Inconvenient Truth

Parent Cafe
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<p>Well, I took D and a friend of hers to see a special screening of “An Inconvenient Truth” last night followed by a panel discussion. </p>

<p>A much better movie than, say, “Fahrenheit 9/11” in that it’s very well grounded and defensible, doesn’t rely upon emotional manipulation to achieve its effects, etc. A pretty straightforward documentary as opposed to a brilliant work of propaganda.</p>

<p>One of the more disingenous attacks I’ve seen is about Gore’s qualifications. He presents the work of others in a thoughtful, coherent, articulate manner.</p>

<p>Indeed, while there were various points that I found myself wanting to footnote, asterisk, or quibble with, and why I have some reservations considering Al Gore for president (and he was my candidate back in 1988), one of the biggest impressions of the film for me was the stark contrast between this incredibly decent man–who can present a thoughtful, extended, nuanced argument involving many interdependent factors–and the buffoon with cartoon stick-figure thinking currently occupying the White House. </p>

<p>Here’s a challenge for the global warming skeptics: find five papers that dispute gobal warming, written by academics in a relevant field and published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. As opposed to “articles” posted on “fake science” websites. </p>

<p>As for the movie, the notes I scribbled say, “elephant in the room: nuclear power.”</p>

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<p>“I agree that further oil and gas exploration might adversely affect the development of alternative energy sources but this is the real world and we need short-term as well as long-term fixes.”</p>

<p>Global warming and running out of energy are two very different animals. Running out of energy is one SOLUTION to global warming. But, if we accept Al Gore" inconvenient truth, the problem is that we don’t run out soon enough.</p>

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<p>Okay, sorry Mini, I was discussing energy needs and not global warming. I see you are addressing the original post (good for you!) when I have wandered off-topic. And you’re right, I don’t accept Al Gore’s inconvenient truth.</p>

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<p>“One of the more disingenous attacks I’ve seen is about Gore’s qualifications. He presents the work of others in a thoughtful, coherent, articulate manner.”</p>

<p>TheDad, you can address this issue from a couple of angles. Look at the example of … your humble dialoguer. I make no secret about my profound and visceral dislike for Al Gore and his known antics, fabulations, and fabrications. Then I realize who he is: a Washington insider who picks his battles and debate points according to the whim of his political debacles.<br>
Then I look at the expression of his passions, and I DO believe that he GENUINELY care about the environment, and probably cares deeply about the future of the US or the world. However, does that make him an effective leader of the movement to propel us on a better road? Nope. Inamsuch as he has lost some of his woody demeanor, learned to crack a few self-deprecating jokes, and master the switches of the Keynote presentation package, he remains the same pompous self-proclaimed messiah who speaks to everyone as English was not their mother tongue. But that is NOT his main problem … his main problem is that is simply not believable, even when he gets most of it right. Next to Gore, there are virtually dozens of scientists who would have done a better job than Gore, and helped the “movement” a LOT more. There is absolutely nothing secret nor novel in what was presented by Gore and his Hollywood packagers: this is old stuff for people who have invested a modicum of time and energy educating themselves. The sad part is that the mere fact that the “message” was delivered by Gore did dilute its impact and reach among the doubters -which are FAR from forming a minority. A wasted opportunity!</p>

<p>This said, as someone with a deep interest in seeing positive changes happening, I applaud the effort to sensitize the broad public and bring some of the scientific data to the forefront. In my view, everything helps in this regard. Regarding Gore, I would even go a bit further and give him the benefit of the doubt. Will he repeat his past performance of writing an interesting and timely book only to forget every page of it, and drop the ball as he did for eight long years, or will he actually DO something about the issues he presenting with “passion”? </p>

<p>Were he to deliver something tangible -anything- that actually helps, I’d be the first to recognize having misjudged him and the purity of his intentions. Actually, I would love nothing more than being able to write, “I’m sorry and I was dead wrong!”</p>

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<p>

I listed three back in #233. [This</a> article](<a href=“TCS Daily : Technology - Commerce - Society”>TCS Daily : Technology - Commerce - Society), by an Oregon state meteorologist/climatologist, cites six more scholarly papers that disagree with Al Gore’s science. So now you have nine to work with, covering the gamut from Greenland, Antarctica, hurricanes, snow, hail, storm patterns etc.</p>

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<p>Uh, that article was only published in TCS, which is controlled by a lobbying/PR firm - with ExxonMobile as its biggest client and donor.
<a href=“http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?id=112[/url]”>http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?id=112&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>I think that qualifies it as a fake science website.</p>

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<p>Uh, that article lists six references by respected scientists in academic, peer-reviewed journals. The reason I uh, linked the whole article, is because it provided uh, abstracts for each one. But you’d have to uh, you know, like, read it to see that. Uh and out, Gore-groupie.</p>

<p>Bove, M.C., Zierden, D.F. and O’Brien, J.J., 1998. Are gulf landfalling hurricanes getting stronger? Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 79: 1327-1328.</p>

<p>Changnon, S.A. and Changnon, D., 2000. Long-term fluctuations in hail incidences in the United States. Journal of Climate 13: 658-664.</p>

<p>Easterling, D.R., Evans, J.L., Groisman, P.Ya., Karl, T.R., Kunkel, K.E. and Ambenje, P. 2000. Observed variability and trends in extreme climate events: A brief review. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 81: 417-425.</p>

<p>Gulev, S.K., Zolina, O. and Grigoriev, S. 2001. Extratropical cyclone variability in the Northern Hemisphere winter from the NCEP/NCAR reanalysis data. Climate Dynamics 17: 795-809.</p>

<p>Schwartz, R.M. and Schmidlin, T.W., 2002. Climatology of blizzards in the conterminous United States, 1959-2000. Journal of Climate 15: 1765-1772.</p>

<p>Zhang, K., Douglas, B.C. and Leatherman, S.P., 2000. Twentieth-Century storm activity along the U.S. East Coast. Journal of Climate 13: 1748-1761.</p>

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<p>Your supporting websites are run by government funded political hacks. So you can nullify that too, right?</p>

<p>Global warming zealots cannot attack the actual facts or arguments, so they must resort to saying “omg! funded by exxxxon! lol!” as an argument. Nice try buddy.</p>

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<p>To be fair, among the six articles cited, only one has been published since 2001, and that one actually argued that the number of blizzards has indeed grown (confirming what the zealots argue), but may be an artifact of reporting smaller blizzards. </p>

<p>I’m sure you can do better than that!</p>

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<p>Iloveagoodbrew: You like skeptics? You might take a look at these:</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.csicop.org/scienceandmedia/environmentalist/[/url]”>http://www.csicop.org/scienceandmedia/environmentalist/&lt;/a&gt;
<a href=“http://www.grist.org/advice/books/2001/12/12/of/[/url]”>http://www.grist.org/advice/books/2001/12/12/of/&lt;/a&gt;
<a href=“http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science/ucs-examines-the-skeptical-environmentalist.html[/url]”>http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science/ucs-examines-the-skeptical-environmentalist.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>What a joke</p>

<p>I don’t understand what you have against Lomborg. I have the book right in front of me. He says that he believs in global warming…</p>

<p>Anyway, regarding his book…
The Danish Ministry’s final ruling was that Lomborg was not guilty of the charges they previously charged him with (like plagiarism, faulty data)…</p>

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<p>Kluge,</p>

<p>The Danish government investigated criticisms of The Skeptical Environmentalist and found them without merit: <a href=“http://www.lomborg.com/critique.htm[/url]”>http://www.lomborg.com/critique.htm&lt;/a&gt;. Obviously they do things differently in Denmark but I think the Danish government (a famously PC and environmentally friendly government) is a more even-handed judge of Lomborg’s book than the agenda-driven critics you linked.</p>

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<p>I guess it’s a short step from uncritically accepting a very successfully self-promoting political scientist’s quasi-science about global warming (among other issues) to uncritically accepting his own characterization of what the Danish government’s actions were with regard to his “science.” Agenda-driven? Eye of the beholder, I suppose. I’ll leave you in your happy place. There will always be someone to tell you that everything is just fine and dandy, and there’s no need to do anything other than what feels good now. (And don’t worry - that person will be handsomely rewarded.)</p>

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<p>Kluge,</p>

<p>Have you read the book? Because the author concludes that there are many things that we in the world, and especially we in the developed world, should be doing to protect the environment and the future of the world’s inhabitants. His proposals are expensive but they are more likely to be effective than the hysterical answers offered by many environmentalists.</p>

<p>Much of Lomborg’s book is devoted to evaluating and making the hard choices we face in the world so that we can actually accomplish the results we all want - clean water, clean air, abundant food, etc. His book is definitely not about feeling good or doing nothing. If anything, Gore’s Inconvenient Truth advocates the easy answers compared to Lomborg’s Skeptical Environmentalist.</p>

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<p>Kluge you seem to be ridiculous partisan. You do not know the first thing that is in the book. Lomborg says that GLOBAL WARMING IS REAL. </p>

<p>Agenda driven? Lomborg isn’t funded by Exxon or Reynolds. The Danish parliament isn’t either. What exactly are you getting at? If you do not have facts or an argument, it is not shame to concede the point.</p>

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<p>What I’m getting at is that the statement that

is not an accurate statement of what “the Danish Government” or anyone else did, but is apparently driven by Lomborg’s own self-serving “spin”. Here’s a quote from Wikipedia about the factual and procedural history of Denmark’s investigation into Lomborg’s book:

To me that sounds a lot more like “getting off on a technicality” than a finding that the criticisms of his book were “without merit.” Concluding that he shouldn’t be subjected to whatever the DCSD does because he’s not really a scientist, may not have intentionally distorted facts, and his book wasn’t really “science” anyway doesn’t strike me as a very ringing endorsement of his theories.
Now, I have neither the expertise nor the time to undertake an independent investigation of Lomborg’s book, the critics of his book, or of global warmig itself. But I can recognize self-promotion when I see it, and I also can recognize zealous embrasure of a convenient half-truth. And given what I see of “The Environmental Skeptic” - which I remind you, is written by a political scientist, not an environmental scientist, and which has made its author rich and famous - I see “agenda driven” analysis. Since I don’t have the time or expertise to form a reasonably informed personal scientific opinion of global warming (as I doubt any posters on this thread do, either) I’m inclined not to ignore the collective opinion of the great majority of those scientists who do. They may be wrong - scientists are wrong all the time, as they’ll tell you - but the more of them that agree, the more likely it is that they’re right, and weighing that against the consequences of picking the wrong side: the really, really bad consequences if global warming theory is correct and we do nothing vs. the (to me) modest inconvenience of trying to do something to mitigate its onslaught - I’m not really impressed by the very loud scorn of those who prefer to believe that global warming theory is wrong.<br>
I’m old. In all probability global warming won’t really have much of an impact on me even in the worst-case scenarios. But my children and (hopefully) grandchildren will be living in the Earth of the future. I tend to want to play it safe with the environment for that reason.</p>

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<p>Kluge,</p>

<p>Even according to Wikipedia, Lomborg’s research was ultimately upheld by the Danish government. It doesn’t sound like he got off on a technicality to me. Instead it sounds like the government found the criticism was meritless, directed the investigating agency to redo its report in keeping with the government’s findings, and the investigating agency refused on the basis the matter was moot.</p>

<p>Please. Read the book.</p>

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<p>I’m sorry, DRJ4, the book may be interesting, and I’d probably enjoy reading it at some point - I’m sure there’s a lot of food for thought in it. But your assessment of the actions of the Danish government is untenable. I’ve now read the English translation of the Ministry’s report. It’s all about technicalities. Nowhere is there a discussion of the scientific merit of Lomborg’s work; in fact, most of its holdings address the question of whether the book is even within the DCSD’s jurisdiction.</p>

<p>The Danish govenment did not “uphold” Lomborg’s research. As things now stand, the Danish government has take no official position on it, based at least in significant part on the argument that it’s not “hard science” and thus not subject to the scrutiny of the Danish agency which looks into scientific publications. That doesn’t mean it’s right or wrong - but it does mean that the fact that Lomborg has convinced you that the Danish government has endorsed his theories is evidence that you’re following Lomborg somewhat uncritically.</p>

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<p>The Danish found their previous allegations had no merit. Enough said. You should be liking Lomborg. He believes in global warming.</p>

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<p>

No, they found that they weren’t sure if their scientific integrity commission had jurisdiction over Lomborg’s book because they weren’t sure it was “science”, and sent the case back for reconsideration on that basis. I don’t “like” people because they hold a particular position. I “like” them if they have intellectual integrity. And that starts with calling a spade a spade, and not viewing everything through an ideological prism. I’m dubious about Lomborg because he is a “pop science” self-promoter who has been criticized by real scientists for misrepresenting and misinterpreting data. That doesn’t mean he’s right or wrong about any of the positions he argues, just that I would approach his theories with skepticism.</p>