An Inconvenient Truth

I know it's been mentioned before, but I was just able to see it and I can't express in words how necessary it is for people to see this movie. Even if you come out of it not completely understanding all that was presented, I feel that just knowing about them is important. Knowing that it is a serious problem despite what certain people keep saying, and that there are things that each individual can do to help solve it can help immensely.

I was inspired as I walked away from it, and before then I had never put "Al Gore" and "inspirational" in the same sentence. I think if enough people see these issues clearly stated, and come away with an understanding that something must be done, something will be done.

Anyway, if you haven't seen it yet, please go see it.

That's all.

I really think Gore should try again, he's become a much better speaker.

I was thinking that afterwards, but I didn't want to say anything because I knew most people would laugh at me.

If he didn't try to be what he's not... knowing that it's ok to be really smart and show it. There's a section in The Partly Cloudy Patriot that talks about mistakes he made with just that issue.

Any man who grows a beard, slumps into personal depression over the failure of a system he's believed in all his life, leads a monastic life and eventually wanders into the wilderness, rediscovers himself, and tries to become reborn - despite being the butt of many national jokes - deserves to be listened to.

Not accepted, necessarily, just listened to. And no, I was never impressed by the old old Al Gore, and never voted for him.

Time will tell.

I voted for him and would again. His intelligence shows.

So does the fact that he wants to do what's best for everyone in America, not just the ones that voted for him.

If he's the nominee, i'll vote for him. If however the dems put up yet another tired party hack...i probably wont

ok just for shits and giggles,

New Al Gore or Hillary Clinton? who would you vote for?

I'd go with Al Gore

I really enjoyed this movie. It's not depressing and doesn't leave you with the "we are all going to die" feeling. That's the number 1 reason I'm hearing from people why they don't go. If anything it's more of an awakening and a feeling that we can all pitch in to stop catastrophe.

I liked it so much I blogged about it, which is uncharacteristic of my blog since I mostly keep it to Virtual Worlds.

http://blogs.electricsheepcompany.com/chris/?p=81

Of to buy a new Civic Hybrid this weekend [been eyeing them for months]

I couldn't agree more... Al Gore for President!!! WOO HOOOO!!!

cookoo cookoo... cookoo cookoo

You are right Lianne, he shouldn't pretend to not be a nut.

So i'm guessing Billy isn't planning on going to see it then.

That's too bad... one problem I see with the movie is that the only people who wanted to go see it already knew a bit about what he's saying.

Oh well, you never know.

which Billy?

Grace.

Sorry

The REAL "Inconvenient Truth"

http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/

http://www.ncpa.org/ba/ba230.html

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=%5CNation%5Carchive%5C200409%5CNAT20040915c.html

http://www.sitewave.net/news/s49p1523.htm

http://skepdic.com/refuge/junkscience.html

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Citizens_for_the_Integrity_of_Science



That site uses 10 year old info, here's some stuff that goes up to now.

http://www.ghcc.msfc.nasa.gov/MSU/hl_temp_ud.html

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/mg18524861.400
specifically this.



This article was written in 2004. Lets see what happened the next year, shall we?

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/2005/hurricanes05.html



This is a pretty dense article, and i'm not really qualified to refute any of it, other than trying to find other peer-reviewed literature that draws opposing conclusions. I do like the final paragraph though:

To fulfil their dreams ... environmentalists are ready to pay any costs: to impoverish entire nations and thus endanger the environment; to destroy the industry created by the toil and sweat of their forefathers: and to strangle our civilization. It is astonishing how easily and credulously a large part of society, exposed to concentrated media manipulation, has accepted the global warming mythology. One can understand the psychological and social reasons for this acceptance. However, the actions of the United Nations Organization and many governments, leading the Earth’s community into an economic and civilizational disaster, on the ground of a wanton specter, do not seem responsible. Is it perhaps too much to ask politicians to act reasonably, instead of for selfish, short-term interests?

That last sentence cracks me up.

Wow, a fallacious site and two others from almost ten years ago...great job there! The only one that's mostly accurate is the cnsnews.com article...but even that one states as fact something that is still just a scientific study in-progress.

The ncpa.org site is blatantly wrong. There is consensus that the globe is warming. It's been warming since the end of the last ice age. It will most likely, without any unnatural interference, continue to warm for awhile. If you want articles I can point you to a plethora of (peer-reviewed) articles in scientific journals.

Where the doubt still lies is how much that natural warming is being increased by humans. And it most likely is, even if only a little. I can give you one example right now...and as an astronomer, I am rather familiar with this case... Air travel causes unnatural, high-altitude clouds to be formed (contrails). During the day, contrails both trap heat already below and reflect sunlight back into space...so there is pretty much a balance. At night, however, there is not sunlight to reflect but the contrails still trap heat that would normally radiate back into space. The numbers are different in different parts of the world, but if I recall correctly, for the US and Europe contrails can cover on average several (3-4) percent of the sky at any given moment. That's significant even now, and it's projected to increase several times over in the next few decades.

A huge problem I see is that spreading this FUD and getting people to believe the misinformation that there is no warming happening will just mean that when the problems do start they will be amplified because of unprepared governments and an unprepared public. Of course, who will the screaming public come to for a solution? The same scientists that are currently being attacked (mostly by people without any background in science at all!).

As this is the only link that presents science, it is the only one worth discussing in relation to the topic. You may find it of interest that the actual science presented does not attempt to address the overall assertions that:

A. The temperature is rising.

B. We, humanity, are causing it.



Also, the site doesn't seem to give a damn whether or not climate change is survivable.



While the world as a whole is capable of surviving large and small changes alike, whole food chains can collapse (and have in our lifetime). A more complete look at climate change would examine species extinction in relation to climate change.

The real take home message is that we need to at least preserve the climate at a level where the food chain humans rely on can survive. (However it is that it is done.)

That bit about contrails was an interesting observance during the halting of all flights for a week after September 11, 2001.

You are exactly the kind of person who should see this movie. The science is indisputable. The rate of change in temperature over the last 30 years is dramatically faster than the previous 200 million. The increase in Co2 emisions in the last 30 years which is caused by man follows the same curve.

I'm going to say it again - so if a "third alternative" in a dramatic debate between two sides distresses you - read no further.

The real question is not whether human activities have created a condition of global warming - that's been definitively established with work done over the last five years, not only by climatologists, but also by geologists, botanists, anthropologists, and even historians. The baseline - which ten years ago only reached back to the late nineteenth century - has now been extended to 12,000 BCE and beyond. Human effects on the thermal energy of the global climate have existed since the rise of the significant ancient empires that deforested large areas and burned wood and charcoal - Rome, China, India, etc. Whereas the increase in blanket gasses and thermal energy rose arithmetically before the 1400s, for the last four to six hundred years it has increased exponentially. Global warming can't be disputed - scientifically or historically.

The real question is whether global warming has been bad or good for human civilization. A small but increasing number of scholars and scientists point out that we are approximately 700 years overdue for another glaciated epoch - the latest in a cyclical series of "ice ages" and "warm ages" extending back for hundreds of thousands of years, caused largely by fluctuations in solar energy and orbital perturbations. They point out that a "Little Ice Age" enveloped portions of the planet between 1300 and 1700, and that the modeling that has been done indicates that this period of intense cold and glacial building was largely interrupted over hundreds of years by rising thermal energy. This was due to increased emissions of blanket gasses - created by humans as populations soared, deforestation occured, and the commercial and industrial revolutions got underway. Serious studies done on the Baffin Island ice cap and remnant environments on Spitzenbergen Island tend to verify this scenario.

In short, the idea is that humans and their effects on the climate have stalled out another "ice age" over the last seven hundred years. The benefits to human civilization are obvious; whether those benefits extend to the aesthetics of the "natural world" are for you to decide. More speculatively, a couple of teams of climatologists and mathematicians have extended the same modeling into the future, and conclude that as civilization embraces "cleaner" forms of energy generation and other technologies, "ice age" conditions may return.

That's where the present controversy lies - everything else is "just politics".

That is pretty good

They also do a funny clip inside the movie itself that is similar to that. Satire can be pretty effective.

"And they say there is no global warming, but right now the North Pole is a pool. There's things just floating away, it is beyond global warming at this point is it cooking. Its 105 in the middle of the country and people are walking up saying "is it hot enough for you?". "no I like sweat to be rolling down the crack of my ass like Niagra"


Robin Williams
Live on Broadway


sorry I couldn't resist