"An Inconvenient Truth" PLEASE READ

[MoniqueU]

If you had sent that to me and we were anything but reletives or best friends I would block your email address. I hate stuff like that.

 

[shortbun]

My recycling bins are full every week. I wish they were not. I wish i could eliminate the need to recycle by using products that were not wrapped, sealed, canned or in glass. We pick up all our recyclables in restaurants and at parties too. People are really stupid about these little things they can do to help the planet. We have never used chemicals on our lawn, we do not use chlorox or chlorine products. We try to find products using post recycled plastic and we shop for mostly organic food. We compost, we ride our bikes, we hang our clothes to dry and we are still MAJOR consumers. It's really sickening. My husband wants to get a water circulating system, we've limited shower time and we use our grey water for watering plants whenever we can. I can't wait to see the film. I will be wearing my pointed metal hat but mine will be out of recycled aluminum.

 

[poohandwendy]

Yes, you're right. Melting ice caps, torrential rain and flooding, an over-abundance of hurricanes and other natural disasters are definitely propaganda.

Geez.

Over-abundance of hurricanes? By whose measure? Note that we have had less hurricanes in recent years than when human pollution was less abundant.:http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/pastdec.shtml

I am not convinced, in any way, that global warming is an issue to be alarmed about. (Or that it is not normal fluctuations for the earth)

I just do not think we have enough data to cause the sort of alarmism I am seeing.

 

[INSPECTOR CLOUSEAU]

I will be wearing my pointed metal hat but mine will be out of recycled aluminum.

excellent

 

[pkrimier]

You will never get people to conserve untill or whenever it becomes too costly for them to enjoy their creature comforts.
If they are willing to pay for what they want they do not want anyone telling them how or what they can do with their money.
It is just human nature.

But in saying that...if you had kept your daughter home with you you could have saved all that energy that was used to transport her to her Nana's.

 

[poohandwendy]

I haven't seen the movie yet but I plan to. I really don't know why people object to what the goal of the film seems to be, which is to get people to change their habits and lower damaging energy usage. How is that a bad thing? Why must it always be about politics (as in that NY Post review)?

Because I think the goal of the movie is more about getting people to change their voting habits. I do not think there is enough evidence to support the idea that global warming is a threat. Or that it is caused by human consumption.

I have no problem with the notion of conserving energy and not littering the planet. Just for different reasons.

 

[RockinRollerCoaster]

Best review I've read on this movie so far:

And to address some of the specifics from the review...

<Gore> ...implies that no reputable scientists dispute anything he says - ... But there is wide disagreement about whether humans are causing global warming (climate change preceded the invention of the Escalade)

He says that there is scientific consensus around the fact that the climate is changing and that human activity is a significant contributor (No dissent on this point in more than 900 peer reviewed scientific studies). The place where we see "wide disagreement" is in the popular press (50%+ of articles express some degree of uncertainty), fueled by organizations like CEI (a "scientific" clearinghouse funded almost entirely by the Oil & Gas industry).

Global warming hasn't noticed that we got the lead out of our gasoline or that Stage One smog days in Los Angeles fell from 121 in 1977 to zero in 2004. All regulations and taxes to date have done nothing. Does this hint that pollution isn't the cause?

Standards such as the clean air act have done an outstanding job of cutting down on heavy hydrocarbon emissions, sulfer, and other really nasty stuff which contributed to smog, acid rain, the hole in the ozone, and lots of other environmental and health damage. CO2 - the primary greenhouse gas, was not classified as a pollutant under those regulations - that is one of CEI's major points. "Hey, we breathe this stuff out. How bad can it be?" But we all know that imbalances of otherwise positive elements can be catastrophic - after all, floods are just water, right?

Gore says that America, alone, is the problem. Taking us to China, he ignores the filth spewed into the air by its coal-fired cities. He does not meet with bronchitic citizens who wear surgical masks outdoors and pause to hawk up brown gunk every few minutes. Instead, he tells us America is lagging behind. "China," he says, "is on the cutting edge" of environmentalism. Nonsense.

No, he doesn't say this in the movie. He says that we are the largest contributor of greenhouse emissions (which we are). That every other country in the world generates less greenhouse gas per citizen (which they do). And that China has stronger fuel economy standards for cars than anything anyone is the US has considered (which they do - as does Europe, and most of the rest of the developed world). He also says that, if China does not invest in renewable energy resources, that the easiest form of power for them to access is coal. That's why it is critical that the Chinese government embrace investment in non-polluting technologies. Wouldn't it be nice if we could lead by example, or even develop some of those technologies that we could sell to them.

From what I can tell, the overall tone of the review is that Gore is a president "wannabe" who had his shot, so now he should shut up.

One of the most compelling quotes from the review for me was "The environment doesn't seem to care whether the president is a Texas oilman or the Man from Hope." I agree, but in a totally different way than the author intended.

This issue has become politically loaded, because there are powerful vested interests who benefit from the status quo. I work with people from the oil & gas industry every day in my job. They are great folks. They keep our country moving. But a shift away from burning fossil fuels to non-emitting renewables would require capital investment, and would shift the demand curve away from O&G, thus potentially hurting their (short term) profits.

My question is. Why is it unAmerican to turn off the lights when you're not in the room? Why is it unAmerican to insulate your home so you can cut down on your power bills and reduce your energy usage? Why is it unAmerican to ask our auto industry to explore ways of making cars more fuel efficient? If the people who say this is "crying wolf" are right, at worst we've created some new technologies, made our society more sustainable, and made ourselves more aware of the world we live in. If the people who say this is "crying wolf" are wrong... we've all got bigger problems.

---------------

Sorry this is such a long initial post. I've been lurking for a while, but I just couldn't keep quiet on this one.

I look forward to talking with you all!

 

[MoniqueU]

You will never get people to conserve untill or whenever it becomes too costly for them to enjoy their creature comforts.
If they are willing to pay for what they want they do not want anyone telling them how or what they can do with their money.
It is just human nature.

But in saying that...if you had kept your daughter home with you you could have saved all that energy that was used to transport her to her Nana's.

Amen, she lost me in the chain letter when she suggested I buy a prius. Right that works for my family of 6. And those hybrids that you have to drive like a million miles to even break even on the cost are a joke, no thanks.

 

[MickeyMouseGal]

It becomes political because Gore is a politician. If it were all about the message, Gore could have underwritten the movie, possibly even promoted it, but he wouldn't have starred in it. By doing so, it appears that he has an agenda.

I'm all for 'environmentality' but when every promotion for the movie also has some blurb about "Former VP, 2000 Presidential Candidate and possible 2008 Candidate Al Gore", I'm immediately skeptical about any seemingly altruistic message he may have.

 

[poohandwendy]

He says that there is scientific consensus around the fact that the climate is changing and that human activity is a significant contributor (No dissent on this point in more than 900 peer reviewed scientific studies).

IMO, they are irresponsible to make those statements without mentioning that we do NOT have enough long term evidence to know the significance of the data we have at our disposal.

 

[Beca]

You will never get people to conserve untill or whenever it becomes too costly for them to enjoy their creature comforts.
If they are willing to pay for what they want they do not want anyone telling them how or what they can do with their money.
It is just human nature.

But in saying that...if you had kept your daughter home with you you could have saved all that energy that was used to transport her to her Nana's.

Everything you say is true. But, if we...all of us, encourage (both with our living habits and financial investments) alternative forms of energy, we wouldn't have to sacrifice the relationships of youth with their elders. Taking my dd to see her "Nana" is not the problem....the fact that there exists, in America no "clean energy" way to get her there, even though the technology to do so already exists, is the problem. If I could've paid a premium to fly her there in a non-harmful way, I would've. And remember....this was BEFORE I saw the film, and learned just how significant the data is. Maybe by the time she gets to visit her Nana next time, my family will have a new electric/hydrogen hybrid that I can use to drive her to Houston with no negative impact on our world. But, I can guarantee you, that without our continued diligence to change our daily habits....those cars will never get developed and mass-marketed.

Instead of "attacking" behaviors....we should focus on creating better options for our children.



Beca

 

[minkydog]

The sky is falling, the sky is falling

 

[RockinRollerCoaster]

IMO, they are irresponsible to make those statements without mentioning that we do NOT have enough long term evidence to know the significance of the data we have at our disposal.

Who is being irresponsible, the 900 peer reviewed climatologists and geologists, or the media who quote press releases from Oil & Gas funded "research?"

The data that they are comparing against is 650,000 years of mean temperature and carbon dioxide level mappings from ice cores in Antartica. Should we wait until we have a million?

Scientific consensus exists. Political and social consensus does not. And in our current polarized society, the entire discussion often devolves into "tree huggers" on one side and "industry puppets" on the other.

My only hope is that the vast majority of people in the middle can find enough common ground to try to change wasteful behavior and build an awarenes of the consequences of our actions - motivating our government and industry to provide us with options.

 

[TheBellhop]

I haven't seen this movie, and I really have no reason to see it. Global warming is happening, and we are contributing enormously. Burning anything releases CO2, which then attributes to a thick blanket of pollution above our heads in the sky. Heat goes in, but can't get out. It's not rocket science, everybody, and it's not propoganda.

 

[Bonds Lurker]

Global warming will happen regardless of what we do, we can just slightly change when it occurs. There's no stopping it, the world will end one day too, I see no need to change our patterns.

 

[TheBellhop]

Global warming will happen regardless of what we do, we can just slightly change when it occurs. There's no stopping it, the world will end one day too, I see no need to change our patterns.

Are you sure? Because all of these sources are calling you a liar.

 

[NewJersey]

I haven't seen this movie, and I really have no reason to see it. Global warming is happening, and we are contributing enormously. Burning anything releases CO2, which then attributes to a thick blanket of pollution above our heads in the sky. Heat goes in, but can't get out. It's not rocket science, everybody, and it's not propoganda.

It's too bad there are alot of naive people in this country who don't believe facts right in front of their eyes.

 

[TheBellhop]

It's too bad there are alot of naive people in this country who don't believe facts right in front of their eyes.

What's this now?

 

[HayGan]

I wouldn't believe a word that Al ("I invented the internet") Gore would say!

There are plenty of arguments out there on both sides of the global warming issue. I tend to believe that although humans have an effect on the Earth, we are in no way cauing imminent destruction.

 

[RockinRollerCoaster]

Global warming will happen regardless of what we do, we can just slightly change when it occurs. There's no stopping it, the world will end one day too, I see no need to change our patterns.

I'm not sure I understand why you say that global warming will happen no matter what. The world does go through natural variation, and sometimes there are disruptive changes, but, barring human intervention, the natural cycles would be moving us into a cooling trend right now (that's why the media was talking about ice ages in the 1970s). The reason we are seeing the reverse happen is that we are digging up stored energy from inside the Earth and releasing it quickly. If you mean that the Earth will warm up without human intervention - I have to disagree. If you mean that the problem is too big for us to do anything about - I have to disagree there, too.

We have proven, as a society and as a species, that we can make global changes. The hole in the ozone over Antartica due to the use of CFCs, acid rain in the NorthEast US. We addressed these issues, and the world is better off for those changes that we made.

There are challenges - more than six billion people need to live, eat, make a living (compared to between two and three billion in 1945). We have been living off of coal, oil, and gas for 150 years, so there are new technologies we will have to develop.

But we don't have the luxury or the right to give up.