Democracy Has Prevailed.

June 19, 2006

An Inconvenient Truth

I saw Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth on Friday and I recommend it highly. While through much of it I felt like I was viewing "The Day After Tomorrow: The Documentary" (some very scary shit), much like that fictional movie, this film does try to leave you with some hope at the end.

I will agree with the Pittsburgh City Paper's review however:
I do have one suggestion for Gore: Cut some of the ice-cap footage in favor of more explicitly calling the mainstream media on their abdication of facts, as they earnestly over the last decade worked to provide “both sides of the story.” There is no “other side” among scientists; the debunking of global warming has been a PR campaign waged by interested parties. But the media’s complicity — witness the attention paid to State of Fear, Michael Crichton’s global-warming-is-a-crock novel—has helped create the popular misconception that global warming is a theory that doesn’t even have accord within the scientific community. Big chunks of the Arctic melting is a remote abstraction, but helping people get savvy about media is part of the larger solution.Truth also gives a wide berth to politics — Gore calls out just one bad apple in the Bush administration, as if both sides of the aisle aren’t ignoring fresh policy in favor of self-interest, laziness or some other reliable political trait. That gang we’ve elected can’t even mandate U.S. autos to match the efficiency of cars in China, our partner in consumption and ecological villainy.
And speaking of lies and the lying liars who tell them, check out David Sirota's KOS diary on his exchange with ABC News "reporter" John Stossel on CNBC. Stossel used to be a consumer advocate but now he never met a multinational corporation (or Republican idea) he didn't like. Here's the money shot in their debate on the minimum wage:
Mr. SIROTA: Well, listen, John, I would encourage you stop reciting these dishonest talking points and the chatter you're hearing on the cocktail party circuit because the stats don't bear that out in any way at all. And here are the stats that you cannot dispute. In states that have raised the minimum wage, above the federal level, those states have created jobs at a far faster rate than the states that have not. That is because, when you raise the minimum wage, you put money into the pockets of people who will spend it and it spurs the economy. Now, that might not be heard in your book which purports to debunk lies, but those are the facts.

Mr. STOSSEL: Well, if those are the facts, why stop at $7. We should pay everybody 20 bucks, 40 bucks an hour. Then we'll really have buying power. It's just...

Mr. SIROTA: You're changing the subject. You're changing the subject because you know you're wrong.

Mr. STOSSEL: Well, the study side, and I now realize who you are because you, on my Amazon page, he came on and said, `I'm a smarmy-looking liar.'

Mr. SIROTA: You are.
Hahahahaha! That's telling 'em!

******************************************
An Inconvenient Truth
Manor Theatre
1729 Murray Ave
Pittsburgh, PA 15217
Phone: 412-422-7729

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Until Al Gore stops carting himself in his jet, limos, and SUVs himself, I'll then take him seriously.

Ahem ... Need I say more? Here's something for you to gnaw on Maria, oh, and please tell us that you do not subscribe to Al Gore's outrageous "truths" on Global Warming. Of course, you probably do given your mindset:

Surely nobody would be a charlatan, who could afford to be sincere.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The French kiss Al Gore received from the mainstream media in Cannes over his shlockumentary fiction "An Inconvenient Truth" exceeded even the chronic revulsion that is symbiotic with all things Al Gore.

The over-the-top fearmongering Gore regurgitates about "global warming" conveniently ignores far more than it presumes to expose.

1. The "debate" over global warming remains just that ... a debate.

2. Not "everyone" believes in the gospel according to Gore (any more than everyone embraces Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Gaia or the Tao).

Most reports suggest the master of hyperbole did a superb job of acting and eschewed the vein-popping, mouth-frothing diatribes he is known to offer.

As Kyle Smith writes in the New York Post [http://www.nypost.com/movies/66485.htm]: "He implies that no reputable scientists dispute anything he says." BULLFEATHERS!

"His implication that he is our only hope ... is ridiculous," Smith writes. According to his own PowerPoint graph, global warming got worse during the time he and the Clintons were in charge. Now THERE is an "inconvenient truth," Al.

Several years ago I interviewed Dr. Fred Singer, former director of the National Weather Satellite Center and author of "Hot Talk, Cold Science: Global Warming's Unfinished Debate." [http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=19633]

Singer points out that "the atmosphere changes." Sure, there is global warming; however, there is also global cooling. In the last century we had:

a warming trend before 1940; a cooling trend between 1940 and 1975; a warming trend between 1975 and 1980; and essentially NO trend for the last 20 years. Real scientists tell us the sun has an 11-year cycle and you "clearly see this in some of the temperature records."

Proponents of Al's fiction often cite the list of "2,500 scientists" who subscribe to the Gore concept of global warming.

Singer says: "That is not really true. You hear about 2,500 scientists who worked on this report for the United Nations. First of all, the number is less than 2,000 and secondly, of these, perhaps 100 are qualified to say something about the climate ... and they have never been polled."

On the other side of the coin (which you never hear about), there are some 17,000 for-real scientists who say global warming is a hoax. And 17,000 "actually signed a petition against the Kyoto protocol."

When I told Dr. Singer that there is no unanimity within the scientific community about global warming, he replied, "That is the point ... that there is a debate going on ... and the public is entitled to know that there is a debate and that the debate is not finished."

Al Gore would have everyone believe the gospel according to HIM because he says so. Facts that contradict HIS preconceived opinions and prejudice are heresy. Science that refutes his spin is frankly just to be ignored ... as an "inconvenient Truth." By the way, for those short-term memory sufferers, Al Gore also said

He took the initiative to create the Internet ... although the Internet was operating before he even made it to Congress. "I've been a part of the discussions on the strategic reserve since the days when it was first established." President Ford established the Strategic Petroleum Reserves on December 22, 1975 – two years before Al Gore became a congressman Check out http://www.gargaro.com/algore.html And for more Gore skeletons, http://www.realchange.org/gore.htm#liar Why does Gore do and say such inimitably foolish (and easily refuted) stuff? Maybe Mason Cooley nailed it when he said: "Vanity well fed is benevolent. Vanity hungry is spiteful." And with or without the extra pounds or beard, Al Gore's vanity is ravenous.

Once upon a time the California Environmental Protection Agency had instructed scientists to destroy data that did not conform to policy.

[http://www.ibiblio.org/london/agriculture/forums/sustainable-agriculture2/msg02664.html] Singer wasn't aware of the data destruction, "But I am aware of the fact that people neglect to mention data that disagrees with their biased view."

He referenced the U.N. report. The summary doesn't say ‘Jack' about weather satellites collecting data about the atmosphere. One would think that weather satellites are the most important data-gathering instrument we have. It is the only thing that collects data on a worldwide basis. The fact that satellites are collecting data is not even mentioned.

You know why? Because the satellite data shows that the atmosphere is NOT warming. THAT is why is not even mentioned. And yes, that is a for-real empirical "inconvenient truth."

Al Gore is a charlatan – a dangerous evangelist proselytizing a manufactured fiction to enable a personal dream quest to recreate a sum far greater than the intrinsic parts.

Steven Vizinczey once said, "And so hubris turns to false certainties, everyone expects to be a winner, and each morning is a mind-blowing surprise."

"Inconvenient Truth," indeed.

Maria said...

On the one hand we have AnonymousBraden.

On the other hand we have:

The National Academy of Sciences, The American Meteorological Society, the American Geophysical Union, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (created in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environmental Programme), etc.

And we have this analysis of 928 abstracts, published in refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003, and listed in the ISI database with the keywords "climate change" to see how they matched up with the consensus view that the evidence for human modification of climate is compelling:

The 928 papers were divided into six categories: explicit endorsement of the consensus position, evaluation of impacts, mitigation proposals, methods, paleoclimate analysis, and rejection of the consensus position. Of all the papers, 75% fell into the first three categories, either explicitly or implicitly accepting the consensus view; 25% dealt with methods or paleoclimate, taking no position on current anthropogenic climate change. Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position.

Anonymous said...

Do you think Braden will ever pull his head out of his ass long enough to realise that he has been spewing the hatefilled cover for rich people who care so little for their own families that they've compromised everyone's future with their greed?

Anon #2

Philip Shropshire said...

Well, he might be paid to say crazy things. I understand that ther are paid trolls who "spontaneously", no doubt, appear on sites in order to sway opinion. Their opinions are generally weak but they're paid to deliver them. You be the judge. Paid right wing trolls. Sounds like a plan.

My problem with Gore is how weak Current is. If you're an alleged liberal and you run a national network then shouldn't your "news channel" be about important issues, sometimes...? I still get more news from Democracy Now than I get from Current.

djhlights said...

To the anonymous poster who has obviously never

A: Seen the film

B: Heard of "offsetting carbon emissions"

C: Stayed to the end of the film to read the credits

D: Read the production credits where they would see that the production of film, which included the travel arrangements of Mr. Gore, had it's emissions offset through Native Energy.

E: Realized that " Until Al Gore stops carting himself in his jet, limos, and SUVs himself" comments are quaint talking points from the conservative media cacophony but are proof that the person who repeats them as if they are examples of original deductive reasoning has no ability to think for themselves. In addition, said person has no idea what the hell they are talking about regarding the subject at hand because they have spent no time to actually see or read what they are against and are merely rehashing the BS talking points they heard via the conservative media cacophony.

"Ahem ... Need I say more?"

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...

Well now, swearing doesn't make your point big boy. Stand up for your argument. If you're right, it'll pan out.

I will admit I'm on the fence on this. If you who are clearly liberals dont believe you're getting a severe amount of B.S. from 'your' side just as much as the conservative side, you're naive.

I cannot help but believe that the truth is in the middle somewhere and a real debate in public needs to occur without one side destroying the other just because they disagree. Nothing is accomplished that way.

If warming is occuring we need to prove why it is. Proof. Only then. Can we have a debate on this without trying to defame people who are just trying to approach it from a different angle?

Anonymous said...

I really don't know to wich side the debate about global warming will fall or if Gore's documentary is really true or not.
What i know is: I'm from Portugal. I'm 32 and lived here all of my life. In 2003 Europe's heat wave, around 10 ppl died in my country because of the heat. In Italy only 5.000 people died because of the same heat wave.
Al Gore on his documentary shows a list of deaths in some of the European countrys referring to the same 2003's heat wave. He says that 13.000 people died in my country and 20.000 in Italy. (you can see this at about 29m 10s of film).

Now, I don't know where he got those numbers from but they're OBVIOUSLY wrong. Maybe it was just a question of an extra zero added to the numbers.