climate change, nature is too powerful or complex but we can mitigate to minimise human disasters. For the USA, making sure the power grid and supply is adequate and the vulnerable looked after will slow down heat related causalities. For us getting whacked with SE hurricane force winds, the back section of our Telecom Yellow Pages and history has information on how to prepare for a storm the weather radars saw for miles away. So all us northerners can do is just hunker down, ride it out and be prepared.
Jack
Al Gore, right or no. I think he is, but stupid humans won't realise it until we really face it. Let's just wait another 20 years and I will (if I'm alive) see where this discussion goes from there.
Andrew Atkin
The weather has been on a roller-coaster ride since the beginning of time with or without global-warming there will always be events often grand and strange to blame human, carbon, God or whatever on. I wouldn't get too excited over some whales. Personally, I don't listen too much to Al Gore because I do not get a 'sincere' feeling off him (never have done). Like so many PC-flavoured politicians, I think he's basically sucked into his own vanity trip wanting to be 'Mr hero' for the sake of it.
Alistair Wakefield
Minor detail: To improve the correctness of the article. The long desired (by oil companies) oil development of North Alaska is unrelated to global warming. The driver for development is greed oil dollars for petroleum companies. In fact global warming works against the development going ahead because supplies must be trucked in over frozen tundra roads which are closed for more days of the year if the earth heats up. I think that this kind of article does not really help the environmental cause much. Two skinny whales is not evidence More detail please! This is entertainment news and not serious journalism. Until we get proper news perhaps our Government's can continue to stall on doing what they ought to be doing, particularly in the US where the government gets away with serving the interests of the richest 1 per cent at the expense of everyone else and the environment.
Simon Dickson
No. If you look at these weather storms and events they are actually normal in their formation and what happens as a result. The planet warming up has not caused them they have occurred many times before in history.
Andy
I agree with Rosemary's comments about the draught in Australia being due to global warming. I was over there recently and I indeed found it quite windy. This came to the fore (no pun intended) out on the golf course in fact I reckon it cost me 5-6 shots so I wish this global warming thing would just go away.
David Thompson
The question is not whether Al Gore is right, but rather whether the majority of scientists are right. Despite protestations by those who wish climate change was a fallacy, the scientific community is increasingly coming to consensus that climate change is real, and it's if not wholly man made, certainly heavily influenced by human activity. I wish they were right, but sadly no amount of pronouncing that global warming is a myth will have any impact on the outcome of centuries of environmental abuse.
Rehana
I think Al Gore might just be right. Look at our weather patterns, especially the four seasons. Tornadoes galore now, flooding, and hurricane type winds. We have had storms before but not to this extent. Other countries like Australia, USA and Europe are getting hotter. Heat has already killed people in Europe. The weather is on the extreme scales from the looks of it and it will probably be like this for quite a number of years.
Geoff
How to get publicity mention climate change every time there is a storm or a drought. Good for politicians like Gore, good for the media, good for the greenies. But all based on bad science. Ultimately the carbon crusade is going to cost NZ big time (food miles etc). And in another 20 or so years when we go into a cooling phase, it will have all been for nothing. As some (sensible) scientist said, if you don't want climate change, try another planet.
Albert
Okay, all believers of Al Gore, when you read that he spends US$30,000 a year (which is about the average income of New Zealand) on power bill at his home and private jetting around, won't you have any doubt at all? I'm sure there are a lot of suckers out there funding his lifestyle. What he didn't tell you guys is how come dinosaurs and their mates became extinct, and way before there is such things as electricity, oil or factory, there were also many great floods and other natural disasters.
Daron
I don't need to have faith in science to see the massive effect we are having on the planet. Look around you and tell me the amount of pollution we generate won't have any effect. Whilst you are all arguing if it's fact or fiction the planet is going haywire.
Arron
Been bugger all evidence of global warming around Auckland the last month or so, we've been freezing our t*ts off. Actually the temperatures don't seem to be markedly different from the last couple of decades. All a bunch of scaremongering from the loony left to give them more excuses to interfere in our lives and increase the tax grab to fund their social engineering initiatives.
Julia
You bet your ass he's right! I am sitting in Sheffield UK at a house over the road from where the River Sheaf flooded 2 weeks ago and have seen the debris left and seen the flowers left for the poor kid who was swept away in those flash floods age 14. The rain was torrential here in Sheffield, but there are 16000 homes ruined in Hull, 1500 families homeless in Doncaster and then after all this weather drama here in UK I read the Herald online and see the same thing happening back home in NZ and last week my inner city Auckland apartment building had the balcony glass blown out in freaky winds. Now that's all too much for one off weather fluctuations of nature's natural cycles.
Simon
Give it a rest with the Al Gore global warming "bs". It was a simple storm not like we've had many of them in the past is it. Don't get behind such plainly bad science in the quest for printable media stories and add more perceived credibility to such liberal "namby pamby" unscientific drivel.
Dennis
No Al Gore is incorrect about climate change. It's unbelievable about this scaremongering, that people don't even stop to research themselves instead of believing such hype.
Firstly the climate is always changing and temperatures have only been recorded in the last 2-300 years, what about the last million.
Nature has cycles, and extreme weather comes and goes. Why do 75 per cent of insects and animals live around the equator. Polar bears retreat to the tundra every summer, not because there's a lack of ice. Warming, unlikely, remember we just had the coldest winter in 50 years in the South Island last year. Hello,
Al Gore has no proof, won't allow any objection and is just trying to raise money for his self-obsession and obtain further funding for his propaganda machine. He has no clue about the climate. Please wake up people.
Rosemary
Of course he is right, look at the weather around the world, two major floods in NZ in less than 5 months, draught in Australia, Snow in Buenos Aires. We are meant to be the intelligent species. Intelligent enough to wreck the planet and keep doing it.
Samantha
Isn't it sad that we have all these things happening pointing to our world not coping with the strain we are putting on it and most of us are too busy to care (just look at the ratings from the show in the weekend). Unfortunately I think Al Gore is right and if we don't actually get off our butts and help our world our grandchildren might, probably will miss out.
John Beasley
Skinny whales more likely from a food shortage caused by things other than "global warming". This was a very short sighted piece.