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CONSENSUS NOT EVIDENT
Salon’s Katharine Mieszkowski on Algore’s An Inconvenient Truth:
Climate scientists who have seen Gore’s film say on the whole it presents a scientifically valid view of global warming and does a good job of presenting what’s likely to occur if human-induced greenhouse gas emissions continue unabated.
“Yet,” continues Mieszkowski, “some scientists who are enthusiastic about the film had their own critiques of how the science is presented.” They’re very polite, these scientists. Here’s what they have to say, beginning with Ohio University professor Lonnie Thompson:
To me, it’s an excellent overview for an introductory class at a university.
University of Washington climate scientist John Wallace:
I think that he’s gone to great lengths to make the science comprehensible to the layman.
University of Washington professor of atmospheric sciences David Battisti:
There is only one place in the film I struggled. It makes a powerful theatrical point, but it leaves open the criticism that you’re stretching the truth.
University of Washington (three dudes from the U of W?) isotope geochemist Eric Steig:
Never in the movie does he say: ‘This particular event is caused by global warming.’
NASA climate modeler Dr. Gavin Schmidt:
Gore talked about 2005 and 2004 being very strong [hurricane] seasons, and if you weren’t paying attention, you could be left with the impression that there was a direct cause and effect, but he was very careful to not say there’s a direct correlation.
Gore is on a good bet with the impressionable “not paying attention” community. Tom Harris in the National Post isn’t as friendly:
While the gods must consider An Inconvenient Truth the ultimate comedy, real climate scientists are crying over Al Gore’s new film. This is not just because the ex-vice-president commits numerous basic science mistakes. They are also concerned that many in the media and public will fail to realize that this film amounts to little more than science fiction.
Read the whole thing. Hey, read both.
(Lifted from lefty Lambert, lately linking to Lindgren on Lott’s Levitt lawsuit.)
My new motto:
“Warm Globally, Drive Locally.”
I do what I can.
Posted by Bill Spencer on 2006 06 14 at 10:55 AM • permalinkMore Harris linked to by Drudge http://www.canadafreepress.com/2006/harris061206.htm
He makes an incorrect argument though, that most scientists cited as experts are not experts in the right obscure corner of climate study. The idea that there’s anybody to even constitute a science in the newspaper sense of science, is wrong. There’s a bunch of curious guys, is all, puttering around, and someday they may stumble upon something or they may not, but any positive fallout is likely to be something they discover in numerical analysis.
``Hey, we didn’t find out anything about climate, but here’s a great way to do variable-coefficient wave equations on a computer.’‘
Anyway that’s typical, when you set out to investigate an unstudied field.
Science in the newspaper sense is a really smart guy telling you what’s true about something. You cite them to alarm housewives.
Little Known Fact. The scientistesty El Al Gore, after his recent visit to Saudi Arabia ( a visit not at all publicized by the MSM) has received a grant to produce a new popular scientific movie “Return of the Incredible Truth” in which he plays Albert Einstein and shows that the General Theory of Relativity is wrong as all get out and was a Zionist plot to distract the universe from global warming. (Fact as basis for the movie: One-Hundred German physicists during WWII declared Einstein’s theories wrong.)
Does anyone get the feeling that many in the scientific community have become a tad alarmed by the Algork alarmists and are starting to walk it back a bit? Or maybe that sizeable group of
global warmingglobal coolingclimate change dissenters is finally finding its voice. Either way, I’m seeing more and more reports like this one surface. Not that any of that will matter to the likes of Gorebot; he’s already written his Oscar acceptance speech.In the Salon piece, Mieszkowski says that Gore used carbon offsets to mitigate the global warming impact of his travel for “An Inconvenient Truth,” that Gore pledged to make the documentary carbon-neutral. I went to the link provided and found this:
As a venture capitalist for Expansion Capital Partners, a firm that invests in clean technologies, Day’s all too aware that his purring engine makes an incremental contribution to global warming. Burning one gallon of gas emits 20 pounds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and in one year, the family Subaru gives off about 6,400 pounds of the greenhouse gas.
But a decal on the back window of Day’s Subaru attests that he’s done something about it. He’s paid $39.95 to a Silicon Valley company called TerraPass to “offset” the CO2 emissions from his car. His money is going to help fund wind farms and reduce the methane leaking out of dairy farms and landfills. By paying to boost alternative energy and cut pollution, Day is neutralizing the greenhouse gases coming out of his own car. He can’t put the C02 genie back in the bottle. But he can help jump-start a new way to arrest global warming. Buying carbon offsets is a small gesture, Day says, “but it’s a lot better than standing still. It’s certainly better to do this than to do nothing.”
$39.95. Wow. True, it’s not “nothing”. Next to nothing, perhaps, but not nothing. Wouldn’t you love to see a list of Gore’s “offsets”.
This the only second piece I’ve read this morning, but it’s the second that made me want to stand up and cheer. The first is by Amir Taheri for Commentary Magazine: The Real Iraq.
I wish every person in the US and Australia would read both.Posted by Kyda Sylvester on 2006 06 14 at 12:20 PM • permalinkDoes anyone get the feeling that many in the scientific community have become a tad alarmed by the Algork alarmists and are starting to walk it back a bit?
It might be the same dynamic as that between the Democratic Party leadership and the loony left. The nutcases are useful for drawing attention to these scientists’ field, but only as long as they don’t threaten to take over the whole thing.
#10:
Burning one gallon of gas emits 20 pounds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Since one gallon of gasoline weighs about 6.5 pounds, and the gasoline contains essentially all the carbon that’s going into the exhaust… (I seem to have remembered *some* of what my flight instructor tried to teach me.)
Either Mr. Mieszkowski (or Mr. Day) is either badly confused or else lying about the carbon dumped in the atmosphere (which doesn’t say much good about their advocacy efforts), or else they’ve found a way to create matter ex nihilo. (This could have theological implications.)
It also goes with his perpetual motion machine.</i> [He typed mainly to shut off the italics.]
Posted by andycanuck on 2006 06 14 at 04:50 PM • permalinkAnd, obviously, failed. Let’s give it another go.
Posted by andycanuck on 2006 06 14 at 04:51 PM • permalinkOh, no. Does italicization cause global warming?
Posted by andycanuck on 2006 06 14 at 04:52 PM • permalinkAndrea, steveH broke the italics! (And they’ve taken over the set page text too like the “Please note” message.)
Posted by andycanuck on 2006 06 14 at 04:54 PM • permalinkFollowing Ms.Mieszkowski’s links I came across an article titled “Paying off our global warming sins” in which she states “some critics worry that (carbon) offsettings will encourage guiltfree consumption”.I think this remark reveals the psychology of these people. The craze for self-flagellation which swept Europe in the early 1300’s, precipitated by the onset of the Little Ice Age,was driven on by demagogues. The flagellant bands grew in arrogance and denounced opponents as scorpions and Anti-Christs. The movement attracted the power hungry and degenerated into criminal bands attacking Jews. Sound familiar?
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I think he must have consulted noted documentary producer Art Bell , whose “The Day After Tommorrow” set the standard in this dubious genre.
By the way, I understand that it is tommorrow already there in OZ, has the world ended yet?