An Inconvenient Truth - Al Gore is Phony

[-Jrabbit]

Berz, I must admit I'm guilty of jumping to the conclusion that you were trying to make a point beyond "I hate Al Gore."

I don't understand why the use of calving footage upsets you so much. It's just a dramatic illustration, nothing more. I've seen such footage since about 5th grade. It's called imagery. Filmmakers use this technique routinely.

Gore's film has a point of view, and he's doing the talk show circuit promoting it. Nothing phony about that. And I've seen nothing here to dispute Gore's statements about peer-reviewed research.

The fact that Gore did not divert into extensive discussion of hard science is not in itself an indictment. On shows like Olbermann's, that's not on the agenda. It's not, after all, a science program. Keith just hopes to make interesting television. Gore was invited on specifically because he's promoting his film, not because of his credentials as a climatologist.

Regarding incessant Gore-hating, that's certainly your privilege. But the election is over, Bush won, and most of us have moved on.

[Arrian]

Leaving Gore aside for a moment, I am curious about the interaction between global warming caused (in whole or in part) by humans and the ice age cycle (we're getting due for one, yes?).

I don't doubt that releasing huge amounts of various gasses into the atmosphere has an impact, and further I doubt that impact is good. So I for one am not opposed to measures designed to scale back our impact (lower emissions, etc). But at the same time, we've been studying the environment seriously for what, 100 years? The Earth is an awfully complex system.

-Arrian

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Gee wow MBH(Hockey Stick projections tracking CO2 levels) thoroughly discreditted via NSA Panel report and still Gore and Co. trumpet this crap.


Climateaudit.org Thanks to TCO

[Sava]

Originally posted by BlackCat


I think that you misunderstand something - people are not bashing Gore because he is a looser, but because he goes after the man and not the ball.

I think you misunderstand something - the issue was the man. Specifically, his credibility. I don't like Gore, but when this "critic" of his is purely a wh0re for the oil industry, it's not really a smear campaign to just point out the fact that the guy is on the payroll of the oil industry. It's not a personal attack if it's true.

[Victor Galis]

Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe
Gee wow MBH(Hockey Stick projections tracking CO2 levels) thoroughly discreditted via NSA Panel report and still Gore and Co. trumpet this crap.


Climateaudit.org Thanks to TCO

So you trust someone from the mining industry to give you good climate data? The guy has an undergrad degree in math, and no graduate degree, yet claims to poke holes in stuff real scientists say.

[Sava]

Originally posted by Arrian
Leaving Gore aside for a moment, I am curious about the interaction between global warming caused (in whole or in part) by humans and the ice age cycle (we're getting due for one, yes?).

I don't doubt that releasing huge amounts of various gasses into the atmosphere has an impact, and further I doubt that impact is good. So I for one am not opposed to measures designed to scale back our impact (lower emissions, etc). But at the same time, we've been studying the environment seriously for what, 100 years? The Earth is an awfully complex system.

-Arrian

I agree with this outlook on things.

I don't really think the sky is falling when it comes to global warming. I think the amount of crap that gets spewed into our atmosphere is disturbing, but there is really no way of knowing what effects it is going to have. Personally, I think the local effects of pollution are a much greater threat to us than this "global warming" crap... smog, mercury levels in water, etc.

And let's be frank here... scientists have only seriously been studying this for the past 25 years. We've only had the technology to do the type of serious observation and testing on this for a very short time.

Cutting back on the amount of crap that we are pumping into the atmosphere is a good idea, but I don't think we need to run around like it's the end of the world. And there are certainly other reasons why we should focus on developing more efficient and advanced power sources.

Climate change is natural, but I don't doubt that humanity is accelerating what would otherwise be naturally occuring.

[Arrian]

[minithreadjack]

Sava, that's a rather old Man Law, isn't it? "More 'n two shakes is havin' fun."

-Arrian

[Cort Haus]

Are all scientists in the 'sceptic' camp automatically hired shills of Big Capital? Even if they are in many cases funded by such sources, perhaps their actual research is driven by genuine scientific motives, but the prevailing orthodoxy prefers funding research that reinforces that orthodoxy, rather than challenges it.

I'm in no position to judge the science one way or another, but it is surely innacurate to parallel this with with the 'Intelligent Design' scenario. That instance deals with metaphysics - by definition unprovable, wheras climate change is about 'real' physics, albeit at a level of complexity beyond our ability to model. Attempting to portray climate-sceptic scientists as 'the same as the god squad' looks like another example of playing the man and not the ball.

Whatever the dangers may appear to be from human activity's emissions, there is also the danger of a climate of anti-humanism, which decrys human agency as a negative and destructive thing. This ultimately leads to people being seen as a problem, rather than the source of a solution.

[Arrian]

There is good reason to be skeptical of studies paid for by big business. Businesses generally don't spend their money on research that says things bad for their business.

There may well be a problem with dogma or conventional wisdom within any scientific field, but I'm inclined to believe that's a lesser problem than research that is bought and paid for by interest groups (including corporations who are anxious to dispel "myths" about their negative impact on the environment).

-Arrian

[Arrian]

The above is influenced by my experience handling environmental claims. I have seen sooooo many examples of companies trying to weasel out of liability for damage they clearly caused. Standard procedure involves doing a few basic things: 1) downplaying the extent of the contamination; 2) pointing the finger at someone else, if possible; and 3) limiting the scope of the cleanup (shooting for "natural attenuation" if possible). And, of course, getting the insurance company to pay for whatever they are forced to do.

-Arrian

[Ramo]

Here's what Olbermann said about the relationship between CO2 and temperature:

Two quotes that I pulled, let me see if we have time to do both of them. These are from Canadian scientists, so they‘re not some removed, but not total removed from the political element at least in this country. The first is from a paleoclimatologist from Carlton University who testified to a Canadian parliament. He said, “There is no meaningful correlation between CO2 levels and the earth‘s temperature over this geologic timeframe. In fact when CO2 levels were over 10 times higher than they are now, about 450 million years ago, the planet was in the depths of the absolute coldest period in a half billion years. On the basis of this evidence, how could anyone still believe that the recent relatively small increase in CO2 levels would be the major cause of the past century‘s modest warming?”

Olberman wasn't citing studies, he was quoting 2 scientists which he named. It was a very simple point, calving occurs normally regardless of any humans and it is not evidence of global warming. Gore's response: smear the guy.

I haven't read any peer reviewed research on calving, so did not refer to it. Again, I was talking about the relationship between CO2 levels and temperature. From the quote above, there isn't even a name.

And I would hope that these scientists published their work in a peer reviewed journal and are not simply talking out of their ass. Again, without reading about their methodology, it is impossible to refute them. Due to the lack of information, I can't even find this paper.

How nice, everyone knows only Harvard trained "paleo-climatologists" are qualified to publicly discuss the known research, much less challenge Gore. Dont look now, but the world's foremost expert on polar bears teaches at some podunk school in Canada (or maybe not). If someone discredits you instead of your argument by citing your podunk school, would you consider that a smear?

Since all I know about this person's research is the podunk school the author is teaching at, why? And I wasn't entirely serious about the podunk school comment, jeez.

Or lying scum on the take from special interests?

No one said that they were lying or on the take from special interests. Again, the vast majority of the papers on this issue published in peer reviewed journals assert that humans have a significant impact on global warming. Scientists of both positions are probably being truthful in the vast majority of cases. But certain industries trumpet these tiny minority of studies as being representative of the scientific consensus. When it's certainly not. That is Gore's point. No smearing involved.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by Victor Galis


So you trust someone from the mining industry to give you good climate data? The guy has an undergrad degree in math, and no graduate degree, yet claims to poke holes in stuff real scientists say.

Considering McIntyre completely pwned the MBH theory and it was verified by NAS panel reports. Yeah I'm gonna go with a guy that knows his stuff as opposed to 'real' scientists.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by Arrian
There is good reason to be skeptical of studies paid for by big business. Businesses generally don't spend their money on research that says things bad for their business.

There may well be a problem with dogma or conventional wisdom within any scientific field, but I'm inclined to believe that's a lesser problem than research that is bought and paid for by interest groups (including corporations who are anxious to dispel "myths" about their negative impact on the environment).

-Arrian

Thats all well and fine if big business is footing the bill. In the Climateaudit.org case these are folks donating their own time and money without outside business footing the bill and in short order have done more for peer review then all the so called scientists.

[pchang]

We know that

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Phanerozoic_Climate_Change.png

long term fluctuations in the earth's temperature are related to the movement of the earth through space. The wikipedia information is not quite right. My information comes from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, bu the chart comes from Wiki.

[BlackCat]

Originally posted by VJ



BlackCat... when the rest of us actually paid attention during biology classes in elementary school, I guess you spent your time and concentration on trying to masturbate without hands. Your ignorance in this thread has been astonishing, only matched by your arrogance. "NOONE [sic] knows what affects global warming!", and then seriously starting to argue against the knowledge of Oerdin who does geology for his living by saying that "hate to say it, but your knowledge is old"

I mean, do you even know where the term "greenhouse gas" comes from?

Now aint this a classic - if you can't argue, then smear the man. Wonder where we have seen such before.

I for certain knows that Oerdin is a gelogist, but when he claims that there only are cores dating 35.000 years back and I provide evidence that there actually is data going 420.000 years back, would it then be wrong to inform him that there are new data ?

About Venus, as you quoted, the question is still valid. CO2 may be the driving force now, but noone knows what send the planet into the current balance.

About greenhouse gasses. I guess that you think that CO2 is the great monster and the prime source of heating, well, news for you, it's actually one of the minor. CO2 is only hyped because it's one that humans has an impact on due to fossile fuels. Now, you seem to be an expert on this field, so please tell me what the real heavy greenhouse gas is.

I have a bad habit about checking things before posting, so I consider my ignorance to be pretty low where you seem to draw your knowledgede from where your head spend most of its time (no details - it's after all a family site). Could you please pop your head out of there and start checking things instead of posting inane posts ?