Many of you have probably already watched Al Gore's movie: An Inconvenient Truth. Being a little behind, I finally watched the documentary last night.
For those of you haven't heard much about it, I'll give a bit of background. The movie's about Al Gore's quest to reduce global warming through educating people of their impact on the environment. His crusade began after taking a class in university from a professor who proved increased carbon levels are directly correlated with increased atmospheric temperature. Now he travels all over the World educating himself and others on the fact that global warming is directly controllable by the current human race.
Why isn't there more publicity on this topic by government or higher ups? Gore uses an amazing quote to answer this question: It's difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on him not understanding it. - Upton Sinclair
Gore does more than lay out the facts in a way that's logical, convincing, and even entertaining. He takes it to the next level and inspires individual action. It's our individual responsibility to make a change on this issue. Each and every day we all encounter situations that play a role in the health of the environment. Situations as simple as turning out the lights, recycling, or walking a few extra blocks. We can choose to act or not act on these situations.
To get more information on the movie, check out:
http://www.climatecrisis.net/
14 comments:
Now Im not saying that we aren't the cause of the problems of global warming because we probably are however, Living in a society where we are provided the luxuries of convienience, we sometimes take for granted these luxuries and don't always take the necessary precautions and steps to help the environment as we should. But have you ever thought that global warming may just be the natural course the earth takes. We really only have records on weather paterns and climate change for the last few hundred years and seeing as this plant is hundreds of thousands of years old it is a definite possibility that this could be a natural course of this planet.
The reason why you don't see governments publicize more on this topic is because most of this publicity is coming from Americans, the self-proclaimed, greatest nation in the world, who are arguably the worlds biggest polluters. They also have a president who is easily swayed by big business(OIL) and who is more than willing to roll back environmental initiatives to help out these polluters. There aren't many things in this world that money can't buy and the presidency is definetly no exception. Although i found Sinclair's quote interesting i somewhat disagree with it. I think with the wealth of knowledge available to us the majority of the population is more than aware of the effects of their daily lives on our planet. I think most just choose not too do anything about it because its easier than making sacrifices.
What up Fred - beergaritas on Sat. Whoop whoop.
JS, JS, JS. What is the natural course of nature? Well, one would imagine it is the opposite of global warming. Said different, it is ice hanging over our head. As of February 2, 2007– the world can no longer ignore the global warming issue. On that same day, hundreds of scientists gathered to discuss the issues of global warming. Important to this, they were political agenda neutral caring no bias to either side of the debate. In considering every resource and knowledge available - these scientists sounded an alarm that global warming is “unequivocally” human caused.
Should we consider “An Inconvenient Truth” a catalyst for a change in re-using, recycling, and reducing our uses of power, et al – then we should truly applaud the movies impact and consider it a rare contribution of the Culture Industry. With that said. Since the early nineteen sixties, environmentalists have been screaming for sustainability, and I truly believe that your argument and the like are what have prevented any action.
For the record the U.S. with incredible efforts the likes of California, is no longer the number one contributor to the problem. They have been replaced by China. That is where this delicate situation takes a new life. In the modern world where identity politics are the toast of the town, how do we tell China, Japan, Argentina, Brazil, etc. to stop polluting? How do we tell them, after years of dependency on the United States, to again, adopt a new culture, that of awareness? This issue is more global than local, transcending culture and class – and a solution should be at the least enteretained.
If we continue to look at this as a natural course of nature and do nothing – our faces will not only be red from the sun. Wouldn’t you rather consider it a problem, and be wrong above considering it not and be wrong?
The cyclical global warming argument has been around for a while. Although it is true to an extent, with times like the ice ages, this theory is no longer valid.
New science has been able to measure temperature and carbon levels for the last 650,000 years using ice from Antarctica. It has found periods of warming and cooling. Surprisingly enough that warming and cooling is directly correlated to the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. Of those last 650,000 years, the warmest have been in the last few years.
Now here's were it gets really crazy. The current carbon levels are almost 10 times higher than they've ever been in that whole time. If the levels continue to rise at this level, the planet will be unlivable in 50 years.
I believe Sinclair's quote said exactly what Justin's saying - if politicians and people in charge remain "ignorant" to the situation, they will not have to make sacrifices (ie. their salary).
Great Discussions...
I finally watched "An Inconvenient Truth" last night and I would like to say my lack of knowledge on the severity of this situation was poor to say the least.
Now my only question is this. Knowing what we know now how do we get people on board to defend this cause? The ignorance and flat out denial of a problem among people in society is sastounding. The american public especially may be the most against a change because it harms their way of life. Upton Sinclair's quote was completely accurate for the beliefs of Americans in general. I feel as though we as Canadians are starting to do more and more each day but we are still far off from where we need to be. Global warming still has this stigma of being factious and driven by motives of environmentalists. Having the majority of our media provided to us by the US, who is obviously far far behind the environmental movement, how are we supposed to change the collective minds of the rest of the nation who feel this isn't a problem at all?
Hey Justin,
Great question! I think that there are people already on board to defend the problems of climate change but there is a delay with the media to fully appreciate who's on board. For example, Sir Richard Branson recently offered up $25 Million to the first scientist who is able to develop a workable means of removing at least one billion tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year.
This didn't even hit Western media, and the media attention it did get was negative, to say the least. You can see the full article at http://green.itweek.co.uk/2007/02/bransons_climat.html.
Cheers
Justin! I'm happy you've watched the movie. Seriously, I think this movie will be a catalyst to some major steps forward on this issue.
I'm about to drop some serious marketing geek lingo on you, so I hope you're ready...
With any major social movement, there is a tipping point. This is the point where people are not only inspired to act, but inspired to spread the word for others to join them. Personally, I feel like this movie is that tipping point. After talking to anyone who has watched it, they are doing two things: 1) telling you to see it because it's amazing & 2) creating a plan for themselves make an impact. This is a pretty powerful result.
However, as you probably know, with any social movement there is never 100% buy-in. There will always be a certain portion of the population that never jumps on board.
As Gore suggests, this problem will be remedied by individual action. So set the example, search for ways in your own life to make a serious difference. If we as a group of individuals all took that course of action, I feel America would become consumed by this movement.
Here are a couple of changes I have made:
-Turn out lights where ever possible
-Turn off my computer at work every night and encourage everyone else in the office to do the same
-At the bottom of my emails, I have added a line to my signature: "before you print, consider the Environment"
It is an interesting topic, to be sure. I would, however, take issue when you say there's no publicity on the issue. There's been nothing but publicity over the last several months. There has been a lot of debate in the House of Commons lately. There have also been many newspaper articles and editorials concerning global warming. Branson's $25 million prize did indeed make the Western media. We're getting Kyoto from all sides. All the more reason that people should become informed on the issue.
The big issue I have with the global warming theory is the monumental hubris with which the IPCC throws about terms like "certain" and "established". What are they basing there models on, which they run on supercomputers? Hundreds (if not thousands) of input parameters, most of which they have to pull out of their asses because they have no freaking clue how things really work. They can say with certainty, not only that the earth is warming, but why it is warming. And yet they can't say what the weather will be a week from today. Something tells me that climate models are pretty useless as predictive tools. Actually, anyone with any sense knows that the value of modelling lies not with prediction, but with interpretation and design.
That said, am I saying that global warming isn't occurring? It may be. Might it be affected by human emissions? Possibly. Does conservation make sense? It has always made sense. So should we hedge our bets? By all means. The largest sources in Canada, source https://www.ec.gc.ca/soer-ree/English/Indicators/Issues/Climate/Tech_Sup/ccsup03_e.cfm
are transportation and power generation, totaling just over 50% of our emissions. We must get rid of our coal plants and replace them with nuclear. Now that would even give Saskatchewan an opportunity for adding value to the uranium chain. But unfortunately most of the environuts run screaming from nuclear power.
It is interesting how many people blame big oil for global warming, but who buys 3 cars, 2 SUVs, ski-doos, quads, boats, and a 3000 square foot home? Rich people. Would the poor people do the same if they had the money? Damned right they would. And are people willing to change? I haven't seen too many signs of it.
Shawn, I think you would get a lot of benefit from actually watching the movie.
Shawn, Its people with attitudes like yours with all the information available that still think that global warming isn't a problem that validate my last question. Im not sure how you can in one sentence say that global warming doesn't exist and in another say that we need to go away from coal to nuclear. Which by the is like putting a band-aid on a bullet wound, nuclear power pollutes less but it leaves us with tons of by products that are extremely dangerous and not easily stored safely. What we all need to do is the little things like Fred said, recycling, walk more, turn out lights. The government is already taking initiatives to lessen our pollution rate by building power plants that produce ethanol and clean coal. If we consume less we pollute less.
As for your comment on media exposure, it is true that we are starting to learn more about this but it's also been a problem for a long time. Why do you think that Europe's and Asia's emission standards are far more stringent than ours are and why do you think the North American automakers have no place in the market over there. No one wants to have to cut American jobs to do what they need to do. This is just North American society saying if we do nothing maybe it'll go away. Just look at the failings of GM and Ford in the market and tell me this isn't the wrong way to go about things. If we sit by and do nothing long enough it isn't going to matter we aren't going to have a planet left to pollute.
I'll admit I haven't seen it. The man who invented the internet has very little credibility with me. I will see it when it hits CBC (it will, if it hasn't already.)
Justin, I'm going to ask you to clear up a few things in your post. "Having the majority of our media provided to us by the US, who is obviously far far behind the environmental movement, how are we supposed to change the collective minds of the rest of the nation who feel this isn't a problem at all?" What do you mean by most of our media is provided to us by the US? This is clearly inaccurate. Also, the US is obviously far far behind us in the environmental movement - do you mean Kyoto? If so, although Canada ratified Kyoto (under the Liberals) we have done nothing to hit the targets. Either government.
If you will read my post again you will see that I didn't say global warming isn't a problem. What I said is that the "90% probability" the IPCC throws around is complete and utter garbage. What I am saying is that given the complexity of the system, there is no way that level of certainty can be achieved. Any model (especially one this complex) is useless until validated. And unfortunately, that will take hundreds of years. So in the meantime, yes, lets do something.
Nuclear power is like putting a band-aid on a bullet wound? France produces about 76% of its electricity from nuclear plants. They started going nuclear in 1974. As yet, they haven't had any problems with waste storage. There are, of course, issues with the storage of waste, but they are far from insurmountable. By the way, the amount of waste produced is relatively small. Certainly tiny compared to the amount of C02 produced from a coal or natural gas plant.
American cars don't sell well in Europe because they're junk. Why do Japanese, and increasingly Korean cars sell so well over here? They're well made.
Power plants definitely don't produce ethanol. Nor will they burn ethanol. Ethanol is for blending with gasoline for fuel. It has a problem, though. Actually, more than one. Firstly, it does not have the heating value as gasoline. I.e. about 34% less MPG. Secondly, it cannot be run pure on current engines. Thirdly, if it is run pure, it is not volatile enough for cold starts. And for me, a big issue is the production of the feedstock. Thousands of acres are being fertilized, sprayed with pesticides, and then farmed (while burning diesel.) No one has yet calculated the total cost (in emissions and pollution) of ethanol. Also, ethanol and bio-diesel produce C02 when burned, just like the petroleum distillates. I think it is unlikely that they are the panacea that some people think.
The big lie that is going around is that it will be easy to meet our Kyoto targets. Actually, no. If we take every car off the road and shut down the entire manufacturing sector now we still would not meet the targets. Walking more and recycling? Not going to cut it. If we want to implement Kyoto, we're going to have to make a sharp change in our lifestyles. Let's just say we would have to be a lot more like the Flintstones than the Jetsons.
By the way, I still think it makes sense to conserve, be it electricity, fuel, or consumer goods.
Fred I'm calling one of your claims, i.e. "Now here's were it gets really crazy. The current carbon levels are almost 10 times higher than they've ever been in that whole time." Refer to http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb07.pdf Figure SPM-1 and you will see that C02 levels were never ten times less than they are now. In fact, they are about 36% higher than they were 10 000 years ago.
I should also point out that coal generating power plants pump out much, much more radioactive material than nuclear power plants. The difference is, with old coal plants, it goes straight into the air, instead of being safely stored.
Looks like my recollection of the stats given out in the movie was a bit off. What's your point?
For future reference, the intention of this site is to stimulate thought and discussion by providing a look at the World through my eyes and those of the readers.
Comments that promote healthy discussion and fresh perspectives are encouraged. Comments of an argumentative nature do not foster either of those goals.
I apologize. Looking over my posts, I have a tendency to pick out little things and argue them. We can agree to disagree on the main issue.
Of interest to this topic, did you know that the U of S will institute a mandatory bus pass for $118 a year for all undergrads next year? It passed the referendum by 58%. One of the big selling points was the environmental benefits. Food for thought.
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