Global Warming
A Democratic friend invited me to see Al Gore’s movie, An Inconvenient Truth. Since I’m generally a fan of science fiction, I agreed to go.
The good: It was entertaining to watch, for the most part. There were perhaps a few too many shots of Al Gore looking pensive, but he was actually funny at times. And there are some spectacular views of nature. The movie also contains some interesting scientific explanations, and it wasn’t quite as partisan as I anticipated.
The bad: It’s still very partisan, and Gore himself chooses to ignore inconvenient truths that would weaken his message.
Gore disdains the idea that our current warming could have anything to do with natural temperature cycles. He blames human emissions for global warming without ever acknowledging that other factors may also be at work.
Just to be clear, I do believe that there has been some global warming. I also believe that humans are probably responsible for some portion of that warming, although scientists do not yet understand all the factors involved.
For example, a study published earlier this year reported that living plants emit almost a third of the methane released each year. (Methane is a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.) Before this study, scientists didn’t know that living plants released methane:
“Until now all the textbooks have said that biogenic methane can only be produced in the absence of oxygen,” Dr Keppler said. “For that simple reason, nobody looked closely at this.”
(As my dad often remarked when coming across cases like this: Scientists used to think… but we now know….)
Another example has to do with the melting of polar ice. The movie shows some dramatic footage of collapsing ice shelves near the poles and retreating glaciers. But Gore ignores the fact that there is evidence of global warming on Mars, which is causing the Martian polar ice caps to retreat. Since humans aren’t causing the warming on Mars, isn’t it at least possible there’s some other mechanism at work causing significant warming on both Earth and Mars?
But mentioning such things would be inconvenient for Al Gore’s purpose.
And what is that purpose?
To me, it seems the purpose is to preach to the choir. Democrats will love the movie, because it makes a point of tweaking Reagan and both Bushes. But for the most part Democrats are already convinced that global warming is bad and it’s humanity’s fault. The movie’s partisan nature will generally just annoy the half of the country that’s been voting Republican, so it is unlikely to convince people to change their minds about global warming.
The movie did not change my mind about global warming. But it did get me to talk about it. So maybe that’s a tiny victory for Al Gore.
I recently saw a show about Global Warming and Global Cooling. Unfortunately, science is not my strong point so I cannot give details. But certain bad stuff actually causes global cooling (as well as global warming)–I’d explain it if I could…., but it is the type of stuff that we are trying to regulate out of circulation, so we might end up making global warming worse by trying to lessen it. Basically if manmade gases are causing 2% global warming, some madmade gases are also causing 1% global cooling. If we get rid of the ones that are causing cooling, then we’ll end up speeding up the warming.
It is obvious scientist have a lot more to learn. I think global warming is a problem that people can help fix and scientists should be addressing, but as this show showed, you can’t necessarily go along with the first plans on how to fix it.
I feel the same way about global warming.
I think it’s an important point you made about science. Current science opinion isn’t the same as scientific fact. Back in the 1970’s there was a lot noise about global cooling and the population bomb that was going to overtake our resources. Now, it’s global warming and from what I can tell it is not controversial to conclude that all developed countries are not producing offspring at a sustainable level. So that’s a swing of opinion of major proportions in just three decades.
So I’m not ready to declare it’s the end of the world just yet.
I think there would be global warming anyway, but there\’s significantly more because of the extra CO2s humans have been using lately.
I agree with Adam’s comment above. Of course there will be natural processes that will affect the earth’s climate. There have been sigificant climate changes before human existence and I have no doubt there will be non-human causes of climate change in the future. But how can anyone deny the fact that human activity is also causing the climate of the earth to change? What are the elementary facts of greenhouse warming? 1) Atmospheric trace gases such as CO2 increase greenhouse warming; 2)During the past 50 years, human activity has increased the atmospheric gases; 3)So far, the increase of CO2 atmospheric gases have matched the scientific predicitions. In 1988, the United Nations helped organized the “Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Control” utilizing more than 2,000 world scientists specializing in climate studies (from 100 countries). Since the group involves so many countries, it is not affiliated with a specific party…..it is simply a group of scientists specializing in climate. They put together a fascinating report that is over 800 pages, and they have concluded that human activity, especially the use of fossil fuel, is contributing to global warming due to the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere. I strongly believe that we should not “wait and see” if global warming will increase due to the natural processes and ignore human-activity that contributes to global warming. Why not be proactive. We have so much technology and scientific abilities at our fingertips. Why not use it for good?
Quick question…….what is the gas life of methane vs. CO2 in the atmoshphere? Just curious if there is a significant decomposition rate difference between the two gases. Just a random thought.
Why not be proactive. We have so much technology and scientific abilities at our fingertips. Why not use it for good?
The obvious counter is that there are always unanticipated consequences - that it’s far too easy to use our technology to make things worse and not better without realizing it.
The recent past is riddled with examples of this on a small scale. Meds that seemed like miricle drugs turn out to cause horrific birth defects, for example. Who knew? Only later and with more testing do you find out the adverse problems.
For all that we know we really don’t know as much as we need to go and introduce massive changes in this or that process.
Which is not to advocate removing pollution controls from cars and letting factories belch out whatever they wish; we obviously should not foul our own nests. Just .. be cautious about the changes we introduce, s’all I’m saying.
Well fortunately for us Mr. Stone is obviously objective wherein his democrat friend was not. Can you feel the sarcasm? Can the right side of your brain even welcome the possibility to the fact that all the garbage in our air has an effect on the environment? Of course natural causes have an effect but from my understanding the point of the movie is not to change nature, but man’s responsibility on this issue. Global warming, education, to name a few should not be party driven. IF A REPUBLICAN got on his/her high horse to talk about global warming and created a buzz would you support that? My guess is yes. Thanks for being one of a million other Utahans to not even look at who you’re voting for, but only voting the right side of the ballot.
Re Miss Liberty’s comment about the increase in CO2, the National Center for Policy Analysis published a brief analysis entitled “Myths of Global Warming,” http://www.ncpa.org/~ncpa/ba/ba230.html in which an opinion I have read elsewhere is expressed:
The whole issue of what causes global warming seems to be far more complex than the mainstream media would lead us to believe. I agree with Brian that we should try to reduce pollution, but “be cautious about the changes we introduce,” lest we cause more damage than we cure.
Señor Non-Partisan,
> Can the right side of your brain even welcome the possibility to
> the fact that all the garbage in our air has an effect on the
> environment?
Maybe if you weren’t so instinctively sure that if a Republican comments on global warming, he must be incapable of understanding anything, you might have bothered to actually read what I wrote.
In the fifth paragraph, I explicity said: “I also believe that humans are probably responsible for some portion of that warming, although scientists do not yet understand all the factors involved.”
To anyone capable of understanding civilized discourse in the English language, that would be a clue that I am capable of acknowledging the fact that human-generated gases in the atmosphere have an effect on the environment.
But perhaps, Señor Non-Partisan, English is not your first language, in which case your limited English comprehension is excusable.
Roann, I read your link. I fisrt noticed the date of the article. It is almost 10 years old! Just in the last ten years, there has been a dramatic increase in global temperature, which is human activity has been linked to this increase. Can you provide another link that shows studies that are more recent to support the myths? I have an insatiable curiosity, especially recently about global warming.
To be blunt, your ignorance is our problem. Your \”unreadinesses\” have basically been formed by listening to disinformation. You might catch some clues at this site which lays it out for those who have not been paying attention.
http://illconsidered.blogspot.com/2006/02/how-to-talk-to-global-warming-sceptic.html
http://tinyurl.com/qp4ph
Just about all of the bmph uttered here is dealt with clearly there. You can then move on to the IPCC TAR, NAS reports and other more advanced discussions.
To give you an idea of how wrong you guys are, here are the topics dealt with, common, and incorrect, arguments.
There is no real evidence of warming, just model predictions.
Global Warming is nothing but an environmentalist hoax.
One warmest year on record is not global warming.
The surface temperature record is so full of assumptions and corrections that it only says what the scientists want.
In the 1970\’s they said a new ice age was coming.
Global temperatures over just one hundred years doesn\’t mean anything.
Glaciers have always grown and receded. A few glaciers receeding today is not proof of Global Warming.
Climate scientist are trying to hide the dominant role of water vapor in Global Warming.
H2O is the only significant greenhouse gas.
There is no proof that CO2 is what is causing the temperature to go up.
The current warming is just a part of natural variations, humans have nothing to do with it.
It was even warmer during the Holocene Climatic Optimum
The Medieval Warm Period was just as warm as it is today.
All in all, a warmer climate sounds like a good thing.
Methane is oxidized to CO2 and water in about 4-5 years by reaction with OH radicals in the atmosphere. CO2 does not have a single atmospheric lifetime, lots of things go on, including INTERCHANGE with the oceans. In a few hundred years time, increases in atmospheric CO2 can be diluted into the DEEP ocean. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/03/how-long-will-global-warming-last/
You folk might want to play Tim Lambert\’s global warming skeptic bingo http://timlambert.org/2005/04/gwsbingo/ I sense a number of winners here.
Eli Rabett has very effectively demonstrated one of the reasons many people remain unconvinced regarding global warming: the proponents of the theory are convinced that any skeptic is an ignorant, clueless fool (or a tool of the oil barons) — and they go out of their way to say so.
This goes along with one of the criticisms I made of Gore’s movie: that it seemed intended for audiences who already believe in global warming, rather than in winning over skeptics.
If you’re trying to convince people that human-induced global warming is a real problem that needs to be addressed, insulting the people you’re trying to convince is not a smart thing to do.
Jupiter is also heating up. The Great Red Spot is the largest hurricane in the solar system. The second-largest hurricane is Red Spot Junior, also on Jupiter, which formed over the last ten years or so. It takes energy to form these hurricanes, and the period of formation of Red Spot Junior corresponds to the period of increased temperatures on Earth and on Mars.
Although a bit late, let me seem here, someone asks a question about the atmospheric lifetime of Co2 and methane, I answer it, point to some places where there are more detail, and indicate that you are pontificating about something where you don’t know much.
That was fairly mild.
Eli, you’re obviously a smart guy, and you clearly know a lot about climate science.
Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that the very first statement you made in your first comment (”To be blunt, your ignorance is our problem.”) is true: my ignorance is a problem, presumably because the ignorance of me and people like me is an obstacle to taking action against global warming.
So, given that such ignorance is a problem, how would you best go about remedying it?
In my original post, I said the following:
> To me, it seems the purpose [of the movie] is to preach to the choir.
> Democrats will love the movie, because it makes a point of tweaking
> Reagan and both Bushes. But for the most part Democrats are already
> convinced that global warming is bad and it’s humanity’s fault. The
> movie’s partisan nature will generally just annoy the half of the
> country that’s been voting Republican, so it is unlikely to convince
> people to change their minds about global warming.
Similarly, you may get a kick out of commenting on my blog and calling me ignorant, telling me to catch a clue, and accusing me of pontificating. It’s perfectly understandable — I sometimes get a kick out of making sarcastic comments on liberal blogs. And I certainly enjoy a good joke at the expense of my political opposites.
But if global warming is truly a problem that will require concerted political action, then I suggest what both you and Al Gore need to do is start convincing global warming skeptics, rather than just pleasing yourselves and those who already agree with you. You’re going to need conservatives like me to start changing our minds.
And I think insulting us may be the wrong way to go about doing that.
I don’t know a whole lot about global warming. I heard somewhere that a single volcanic explosion put as much CO2 into the air as humans have by driving cars for 100 years. I wish I could remember the reference and I found this site while looking for it so I can’t provide it here but if true, then our part of global warming is not the huge portion some people are convinced it is.