Global Warming

[bored]

For a long time I kind of thought this was all just some hype but after watching this trailer for Al Gore's Documentary I think I need to reconsider.

The images of glaciers that are now gone in just 10 years are pretty amazing.

I have no idea if this can be stopped but I'm interested in finding out more about what people think we can do.

I'm guessing the only thing we can really do is shut off all the electricity and all the combustion engines.

I wonder if this isn't a "natural" cycle. The earth has gone through many changes in its lifetime. I wouldn't worry about the planet. The planet will be fine. No matter what we do to it, it will still revolve around the sun once a year. It will spin on its axis once a day. I recommend buying land in Iowa. It could be beach front property someday.

[Oh my god, it's Robby!]

real
Al Gore is not

[bored]

I admit, I had a hard time getting into the Al Gore aspect of it but the content seems relevant.

I did read that he has done over 1000 presentations of this "slide show" that has become the documentary. I guess that's all he's been doing for the past 6 years. I'll give him credit for that. He's done a lot more than I did. Although, I did see a World Series game, a bunch of Morrissey concerts and even ate with chopsticks because the place I was in didn't have forks.

[WhyteGrrrl]

That actually made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

I honestly dont know why Al Gore is 'knocked' He sure as hell would have been much better than the guy we have now!

[bored]

That actually made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

I honestly dont know why Al Gore is 'knocked' He sure as hell would have been much better than the guy we have now!

He would be. He was just such a stiff.

Did you see the SNL skit he opened the show with?

scroll way down to see the video of what life would be like if Gore was president

[WhyteGrrrl]

He would be. He was just such a stiff.

Did you see the SNL skit he opened the show with?

scroll way down to see the video of what life would be like if Gore was president

I expect some stiffness with presidential types... but I thought that clip was brilliant. I hope that doesnt make me stiff!

[Dave]

Global Warming shouldn't be a political issue. Nobody is in favor of it as far as I know. I wouldn't get my science information from politicians though.

good place to start

[Theo]

He would be. He was just such a stiff.

What an earth would make anyone believe Gore would've been a better president in the wake of 9/11? He's gone absolutely bonkers in the years since. I sure wouldn't want a mentally unstable man in charge. And any of you partisan Democrats should count your lucky stars that Gore was not president on 9/11, because if he had been it would've been the end of that party for the foreseeable future, perhaps forever. As it happened, both parties had to share the various breakdowns and flaws in intel that made the enemy able to pull off that atrocity, instead of having everything pinned on one party and Clinton/Gore.

[Theo]

I have no idea if this can be stopped but I'm interested in finding out more about what people think we can do.

I'm guessing the only thing we can really do is shut off all the electricity and all the combustion engines.

I wonder if this isn't a "natural" cycle. The earth has gone through many changes in its lifetime. I wouldn't worry about the planet. The planet will be fine. No matter what we do to it, it will still revolve around the sun once a year. It will spin on its axis once a day. I recommend buying land in Iowa. It could be beach front property someday.

I think global warming is real but also way hyped. I've seen quotes from scientists where they even admit they offer up the scariest scenerios possible in order to capture the public's imagination, because they want people to focus more on it.

It's bad to lie to people, but it's probably good that we focus on global warming more. But then I see what sort of "solutions" they come up with. Take Kyoto. This wasn't a solution, it was a crock. At best they claimed it could only slow down global warming by a mere 5 years, which is meaningless. Put that with the hundreds a BILLIONS of dollars PER YEAR in cost, it not only would do nothing about global warming, the damaging effect on economic development would make it harder to solve problems in our world, not just global warming but the many, many other problems we're faced with. Solutions come from economic and technological development, not ridiculously costly and inefficiant bad ideas from governments. I think humans can figure shit out and solve problems where possible - and make life better for us in the future - if we don't stifle progress. That certainly has been true in history.

[Please]

Theo what sort of scientific calibre do you have to claimj it is over hyped?

[Theo]

I hope I was clear that I believe it's a legit concern that we should give attention to, and we should take some reasonable steps. I simply don't think we should be scared out of our minds. There are some obvious things we could do. There's no CO2 emissions from nuclear power, for example. And we still have to learn more about global warming, and whether it's really humans that are the primary cause instead of natural cycles bigger than us.

Did you know that NASA's Mars Global Surveyor has found evidence of global warming on Mars? "For three Mars summers in a row, deposits of frozen carbon dioxide near Mars' south pole have shrunk from the previous year's size, suggesting a climate change in progress."*

I think it's over-hyped because I see the mass-media pushing doom-and-gloom scenerios such as that recent, ridiculous film The Day After Tomorrow, which Al Gore urged all Americans to see and take seriously. If he's on board with that kind of Hollywood fiction being used to manipulate, I don't trust him. I put him with comments by some prominent environmental scientists, such as Prof. Stephen Schneider, who once told Discover Magazine:

”....We need to get some broadbased support, to capture the public´s imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have… Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.”

See, they admit it!

I also think Al Gore hypes things because he was the fucking Vice President under Bill Clinton for 8 years and his administration never tried to ratify and implement Kyoto or do much of anything else with any kind of urgency that would suggest they truly thought human society would soon be doomed.

It was classic Clinton, too worried about his poll ratings to grow a nutsack and tell the truth about Kyoto - that it was being pushed primarily by people who'd love nothing more than to see the U.S. economy sabotaged, plus some politicians who wanted to read praises about themselves in the press - and instead danced around trying to look good without actually doing anything but kicking the can to someone else. Before Bush was in office, Clinton/Gore ignored Kyoto and the U.S. Senate rejected it. Bush gets all the heat for simply stating the inevitable truth about Kyoto (that it was never gonna fly), and now a sweaty, screaming Al Gore rants and raves at him. Last month I noticed Canada has abandoned Kyoto. No surprise.

I've no objection to taking steps to lower greenhouse emissions. I merely think blowhards on TV, like Bill Maher, should stop trying to whip everyone into a frenzy, we should learn more about global warming and what is causing it, and take measures that are realistic and sensible.

And they don't mention many doubts, do they? Imagine my surprise when I read that the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia found that "for the years 1998-2005 global average temperature did not increase (there was actually a slight decrease, though not at a rate that differs significantly from zero)." That article claims there was also global cooling "between 1940 and 1965, at precisely the time that human emissions were increasing at their greatest rate." *

I don't know who to believe, except I'm naturally skeptical of those telling me that our whole planet and our grandchildren are fucked by coming catastrophes of a Biblical scale. And I know Gore is full of shit because I can compare his actions as VP with his words as someone aspiring to run for office again. Thus he needs to suck up to various special interest groups, who of course love when a politican goes along with their hyping of a problem because it'll mean more money for them.