Man made global warming is real.

Started by Diomedes, January 23, 2007, 11:37:52 AM

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Geowhizzer

More of Dr. Marster's review of An Inconvenient Truth:

QuoteThe science of An Inconvenient Truth
The science presented is mostly good, and at times compelling, but there are a few errors and one major distortion of the truth. Gore does an excellent job focusing on the most important issues, and usually presents them with a minimum of hype and distortion. The only exception to this comes in his treatment of global warming and extreme weather events such as hurricanes.

Basic global warming science
Gore begins the science part of his talk with a very easy to understand presentation on the basics of how the greenhouse effect works. His speech is clear, the graphics top notch, and he spices it up with a hilarious two-minute cartoon depicting roughneck global warming gases preventing poor Mr. Sunbeam from escaping Earth's atmosphere. Gore addresses the argument of skeptics who claim that the Earth is too big for humans to affect by showing Space Shuttle photos of how thin the atmosphere really is compared to the vast bulk of our planet. "The problem we now face is that this thin layer of atmosphere is being thickened by huge quantities of carbon dioxide," he asserts, which is not correct. The build-up of CO2 has virtually no effect on the density or thickness of Earth's atmosphere. The correct thing to say would have been, "The problem we now face is that this thin layer of atmosphere is being made more opaque to the transmission of infrared radiation (heat) by huge quantities of carbon dioxide."

Glaciers
Gore shows an impressive series of "then and now" images documenting the widespread retreat of many glaciers over the past century. Most dramatically, he shows Kenya's Mt. Kilimanjaro, whose 11,000 year-old glaciers are almost gone. While not all the world's glaciers have retreated in the past century, Gore's presentation is an effective and reasonable way to show how global warming has affected the majority of the world's glaciers. Greenhouse skeptics, including Michael Crichton in his State of Fear book, are fond of bashing those who use Mt. Kilimanjaro as a poster child for demonstrating global warming. They cite scientific research showing that the glacial retreat on Mt. Kilimanjaro is due to drying of the atmosphere, not global warming. However, as discussed at great length in a realclimate.org post, the research which supposedly supports the skeptics' claims has been widely misquoted and misinterpreted, and much of Kilimanjaro's melting can indeed be ascribed to warming of the atmosphere since 1960.

Gore does an excellent job discussing the ice caps of Greenland and Antarctica. Again, Gore's graphics are superb, and he does a nice job narrating. He shows animations of what a 20-foot rise in sea level would do to Manhattan, Florida, India, and China. A 20-foot sea level rise is what we expect if all of Greenland or all of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet were to melt. Such a 20-foot rise is not expected by 2100, and it would have been appropriate for Gore to acknowledge that the consensus of climate scientists--as published in the most recent report by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)--is that sea level is likely to rise between 4 and 35 inches, with a central value of 19 inches, by 2100. He should have also mentioned that temperatures in Greenland in the 1930s were about as warm as today's temperatures, so the current melting of Greenland's glaciers does have historical precedent. Nevertheless, the risk of a catastrophic melting and break-up of the Greenland or West Antarctic ice sheets is very real, when we consider that sea level before the most recent ice age was 15 feet higher than it is now. Gore is right to draw attention to what might happen if sea level rose 20 feet.

Drought and heat waves
An excellent discussion of the most serious climate change issue our generation is likely to face, the threat of increased drought and reduced water supplies, is presented. Gore makes reference to the extreme heat wave that affected Europe during the summer of 2004, and I was glad to see that he didn't blame the heat wave on global warming--he merely said that more events of this nature will be likely in the future.

Hurricanes and severe weather
The biggest failure in the movie's presentation of science comes in the discussion hurricanes and severe weather events. The devastation wrought by Katrina is used to very dramatic effect to warn of the dangers climate change presents. We are told that Katrina grew "stronger and stronger and stronger" as it passed over the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico that were heated up by global warming. We are told that global warming is increasing the intensity of hurricanes, but not provided information on the great amount of uncertainty and vigorous scientific debate on this issue. Graphs showing recent record insurance losses from natural disasters are presented, but no mention is made of how increasing population and insistence on building in vulnerable areas are the predominant factors causing recent high insurance claims from disasters such as Katrina. Gore points to some unprecedented events in 2004 as evidence of increasing severe weather events worldwide--the record 10 typhoons in Japan, the most tornadoes ever in the U.S., and the appearance of Brazil's first hurricane ever. However, examples of this kind are meaningless. No single weather event, or unconnected series of severe weather events such as Gore presents, are indicative of climate change. In particular, the IPCC has not found any evidence that climate change has increased tornado frequency, or is likely to. Gore doesn't mention the unusually quiet tornado season of 2005, when for the first time ever, no tornadoes were reported in Oklahoma in the month of May.

Other science
Gore presents many other important aspects of climate change, including the threat of abrupt climate change leading to a shut-off of the Gulf Stream current, the increase in damaging insect infestations and tropical diseases, loss of coral reefs, loss of ice in the polar ice cap, and melting of permafrost in the Arctic. With the possible exception of his treatment of the spread of tropical diseases, all of these issues were presented with sound science.

An Inconvenient Truth as a campaign ad
Gore has repeatedly said that he has no intention of running for president again, and that this movie was created as part of his life-long passion to protect the environment. Gore undoubtedly does care very deeply about the planet, but this movie very much looks like a campaign ad. We are shown many scenes of Gore being applauded, Gore traveling the globe to present his slide show, and Gore working to uncover evidence of Republican shenanigans to alter or suppress climate change science. Gore is portrayed as a humble and tireless crusader for good, and if the movie is not intended to promote his political ambitions, it is certainly intended to benefit the Democratic Party. All this gets in the way of the movie's central message.

Conclusion
At the end of the movie, we are presented with the same image that Gore started the movie with, that of a beautiful river in the wilderness. Throughout the movie, Gore emphasizes how beautiful and special our planet is, and he does an effective job conveying this. He also makes a powerful case that something can and should be done to protect the planet, and it is worth hearing his message, even if the science is flawed and the messenger does get in the way of the message. Overall, the movie rates 2.5 stars--worth seeing, but you might want to wait until the DVD comes out.

At the end of the movie, Gore presents some tips on how everyone can contribute, and points people to his web site, www.climatecrisis.net. However, I would recommend that people who want to get educated about climate change get their information from web sites not associated with a politician; perhaps the least politicized source of information is the latest scientific summary of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change(IPCC), a group of over 2000 scientists from 100 countries working under a mandate from the United Nations in the largest peer-reviewed scientific collaboration in history.

Jeff Masters

Susquehanna Birder

Interesting perspective. Thanks for posting it.

Diomedes

Masters didn't call anyone an icehole, so he's obviously just picking a fight.
There is considerable overlap between the intelligence of the smartest bears and the dumbest tourists." - Yosemite Park Ranger

PoopyfaceMcGee

Quote from: Diomedes on January 26, 2007, 08:53:49 AM
Masters didn't call anyone an icehole, so he's obviously just picking a fight.

Wrong, icehole.  FIGHT ME NOW!

SD_Eagle5

Just finished 'An Inconvenient Truth'. Was pretty much what I expected. An eye opener that shouldn't be ingnored. As for the above article saying it acts like a Gore campaign ad I agree. But that doesn't really bother me since I voted for him in 2000 and would gladly vote for him again.
Quote from: Diomedes on January 25, 2007, 10:02:39 PM
The only real complaint anyone could lodge against that movie is the occasional jab Gore takes at the Chimp and his clan of corporate whores.

The backhanded slaps at Reagan, Bush Sr., and the current Whitehouse administration I felt were necessary. 

mussa

Exactly, these fargin pricks would rather rake in the dough and let the oil craze keep going til all hell breaks lose.  They'd rather keep you frightened of terrorists, so we could go after them in OIL RICH COUNTRIES.  Don't get me wrong, we need to take the fight to the enemy, but Iraq is a fargin joke. 
Official Sponsor of The Fire Andy Reid Club
"We be plundering the High Sequence Seas For the hidden Treasures of Conservation"

SD_Eagle5

The one area I think Gore could have expanded on was giving solutions - even small ones. He leaves it up to the viewer to research climatecrisis.net, which I think is a mistake, considering most people are too lazy to do so.

Diomedes

What about all the little blurbs at the end?  Turn off your lights when you aren't using them.  Carpool.  Buy a hybrid car.  Or a high mileage car.  Don't let the water run.  Unplug things that draw electricity for "standby" mode.  Etc.

If a hundred million Americans made small changes like that, the affect would be massive.
There is considerable overlap between the intelligence of the smartest bears and the dumbest tourists." - Yosemite Park Ranger

methdeez

Quote from: Event Horizon on January 25, 2007, 08:56:55 PM
Quote from: rjs246 on January 25, 2007, 08:50:07 PM
200 years of those things, spread across the entire planet would be more than enough to warm the globe. But I'm sure that the slow process of heating up since the ice age just magically became more rapid over the past 200 years. Jesus is magic!

Not magic. Physics. That might appear as magic to the unwashed but that's why I'm here.
Wait, are you calling someone out for confusing science and magic?
Can we go over the dinosaurs being proof of jesus's existence again? I havn't laughed out loud yet this morning.

PoopyfaceMcGee

Every light in my house is on, and every faucet is running.

Event Horizon

Quote from: ice grillin you on January 25, 2007, 09:11:23 PM
There's evidence that the globe has and will warm as we move away from the ice age

since no humans have ever lived thru or away from an ice age where does this evidence that you speak of come from

not saying it doesnt exist but could you provide a link

QuoteWhat they found was that a catastrophic collapse of an Antarctic ice sheet dumped roughly one million cubic liters per second of freshwater into the southern oceans and caused a great water current that dramatically influenced climate.

By transporting warmer water to Europe and the North Atlantic, the region's climate was significantly heated, leading to a 1,000-year-long climatic shift known as the Bølling-Allerød warm interval. Once the process of warming the North started, the main deglaciation began and the ice age ended.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/03/0317_030317_iceshelf.html


mussa

Quote from: SD_Eagle on January 26, 2007, 11:27:38 AM
The one area I think Gore could have expanded on was giving solutions - even small ones. He leaves it up to the viewer to research climatecrisis.net, which I think is a mistake, considering most people are too lazy to do so.

My girl was bitching about that all during the movie.  "Well whats the fargin solution then Gore!"The thing is, we do know of things to do, go to that website and it gives you tips. Big changes can be made, but they need to be made in congress and with big business. The big guys need to make it a priority and the political slugs need to make it law. The sad thing is I have no faith in our politicians into getting this done anytime soon. So therefore we the people need to make changes, and also press the issue in anyway we can.  Look even if Gore is wrong on some things, going green will help us out in so many ways.  You can't deny the fact that pollution and waste is effecting the worlds overall well being, thats pretty much common sense.
Official Sponsor of The Fire Andy Reid Club
"We be plundering the High Sequence Seas For the hidden Treasures of Conservation"

methdeez

Quote from: Event Horizon on January 26, 2007, 11:39:47 AM
Quote from: ice grillin you on January 25, 2007, 09:11:23 PM
There's evidence that the globe has and will warm as we move away from the ice age

since no humans have ever lived thru or away from an ice age where does this evidence that you speak of come from

not saying it doesnt exist but could you provide a link

QuoteI am a douchebag who thinks that jesus played house with dinosaurs. I am so vehement about this argument becuase I don't want to admit to myself that my actions may be having a negative effect on the planet





Diomedes

I love how people who are otherwise hateful towards government all of a sudden cry "government needs to do something" when they face a subject that might require taking a little personal responsibility for their actions.  It's time to consume less, smarter, more deliberately.

For sure, government can and should be doing a lot more.  It could be a lot easier, for instance, for me to recycle my old computer.  I'm moving.  I called NYC and asked them what to do with this thing.  It's hazardous.  They said, put it on the curb.  We don't recycle.  I searched around...the best option is to pay to have it recycled.  Like $75 bucks with shipping.  farg that.

Despite the occasional sound byte on TV, don't for a second think that Big Business is gonna do shtein about this.  They'll do so only when government makes them do it, and then they'll cheat. 

There is considerable overlap between the intelligence of the smartest bears and the dumbest tourists." - Yosemite Park Ranger

Wingspan

I just replaced every bulb in my house with construction flood lights, 500 watts each.

You can see my house from space.
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