josebach wrote: It brings awareness I think and issues that are on people's minds get addressed on election day. Not that I'm talking about you, but what I can't stand is when people turn the environment into a partisan issue. I swear my parents don't recycle out of spite and it really pisses me off.
I think the problem is it's already a partisan issue. Somewhere out there is the truth on global warming, but we're not likely to hear it because each side has turned it into a political football.
I've often thought the best opinion on global warming is probably held by some quiet unknown geometeorologist we will never hear of - instead we hear what the blowhards on either side have to say.
My brother has rented this, but I haven't seen it yet. He told me that the movie is just a glorified Power Point presentation, so my interest has waned. I might see it eventually, before he has to return it.
beanoX3 wrote:My brother has rented this, but I haven't seen it yet. He told me that the movie is just a glorified Power Point presentation, so my interest has waned. I might see it eventually, before he has to return it.
Hehe. Well, it is a documentary based on the lectures Al Gore has been giving around the world. There certainly shouldn't be a reason to think there are millions in the production.
By the way, you can read about this without having to watch the DVD (especially if you feel Al Gore is too partisan for your tastes):
How is this site taking over the world!!!!!! My students drive me crazy with this site.
What concerns me with Wikipedia is how many people take what's written on there as the truth. It's a decent starting point for research, but it's certainly not a reliable source. People who think it is concern me.
josebach wrote:Considering there's a long history of climate shifts on this planet, I have a hard time beliving that we can definitively say how much of an impact humans actually have on the climate.
Bingo!
Volcanos, the effects of the Sun, etc. Our effect is minimal, IMHO.
Yo, Met... thanks for the sig! GO DUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
An Inconvenient Truth is a sham. If for nothing else, then that it tries to pass itself off as a movie exposing the truth, when it is in fact propaganda.
For a populace that values not being lied to so much, I find it ironic how many people happily belief the farce that global warming is an indisputable fact. The general acceptance of this is astonishing to anyone who actually looks into the actual data and checks some of the facts about global warming. This movie (not documentary, documentaries at least try to be truthful) only perpetuates this misconception and uses scare tactics to swing people to one side of a highly debated issue that has unfortunately become a political issue before the scientific community finished with it.
For instance, if you go to the movie's website, you will see under a section hysterically labeled "The Science" the quote
The vast majority of scientists agree that global warming is real, it’s already happening and that it is the result of our activities and not a natural occurrence. The evidence is overwhelming and undeniable.
Sounds convincing. There's also a definition of what global warming is:
Carbon dioxide and other gases warm the surface of the planet naturally by trapping solar heat in the atmosphere. This is a good thing because it keeps our planet habitable. However, by burning fossil fuels such as coal, gas and oil and clearing forests we have dramatically increased the amount of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere and temperatures are rising.
Well, here's where you get problems. If you actually look at the scientific data pulled from stations around the world that are measuring CO2 levels for the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (goto http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/trends/co2/contents.htm). The information is not presented in a pretty way, but across the global stations are measuring rates of increasing in CO2 levels, and its extremely consistently between 1.5-1.6 ppmv.
Now, if rising CO2 levels are causing global warming, and they're spreading out pretty much evenly around the globe, by the definition of global warming, the temperature should increase almost uniformly around the globe. Only, it hasn't.
The average yearly temperature in New York City has risen fairly substantially since 1930. Yet in the same period of time Syracuse and Albany (which are pretty close in the global scheme of things) have experienced a decrease in average yearly temperature over that very same time period. (all of this data can be found on the United States Historical Climatology Network's website).
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see the logical problem here, and this is a fundamental flaw with the definition, the supposed cause, of global warming. When introduce other scientific concepts so as the urban-heat-island, the warming experienced by growing cities like NYC and Tokyo makes sense.
Basically, I think its a joke that this movie abuses people's inclination to believe in global warming, as we're taught about it along side proven science like Newton's Laws, to use scare about tactics for political gain, and then willing accept praise for presenting an eye-opening, non-political, exposure of the truth.
Sorry for that being so long, but I have very strong opinion about this, and by all means feel free to criticize or challenge any of the data I presented. I just wish more people actually debated this topic with facts instead of the propaganda they've been force-fed as fact because they don't know any better.
maddog60 wrote:An Inconvenient Truth is a sham. If for nothing else, then that it tries to pass itself off as a movie exposing the truth, when it is in fact propaganda.
For a populace that values not being lied to so much, I find it ironic how many people happily belief the farce that global warming is an indisputable fact. The general acceptance of this is astonishing to anyone who actually looks into the actual data and checks some of the facts about global warming. This movie (not documentary, documentaries at least try to be truthful) only perpetuates this misconception and uses scare tactics to swing people to one side of a highly debated issue that has unfortunately become a political issue before the scientific community finished with it.
For instance, if you go to the movie's website, you will see under a section hysterically labeled "The Science" the quote
The vast majority of scientists agree that global warming is real, it’s already happening and that it is the result of our activities and not a natural occurrence. The evidence is overwhelming and undeniable.
Sounds convincing. There's also a definition of what global warming is:
Carbon dioxide and other gases warm the surface of the planet naturally by trapping solar heat in the atmosphere. This is a good thing because it keeps our planet habitable. However, by burning fossil fuels such as coal, gas and oil and clearing forests we have dramatically increased the amount of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere and temperatures are rising.
Well, here's where you get problems. If you actually look at the scientific data pulled from stations around the world that are measuring CO2 levels for the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (goto http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/trends/co2/contents.htm). The information is not presented in a pretty way, but across the global stations are measuring rates of increasing in CO2 levels, and its extremely consistently between 1.5-1.6 ppmv.
Now, if rising CO2 levels are causing global warming, and they're spreading out pretty much evenly around the globe, by the definition of global warming, the temperature should increase almost uniformly around the globe. Only, it hasn't.
The average yearly temperature in New York City has risen fairly substantially since 1930. Yet in the same period of time Syracuse and Albany (which are pretty close in the global scheme of things) have experienced a decrease in average yearly temperature over that very same time period. (all of this data can be found on the United States Historical Climatology Network's website).
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see the logical problem here, and this is a fundamental flaw with the definition, the supposed cause, of global warming. When introduce other scientific concepts so as the urban-heat-island, the warming experienced by growing cities like NYC and Tokyo makes sense.
Basically, I think its a joke that this movie abuses people's inclination to believe in global warming, as we're taught about it along side proven science like Newton's Laws, to use scare about tactics for political gain, and then willing accept praise for presenting an eye-opening, non-political, exposure of the truth.
Sorry for that being so long, but I have very strong opinion about this, and by all means feel free to criticize or challenge any of the data I presented. I just wish more people actually debated this topic with facts instead of the propaganda they've been force-fed as fact because they don't know any better.
I thought global warming was the rise in average temperature, not the rise in temp in any one city. I was actually unaware that any scientist thought the Earth's average temperature wasn't increasing. I was always under the impression that the global warming debate is about man's influence on global warming, not whether or not it was actually happening. Are you really saying that gloval warming is not occurring? If so, where's your proof? If not, why mention New York City?
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by Goatwhacker » Fri Jan 12, 2007 4:15 pm 
I was actually unaware that any scientist thought the Earth's average temperature wasn't increasing. I was always under the impression that the global warming debate is about man's influence on global warming, not whether or not it was actually happening. Are you really saying that gloval warming is not occurring? If so, where's your proof? If not, why mention New York City?
