Truth Is Inconvenient (Global Warming)

[Hogeye]

Here's a critique of Gore's global warming alarmist flick:

Truth Is Inconvenient

[Dardedar]

Went to see "An Inconvenient Truth" tonight.

The movie kicked my ass. Highly, highly, (that's two highlys and I mark hard) recommended.

Rottentomatoes.com is a site that gives a summary of all mainstream reviews. A good movie will typically be in the 80's or up. Crap will be in the 10's or 20's. Good to see this one getting 91%. You can read a summary of the reviews here:

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/inconve ... ic=columns

I haven't looked at the Lew Rockwell article posted above because the man has zero crediblity with me and I haven't had time. Now that I have seen the movie, perhaps I will find the time to check it out and give it a good roast if necessary.

Okay, I took a little peak. It's very short and much worse, much more shallow than I expected. Nothing even really to roast. If you are impressed with this as some kind of rebuttal, you truly are hopeless.

I will paste here my four favorite sentences, for humor value:

"The planet may be getting hotter, it may be getting colder."

"The Inconvenient Truth is that Al Gore has assembled a team of statist academicians to promulgate his theme."

"This movie is a just another shameless, self-promoting, dishonest and mendacious attempt at securing more taxpayers dollars which at best will squander billions on science without results (think star wars) or possibly a cruel lie that will lead to the death of millions through environmental mismanagement at its worst. Now that is an Inconvenient Truth."


I encourage people to read the article. It's really nothing short of amazing.

Then see the movie (or the other way around).

Page for the movie:

http://www.climatecrisis.net/

D.

[Doug]

Rottentomatoes.com is a site that gives a summary of all mainstream reviews. A good movie will typically be in the 80's or up. Crap will be in the 10's or 20's. Good to see this one getting 91%.

DOUG
Last time I looked it had jumped up to 94%.

I just saw the movie and it was great. It is Al Gore talking about a scientific and moral issue, but it's not a boring film. Gore makes a solid case, especially in showing that NO scientific papers published in peer-reviewed scientific journals disagree with the conclusion that human activity is causing global warming.

However, 53% of articles in the popular press disagree with that conclusion. This mistaken idea in the public's opinion, that there is a scientific debate about whether global warming is real, and that the jury is still out on this question, is the result of a disinformation campaign by the oil companies, with the assistance of the current Bush administration.

Go see the movie, folks. It will change the way you interact with your planet.

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

I've requested the book at the library - movies give me a headache. It won't be as much "fun" since they threw in personal "vignettes" to make it more than just a video slide show, but it will update the information from "Earth in the Balance" which I read some 10 or so years ago. However, neither book nor movie will change the way I interact with my planet, since I'm already doing whatever I can afford to reduce my impact. (As are many others around here - Hurrah for Darrel's electric scooters!) I'd love to get solar panels to reduce my carbon impact more than "reduce, reuse, recycle" - in that order, but I can't afford it. We don't have the option of "green" power here - and at the moment I can't afford "green tags" in addition to my electric bill. It shows how sick our society is that sustainable is more expensive - be it energy, food, water - you name it.

[JB]

This is my first post, but I'll go ahead and throw my two cents in here. I haven't seen the movie, and I probably won't until it at least hits video, but I have a couple of points to make.

1. Gore is a politician, not a scientist. We all know that politicians have agendas. Not that some scientists don't have agendas, but there's certainly no comparison.

2. There is no debate as to whether global warming exists or not. The only debate is as to what is causing it. Is it a natural phenomenon, or do humans have an impact?

3. Climatology is a VERY complicated topic. I can't have a discussion about this with anyone who doesn't have a technical mindset without their eyes glazing over after 30 seconds. My guess is that there's a ton of "hollywood" involved here, and not much real science.

Now, on to the real topic at hand. I don't know whether humans contribute to global warming or not, and honestly, I don't think anyone really does. In basically every case where scientists are trying to prove that global warming is caused by humans, there are some assumptions involved. Assumptions in science are common; it's what allows you to formulate a hypothesis in the first place. However, given how many variables there are in the climate, even assumptions made with a high degree of certainty cause problems because of their sheer number.

Knowing that your assumption is certain to, say, 95% is a good thing. When you have 10 variables to deal with, knowing each of them to a certainty of 95% can result in something like this:

.95x.95x.95x.95x.95x.95x.95x.95x.95x.95=.599

So, if I have 10 variables that I know with a certainty of 95%, and each of those variables is dependent on each other, my final result can have a certainty of only 60%!!!

Such is the field of climatology. Yes, we have robust computer models than can predict the climate, but honestly, how accurate are they? We can't predict local weather 5 days in advance with any reliable certainty, what makes people think we can predict the global climate 50 or 100 years in the future?

Gore makes a solid case, especially in showing that NO scientific papers published in peer-reviewed scientific journals disagree with the conclusion that human activity is causing global warming.

Variability in our climate (warming and cooling trends) has been documented by hundreds of scientific papers over the years. It is up to someone to disprove that, not the other way around. If you believe humans have contributed to global warming, you have to prove that; you don't ask those on the other side of the fence to prove you wrong. So far, the portions of the scientific community that are in the camp that humans have contributed haven't done that, IMO.

It takes a LOT to impact this planet. As an example, I did some calculations a year ago about our evergy usage. I thought that probably all of our energy use (which eventually gets turned into heat) could possibly contribute to global warming. I easily collected data on every energy source in use worldwide, as assumed all of it was heat that got dumped to the atmosphere. You know what? It was insignificant to the amount of energy delivered by the sun, and that was hard to believe. I'm not saying that has any bearing whatsoever on our greenhouse gas emissions, I just use it as an example to illustrate how insignificant we may be.

Hurrah for Darrel's electric scooters

Why is there this notion that electric vehicles are good for our environment? That's really another topic, but it strikes me as odd that someone in a group like this would think that.....

[Savonarola]

This is my first post, but I'll go ahead and throw my two cents in here.

Welcome aboard, JB!

Throwing in your two cents is the entire point here at FFForums, so feel free to toss them anywhere you'd like.

--Sav, FFForums Mod@Large

[Doug]

This is my first post, but I'll go ahead and throw my two cents in here. I haven't seen the movie, and I probably won't until it at least hits video, but I have a couple of points to make.

1. Gore is a politician, not a scientist. We all know that politicians have agendas. Not that some scientists don't have agendas, but there's certainly no comparison.

DOUG
Thanks for posting, JB!

a. You're right that Gore is not a scientist. However, Gore has taken science classes relevant to this issue, and he has spent decades making himself informed of the relevant facts regarding global warming. This is explained in the movie. He knows way more about this issue than anyone in Bush's White House. (That's also in the movie, and it should make everyone angry.)
b. Gore reports what scientists are unanimous about. One doesn't have to be a scientist to do that.
c. Criticizing the messenger instead of the messenger's argument does not impugn the argument.

2. There is no debate as to whether global warming exists or not. The only debate is as to what is causing it. Is it a natural phenomenon, or do humans have an impact?

DOUG
The jury is in. Humans are having a major impact. There is no more guesswork invovled.

3. Climatology is a VERY complicated topic. I can't have a discussion about this with anyone who doesn't have a technical mindset without their eyes glazing over after 30 seconds. My guess is that there's a ton of "hollywood" involved here, and not much real science.

DOUG
Yes, there is some Hollywood stuff, but most of it is the solid science and pictures of the evidence.

Now, on to the real topic at hand. I don't know whether humans contribute to global warming or not, and honestly, I don't think anyone really does.

DOUG
We do know. Humans ARE contributing, big time.

In basically every case where scientists are trying to prove that global warming is caused by humans, there are some assumptions involved. Assumptions in science are common; it's what allows you to formulate a hypothesis in the first place. However, given how many variables there are in the climate, even assumptions made with a high degree of certainty cause problems because of their sheer number.

DOUG
See the movie. Look at the evidence. It is true that science has assumptions in ANY issue it looks at. The assumptions are warranted in the case of global warming. The jury is in. Scientists are unanimous with regard to whether humans are causing global warming.

Knowing that your assumption is certain to, say, 95% is a good thing. When you have 10 variables to deal with, knowing each of them to a certainty of 95% can result in something like this:

.95x.95x.95x.95x.95x.95x.95x.95x.95x.95=.599

So, if I have 10 variables that I know with a certainty of 95%, and each of those variables is dependent on each other, my final result can have a certainty of only 60%!!!

DOUG
These are just general observations about the scientific inquiry in general. Look at the specifics in the arguments and perhaps you will see how the assumptions are kept to a minimum, and that they are warranted.

Such is the field of climatology. Yes, we have robust computer models than can predict the climate, but honestly, how accurate are they? We can't predict local weather 5 days in advance with any reliable certainty, what makes people think we can predict the global climate 50 or 100 years in the future?

DOUG
We know the process of how global warming works, how CO2 interacts with the sun in the atmosphere. We can also look at ice cores and see how we have never had this much CO2 in the atmosphere. So it does not take a leap of logic to know what the result is going to be.

Gore makes a solid case, especially in showing that NO scientific papers published in peer-reviewed scientific journals disagree with the conclusion that human activity is causing global warming.

Variability in our climate (warming and cooling trends) has been documented by hundreds of scientific papers over the years. It is up to someone to disprove that, not the other way around. If you believe humans have contributed to global warming, you have to prove that; you don't ask those on the other side of the fence to prove you wrong. So far, the portions of the scientific community that are in the camp that humans have contributed haven't done that, IMO.

DOUG
It has been proven now that humans contribute to global warming. There is no debate among scientists. It is only a huge disinformation campaign from the oil companies and the lying Bush administration that keeps the unanimity among scientists hidden from the American public.

It takes a LOT to impact this planet. As an example, I did some calculations a year ago about our evergy usage. I thought that probably all of our energy use (which eventually gets turned into heat) could possibly contribute to global warming. I easily collected data on every energy source in use worldwide, as assumed all of it was heat that got dumped to the atmosphere. You know what? It was insignificant to the amount of energy delivered by the sun, and that was hard to believe. I'm not saying that has any bearing whatsoever on our greenhouse gas emissions, I just use it as an example to illustrate how insignificant we may be.

DOUG
Gore addresses this in the movie. But it is the heat from the sun that is being used in global warming, not heat generated from human beings. What humans are doing is dumping CO2 in the atmosphere, and this TRAPS some of the solar energy from the sun and keeps it in our atmosphere.

Hurrah for Darrel's electric scooters

Why is there this notion that electric vehicles are good for our environment? That's really another topic, but it strikes me as odd that someone in a group like this would think that.....

DOUG
Electric vehicles do not emit greenhouse gases. And if the energy to charge the battery is from solar or renewable energy, the generation of greenhouse gases is nonexistent. That is a good thing.

[JB]

Scientists are unanimous with regard to whether humans are causing global warming.

No, that's FAR, FAR from the truth. There's political jockeying on both sides. The republicans are going to ignore any evidence for humans being involved, and the democrats are going to do the opposite. Politics aside, MANY scientists don't think humans are involved, and many more just don't know. But, those guys don't make the news.

We can also look at ice cores and see how we have never had this much CO2 in the atmosphere. So it does not take a leap of logic to know what the result is going to be.

Correlating CO2 levels with a warming trend without proper evidence is called "correlation without causation", and it's one of the major tenets of science that is being broken in some of the global warming research. We know that the earth has had warming trends WITHOUT these high levels of CO2, so what's to say that emissions of greenhouse gases are the cause?

It has been proven now that humans contribute to global warming. There is no debate among scientists. It is only a huge disinformation campaign from the oil companies and the lying Bush administration that keeps the unanimity among scientists hidden from the American public.

There is still PLENTY of debate on this topic. The media has a very keen way of distorting some of the facts, so you have to be very keen on what you listen to. And there may be some "oil company conspiracy", but cars are certainly not the only sources of CO2 emissions.

Electric vehicles do not emit greenhouse gases. And if the energy to charge the battery is from solar or renewable energy, the generation of greenhouse gases is nonexistent. That is a good thing.

Almost NONE of our electricity comes from renewable or "green" sources, and most of it comes from sources that pollute far worse than cars do. If we all switched to electric vehicles tomorrow, we'd actually INCREASE our impact on the environment through emissions.

[Doug]

Scientists are unanimous with regard to whether humans are causing global warming.

No, that's FAR, FAR from the truth. There's political jockeying on both sides. The republicans are going to ignore any evidence for humans being involved, and the democrats are going to do the opposite. Politics aside, MANY scientists don't think humans are involved, and many more just don't know. But, those guys don't make the news.

DOUG
No, you are incorrect on this. In a survey of 925 recent articles in peer-review scientific journals about global warming, there was no disagreement. Zero. Zip.

We can also look at ice cores and see how we have never had this much CO2 in the atmosphere. So it does not take a leap of logic to know what the result is going to be.

Correlating CO2 levels with a warming trend without proper evidence is called "correlation without causation", and it's one of the major tenets of science that is being broken in some of the global warming research. We know that the earth has had warming trends WITHOUT these high levels of CO2, so what's to say that emissions of greenhouse gases are the cause?

DOUG
What is saying it is that we know the process by which greenhouse gases trap the heat of the sun. And the warming trends of the Earth in the past also correlate with increased amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere. We see the correlation. We know the process. It all fits.

It has been proven now that humans contribute to global warming. There is no debate among scientists. It is only a huge disinformation campaign from the oil companies and the lying Bush administration that keeps the unanimity among scientists hidden from the American public.

There is still PLENTY of debate on this topic.

DOUG
Among scientists, there is no debate any longer about whether human activities are contributing to the warming of the planet. Scientists debate other things about global warming, but not that.

The media has a very keen way of distorting some of the facts, so you have to be very keen on what you listen to. And there may be some "oil company conspiracy", but cars are certainly not the only sources of CO2 emissions.

DOUG
No one is saying that cars are the only source. But there is PROOF that the Bush administration has altered the scientific conclusions to keep global warming in doubt among the American populace. We have the smoking gun.

===========
A White House official who once led the oil industry's fight against limits on greenhouse gases has repeatedly edited government climate reports in ways that play down links between such emissions and global warming, according to internal documents.

In handwritten notes on drafts of several reports issued in 2002 and 2003, the official, Philip A. Cooney, removed or adjusted descriptions of climate research that government scientists and their supervisors, including some senior Bush administration officials, had already approved. In many cases, the changes appeared in the final reports.

See here.
===========
DOUG
Before going to work at the White House, Cooney worked for the American Petroleum Institute, the largest trade group representing the interests of the oil industry. A lawyer with a bachelor's degree in economics, he has no scientific training. And three days after he resigned because of this scandal, he went to work for ExxonMobil.

Electric vehicles do not emit greenhouse gases. And if the energy to charge the battery is from solar or renewable energy, the generation of greenhouse gases is nonexistent. That is a good thing.

Almost NONE of our electricity comes from renewable or "green" sources, and most of it comes from sources that pollute far worse than cars do. If we all switched to electric vehicles tomorrow, we'd actually INCREASE our impact on the environment through emissions.

DOUG
No, "Renewable resources (solar, wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, biomass, and waste) currently provide nearly 12 percent of the Nation's electricity supply." See here.

[Doug]

Scientists OK Gore's Movie for Accuracy

By SETH BORENSTEIN
The Associated Press
Tuesday, June 27, 2006; 4:24 PM

WASHINGTON -- The nation's top climate scientists are giving "An Inconvenient Truth," Al Gore's documentary on global warming, five stars for accuracy.

The former vice president's movie _ replete with the prospect of a flooded New York City, an inundated Florida, more and nastier hurricanes, worsening droughts, retreating glaciers and disappearing ice sheets _ mostly got the science right, said all 19 climate scientists who had seen the movie or read the book and answered questions from The Associated Press.

See here.

[Dardedar]

Hurrah for Darrel's electric scooters

Why is there this notion that electric vehicles are good for our environment? That's really another topic, but it strikes me as odd that someone in a group like this would think that.....

DAR
Lets see. Yesterday, for the first time, I parked the SUV and drove my 21 (city) working commute miles on my electric scooter. Instead of using a 150 horse engine to burn a gallon of gas while dragging around a multi-ton vehicle and adding about 19 pounds of C02 to the atmosphere, I used about 15 cents worth of electricity to drive a 4 horse motor and transport about 425 pounds around. I used about 1.5 kilowatt hr worth of electricty.

How much do you want to bet that if you "run the numbers" you will find that what I did yesterday was indeed "good for our environment." If only millions of others had the option. Soon they will.

D.

[Doug]

"Phil Karn pointed out that you can easily compare the numbers for California's electric, which is largely produced from Natural Gas (LA Dept. of Water and Power burns coal in Utah) with the pollution from burning gasoline. Strict comparison shows that from natural gas to an EV moving, compared with the gallon of gas just burning, the EV is 97% cleaner in terms of noxious pollutants."

See it here.

[Hogeye]

Good link, Doug. It has info that I didn't find on the "Who Killed the Electric Car?" site. There is one other concern, but maybe it only applies to older-technology batteries: the pollutants in battery production and how to dispose of old batteries.

[Dardedar]

the pollutants in battery production and how to dispose of old batteries.

DAR
Good point. There is a lot of toxic material used in the manufacture and disposal of lead-acid batteries (and probably some of the others, Ni-cad, L-ion, Nmh). I didn't know this until recently.
This is one of the claimed benefits of the silicon batteries used in my scoots. Non-toxic silica salt material. The lead component is completely recycleable, the rest is no big deal. I should have more info on independent tests on these batteries soon.
I sold a Sport model today to a guy in Rogers with a solar panel and a nice bank of deep-cycle batteries. He plans to scoot himself around with the power of the sun. Cool. He also has a windmill he built himself, but it is on the blink at the moment.
I plan to put a nice panel and battery package together to charge my scoots with too. Electricity is so cheap it is hardly practical, but it is fun to play with such things.

D.

[Dardedar]

Good link, Doug. It has info that I didn't find on the "Who Killed the Electric Car?" site.

DAR
Damn, that is a good link. Knocks the stuffing out of this comment from JB:

"If we all switched to electric vehicles tomorrow, we'd actually INCREASE our impact on the environment through emissions."


and the idea that EV's pollute more than gas vehicles, and it does it with great specificity. One point, in his caveat section at the end he had:

"The electric generation figures are probably gross totals, so they don't include transmission losses (I think I've seen 20%)."

I know a Wikipedia cite quoted a government source that claimed line losses at about 7%.

Another advantage he didn't mention is that people would typically be charging their vehicles at night when there is an excess of energy and powerstations typically wind down and run less efficiently.

D.

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

Doug, a really good site! I have only one problem (& you know I'm on the side of EVs!), but if we're going to do apples to apples, we need the upstream as well as downstream costs of electric power from its various sources. If we're going to talk about how nasty seeking, drilling, transporting, and refining crude is, we also have to talk about mining, transporting, and refining of coal and uranium. Windmills and solar cells are iffy - do we compare their costs to the costs of getting fuels (coal or natural gas) or to the costs of building the power plants? I prefer the latter myself, since the actual "fuel" is delivered at no charge 24/7 whether we use it or not.

[Doug]

If we're going to talk about how nasty seeking, drilling, transporting, and refining crude is, we also have to talk about mining, transporting, and refining of coal and uranium. Windmills and solar cells are iffy - do we compare their costs to the costs of getting fuels (coal or natural gas) or to the costs of building the power plants?

DOUG
I suspect most of that data is unavailable and it would take quite a bit of research to get close to being accurate on those figures. But it would only make EV's look better, I'm sure.