Documentary recommendation - The 11th Hour

[josh]

Which graph and which PART of the graph? If you are talking about the earth's historic temperature graph are you talking about the current part of the graph? Sure - it is headed up. But it appears to be an invonvenient truth that you dont focus on the rest of the graph. YOu know...that part about us coming out of a mini ice age...and how after ALL THIS GLOBAL WARMING we are just now BACK TO the long term average temperature of the planet.

Inconvenient Truths run both ways I am afraid.

[Common Sense Al]

Which graph and which PART of the graph?

This graph with 20 years of data:
http://images.dailytech.com/nimage/7390 ... adcrut.jpg

So what about the "deal" we were talking about?

[josh]

What is that graph showing? Looks like temperatures are dropping??

But SURELY you are not basing your global warming hopes and dreams on a 20 YEAR slice of the earth's history? Would it make sense for me to isolate 20 years leading to the ice age? Is this what Al Gore is teaching you?! I'm not sure I want to waste time watching his awarding winning documentary if they are scaring people with 20 year graphs along with the now debunked "hockey stick" graph that was all the rage a few years ago. You are aware that the "hockey stick graph" is a massivley flawed piece of propoganda...right?

[Common Sense Al]

What is that graph showing? Looks like temperatures are dropping??

If you draw a trend line, it looks like they're rising to me.

Is this what Al Gore is teaching you?!

Watch the documentary and find out.

Don't know what a "hockey stick" graph is.

What about our "deal"?

[josh]

Deal. I have already asked the wife to Tivo it and will watch it SUnday evening. But be prepared for me to re-type pretty much everything I have tyed the last few posts. My points are all aimed directly at the type of propoganda that Al Gore has been preaching.

My last thought until monday..


Before we go down the road of have governments and world political bodies forcing us to reduce our carbon footprint…can someone tell me how much carbon needs to be reduced to result in…oh…say a .5 degree temperature change? Anyone? No. And the reason is that nobody knows. There is not a direct CO2 to temperature link. You would think that with all of this consensus science that surely someone could tell us that by reducing x amount of CO2 we will lower the earth’s temperature by x degrees.

It actually isn’t a knock on really smart scientists for not being able to do this. The reason is simple. The earth’s temperature is made up of a gazillion factors…one of the smallest factors happens to be CO2. There is that pesky little star out there we call the SUN that has a bit to do with temperature. That is why they cant tell us how much carbon we need to reduce because if we all went back to the horse and buggy, and shut down all factories we could still end up with a much warmer planet because the sun decided to give off a bit more heat (as it is known to do from time to time).

So don’t you think that before we decide to risk the health of the world economy by forcing ridiculous laws upon producers and consumers we figure out what our target should be? I don’t want to start “driving” a horse to work if a simple downsize to a Honda Civic would have been sufficient enough. But that is the catch that the eco-nuts will not talk about. They don’t ultimately care what disruptions happen to the economy. They only care that the polar bear population continues to grow and that the forests remain free of humans. They don’t care that an increase in temperature would actually be good for the world as it opens up more land for farming. Did we all forget that plants really, really like CO2. More CO2 would produce greener more thriving plant life. No, its not a linear return…but an additional temperature increase, in itself, is beneficial.

If climate change is such a massive concern (more concerning than terrorism according to certain Democrats) then what happens when the US, UK, Australia…all modern societies submit to the eco-nuts, but China and India say “screw you”? What happens? Is that reason enough to go to war with them? According to the alarmists – man made global warming is the greatest threat to our life time. Surely they would support attacking a country for not reducing their carbon footprint? This is utter nonsense, I agree. But quit telling me that this is the greatest threat to man kind – baloney! This is no more of a threat than that last period of increasing temperature….and that no more than the period before that.

Global Warming is a religion unto itself. Al, you of all people should know that the Catholic church forbids taking part in another religion!

[Common Sense Al]

Deal. I have already asked the wife to Tivo it and will watch it SUnday evening.

OK, great. I'll print out the link you sent.

Before we go down the road of have governments and world political bodies forcing us to reduce our carbon footprint…can someone tell me how much carbon needs to be reduced to result in…oh…say a .5 degree temperature change? Anyone? No. And the reason is that nobody knows.

It's impossible to know such details, but there are things we can know (like the increase on CO2 levels that we are adding to the atmosphere). Getting rid of fossil fuels and using the sun will not only help out environment, it will help with our current energy "crisis" and the future since there's only a limited amount of oil.

So don’t you think that before we decide to risk the health of the world economy by forcing ridiculous laws upon producers and consumers we figure out what our target should be?

I'm not for ridiculous laws but there is stuff we can do that's not ridiculous. I think our current energy crisis will kick it into high gear! People will demand cheaper sources of energy and much of that can probably now be clean sources!

I don’t want to start “driving” a horse to work if a simple downsize to a Honda Civic would have been sufficient enough. But that is the catch that the eco-nuts will not talk about. They don’t ultimately care what disruptions happen to the economy. They only care that the polar bear population continues to grow and that the forests remain free of humans. They don’t care that an increase in temperature would actually be good for the world as it opens up more land for farming. Did we all forget that plants really, really like CO2. More CO2 would produce greener more thriving plant life. No, its not a linear return…but an additional temperature increase, in itself, is beneficial.

I think you rag on the "eco-nuts" out there... sure, there are some, but most are not nuts.

But quit telling me that this is the greatest threat to man kind – baloney! This is no more of a threat than that last period of increasing temperature….and that no more than the period before that.

I think you are exaggerating. I think it is clearly a threat but I doubt most environmentalists would say it is the greatest (but it could be). The biggest threats we face are the ones we create for ourselves.

Global Warming is a religion unto itself. Al, you of all people should know that the Catholic church forbids taking part in another religion!

The Catholic church teaches that we should be good stewards of our environment... and in many ways we are not doing that.

[Common Sense Al]

http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton/goreerrors.html

Well I'm already disappointed... that page is a piece of junk as it won't print right with Firefox or IE (they probably need CSE HTML Validator (little plug there)). Fortunately I saw that there was a PDF and that seemed to print OK.

[falcon999]

i think we need more nuclear power.. then we can all have electric cars like the jetsons.

[josh]

Ok. I watched it. Half of it. The midway mark is about where I threw up! I thought this was going to be a docu on global warming...not a docu on Al Gore's bitterness.

Should I be shocked that Gore spent several minutes reliving the failed election? No. Should I be shocked that he used the near death of his son to someone play a link in Global Warming? Yes! All of the technial rebuttal I posted Friday still stands. The only comment I have after watching this is...what a waste of time.

How ironic that he mentions all of the Hurricanes that popped up during the year he was putting this together...and then for the last two hurricane seasons...NOTTA...barely a drop of rain along the coasts!! Al Gore is directly linking the floating, bloated bodies in New Orleans with man made global warming. This guy has some nerve. But hey...people are eating this stuff up. They see a dead body in New Orleans and all of the sudden it is the fault of the CEO of Exxon. I take that back...its actually MY FAULT. I havent changed out all of my bulbs in my house yet.

I have nothing else to say about this movie. Now lets get on with debating the scientific merrits. Global warming alarmists want to silence all dissent just like evolutionists. What are they afraid of?!

[Common Sense Al]

Ok. I watched it. Half of it. The midway mark is about where I threw up! I thought this was going to be a docu on global warming...not a docu on Al Gore's bitterness.

Josh, just ignore that 1-2% of the documentary. If you vomit, just swallow it back up.

Should I be shocked that Gore spent several minutes reliving the failed election? No. Should I be shocked that he used the near death of his son to someone play a link in Global Warming? Yes! All of the technial rebuttal I posted Friday still stands. The only comment I have after watching this is...what a waste of time.

You should watch the whole thing... but doesn't sound like it will do any good.

How ironic that he mentions all of the Hurricanes that popped up during the year he was putting this together...and then for the last two hurricane seasons...NOTTA...barely a drop of rain along the coasts!! Al Gore is directly linking the floating, bloated bodies in New Orleans with man made global warming. This guy has some nerve. But hey...people are eating this stuff up. They see a dead body in New Orleans and all of the sudden it is the fault of the CEO of Exxon. I take that back...its actually MY FAULT. I havent changed out all of my bulbs in my house yet.

Sounds like you are over-reacting. I don't agree with every single point and comparison he makes, but there are some pretty strong ones in there as well. Reminds me of people complaining about Sicko because they don't like a few points made... well look at the bigger picture and don't concentrate on the smaller points that may not make as much sense in order to support your preconceived notions. I think the overall point and message is well supported by the data he provides.

I have nothing else to say about this movie. Now lets get on with debating the scientific merrits. Global warming alarmists want to silence all dissent just like evolutionists. What are they afraid of?!

Are you going to watch the whole thing? If not, then I may just read 17.5 of the 35 points.

Still hoping to find the time to do that this weekend.

[neighbor]

The bottom line on global warming is this.... Yes, we are experiencing global warming. And we have been since the ice age! New flash! Polar ice has been receding since the ice age! Think about it for a minute. If the globe hasn't been warming, we would STILL BE IN AN ICE AGE! Even without humans the globe would be warming.

Human impact does contribute, but any reputable scientist (not a politician or actor) will tell you that nature also changes, and does a pretty good job of keeping things in balance.

Here's my theory. There is a lot of attention to receding polar caps and glaciers, all of which is attributed to global warming.

Do this... Pile 5 bags of ice on your driveway. Watch it melt. For the first two or three hours, you will notice little change. Due to the large surface area of 5 bags of ice, it takes some time for the pile to show reduction. But, as it gets smaller, melting becomes more noticeable. It also begins to melt faster because there is less surface to melt. Now keep in mind that air temperate has not changed.

It's so much that things are melting fatser, it's more that there is less to melt.

OK, oversimplified, but that's my theory... and while I'm having another drink, I'm sticking to it.

[love Lantana]

Al where did you find this movie? I would love to see it.

[Common Sense Al]

Al where did you find this movie? I would love to see it.

Netflix

[Common Sense Al]

http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton/goreerrors.html

Well I'm already disappointed... that page is a piece of junk as it won't print right with Firefox or IE (they probably need CSE HTML Validator (little plug there)). Fortunately I saw that there was a PDF and that seemed to print OK.

OK. I read all 35 points... Josh, were you able to watch the entire documentary?

Here are my unbiased (as always ) comments:

The page certainly raises questions about the credibility of Gore's evidence. Gore mentions some items which the above link claims were not caused by global warming. The link also states that Gore is exaggerating the magnitude and urgency of global warming, which he claims is man-made. Do I "buy" that Gore may have made some incorrect conclusions and exaggerated the urgency? Sure, he probably did, especially if the information in the above link is reliable and correct (but is it?).

I cannot easily verify most of the info in the link, but "Error 17" strikes me as very odd. I do not understand how the sun doesn't heat water? The link claims the sun does not directly heat the ocean. So if the sun's rays are not heating the ocean, where does the sun's energy go? I understand some of it is reflected back, but where does the rest of it go? Are they just playing word games? If you search the Internet, you will find lots of sites that say the sun warms the ocean.

I think they are also playing word games with carbon dioxide being pollution ("Error 30"). If we are putting excessive CO2 in the air and it is causing harm, then that can be considered pollution.

Anyway, the link has provided more basis for which to question man-made global warming. But in any case, I have not changed my opinions that we need to stop using fossil fuels and switch to cleaner energy sources. This will in turn, reduce the amount of CO2 that we put in the atmosphere.

As a side note, I just read in Consumer Reports that the gov't subsidizes fossil fuels and thus they are cheaper than they actually cost... instead, I think the gov't should stop this junk and move the subsidies to clean energy. If they are going to subsidize something, they should subsidize clean energy. Because of the gov't subsidies for fossil fuels that have made the cost artificially low, we are way behind other countries like Germany and Japan in clean energy. The artificially low price of dirty energy has kept us from investing more in clean energy.

Anyway, to really get to the bottom of this to see who I trust more, I'd have to do a lot of my own research and I just don't have time for that.

[linux_is_cool]

hmmm....The sun doesn't heat the ocean? Why is the ocean, 95 in the first 10, 20, 30, 40 foot of water, and then drastically drop in temperature as you decline? does the land heat it? Oh no, I got it, it is that wide variety of gas fish, that let off the massive amounts of methane gas that heat the ocean, what was I thinking...