Bush Does Not Plan to See An Inconvenient Truth
Posted in Environment, Politics by George
George Bush says he will probably not watch “An Inconvenient Truth,” Al Gore’s movie about climate change that was recently released in a few select theatres in the US. Why not? The president responded:
“New technologies will change how we live and how we drive our cars, which all will have the beneficial effect of improving the environment,” Bush said. “And in my judgment we need to set aside whether or not greenhouse gases have been caused by mankind or because of natural effects and focus on the technologies that will enable us to live better lives and at the same time protect the environment.”
I call BS. First off, I haven’t seen any major push by the Bush Administration to protect the environment that has actually done anything. The only message we’ve got has been lip service. I recall a state of the union where Bush pledged $1 billion (or something along those lines) to hydrogen fuel research. Did that ever really happen? Now the US is subsidizing ethanol, which is good, but at the same time ENACTING A TARIFF on it (i.e. politics screwing over the American people yet again) so we can’t get cheap ethanol from south America. Last I heard it was good to take advantage of comparative advantage in international trade… not to wait until the major oil producers at home can take their time to convert over. All in all - very little is getting done. All of the major environmental protections today have been created before the Bush administration. Here is what Bush has done for the environment, according to his own website.
Secondly, why shouldn’t we focus on the cause of global warming? How can you fix a problem without knowing it’s source?
Finally, what’s the harm in watching an informative movie on a topic that is close to the hearts of many Americans? It’s not like Bush is booked 24/7 when he’s on vacation for a month at his ranch. He could watch it then.
In conclusion, you should definitely go see An Inconvenient Truth if you can. It’s not playing in every theatre in the US, well, not many theatres at all. But if you get a chance, definitely watch this film, it looks great. You can check out the trailer at the website too, if you’d like… it’s worth seeing.
May 24th, 2006 at 8:55 am
I would recomend a class on the US Government.
The legislatve branch appropriates funds. The legislative branch is also responsible for tariff reductions subject to the 1934 reciprocal trade agreement.
Bush wants to lower the ethanol tariff, congressman from corn producing states do not. Bush has in fact done more for alternative energy promotion then most other presidents. His SOTU speech put hydrogen energy on the publics mouths for the first time.
May 24th, 2006 at 9:39 am
1. Ok, so I don’t know precise facts about the US government, but if we want to talk about republicans a whole, who are in power, we’re not seeing tariff reductions still.
2. “Bush has in fact done more for alternative energy promotion then most other presidents. His SOTU speech put hydrogen energy on the publics mouths for the first time. ”
BULL. Public anticipation for hydrogen energy WAS huge and DIED OUT a while after that SOTU speech! When was the last time you heard serious public anticipation for hydrogen cars? It’s a BUST! In fact, why don’t you tell me what Bush has done for alternative energy AND the EFFECTS his policies have had.
May 24th, 2006 at 4:51 pm
Tariff Reductions under this administration: CAFTA which was a huge electoral risk for republicans. Bush also pushed for the FTAA but this was balked at by those in SA.
“Public anticipation for hydrogen energy WAS huge and DIED OUT a while after that SOTU speech! When was the last time you heard serious public anticipation for hydrogen cars? It’s a BUST! In fact, why don’t you tell me what Bush has done for alternative energy AND the EFFECTS his policies have had”
You admit yourself that public attention peaked after that speech. He put it on the map and you admit it.
May 24th, 2006 at 5:03 pm
Back to the topic at hand since you are promoting this “film” to the max:
(1) Near the beginning of the film, Gore pays respects to his Harvard mentor and inspiration, Dr. Roger Revelle. Gore praises Revelle for his discovery that atmospheric CO2 levels were rising and could potentially contribute to higher temperatures at a global scale. There is no mention of Revelle’s article published in the early 1990s concluding that the science is “too uncertain to justify drastic action.” (S.F. Singer, C. Starr, and R. Revelle, “What to do about Greenhouse Warming: Look Before You Leap. Cosmos 1 (1993) 28-33.)
(2) Gore discusses glacial and snowpack retreats atop Kenya’s Mt. Kilimanjaro, implying that human induced global warming is to blame. But Gore fails to mention that the snows of Kilimanjaro have been retreating for more than 100 years, largely due to declining atmospheric moisture, not global warming. Gore does not acknowledge the two major articles on the subject published in 2004 in the International Journal of Climatology and the Journal of Geophysical Research showing that modern glacier retreat on Kilimanjaro was initiated by a reduction in precipitation at the end of the nineteenth century and not by local or global warming.
(3) Many of Gore’s conclusions are based on the “Hockey Stick” that shows near constant global temperatures for 1,000 years with a sharp increase in temperature from 1900 onward. The record Gore chooses in the film completely wipes out the Medieval Warm Period of 1,000 years ago and Little Ice Age that started 500 years ago and ended just over 100 years ago. There is evidence from throughout the world that these climate episodes existed, but on Gore’s Hockey Stick, they become nothing more than insignificant fluctuations (Gore even jokes at one point about the Medieval Warm period).
(4) You will certainly not be surprised to see Katrina, other hurricanes, tornadoes, flash floods, and many types of severe weather events linked by Gore to global warming. However, if one took the time to read the downloadable “Summary for Policymakers” in the latest report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), one would learn that “No systematic changes in the frequency of tornadoes, thunder days, or hail events are evident in the limited areas analysed” and that “Changes globally in tropical and extra-tropical storm intensity and frequency are dominated by inter-decadal and multi-decadal variations, with no significant trends evident over the 20th century.”
(5) Gore claims that sea level rise could drown the Pacific islands, Florida, major cities the world over, and the 9/11 Memorial in New York City. No mention is made of the fact that sea level has been rising at a rate of 1.8 mm per year for the past 8,000 years; the IPCC notes that “No significant acceleration in the rate of sea level rise during the 20th century has been detected.”
(6) Near the end of the film, we learn of ways the United States could reduce emissions of greenhouse gases back to the levels of 1970. OK. Assume the United States accomplishes this lofty goal, would we see any impact on climate? The well-known answer is no. China, India and many other countries are significantly increasing their emission levels, and global concentrations of CO2 may double this century no matter what we decide to do in the United States. Even if the Kyoto Protocol could be fully implemented to honor the opening of this movie, the globe would be spared no more than a few hundredths of a degree of warming.
May 24th, 2006 at 8:43 pm
http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=052406F
Hey Waco, are those your observations or those of Dr. Robert C. Balling Jr? As soon as I read those profound words, I knew I heard their kind before and in fact asked myself — “Where would this “quality” critique come from? Didn’t even have to google it because TCS was my first stop to see what they’d say about Gore.
And wala.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Robert_...
Balling has acknowledged that he had received $408,000 in research funding from the fossil fuel industry over the last decade (of which his University takes 50% for overhead). Contributors include ExxonMobil, the British Coal Corporation, Cyprus Minerals and OPEC. [1] (http://www.mtn.org/~newscncl/complaints/hearings/det_118.html)
His views have led to his enthusiastic adoption by various members of the free-market extremist Atlas Economic Research Foundation network. He writes regularly for the Cato Institute, Tech Central Station and the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
His writings find him regularly in the company of other prominent climate change sceptics, including Sallie L. Baliunas, and S. Fred Singer of the Science and Environmental Policy Project.
In August 2004 Balling told Business Week “I’m convinced there will be engineering schemes that will allow our children’s children to have whatever climate they want”. [2]
And TCS is a font of truth, ain’t it though?
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Tech_Ce...
I love the phrase, “If one took the time” as Dr. Balling writes…I always take the time to read TCS.
http://www.tcsdaily.com/sections/science_roundtabl...
May 25th, 2006 at 6:17 am
I wasn’t trying to pass off the info as my own. Yes TCS was my source. As a PHD in climatology and all that jazz I would say he is a pretty good source.
The claim that he is funded by Exxon, etc. does not really substantiate your implicit claim that what he writes is bunk. Could they have impacted his studies? Sure. Is it a guarantee of it, certainly not.
Its also not suprising his info comes from there when you consider this:
“Two of the world’s leading scientific journals have come under fire from researchers for refusing to publish papers which challenge fashionable wisdom over global warming.”
A little later on…
“The author of the research, Dr Naomi Oreskes, of the University of California, analysed almost 1,000 papers on the subject published since the early 1990s, and concluded that 75 per cent of them either explicitly or implicitly backed the consensus view, while none directly dissented from it.”
later on still…
“They included Dr Benny Peiser, a senior lecturer in the science faculty at Liverpool John Moores University, who decided to conduct his own analysis of the same set of 1,000 documents - and concluded that only one third backed the consensus view, while only one per cent did so explicitly.”
Even later…
“Dr Peiser is not the only academic to have had work turned down which criticises the findings of Dr Oreskes’s study. Prof Dennis Bray, of the GKSS National Research Centre in Geesthacht, Germany, submitted results from an international study showing that fewer than one in 10 climate scientists believed that climate change is principally caused by human activity.”
and finally
“Concern about bias within climate research has spread to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, whose findings are widely cited by those calling for drastic action on global warming.
In January, Dr Chris Landsea, an expert on hurricanes with the United States National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, resigned from the IPCC, claiming that it was “motivated by pre-conceived agendas” and was “scientifically unsound”.”
Heres the link for the full article:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/ne...
But I suppose you are not arguing that the other side of the debate has biases?
May 25th, 2006 at 9:08 am
Ok; I’ll submit that maybe you forgot to attribute it, but I read TCS just so I can follow the stupidest possible arguments at the next cocktail party.
I don’t have time to get a PhD in climatology so I go with “appeals from authority” when I can. However, TCS is roundly considered the lamest of the lame when it comes to the environment and climate - followed closely by CATO, Competitive Enterprise Institute and the Rothbardian idiots over at Mises.
Just for kicks, lets take a gander on Dr. (PhD) Balling’s essays on a variety of subjects relative to the environment.
http://www.tcsdaily.com/Authors.aspx?id=242
According to Dr. Balling, heat is not so bad (in fact it’s good), attempting global climate control interferes with our ability to adapt (genetically I suppose), The Forests and Trees are thanking us for all the CO2, and gas guzzlers are good for the climate because human breathing is just as bad if not worse and so on.
Sounds like a scientific justification on why we ought to send a few billion CO2 breathers to the ovens.
It’s immensely entertaining stuff inasmuch as TCS trolls for scholars that can pass their talking points on. Usually TCS -> CATO -> Mises -> Blogosphere.
Today’s anti-Gore essay is sweet. These guys must consider Gore especially dangerous with all the attention they’re giving him. Under Useful Knowledge columnM, they have some questions for Al. Mostly they question his bitterness over the “loss” of the 2000 election - in my book that would be ad hominem, but I read different books. The references to Laurie David buttress right-wing blogosphere disdain for her and her activism. Well played.
http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=052506C
May 25th, 2006 at 9:42 am
Claiming that people who disagree with you are lame does little to refute their claims. All you can do is point towards your scholars and say “they say this”. Likewise all I can do is point towards mine and say “they say this”.
The end result is nothing. The point is that the scientific community is divided and that further research needs to be done. Mass hysteria (i.e. what Gore attempts in this “film”) is not the solution.
May 25th, 2006 at 9:46 pm
All you can do is point towards your scholars and say “they say this”. Likewise all I can do is point towards mine and say “they say this”.
The end result is nothing. The point is that the scientific community is divided and that further research needs to be done. Mass hysteria (i.e. what Gore attempts in this “film”) is not the solution.
Actually, your scholars — TCS — are an industry public relations firm and Republican lobbying group. TCS is owned by the DCI communications lobbying group and shares staff and office space. DCI commucations is owned by three members associated with RJR Reynolds Tobacco.
On their website they used to say “Whatever the issue, whatever the target—elected officials, regulators or public opinion—you need reliable third party allies to advocate your cause. We can help you recruit credible coalition partners and engage them for maximum impact. It’s what we do best.”
Sounds like they recruited you as a credible coalition partner :-).
Check out your scholars.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=DCI_Gro...
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2003/031...
Their success of “advocacy for hire” depends on the American view that each story has two sides, and that they’re both valid. Every time you discuss the Holocaust, ensure to have a Holocaust denier as well so that the story can be properly balanced.
My favorite is Balling’s contention that Clinton/Gore had two years to push the Kyoto Protocols before the the advent of the Bush administration. That view relies heavily on people being drunk or drugged during 1998-2000 to believe that disinformation and obstructionism didn’t obstruct during that frame. I guess it wasn’t a time to sign treaties based on mass hysteria then either.
Tell, is Clinton looking better yet?
May 26th, 2006 at 5:38 am
Well considering the article was written by someone in the field then they would constitute a scholar.
I have read through the articles you linked heres an interesting tidbit you left out:
“The site’s articles and contributors have been cited hundreds of times in the mainstream media and reprinted on op-ed pages across the country.”
The link then goes on again to discuss how he is spouting off on what the corporations who finance him want to say. However 3 points are worth mentioning
1) “All of these positions are, in theory, perfectly compatible with Glassman’s generally libertarian, anti-regulatory politics.”-that same article
2) He didn’t write the article I linked to, this guy did. Here is his bio if you want to “check my sources”:
Principal Research Scientist, University of Alabama
Dr. Roy Spencer is a principal research scientist for the University of Alabama in Huntsville and the U.S. Science Team Leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSR-E) on NASA’s Aqua satellite. In the past, he has served as Senior Scientist for Climate Studies at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
Dr. Spencer is the recipient of NASA’s Medal for Exceptional Scientific Achievement and the American Meteorological Society’s Special Award for his satellite-based temperature monitoring work. He is the author of numerous scientific articles that have appeared in Science, Nature, Journal of Climate, Monthly Weather Review, Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology, Journal of Climate and Applied Meteorology, Remote Sensing Reviews, Advances in Space Research, and Climatic Change.
3)I linked to another article further demonstrating that a consensus did not exist in the field. The link is found (once again) here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/ne...
Look I am sorry not everyone agrees with you. But they don’t. Not everyone agrees with me, but I don’t have a problem admitting it.
May 26th, 2006 at 5:31 pm
Look I am sorry not everyone agrees with you. But they don’t. Not everyone agrees with me, but I don’t have a problem admitting it.
So you read the links above? Keep reading.
I don’t have an issue with some of the debate although I think they will change their story over time. If you think that global warming is good, I’m OK with it as long as you drag me into the ovens with you. People drop out of school every day, or take crystal meth too - not much I’m gonna do about it.
My problem is, if you cite a well known pr/lobbying group as an argument to dismiss Gore, then I believe you are blowing smoke up my ass and telling me I’m on fire. I’ve read the Union of Concerned Scientist’s statement on Global Warming (them with the many Nobel laureates signing - 104 of them), so I feel the figurative lips on my anus blowing hard.
http://www.ucsusa.org/scientific_integrity/interfe...
My advice is that anything coming from TCS is only to be used for amusement or ridicule purposes. If you want to get your science from TCS, that’s your choice. I’m going to point out that TCS is crap on toast though.
Dr. Roy Spencer? The creationist Dr. Roy Spencer? Perhaps you missed my point above? Allow me to reiterate since you are light on attributions and references aside from the Telegraph article:
TCS -> CATO -> Mises -> Blogosphere
Dr. Roy Spencer is a prolific TCS contributor. Funny venue for a scientist. But not so funny for a creationist that changed a favorite Supertramp tune to say:
“I’ll take a little bit, I’ll take a little bit of your wealth from you/So give a little bit, oh, give a little more than a dime to me.”… Get where he’s going with that?
http://timlambert.org/2005/08/tcs5/
http://www.tcsdaily.com/Authors.aspx?id=267
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2006/05/sideshow_r...
That = bullshit. If he’s got something to say why doesn’t he go to scientific journals instead of a capitalist lobby/pr site? Too much time in church?
I like your argument in the Telegraph that Bray and Peisner got their work turned down because there is a debate that Science is too cowardly to undertake. It could have been just as indicated; their material was propaganda that’s been collected from all over the internet and may have appeared at lobbying sites already. Or maybe it was crap; not everyone gets published in Science — hence we get much “fundie” science from Mises and TCS. But in any case, they could have self published and trolled for peer review.
http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/0000000CA90D...
Instead, Dr. Peiser chooses to be published by Spike-Online (another libertarian organization funded with PR money). Oh, that’s shocking.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Spiked_...
So far, most of these sources that you keep bringing up seem to be hired guns writing for PR firms.
But you know, not everyone needs to agree with me. And I really don’t expect to have TCS readers agree with me anyhow. :-) It’s like having a conversation with someone that thinks The Onion is a serious newspaper. It’s grossly amusing and better than TV.