10 stars for "An Inconvenient Truth"

[Hopalong]

The movie is simple.
The consequences of ignoring it, or acting on it, could not be more huge.

To me, its message trumps everything.

Please see it if you can.

love to all of us to the seventh generation,

Hops

[Hopalong]

Hi Moon,
You and your dear hubby will feel so much connection to this movie, I think.

It's Al Gore's film of the presentation he's made over 1000 times about global warning.

It is magnificently made by a major director, and truly important.

It is NOT dull. It is moving.

Frightening but inspiring.

xo,
Hops

[mudpuppy]

To me, its message trumps everything.

Get both sides and think for yourself. Hollywood, politicians and Time magazine are notoriously poor places to learn about science.

Here are a few sites that present a somewhat different picture than what is allowed in the mainstream media..

http://www.canadafreepress.com/2006/harris061206.htm

http://www.climateaudit.org/

http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/reg15n2g.html

mud

PS. The comment section at climateaudit is especially enlightening, if pretty technical.

[Hopalong]

Mud,

It would be so meaningful to discuss the film with you after you'd seen it.

Would be SO grateful if you'd consider doing that. Would you?

Hops

[mudpuppy]

Would you?

Sorry, nope.
I would not watch a movie by a politician about an issue like this, even were it done by someone I agreed with. I would consider it akin to watching Godzilla to discuss the effects of South Pacific nuclear testing on marine life. The issues involved are science. There are innumerable sources for scientific views on both sides of this issue. Mr. Gore's movie isn't one of them.

I watch movies to be entertained. Now if Al is wearing a sequined gown and cuttin' himself a piece of rug I might take a look. Otherwise I'll stick to the written word.

mud

[Hopalong]

Okay Mud.

I respectfully disagree, especially about the science.
The scientific consensus is not a conspiracy of liberals.

It all transcends politics by a long shot.

But we can't discuss a movie we haven't both seen.

thanks for responding anyway...

Hops

[WRITE]

It's an excellent movie, Al Gore is a good lecturer and that's how much of it is presented, like a talk; he goes round the world and talks the programme too.

He is clearly passionate about the subject and the contrasting photographs are pretty clear whatever the explanations.

On this topic my ex told me this week that a billion pounds is going to be spent by Ford in Britain developing a highest possible efficiency car.

One of my friends here drives a hybrid, it's good to drive.

[Hopalong]

Thanks, Write.
Gore has been educated and passionate about this subject since he was a college student.

I have my radar on about politicians, and he although he briefly mentions the election, he is doing this as a father (nearly losing his son, and losing his sister, were among the catalysts), and as a public servant.

It may seem impossible to believe that anyone is motivated by anything other than pork or greed these days, but this is an extraordinary service he has done.

I hope with all my heart that everyone possible will see the film.

Hops

[Hopalong]

PS Mud, re.

think for yourself.

Ummm....thanks?

As much as any layperson can. I have read a good deal, and right-wing talk radio, as well as the current administration, have made the denier side quite clear...

So I am grateful for An Inconvenient Truth.

My father was an environmental scientist, I have grown up surrounded by this.

The administration as well as the energy industry have enormou$ motive to dismiss or minimize the warnings. The rest of us, who would like our children to inherit a chance at a habitable planet, don't...

(I don't think you have to be an oncologist to know that cigarettes cause cancer.)

I am not normally compelled to speak this way, urging people to see a movie, etc.

But it's that big.
(I understand you won't, Mud. Still love ya.)

Hops

[WRITE]

Hi Mudpuppy.

What are you worried about watching a movie?

You can still maintain your original position if you don't agree with it. But talk more knowledgeably I am guessing.

I totally agree about not relying on popular news and culture to inform, but An Inconvenient Truth for most relatively educated people is more of a stepping stone.

US news media is about uniformly bad, so anyone who is a news-hound purist here probably reads the BBC anyway....

[Hops]

Bet you were really powered by the moon, Moon...

I worked at a publisher that is at the forefront of sustainable philosophy.
I would give my leg to be able to afford to retrofit our home. Soon...
We do have a good deal of soapstone and passive solar.

All hail hybrids! I'm still stunned at the shortsightedness of the whole SUVs
for townies thing. Ugghh.

Hops

[mudpuppy]

Right wing radio?

Sorry, but if that's where you listen to rebuttals after listening to some other celebrity or politician tell you anthropogenic global warming (AGW) is occurring you're not really hearing much, if any, science.

Here are a few examples:

 You'll hear from proponents of AGW, such as Gore, that the Antarctic and Greenland icesheets and glaciers are melting. Sounds bad right? Sea  levels are going to rise catastrophically, right? Al has scary pictures of calving glaciers, right?
Unfortunately it appears that both interior icesheets are actually growing and there is a net gain of ice in both Greenland and Antarctica.

Or take the Kilimenjaro(sp?) icecap. It is frequently trotted out as proof positive of AGW. But it started receding well over 100 years ago and even most AGW scientists admit it probably is only caused by local factors such as deforestation. But that doesn't matter to popular media or celebrity spokespeople.

The Mann 'hockey stick' temperature graph has undergirded most every model and study (including the IPCC) touting AGW for the last several years. It has now been demonstrated that it was flawed and a statistical artifact, and that has undercut nearly every assumption about AGW that has recently been made. But you won't hear about that in Time magazine or on CNN.

The impact and intricacies of water vapor and carbon sequestration are not known nor even modelled, so the models are useless as forecasts. Even the modellers admit they are not forecasts but merely possible scenarios.
And it is becoming clear that solar forcing has been excluded for the most part from the models and projections for a variety of reasons. This would be like not taking cigarettes into account when studying lung cancer.

One of the sites I linked to mentions the well documented fact that CO2 levels and temeprature have almost no historical correlation. The best case being the one cited in the article when CO2 was about ten times what it is now and temperatures were the coldest for hundreds of millions of years.

******************************************

I also find troubling the insinuation that those who are skeptical of AGW are motivated by greed and are not open minded while those who promote it are merely altruistic. The fact is AGW is a cottage industry. Scientists who are skeptical have a more difficult time being funded relative to those who advocate AGW. Environmental orgnizations raise millions upon millions with cataclysmic mailings, but that couldn't possibly be because they like money or power. And unfortunately there is a great deal of politics and ideology involved as well. No doubt there are base motives on both sides as there are on every issue, but it is on both sides.

This is not something where you can listen to a couple of people, do a little light reading and possibly understand it. I don't understand a great deal of it and I've spent a lot of time reading about it. The scientists themselves don't understand it and the honest ones admit as much.

Here's my best guess of what will turn out to be true. We had a period known as the  Medievel warm period followed by a period known as the little ice age which we emerged from about 150 years ago, prior to any significant CO2 increase. The climate has slowly been warming since then. The emerging evidence points to solar fluctuations as overwhelmingly the dominant factor in climate variablilty. It is very poorly understood and only at the very rudimentary phase of being integrated into the overall climate science. When it is, I suspect the AGW 'consensus' will have gone the way of the 'ice age is coming' consensus of thirty five years ago.
More importantly, the 'just do something, even if we don't fully understand it' theory is bunk. We banned DDT decades ago based on a few studies which were contradicted by many others. But whether DDT is harmful to wildlife or not is not the point. The consequences of banning DDT has been the resurgence of malaria in SE asia and Africa. Close to a million people, most of them children, die every year because of the ban on DDT. The 'just do something' mentality never seems to think there is a cost to just doing something. There is and its often a pretty high one and its usually the poorest of the poor who are hit the hardest. That is who will be clobbered by just doing something about AGW, which may not even exist.
It may turn out that AGW does exist. I am open to any science which can strongly make that case. That science does not yet exist. The solutions advocated by Gore etal would cause gigantic economic dislocations which would have terrible consequences for everyone, but the poorest countries most of all. It doesn't seem too much to ask for science to actually answer a few basic questions before we start sacrificing people on the altar of another supposed 'crisis'.

mud

BTW, I have read and listened to Al Gore on a variety of environmental issues. He's a propagandist not a balanced teacher.
I no more expect to be enlightened by 'An Inconvenient Truth' than I do 'Triumph of the Will'. I'm not equating him with a Nazi, but propaganda is propaganda and science is science and ne'er the twain shall meet.

[Certain Hope]

Bravo, Mr. Pup !!

Hope

[Hops]

It saddens me that some people work so HARD to discount global warming,
when whether or not it's simply a question of degree, surely anyone with
common sense can see that we are polluting the planet into oblivion?
Just as cigarettes can take life away from a person who stays in denial
until it's too late, it is sensible to me that multiple attacks on the fragile
ecophere of this planet have a similar cumulative effect...and tragically
for all of humankind, as with many smokers, IT IS POSSIBLE TO WAIT
UNTIL IT'S TOO LATE.

The earth is not invincible. It is a living organism that can only absorb what
it can absorb.

If global warming, like the existence of deity, weren't provable except by a leap
of faith (plus any human's intuition and right of observation, not only scientists')...
I have that faith, unfortunately.

Even if a citizen felt that s/he had to make an incompletely-informed guess, I hope
most won't gamble any longer on the side of ripping everything from the earth that can
be profited from. Or even when profit is not the motive, resistance to accountability or changing comfortable habits (recycling diligently, giving up gas guzzlers, investing in alternative energy...).

The window is narrow and I don't believe the majority of scientists who acknowledge the reality
of GW are Chicken Littles. The majority of sober scientists are in clear consensus, despite some
different interpretations, and the mainstream media sometimes does tell us the facts. I don't feel like blaming a conspiracy of media, of liberal politicians, or anything else. I believe the planetary
environmental crisis is actually what metaphorically passes for original sin. I believe the issue is also whether we can see it as a moral imperative. Do we have dominion over this precious planet, to exploit without regard to its survival,or do we have stewardship?

There's an interdependent web of existence that is sacred. I've got a long way to go in
reducing my own carbon footprint, however. Surely, my hot air is not contributing.  

So I'll quit, except to say that this isn't right: "Let the grandchildren clean it up."

I hope people will be curious, keep their minds open and see the film for themselves.
Would be great to have more views.

Hops

[Portia]

Dear Hops

I do things like recycle like a maniac. Nothing plastic, tin, aluminium, paper or glass goes in the bin.

But then I hear that our recycled plastic is sent to...................

CHINA 

for recycling. What a joke.

I'm aware of how much I drive and I feel guilty using an aircraft.

Someone close to me has become a grandparent recently. I asked them how they felt and they said they were worried: what kind of future will this child have?

Lots of people care Hops, lots of people are working on getting the momentum going to change certain things. Me, I can't be optimistic for the fate of our species, as it exists right now. I hope we evolve pretty quickly. It's possible! We can do our best, each one of us, we can inform ourselves and keep our minds open - but that doesn't make certain things possible.  I think mentally we're an unstable creature, truly I do, our big brains let us down. We need smaller brains!