quote:On the industry-backed Web site Tech Central Station, Balling posted a purported fact-check of the film titled "Inconvenient Truths Indeed," which charges that the movie is "not the most accurate depiction of the state of global warming science," casting doubts on its claims about melting glaciers and intensifying hurricanes. The article has made the rounds of the right-wing blogosphere as a takedown of Gore, and the Philadelphia Daily News published it as an Op-Ed without any acknowledgement of Balling's well-documented ties to industry.
Balling's critique inspired this dismissive reaction from one climate scientist: "Some people believe the earth is flat, too." That's Eric Stieg, an isotope geochemist at the University of Washington, who is one of the co-founders of the Real Climate Web site, where working climate scientists provide commentary and context about the news in their now-hot field. Stieg e-mailed his reaction from Greenland, where he's conducting field research on the ice. He'd posted his own largely favorable review of "An Inconvenient Truth" on the Real Climate site before he left.
-------------------- "If Men were Wise, the Most arbitrary Princes could not hurt them. If they are not wise, the Freest Government is compelld to be a Tyranny."
I would note that for the article, the AP conacted 100 scientists, including some who are skeptics on climate change, but based its accuracy rating on "those who had seen it." This might bias the survey, if some of the more vocal skeptics might not exactly have been the first in line.
They do note some minor errors, such as Gore mixing up his ice caps at one point, and some are a bit dubious of the global warming/hurricane link that Gore presents.
"...even if Gore & Co. are correct that the international community must immediately act to stem the increase in global temperatures, conspicuously absent is any acknowledgement the Asian economic revolution has made whatever problem exists much more difficult to solve."
-------------------- No man has a right in America to treat any other man "tolerantly" for tolerance is the assumption of superiority. -Wendell L. Willkie Posts: 3833 | From: Virginia | Registered: Oct 2001
| IP: Logged |
The Republican majority on the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works released a joint press release about an AP article entitled "Scientists OK Gore’s Movie for Accuracy." The press release takes issue with the scientists the AP cited, as well as scientists it ignored.
The June 27, 2006 Associated Press (AP) article titled “Scientists OK Gore’s Movie for Accuracy” by Seth Borenstein raises some serious questions about AP’s bias and methodology.
AP chose to ignore the scores of scientists who have harshly criticized the science presented in former Vice President Al Gore’s movie “An Inconvenient Truth.”
In the interest of full disclosure, the AP should release the names of the “more than 100 top climate researchers” they attempted to contact to review “An Inconvenient Truth.” AP should also name all 19 scientists who gave Gore “five stars for accuracy.” AP claims 19 scientists viewed Gore’s movie, but it only quotes five of them in its article. AP should also release the names of the so-called scientific “skeptics” they claim to have contacted.
The AP article quotes Robert Correll, the chairman of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment group. It appears from the article that Correll has a personal relationship with Gore, having viewed the film at a private screening at the invitation of the former Vice President. In addition, Correll’s reported links as an “affiliate” of a Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm that provides “expert testimony” in trials and his reported sponsorship by the left-leaning Packard Foundation, were not disclosed by AP. See http://www.junkscience.com/feb06.htm
The AP also chose to ignore Gore’s reliance on the now-discredited “hockey stick” by Dr. Michael Mann, which claims that temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere remained relatively stable over 900 years, then spiked upward in the 20th century, and that the 1990’s were the warmest decade in at least 1000 years. Last week’s National Academy of Sciences report dispelled Mann’s often cited claims by reaffirming the existence of both the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age. See Senator Inhofe’s statement on the broken “Hockey Stick.”
Gore’s claim that global warming is causing the snows of Mt. Kilimanjaro to disappear has also been debunked by scientific reports. For example, a 2004 study in the journal Nature makes clear that Kilimanjaro is experiencing less snowfall because there’s less moisture in the air due to deforestation around Kilimanjaro.
Posts: 65 | From: Vallejo, CA | Registered: May 2006
| IP: Logged |
quote:That hypothesis was tested by analyzing 928 abstracts, published in refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003, and listed in the ISI database with the keywords "climate change" (9).
The 928 papers were divided into six categories: explicit endorsement of the consensus position, evaluation of impacts, mitigation proposals, methods, paleoclimate analysis, and rejection of the consensus position. Of all the papers, 75% fell into the first three categories, either explicitly or implicitly accepting the consensus view; 25% dealt with methods or paleoclimate, taking no position on current anthropogenic climate change. Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position.
-------------------- "The women who embraced in the wagon were Adam and Eve crossing a dark cathedral stage—no, Eve and Eve, loving one another as they would not be able to once they ate of the fruit and knew themselves as they truly were." - Lynn Cheney, Sisters. Posts: 289 | From: California | Registered: Apr 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote: Gore’s claim that global warming is causing the snows of Mt. Kilimanjaro to disappear has also been debunked by scientific reports. For example, a 2004 study in the journal Nature makes clear that Kilimanjaro is experiencing less snowfall because there’s less moisture in the air due to deforestation around Kilimanjaro.
Uh...and deforestation isn't a contributing factor to global climate change?
posted
point is, it's not global WARMING that's doing it. Editorializing for hyperbole is the antithesis of "getting the facts right"
Posts: 65 | From: Vallejo, CA | Registered: May 2006
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by vtsquire: point is, it's not global WARMING that's doing it. Editorializing for hyperbole is the antithesis of "getting the facts right"
It's not global warming that's doing what?
Posts: 4922 | From: Kyoto, Japan | Registered: Sep 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by RBCal: Science surveyed 928 papers published over the past decade and found overwhelmingly that the consensus is that global warming is real.
I think I'll believe Science over a bunch of Republican politicians who get a lot of their money from the oil industry.
Me too.
My dad is a Republican who just detests "tree huggers" but he took an Alaskan cruise a few years ago and said it was damn scarey, when you saw the glaciers and they showed how big they used to be compared to where they are now. Even HE believes in global warming, and that it's not a good thing.
This is the scariest issue there is, to me.
-------------------- "Wolves, dragons and vampires, man. Draw the nut-bars like big ol' nut-bar magnets." ~evilrabbit
(snurched because one of my nutbar family members is all about wolves and another one is all about dragons...)(with apologies to surfcitydogdad) Posts: 2397 | From: Texarkana, TX | Registered: Mar 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
Anyone out there, Democrat OR Republican, liberal OR conservative, who believes the globe is NOT warming? If so, you are a nutter. There is no wiggle room, political or scientific, around the numbers.
The operative points for debate are:
1. To what extent will global warming affect the environment?
2. How much of the current global warming is caused by human activity (anthropogenic)?
3. What, if anything, should we do about it, as a nation and as an international community?
It's time (past time, actually) to stop pointing politcal fingers and decide on a course of action!
-------------------- "Argument is an intellectual process. Contradiction is just the automatic gainsaying of any statement the other person makes!"
"No it isn't." Posts: 171 | From: Massachusetts | Registered: Feb 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
I am one of those who is still out with the jury on the "horror" of global warming. And thank you for calling me a nutter.
What many people keep forgetting is that the earth goes through cycles of coldness and hot-itude... and I feel that much of what we are experiencing right now is just a normal shift in the cycle.
According to stuff just released this past week, we are "the hottest we have been in 400 years!!" Okay, I'll bite... what the hell caused the heatwave four centuries ago?? Sure as heck wasn't an army of SUVs, that's for sure!!
I will wait for more data and some non-alarmist folks to start coming forward.
-------------------- Opinions aren't excuses to remain ignorant about subjects, nor are they excuses to never examine one's beliefs & prejudices...
Babies are like tattoos. You see other peoples' & they're cool, but yours is never as good & you can't get rid of it. Posts: 5622 | From: Jax, Florida | Registered: Nov 2003
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Malruhn: I am one of those who is still out with the jury on the "horror" of global warming. And thank you for calling me a nutter.
I will wait for more data and some non-alarmist folks to start coming forward.
I'm not calling you a nutter, merely inattentive for not reading my post.
That the globe IS warming, nobody can doubt - not even you. As for the "horrors" of said warming, I am also in doubt.
My plea was merely to stop arguing whether warming is occurring and instead begin to discuss what we are going to do about it.
-------------------- "Argument is an intellectual process. Contradiction is just the automatic gainsaying of any statement the other person makes!"
"No it isn't." Posts: 171 | From: Massachusetts | Registered: Feb 2006
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Malruhn: According to stuff just released this past week, we are "the hottest we have been in 400 years!!" Okay, I'll bite... what the hell caused the heatwave four centuries ago?? Sure as heck wasn't an army of SUVs, that's for sure!!
From the National Academy of Science report. The report says warmest in 400 to 2000 years. This range is likely two standard deviations of their data. The data can only go back about 2000 years since they used "proxy'' evidence from tree rings, corals, glaciers and ice cores, cave deposits, ocean and lake sediments, boreholes and other sources. They also examined indirect records such as paintings of glaciers in the Alps.
quote:Between 1 A.D. and 1850, volcanic eruptions and solar fluctuations were the main causes of changes in greenhouse gas levels. But those temperature changes "were much less pronounced than the warming due to greenhouse gas" levels by pollution since the mid-19th century, it said.
God help us if politicians think they know more than the scientists. In my opinion, most politicians know less about science than most college students.
-------------------- "The women who embraced in the wagon were Adam and Eve crossing a dark cathedral stage—no, Eve and Eve, loving one another as they would not be able to once they ate of the fruit and knew themselves as they truly were." - Lynn Cheney, Sisters. Posts: 289 | From: California | Registered: Apr 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Daniceguy: It's time (past time, actually) to stop pointing politcal fingers and decide on a course of action!
That's what I'm thinking. If anything, I feel there's nothing wrong with planting a few trees in the backyard. If nothing else, it'll add to the value of your home.
Heck, maybe the current (possibly permanent?) rise in gas prices will help cut back on CO2 emissions by forcing us to rethink those SUV's.
And I'm still wondering how I should handle global warming in my story. I can't simply ignore it; climate's all around the characters. OTOH, I can't make it too unrealistic, or people reading it will just shrug their shoulders or laugh.
- Pseudo (and I thought Earth was in a cold snap 400 years ago) Croat
-------------------- "At all events, people who deny the influence of smaller nations should remember that the Croats have the rest of us by the throats." - Norman Davies, Europe: A History
God wants spiritual fruits, not religious nuts. Posts: 4578 | From: Sunrise, FL | Registered: Apr 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
I believe in anthropogenic global warming but I also am extremely pessimistic that we can do anythhing to stop it. Anything we do now will be like trying to stop a tsunami by building sandcastles.
I don't recall who did the computation but some scientist said that it would take 40 Kyoto Protocols just to slow the process meaningfully. I think we should concentrate on mitigating the consequences and, instead of trying to drastically (and unrealistically) reduce carbon-dioxide emissions now, look for ways to dothat in the future. So IMO the goal should not be slight reductions in emmissions now but the development of sustainable business and industrial models to do that in the future. (However, I admit that the short term goals do give us something to focus on as we work toward achieving the larger goal.)
Posts: 4922 | From: Kyoto, Japan | Registered: Sep 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
What I don't understand is why we're not proverbially "planning for the worst" while "the jury's out." And I am sorry for my Spearsian usage "of quotes."
But really, if we think that there's a remote chance that this is human influenced, and a remote chance we can do anything at all to curb it, why the NFBSK aren't we?
-------------------- My great grandfather planted that tree! Posts: 4862 | From: Brooklyn | Registered: Sep 2000
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Ana Ng: But really, if we think that there's a remote chance that this is human influenced, and a remote chance we can do anything at all to curb it, why the NFBSK aren't we?
Because the rapture is coming so we have nothing to fear. The Earth is only a few thousand years old anyway so climate change doesn't mean anything to us. As long as we keep believing, we have no fear of another Great Flood. Hallelujah.
Posts: 4922 | From: Kyoto, Japan | Registered: Sep 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Ana Ng: But really, if we think that there's a remote chance that this is human influenced, and a remote chance we can do anything at all to curb it, why the NFBSK aren't we?
I suspect it is because people are unwilling to spend lots and lots of money because "there's a remote chance that this is human influenced, and a remote chance we can do anything". (emphasis added)
There is a remote chance that I'll be hit by lightning tommorrow. Should I install a lightning rod just in case? (Actually, I think my tinfoil hat is adequate.)
Posts: 629 | From: Greenwood, IN | Registered: Dec 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Unfortunately, there's only a remote chance that climate change is going to be minimal and barely a remote chance that we can do much about it. There is, however, a remote chance that doing something about it will hurt the economy so we might as well complain about "spending money" as we shovel billions of tons of cash into a war of dubious worth. There is a remote chance we may be sane. But hope is fading on that, too.
ETA Re: Lightning rods. Only a fool would wait for the storm to put one up.
Posts: 4922 | From: Kyoto, Japan | Registered: Sep 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by vtsquire: Gore’s claim that global warming is causing the snows of Mt. Kilimanjaro to disappear . . .
Now if we could create a global phenomena to rid the earth of "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" and all the other dreck Hemingway wrote, we'd really be on to something.
Sorry, I couldn't resist. Here, I'll do it myself:
-------------------- Your ultimate source of superfluous flummery. Posts: 595 | From: South Carolina | Registered: Jun 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Generally people are idiots who won't wake up until they are about to die and can see it staring them in the face. People who won't cut back on CO2 emissions because it would be spending money are the same kind of people who eat their way to 1000 pounds and then cry that they can't move and that they are going to die from a heart attack. Naive, stupid, suicidal and fanatically ignorant.
Now, the funny thing is that after watching the movie there are some things that Gore blames on Global Warming aren't caused by global warming and he doesn't nearly strong enough stress the stuff that IS caused by global warming.
For instance, at one point he says that the invasive species are caused by it... which, of course, they are not. The species were brought by humans to those areas.
However, at the same time he proposes that IF Greenland or some part of Antartica or if half of each melt then the sea will rise by 20 feet. The true statement would be WHEN one or the other melts or half-melts it'll cause the rest to melt too and sea level will rise by 40 feet. The extra water and carbon dioxide released by that ice melting will melt the rest of Antarica... which ought to raise the sea level even further. So basically... if your home is anywhere near a body of water (like 90% of humans) and it is less than 150 feet above sea level?... Ba-bye. Have a good death now.
Will it cause hurricanes? Most certainly, and it will in different places... However, what he doesn't mention is that WHEN that hurricane comes up north (which it will and has before) and that category 4 smacks right into Manhatten and carries forth into New York, those skyscrappers working as great wind tunnels to increase the windspeed further.... Well... 9/11 will seem like it was the best 4th of July party ever in comparison.
But... no... no... let us all ignore it. Let us go kill all the Muslims! That will be 'heroic'! Let's start the new crusade in Iraq and Iran and ignore the fact that our lifestyle is guaranteed death for all of us AND all of them anyway.. and everyone else in the rest of the world.
The whole Global Warming thing will wipe out 75+% of the people living on Earth before it is over and America is the primary responsible party. Okay, so America is a threat to 75+% of the people on Earth... Iraq was a threat to... maybe a few dozen thousand at most?... North Korea is about the same... So really, the big threat in the world that everyone SHOULD be uniting against is... yes... us...
But, Al Gore isn't going to go there. He is going to keep it at least optimistic. Frankly, had the Supreme Court given him the election rather than Bush we'd all be better off now. Even if he isn't perfect, at least he had his attention on the real Axis of Evil (Exxon-Mobil, Enron, etc.). Which isn't to downplay the fact that Sadam and Kim should die... just that it'd be better if humans could survive another couple generations AFTER taking them out.
Posts: 411 | From: California | Registered: Nov 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Malruhn: I am one of those who is still out with the jury on the "horror" of global warming. And thank you for calling me a nutter.
What many people keep forgetting is that the earth goes through cycles of coldness and hot-itude... and I feel that much of what we are experiencing right now is just a normal shift in the cycle.
According to stuff just released this past week, we are "the hottest we have been in 400 years!!" Okay, I'll bite... what the hell caused the heatwave four centuries ago?? Sure as heck wasn't an army of SUVs, that's for sure!!
I will wait for more data and some non-alarmist folks to start coming forward.
quote:Originally posted by Malruhn: I am one of those who is still out with the jury on the "horror" of global warming. And thank you for calling me a nutter.
What many people keep forgetting is that the earth goes through cycles of coldness and hot-itude... and I feel that much of what we are experiencing right now is just a normal shift in the cycle.
According to stuff just released this past week, we are "the hottest we have been in 400 years!!" Okay, I'll bite... what the hell caused the heatwave four centuries ago?? Sure as heck wasn't an army of SUVs, that's for sure!!
I will wait for more data and some non-alarmist folks to start coming forward.
It is interesting to me that there are still people out there without an agenda who are still prepared to believe that climate change is not occurring due to human activities.
I will attempt to convince you using source material gleaned only from respected members of the scientific community. Please remember that these individuals are the ones we rely on to tell us when things are going wrong with the environment, so to dismiss them would be an incredibly arrogant thing to do if you are not yourself an expert in this subject.
I will not be using any material from scientists that have allegiances to any political party.
Okay, let’s start with your own Environmental Protection Agency:
Click on this link & then select the link to ‘Fingerprints of Global Warming on Animals & Plants’. This lady is a senior fellow at Stanford University:
Finally, this looks at how the data may be manipulated by political agendas, especially that of the Bush administration. Very interesting and makes a good sidebar.
You can remain sceptical, that is your prerogative, but I for one am not content to sit back and wait for someone to ‘prove’ to me that things are going wrong. That seems like the worst form of lazyness.
-------------------- Free the West Memphis Three Posts: 98 | From: Romford, Essex, United Kingdom | Registered: Jun 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
I do not believe humans are causing global warming, or that anything could be done about it. The fact that there is ice permenantly at the Earth's poles is an unusual thing in Earth's history. You, it is normal on our short time frame, but not when looked at over the long term. From this site: Climatologists have used various techniques and evidence to reconstruct a history of the Earth's past climate. From this data they have found that during most of the Earth's history global temperatures were probably 8 to 15° Celsius warmer than today. In the last billion years of climatic history, warmer conditions were broken by glacial periods starting at 925, 800, 680, 450, 330, and 2 million years before present. and: The most recent glacial retreat is still going on. We call the temporal period of this retreat the Holocene epoch. This warming of the Earth and subsequent glacial retreat began about 14,000 years ago (12,000 BC).
Yeah, some scientists think that it is happening fast, but they can't be sure, cause no one knows how fast it happened any of the other times. Global warming is real, and we need to prepare for it. And the best way to do that just might be facing that we can't stop it and keep things the way they are, that things are going to change drastically. That way we can work out what to do about it.
-------------------- "Accompanied by the ghosts of dolphins, the ghost of a ship sailed on..." Terry Pratchett Posts: 660 | From: Gainesville, FL | Registered: Dec 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
You got to be pretty damn dumb to actually believe that humans have no effect on it...
Actually, you know what? If you are SO confident that cars cannot CONCEIVABLY be putting out enough carbon dioxide or carbon monoxide to have any meaningful effect on anything, then this is what I would like you to do.
Bring your nice small car into your nice big garage and shut all the doors and windows. Then turn on your car and sit there for 1 hour. Surely you do that much driving in one day.
Now, if you are right... nothing bad will happen. Surely your car can't pollute as much air as there is inside that enclosed garage. However, if you are wrong... well... then you have to admit that in fact each hour of every single car pollutes at least that much air. Look out on a highway during rush hour and do some caculations based on that and see what you come up with. And, if you consider it... there is a limited amount of air in the world and the cleanest stuff won't be magnetically drawn straight to you...
Now, that does have more to do with air pollution than global warming, granted, however it is the same gases in either scenario.
Maybe you don't believe that carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide really have that much effect. What would happen to the world if we had a ton of carbon dioxide? It can't be that bad, can it?
Well, go look up some information on Venus. Check out the daily day and night temperature and maybe read about what surface conditions are like. Keep in mind that just accounting for distance to the sun the average temperatures shouldn't be higher than 20 degrees above earth. The rest of the difference is the atmospheric composition.
So if you can acknowledge that huge amounts of these gases are being put out by cars... and plenty more by the slash and burn forest fires... Next thing you need to consider what is happening to those things that typically replace the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere with oxygen. That would be... plants. You know, forests... So take a moment to consider how much forests and other vegetation have been reduced by humans... consider not only the rain forest slashing, but also urban spreading... how many square acres of vegetation has been destroyed, you could probably even spin this as a percentage of once vegetation-thick land that has not been destroyed in any particular area... remember not to count desert areas or other areas where there were no forests, just areas that once had decent concentrations of plants.
So once you've done this you have established that 1) Humans are putting out huge amounts of these gases and 2) Humans are ridding the world of its method of absorbing these gases.
Now you have everything you need to prove that the cyclical claim is total bullshit. Because you would actually have demonstrate that nature from some source is producing massive amounts more gases and destroying far more vegetation in order to make all this totally insignifigant by comparison... And you know what?... There isn't any such source. There isn't any such natural destruction. Therefore it isn't some natural cyclical event, VIRTUALLY ALL the source of the problem is COMING FROM HUMANS.
So what is this totally braindead idea that we should just sit back, continue to totally annilihate the enviroment beyond our own capacity to live in it to see how it turns out? How far up your ass does your head need to be shoved to think that 'oh, we'll just plan about what we'll do about it after it comes'... You actually haven't seen enough shit hit the fan that had plenty of warning to realize what the results of that are? Are you blind and deaf as well as dumb?
Look, even if there have been times when every volcano exploded on the planet or a metero hit it and knocked up enough dust to boost the temperature before, you know that's not happening now. Its pretty damn clear. So humans DO have a real effect. Even if it'll happen anyway, reducing our effect will at least SLOW DOWN the chain reaction... which means MORE TIME to put in place ways of surviving this...
Even putting global warming aside, there are so many other good reasons to throw away cars and switch to electric vehicles and especially electric rail lines that it is mind-blowing that people absolutely refuse to do it. Cheaper, faster, more efficient, less noise, cleaner air and water, less hassle in the form of never having to look for parking and never having to bring it in to be smogged or fixed up... and sure, you'd have to walk more... but that would only serve to lower the obesity rate which will keep people healthier.
Posts: 411 | From: California | Registered: Nov 2005
| IP: Logged |
UBBFriend: Email this page to someone!
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[fish]](graemlins/fish.gif)
