Interviewing “Not Evil Just Wrong” Co-producer Phelim McAleer

On Sunday, October 18, the global-warming exposé Not Evil, Just Wrong premiered in more than 7,000 locations in the United States, and co-producer Phelim McAleer is encouraged by the results. Some premier events were family-and-friends-type gatherings, while others — such as one in Arizona — had more than 600 attendees. Statistics are still coming in, and it will be some time before a final count is known.

This was the second documentary produced and directed by Phelim McAleer and his wife Ann McElhinney, the first being Mine Your Own Business, described by Canada’s National Post as combating “prejudices and fantasies with pictures that refute thousands of weasel words.” Encouraged by the condemnation of 80 non-governmental organizations, including Greenpeace, and several death threats, the couple embarked on this new venture to show the ignorance and hypocrisy of the environmental movement.

McAleer joined the Society of Environmental Journalists in order to have an opportunity to interview former Vice President Al Gore regarding his global-warming alarmism. McAleer’s question concerned an English High Court ruling that Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth had nine substantial scientific errors that seriously misled and alarmed the young viewers and hence barred its showing without a correction of these errors. McAleer questioned Gore as to whether he accepted the court’s findings and if he was going to correct these errors so that other children would not be subject to the untruthful statements in his documentary. Gore ignored the question and asked several times if McAleer was concerned about the polar bears being endangered, to which McAleer replied several times that the number of polar bears had increased. Whereupon two “journalists” forcibly took the microphone with the question about inconvenient untruthfulness still dangling.

The New American interviewed McAleer on the day following his film’s premiere. 

TNA: Are you planning to renew your membership in the Society of Environmental Journalists?

McAleer: (Chuckle.) If they really were journalists, they would invite me back next year as a speaker.

TNA: How did the premiere go? Were you satisfied with the results?

McAleer: We know right off of 7,000 showings, some of which had several hundred people. One I know of in Arizona had over 600. But this was just day one, only the beginning. We see this spreading across the country via DVDs to people who are hungry for this information.

TNA: I attended a premiere last night and saw the documentary as addressing the adverse effects that a cap-and-trade-type energy tax would have on our society, how the environmentalist leaders have an agenda that most people who consider themselves as environmentalists would not at all agree with, and that information on AGW [anthropogenic global warming] is fraught with lies and deceit. Would you like to add to that summary?

McAleer: That is a fairly good summary. We also made sure we showed both sides of the issue so that people could see how shallow and uninformed many of the adherents to global warming hysteria really are.

TNA: What about other countries? There seems to be a lot of activity in Australia.

McAleer: We’re doing quite well in Australia, but for right now we’re concentrating on the United States. If the U.S. falls into the trap, the rest of the world is doomed.

TNA: Do you think cap-and-trade legislation will be brought up in the U.S. Senate this year that will enable the horrible House-passed measure to become law? 

McAleer: We’re really not that involved with American politics. I can only say that if we can get the facts out to the public, the politicians will be afraid to pass laws that will surely harm the American family.

TNA: Are you aware that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is challenging the EPA over their “endangerment” proclamation?

McAleer: Yes, and I think that is a wonderful thing and should be encouraged. Anything that leads Americans to know the facts — and especially the message should be brought into the schools and colleges.

TNA: Thanks for speaking with us. We’re very grateful for the work you and Ann are doing to bring sanity into the global warming debate.

McAleer: Thank you for helping to get the message out.

DVDs of Not Evil Just Wrong can be obtained from the website www.noteviljustwrong.com.

Photo: Phelim McAleer