Go see the movie! Global warming = the impending destruction of the world... and I'm not just saying that because I'm some sheepish college student who went to see a neat documentary. I learned little in that film, but what it did was put a picture to all the problems I've read about.
They don't seem like such a big deal in print, but when you see pictures of the water spilling over Manhattan and ice that wasn't supposed to feel the effects of Global Warming for a hundred years already gone (indeed, melted in weeks), it has a big impact.
The fact is global warming will probably flood most of Cape Cod, sea levels will rise approximately 20 feet at the current rate (and that's a somewhat conservative estimate). There is no scientific dispute about Global Warming, 100% of the real scientists agree (you know, the ones who get published).
However, we can solve Global Warming if we WORK NOW. We can't put it off 10 years, we can't even put it off five. We need projects like Cape Wind going forward desperately. We need the second wind farm. We'll need a third and forth.
We all must make sacrifices. I'm willing to make them. However, for the most part, we can have our cake and eat it too. We don't have to give up economic stimulation. We don't have to give up our quality of life. Heck, with Cape Wind, practically no one has to give up their views.... even on the Cape and the Islands... it's only a friggin thumb-print in the horizon!
We must do this now. We have no alternatives. Renewable, clean energy is the only way. We have an opportunity we can't resist - and a message to send the rest of the world: we're serious about Global Warming.
Posts
31 comments:
False Alarm
Al Gore's telling whoppers again
There should be great hesitation before swallowing the Chicken Little du jour.
The good news is that the bad news about the climate is exaggerated.
June 4, 2006 by Robert L. Bradley Jr. in Houston Chronicle
Al Gore will be in Houston this week promoting his movie and book, An Inconvenient Truth. Predictably, his message is dire. The planet must be saved — and quickly — from manmade carbon-dioxide (CO2) emissions produced by coal, petroleum and natural gas usage. Self-interested consumer choices are the culprit, and a government-directed reshaping of energy production and consumption is necessary. The Gore-led campaign is clear: A grass-roots movement must arise to force politicians to give us our bitter medicine — smaller cars, more expensive appliances and higher gasoline prices and electricity rates.
Wait! Before we jump to government energy-planning, let's look at the track record of the sky-is-falling crowd. Didn't we hear in the 1960s that the "population bomb" would cause food riots in American cities and mass starvation globally? Didn't the Club of Rome in the 1970s predict the end of mineral resources by now? Wasn't global cooling the scare before global warming? Isn't it suspicious that the problem is always individual behavior, and the solution is always government action?
There should be great hesitation before swallowing the Chicken Little du jour. The good news is that the bad news about the climate is exaggerated. Leading climate scientists such as Richard Lindzen of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Houston's own Dr. Neil Frank, a hurricane expert, as well as popular writers such as Michael Crichton, John Stossel and George Will are not careless, deceivers or plain bad folks. They are reporting the flaws in the analysis behind climate alarmism.
What are some of the inconvenient truths that An Inconvenient Truth fails to consider? First, CO2 is not a pollutant but a building block of life, benefiting plant life and agriculture. The one-third increase in atmospheric concentrations of CO2, from pre-industrial levels, has produced a "greening" of planet Earth, and this will continue for decades to come. Second, the surface warming that many scientists associate with manmade greenhouse gas emissions shows a relatively benign distribution. Minimum (night, winter) temperatures have been increasing twice as much as maximum (daytime, summer) temperatures. Higher night-time temperatures and longer growing seasons reinforce the carbon-fertilization effect, aiding plant growth and agricultural productivity.
Third, the actual rate of global warming to date is well below the high levels predicted by some climate models. As climate scientists know, it is feedback effects that turn a low level of predicted warming into a potentially problematic one; yet it is the nature and impact of such feedbacks that are most in dispute. Real-world climate is far too complex to be modeled. Local weather predictions several days out are notoriously suspect; models predicting the global climate decades and even a century out are will-o'-the-wisps.
At a minimum, Al Gore should add some caveats to his stage show. Citizens and policy-makers should beware those who habitually blame free markets for problems and call on government planning to solve them. Many climate economists argue that global warming — whether man-made or natural — has significant economic benefits, not only costs. The Impact of Climate Change on the United States Economy, an anthology by 26 specialists, pointed out that the United States would be a net beneficiary from most warming scenarios in the 21st century. It concluded: "Agronomic studies suggest that carbon fertilization is likely to offset some if not all of the damages from warming."
Strangely, the environmental lobby that is at war with fossil fuels is also warring with nuclear power and hydroelectricity, the only two large-scale, low-emission substitutes for hydrocarbon energy. And they seem to forget that their beloved windpower has its own set of environmental problems. A California representative of the Sierra Club labeled wind turbines "the Cuisinarts of the air." The bird-kill problem is an important argument that environmentalists are currently using against the proposed construction of a wind farm in the Gulf of Mexico, just off the coast of Padre Island and south of Baffin Bay.
Without Texas' renewable energy mandate, and without a slew of special subsidies, this environmentally controversial project would not be on the drawing board. What utility, after all, wants to buy electricity that goes away every time the wind stops blowing?
Al Gore has been a master of exaggeration ever since then-Sen. Gore blamed the heat and drought of the summer of 1988 on manmade global warming. Eighteen years later, despite contrary evidence that the human influence on climate has significant benefits, not only costs, and that a political cure could be far worse than the alleged disease, he is creating more heat than light. It is time for cooler heads to prevail.
Bradley is president of the Institute for Energy Research, a 501(c)(3) organization formed in 1989 in Houston and funded by individuals, foundations and corporations, including major energy companies. He is author of "Climate Alarmism Reconsidered" (London: Institute of Economic Affairs, 2003). His Web site is energyrealism.org.
Oh, I see. Gasoline is good for the environment. Please, don't make me laugh. Global Warming is real. Whether all those bad things that us crazy lefty-wingnuts are saying happen in 20 years or 100 shouldn't matter: THEY'RE GOING TO HAPPEN. The science is irrefutable and some columnist from a HOUSTON paper isn't going to convince me otherwise.
You'd be wise to do a bit more research before you state "the science is irrefutable"
http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=052406F
Dr. Robert C. Balling Jr. is a professor in the climatology program at Arizona State University, specializing in climate change and the greenhouse effect.
Inconvenient Truths Indeed
Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" opens around the country this week. In the film Gore pulls together evidence from every corner of the globe to convince us that climate change is happening fast, we are to blame, and if we don't act immediately, our Earth will be all but ruined. However, as you sit through the film, consider the following inconvenient truths:
(1) Near the beginning of the film, Gore pays respects to his Harvard mentor and inspiration, Dr. Roger Revelle. Gore praises Revelle for his discovery that atmospheric CO2 levels were rising and could potentially contribute to higher temperatures at a global scale. There is no mention of Revelle's article published in the early 1990s concluding that the science is "too uncertain to justify drastic action." (S.F. Singer, C. Starr, and R. Revelle, "What to do about Greenhouse Warming: Look Before You Leap. Cosmos 1 (1993) 28-33.)
(2) Gore discusses glacial and snowpack retreats atop Mt. Kilimanjaro, implying that human induced global warming is to blame. But Gore fails to mention that the snows of Kilimanjaro have been retreating for more than 100 years, largely due to declining atmospheric moisture, not global warming. Gore does not acknowledge the two major articles on the subject published in 2004 in the International Journal of Climatology and the Journal of Geophysical Research showing that modern glacier retreat on Kilimanjaro was initiated by a reduction in precipitation at the end of the nineteenth century and not by local or global warming.
(3) Many of Gore's conclusions are based on the "Hockey Stick" that shows near constant global temperatures for 1,000 years with a sharp increase in temperature from 1900 onward. The record Gore chooses in the film completely wipes out the Medieval Warm Period of 1,000 years ago and Little Ice Age that started 500 years ago and ended just over 100 years ago. There is evidence from throughout the world that these climate episodes existed, but on Gore's Hockey Stick, they become nothing more than insignificant fluctuations (Gore even jokes at one point about the Medieval Warm period).
(4) You will certainly not be surprised to see Katrina, other hurricanes, tornadoes, flash floods, and many types of severe weather events linked by Gore to global warming. However, if one took the time to read the downloadable "Summary for Policymakers" in the latest report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), one would learn that "No systematic changes in the frequency of tornadoes, thunder days, or hail events are evident in the limited areas analysed" and that "Changes globally in tropical and extra-tropical storm intensity and frequency are dominated by inter-decadal and multi-decadal variations, with no significant trends evident over the 20th century."
(5) Gore claims that sea level rise could drown the Pacific islands, Florida, major cities the world over, and the 9/11 Memorial in New York City. No mention is made of the fact that sea level has been rising at a rate of 1.8 mm per year for the past 8,000 years; the IPCC notes that "No significant acceleration in the rate of sea level rise during the 20th century has been detected."
(6) Near the end of the film, we learn of ways the United States could reduce emissions of greenhouse gases back to the levels of 1970. OK. Assume the United States accomplishes this lofty goal, would we see any impact on climate? The well-known answer is no. China, India and many other countries are significantly increasing their emission levels, and global concentrations of CO2 may double this century no matter what we decide to do in the United States.
Even if the Kyoto Protocol could be fully implemented to honor the opening of this movie, the globe would be spared no more than a few hundredths of a degree of warming.
Throughout the film Gore displays his passion for the global warming issue, and it is obvious that he has dedicated a substantial amount of time to learning about climate change and the greenhouse effect. This leads to an obvious question. The Kyoto Protocol was negotiated in December of 1997 giving the Clinton-Gore administration more than three years to present the Protocol to the United States Senate for ratification. Given Gore's position in the senate and his knowledge and passion for global warming, one must wonder why then Vice President Gore did not seize on what appears to have been an opportunity of a lifetime?
"An Inconvenient Truth" is billed as the scariest movie you'll ever see. It may well be, but that's in part because it is not the most accurate depiction of the state of global warming science. The enormous uncertainties surrounding the global warming issue are conveniently missing in "An Inconvenient Truth."
Again, I'm not going to entertain columns from newspapers when we're talking about science. A column just can't do it justice.
Did you even see the film? The Medieval period was certainly on the map, as was the "little ice age."
The article went to the extreme to discredit Al Gore, then openly acknoledged that there is a global warming... and he went on to attack Gore's methodology in fixing it. Either there is global warming, or there isn't. You can't have your cake and eat it too... but don't tell it to the author of that column.
People are grasping hard to Big Oil so they can keep their millions, but the average Joe is catching on. We'd need renewable sources of energy even if Global Warming weren't a problem. For one thing, oil is a limited, non-renewable resource. It will run out and sooner than we'd all like. Secondly, oil = foreign dependence. Why depend on Saudi Arabia to sustain our worldwide economy when we can say to that horrendous regime "see ya later" and use wind, solar and even nuclear power.
The choice is obvious, even for dumb-dumbs who can't handle admitting the obvious (that Global Warming threatens the very existence of human civilization as we know it). Support renewable energy for whatever reason you want, but it's the right thing to do.
Ryan,
You stand to benefit from studying the essays published by the National Anxiety Center.
http://www.anxietycenter.com/
For example-
“Late Word from the Oil Patch”
By Alan Caruba
As I am sure you have read or heard somewhere, "the world is running out of oil" and we’re all doomed. Unless we can figure out how to run our cars on soy sauce, it’s back to bicycle and horses.
Well, not quite. Here’s what a U.S. Energy Information Administration 2002 report had to say: "At year-2000 consumption rates, the world has many thousands of years of crude oil and crude oil substitutes (heavy oil, oil sands, and shale oil) remaining."
When people tell me that America is too dependent on foreign oil imports, I keep telling them we have lots of oil, but thanks to the environmentalists, our own government has made it either too costly to get at it or access has been restricted because the bulk of our undeveloped energy resources is found on federal lands or federally controlled areas offshore. This is what happens when the federal government owns nearly half the landmass of the nation.
Myths about oil are constantly repeated by the mainstream media. The truth, however, is available from open sources such as a U.S. Geological Survey that estimates the United States has almost 175 billion barrels of oil reserves. The survey cites 21.9 billion barrels of known oil reserves and an estimated 150 billion of "undiscovered" reserves.
Why wouldn’t Big Oil go elsewhere to tap known or newly discovered oil reserves when faced with a government that is hostile to permitting access to our own? Alaska alone is still a treasure of oil and natural gas. Alaska’s North Slope, home to the Artic National Wildlife Refuge, is known to have the potential of providing millions of barrels of new oil production. If we started now, it would be available in ten years, maybe less. In reality, Congress has delayed access for some three decades!
Yes, you’re paying more for oil and, yes, you will continue to do so because the U.S. government has failed to grant access to our own known reserves of oil and created "environmental" roadblocks to the building of new refineries.
Meanwhile, we keep hearing that the world is running out of oil. I am not going to dispute geologists and others who know far more about these matters than myself, but I am encouraged by reports of new oil discoveries. Let’s take a look at what is actually occurring worldwide.
In 1995, crude oil production in Australia began in its Wanaea and Cossack fields, located 81 miles off the northwestern coast. The fields were estimated to contain 200 million barrels of recoverable oil.
Six years ago in Kazakhstan, Kazakhoil Aktobe was making plans to begin development of three new oil fields.
In 2003, new oil fields were found in Iran with reserves estimated as high as 38 billion barrels though analysts expressed the view that only a fraction of that might be commercially worthwhile because it is what is called heavy crude which is more expensive to process.
More recently, an oil field rivaling the largest in Mexico was discovered just off the coast in the Gulf of Mexico. The new field is estimated to yield up to 10 billion barrels. Extraction is not expected to begin for about a decade.
In March 2005, Egypt’s oil minister announced that three new oil fields had been discovered near the Gulf of Suez with estimated total reserves of 70 million barrels. These were the first discoveries in the area in nearly forty years. Egypt has a proven reserve of 2.7 billion barrels of oil and 1.2 trillion cubic meters of natural gas.
In late 2005, Libya announced the discovery of two new oil fields in the south of that nation. They are estimated to have a production capacity of 252 million barrels a year. A coalition of Spanish, French, and Norwegian oil companies that found the new fields will share the profits.
The Middle East will continue to dominate the world’s known reserves of oil. Saudi Arabia has the largest, followed by Iraq. In Oman, four new oil fields were recently discovered. The Sultanate’s crude oil exports were over 238 million barrels in 2005.
Even New Zealand has discovered oil. The Tui Area oil fields in the offshore Taranaki Basin, will be the country’s first stand-alone offshore oil development. Nearby oil fields in Amokura and Pateke were discovered in 2003 and 2004 respectively. When everything gets going, an estimated 50,000 barrels a day are expected, but that could rise to 120,000 barrels in time.
The president of Russia’s Union of Oil and Gas Industrialists wants to see more oil development in Eastern and Western Siberia. A new field offshore of Sakhalin, a large island just off the mainland, plus a new pipeline to Russia’s Pacific coast is going to increase the world’s supply of oil.
China’s a very big place. Not only are they going to compete for the world’s oil, they have had their own fields since 1960. In 2001, Chinese researchers announced the discovery of new gas and oil deposits in Tibet in southwestern China. It is an area called the Qiantang basin and initial estimates, though speculative, suggest that China may have hit a mother lode. If it turns out to be true, many of the world’s major oil companies will make significant investments. There are more than a dozen Chinese oil fields currently pumping crude.
In April, ExxonMobil announced that its affiliate in Nigeria had started production from the world class Erha deepwater development, some sixty miles offshore. It will come on-stream later this year and will ramp up to produce up to 150,000 barrels a day by the year’s end.
I know about the "Peak Oil" theory that says we either have or are about to reach the point of diminishing returns regarding the world’s oil supply, but these recent discoveries suggest there is still plenty of oil to be found. Alas, a lot of it is under the control of nationally run oil companies in countries that don’t invest in new production and don’t like the U.S. very much.
What is lacking, however, is the political will of Congress to remove the regulatory barriers that would insure an America less dependent on imported oil and with the capability to refine the increased supplies this nation will require. We don’t have an oil problem. We have a government problem.
Hang in there, Ryan, and maybe the Weird Science folks will eventually give it a rest. Robert L. Bradley Jr. has been rolling around for almost a decade now, claiming that renewable energy is not good for the environment. More info on Balling here.
Too bad, though, that their disciples are hogging the discussion space with full articles.
Global warming alarmists and green energy enthusiasts can dream endlessly about a future powered by wind turbines and solar panels, but it will just not happen. The laws of physics and common sense will eventually prevail. Consider this story about solar energy found at http://antigreen.blogspot.com/
“Keeping Taxpayers in the Dark (Ithaca Solar Panels lose nearly a million bucks)”
”Once again proving that social engineering and taxpayer money shouldn't mix comes this news from Ithaca, New York:”
“In 1999, the Tompkins County Board of Representatives voted to install solar power on the roof of the country library. (In cold, dark upstate NY.)”
”It will be paid for with $551,025 of County funds -- an addition to the library capital project -- and $455,514 in grants from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) and the U.S. Department of Energy.”
”So, how much power has their system generated since $1,006,539 was spent to install it? 460,124 kilowatt hours (kWh) since it was installed, in July of 2001. On the open market 460,124 kWh would cost a commercial user (assuming an astronomically high average price of $0.10 per kWh) about $46,000. Only in The City of Evil could spending over a million dollars to generate at most $9,358 worth of electricity per year make sense.”
And the link to Gelbspan?
Search for him on-
www.junkscience.com/
and
www.sepp.org/
Since science is so popular here, this should be interesting reading.
"Climate consensus and the end of science"
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=d35ca1eb-50b8-4546-8950-ca9ad18eb252&p=2
"...In short, under the new authoritarian science based on consensus, science doesn't matter much any more. If one scientist's 1,000-year chart showing rising global temperatures is based on bad data, it doesn't matter because we still otherwise have a consensus. If a polar bear expert says polar bears appear to be thriving, thus disproving a popular climate theory, the expert and his numbers are dismissed as being outside the consensus. If studies show solar fluctuations rather than carbon emissions may be causing climate change, these are damned as relics of the old scientific method. If ice caps are not all melting, with some even getting larger, the evidence is ridiculed and condemned. We have a consensus, and this contradictory science is just noise from the skeptical fringe..."
hmmm, anonymous... any ideas or commentary to add that's your own? And, I'm sorry, but I'm just not going to read stuff about green energy from a antigreen.blogspot ...
There is simply no scientific dispute about whether global warming is real, and caused by humans.
All this ad hominem anti-Al Gore stuff doesn't mean anything. On this count he's 100% right. Bradley's letter is mostly a set of irrelevancies (what the hell do 1960's population growth estimates have to do with it?) appeal to authority ("John Stossel said it -- it must be true!") defensiveness ("Don't be mean to the free markets!") and wishful thinking.
By the way, to play ad hominem the other direction: he is an industry hack. Look who's on the board of that nice 501(c)3 "Energy Research Council".
Pasting a letter from an industry hack does not = argumentation.
Well Ryan, I did say common sense and the laws of physics will prevail.
By that I meant that renewable energy will never provide more than a token amount of power in the future.
And I also made a comment about how dreaming otherwise will accomplish nothing.
You really should study the other side to this story. You might learn something.
"By that I meant that renewable energy will never provide more than a token amount of power in the future."
That's really funny! Do you know what renewable means?
Global warming or not, I have a certain distaste for buying oil from people who want to kill us. Not to mention the pollution and resultant health effects caused by burning it.
As far as "more expensive appliances" are concerned, I bought some compact fluorescent light bulbs at Home Depot this weekend. $10 for a pack of 6. They're supposed to last 9 years, use 15 watts of electricity and for 60 watts of light, and should end up saving me far more than the purchase price.
Sorry Charley, but there is NO true, verifiable, consensus among scientists that global warming is the result of human activity.
We can go round and round on this all day- into tomorrow and beyond-but for now, to answer your statement/reference that “There is simply no scientific dispute about whether global warming is real, and caused by humans,”
See-
http://www.geofffox.com
/MT/archives/2005/
05/06/global_warming
_revisited.php
"Bradley's testimony before government agencies can be counted on to be insightful and much needed. His qualifications and publication history are stellar in the energy field."
Dr. Richard A. Bilas, President, California Public Utilities Commission (1998-2000)
sad to say, but nothings going to happen because of numbskulls like "false alarm"y.
you'll just have to wait until hurricanes, typhoons, tsunamis, torandos, & underwater cities hit.
then and only then will all the "im smarter than 99% of all the scientists because i can find one article in 10,000 on google who says it doesnt exist"ers out there admit it's an extremely serious & dire problem.
by that time it will be too late. there's nothing that can be man made which will solve the problem.
carbon sinks will be destroyed so it will only become worse. the only thing we'll be able to do is reduce population dramatically (most likely through starvation & natural disasters) and adapat to living mostly in shelters.
as apocolyptic as this sounds, it's what's going to happen 100 years from now.
there are already futurists buying property in areas where the impact is project to be least impact.
to the people who say there's no scientific consensus.
READ SCIENCE MAGAZINE
YOU KNOW, THE ONE CONSIDERED THE MOST PRESTIGOUS SCIENTIFIC JOURNAL ON THE PLANET!
FIND ONE! ONE! I F*CKING DARE YOU! ARTICLE WHICH SAYS GLOBAL WARMIND DOESNT EXIST! FIND ONE! I F*CKING DARE YOU! ARTICLE WHICH SAYS HUMAN INFLUNENCE ISNT A DRAMATIC PART!
YOU CANT. PURE AND SIMPLE.
i KNOW you wont even look though.
you DONT WANT to READ anything which DISAGREES WITH YOUR POINT OF VIEW. NO MATTER HOW DELUDED IT IS.
KEEP LIVING IN FANTASY WORLD WHERE PIXIES WAVE THEIR WAND AND MAKE EVERYTHING BETTER.
Al Gore on Charlie Rose
He discusses the issue at length and Charlie asks him viable questions & prods his conclusions.
Charlie Rose Al Gore
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3412657607654281729&q=tvshow%3ACharlie_Rose
Charlie, Mike... well said.
I have got to get some of those lightbulbs.
To Science Magazine reader…
You need to read this small part of Michael Crichton’s lecture titled, "Aliens Cause Global Warming"
http://www.crichton-official.com/speeches/speeches_quote04.html
“…I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks."
"Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had."
”Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.”
”There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period.”
”In addition, let me remind you that the track record of the consensus is nothing to be proud of. Let's review a few cases….”
An anonymous comment was left giving (6) points. I'm a Libertarian (I suppose) who is very disappointed in most of Bush's policies, though I do commend him protecting our Nation from another 9/11 in his term(s). That is another conversation.
Here is my take. Go back to the points above, then read my counter points.
(1) - We have more data now. This includes more advanced scientific methodologies, better super computer processing (now much much cheaper), and greater intelligence/understanding.
(2) - You don't have to be very intelligent to quickly point out that Global Warming, by its very nature, reduces atmospheric moisture (duh!).
(3) - This may be true, but as any statistics course will teach you, you throw out the outliers for more accurate results.
(4) - The IPCC is not working in Antartica, measuring isotopes from ice samples taken from 100s of feet below the polar caps. The IPCC is the wrong authority and is not using this important data for their conclusions.
(5) - See notes on (4)
(6) Are you suggesting that the US not take action because the effort is hopeless? That mentality does not lead people. Never underestimate what men can accomplish. Flying. Walking on the moon. RC rover on Mars. We have discovered more species in the ocean "Cracking the Ocean Code" on one 14 month voyage than what has been found in all of history. People and Technology CAN solve this challenge. Every individual should be open minded to Global Warming and open to taking action. What if we ARE right? Would you not think that "better safe than sorry" is the right course? Don't leave action up to the government(s).
I would love to know what glass bubble the latest anonymous lives in; or should I say dark hole.
Global warming is indeed real. Look at the latest weather patterns of the past ten years and climate in general. There is a definate difference. The air is dirtier, there has been massive development around the world spurred by population increases. Industry has increased as well and the government's of the world turn a blind eye most of the time because the people who truly care are fewer in voice than those who don't... or are just oblivious.
Last time I checked I saw only one Earth so we need to take care of it so that not only we can benefit but also all the future generations will as well.
The author mentions that we need to sacrifice things we percieve as essentials to living. What many do not realize is that our biggest need is a place to live, like the Earth.
So, for those of you who are having a hard time seeing the big picture lets scale it down for you. I would love to see the non-believers live in a home with dirty, sludge water coming out of your faucets and shower. Forget about having pets because the carpet has pesticides and industrial waste in it's very fibers. You probably couldn't breathe that well or see the tv from 10 feet due to the haze of smog in your house. If you have palnts, everyday you go to water them some of them will be gone. I could go on but I am hoping you get the idea.
Global warming exists, is here to stay and unless we start now, will be difficult to reverse in only a matter of years.
By the way, I have not seen AIT yet but plan on doing so. Accolades to Gore for being man enough to take a stand.
-Anonymous
Well, It is all very interesting discussion. For those who love oil I suggest you try sucking on a tale pipe of a car and see how long you last. Consider your body a small version of our world. This "scientific" result can not be refuted. You will die!!. If we are not killing our earth then perhaps we are just killing our selves.
There is nothing wrong with becoming less oil dependant then we all are. It cannot hurt. Perhaps there is not enough evidence or maybe there is. Pricing of everything is affected by oil because of our dependency on it. Why not make adjustments today that can have lasting effect with or with out scientific evidence. If anything you could save some money. We all like that. Common sense tells me that I would like less polution then there is now. I live in SO CAL and you can see the pollution when you fly into the valley. DISGUSTING. This did not come from wind farms and solar panels. So what can you say about what is right in front of your face. You do not need a 300 page report to know that smoking can kill you and you don't need all the climatologists in the world to tell you that global warming is going to have negative impact on the way we live 20 or 30 years from now. The use of oil is affecting us today. We can be smarter and more friendly to the environment then we are today and still enjoy our American Dream. Renewable and clean energy sources are better then what we have today. I would like more of a choice then to be stuck with what we have now.
Hi,
Very very interested to read the topic. In my opinion if we do not act within a short timescale we are indeed going to have passed the point of no return. Oil lovers, perhaps you could start to love the sun, may I remind you that we can live without oil but not without the sun? And also, alternative energy sources are inevitably the way forward. The problem is that the large oil companies have a strangle hold on the entire world, that includes people governments and therefore us indiviuals, we have to punch through the barriers to get heard and to make the changes that are so urgently required. Fair play to GORE, tough issue to broach and although I haven't seen the film its clearly got people thinking already.......so it begins.
Let me just say that I find it interesting the exchange between Ryan and this apologist for the oil industry.
First and foremost, he constantly accuses Ryan of being uninformed about the realities of the global warming debate. However, it seems that this anonymous character seems to be uninformed about Ryan's position as well. Ironically enough, he is also pretty much uninformed about his own position. As an academic in Political Science one constant remains in my research - everything I use must be from an academic source. This means I must use primary sources as the basis of my research.
To take you back to University for a minute, this means I must rely on first-hand, peer-reviewed academic articles for my research to be considered valid. Secondary sources are sources that may use primary sources in their arguments, but since they are a step removed from the actual source they are deemed to be invalid. This category often includes news media, of which newspapers and television are the most prominent. This is because, while the news media might attempt to use academics as the basis for their articles, they are often misquoting them (picking the one line out of the whole article that serves their purpose, even though the article was actually arguing the opposite side), creating the appearance that these academics are experts in this field when they are not, and journalist add their own slant onto each and every article. The bottom line is this - anything outside of an academic journal cannot be trusted as it does not undergo any sort of scrutiny before being released.
The common myth is that newspapers are liberal which, in fact, turns out to be one of the most commonly asserted lies in existence. Every major news media outlet in the USA or Canada are owned by a small cadre of right-wing mass corporation. See Rupert Murdock of Conrad Black (before his legal troubles) if you do not believe me. Murdock, in particular, is famous for being an ultra conservative that politicians directly pander to in order to get his newspapers to slant everything they write in their direction. There are famous stories of newly elected Heads of State traveling to Australia to personally meet with Murdock for this cause. Bottom line: media sources, particularly newsprint and television, are right-wing apologists and seek to consistently defame and devalue any liberal view point - including this debate on global warming.
The truth is that the vast majority, upwards of 80-90 percent, of academic sources say global warming is a reality. One has to only note the recent United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report which boasts some of the most impressive and influential climate researchers in the world as proof. The most interesting part of that report is that US right-wing think tanks are offering up to 10 000 dollars for any academic to join the anti-global warming band wagon – a sign that they do not have a single influential scientist in their back pockets to defend global warming and rely on uniformed bloggers such as this anonymous character for their support. As has been argued, these individuals are completed devoid of accreditation and the fear by these right-wing think tanks is that they are losing the political battle against global warming – which they are. Hence, the need arises to bribe academics simply to keep their fight alive. Bribery is truly the last refuge of the defeated.
Previous posts have it correct – the global warming apologists engage in ad hominem attacks and appeals to authority to which I will add straw men attacks to that list. Simply put, this individual told Ryan that he might learn something if he just learns about the other side of the argument. I say to this individual, review your sources and listen to our side of the argument and you just might learn something as well.
I happen to believe most of what Al Gore has presented in this film. I've been deeply concerned myself about this growing problem for over forty years. But in my opinion there is another human contribution responsible for much of this problem and the results that we are witnessing today. This factor is also inconvenient. "Humanities massive unnatural thermal contribution" that it has been steadily and increasingly feeding into the earths oceans, which has violated the integrity of the DOW, deep ocean waters, by greatly reducing their once naturally powerful conductive powers to draw off the days solar thermal contribution above the surface, after drawing down the days thermal contribution from the surface of the waters or the thermolcline. The reality is most of humanities thermal contribution is trapped below the level of the thermolcline thus also being drawn in by the coldness of the DOW. This accumulative effect over the last century has resulted in the upper DOW actually venting off thermal energy into the earth's coldest regions generating an unnatural upwards direction of thermal transfer in areas where this had never before occurred. The result of which we are seeing with this rapid melt off of the earth's ice shelves. Another very serious consideration that hasn't ever been monitored is whether or not the removal of oil fields below the ocean waters could potentially be increasing the natural level of thermal energy being feed into the waters by the earth. This should be investigated very soon. My controlled experiments exposed a 95 percent reduction in ice melt-off rates when there was this downwards direction of thermal transfer present, simulating a health extremely cold and thermally calm DOW. Those numbers don't lie!!! Al Gore may not be perfect, but neither are any of us! He's a good guy that has made very serious sacrifices unlike these jerks that are robbing us blind while killing our children with their self-promoted war. Promoted for profits! They and their special interest groups are profiting from this war! Do we really feel that having a leadership that can profit from war is a good thing?
Peacemaker58
I do not believe God made man powerful enough to destroy His own creation.
You neglect to mention that Russian Scientists predict global cooling in 6-9 years. Or that the former president of the American Meteorological society, and one of the most respected meteorologists in the world, Dr. Joe De'Aleo has launched an organization to teach Americans about climate cycles. Or about the models that are being developed that show a pattern of global cooling. Or the fact that is A KNOWN Fact we have been in a worse periods of warming thousands of years ago.
Did you know that in the last 20 years 98% of Antartica has cooled? ONLY the Ice caps were melting. And do you know about patterns that could be causing that, which change every decade. The PDO, The NAO. Research them and look at their NATURAL effects on the globes temperature.
Why is that some of the best meteorologists do not believe in global warming? Joe Bastardi is a leader of that pack as well. DO NOT say that ALL Scientists agree. As a person who will be graduating in June with a degree in meteorology.
Yes, PARTS of the Earth are warming. Yes it is a problem. HOWEVER the Earth will recover. AND there are KNOWLEDGEABLE people who believe in global cooling NOT global warming in the future.
SO the "Poli Sci" person notes:
***this means I must rely on first-hand, peer-reviewed academic articles for my research to be considered valid. Secondary sources are sources that may use primary sources in their arguments, but since they are a step removed from the actual source they are deemed to be invalid. This category often includes news media, of which newspapers and television are the most prominent. This is because, while the news media might attempt to use academics as the basis for their articles, they are often misquoting them (picking the one line out of the whole article that serves their purpose, even though the article was actually arguing the opposite side),***
Which is exactly what Brother Al is doing. Picking and choosing. So if you want the truth you need to read the journals and papers. But to take Brother Al's word for it would be the same thing that "Poli Sci" lays at the feet of the Media. So like Ryan said, you can't have your cake and eat it too...
Earlier in the thread, someone stated, "You don't have to be very intelligent to quickly point out that Global Warming, by its very nature, reduces atmospheric moisture (duh!)."
Apparently, you do have to be intelligent...
More heat -> more evaporation -> increased atmospheric moisture.
On a day like today, high of 17 degrees, -20 wind chill factor, I am reassured about GLOBAL WARMING. "Global Warming" is a made up concept. It is the current topic dujour for politicians and the media to embrace. Hasn't anyone learned yet that anything politicians and the media embrace you should be wary of??
To agree with others posting on this blog, there is no "consensus" in science. There either is, or isn't. Science looks for truth and fact and welcomes criticism. Debate is inherent to finding the truth. Comments made by Gore such as "the debate is over" is a misuse (by the way, Gore got a C+ and D in science classes in college). Albert Einstein said, "100 scientists can claim consensus, yet it takes one fact to debunk them." Think about it.
Anyone with a brain who is intereste
d in reviewing past panics, see:
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22882599-25717,00.html
Also, even Pat Sajak makes good points:
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?print=yes&id=24090
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