An Inconvenient Truth

[sue4u2]

Air conditioner just cut on - in Jan? even in the deep south this is not normal

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

I want global warming back, it's winter now

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/299253_inconvenient11.html

This week in Federal Way schools, it got a lot more inconvenient to show one of the top-grossing documentaries in U.S. history, the global-warming alert "An Inconvenient Truth."

After a parent who supports the teaching of creationism and opposes sex education complained about the film, the Federal Way School Board on Tuesday placed what it labeled a moratorium on showing the film. The movie consists largely of a computer presentation by former Vice President Al Gore recounting scientists' findings.

"Condoms don't belong in school, and neither does Al Gore. He's not a schoolteacher," said Frosty Hardison, a parent of seven who also said that he believes the Earth is 14,000 years old. "The information that's being presented is a very cockeyed view of what the truth is. ... The Bible says that in the end times everything will burn up, but that perspective isn't in the DVD."

Hardison's e-mail to the School Board prompted board member David Larson to propose the moratorium Tuesday night.

"Somebody could say you're killing free speech, and my retort to them would be we're encouraging free speech," said Larson, a lawyer. "The beauty of our society is we allow debate."

School Board members adopted a three-point policy that says teachers who want to show the movie must ensure that a "credible, legitimate opposing view will be presented," that they must get the OK of the principal and the superintendent, and that any teachers who have shown the film must now present an "opposing view."

 

[redhotswami]

you've got to me effing kidding me!!!

 

[dazzlingamy]

I love that guy's name is Frosty

I just watched it tonight. I think it really does give an important message, and its not about us all getting burtn up its about how messed up our seasons will get, how our climates will change, animals will die out, diseases will rise etc. I love how this is suddenly a "democratic" thing rather then oh you know a world wide HUMAN thing. Rediculous.

btw, I live down the bottom of Australia. The furthest you could get, and we are getting days and days of really tropical humid weather. In MELBOURNE. If you knew Melbounre, you know its a dry, cold place. Not anymore.

When are people going to realise that the money of today will be worthless tomorrow when your house is underwater, of 50 million refugees swap your country. It will be little bits of paper in the bank and you're fucked.

 

[A_Wanderer]

When are we going to treat the issues properly; I have been researching global warming over the last three months and the evidence has really sured up over the last few years, the gaps in knowledge where debate has produced firmer understanding have been filled and the time to start formulating effective knowledge and result based solutions is here. Kyoto is environmental masturbation - it makes us feel good without actually achieving anything.

And I really don't like taking a weeks worth of weather as proof of global scale climate change, those arguments are disengenuous and the second layer of alarmist ecopocalypse is dangerous.

 

[dazzlingamy]

Yeah but i'd rather be over cautious. I mean finding cleaner, better alternatives for energy sources, moving on from petrol for cars, reducing emissions, etc etc can only be good for the world right? So even though i may not believe we are all going to be swimming under water in 5 years, I also believe to sit and say 'well nothing is definate proof now, we can explain all these things happening on other things - its not really necessary to do anything' is stupid. Why not put a little bit of fear into a sluggish and unmoving society and see if we can turn some things round a little, rather then waiting till something BIG actually does happen, like half of greenland dropping into the sea, or a hurricane wiping out a who state, or killing a million people before we start to put things into perspective.

 

[A_Wanderer]

If it means keeping a few billion people from ever having electricity and basics that we take for granted I don't think that it is good for the world - the rise of China and India is going to put a huge stress on the worlds resources and will create a lot of environmental problems (not to mention the ongoing consumption of the already developed nations) - are we going to sit here with out computers, refrigerators, cuboard full of clothes and tell the developing world that they have to hold off?

The anti-scientific propaganda pulled out by the green movement against anything it finds off putting (nuclear energy, logging, genetic modification etc) doesn't make for informed policy debate - it only scares people and makes them less willing to get engaged with the issues the next time.

Policy debate that is informed by the science (since the science isn't the be all and end all - the economics of solutions, the liability of damage and the multilateral agreements involve business, NGO's and think tanks) is ideal; telling people that it's their fault that there was a heavy storm or a drought and acting like these severe weather events wouldn't and/or didn't happen in the past and using that to push for policy change is just stupid.

 

[A_Wanderer]

Case in point

When the Stern Review into the Economics of Climate Change came out last year, it was showered with praise.

UK Prime Minister Tony Blair called it, "the most important report on the future ever published by this government".

But expert critics of the review now claim that it overestimates the risk of severe global warming, and underestimates the cost of acting to stop it.

The message from the report's chief author, the economist Sir Nicholas Stern, was simple: if we did nothing about climate change, it would cost us the equivalent of at least 5% of global GDP each year, now and forever.

But if we acted today, we could prevent a catastrophe.

This point was emphasised at the report's launch by Mr Blair who warned we would see the disastrous consequences of climate change - not in some science fiction future, but in our lifetimes.

These figures sounded scary and imminent. But if you read the report in detail, that is not what it actually says.

The 5% damage to global GDP figure will not happen for well over one hundred years, according to Stern's predictions. And the review certainly does not forecast disastrous consequences in our lifetimes.

'Cherry-picking'

The report may have been loved by the politicians and headline writers but when climate scientists and environmental economists read the 670-page review, many said there were serious flaws.

These critics are not climate change sceptics, but researchers with years of experience who believe that human-induced climate change is real and that we need to act now.

Richard Tol is a professor at both Hamburg and Carnegie Mellon Universities, and is one of the world's leading environmental economists.

The Stern Review cites his work 63 times; but that does not mean he agrees with it.

"If a student of mine were to hand in this report as a Masters thesis, perhaps if I were in a good mood I would give him a 'D' for diligence; but more likely I would give him an 'F' for fail.

"There is a whole range of very basic economics mistakes that somebody who claims to be a Professor of Economics simply should not make," he told The Investigation on BBC Radio 4.

At the core of the Stern Review is an economic comparison between the damage caused by climate change with the costs of cutting our greenhouse gases.

Professor Tol believes the figures for damage are exaggerated.

"Stern consistently picks the most pessimistic for every choice that one can make. He overestimates through cherry-picking, he double counts particularly the risks and he underestimates what development and adaptation will do to impacts," he said.

'Credibility gap'

Many economists are also sceptical about the figures Stern uses to estimate the costs of reducing our greenhouse gas emissions.

The review suggests this will cost only 1% of GDP but according to Yale University Economist Robert Mendelsohn, this is far too optimistic and the figure could easily be much higher.

"One of the depressing things about the greenhouse gas problem is that the cost of eliminating [it] is quite high. We will actually have to sacrifice a great deal to cut emissions dramatically," he said.

But it is not just economists who have found fault with the Stern Review; climate scientists have also been critical.

Next week the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will release its fourth report.

It is designed to be the authoritative statement on the state of global warming science. Anyone expecting to see the scary figures of the Stern report repeated is going to be disappointed.

The predictions in the IPCC report will be significantly lower. For instance, the Stern review comes up with a figure for temperature increase by 2050 of 2-3 degrees, whereas the IPCC says this will probably not happen until the end of the century.

Professor Mike Hulme, director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, believes that when the IPCC report comes out next week, there will be a big difference between the science it contains and the climate debate in the UK.

"The IPCC is not going to talk about tipping points; it's not going to talk about 5m rises in sea level; it's not going to talk about the next ice age because the Gulf Stream collapses; and it's going to have none of the economics of the Stern Review," he said.

"It's almost as if a credibility gap has emerged between what the British public thinks and what the international science community think."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6295021.stm

 

[dazzlingamy]

well i don't want to hold developing countries back, but i'd rather they be introduced to solar energy, or hydro cars as their introduction into the technological age, rather then saying 'oh you got a shitload of coal, just burn it and it will give you energy - forget about what its doing to the air'

I don't necessarily agree with the greens on everything, and im not suggesting we go back to the pre elecricity days - i just think instead of shitting on every idea that could help in some way, regardless of if its a big help or not, each step forwards in helpful technology is good for something.

Perhaps i'm an optimist, that likes to think we could change something if we try hard enough - that I don't think somethng has to be broken beyond all recognition before we try to fix it - that i'd rather we try and DO something then sit around and debate and debate and debate till suddenly something happens and its too late

 

[dazzlingamy]

also regardless of what some articles say, the statistics tell us something. Whether its just a natural heatwave/messed up climate change happening, or we using CO (how do i do little 2?) emissions are screwing it up, things are changing. Perhaps we could change things and nothing would change, but the act of sitting back and wafting arguments about costs, and the danger not as imminient as expected and rah rah just doesn't sit easily with me.

btw why are you up so late?

 

[A_Wanderer]

I work nightshifts

Climate changes in time, we have unleashed a lot of CO2 into the atmosphere but the correlations between greenhouse gases and temperatures on Earth are nonlinear by virtue of the innumerable feedback mechanisms (the Gaia hypothesis at work) so if change does happen it may be catastrophically rapid (as most complex systems change from one stable state into another - we go from interglacial icehouse into greenhouse) after we pass a certain threshold.

Want to change the world then you damn well want to get bang for your buck; to do that we need an intimate understanding of how effective our solutions are and how much they will cost. We can't just stop Carbon emissions overnight and the regimes like Kyoto are innefective in staving off climate change.

I like to think I follow in T.C. Chamberlain's footsteps by maintaining multiple working hypothesis; in the case of most weather events we can't just say global warming nuff' said we have to have the evidence to back it up; when you start taking all outliers from the normal as evidence the theory becomes beyond repproach and unfalsifiable; nothing can disprove it (if it's hot then its climate change, if it's cold then it's climate change).

If you work with a line of different possibilities (global warming is an immediate and massive threat to humanity, it is a minor nuasance, it's not happening, it is entirely natural etc.) then you are unlikely to become too dogmatic about it; we can never acheive perfect objectivity but we can get a range of perspectives and that generally beneficial; that is also why I really hate politicans taking this to the ballot box, they demonise dissent as being on par with holoacust denial; if they are so wrong then for goodness sake use evidence and not ad hominem (same goes for the dismissal of all sceptics as pawns of big oil).

 

[Irvine511]

"Condoms don't belong in school, and neither does Al Gore. He's not a schoolteacher," said Frosty Hardison, a parent of seven who also said that he believes the Earth is 14,000 years old. "The information that's being presented is a very cockeyed view of what the truth is. ... The Bible says that in the end times everything will burn up, but that perspective isn't in the DVD."

omfg, that's brilliant.

 

[A_Wanderer]

A rational dispassionate sceptic

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

Panel hears climate 'spin' allegations

By H. JOSEF HEBERT, Associated Press WriterTue Jan 30

Federal scientists have been pressured to play down global warming, advocacy groups testified Tuesday at the Democrats' first investigative hearing since taking control of Congress.

The hearing focused on allegations that the White House for years has micromanaged the government's climate programs and has closely controlled what scientists have been allowed to tell the public.

"It appears there may have been an orchestrated campaign to mislead the public about climate change," said Rep. Henry Waxman (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif. Waxman is chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee and a critic of the Bush administration's environmental policies, including its views on climate.

Climate change also was a leading topic in the Senate, where presidential contenders for 2008 lined up at a hearing called by Sen. Barbara Boxer (news, bio, voting record). They expounded — and at times tried to outdo each other — on why they believed Congress must act to reduce heat-trapping "greenhouse" gases.

"This is a problem whose time has come," Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., proclaimed.

"This is an issue over the years whose time has come," echoed Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record), R-Ariz.

Sen. Barack Obama (news, bio, voting record), D-Ill., said "for decades far too many have ignored the warning" about climate change. "Will we look back at today and say this was the moment we took a stand?"

At the House hearing, two private advocacy groups produced a survey of 279 government climate scientists showing that many of them say they have been subjected to political pressure aimed at downplaying the climate threat. Their complaints ranged from a challenge to using the phrase "global warming" to raising uncertainty on issues on which most scientists basically agree, to keeping scientists from talking to the media.

The survey and separate interviews with scientists "has brought to light numerous ways in which U.S. federal climate science has been filtered, suppressed and manipulated in the last five years," Francesca Grifo, a senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, told the committee.

Grifo's group, along with the Government Accountability Project, which helps whistle-blowers, produced the report.

Drew Shindell, a climate scientist with NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said that climate scientists frequently have been dissuaded from talking to the media about their research, though NASA's restrictions have been eased.

Prior to the change, interview requests of climate scientists frequently were "routed through the White House" and then turned away or delayed, said Shindell. He described how a news release on his study forecasting a significant warming in Antarctica was "repeatedly delayed, altered and watered down" at the insistence of the White House.

Some Republican members of the committee questioned whether science and politics ever can be kept separate.

"I am no climate-change denier," said Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia, the top Republican on the committee, but he questioned whether "the issue of politicizing science has itself become politicized."

"The mere convergence of politics and science does not itself denote interference," said Davis.

Administration officials were not called to testify. In the past the White House has said it has only sought to inject balance into reports on climate change. President Bush has acknowledged concerns about global warming, but he strongly opposes mandatory caps of greenhouse gas emissions, arguing that approach would be too costly.

Roger Pielke Jr., a political scientist at the University of Colorado who was invited by GOP lawmakers, said "the reality is that science and politics are intermixed."

Pielke maintained that "scientific cherry picking" can be found on both sides of the climate debate. He took a swipe at the background memorandum Waxman had distributed and maintained that it exaggerated the scientific consensus over the impact of climate change on hurricanes.

Waxman and Davis agreed the administration had not been forthcoming in providing documents to the committee that would shed additional light on allegations of political interference in climate science.

"We know that the White House possesses documents that contain evidence of an attempt by senior administration officials to mislead the public by injecting doubt into the science of global warming and minimize the potential danger," said Waxman, adding that he is "not trying to obtain state secrets."

At Boxer's Senate hearing, her predecessor as chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, Sen. James Inhofe (news, bio, voting record), R-Okla., had his own view of the science.

There is "no convincing scientific evidence" that human activity is causing global warming, declared Inhofe, who once called global warming a hoax. "We all know the Weather Channel would like to have people afraid all the time."

"I'll put you down as skeptical," replied Boxer.

 

[redhotswami]

There is "no convincing scientific evidence" that human activity is causing global warming, declared Inhofe, who once called global warming a hoax. "We all know the Weather Channel would like to have people afraid all the time."

wow...

 

[Liesje]

I got this film last night, looking forward to watching...

 

[AussieU2fanman]

no one will take me serriaallll!