Bush won't watch Gore's movie

[xpgeek]

President says he's unlikely to watch documentary on global warming

Is President Bush likely to see Al Gore’s documentary about global warming?

“Doubt it,” Bush said coolly Monday.

But Bush should watch it, Gore shot back. In fact, the former Democratic vice president offered to come to the White House any time, any day to show Bush either his documentary or a slide show on global warming that he’s shown more than 1,000 times around the world.

“The entire global scientific community has a consensus on the question that human beings are responsible for global warming and he has today again expressed personal doubt that that is true,” Gore said in an Associated Press interview from France where he attended the Cannes Film Festival.

Bush and Gore have had bitter disagreements about the environment and other issues. Bush defeated Gore in a disputed presidential election that was finally settled by the Supreme Court in 2000.

Gore’s documentary chronicles his efforts to bring greater attention to the dangers of climate change.

“New technologies will change how we live and how we drive our cars, which all will have the beneficial effect of improving the environment,” Bush said. “And in my judgment we need to set aside whether or not greenhouse gases have been caused by mankind or because of natural effects and focus on the technologies that will enable us to live better lives and at the same time protect the environment.”

Causes should not be ignored
Gore said the causes of global warming should not be ignored.

“Why should we set aside the global scientific consensus,” Gore said, his voice rising with emotion. “Is it because Exxon Mobil wants us to set it aside? Why should we set aside the conclusion of scientists in the United States, including the National Academy of Sciences, and around the world including the 11 most important national academies of science on the globe and substitute for their view the view of Exxon Mobil. Why?”

“I’m a grandfather and he’s a father and this should not be a political issue,” Gore said. “And he should ask the National Academy of Sciences ... whether or not human beings are contributing to global warming.”

The White House said Bush already has acknowledged the impact of human behavior on global warming.

“The president noted in 2001 the increase in temperatures over the past 100 years and that the increase in greenhouse gases was due to certain extent to human activity,” said White House deputy press secretary Dana Perino.

“Since then he has committed tens of billions of dollars to the science and technology programs that he initiated and we are well on our way to meeting the president’s goal of reducing greenhouse intensity by 18 percent by 2012,” she said.

Gore’s movie debuted at last winter’s Sundance Film Festival and opens in U.S. theaters Wednesday.

Source (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12930351/)

[Micron]

What a nobber

[xpgeek]

Bush is mr big oil. Doesn't surprise me.

[xpgeek]

This is the film, Gore's film on global warming.

Quicktime trailer :
http://www.apple.com/trailers/paramount_classics/aninconvenienttruth/

Official site, with links to non quicktime trailers on Google video, Ifilm, and YouTube as well :
http://www.climatecrisis.net/

I for one really want to see it. Its a limited release and opens tomorrow in New York city, I hope.

[FisionChips]

What a nobber :)

I'd like to see the documentary too....

Can anyone seriously ignore the threat of Global warming now without making themselves seem either incredibly stupid or like they don't give a damn about our future? What is the point of banging on about education, jobs, economy, terrorist threats etc when the biggest threat to humanity today is a natural disaster of our own making?

[xpgeek]

Starts June 2nd in a theater I can easily get to and go to all the time. I am definitely going to see this.

Its playing in quite a lot of theaters across the country too. Heres a list of them all :
http://www.climatecrisis.net/seethetruth/theaters.html

[L-knot]

GLOBAL WARMING SCIENCE & POLICY: Progress 2003-2004 Sinyan Shen, Global Warming International Center, USA

http://www.globalwarming.net/default.asp

Now, when some in the scientific community take up advocacy for political action concerning the global warming issue they do, from time to time, become alarmingly unscientific and even anti-scientific. National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) researcher Steven Schneider and global warming action promoter actually said that, "We have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we have. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest."

http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=36643

[xpgeek]

I agree with that, they do have to 'make it scary', because unfortunately that is the only way most people will pay any attention to it. Doesn't mean they're making the stuff up tho. Anyone who really believes that global warming is not happening, at an un-natural rate, is in denial.

[FisionChips]

Global Warming is scary.... and if it were in doubt, if the threat were being played out of all proportion, there would be many oil bucks being spent to broadcast that loud and clear......

Sir David Attenboroughs take on this in todays Independent. Very balanced view:
http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article570935.ece

Be warned, the 'Indi' articles are archived after a few days into the pay-for 'Portfolio' .

[L-knot]

I'm still on the fence on this one. Global warming could be a natural occurrence every XXXXXXX years - occurring in cycles.


http://www.intellectualconservative.com/article4099.html

The famed novelist, Michael Crichton, may achieve what mountains of scientific data produced by meteorologists and others have not. He may get the public to understand that the UN Kyoto Climate Control Protocol is, itself, a work of fiction.

His novel, State of Fear, is a technopolitical thriller based on the widely ignored data that global warming is a hoax, but worse than that, it is a hoax specifically designed to harm the lives and the economy of people living in industrialized nations. It may well be the first novel to come complete with a section devoted to the data that demonstrates not only how false global warming is, but the impact it would have if the UN Protocol was strictly enforced.
If climate change isn’t warming our planet, it’s sure heating up the debate on the subject. From the naysayer side of the fence, best-selling author and Harvard graduate, Michael Crichton testified in September 2005 in front of the U.S. Senate on behalf of Senator James Inhofe from Oklahoma who recently called global warming “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American People.” Crichton’s testimony was loosely based on State of Fear, his latest book that puts a fictional spin on global warming, proposing concerns are merely hype by environmentalists with hidden agendas. Crichton--an astounding novelist who stirred imaginations with DNA and dinosaurs in Jurassic Park--criticized scientific procedures conducted by global warming advocates. Yet, upon being battered with condemning remarks from Senators like California’s Barbara Boxer who said, “We are not here to talk about plays, novels, art or music,” and hearing rebuttals from Senators like Hillary Clinton who, feeling that science, and not science fiction, should be used as testimony in a Senate hearing stated “His views on climate change are at odds with the vast majority of climate scientists; it also appears in a work of fiction,” Crichton quickly backpedaled and jumped up on the proverbial fence placing a disclaimer in his Senate hearing testimony by saying, “nothing in my remarks should be taken to imply that we can ignore our environment, or that we should not take climate change seriously.”

Ironically, shortly after Crichton had finished his opening statements, many Senators had to leave the Senate hearing to attend yet another hearing on the ramifications of Hurricane Katrina. Perhaps Crichton’s testimony could have been timed better. Nevertheless, as Senators were trying to piece together the pieces of the global warming puzzle that day, Peter Saundry, executive director of the National Council for Science and the Environment, commented that he was bemused by Crichton's apparent position and said, “If you read his book, you are left with the impression that environmentalists are only one step up from the sort of people who will cross the road to murder your children, but then you get to the author’s note at the back and he makes this statement saying he is not a climate change denier. It’s hard to know what his position is.”

Crichton though isn’t the only hand-waver scoffing at global warming alarmists. The “everything is dandy” camp also has many scientists cautiously refraining from blaming this past year’s weather glitches on green house gases, feeling instead that a multi-decadal oscillation that shifts ocean water temperatures every few decades is the culprit. Of particular interest are the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), and the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation (AMO). The PDO has gained a lot of attention as of late as this oscillation oftentimes intensifies the magnitude and frequencies of El Niño and La Niña events. When the PDO is in a positive cycle, there is colder water in the central and western Pacific and warmer waters in the eastern Pacific; under a negative PDO cycle, the reverse is true. The AMO represents annual ocean temperature anomalies averaged across the North Atlantic, and recent studies suggest that the AMO affects summertime precipitation and could also regulate the strength of El Niño and La Niña effects on weather year around. Such negative and positive PDO and AMO events tend to last twenty to thirty years, and scientists wary of raising the red flag on global warming feel we’re nearing a thirty-year end of one such cycle. http://www.wave-cast.com/greenroom/

PETA, Greenpeace, the Nature Conservancy, the Sierra Club, and ESPECIALLY Earth First are all a bunch of failed communist hippies who need to find something they think is important to do, so they go around screaming about nothing instead of doing something useful.

Just look at some quotes here.

I suspect that eradicating small pox was wrong. It played an important part in balancing ecosystems. -- John Davis, editor of Earth First! Journal

Human beings, as a species, have no more value than slugs. -- John Davis, editor of Earth First! Journal

We advocate biodiversity for biodiversity’s sake. It may take our extinction to set things straight -- David Foreman, Earth First!

Phasing out the human race will solve every problem on earth, social and environmental. -- Dave Forman, Founder of Earth First!

If radical environmentalists were to invent a disease to bring human populations back to sanity, it would probably be something like AIDS -- Earth First! Newsletter

Human happiness, and certainly human fecundity, is not as important as a wild and healthy planets...Some of us can only hope for the right virus to come along. -- David Graber, biologist, National Park Service

The collective needs of non-human species must take precedence over the needs and desires of humans. -- Dr. Reed F. Noss, The Wildlands Project

If I were reincarnated, I would wish to be returned to Earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels. -- Prince Phillip, World Wildlife Fund

[xpgeek]

Michael Crichton is just trying to sell books, and controversy sells. I used to respect him as an author and read everything he wrote when he still wrote science fiction, but hes washed up and can't sell a book without doing something to grab some media attention.

And I quote from your included story,
"Peter Saundry, executive director of the National Council for Science and the Environment, commented that he was bemused by Crichton's apparent position and said, “If you read his book, you are left with the impression that environmentalists are only one step up from the sort of people who will cross the road to murder your children, but then you get to the author’s note at the back and he makes this statement saying he is not a climate change denier. It’s hard to know what his position is.” "

[xpgeek]

This is a good read. And actually read the whole thing before replying to debate it.
........................
The scariest movie you`ll see this year isn`t 'Hostel' or 'The Hills Have Eyes' or 'Saw III.' The thinking-person`s chiller is a modest little documentary adapted from - of all things - a slideshow lecture by former Vice President Al Gore.

'An Inconvenient Truth,' which Paramount Classics begins rolling out to theatres on May 26, is a cinematic wakeup call to the urgency of a crisis that`s been Gore`s personal focus for decades: the devastating consequences of global warming.

Whatever your stance on the subject, Davis Guggenheim`s film adaptation of Gore`s lecture states the facts so clearly, powerfully and alarmingly, it promises to create a whole new community of concerned environmentalists.

Gore has delivered his lecture more than a thousand times around the world, and the idea to reach a broader audience through cinema came from producers Laurie David (wife of comic genius Larry David and a leading environmental activist) and Lawrence Bender of 'Pulp Fiction' fame.

Interviewed at the DreamWorks offices in New York, director Guggenheim admits he was at first skeptical about their proposal. 'I said: How can you make a movie about a slideshow? And they just said: "Come and see it."

So I went to this hotel, one of those classic luncheons. But after about 10 minutes, you say: "Oh, he`s making sense here, he`s taking a very confusing issue that I know a little bit about and he`s connecting the dots, he`s making it understandable. I think that`s what people are responding to. We all have some anxiety about it, we feel that global warming is true and happening, but we don`t understand it. And what he`s so good at, so vigilant about, is how to communicate this."

Global warming, for those who need a quick primer, is caused by the release of carbon dioxide and other gases into the earth`s atmosphere, which act like a blanket trapping the sun`s heat and warming the planet.

That phenomenon, in turn, causes profound changes in weather patterns, more intense storms and droughts, melting glaciers and rising seas. In the past 50 years, the average global temperature has increased at the fastest rate in recorded history, and the 10 warmest years have all been since 1990.

Some of the most dramatic evidence of this trend includes the heat waves that caused more than 30,000 deaths in Europe in 2003, last year`s ravaging series of hurricanes in North America and the Caribbean, the shrinking of arctic sea ice by about nine percent per decade since 1978, and the rapid melting of the famed snows of Mt. Kilimanjaro.

Without a reversal in human behavior, predictions for the future include even more severe hurricanes, inhabitability of low-lying areas, more mosquito-borne diseases, and the extinction of many plant and animal species. As Guggenheim notes, "The leading scientists say that we can still come back from this, but the best ones are saying we only have 10 years before we hit a point of no return. Ten years."

To make 'An Inconvenient Truth' more than just a filmed lecture, the movie`s director felt it was important to explore Al Gore`s personal journey.

Guggenheim reflects, "Running for president, he was scrutinized a lot, and criticized for bringing up a lot of his personal stories - I think unfairly. It took time for us to develop trust. But I just felt so strongly that we`d have to understand him and why he`s telling this story, why he believes it so deeply. If I could show that part of his story, people would connect to him, and then they`d connect to the issue."

One of the most moving and revelatory sections of the film comes during a visit to the farm in Tennessee where Gore grew up. 'We were walking around his farm, the cameras were off, and we were in this skeleton of a big tobacco barn and he said, "I used to stand up there in the rafters and I would hang this tobacco."

And I asked why his father shut it down, and he said, "Well, my sister died of lung cancer."

"You sensed how much he loved his sister and what that loss meant to him. And how it must have felt to be part of that - they made money from tobacco, and they knew it caused lung cancer, but they didn`t really make the connection until she died.

You feel a sense of culpability, to know something is wrong but you do it anyway. His family went through that, and that`s what we`re doing with global warming: We know it`s out there, but we continue to drive our big cars and we use electricity pretty mindlessly. That`s one of the more powerful parts of the film for me, to see that he`s not righteous about it, that we`re all culpable."

In fact, Guggenheim says part of what appealed to him about Al Gore`s slideshow is that "he didn`t seem to have a political agenda, he wasn`t taking Republicans to task. He genuinely believes that the Democrats have to change just as much as Republicans do. And voters have to make it a priority. His presentation is fair-minded that way. He`s not pounding his chest - he`s saying this is where we are, we all have to wake up to this."

Still, Guggenheim feels Gore`s environmental passions have been unfairly criticized by the opposition party. "The first Bush called Gore `Ozone Man.` "If he gets elected, we`ll be up to our necks in owls," he said.

And you can see how Al Gore has been punished for speaking his beliefs about this. The fears that I feel now about the threat to our planet, he`s known this for decades, and he`s had to carry the burden of knowing it and wanting people to wake up, and no one listening. To the point where I`m sure people were saying, "Look, if you want to get re-elected, don`t talk about that, talk about something more popular."

Having traveled the world with the former Vice President, Guggenheim offers this glowing assessment of his movie`s star: "He feels things very deeply, he`s intensely connected interpersonally. We know he`s smart, but he communicates so well - and he`s hilarious. He`s one of the most charismatic people I`ve ever met. I finished the project feeling genuine admiration and love for the man."

With global warming increasingly the subject of magazine and newspaper stories and TV specials, Guggenheim agrees that there`s something in the air, so to speak. "It`s in the zeitgeist, but it`s also happening. It was happening as we were making the film. We were set to go to New Orleans the day Katrina hit. We had a film crew, the plane tickets, and we had a phone call saying don`t go, there`s a Category 5 coming. We were going there to talk about the threat of sea-level rise. And it hit, and we couldn`t believe it. There have been many cases where things in the presentation which were theoretical were actually happening. As we were editing, we got a report that polar bears were drowning. We had a sequence about how they were losing their habitat - but we didn`t know they were drowning."

For Guggenheim, documentaries are a proud family tradition: His late father Charles won four Oscars in the short documentary category. Davis Guggenheim got his start in TV, and has directed episodes of such shows as 'NYPD Blue,' 'Party of Five,' 'ER,' '24,' 'Alias,' 'The Shield,' 'Deadwood' and 'Numb3rs.' He directed the feature 'Gossip' in 2000, and in 2001 he made his own mark in documentaries with the Peabody Award-winning 'The First Year,' about the Los Angeles public school system.

"I just finished a pilot for CBS on a brain surgeon," Guggenheim says. "One last year was on the Delta Force, with David Mamet [the hit CBS series 'The Unit']. The one before that was `Deadwood.` I love going from the West in 1865 to the Delta Force in Afghanistan to a brain surgeon. It`s wonderful."

Still, he confesses, "I have to work in television to pay my habit. I love documentaries, I would make them all the time if I could. There`s nothing better. It`s just the question of how do you sustain your family, how do you pay your mortgage."

Asked what he learned about the medium from his award-winning father, Guggenheim reflects, "Documentaries have this unfortunate connection with activism. They can describe an issue or problem so vividly, and people can attach their agendas to them. But [my father] always felt that when they get too close to a pamphlet, a political agenda, they lose what film does best, which is to tell stories. He always said that people invest in people. There are films that are tools for politics, and that`s fine. But he was never interested in making those, and neither am I. I try to stay away from how this film will be used politically, and I don`t think Al is interested in that either.

I think audiences are really smart, and they`ll watch a film like `Fahrenheit 9/11` and they`ll be entertained by it, but they`ll know that something is wrong, they`ll know that it was twisted and unfair. No matter how you feel about George Bush - and I`m not a fan of his - I felt the film was unfair to him, that it was manipulative. I`m not interested in making that kind of film. I`m interested in telling someone`s story very truthfully, and I hope I did with Al. The most powerful thing is when people draw their own conclusions - they see the movie and they make a decision to commit."

Source (http://movies.monstersandcritics.com/features/article_1166683.php/Gore_beliefs)

[FisionChips]

I'm still on the fence on this one. Global warming could be a natural occurrence every XXXXXXX years - occurring in cycles.
That's already been disproven several times over, what has been proven is that Global Warming has been caused by humankind... and that if humankind doesn't DO something to reverse it very very soon that the process will be self feeding and will become irreversible.

There are so many articles on this subject now, the Independent always offers a well balanced but realistic view: http://www.independent.co.uk/

The EPA's take on Global Warming:
http://yosemite.epa.gov/oar/globalwarming.nsf/content/climate.html

This is a good read. And actually read the whole thing before replying to debate it.

It's excellent - I have a natural distrust of anything political but I might even start believing in Gore's altruism in this case.. :-k

Irrespective of his motivation, he is trying to get the message across and that has to be good.

[L-knot]

That's already been disproven several times over, That depends on which side of the theory one is on


The proportion of scientists who support or oppose any of the global warming theories is a matter of controversy in its own right. Environmental groups, many governmental reports, and the non-US media often claim virtually unanimous support for the global warming theory from the scientific community. Some opponents maintain that it is the other way around, claiming that the majority of scientists either consider global warming "unproven" or even dismiss it altogether. Other opponents decry the dangers of consensus science, which appears to imply that they do believe there may actually be a consensus.
These reports are confirming what the majority of climate scientists have been saying—that man-made global warming is occurring at a rapid rate.

Well, maybe. Once a particular notion becomes conventional wisdom, evidence and stories confirming that conventional wisdom are easily accepted and published—and reported in the media. Those that contradict the prevailing views have a much harder time getting a hearing. Either global warming has hardened into conventional wisdom in the climatological community, or mounting scientific evidence shows that humanity is in fact warming the world at a dangerous pace.

Which is it and how can one tell?

To show how hard answering that question can be, let's take a little closer look at the two reports mentioned above. The Arctic Council report is based on the observations and deliberations of 300 scientists from eight countries and six groups of indigenous people over the past four years. They find that the Arctic region is warming at twice the rate of the rest of the world. They further find that the sea ice that covers the Arctic Ocean is thinning, and could almost disappear in the summer months by 2100.

But University of Alabama at Huntsville climatologist John Christy, a climate expert on whom I have relied for years, makes some interesting observations about the Arctic Council's report. "If you look at the long term records, the Arctic has been as warm or warmer than it is today," says Christy. He cites temperature data from the Hadley Centre in the UK showing that from 70 degrees north latitude to the pole, the warmest years on record in the Arctic were 1937 and 1938. This area is just slightly above the Arctic Circle.

Furthermore, those same records show that the Arctic warmed twice as fast between 1917 and 1937 as it has in the past 20 years. After 1940, the Arctic saw a big cool-down and climatologists noted sea ice expanding in the northern Atlantic. Christy argues that what he calls the Great Climate Shift occurred in the late 1970s and caused another sudden warming in the Arctic. Since the late 1970s there has not been much additional warming in the region at all. In fact, on page 23, the Arctic Council Assessment offers very similar data for Arctic temperature trends from 60 degrees north latitude—the area that includes most of Alaska and essentially all of Greenland, most of Norway and Sweden, and the bulk of Russia.

Interestingly, the recent increase in temperatures in Alaska and Siberia seem to have coincided almost simultaneously with a shift in the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) in the late 1970s. Could this be part of Christy's Great Climate Shift? Swings in the PDO occur on 30 to 40 year time frames, and the most recent one brought warmer currents flowing north to the coast of Alaska. The Assessment does note that "several important natural modes of variability that especially affect the Arctic have been identified, including the Arctic Oscillation, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, and the North Atlantic Oscillation. Each of these can affect the regional patterns of such features as the intensity and tracks of storm systems, the direction of prevailing winds, the amount of snow, and the extent of sea ice." http://www.reason.com/rb/rb111004.shtml





reducing man-made CO2 emissions by 15 % below 1990 levels would not prevent global temperatures from rising, and 86 % said that reducing emissions to 1990 levels would not prevent rising temperatures. It is not clear whether they mean by this that changing CO2 levels would have little effect on climate (which they expect to continue rising for some unspecified reason), or if even CO2 at 1990 levels could be expected to lead to more warming.

Finally, by a 39 to 33 % margin, more climatologists say that, "evidence exists to suggest that the earth is headed for another glacial period."



news flash, it's getting better. in the past decade, US air quality has gotten considerably better the hole has shrunken by 20% in a year!
http://news.scotsman.com/scitech.cfm?id=1147332004

after 30 years, the ozone layer is recovering from the past
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0801/p01s02-ussc.html[/quote]

[FisionChips]

Quite topical is this weekends Test the Nation from the BBC:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/testthenation/

[L-knot]

Lifted from elsewhere:


http://img192.imageshack.us/img192/5115/destroyearth1hx.th.jpg (http://img192.imageshack.us/my.php?image=destroyearth1hx.jpg)

Top 10 Ways to Destroy Earth
By Sam Hughes
Special to LiveScience

Destroying the Earth is harder than you may have been led to believe.

You've seen the action movies where the bad guy threatens to destroy the Earth. You've heard people on the news claiming that the next nuclear war or cutting down rainforests or persisting in releasing hideous quantities of pollution into the atmosphere threatens to end the world.

Fools.

The Earth was built to last. It is a 4,550,000,000-year-old, 5,973,600,000,000,000,000,000-tonne ball of iron. It has taken more devastating asteroid hits in its lifetime than you've had hot dinners, and lo, it still orbits merrily.

So my first piece of advice to you, dear would-be Earth-destroyer, is: do not think this will be easy.

Mission statement

By any means necessary, to render the Earth into a form in which it may no longer be considered a planet. Such forms include, but are most definitely not limited to: two or more planets; any number of smaller asteroids; a quantum singularity; a dust cloud.

To make the list, (http://www.livescience.com/technology/10ways_destroyearth.html) a method must actually work. That is, according to current scientific understanding, it must be possible for the Earth to actually be destroyed by this method, however improbable or impractical it may be.

Methods are ranked in order of feasibility, with the least likely listed first and the most likely being No. 10.

More:
http://www.livescience.com/technology/dest...earth%5Fmp.html (http://www.livescience.com/technology/destroy%5Fearth%5Fmp.html)



What this guide is not

This is not a guide for those whose aim is merely to wipe out humanity. I can in no way guarantee the complete extinction of the human race via any of these methods, real or imaginary. Humanity is wily and resourceful, and many of the methods outlined inside will take many years to even become available, let alone implement, by which time mankind may well have spread to other planets; indeed, other star systems.

If total human genocide is your ultimate goal, you are reading the wrong document. There are far more efficient ways of doing this, many which are available and feasible right now. Nor is this a guide for those wanting to annihilate everything from single-celled life upwards, render Earth uninhabitable or simply conquer it. These are trivial goals in comparison.

[xpgeek]

Uh, not to be harsh but, thats kind of off topic. No one has said global warming is going to lead to the destruction of the planet, just our ability to live on it. Once humans and all the other major species are extinct, the planet will still be here, probly for another 3 or 4 billion years, at least until our sun goes supernova and then its bye bye to this whole system of planets.

[L-knot]

Apparently some are saying it threatens to end the world. I would say the quote is on topic. I didn't author the quote.


You've heard people on the news claiming that the next nuclear war or cutting down rainforests or persisting in releasing hideous quantities of pollution into the atmosphere threatens to end the world.


Besides, Humans can/will adapt.

[FisionChips]

No one has said global warming is going to lead to the destruction of the planet, just our ability to live on it.
Quite - there is no rule that says humankind will survive the events leading from Global Warming.

In the UK, for example, there is very strong evidence that the Gulf Stream, which keeps our island warm is showing signs of failure... if that happens we will be in for a very COLD time.

Besides, Humans can/will adapt.

True but the fundamental argument is why shouldn't we adapt now in order to prevent or lessen the impact of Global Warming - is it really so difficult.

And, more importantly, if the impact will be as some predict, how many humans will there be left to adapt?

[FisionChips]

BBC's Test The Nation Quiz (http://www.bbc.co.uk/testthenation/) 'Know your Planet'. You can do the quiz online....

I scored 48 out of 65 questions.

[L-knot]

Besides, Humans can/will adapt.

True but the fundamental argument is why shouldn't we adapt now in order to prevent or lessen the impact of Global Warming - is it really so difficult.

And, more importantly, if the impact will be as some predict, how many humans will there be left to adapt?

Adapting, at the expense of global economy, may be a twofold hardship since there is no guarantee that this is a reversable condition - since it may well be a global warming oscillation given further momentum by man. The planet will go through changes whether we influence it or not. I don't think humans are the cause of global warming but a contributor.

Personally, I'd rather see a focus in alternative energy sources and creating technology rather than focusing on lowering emissions.


Questioning global warming (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/sci_tech/2000/climate_change/1017204.stm)

"The proposed Kyoto treaty limits would in no way prevent global warming. In reality, nobody seriously proposes a cure for global warming, because adequate measures would cause economic catastrophe and probably world war." - http://business.scotsman.com/economy.cfm?id=1821742005

[FisionChips]

http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article622745.ece

We'll just carry on like this guy has then shall we?
Why should a few little facts get in the way of a bit of profit and propoganda?
Who cares anyway especially when we can get a nice fat pay off. Except that Global Warming isn't just something that is happening to everyone else, the repercussions from this natural disaster understand nothing of political, national or socio-economic boundaries. No amount of money will stop the events and neither will any countries armies - the world will be at the 'Too Late' point.

Lee Raymond is a disgrace to humankind.

[xpgeek]

Have you actually seen this guy too, finds an image of Lee Raymond ..

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/images/1027-06.jpg

Bill Maher calls him Lee 'Fat *******' Raymond. He does look a lot like the fat ******* character from Austin Powers. "If this guy looks like hes been eating pieces of the Earth, he has.", was a good line I remember. "And whats worse, hes been proven now to have funded bad science to make global warming look questionable."

It was censored, lol, but if you've seen Austin Powers you know what that word should be.

[FisionChips]

This guys so thick I wouldn't trust him to run a bath let alone a company.....

[xpgeek]

Real Time with Bill Maher closing 'New Rule' from April 21, 2006

" And finally, New Rule: Democrats have to claim their rightful place as the party of environmental protection. Now...for way too long, Republicans have been getting away with rolling their eyes when anyone mentions the planet. You know, as if it's "Smurf Forest" we're talking about instead of the one and only place we can survive!

Now, tomorrow is Earth Day, when President Bush gets his picture taken in front of a tree and Dick Cheney shoots whatever flies out of it. And, as despicable as this administration's record on the environment is, it never was their issue. But Al Gore made a living in the Senate talking about the environment. He makes a living talking about it now. It's just when he was running for president that he shut up. And that's why Democrats keep losing. They don't stand up for what they believe in, yes, like "girly-men", from making the counter-argument.

"How can we explain climate change in a 30-second campaign ad?" Oh, I don't know. How about this: "The Republicans want your children to die." There, I did it with 28 seconds left. Is that scaring us? Well, somebody ought to.

How come the Republicans can pick seemingly bogus, random issues like activist judges and boys kissing, and Mexicans pouring over our borders, and get everyone all worked up about it, and the Democrats can't figure out how to demagogue Armageddon?

Hey...you know what else is pouring over our borders? Greenland. You know, Republicans do a lot of things badly, like plan wars and balance budgets and...dance. But they sure understand that the winner in an election is the one who scares the most crap out of the voters. "Gay marriage!" "Terror alerts!" "The war on Christmas!" How long before Janet Jackson's tit strikes again?! And it's a lot bigger now.

But the environment is real. You can smell it. In parts of Houston, you can grab hunks of it with your hands and use it to lube your car! And if there is a single face you might want to use to personify this evil, he was in the news this week: the retiring and handsomely-compensated chairman of Exxon Mobil, Lee "Fat *******" Raymond. [photos shown of Lee Raymond and character "Fat *******" from Austin Powers film]

If Lee looks like he's been eating the earth, he has. Even worse, his company has been paying for fake science to confuse people into thinking global warming was still too iffy to act on. You know, if the Democrats can't make this prick into their Willy Horton, they are so pathetic, they might as well go ahead and nominate for president that nice blonde lady who married Bill Clinton. You'll thank me in a year.

Ladies and gentlemen, I literally fear for my kids' future, and I don't even have kids. Glacier National Park in Montana, you know, named for its glaciers, had 150 glaciers when they opened. It's got 26 left today. If we don't take care of places like Montana, we're going to faced with an even bigger problem: gay married men with absolutely no place to go fishing. "

[L-knot]

It seems like democrats complain a lot but rarely have any viable solutions. I often do not understand their logic.

Republicans? Many of them seem like thieves and are selfish.

Here's a nice article that I can appreciate: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,195877,00.html

Not sure about this: There IS a problem with global warming... it stopped in 1998 (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2006/04/09/do0907.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/04/09/ixworld.html)

Is the whole antarctica warming? (http://www.coolantarctica.com/Antarctica%20fact%20file/science/global_warming.htm)

some quotes from elsewhere:


Well since the Mars polar cap has melted. 30% of it gone. That means something else is causing global warming. Most of the green house gases are measured in Parts per million.( PPM) I suspect that greenhouse gases are having much more of a local impact. I believe that this is a cyclonic event and reducing greenhouse gases will only slow it down not stop the event. Sit back relax we got no control over this.I had a scientist (okay, my father-in-law, a retired geologist) tell me that hydrogen breaks down the ozone layer and that it is notoriously difficult to stop it from leaking. Frankly, I can just see the next environmental outcry should we switch to a hydrogen economy. (Not to mention how the tree-huggers will freak out when they figure out that the exhaust of hydrogen-powered cars, water vapor, is a major greenhouse gas.) By the way, the cheapest and and easiest way to produce hydrogen is to burn even more fossil fuels...the irony just kills me. (It takes far less energy to extract hydrogen from natural gas than from water.)

Personally, I'm leaning toward ethanol as an alternative to gasoline. Besides, my Dad was a petroleum geologist and always told me that oil is such a useful product that it's a shame we waste it on gasoline.

[FisionChips]

Sorry l-knot, but that first one is just way out of date (I couldn't find a date on the article itself):
FOX News is attempting to rise above politics on the global warming debate. We believe that global warming is a serious issue that needs to be thoroughly investigated from all sides.

Hate to say it but Global Warming has been studied in a balanced manner by very thorough scientists for many years now and many have reached consensus too. :)
In the IPCC Third Assessment Report (TAR (http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/index.htm)), the most comprehensive compilation and summary of current climate research ever attempted, it was concluded:
that based on the balance of all available evidence and even considering uncertainties and areas lacking adequate research, the earth is undergoing a rapid warming trend that is outside the likely bounds of natural variations and this climate change is likely to have been due to anthropogenic emissions of CO2 from fossil fuel burning.

This research was explicitly endorsed by leading Scientific Institutes in 19 countries including: USA, Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, China, Russia, Japan and Germany....
In addition, the following institutions specializing in Climate, Atmosphere, Ocean and/or Earth sciences have published the same conclusions:

* NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS)
* National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
* National Academy of Sciences (NAS)
* State of the Canadian Cryosphere (SOCC)
* Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
* Royal Society of the United Kingdom (RS)
* American Geophysical Union (AGU)
* National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR)
* American Meteorological Society (AMS)
* Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society (CMOS)

[L-knot]

How can there be a conclusion when they say: "climate change is likely to have been due to anthropogenic emissions" - that is not a conclusive statement.

They do admit, "outside the likely bounds" (but how much?) - being the human contribution to global warming may perhaps accelerate the inevitable. There isn't much we can do to stop a natural state and probably not much in the way of reducing it's "accelerant" will slow it's momentum. The alarmists will continue to panic and use this for their agenda. The earth has been warming long before it became politicized.

Well, what's the point or all this? We can't all just stop driving our cars. We can convert to alternative fuels though but who's going to pay for it?

It's not a Fox news archive and it does state:

Editor's note: Tune in Sunday, May 21st at 10 p.m. and 1 a.m. ET for the FOX News Channel special "Global Warming: The Debate Continues." that would be 2006 and checking the page source: ""


Mars polar cap has melted. 30% of it gone. That means something else is causing global warming. Sounds like the sun to me.



http://img104.imageshack.us/img104/151/a0jq.jpg

GROUP: New Video Exposes Behind-the-Scenes Story of Gore’s Own Energy Use
Wed May 24 2006 17:59:00 ET

As former Vice President Al Gore’s documentary on global warming fears debuts today, a new video from the Competitive Enterprise Institute tracks Gore’s own “carbon footprint.” CEI’s 70-second video points out that Gore himself is a big user of the hydrocarbon fuels that produce carbon dioxide when combusted.

Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” asks, "Are you willing to change the way you live?" The Gore documentary and new book of the same name go on to suggest ways that people can reduce their carbon footprint, yet Mr. Gore has clearly not taken his own message to heart. He even says in the documentary that he has given his global warming Power Point slide show more than 1,000 times all around the world.

The CEI video, which may be viewed at: http://streams.cei.org/, includes footage of Gore and his constant air travel with two CO2 meters running at the bottom of the page that compare Gore’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions with those of an average person.

"All the evidence suggests that Mr. Gore is an elitist who passionately believes that the people of the world must drastically reduce their energy use but that it doesn't apply to him,” said Myron Ebell, CEI's director of energy and global warming policy and the creator of the video.

Developing...
http://www.drudgereport.com/flash3.htm

Video... (http://interface.audiovideoweb.com/lnk/ny60win16080/eresources/cei/GorevideoWMV-low.wmv/play.asx)





CEI Launches Ad Campaign to Counter Global Warming Alarmism - May 17, 2006 - http://www.cei.org/gencon/003,05332.cfm

[L-knot]

red Smith heads the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a policy forum that opposes mandatory curbs on CO2 emissions, and favors a free market approach to environmental issues. Smith says Gore's views -- and the movie that represents them -- are alarmist.

"It's a sales attempt," he says. "It is not an attempt to be an objective science, [explaining] on the one hand [this] and on the other hand [that]. [Gore is saying] that everything is going to hell in a handbasket. Listen to me or else the world you live in will cease to exist. Is it effective? I know this issue very well, to me it wasn't effective. Is it a fear-mongering lecture? It is."

So, in response, the Competitive Enterprise Institute broadcast a TV advertisement, timed to coincide with the release of An Inconvenient Truth.

"You've seen those headlines about global warming: 'The glaciers are melting. We're doomed.' That's what several studies supposedly found. But other scientific studies found exactly the opposite: Greenland's glaciers are growing, not melting. The Antarctic ice sheet is getting thicker, not thinner. Did you see any big headlines about that? Why are they trying to scare us?"

More: http://www.voanews.com/english/2006-05-31-voa23.cfm

[xpgeek]

Gore uses a lot of jet fuel flying around the world to give his slide show presentation granted, producing a lot of CO2, but, what do you expect him to do, swim across the Atlantic?

And George Bush uses a hellova lot more too. On a recent trip into Virginia, just a mere 60 miles or so from the white house, Air Force One consumed about 100,000 pounds of jet fuel. To travel 60 miles, hasn't he ever heard of a train.

[FisionChips]

It's not a Fox news archive and it does state:


Sorry I didn't explain that well - what I meant when I said it was out of date was that Climate Change or Global Warming has been studied now in great depth and by many accepted and unbiased unpolitically motivated institutions - the implication in the article is 'hey guys, don't you think we should start studying this?'. The guy is just so behind.....

[L-knot]

well, other countries are fine but he travels from coast to coast several times a week

Some examples of Gore’s recent travels: In promoting his movie in mid-May, he and his entourage appeared at a gala preview screening in Atlanta on Monday the 15th , at an even more glamorous preview in Hollywood the next night, and at another lavish preview in Washington the night after that. That's two cross-country trips in three days. By the end of last week, Mr. Gore was at the Cannes film festival in France, where it was reported that he and his entourage used five large SUVs to travel 500 yards.

[xpgeek]

Well, so does Bush, travel coast to coast often several times a week, but Bush does it on Air Force One, which is farrr less fuel efficient then a standard 747. Air Force One isn't Just a modified 747, its loaded down with communications gear and fancy furniture, and uses almost twice as much fuel as a standard 747.

[L-knot]

This (http://www.slantpoint.com/mt-arx/2005/08/hit_bush_on_gas.php) is all I could find on Bush's travel expenditures but Bush isn't traveling for the soul purpose to promote his (a) movie - he is the president after all and Gore is just a rich man promoting his movie.

So far this year, Bush has made 73 domestic and foreign trips, including crisscrossing the country on a 60-day, 60-city tour to promote his Social Security plan. He was on the road Wednesday, speaking to a military audience in Idaho, before returning to his Texas ranch to resume his summer vacation.

[xpgeek]

Bush does quite a bit of traveling for the sole purpose of attending Republican fund raisers too.

But anyway, I'll still argue that, actual presidential duty trips aside, he still uses a lot more fuel then Gore could ever use. When Gore does his traveling, he does it in a private small Lear jet, not Air Force One that uses absurd amounts of fuel.

[L-knot]

well but Gore isn't the president. He's just some rich guy who travels a lot. There are many more rich people that are careless as well.

[xpgeek]

I went to New York city today and saw it.

I defy anyone to go see it and not be convinced. Gore is an incredible speaker, presenting the facts in a comfortable easy to understand way. And he sticks to the facts, really not having a political agenda, only even mentioning politics to state the fact that the US is one of only two nations in the world that has refused to sign the Kioto clean air treaty. He really cares about the issue he is presenting, and his goal is just to get people to actually want to do something about it. That was my impression of him and his presentation.

And for a fact now, he really sticks to the facts and presents no theory or conjecture, one thing he was talking about made me think about what L-Knot says about global warming, that its a natural cycle of the planet that happens anyway without our help, he hears this a lot Gore said, and science has already showed that to be untrue. Deep core ice samples from Antarctica, where due to the ice's depth and age they can go back literally hundreds of thousands of years, these core samples contain tiny little air bubbles that were frozen within the ice as snow fell and froze, and is an actual sample of air from the time it froze. From a set of very deep core samples, they produced a data chart showing the average amount of CO2 in the air all the way back to 650,000 years ago, through 7 natural ice ages. And, the evidence shows that, yes the amount of CO2 in the air increases greatly before the onset of a major ice age, but, in the last 650,000 years, for 7 ice ages in a row, it has never gone above 250 parts per million of CO2, never in 650,000 years. The amount of CO2 in the air today is 350 parts per million, higher then it has been in 650,000 years and higher then its ever been before any of our last 7 ice ages. Natural planet cycle ? Not to this degree. Theory debunked.

[L-knot]

Of course he's not going to use any "facts" that will dispute his claim and they still have not come up with a definite conclusive statement. "Climate change is likely to have been due to anthropogenic emissions" is not conclusive .

yes the amount of CO2 in the air increases greatly before the onset of a major ice age, but, in the last 650,000 years, for 7 ice ages in a row, it has never gone above 250 parts per million of CO2, never in 650,000 years. that doesn't debunk anything IMO.

What would make more sense is there's mounting evidence that the entire solar system is heating up (ice cap on mars has melted some 30%) And our Sun is more active than it has been in 400 (?) years.

Latest warming

Dr Solanki is presenting a paper on the reconstruction of past solar activity at Cool Stars, Stellar Systems And The Sun, a conference in Hamburg, Germany.

He says that the reconstruction shows the Maunder Minimum and the other minima that are known in the past thousand years.

But the most striking feature, he says, is that looking at the past 1,150 years the Sun has never been as active as it has been during the past 60 years.

Over the past few hundred years, there has been a steady increase in the numbers of sunspots, a trend that has accelerated in the past century, just at the time when the Earth has been getting warmer.

The data suggests that changing solar activity is influencing in some way the global climate causing the world to get warmer.


"Things are heating up on Mars...literally. The planet is experiencing its own version of global warming. The dry-ice polar caps are diminishing. Paul Hsieh speculates that this must be on account of our failure to sign Kyoto. Wow, when somebody close to me told me that I could vote for Bush if I wanted to, but I would have to accept the fact that everything that happens from now on is my fault...well, I just didn't grasp the cosmic implications". - http://www.blog.speculist.com/archives/000145.html

A little dated but has everyone discarded this information? - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/07/18/wsun18.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/07/18/ixnewstop.html





The entire solar system - not just our one small planet -- is currently undergoing profound, never-before-seen physical changes. This paper will address and scientifically document a wide variety of significant examples, drawing from a host of published mainstream sources.

We will also outline a new scientific model that, for the first time, coherently explains these simultaneous interplanetary changes via a fundamental “new Physics” - a Physics that predicts “even greater anomalies to come”…

Here are some highlights:

Sun: More activity since 1940 than in previous 1150 years, combined

Mercury: Unexpected polar ice discovered, along with a surprisingly strong intrinsic magnetic field … for a supposedly “dead” planet

Venus: 2500% increase in auroral brightness, and substantive global atmospheric changes in less than 30 years

Earth: Substantial and obvious world-wide weather and geophysical changes

Mars: “Global Warming,” huge storms, disappearance of polar icecaps

Jupiter: Over 200% increase in brightness of surrounding plasma clouds

Saturn: Major decrease in equatorial jet stream velocities in only ~20 years, accompanied by surprising surge of X-rays from equator

Uranus: “Really big, big changes” in brightness, increased global cloud activity

Neptune: 40% increase in atmospheric brightness

Pluto: 300% increase in atmospheric pressure, even as Pluto recedes farther from the Sun

None of these statistics are from “fringe” scientists; they are all very, very real, and what you have just read is only the proverbial “tip of the iceberg.” http://www.enterprisemission.com/_articles/05-14-2004_Interplanetary_Part_1/Interplanetary_1.htm



Forest fires contribute: More than 50 million hectares of forest are burnt annually, and these fires have a significant impact on global atmospheric pollution, with biomass burning contributing to the global budgets of greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide. In the past decade researchers have realised the importance of monitoring this cycle. In fact, WFA data are currently being accessed mostly for atmospheric studies. http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/online_map_forest_fires.html?2452006

Map of fires: http://www.universetoday.com/am/uploads/2006-0524-fires-full.jpg

[xpgeek]

Gore presents the burning of forests as a major contributor to global warming as well.

[L-knot]

I don't know about you but I'm not arguing. I'm only presenting a different set of biased opinions - not trying to change your mind but to supply the thread with a different viewpoint (is that wrong?) - are you trying to change mine? If you cared to notice, I don't deny global warming but I'm taking a non-alarmist direction and viewpoint.

I have no problem watching the movie but I won't go to a theater to watch it.

As far as the Iraq or any other 911 website video goes, I already stated that I'm tired of the arguments at other boards (full of American haters). I have already seen most all other videos before I joined this board.

I believe EVERYONE LIES to fit their own agenda. I will provide a link if I can find it...............

[xpgeek]

You're right, and I apologize, I was completely out of line. My frustration was misdirected. I had just gotten through arguing with a group of several Bush lovers, well they were, who called me a, "mindless brainwashed idiot for believing anything that commy liberal Gore says". And they don't even know anything about global warming, they just refuse to even see the film outright because former democrat Gore made it. People like that make me mad.

But you are not one of them, you have been very fair and understanding of other peoples opinions in our debate, and again I apologize.

[L-knot]

No problem xpgeek. I completely understand the frustration as I sometimes respond to a bunch of true American haters - and that's bad as they blame EVERYTHING on America and "stupid" Americans - doesn't matter what political side you're on, If you're American then you're a fat/unhealthy/Jay Leno all star idiot.

Here's that thing on the lying: Here's a situation in Iraq: They all lie (http://www.michaelyon-online.com/wp/the-full-picture.htm) The propaganda war is everywhere.

Getting back on topic - if it is true that the entire solar system is heating up, then we can't deny that there is much more going than just a human sourced global warming issue.





....another possible issue...


Just as the world starts to take carbon emissions seriously, along creeps another environmental crisis - and the reactive nitrogen threat could be worse

STOP five people on the street and chances are they will be able to tell you that carbon dioxide emissions cause global warming. Stop another five and ask them about nitrogen emissions, and they will probably stare at you blankly.

But a growing number of scientists say that nitrogen is a problem that we ignore at our peril. While we have been fretting about the consequences of a 10 per cent increase in CO2, levels of polluting nitrogen compounds in the environment have almost doubled. If we ignore them for much longer, the scientists insist, the consequences are likely to be even worse than "just" global warming. Human health, biodiversity, ozone levels and global climate are already being affected. And if we thought the carbon problem was tricky to sort out, we're in for an even nastier shock.

"Long term, anthropogenic nitrogen is probably a greater environmental threat than anthropogenic http://www.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/mg18925351.500-something-nasty-in-the-air.html

[xpgeek]

I watched the video. And, where I would certainly agree that no one has a bigger agenda then the media, and they 'only cover the bad a lot', because mostly violence sells. Only covering the bad can be said about news within our own country as well, I turn on the news at night and see murder murder robbery murder etc.. but surely some good things must have happened today too, they choose what they show, and I know there is good things happening in Iraq too that aren't being covered.

But, I also know that yes the media is not covering a lot of the good things, but also that the media is hardly exaggerating on the bad that they do cover. I have a family member in Iraq, he just went back for a second tour, and he tells me that it is his opinion that everytime the media has one one of these soldiers talking about all the good things happening so much, that these soldiers are carefully selected and probly even scripted on the right things to say by politicians. He tells me, this coming from someone who just spent almost a year there, in Baghdad, that there is good things happening, but the media is covering what they see most, which is the bad things. My cousin survived four IED's going off, and lost many of his good friends, one he talks about a lot cut down by a sniper right in front of him while handing out fresh water to civilians.

[L-knot]

It's hard to decipher the truth when so much is exaggerated or even made up. This is possibly a hoax now: http://stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=36627&archive=true

“We would go into people’s houses and plow down entire families,” MacBeth said. “We would interrogate people. If we didn’t like the answers that they gave, then we would kill the youngest child. If they gave more answers that we didn’t like, then we’d move on to the rest of the family. They could’ve been innocent people.”

MacBeth also claimed U.S. troops would “slaughter” Iraqis in mosques.

[FisionChips]

Sorry only just picked up on this again...

A little dated but has everyone discarded this information? -

Time to get Nasa working on shadow square wire?

http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=930

[L-knot]

heh, I haven't read about that yet but you bringing that up reminds me of this stuff. You can buy small pieces of it but it's very expensive: http://beverlytang.com/archives/materials/solid_smoke.html

Video: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4792180/

[FisionChips]

Sadly l-knot, shadow square wire is fictional, from the book Ringworld by Larry Niven. Clever stuff though. Would be handy in an errant sun situation.

[L-knot]

Here's some words from the Global warming opposition - just some things to think about:

Al Gore's telling whoppers again
Look carefully before swallowing his warming theories whole

By ROBERT L. BRADLEY JR.

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? /snip/

There should be great hesitation before swallowing the Chicken Little du jour. /snip/

What are some of the inconvenient truths that An Inconvenient Truth fails to consider? First ... /snip/

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editor...ok/3923939.html (http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/3923939.html)









Can Global Warming cut your head off?
By Paul A. Ibbetson
Saturday, June 3, 2006

Can global warming cut your head off? Well can it? I know, that’s a silly question but welcome to the wacky world of crazy statements that make up the arena of the global warming scaremongers. Currently, the mayor of crazy town is Al Gore. Al Gore has always been in search of a wedge issue to divide the American people and push additional power to the government. In today’s world, the global warming agenda has become an interesting tool for advancing socialism. First, if I can get through the underlying premise of global warming without falling out of my chair, here is what the uneducated person is supposed to take away from the global warming sales pitch ....

Article:
http://www.canadafreepress.com/2006/ibbetson060306.htm

[L-knot]

I thought I should come back and at least post the latest on global warming since I was the only one here presenting an alternative viewpoint.

Scientists respond to Gore's warnings of climate catastrophe
"The Inconvenient Truth" is indeed inconvenient to alarmists
By Tom Harris
Monday, June 12, 2006

"Scientists have an independent obligation to respect and present the truth as they see it," Al Gore sensibly asserts in his film "An Inconvenient Truth", showing at Cumberland 4 Cinemas in Toronto since Jun 2. With that outlook in mind, what do world climate experts actually think about the science of his movie?

Professor Bob Carter of the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at James Cook University, in Australia gives what, for many Canadians, is a surprising assessment: "Gore's circumstantial arguments are so weak that they are pathetic. It is simply incredible that they, and his film, are commanding public attention."

But surely Carter is merely part of what most people regard as a tiny cadre of "climate change skeptics" who disagree with the "vast majority of scientists" Gore cites?

No; Carter is one of hundreds of highly qualified non-governmental, non-industry, non-lobby group climate experts who contest the hypothesis that human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are causing significant global climate change. "Climate experts" is the operative term here. Why? Because what Gore's "majority of scientists" think is immaterial when only a very small fraction of them actually work in the climate field.

Even among that fraction, many focus their studies on the impacts of climate change; biologists, for example, who study everything from insects to polar bears to poison ivy. "While many are highly skilled researchers, they generally do not have special knowledge about the causes of global climate change," explains former University of Winnipeg climatology professor Dr. Tim Ball. "They usually can tell us only about the effects of changes in the local environment where they conduct their studies."

This is highly valuable knowledge, but doesn't make them climate change cause experts, only climate impact experts.

So we have a smaller fraction.

But it becomes smaller still. Among experts who actually examine the causes of change on a global scale, many concentrate their research on designing and enhancing computer models of hypothetical futures. "These models have been consistently wrong in all their scenarios," asserts Ball. "Since modelers concede computer outputs are not "predictions" but are in fact merely scenarios, they are negligent in letting policy-makers and the public think they are actually making forecasts."

We should listen most to scientists who use real data to try to understand what nature is actually telling us about the causes and extent of global climate change. In this relatively small community, there is no consensus, despite what Gore and others would suggest.

Here is a small sample of the side of the debate we almost never hear: /snip/ http://www.canadafreepress.com/2006/harris061206.htm

[FisionChips]

hey l-knot, good to see you back and posting more food for thought! :)

As always, if you listen to twelve different scientists views on this subject you get twelve different answers.

I still believe climate change needs addressing now in a serious manner by politicians and part of that should be to curb our wasteful attitude when it comes to our use/abuse of our planet. Why does the issue of money have to come into the equation? If the IPCC TAR is so wrong, how come there has been no serious science to debunk it? How is it that so many countries have approved this report in spite of the economical costs to themselves?

If Carter's scientific proof is there, why hasn't it been published in any of the recognized scientific journals (or has it?)

[L-knot]

I still have a problem with posting in a board that wants to watch and correct my "P's and Q's" instead of me being adult enough to watch them myelf. If this were a political bashing type forum where members routinely bash each other, I would understand.


Carter does not pull his punches about Gore's activism, "The man is an embarrassment to US science and its many fine practitioners, a lot of whom know (but feel unable to state publicly) that his propaganda crusade is mostly based on junk science."

In April sixty of the world's leading experts in the field asked Prime Minister Harper to order a thorough public review of the science of climate change, something that has never happened in Canada. Considering what's at stake - either the end of civilization, if you believe Gore, or a waste of billions of dollars, if you believe his opponents - it seems like a reasonable request. - that isn't to say we shouldn't curb our wasteful attitude when it comes to our use/abuse of our planet - but to do so because it's a waste period and not for basing it possibly on "junk science" or so called climate consensus (http://www.canada.com/components/print.aspx?id=d35ca1eb-50b8-4546-8950-ca9ad18eb252).

Google displays 12,600,000 results for Professor Bob Carter -

To crucify the world's industrialised economies by spending trillions of dollars for a possible temperature drop of 0.2C simply defies comprehension. The daft, hairshirt policy exemplified by the Kyoto Accord is, in fact, a classic non-solution to a non-problem.
More: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=3813

Here's a "CO2 Science" website: http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/Index.jsp

A US scientist who advises the IPCC on huracane data/prediction etc. has recently removed himself from the panel and removed his name from the advisory board following unsupported media announcements by senior IPCC representatives that recent huricane activity was caused by global warming, when the recorded data emphaticaly denies such a claim.....but the IPCC is still seen as an organisation of authority in these matters?



http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/climate_change/000325follow_up_on_landsea.html

[FisionChips]

US scientist who advises the IPCC on huracane data/prediction etc. has recently removed himself from the panel and removed his name from the advisory board following unsupported media announcements by senior IPCC representatives that recent huricane activity was caused by global warming, when the recorded data emphaticaly denies such a claim.....but the IPCC is still seen as an organisation of authority in these matters?



Yes, I believe there is no solid evidence linking the two and yet some are being very quick to jump on that particular bandwagon.... it detracts from the real issue of climate change, however, and I think the IPCC representatives were wrong to make any kind of statement without solid proof.

[xpgeek]

Front page of my local newspaper today.

http://static.flickr.com/77/173268062_773b09caf4_o.png

The story :

Global warming is real, scientists warn

A blue-ribbon panel of researchers assigned to provide Congress with a clear analysis of the Earth's surface temperature changes over time has concluded the planet warmed more rapidly over the past 25 years than at any other period in the past 400 years.

In doing so, the group validated controversial climate research published in the journal Nature in 1998, describing warming trends at the end of the 20th century as unprecedented in the last 1,000 years. It also establishes the foundation for stronger projections for future climate change, experts said.

"I think global warming is happening and has been for the last 400 years," said Gerald North, chair of a 12-member panel convened by the National Academies of Science.

Analysis of past climates is crucial because it puts the present warming trend in context, said North, a distinguished professor of meteorology and oceanography at Texas A&M. And it provides greater understanding of the earth's intricate climate system.

"This is very significant," said Richard Wetherald, a climate researcher at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory at Princeton University. "Four hundred years is a long enough time period into the past that we can be a bit more confident about the time period now and project into the future."

Kurt Cuffey, a panel member from the University of California at Berkeley and an expert on glaciers, agrees the study provides strong evidence that the present warming trend will continue.

"The warming of the last century is something for which we have a lot of measurements," he said. "When we take that information and apply it to present conditions, we see that the planet is heading for a place it hasn't been for a very long time: a period of unprecedented warmth that will last for the next century or two."

The panel analyzed all aspects of how surface temperatures are estimated and interpreted. Members were asked to summarize temperature records going back 2,000 years and were urged to pinpoint any areas of uncertainty.

The panel focused intensively on a paper written by climatologist Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University with two other colleagues that attracted considerable attention because it concluded that the Northern Hemisphere was warmer during the late 20th century than at any other time during the past millennium.

The panel analyzed all aspects of how surface temperatures are estimated and interpreted. Members were asked to summarize all data concerning temperature records going back 2,000 years. They were also urged to pinpoint any areas of uncertainty and judge the significance to the overall climate change debate.

The paper also was significant from a scientific point of view because it was one of the first to employ proxy evidence (indirect evidence of global warming during eras when thermometers were not available) such as tree rings, coral, ocean and lake sediments, cave deposits, ice cores, glaciers and written records.

Starting in the late 1990s, scientists began combining proxy evidence from many different locations in an effort to estimate surface temperature changes averaged over broad geographic regions during the last few hundred to few thousand years. The large-scale surface temperature reconstructions have allowed researchers to estimate past temperature variations over decades or even years.

The paper by Mann and colleagues Raymond Bradley and Malcolm Hughes was the first of these reconstructions to be published and it immediately created a stir.

Mainstream climate scientists admired it for its novel approach to statistics. Environmentalists embraced it for providing grist for reform. Skeptics questioned its authors' methodology.

The paper concluded that the 1990s were the warmest decade and that 1998 was the warmest year of the last millennium. It used a simple graphic, which became known as "the hockey stick," because it depicted a rise in temperature at the end of a long, stable era.

"The hockey stick is a very good visual and illustrates clever analysis and good science," said Michael Oppenheimer, a professor of geoscience and international relations at Princeton University, who has used it in public presentations. "It's a lot easier to explain than computer modeling."

The iconic graph also has become a rallying point for skeptics. Science fiction writer Michael Crichton went so far as to feature it at length in his recent novel, "State of Fear," with characters attacking its credibility.

Myron Ebell, director of energy and global warming policy for the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a Washington-based free market think tank, said the new report had not changed his low opinion of the graphic and the science associated with it.

"Clearly, the hockey stick has not stood up to further scientific scrutiny," Ebell said, adding that the report did not adequately address skeptics' concerns.

The panel reported having less confidence in temperature records before the year 1600. Fewer proxies in fewer locations for those periods contributed to that view. The report also said it had less confidence in the Mann paper's very specific assertions about the 1990s.

However, the panel said that the scientists' reconstruction of surface temperatures for the past 1,000 years are generally consistent.

Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (R-N.Y.), chair of the House Science Committee, had asked the academy last year to assess the hockey stick paper to dispel any lingering controversy. Another member of Congress, Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), had complained that the scientists writing the paper should be investigated.

Environmentalists viewed the report as providing the latest sobering evidence that civilization needs to respond to global warming by cutting back on the material that many scientists believe is fueling the trend: carbon dioxide.

"The report has wiped the slate clean of any remaining excuses for inaction," said Daniel A. Lashof, science director of the National Resources Defense Council's climate center.

"Congress can no longer just turn up the air conditioning and pretend global warming isn't happening," he said. "In order to avert irreversible global warming damages, the United States must start cutting global warming pollution within 10 years and cut them by more than half by mid-century."