An Interview with an Accidental Movie Star
Posted in Environment by George
This is a very interesting interview with Al Gore, talking about his upcoming movie, An Inconvenient Truth. It also discusses a little bit about the rumors circling Gore about potentially running for president in 2008. I think this article is very interesting because it definitely seems to go along with how people have responded to articles on gimme-five recently.
…In the United States of America, unfortunately we still live in a bubble of unreality. And the Category 5 denial is an enormous obstacle to any discussion of solutions. Nobody is interested in solutions if they don’t think there’s a problem…
… I doubt nuclear power will play a much larger role than it does now …
… Cellulosic ethanol. Different from corn-based ethanol. I think it is going to be a huge new source of energy, particularly for the transportation sector. You’re going to see it all over the place…
Definitely check this interview out, and definitely check out An Inconvenient Truth on May 24th.
May 10th, 2006 at 11:33 pm
“Nobody is interested in solutions if they don’t think there’s a problem. Given that starting point, I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous it is, as a predicate for opening up the audience to listen to what the solutions are, and how hopeful it is that we are going to solve this crisis.”
Yep…thats what I am talking about…if we over represent something (exaggerate) and I deem it ok, then it is ok. Its not going to open any discussion…it is just going to close doors.
May 11th, 2006 at 7:17 am
I resent the insinuatin that those of us who disagree with you are living in a bubble of unreality.
May 11th, 2006 at 7:18 am
Also your new poll makes no sense.
The US has already signed the Kyoto Protocol.
May 11th, 2006 at 9:03 am
Sign, ratify, whatever… also the poll is pretty old.
May 11th, 2006 at 11:49 am
Well the US could ratify it and it still wouldn’t make much of a difference.
The US has aleady done more on the emmissions front than many of the other countries that did sign and ratify it.
May 11th, 2006 at 1:48 pm
Regardless of whether that ambiguous fact might be true, the US still emits a TON of pollution that it needs to cut down on. How do you know Kyoto won’t be worthwhile?
May 11th, 2006 at 1:57 pm
Well has Kyoto been worthwhile thus far?
How can it be worthwhile if it gives voluntary exclusion to countries like China? One of the greatest causes of polution air and otherwise……poverty.
May 11th, 2006 at 2:38 pm
How can it be worthwhile if it gives voluntary exclusion to countries like China? One of the greatest causes of polution air and otherwise……poverty.
Sounds like zero-sum, huh?
Are you willing to make it otherwise by giving till it REALLY hurts to subsidize their standard of living and wealth so that it can be on par with ours? We’d need to recognize that US wealth is built on a 100 years headstart of industrialization and open range regardless of whose fault it is that they’re behind at this point.
Most people aren’t willing to subsidize their downstreet neighbors let alone those darkskinned creatures 10 feet over the national border. And the Pacific is a lot further than 10 feet over the national border.
I’ll tell you what — for the good of the planet lets do this: Lets all — every one of us in the US — work for $10K per year, only have one car per family, and live in one house birth to grave. I hear that the US productivity is huge, so all the additional wealth created over $10K we can put in a big boat and send it over to China, Latin America, and anywhere else until we’re all equalized.
That way they won’t need pollution credits and we won’t need a market for pollution credit trading. And that will save the planet at personal expense.
What do you say?
May 11th, 2006 at 2:56 pm
hm…if they are paying me 10k in the US and more somewhere else, I am moving to a country that will pay me the equivalent of my current pay. If it is china, then i’ll have to take some chinese classes. Are you guys going to restrict emmigration?
May 11th, 2006 at 4:45 pm
if they are paying me 10k in the US and more somewhere else, I am moving to a country that will pay me the equivalent of my current pay…Are you guys going to restrict emmigration?
So you’re not keen on reducing your own earning potential or lifestyle. Aside from that, you’d go for anything reasonable to reduce the footprint?
Restrict emmigration? Outdated concept. No borders. You’re free to go. They’re free to come. In the new world people aren’t worth arbitrarily more just because they’re born north of the Rio Grande. We’s all equal and borders aren’t artificial cultural barriers.
May 11th, 2006 at 4:54 pm
Whether it is a zero-sum game is in many instances irrelevant.
If the only way to reduce emmissions by enough is to have the three largest polluters reduce emmissions then what good is it to have only one country play by the rules.
The answer is its not. It would simply be shooting oneself in the foot.
It is not a question of subsidizing the over the ocean neighbors. Its more a question of responsible governance. On a geo-strategic level India poses quite the threat to the US over the long term (and according to many analysists a greater threat than China). However, the US is doing space exploration in conjuction with India, just concluded a deal with India over nuclear energy.
The reason is because has been by and large a responsible democracy (and a large democracy). China hasn’t.
What is so bad about a balance of power that favors freedom.
May 11th, 2006 at 5:44 pm
What is so bad about a balance of power that favors freedom.
You’re post still firmly thinks in terms of countries vs. planet. Very nationalist. But pollution and global warming doesn’t respect borders.
Even so, as a nationalist I must say that seems a very limp approach. If you’re going to “not shoot yourself in the foot” and stand for “a balance of power that favors freedom” it seems logical that you’re not going to stand by and either let them catch up, have them eat up expensive resources or poison you. Freedom only matters if you and yourn are alive.
Conclusion: Life would be much sweeter if we can take the population down to 300M (guess which 300M?) from the current 6.4B. Don’t have to worry about freedom’s oppression (cause we wouldn’t do it), boundaries, etc. Don’t have to worry about pollution (for a while), don’t have to worry about shortages or the runup in the price of copper.
Re: cooperating with India on space exploration seems logical. I’m told that our engineers blow and once the planet is toasted the fortunate few will need a place to emigrate to. Deep space, underground or underwater seem like logical choices.
May 11th, 2006 at 7:54 pm
I don’t think my post speaks in nationalist terms at all.
I’m saying cutting our own emmissions harms us and helps……..pretty much nobody. So whats the point.
You’re right freedom only matters if your alive. Thats why we should work to create a balance of payments in favor of freedom. Preventing other countries from catching up doesn’t necessarily relate to this. The trick is to be in a situation where those that do share the same values (i.e. freedom).
If you mean only matters if you are alive as in Global Warming will kill us all bla bla bla, well we have a different view.
Our engineers blow? Thats a bit extreme. The knock on our engineers isn’t that they are bad its that there are simply not enough of them. However, America is great in its ability to accept those of another country.
May 17th, 2006 at 7:53 pm
From today’s press releases:
News Advisory:
The Competitive Enterprise Institute will unveil a national global warming ad campaign at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, Wednesday, May 17, 2006 at noon.
CEI has produced two 60-second television ads focusing on global warming alarmism and the call by some environmental groups and politicians to reduce fossil fuel use and carbon dioxide emissions. The ads will air in more than a dozen cities around the country beginning May 18, 2006.
“The campaign to limit carbon dioxide emissions is the single most important regulatory issue today,” says Marlo Lewis, a CEI senior fellow in environmental policy. “It is nothing short of an attempt to suppress energy use, which in turn would be economically devastating-all to avert an alleged catastrophe whose scientific basis is dubious.”
In CEI’s view, claims of looming climate disaster due to energy use are unfounded. One of the ads focuses on the extent to which the public has received only one side of the glacial melting issue. CEI’s national ad campaign, produced with Washington, DC-based Next Generation Advertising, is the first to counter the flood of scare stories on global warming.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Competi...
Whatcha gonna do about it? :-)
May 17th, 2006 at 10:54 pm
Mind you the CEI receives major funding from Exxon Mobil and other oil companies.
June 16th, 2006 at 3:16 pm
Holy shit! No wonder Bush is president.
Do you speak in English or what?
Over-representation is not overstatement.
It does not mean exaggeration.
Two different things.
From Webster:
Over-representation
represented excessively; especially : having representatives in a proportion higher than the average
http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?va=overrepre...
Overstatement
to state in too strong terms : EXAGGERATE
http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/Overstatement
If I show you 1000s of pictures of a dead Iraqis to prove that Iraq is a mess but I say only one sentence about how to stop the violence, then I over-represent a fact compared to the solutions.
And by logic you cannot overstate anything by presenting factual presentations. Overstatemnents are not facts by nature. What Gore said was that much more time should be dedicated for presenting the problem than presenting solutions because noone is interested in solutions if they think there is no problem at all which has to be solved.
For example, 80% for the presenting the problem 20% for solutions. Or 90% for presentation and 10% for the solutions.