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The "Gore Effect" is a phrase used mostly by global warming skeptics satiricaly suggesting a relationship between cold weather and appearances of former U.S. Vice President and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Al Gore at global warming associated events. Curtis Brainard of the Columbia Journalism Review has called coverage of the Gore Effect vacuous and "asinine," noting the distinction between short-term weather and long-term climate.

The term "Gore Effect" or "Al Gore Effect" is also sometimes used to describe the impact of Gore's 2006 film, An Inconvenient Truth, on the climate change debate.

Appearance and Background

The use of the term "Gore Effect" in relation to cold weather coinciding with Gore's travel dates back at least to 2006 in newspapers, earlier appearances are restricted to the blogosphere and various web pages.

The alleged Gore Effect is often communicated in form of lists of weather events. Several name the global warming rally held in New York City on January 15, 2004. Newspaper opinion columns described this as one of the coldest days in the city's history. The term was introduced in the Urban Dictionary and acknowledged as word of the day on January 23, 2007.

Some events which have been described using the phrase include:

• November 2006 - An opinion column in the Ottawa Citizen stated "Mr. Gore arrived in the late antipodean spring, together with a remarkable cold front and a late-season boon for the ski resorts."
• Gore's lecture at Harvard University in October 2008 was described by a Washington Times editorial as coinciding "with low temperatures that challenged 125-year records."
• The last days of the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference, held December 7-18, coincided with snowfalls in Copenhagen as well in various parts of the US.

Michael Daly criticized this as a mere delight in noting coincidences between events relating to his favorite subject and severe winter weather." Steve Benen of the Washington Monthly called focus on the claim "insulting", and environmentalist A. Siegel has called the jokes a "shallow observation" from "those who don't get that weather isn't climate".

The Washington Times editorial staff has said, "If nothing else, the Gore Effect proves that God has a sense of humor," and a Competitive Enterprise Institute spokesperson has expressed a similar view. Harald Martenstein agreed with the latter and described the alleged effect in the German weekly Die Zeit as 'Gores personal Climate Disaster' The Gore Effect has also been humorously invoked at several climate rallies.

See also

• Al Gore and the environment
• Availability heuristic
• Cherry picking
• Confirmation bias
• Global warming controversy
• Pauli effect
• Synchronicity

References

1. ^ Lovely, Erika, "Tracking the 'Gore Effect'", November 25, 2008, Politico, retrieved June 9, 2010
2. Waller, Martin (26 December 2009). "The year of living precariously". The Times (in English). United Kingdom: News Corporation. Retrieved 10 June 2010.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unrecognized language (link)
3. Peckham, Aaron (2007). Mo' Urban Dictionary: Ridonkulous Street Slang Defined. Kansas City, Missouri: Andrews McMeel Publishing. p. 126. ISBN 978-0-7407-6875-0.
4. ^ Brainard, Curtis (November 26, 2008). "Global Cooling, Confused Coverage". Columbia Journalism Review. Retrieved 8 June 2010.
5. New Brunswick Business Journal Nov. 2 2009
6. On the Gore Effect: The Nobel and the Politics, NYT October 16, 2007 Eric Chivian, M.D. director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment, Harvard Medical School.
7. Sayre, Carolyn, "Measuring the Al Gore Effect", Time, 169.8 (Feb 19, 2007): p20.
8. Howard, Cori, "Green peace of mind", The Globe and Mail. Toronto, Ont.: Jun 21, 2007. pg. L.5.
9. "Icons of pop." Power Engineering 112.7 (2008): 38.
10. Global Warning Chidanand Rajghatta, Jun 5, 2007 The Times of India
11. ^ Bolt, Andrew (November 17, 2006). "Al Gore rains on his party". Herald Sun. Melbourne.
12. ^ "EDITORIAL: The Gore Effect". The Washington Times. March 4, 2009.
13. ^ Warren, David (2 November 2008). "Save us, please, from those who would save the earth". Ottawa Citizen. p. A.14.
14. Urban Dictionary entries.
15. ^ Daly, Michael (December 20, 2009). "The Gore Effect brings snow to New York City". Daily News. New York.
16. McCrann, Terry (June 9, 2010). "Climate hysteria just warming up". Herald Sun. Herald and Weekly Times. p. 1. Retrieved 8 June 2010.
17. Harris, Tom (January 1, 2010). "Climate conference organizers asked for trouble in Copenhagen". Canada Free Press. Retrieved 10 June 2010.
18. Benen, Steve (November 25, 2008). "Political Animal: 'The Gore Effect'". The Washington Monthly. Retrieved 2010-01-12. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
19. Siegel, A. (March 2, 2009). "Fire and Ice..." The Huffington Post. Retrieved 2009-01-10.
20. Dufour, Jeff (January 27, 2009). "Yeas & Nays: If it's Al Gore, it's cold". The Washington Examiner. Retrieved 2010-01-08. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthor= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
21. Smith, Ron (January 8, 2010). "Temperatures drop, alarmism heats up". Baltimore Sun. The Baltimore Sun. p. 1. Retrieved 8 June 2010.

• Al Gore
• Environmental controversies
• Global warming
• Political satire