The documentary ‘An Inconvenient Truth’, in which former Vice President Al Gore explains the current “climate crisis” and how Australia must sign the Kyoto Protocol to stop global warming, last night won an Oscar Award for best documentary film.
The Oscars are awards from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Los Angeles and considered the most presitigous and most watched film awards ceremony in the world.
The director of ‘An Inconvenient Truth’, Davis Guggenheim, took the film’s star Al Gore on stage to accept the award with Mr Gore declaring:
“My fellow Americans, people all over the world, we need to solve the climate crisis.
“It’s not a political issue, it’s a moral issue.
“We have everything we need to get started with the possible will to act. That’s a renewable resource. Let’s renew it.”
Mr Guggenheim said he and the film crew were so inspired by Al Gore’s fight for 30 years to tell this truth on global warming.
I’m not sure that Al Gore was all that truthful in the film or that it is a moral issue. I wrote a column for the ABC radioCounterpoint program last year in which I suggested global warming was more a technological than a moral issue. There are related blog pieces here.
According to CBS News reporting on last night Oscar Award’s ceremony:
“Earlier in the evening Gore and Leonardo DiCaprio took the stage to unveil a series of efforts the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences took to make this year’s awards more environmentally friendly…
“Oscar ballots were made from partially recycled paper and organic produce was served at the Governor’s Ball. The academy joined with the Natural Resources Defense Council to reduce energy usage and increase recycling.
“Other initiatives included rides for presenters and stars in hybrid vehicles. The academy said it had explored hydrogen-powered fuel cell buses to transport crew and other workers, but did not have enough time to do it this year.”
I’m surprised they didn’t just pay someone to plant a few trees to “off-set” the night.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Bet those fancy frocks wont be recycled. You forgot to mention Happy Feet one an Oscar too. Oh the lies…but Mumble is cuter than Al Gore any day!
I caught a segment on the early news this morning – DiCaprio talking about Hollywood’s social responsibilities ( or something like that)???
Good old Hollywood – always great for a laugh!
And yes Jennifer , if it truly is only about the science , then morality doesn’t come into it and neither do pipe dreams such as solar, wind etc.
Let’s see/hear an honest , non-political , non-religious scientific endorsement of nuclear power from the Hollywood ilk.
It is after all the only current technology available to make significant and affordable reductions in CO2 emissions.
The Oscars awards are like the Grammy awards which are like the Pulitizer Peace Prizes–you have to be critical of America, and George Bush in particular, to win. This win was predicted a mile away, and they even orchestrated the orchestra for Gore’s punch line. Thankfully, I have enough sense not to take cues for what I believe from Hollywood. The only mistake they made is that Gore should have been in a category for best fiction film.
“Let’s see/hear an honest , non-political , non-religious scientific endorsement of nuclear power from the Hollywood ilk.”
i guess we’ve already had the pointless hollywood equivalent here in oz thanks to switkowski’s door stop. the ‘science’, let alone economics in that thing was based on flawed projections, omitted subsidies and plenty of out-of-date data. but lets not pretend that anyone actually wanted a balanced view from that working group.
hey, if we want to make minimal greenhouse cuts at huge energy cost increases, then nuclear it is! but we already know that co2 saved per dollar, that renewables and energy efficiency are cheaper and more effective than nukes…
“…but we already know that co2 saved per dollar, that renewables and energy efficiency are cheaper and more effective than nukes…”
How do we know that Julian?
Of course the science debate is not about morality (though ethics is involved of course).
But the debate about =action= is heavily influenced by morality.
To draw an analogy: counting the number of children in poverty and understanding why children are in poverty is a dispassionate exercise in science and measurement. But deciding what to do about it is a political decision – it involved a host of considerations, including economics, law, science, popular opinion, and morality.
Cmon Jim, this is not rocket science, you have to be trying pretty hard to frame the world to a narrow viewpoint to not see this – its obvious.
Re whether climate change is a technological issue or a moral issue: saying it is a technological issue implies that we need technology to deal with climate change. But the decision for any kind of action whether it be more technology or something else, is a decision in which morality plays a part.
“…but we already know that co2 saved per dollar, that renewables and energy efficiency are cheaper and more effective than nukes…”
because Jim, im sure your aware of the minimal impact that nukes have to remove co2, where every stage in the nuclear fuel cycle, bar the fission itself, emits great quantities of co2 anyway, and as the costs per kwh are getting up there with renewables (without the emodied energy pay back time of renewables). after 50 odd years of nukes, the costs are relatively stable and the technology has made minimal improvements overall whereas the costs and efficiencies of renewables are constantly improving.
im not going to waste hours posting you millions of links to back this up. try google, this stuff isnt new information.
anyway, the techno-fix argument is a flawed one. all the most technologically advanced countries are not-so-coincidentally the biggest polluters per capita.
If as Al Gore says, *its a moral issue*, then how *moral* is it to run up power bills of $1,359 for electricity and $1,080 for gas PER MONTH!
http://www.tennesseepolicy.org/main/article.php?article_id=367
I’m not disputing that Steve – the decision as to what to DO about AGW does involve non-scientific considerations.
But the debate about the science underpinning AGW and consideration of other alternatives doesn’t.
Rog – you’re right – it’s not impressive at all. Seems incredibly extravagant. Gore needs to shape up.
But a diversion surely – are we going to have the debate dictated to by movie stars and celebrities? They can probably get some publicity for the issue – but for many their luxurious lifestyles will be an evitable liability in the final wash up.
Julian – I thought windmills and solar panels were a technological fix too??? Is there an ignore button here somewhere.
Gore talks about morality, he asks others to commit to personal scarifice whilst he lives an abundant life;
“..Public records reveal that as Gore lectures Americans on excessive consumption, he and his wife Tipper live in two properties: a 10,000-square-foot, 20-room, eight-bathroom home in Nashville, and a 4,000-square-foot home in Arlington, Va. (He also has a third home in Carthage, Tenn.) For someone rallying the planet to pursue a path of extreme personal sacrifice, Gore requires little from himself.”
Aaron
difference being most in favour of renewables advocate a broad base of energy sources & energy efficiency measures, not just nuclear as the quick-fix ‘be-all and end-all’ answer.
methinks youve been pressing that ignore button too many times already
So Gore’s three houses could be costing $60,000 to $90,000 a year? How so very, very Hollywood.
Just remember that this is the same Hollywood/arts elite that went gah gah over the Russian Ballet during the same period when 40 million Russian farmers died of starvation and persecution.
And now we have a bunch of people who cannot sustain a marital relationship for longer than a few years lecturing us all on intergenerational equity? Tell that to their endless line of completely f@#$ up kids, they could probably use a laugh.
And Julian, could you kindly list for us all the diseases and other causes of abject misery that have NOT been improved or completely removed by a “techno-fix” as you refer to it?
Or is that your Luddite religious beliefs showing through the veneer of intelligent discourse?
Motty, your anger is getting the better of you. ranting about a group of people with whom gore has very little in common – he has been married to tipper for decades.
my non-religious beliefs prevent me from viewing ‘all things technology’ being wonderous and awe-inspiring, though far be it from me to be able to pick and choose what i perceive as beneficial without discarding everything under a particular banner. by your sort of reasoning, the nuclear weapon and the ability to destroy ourselves must be a grand thing, above all levels of criticism.
i know you would love everything to be so black and white, but it aint going to happen.
According to the Wikipedia reference one of these statues is worth US$1.
According to the Oscar web site the AL Gore documentary beat off two documentaries about Iraq war and two about religion and the abuse of children.
Perhaps the best thing to do is to take up Jennifer’s suggestion and plant a tree.
Or perhaps if you want to see a documentary that upholds our own ABC code of conduct in ensuring current affairs reporting is accurate and impartial, check last night’s 4 Corners screening of the Canadian documentary that appears to be based on the Greenpeace website http://www.exxonsecrets.org/
Thanks Cinders – very interesting!
But remember to keep it simple ; an Exxon expose of Greenpeace’s motives can never be compared to a Greenpeace expose of Exxon – or something like that?
interesting to see that part of the reason al gore is paying such high electrical bills – he’s paying for GREEN POWER
http://www.dicksonherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070226/NEWS01/70226055
“Electric bills obtained by The Tennessean, however, showed that Gore is paying a premium on his bills to be part of the “green power” program. Gore purchased 108 blocks of “green power” for at least each of the last three months, according to a summary of bills from Nashville Electric Service.
That’s a total of $432 a month spent to pay extra for solar or other renewable energy sources. NES power – outside this program – is derived largely from coal, which emits carbon, a green house gas.
The green power purchased by Gore in those three months is equivalent to recycling 2.48 million aluminum cans, or recycling 286,092 pounds of newspaper, according to comparison figures on the utility’s Web site.”
so very hollywood eh motty?
must be more expensive over there, i cant say ive noticed my green power costing anything notable.
Folks: If we were fighting a real war over the prospect of more rapid global warming, we wouldn’t want to be on the loosing side would we?
Gore uses 20x the national household average of energy for just one house and claims that it is OK as he has offset his “carbon footprint”.
It’s a bit like Clintons “I did not have sexual relations” claims when, in his mind, oral sex is not sex.
it should also be noted that the ‘organisation’ that has started this gore-$mear is being exposed as just another right wing, exxon-funded fake think tank, as we speak.
non-partisan indeed… and someone was trying to argue with me about the motives behind exxon being on par with that of green groups!! ha!
rog – green power and offsets are totally unrelated entities.
personally, offsets are a complete crock and a financial sham. yes, you hear that from me.
Offsets as we know them are just a form of setback, merely postponing the day of reckoning at the core of all business.
For every tree we plant as individuals, ask yourself if their growth rate can out pace our personal needs for say loo paper over our lifetime.
Our desired rate of harvesting has to be reckoned with in terms of someone else’s offset every time we plant something for the future.
All this Hpllywood hysteria…
Aren’t the stars a little bit pathetic arriving to the gala in hybrids and electrical cars when they own at least 5 SUVs and will take off the next morning in their private jets to some exotic island??
No, don’t accuse me for jealosy!
http://article.wn.com/view/2007/02/26/Some_celebrities_who_made_green_issues_cool_0/
So Julian has refused to supply any diseases etc that were treated by “non-techno-fix” solutions. You are so transparent it hurts. Bozo slings an accusation of rage and then slips away from the question with tail between legs.
So lets just have a few “techno fixes” that did work, shall we?
Polio, eradicated due to techno fix.
Tuberculosis, almost eradicated due to techno fix,
Small Pox, almost eradicated due to techno fix,
Stomach ulcers, fully treatable due to techno fix,
Typhoid, very rare due to plumbers and their techno fix,
Dysentry, ditto
Cateract blindness, fully treatable with techno fix,
The fact is the climate cretins have a very unhealth dose of old fashioned Ludditery. They are still back in the days of projecting from chooks guts and bleeding the victim of his bad humours (healthy scepticism).
Techno fix is probably one of the stupidest, most baseless throw away lines ever pumped out by the moronocracy.
dear motty
i could easily waste hours of my life responding to every one of your precious baits, but i dont.
for the record, innoculation was used by the indians who used deliberate infection of small pox to help the body build up a tolerance – long before the west adopted innoc/vaccination and before the ‘techno-fix’ so readily worshipped as a deity by the likes of yourself.
for the record, go and check the historical rates of infection & death of all of those various diseases and note that pretty much all of them were in serious decline BEFORE the introduction of said vaccines. or the fact that various outbreaks of TB in india and polio and whooping cough in australia were linked to vaccination programs. im certainly not about to cling to the vaccination deniers platform and say that vaccination is bad, but im also not ignorant enough to put 1 + 1 together and come up with 3. lets also avoid going into the debate on the link between HIV, SIV and polio vaccines grown in simian/baboon kidneys. imunology is not my strong point, and i know when not to talk out from my proverbial – some advice you might do well by.
your use of inflamatory language is the only thing transparent around here – enough with your spivs, luddites, etc etc etc – its beginning to make my sides hurt.
ps this was written on a computer & not posted to jennifer and retyped – yes, i use technology!
Ian, was it not a moral issue to ensure the mass uptake of the vaccinations for some of the diseases you mentioned above?
Eh? was Jenner an Indian?
I agree Ann, all those *stars* swanning around the globe being clean, green and wet and adopting african kids whilst coming out of detox/health farm/boob job clinic and advising us all on how to live our lives.
Just send me a cheque!
So Al Gore has attained the lofty heights of Michael Moore. What an accolade.
Seems like the anti-GW mob is a tad eaten up by some sort of penis envy. Me thinks I’d cross the street if I saw one coming. But how would one know? My guess is they’d be muttering in an agitated manner to themselves and clenching and unclenching their fists. Very angry people.
Julian weasels on. Good plumbing was clearly a techno fix and cholera was definitely NOT on the wane before that fix. Polio was not on the wane before the salk vaccine. And I guess the Indians who supposedly discovered vaccination were not the millions who were wiped out all over southern USA in the months after the first Spanish contacts.
But are we seriously to go hurtling into the 21st century under the guidance of a bunch of bozos who have no room for technological solutions?
Is this nothing more than that ancient, timeless battle between the magnanimous and the tightarses?
Or are we just getting the latest, climate sensitive version of Tolstoy’s noble savage? Where we all get back to the carbon based garden of eden and get mellow?
Sorry folks, I have already had one lot of over indulged urban dropkicks do a dirty great aquarian revolution on my adolescence and I can assure you it still stinks like the same old $hit when you tread in it.
Doubtless Gore’s Oscar will be held up as proof of AGW, alongside Tim Flannery’s receipt of the Australian of the Year award.
Actually, the Oscar may be the most conclusive of the two awards, as Hollywood must necessarily be more “politically neutral” on AGW than a government would be.
ian, in your typical style, you are wishing that i was a luddite. i hate to break your heart and point out to you yet again, that i am not-anti technology like you keep making me out to be, but of course you have difficulty seeing things in shades of grey. however, if anyone thinks a couple of techno-fixes alone is going to prevent us from causing climate change, they truly are delusional in the supreme sense of the word.
ps INDIA the country, not the red indians of what is now the USA. back to the ranch with yall now ian-boy.
I think it’s utterly fascinating how important/dangerous/annoying/hypocritical/notorious everyone thinks Al Gore is in the climate change debate. Is Al really that important or an easier sideline ?
Well that is where we differ, Julian. There is no more reliable trend in the history of mankind than the steady march of improved technology.
And I note that none of the climate models appear to have factored in a rate of technology based improvements in emission management. So the climate cretins are making the same mistake as the Club of Rome. They simply could not comprehend booring old agronomists could deliver continuous improvements in food production of more than 2% per annum.
Extrapolating CO2 output without a rate of technology improvement is not only stupid, it betrays a willingness to be selective with inputs to achieve an ideological goal.
All it takes is some guy to develop a new use for carbon and there will be entirely new industries clustered around coal fired power stations. Most of the jobs my grandchildren will do have not even been invented yet.
And to seriously believe that the best solutions to CO2 management are already here and need to be implemented now is worse than delusional, it is barking mad.
Julian, anybody who doesnt think it is technology that will resolve the problem of c02 (if it is a problem) probably is a luditte.
How else can we really change our co2 output other than through technology? Or don t you want/ expect the 4 billion people who live a subsistence/ third world to increase their energy consumption?
I suppose we could just cull a huge proportion of the worlds population. Hands up who volunteers?
ian & toby
it really isnt that hard, it comes down to differing definitions methinks: when i say ‘techno-fix’ it is usually mocking the pie-in-the-sky blind faith of some who believe that some future technological advance will pull us from our quandry. bush is a big believer of such things – one minute he says nuclear is the answer, the next its waiting for some great leap in fuel technology, and beyond that it is just vague references to ‘technology’, ie something not yet invented.
and again, for the record, our emissions have only increased hand in hand with our technological advances.
i guess if you are happy to ignore the science that says we need to begin making cuts now, then waiting for some currently non-existent technology (clean coal anyone?) to save us is right up your alley. me, i’d prefer to advocate a range of low to zero CO2 emission power sources and energy efficiency – and im not just talking about compact fluoros, im talking about cutting down and improving the efficiencies of the some of the more wasteful elements of our lifestyle. i dont equate that with technology per se, but perhaps you do. it aint going to be dancing around stone circles and smelling like patchouli that will save us, but then the standard deniers line of ‘there is no problem’ followed immediately by ‘future technology will sort the problem’ isnt getting us very far either.
toby, your ridiculous statement about culling the worlds population has been done to death – where would you start? china? well despite 4 times the population, they still have lower total CO2 output than the USA. again, i hate to break it to people, but its the western countries that are overwhelmingly causing climate change, not the poorer, more highly populated countries… pity we seem to have such a difficulty in being able to lead by example – wont be much tut-tutting we can do when the chinese are living our sorts of lifestyles, unless we dont mind being raging hypocrits.
Yeah, just as I thought, a Luddite with tightarse leanings. He wants to rush us into buying the climatic equivalent of a $4 million computer that takes up a whole room and only delivers 16kb of RAM, a half Meg Hard Drive, takes 40 minutes to boot up and does dot matrix graphics. The kids will be really impressed with our “consideration of their best interests”, won’t they just?.
quit it with the end-of-the-economy is nigh BS ian, you just come across as an angry old man.
if my own house can be virtually zero energy for bugger all extra cost (yep, im forking out and putting my money where my mouth is) and all the while looking no different to a ‘house’, are you going to try and tell me thats the equivalent of a $4m commodore 64?
you half-wit – i know ‘the kids’ would be happier living in that than your version of a dried up wasteland. and i bet you are a pro-nuker and trying to tell me i want us to rush into things. oh the irony!
keep up your rants coupled with paradoxical hypocrisy, it does nothing to make you look like you know what the hell you are on about… again.
•yep, im forking out and putting my money where my mouth is•
please, tell me how?
in relation to •bugger all extra cost•
Dear Julian
Can you please elaborate on your statement”I’m talking about cutting down and improving the efficiencies of some of the more wasteful elements of our lifestyle.”
So please tell me and others:
1.What are the the wasteful elements of our lifestyle and
2.How do we improve the efficiencies (whatever that means) of our lifestyle.
I must admit after reading all the articles re AGW it seems to me if the climatologists are correct then the present generations will have to experience a profound decline in their standard of living to hopefully ensure a higher standard of living for generations unborn.
But most of what I read and hear is that to counteract global warming all that is needed is a little bit of tinkering around the edges eg catch a bus, plant some trees, go solar, have tradeable carbon credits (without specifying the cap),encourage and foster clean coal etc.
Blair
Well put Blair…and rog, how indeed?
Yes Julian it was a ridiculous statement ( culing teh popn), and one i am sure none of us advocate. BUT if you really believe technology will not be a cure ( if we need one)…then I fail to see how there is any other solution than to have massive reductions in our standards of living and not allow the less developed countries to develop any further and stop population growth or even cull it! ( natural attrition could accomplish this over time if we reduce birth rates to places like italy and japan)
So Julian how have you made your house so energy efficient? Without either reducing your standard of living ( as we would see it, you might think its raised it by not using energy?!)or spending a lot of money on solar or wind?
If you can really do it without an unreasonable cost and impact on your way of life I am sure we all want to hear!
It is worth reading Al Gore’s advice on how to reduce energy consumption in the home
http://www.climatecrisis.net/pdf/10things.pdf
Al Gore, the guy who spends $30,000 a year on power for just one of his houses also gives advice on how to reduce energy consumption?
Now I have heard everything.
Julian also needs to explain his circumstances. Is his house close to public transport? Does he work normal hours? Does he work at all? Does he have kids? How do they get to school?
And what exactly does he mean by his house being “virtually zero energy”?
And then he can explain how his circumstances are NOT dependent on the current economy, including all its “more wasteful elements of our lifestyle”, like holidays, restaurants, golf, movies and retail therapy.
And frankly, Julian, the only “version of a dried out wasteland” I know of is the one created by your green mates when they ignored a century of fire management knowledge and burned the crap out of a million hectares of forest and then passed it all off as natural emissions.
What a croc eh rog….I laughed when a neighbour of mine brought a copy of that around for me.
As Luke would say ‘ fiddling around the edges’.
Gore is right about packaging though. Its ridiculous the amount of waste created. http://www.informinc.org/xsum_greendot.php
The germans instigated laws to make producers responsible for the waste in their packaging, and much of europe has followed. It has reduced packaging apparently ( secondary packaging has been reduced by some 80%….and who doesn t hate trying to get into a new dvd or cd?)
my greenie mates ian?
nothing to do with me… but if i were as stupid as you, i would blame all australias salinification problem on ‘you farming idiots’.
as for my house, well when uses passive systems to heat, cool and regulate the internal temperature, recycles all of its grey and black water, reuses said water for irrigation and toilet flushing, harvests its rain water for internal use, uses solar energy to heat the water and generates much of the minimal energy it needs – it is virtually a zero energy house. most elements of it costing me sweet FA to incorporate on top of what a ‘normal’ house would cost, the water recycling and solar panels being an exception, but a cost i was willing to endure, and in the scheme of a house price isnt acctually that much, reduces my utility bills etc etc etc.
as for the other questions – yes, i live close to public transport, but i dont use it – i cycle most places, and drive an efficient car very little (about 3000Km/year), work normal hours plus a bit (my job requires), and first child due any day now, so a few years away from having to walk them to the local school. 🙂
so for the most part, my life looks pretty normal and mainstream to most, but i do so with about half the impact of the average australian (according to various footprint test results).
as for what are some of the more wasteful elements of our society – well where would i start??? ill give you one, prime example – food. when you consider how much of australias CO2 production is tied up with food production and you become aware of how much food gets thrown out, you realise just how much unnecessary waste there is. im not talking about rationing or anything vaguely like it but more about education; if people were aware of how much emodied energy/water there is in their over-sized restaurant meal that barely gets eaten and then thrown away (god forbid you see what happens at convention/function centres), people’s behaviour may change with b-all negative impact on their lives. as it is, these ‘urbanists’ are so detached from the actualities of food production and impact, they simply have no idea.
and ian, before you can keep going on about al gore’s energy consumption, i know that you would have since read that this ‘house’ is actually a staffed home office that also pays a premium for green power. nice smear campaign from a suposedly non-partisan website headed by a former Competitive Enterprise Institue employee with links to Exxon. how predictable!
The South Australian Office of Sustainability had a similar list to Al Gore’s. I emailed them some months back, asking how the climate of South Australia would change if all South Australians adopted their suggestions, seeing as the list was published as a way for us to help reduce climate change. No answer so far.
They’ve still got the Hockey Stick though.
http://www.environment.sa.gov.au/sustainability/global_impact.html
Julian, I think Al could take a lesson from George Bush. (Link via Tim Blair).
http://wizbangblog.com/2007/02/26/al-gores-own-inconvenient-truth.php
Still, Al lives a carbon neutral life apparently (which means he pays someone else to compensate for the excess gas he emits). Julian, are you on Gore’s payroll?
Paul, god no, and nor was i one of those ‘trained’ by him recently.
hockey stick – well essentially the same results keep coming out when chucked through other models and or variants complained, so those two snake oil McScientists keep ending up with egg on their faces – this is the quintessential ‘fiddling at the fringe’ argument: while some early errors were siezed on by the McScientists, the hockey stick keeps on being revalidated by other scientists with differing methodologies. PS hottest february in adelaide for 100 years – was it the same elsewhere in aust?
and for the record, gore has been renovating the home/office for some time – apparently efficiency & sustainability upgrades. but dont get me started on the carbon offsets bollocks – thats one area where gore puts way too much faith.
I have always wondered if Al discovered the global warming crises (aren’t all problems a crises of some sort to libs, but that is an argument for a different day)before or after he discovered the toxic waste at Love Canal.
Ultimately, though, we do owe Al for our ability to engage in blogging. After all, he did invent the internet.
the real sporer – this is coming from someone who bases everything in their lives around a fairy story and imaginary friends?
enjoy your fake war, (or was it mission accomplished?) looks like your hero cheney has truly got it under control – hope iran goes as well for you as it did in 79 too. i mean that amazing success brought the current lunatics to power – love & thanks, from the rest of the world.
Why does Al need such a big “home office”, surely he could use shared facilities at a fraction of the “footprint”? He’s a hypocrite.
Calling Steve McIntyre a “snake oil McScientist” doesn’t negate his findings. Not even the IPCC thinks we can know the temperature a thousand years ago from Mann’s work. Not to mention that the IPCC jumped on Mann, Bradley and Hughes’s work to support it’s agenda, when the body of literature before that had shown the existence of a MWP, and has now had to humiliatingly back away from it. Not too bad for a couple of eggy snake oil salesmen.
Doesn’t any of this make you pause and think about the whole AGW hypothesis, Julian? Why do you think these antics are occurring if the science is so settled?
The public debate has descended to the level of farce, with “Cool the Globe” and “Cool Aid” campaigns on television. It’ll all collapse when people start to look out the window and realise the climate hasn’t changed enough to notice.
Maybe the blog has arrived globally – the right wing sepo counter is really moving.
Men, if your wife gripes about the yard needing cutting, tell her that you’re letting the grass grow long so that it can absorb more CO2 to save the Earth. Also, if she wants you to run down to the grocery store to pick up some milk, tell her that she will have to wait, as you are trying to cut down on unnecessary driving. A light bulb is out? Don’t replace it to save energy–especially any that require a ladder. Then, ask her if she can hang the washed clothes on an outdoor clothes line to dry rather than use the clothes dryer. It’s all for Al Gore…and, your wife will really love you for your social conscience. Try it!
But Woody,
Hanging line and clothes on an outdoor clothes line give them a nice fresh outdoor scent….you ever noticed that?
Remember it’s not about politics Luke!
“It’ll all collapse when people start to look out the window and realise the climate hasn’t changed enough to notice.”
paul, most who arent mortally offended or stunned into inaction by the concept of AGW are able to see beyond the end of their own noses and understand that the importance of the issue stretches beyond their own lifetime. to be honest, i’d be happier if there was no issue, no problem and nothing we had to do about it (god knows, one less thing to be concerned about), but that doesnt mean i then go to all lengths to try to prove their isnt a problem to make myself feel better.
as for the hockey stick, like i said, its been reinforced again and again, so despite this initial claim from the Mineral McScientists (yes, i was being cheeky and playing on words with their ‘Mc’ Surnames) it still stands
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5109188.stm
http://www.nature.com/news/2006/060626/full/4411032a.html
http://www.ucar.edu/news/releases/2005/ammann.shtml
and of course
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=11 itself, but i wouldnt expect you to read through all of that one because it must be biased, right?
and then there’s all the rubbish about the MWP with greenland being called such because it was ‘green'(it wasnt) and extent of the mini ice age are regularly exaggerated. i certainly dont doubt the two existed, but not to some of the extent of some of the outlandish claims (vineyards on greenland – piffle)
Julian, I’m not sure whether to be “mortally offended or stunned into inaction” by your links, which don’t actually support your argument.
The Real Climate link is a series of straw men that doesn’t really address the problems with the HS.
Wahl and Amman have been forensically examined and found wanting.
http://www.climateaudit.org/?cat=20 “but i wouldnt expect you to read through all of that one because it must be biased, right?”
The Nature article is a snow job designed to cover Mann’s embarassing failure. The important bit is the finding that his method gives no information about temperatures prior to 1600, in other words, all we can conclude is that temperatures have risen since the Little Ice Age. Doh!
What was the other? BBC? Enough said!
Congrats and best wishes to you and the missus for the imminent birth. If it’s a girl, you may start to feel stange conservative feelings happening, especially as she becomes a teenager! Don’t worry, it happens to most of us.
conservative feelings? ha, never! political conservatism is the first sign of brain atrophy – ill make sure all my conservative inklings are channelled into environmental conservatism.
paul – im not a scientist, the details and complexities inherent in the kinds of arguments between the realclimate vs climateaudit camps are too much for me (as well as all the other non-climate scientists posting on this blog) to pretend to get my head around fully. i like to keep an eye on the arguments and from what i can see, the guys at climate audit are on the back foot.
as i said, the ‘mini’ ice age is often over exaggerated – i’ve lost count of the times that ive read about this period and ‘the thames froze overr every year for blah blah years’ when the number of years it froze were far less than every year and partly due to the previous incarnation of london bridge reducing the flows.
the mind-bogglingly wrong assertion that greenland was called ‘green’ because of an abundance of vegetation in the MWP is also a load of the old proverbial, and often touted as proof of a MWP – doesnt current historical understanding suggest that it was named so in order to make it sound more palatable to potential settlers?
Whats the saying? Those who dont vote labour before they are 30 have no heart, those who don t vote liberal ( conservative/ republican) after 40 , have no brains? cu how you feel when you get to 40 !
*A man who isn’t a socialist at 20 has no heart, and a man who is a socialist at 40 has no head.*
Beauty a Hockey Stick fight. Seems interesting the the 4AR has reaffirmed the exceptional nature of the 20th century warming. So back on track and all the previous Hockey Stick bleating is now water under the bridge.
Dear Julian
I don’t eat out often but I must confess I have never been served an ” over-sized restaurant meal”. If anything else I am flat out finding the food!
But I shall take your advice, as no doubt the rest of the Bloggers will do, and help curtail global warming by not eating at restaurants which serve too much food (whatever that means)
Blair
But did the water freeze, and if so, was it because of the bridge? How does that freezing bridge thing work anyway?
So you’re back on the IPCC bandwagon again Luke? I thought you’d gone a bit cold on them. Too conservative if I recall.
Just wait Julian, there’s nothing like a teenage daughter to make a man see the sense of conservatism. You’ll see!
Poor Luke, sentimental about the good ol days..
..things have moved on a bit, old chap.
Dear Julian
Re “PS hottest February in Adelaide for 100 years – was it the same elsewhere in aust?”
Stats for Brisbane this summer:
Temperature Statistics for December 2006
Min Max
Mean 18.7 27.4
Historical Average
Mean Daily max 29.1
Mean Daily min 19.8
Temperature Statistics for January 2007
Mean 21.3 29.8
Historical Average
Mean Daily max 29.4
Mean Daily min 20.7
Temperature Statistics for February 2007
Mean 20.8 29.4
Historical Average
Mean Daily max 29.0
Mean Daily min 20.6
So overall our Brisbane summer was cooler than the recorded average; means nothing to me in the oveall AGW modelling scheme but it does suggest one should be careful in quoting a particular monthly event in support of any argument.
Blair
Julian And of course the follow up question… What caused it to be so hot 100 years ago?
Did we have hotter Months before records were kept?
Who knows
Hi Jennifer and all, this film is more aptly named – an unfinished title.
For instance ‘The inconvenient truth IS’ that coal is formed in swamps and swamps worldwide have been drained creating a cost effective carbon storing opportunity.
Restoring wetlands has many economic “fish production, water filtration etc.” benefits in addition to storing carbon.
Leasing land for wetland restoration ($20 -$300 per hectare per annum) for carbon storage is a more precautionary approach – a safer investment – than trying to store CO2 from gas for instance, especially if global warming science turns out to be fertiliser and burning coal inconsequential to climate change.
1000 hectares of ‘matured’ swampland could lay down a heap of peat in a year and require little or no management.
Cheers Bob McDonald
Jim
morality depends on what we know, and what we know comes from science and other disciplines.
If the science is saying humanity will be subject to extreme conditions for living, then they have to tell us what they fear will happen. Not to do so would be immoral.
All of Julian’s certainties are about to turned upside down by a tiny bit of mayhem. There is a neat, tidy and certain world that is full of self evident truths prior to parenthood.
And then there is the real world. The one that the Bob Browns of this world will never know. Where compromise is is not a sell-out, where the most sensuous reward you can give to your partner is a good sleep-in, where you discover that the unique and special person you thought you were is just the same as billions of others just like you.
It is, as JK Mellancamp sang, a “little ditty about Jack and Dianne, two (aussie) kids doing the best that they can, oh yes, life goes on ..”
And a tiny little human that is completely dependent on him will look up and unlock a door in his mind, and he will never again regard humanity as a disease.
again Ian, all very 2-dimensional ways to view the world. funnily enough, i’d be quite happy to know that everyone got it wrong about AGW, and that the world was going to be fine as it is, but unlike you im not pinning my happiness on this hope (or something worse – god will save us).
i live in the real world – i could introduce you to it some day, but im not sure you’d enjoy a non binary world with varying shades of grey, where there is more to life than good vs evil, capitalists vs commies and greenies vs farmers.
Perhaps Julian for Ian it’s become:
Oh yeah life goes on
Long after the thrill of livin is gone
Oh yeah they say life goes on
Long after the thrill of livin is gone
He walks on.
Explains things well. Gee come to think of it maybe Ian’s gone all sepo sympathetic. eeekkk. I knew he’d sold out our national position on whales. If this keeps up he’s gonna have to match down the back on property rights demos.
Julian, a green, has finally discovered grey, along with black and white, and now boorishly preaches his new gospel to those who have always known 30 shades. Well when you have introduced the concept to the rest of the green movement, let me know.