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It's the box-office sensation credited with confronting the world with the honest reality of climate change.
But this week, a High Court judge in London made some distinctly inconvenient criticisms of An Inconvenient Truth, the Oscar-winning documentary on global warming made by Al Gore.
Justice Sir Michael Burton was pondering whether the film should be shown in classrooms after criticism from a school governor in Kent, who had accused the Government of "brainwashing" children.
The judge found that the "broadly accurate" film can indeed be screened as long as it is accompanied by material from the climate change-denial fraternity.
But, in a somewhat more damaging move, the judge forensically examined the documentary's "one-sided" case and found "nine scientific errors" in its content.
The outspoken ruling comes after the Government sent out copies of the film to all schools in England, with the Scottish and Welsh Assemblies following suit.
Burton described the assertion that a sea-level rise of up to 6m would be caused by ice melting in West Antarctica or Greenland "in the near future" as "distinctly alarmist". This would happen only "after, and over, millennia", the apparently expert judge said.
Meanwhile, it was countered that the disappearance of snow on Mt Kilimanjaro in East Africa could not be directly attributed to global warming. The judge also said of the idea that polar bears were drowning while "swimming long distances up to 60 miles [100km] to find the ice": "The only scientific study that either side before me can find is one which indicates that four polar bears drowned because of a storm."
Lawyers for Stewart Dimmock, the governor who brought the case, claimed it to be a "landmark victory". The judge awarded Dimmock two-thirds of his legal costs of about £200,000 ($530,800).
- Independent
