Gore movie puts heat on Bush Boring Al Gore has made a movie. It is on the most boring of all subjects - global warming. It is more than 80 minutes long and the first two or three go by slowly enough so that you can notice that Gore has gained weight and that his speech still seems out of sync. But a moment later, you will be captivated, then riveted and then scared out of your wits. Our Earth is going to hell in a handbasket. You will see the Arctic and Antarctic icecaps melting. You will see Greenland oozing into the sea. You will see the atmosphere polluted with greenhouse gases that block heat from escaping. You will see .photos from space of what the icecaps looked like once and what they look like now, and, in animation, you will see how high the oceans might rise. Shanghai and Calcutta swamped. Much of Florida, too. The water takes a hunk of New York. The fuss about what to do with Ground Zero will turn to naught. It will be under water. "An Inconvenient Truth" is a cinematic version of the lecture that Gore has given for years warning of the dangers of global warming. The case Gore makes is worthy of sleepless nights: Our Earth is in extremis. It's not just that polar bears are drowning because they cannot reach receding ice floes or that "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" will exist someday only as a Hemingway short story. It's rather that Hurricane Katrina is not past, but prologue. Katrina produced several hundred thousand evacuees. The flooding of Calcutta would produce many millions. You cannot see this film and not think of George W. Bush, the man who beat Gore in 2000. Bush has been studiously anti-science, a man of applied ignorance who has undernourished his mind with the empty calories of comfy dogma. For instance, his insistence on abstinence as the preferred method of birth control would be laughable were it not so reckless. It is similar to Bush's initial approach to global warming. It may be that Gore will do more good for his country and the world with this movie than Bush ever did by winning in 2000. Gore insists his presidential aspirations are behind him. "I think there are other ways to serve," he told me. No doubt. But on paper, he is the near-perfect Democratic candidate for 2008. He won the popular vote in 2000. He opposed going to war in Iraq, but he supported the previous Gulf War - right both times. He is much more a person of the 21st century than most of the other potential candidates. Gore could be a great President. First, he has to be a good candidate. In the meantime, he is a man on a mission. Wherever he goes, he finds time and an audience to deliver his (free) lecture on global warming. It and the film leave no doubt of the peril we face and neither do they leave any doubt that Gore, at last, is a man at home in his role. He is master teacher, pedagogue, know-it-all, smarter than most of us, better informed and, having tried for and failed to gain the presidency, has raised his sights to save the world. We simply cannot afford for Al Gore to lose again. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/col/story/409642p-346710c.html
Time for the usual suspects to pipe in here and quote their favorite right wing whacko spewer.... THERE IS NO GLOBAL WARMING!!! I remember G. Gordon Liddy screaming that over and over again. Did it make it true, Gordie? bt
There is quite a bit more debate than is reported in the mainstream press.............. http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/story.html?id=3711460e-bd5a-475d-a6be-4db87559d605 Special to the Financial Post Thursday, April 06, 2006 An open letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper: Dear Prime Minister: As accredited experts in climate and related scientific disciplines, we are writing to propose that balanced, comprehensive public-consultation sessions be held so as to examine the scientific foundation of the federal government's climate-change plans. This would be entirely consistent with your recent commitment to conduct a review of the Kyoto Protocol. Although many of us made the same suggestion to then-prime ministers Martin and Chretien, neither responded, and, to date, no formal, independent climate-science review has been conducted in Canada. Much of the billions of dollars earmarked for implementation of the protocol in Canada will be squandered without a proper assessment of recent developments in climate science. Observational evidence does not support today's computer climate models, so there is little reason to trust model predictions of the future. Yet this is precisely what the United Nations did in creating and promoting Kyoto and still does in the alarmist forecasts on which Canada's climate policies are based. Even if the climate models were realistic, the environmental impact of Canada delaying implementation of Kyoto or other greenhouse-gas reduction schemes, pending completion of consultations, would be insignificant. Directing your government to convene balanced, open hearings as soon as possible would be a most prudent and responsible course of action. While the confident pronouncements of scientifically unqualified environmental groups may provide for sensational headlines, they are no basis for mature policy formulation. The study of global climate change is, as you have said, an "emerging science," one that is perhaps the most complex ever tackled. It may be many years yet before we properly understand the Earth's climate system. Nevertheless, significant advances have been made since the protocol was created, many of which are taking us away from a concern about increasing greenhouse gases. If, back in the mid-1990s, we knew what we know today about climate, Kyoto would almost certainly not exist, because we would have concluded it was not necessary. We appreciate the difficulty any government has formulating sensible science-based policy when the loudest voices always seem to be pushing in the opposite direction. However, by convening open, unbiased consultations, Canadians will be permitted to hear from experts on both sides of the debate in the climate-science community. When the public comes to understand that there is no "consensus" among climate scientists about the relative importance of the various causes of global climate change, the government will be in a far better position to develop plans that reflect reality and so benefit both the environment and the economy. "Climate change is real" is a meaningless phrase used repeatedly by activists to convince the public that a climate catastrophe is looming and humanity is the cause. Neither of these fears is justified. Global climate changes all the time due to natural causes and the human impact still remains impossible to distinguish from this natural "noise." The new Canadian government's commitment to reducing air, land and water pollution is commendable, but allocating funds to "stopping climate change" would be irrational. We need to continue intensive research into the real causes of climate change and help our most vulnerable citizens adapt to whatever nature throws at us next. We believe the Canadian public and government decision-makers need and deserve to hear the whole story concerning this very complex issue. It was only 30 years ago that many of today's global-warming alarmists were telling us that the world was in the midst of a global-cooling catastrophe. But the science continued to evolve, and still does, even though so many choose to ignore it when it does not fit with predetermined political agendas. We hope that you will examine our proposal carefully and we stand willing and able to furnish you with more information on this crucially important topic. CC: The Honourable Rona Ambrose, Minister of the Environment, and the Honourable Gary Lunn, Minister of Natural Resources - - - Sincerely, Dr. Ian D. Clark, professor, isotope hydrogeology and paleoclimatology, Dept. of Earth Sciences, University of Ottawa Dr. Tad Murty, former senior research scientist, Dept. of Fisheries and Oceans, former director of Australia's National Tidal Facility and professor of earth sciences, Flinders University, Adelaide; currently adjunct professor, Departments of Civil Engineering and Earth Sciences, University of Ottawa Dr. R. Timothy Patterson, professor, Dept. of Earth Sciences (paleoclimatology), Carleton University, Ottawa Dr. Fred Michel, director, Institute of Environmental Science and associate professor, Dept. of Earth Sciences, Carleton University, Ottawa Dr. Madhav Khandekar, former research scientist, Environment Canada. Member of editorial board of Climate Research and Natural Hazards Dr. Paul Copper, FRSC, professor emeritus, Dept. of Earth Sciences, Laurentian University, Sudbury, Ont. Dr. Ross McKitrick, associate professor, Dept. of Economics, University of Guelph, Ont. Dr. Tim Ball, former professor of climatology, University of Winnipeg; environmental consultant Dr. Andreas Prokoph, adjunct professor of earth sciences, University of Ottawa; consultant in statistics and geology Mr. David Nowell, M.Sc. (Meteorology), fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society, Canadian member and past chairman of the NATO Meteorological Group, Ottawa Dr. Christopher Essex, professor of applied mathematics and associate director of the Program in Theoretical Physics, University of Western Ontario, London, Ont. Dr. Gordon E. Swaters, professor of applied mathematics, Dept. of Mathematical Sciences, and member, Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Research Group, University of Alberta The remaining signers can be viewed at the above link.
you, z, out of all people should've known that the global warming schame shit is nothing more than a covert operation carried by the communists/ lefties/ liberal/ socialist/ marxists- lennenists to undermine george bush jr.'s ability to fight against terrorism.
first of all, "corporate america' is neither necessarily the bad guy, or necessarily conservative, despite the canard among many on the left that corporate = conservative/rightwing, etc. perfect example is CNN, especially when Ted Turner (the founder) was still in charge. regardless, the issue is not whether global warming is real - the issue is 1) to what extent (if any) is global climate change attributable to human impact vs. the normal cycles or warming and cooling, and normal deviations already present in the ecosystem 2) what behavior changes are implementable that have reasonable cost/benefit balance 3) is kyoto one of those (many think kyoto is ridiculously expensive to implement and will have little to no effect on the environment) 4) etc. the issue of climate change in particular, and climate study in general is extremely complex and EXTREMELY hard to tie to proximal causes - see: Chaos Theory. See: complexity theory. if you think economics is highly theoretical and has relatively low levels of predictive ability, you aint seen nothing compared to global climatology. also, just as i am going to take a study on cancer as a bit suspect when sponsored by a tobacco company, i am more likely to be critical of climate control studies and advocacies that are made by those with a history of being luddites and/or anti-industrialization in general. it's similar to the bogus criticisms of milk that come from the PETA/PCRM crowd. I read the first two chapters of Gore's Earth in the Balance, when it came out. it was so terrible that's as far as i could get. regardless, BOTH sides WANT their side to be correct, and are prone to ignore evidence to the contrary, and i think both sides (the honest people within) admit that the causal connection is tenuous at best - but it is at least suggestive that human activity may be contributing to climate change. and for those who have a certain political mindset, this IS the perfect cause, and thus they are more prone to take scant evidence of climate change on its face, vs. scant evidence of WMD's for example. the former doesn't involve killing anybody (directly), it just involves a nice healthy dose of anti-industrial, anti-corporate, anti-big business, anti-capitalist stuff without any possibility of politically incorrect issues such as seen with tilting against an axis of evil that happens to consist of a lot of people that aren't western, and often aren't part of the "western oppressor class" have i modified my behavior to try to be more ecologically conscious ? yes. but this, like many political issues, is a matter of tradeoffs. and there is way too much histrionic hype. and few people have become better at histrionic wanking than algore (ex-post 2000 version)
Global warming may save this country, particularly if it arrives quickly, As Al gore fears, and doesn't take the expected 100 years or so. By making the already scorchingly hot southwest so hot as to be uninhabitable, our southern borders will be secured and the illegal immigration problem solved. Plus, and this is the good part, it will cost us nothing. Nada. Mother Nature (Gaia) will provide this shield gratis. Perhaps that's her way of repaying us for our uncritical acceptance of environmental religion. Praise Gaia! ps. Once again, we see the mainstream media have severely misunderestimated President Bush. Was it really so hard for liberals to accept that the man who rigged the 2000 and 2004 elections and who caused a hurricane to strike areas of New Orleans occupied by Democrat voters, could not create an enferno in the southwest, particularly if minorities and the poor would suffer disproportionately?
Of course you're joking, since in that scenario the grain belt will become too arid to produce crops.