New at Reason

David Weigel | June 16, 2006

Ronald Bailey takes in the fullness of Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth, finding surprisingly effective pitchmanship and unsurprisingly flawed science.

Comments

|6.16.06 @ 3:57PM|#

I haven't seen the movie, but I have to say that Ron's article is a pretty ingracious admission of error. I'm sure Gore would readily acknowledge that the movie is a work of advocacy, meant to overcome the last of the global-warming deniers who have prevented any significant U.S. policy response up until now--a group that included Ron himself until a few months ago. A work of advocacy should not misrepresent, but it can certainly highlight the strong points for its position, so it seems a little disingenuous for Ron to gripe at every sequence in the movie that does not vacillate over every nuance. When you admit you're wrong, as Ron has, it's good to show a little humility, to preserve some of that credibility that Ron says he hopes for in shaping the debate over policy response.

|6.16.06 @ 3:59PM|#

Since when do movie reviewers show any humility?

joanne mcneil|6.16.06 @ 4:02PM|#

And 4 stars for Bailey! I went into the theater expecting a laugh, but left conflicted. In the week since, I've searched high and low for a sensible response -- this article is it. There are some points the film makes that need to be taken seriously (regardless of Gore's Bob Ross-esque navel-gazing.) Thank you

|6.16.06 @ 4:03PM|#

skeptic: At the risk of being even more ingracious, I ask, so humility beats out accuracy?

|6.16.06 @ 4:11PM|#

No, but a closing argument to the jury is judged by a different standard than a law-review article.

|6.16.06 @ 4:13PM|#

2012 baby! 2000 fucking 12.

uncle sam|6.16.06 @ 4:15PM|#

The problem with exageration is that a panic reaction might induce enactment of policies that will produce a equally large counter reaction.

If an emissions reduction policy is too severe, the world's technological development might slow down or stall out leaving us stuck in a relatively high polluting phase and prolong our emmissions impact on the climate.

uncle sam|6.16.06 @ 4:23PM|#

I find being a skeptic doesn't mean I have to invest myself in an opposing point of view. I can remain skeptical and grant the impact of new data. It is good to ask questions of proponents of theories. If the question is relevant, then they should know the answer or be willing to find it.

We still don't KNOW the impact of human emissions as the climate factors are interactive.

Do human emissions impact oceanic emissions?
What technology will we be able to develope in the future to manage our impact on the climate?
What will climate catastrophe proponents do about China?

|6.16.06 @ 4:24PM|#

skeptic: I think I understand your point, but I'm not arguing to a jury--I am trying to get the science, at least as well as I understand it, right.

|6.16.06 @ 4:55PM|#

Per the repeated claims that global warming is caused or enhanced by man: How to account for apparent warming on Mars and Jupiter? Thank you.

|6.16.06 @ 5:02PM|#

IM, it's clearly All George Bush's Fault. Duh. :-)

Seriously, though, when I last wanted to cite that particular argument, I had the devil's own time trying to find the data to back it up.

Unfortunately, we've not been taking data on the global temperatures on Mars or Jupiter (or anywhere other than good ol' Terra) for a long enough period to draw firm conclusions.

I remain a skeptic of anthropogenic global warming, in part because of a wide pattern of suggestive, but inconclusive data of this variety.

Larry A|6.16.06 @ 5:05PM|#

How to account for apparent warming on Mars and Jupiter?

NASA Mars landers and Jupiter probes, of course.

I also find it interesting that the Gore solutions to global warming march in lockstep with pre-debate 1970s Democratic policy, i.e. renewable fuels, mass transit, community planning, regulations on business, etc. and leave out nuclear power.

|6.16.06 @ 5:07PM|#

Ron -- Thanks for a thoughtful analysis, especially since I'm probably not going to see the movie.

|6.16.06 @ 5:32PM|#

Insurance man-

See the link below. The warming on Mars isn't global.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=192

|6.16.06 @ 5:43PM|#

Z, this does not seem to be at all an unbiased review of the Mars data. I'd be a heck of a lot more receptive to a straight analysis of the Mars and/or Jupiter data by someone without an axe to grind in the anthropogenic global warming debate.

|6.16.06 @ 5:55PM|#

Oddly enough, about 20 minutes ago I caught a rather scathing review of Gore's movie on NPR. The commenters take was very similar to Ron's. Basically, while the concept that the earth is indeed warming is not so much in dispute, what that means for us, as a species and as a planet, is. The reviewer placed Gore's movie in the realm of "scare tactics" and decried it for hindering the way to reasoned thinking about the subject. Damn left leaning NPR.

|6.16.06 @ 6:26PM|#

My biggest snag with Gore's advocation of all this when he pretends like he doesn't have a horse in this race. It's the truth-to-power types against the big bad corporate scientists. We're analyzing snatches of data in an insanely complex system and cherry picking numbers to prove that Action Must Be Taken TM! It's like being able to scientifically prove that the sun orbits the earth - all the scientists of the day agreed!

I agree, let's all get technology, ecologically smart and reduce waste and increase efficiency. But living in the south, I'm gonna go ahead and scoff in the general direction of a 1-degree temperature change.

|6.16.06 @ 6:49PM|#

I guess the supreme question is, how is this going to affect human kind? I have no doubt that the planet will survive, some species may not but most will. The question is, can humans adapt? With technology I see no reason that we cannot even if the climatic change is as rapid as some would have us believe.

Look at the medival cool period, the so called "Little Ice Age". Humans in ecologically borderline areas like Greenland perished while those in the southern areas of Europe noticed little change. While it made life more difficult for many species, including humans, it by no means was "The End of the World".

That is not to say that humans should burn energy like it is going out of style but that with judicious forsight and planning we should be able to develop new technologies (or use older ones like Nuclear Fission) to produce our power without slowing down economic growth or reverting to a pre-industrialized way of life and still avert major problems.

|6.16.06 @ 6:54PM|#

Congrats, Ron, on getting it right.

I have been feeling pretty lonely these last few years as a libertarian type who actually admits that the earth is virtually certainly heating up and that this phenomena is highly likely to have been caused primarily by humans.

You are exactly right on this issue. GW is likely caused by humans, and deserves a policy response based on this. While it is not absolutely certain, such a requirement is an absurd barrier to put in front of action. We act upon probabilities every day.

Where the environmental left (including Gore) have been going wrong is their conflation of science with policy. Science NEVER can tell us what we should do, only what the possibilities are. Just because the earth is heating up, one cannot claim we need to buy lots of solar panels. Perhaps sea walls are a better investment. Few on the left seem prepared for this debate. Most, as you noted, just exaggerate the doom-and-gloom far beyond what the science justifies.

|6.16.06 @ 6:55PM|#

While I'm generally in the camp of those recognizing that there is some anthropogenic effect on the global climate, I tend to be somewhat more resistant to many of the 'solutions' offered to this issue.

One of my questions for those who advocate various solutions (especially policy type solutions) is a hypothetical:

If it could be proved, beyond reasonable doubt, that the entirety of observed climate change is entirely natural (no human component), or if what human component that exists is statistically insignificant, would we (or even should we) still choose to impose solutions that would attempt to ameliorate (or reverse) the observed change?

If one were to answer 'no' to the above question (in other words, it's a natural phenomenon, and we should just adapt to the change), then, apart from just cleaning up after ourselves (which I do think is a generally good idea), there's no strong logic for many of the solutions, especially those that impose an undue cost on the societies that have to implement them. Because if we can (or should) adapt to a natural change, there's no reason we can't adapt to a man made change of similar magnitude.

And if one answers 'yes' to the hypothetical (and we therefore agree that it's okay to manipulate our climate if it's for our own comfort or for some other more laudable goal), then one is basically saying that it's okay to actively modify the climate (and whatever else) pretty much from a solely humanistic point of view (whatever is best for us). One could argue that we should make changes for other life on this planet, but my off the cuff guess is that the purported climate changes would be much less of a problem for life overall than for us in particular.

You may (or may not) be surprised to know that a *lot* of those I've spoken with who advocate various severe solutions to man-made contributions are ardently opposed to interference if the problem were wholly natural (even if the actual effects were identical). Granted, these people usually fall into the 'if a human does it, it's bad' category.

Myself, I lean toward the humanist view, apart from dying off, the mere presence of humans is going to have some effect, and I believe that it's right for us to responsibly alter our environment to suit ourselves.

I do think we should clean up after ourselves, to the degree that what we're doing is clearly deleterious. But even in that case, I'd rather wait a bit for solutions that we know will work than rush headlong into solutions that may work (or may not), or that cause problems worse than the one we're trying to solve (most of the economic and policy solutions that I've seen fall into this category).

Paul|6.16.06 @ 6:55PM|#

I don't have much energy for Global Warming(tm) debate, part XCXIIVIXLCLCIXICLXLCIX but I will say that us folks up here in Seattle could sure use a little Global Warming(tm) about now. I'm getting tired of the cooler than normal temps were not supposed to be having.

Paul|6.16.06 @ 6:59PM|#

Oh, and yeah, what Dale said. Can you tell its Friday?

|6.16.06 @ 7:49PM|#

While someone has finally done a detailed review of the movie, I have issues with R. Bailey's piece.

In regards to rising sea levels, Ron fails to mention something in this regards that Gore did go into detail about: Glacial Moulins
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moulin_%28geology%29

this is what causeded the sea-ice Ross B ice shelf to disintegrate within 35 days. Gore does mention that Moulins are appearing in greater number over landed ice shelves in Greenland and Antarctica. To my knowledge, the IPCC statements mentioned by Bailey do not take this intpo account. To credit, Gore has no idea when these landed iceshelves would break up nor how fast; but it is sure to result in faster sea level change

Another issue:

Temperatures in 1998 were inflated by a global El Nino. Temepratures in 2005 were not. The averaged trend lines (this negates any cherry picking) for the past decades, including this one, do show an increasing trend in temperatures.

I'd go on, but I am tired, and too many links gets my posts kicked by the Server Squirrels�

|6.16.06 @ 7:54PM|#

I'm sure Gore would readily acknowledge that the movie is a work of advocacy, meant to overcome the last of the global-warming deniers who have prevented any significant U.S. policy response up until now--a group that included Ron himself until a few months ago.

I've long suspected that denying global-warming was seen this way. ...but I think it's hard to quibble with those, like Mr. Bailey, who appear to have changed their minds in light of new data and honest reevaluations.

That having been said, God save us from global-warming, but, please God, save us from significant U.S. policy responses! Just because global warming is real, that doesn't mean a significant policy response, however you want to fill in that blank check, is the answer.

I'm not saying you're saying this, but there seem to be those among us who would argue that because of global warming, variations on central planning are in order. ...but any argument for anything stinking of central planning will still have to pass the same logic tests, the same tests central planning has always failed in the past, global warming or no global warming.

P.S. Yeah, yeah, you don't like the term "central planning". A rose by any other name...

|6.16.06 @ 8:04PM|#

The very least significant policy response should be to end all types of subsidies that fossil industries currently enjoy.

|6.16.06 @ 8:19PM|#

Tolly writes: "But living in the south, I'm gonna go ahead and scoff in the general direction of a 1-degree temperature change."

That temperature change is part of a massive increase in *energy* in the atmosphere.

Some of it will be experienced as increased temperatures. The rest will be converted into, say, higher wind speeds, larger pressure differenctials, bigger/nastier storms.

If you put a pot of cold water on the stove, and turn on the burner, the water doesn't just get hot. It starts moving.

|6.16.06 @ 8:31PM|#

"If it could be proved, beyond reasonable doubt, that the entirety of observed climate change is entirely natural (no human component), or if what human component that exists is statistically insignificant, would we (or even should we) still choose to impose solutions that would attempt to ameliorate (or reverse) the observed change?"

Well, to the extent that improved efficiency technologies and processes would save the global economy lots of money, it would probably not hurt to act as if we *are* contributing. Yes, we might spend a lot of money, but that money isn't going to just be burned up, it'll go into high tech jobs, innovation, etc.

Also, there's the possibility that if our contribution might be negligible now, compared to external factors, but there may come a time when our marginal contribution makes things significantly worse.

If you had an uncontrollable genetic tendency towards artheriosclerosis, that causes your blood vessels to clog even if you eat healthy food and take Plavix, it wouldn't make much sense to make things worse by eating a cheeseburger.

|6.16.06 @ 8:40PM|#

Chad writes: "Science NEVER can tell us what we should do, only what the possibilities are. Just because the earth is heating up, one cannot claim we need to buy lots of solar panels. Perhaps sea walls are a better investment. Few on the left seem prepared for this debate. Most, as you noted, just exaggerate the doom-and-gloom far beyond what the science justifies."

The problem is, science is happy just to sit around collecting data until it can pin down an answer. There is no more sense of haste in the study of climate change on earth as there is in finding earth-like worlds many lightyears away.

The problem is that if we wait for science to pin things down, there's a good chance that part of what science will discover is that, if we had started taking steps 30 years before, we might have been able to stop the worst from happening.

On the other hand you have people who don't want to wait for bloodless Vulcan scientists to tell us we're way too late. And if they're wrong, there's a lot less downside - we get better technology and piss less money away at the gas station.

Basically, it's going to take a long time for the scientists to make themselves happy, because they aren't working on a deadline. It's going to take a long time to get anywhere on creating the infrastructure of technology, laws, and regulations needed to improve the situation. And it's going to take a very long time for those to show any benefit. So the earlier we start, the better.

So, from a human perspective, there is ample reason to want to lead the scientists. They may be content to act as if they are studying an ant farm, but that doesn't come without a cost.

|6.16.06 @ 8:45PM|#

also...

Chad writes "Just because the earth is heating up, one cannot claim we need to buy lots of solar panels. Perhaps sea walls are a better investment. Few on the left seem prepared for this debate. "

I don't think anyone would be silly enough to say the answer is to do one thing ("buy solar panels", "erect sea walls"). It's bound to require a wide variety of things.

Well, okay, G. W. Bush would be silly enough to say the answer is "hydrogen".

Douglas Westerman|6.16.06 @ 9:56PM|#

It is one thing to point out the symptoms of global warming, and Gore does a good job on that score. But he is on much more shaky ground in predicting outcomes. If sea levels rise 20 ft. in 100 years, those who live within 20 ft. of sea level either gradually move to higher ground, or build dikes. This is not an impending catastrophe.
The same can be said for many other symptoms of global warming. People migrate and adapt. If we apply the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle to global warming, we end up with high degree of unpredictability.

Taylor|6.16.06 @ 10:18PM|#

More dangerous than our impact on our natural environment might be Al Gore's impact on the psychological environment of today's youth. Thankfully, people like Ron Bailey are there to meet Gore's exaggerations head on.

|6.16.06 @ 10:29PM|#

This is another review critical of Gore's "Truth".

|6.16.06 @ 10:30PM|#

Douglas writes: "If sea levels rise 20 ft. in 100 years, those who live within 20 ft. of sea level either gradually move to higher ground, or build dikes. This is not an impending catastrophe."

What if the country is too poor to build dikes, and higher ground is already full?

Wintermute|6.16.06 @ 11:19PM|#

The science may not be unassailable; but laissez-faire growth without limits is, in cellular terms, CANCER.

Thomas Paine's Goiter|6.16.06 @ 11:57PM|#

Rather than burying our heads in the sand and pretending that Global Warming isn't happening, I propose we capitalists ought to use the power of the market to help out. There's money to be made in saving the planet. I say let's do it.

Some of us already are.

Thomas Paine's Goiter|6.17.06 @ 12:04AM|#

What if the country is too poor to build dikes, and higher ground is already full?

Then people die. Just like they died during the slow creeping climate changes of the past.

|6.17.06 @ 12:07AM|#

Well, to the extent that improved efficiency technologies and processes would save the global economy lots of money, it would probably not hurt to act as if we *are* contributing. Yes, we might spend a lot of money, but that money isn't going to just be burned up, it'll go into high tech jobs, innovation, etc.

I never said it would hurt to ameliorate our contributions, whether they have an effect or not. You may have read in my post that I am in favor of our cleaning up after ourselves, just on principle. My argument is that implementing this behaviour as policy in a vacuum, or as a form of economic retribution is certainly *not* the right answer. Under a policy, the affected party will do only as much as is necessary to meet the policy, and little or nothing more.

Also, there's the possibility that if our contribution might be negligible now, compared to external factors, but there may come a time when our marginal contribution makes things significantly worse.

Well, apart from the fact that you seem to have misinterpreted the concept of a hypothetical question (and you may also have noticed that I do tend to accept that there is a human component to global climate change), I don't think we should sit on our asses and ignore the issue. I *do* think it's in our best interest to manipulate climate to our best ends, which in this case, implies that we should attempt to ameliorate the human contribution. But just to volley back your question, what if the climate change *were* clearly independent of human contribution, regardless of amount? Should we pump smog or dust into the atomosphere to limit the global temperature increase?

If you had an uncontrollable genetic tendency towards artheriosclerosis, that causes your blood vessels to clog even if you eat healthy food and take Plavix, it wouldn't make much sense to make things worse by eating a cheeseburger.

You're exhibiting a fallacy of type here. First off, you're assuming that the cheeseburger invokes a detrimental effect on atherosclerosis. Second, given your description of the malady, there's no indication that even if the burger were detrimental, it would be any worse than any other food. Third, and most tellingly, your analogy fails in that while a thrombotic episode caused by atherosclerosis would kill the particular person, severe global climate change won't kill the earth, merely some or all of the life on it. Nature will continue on just fine, and something else will come along, better suited to the new environment.


That temperature change is part of a massive increase in *energy* in the atmosphere.

Some of it will be experienced as increased temperatures. The rest will be converted into, say, higher wind speeds, larger pressure differenctials, bigger/nastier storms.

And just for the sake of argument, what if *every* bit of the extra energy in this scenario comes from the sun? Are you proposing that we embark on a mission to reduce solar output?

Douglas writes: "If sea levels rise 20 ft. in 100 years, those who live within 20 ft. of sea level either gradually move to higher ground, or build dikes. This is not an impending catastrophe."

What if the country is too poor to build dikes, and higher ground is already full?

Apparently, you don't seem to grasp the scale of a century on human activity. It's not like the water lever rise is going to wait for the last minute, and then suddenly jump out and say, "gotcha! you're all going to drown now". It'll rise at some particular rate, and people (even the poor ones) will move, or adapt, or perhaps, die (it happens for lesser reasons, it may not necessarily be desired, but it's not unheard of, even for local changes due entirely to nature). Climate change kills people (and other life) all the time, and that has little or nothing to do with human activity in a general sense. If adaptation is our only recourse, I imagine we can manage something within the time frame of a century to deal with the worst of the issues. Humans are pretty good at that kind of thing.

While you apparently live in the "we've got to DO SOMETHING camp", sometimes the right answer is to *not* do something.

|6.17.06 @ 12:09AM|#

Mars and Venus have been warming as well? Damn, and I was planning to emigrate there, and then set up laws and economic justifications for why I could keep the Mexicans out.

|6.17.06 @ 12:34AM|#

"Also, it should be noted that the earlier we start the less expensive and more successful any action we take will be.

There's no reason to believe that's the case. Small reductions in the amount of CO2 we put into the atmosphere now will quite possibly be dwarfed by what we can do with advanced technology in the future. If the reductions causes technology to advance slower, it could quite possibly be that starting earlier results in less success.

There are some questions whose answers can be determined by logic alone. However, there are also questions where the specifics matter. This is one of them. Staying out of an economic depression and allowing scientific knowledge to continue to accumulate at an exponential rate is probably much more important than anything we can do now with existing technology.

|6.17.06 @ 2:26AM|#

Sounds to me as if Bailey is whistling in the dark.

|6.17.06 @ 6:56AM|#

There is something elegaic about this piece . Ron has at once done the right thing in letting his scientific judgement be ruled by the facts at the end of the day, but the fact remains that his scientific intuition failed him at the debate's inception.

The subject's very real uncertainties allowed of neutrality pending their resolution by research. His unwisely choosing the wrong side has inevitably eroded the credibilty of his side in this matter , yet the very fact of his concession has salvaged both its honor and its future prospects of being taken seriously. He could have done worse- as others still are.

|6.17.06 @ 7:16AM|#

Then again he could have done better- rereading this piece simply as a film review, I see Ron's let Al get way wih a couple of very real scientific howlers.

Al must have had Christopher Reeve's x-ray corneas transplanted to say he can see the signature of the Clean Air Act's onset by eyeballing Antarctic ice cores.

If His Adequacy can explain how stable oxygen isotopes , which snow out from a lot of phenomena besides fossil fuel burning ,can nail down palaeotemperatures , Crutzen and Molina should turn in their Nobel medals and move to Tennessee.

|6.17.06 @ 8:08AM|#

I have just read Bailey's piece and the comments above. Time for what debaters of anthropogenic global warming inexplicably consider a non sequitur:

Forget the science for a minute and do the junior-high arithmetic. If global warming is caused by human activity, shouldn't we be talking about the carbon-dioxide emissions of the additional 80 million humans on the planet each year? This subject is never discussed -- lest we Gore someone's sacred cow.

I propose that we use a free-market solution for mitigating global warming: Eliminate per-child tax deductions and tax credits for "free-market libertarians" and bleeding-heart environmentalists alike. Making people responsible for their own actions (i.e., the offspring they consciously and voluntarily produce) would have the added benefits of better distributing the wealth, restoring the environment, slowing the spread of disease -- and finally rendering justice to those of use who have not contributed to human misery with our sex organs.

Regarding the credibility issue, forget the muddled, alarmist science and look at the birth rates of some high-profile "environmentalists": Gore, four children; Robert Redford, at least three children; Ted Turner, five children.

As someone who has been paying other people's way through life since the first day taxes were taken out of his paycheck, I feel no obligation to preserve resources and the environment for the children of people with high birth rates. Despite what Al Gore and the others -- liberal, conservative and libertarian alike -- would have us believe, procreation is not a community project. And until the problem of population growth is addressed, I'm not going to inconvenience myself with pointless altriusm.

|6.17.06 @ 10:33AM|#

I am pretty sure Gore's view of global warming is exaggerated and alarmist, especially on hurricanes and sea level rise. Environmental Activists have a record of this and it aligns with their own economic interests.
I have followed the arguments about the statistics behind the hockey stick graph, which show global temperatures for the last 1000 years as constant until the last few decades. But what is so magic about the last 1000 years? Over a 10,000 year period there is no question that earth was warmer previously than now. Natural climate variation is a fact. Man-made climate change is not inherently sinful.
If we want to cool the earth off a bit, let's look at low cost ways to create some aerosols in the upper atmosphere. We may get one for free from a volcano in Indonesia any day now.

|6.17.06 @ 10:34AM|#

You're a dime-store ideological whiner, Richard. If you were as cute and clever as you think you are, some toy company would market you.

|6.17.06 @ 11:51AM|#

There is nothing more fun than a bunch of people barely knowleadgable about a subject pontificating and judging with such finality.

Look, if you asked a random sample of people who work in the fields of climatology, etc., you will find a very strong consensus that global warming is a bad thing, we are in some part at fault, and that industrialization (though it has made our lives a lot better) probably plays a part. There is and should be debate about what to do about this, but the "well, what about this permafrost" or "then there is this rise in temperatures in teh Juraissic Period" nitpicking that resembles the Intelligent Designers. Those folks used to insist the universe was made 4000 years ago, then they started to say "well, yes the world is old, but not THAT old", followed by "well yes the world is that old, but not humans" then ....now I recently saw an article in the daily bullshit (aka National Review) that said "we buy all the evolution stuff, but noone can explain sudden sapienazation and language, and there is where God must have stepped in). Heck, I don't know about global warming. But neither does Al Gore or Ron Bailey I'm afraid. But the first two have decided that the consensus of experts should be trusted, and in this world of highly specialized knowledge that makes the most sense to me...There will always be special interests who disseminate disinformation as well as scientific contrarians who nitpick to nitpick. But to bet on their farm instead of the consensus is silly (btw-to the expected answer of this or that innovative scientists who turned out to be correct I can give a much bigger list of absolute nutcases who are or have been on the fringes for good reasons).
We certainly don't have to poo-poo global warming science because we are libertarians (anymore than conservatives have to crap on Darwin). A libertarian need not be a dogmatic "Urrr, nothing bad ever come of mighty capitalism" type, just someone who thinks that all other things being equal we want to err on the side of giving folks more freedom and less power over others.

|6.17.06 @ 11:58AM|#

"greens use environmental issues to attack free markets"

This is a mischaracterization. Many, many people are proposing the use of markets and other decentralized solutions as the only way to make real gains on environmental issues. They are still "greens." The belief we need to address the problem,and the nature of the solution advocated don't walk in lock-step.

http://www.rmi.org/

or try this book
http://www.ratical.org/co-globalize/Hconnections.html

|6.17.06 @ 12:15PM|#

Wow, good link to the south park manbearpig episode. I had no idea that the episodes were so intricate. Way cool.

Also, Ken, see the next link after the the South Park link. the one of the Canadian newspaper to see why I and others doubt the whole global warming drama.

Taylor|6.17.06 @ 12:37PM|#

Re: Richard's suggestion for better developed property rights...

Right on, brother.

|6.17.06 @ 1:24PM|#

Many, many people are proposing the use of markets and other decentralized solutions as the only way to make real gains on environmental issues. They are still "greens." The belief we need to address the problem,and the nature of the solution advocated don't walk in lock-step.

Let's talk about colors:

Blue is the color of environmentalism.

Red is traditionally the color of the left.

Blue is traditionally the color of the right.

(Never mind those recent election maps.)

I say that Greens who want non-market measures should be called Yellows, since when you mix red light and green light you get Yellow.

Greens who want market measures can be called Cyans, since Cyan is the technical term for blue-green light.

MainstreamMan is a Cyan, I guess. Ralph Nader is a Yellow.

uncle sam|6.17.06 @ 1:32PM|#

"Similarly, the fact that water vapour constitutes 95% of greenhouse gases by volume is conveniently ignored by Gore. While humanity's three billion tonnes (gigatonnes, or GT) per year net contribution to the atmosphere's CO2 load appears large on a human scale, it is actually less than half of 1% of the atmosphere's total CO2 content (750-830 GT). The CO2 emissions of our civilization are also dwarfed by the 210 GT/year emissions of the gas from Earth's oceans and land. Perhaps even more significant is the fact that the uncertainty in the measurement of atmospheric CO2 content is 80 GT -- making three GT seem hardly worth mentioning."

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/story.html?id=d0235a70-33f1-45b3-803b-829b1b3542ef&

uncle sam|6.17.06 @ 1:36PM|#

Former professor of climatology at the University of Winnipeg Dr. Tim Ball notes, "The theories that Gore supports indicate the greatest warming will be in polar regions. Therefore, the temperature contrast with warmer regions -- the driver of extreme weather -- will lessen and, with it, storm potential will lessen."

uncle sam|6.17.06 @ 2:08PM|#

"Both the Antarctic and Greenland ice caps are thickening. The temperature at the South Pole has declined by more than one degree C since 1950. And the area of sea ice around the continent has increased over the last 20 years." -- Dr. R.M. Carter, professor, Marine Geophysical Laboratory, James Cook University, Townsville, Australia.

|6.17.06 @ 2:29PM|#

The only worry about GW is the Earth's abiltiy to support human life. Let's go worst case secenerio and in the year 2100 99% of humanity is dead because of GW. Well that still leaves 60 MILLION HUMANS!!! That's more than enough to maintain and renew the population when the climate is more forgiving. I say GW is a good thing. There are too many people as it is. A human die off would be good for the planet. So I say go out and buy that SUV. Burn all the fossil fuels and create CO2 as much as you can! Maybe next time we can get it right and have a utopian libertarian society!

|6.17.06 @ 2:53PM|#

If those damn polar bears didn't insist on putting ice in their colas, they might have more to walk on. And Yogi with his ice cream social!!! Smarter than the average bear, my ass. Stupid bears.

|6.17.06 @ 6:31PM|#

Don't recall if it was mentioned, but thre is a review by actual climatologists at

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/05/al-gores-movie/

|6.17.06 @ 6:41PM|#

Uncle Sam is correct. The Antarctic is colder. When they refer to the 'melting' of Antarctica them mean the Antarctic peninsula which is just 4% of the land mass. The colder part, where the average ice thickness is 1.5 miles (7000ft)seems to be ignored

|6.17.06 @ 6:49PM|#

From another of Ron's articles linked to in this one:

http://www.reason.com/links/links081105.shtml

(Climate scientist) Christy concludes, "The new warming trend is still well below ideas of dramatic or catastrophic warming." But perhaps more important is the evidence that solar activity is primarily responsible for the warming trend, and not human activity.

Ron (from his Gore flick review):

A Russian study in 2004 found that the average temperatures in Siberia during the Holocene Climatic Optimum around 6000 years ago warmed up by 3 to 9 degrees celcius in the winter, and by 2 to 6 degrees celcius in the summer. Due to changes in the earth's orbit which affect how much sunlight reaches the surface, pretty much the entire Arctic was warmer than now 6000 years ago.

But it's not just orbital considerations, it's periodic changes in solar activity marked by increase in sunspots and warmer temperatures here on Earth for solar maximums and the opposite for solar minimums. The evidence is that solar maximums were responsible for the Holocene Climatic Optimum:

Persistent Solar Influence on North Atlantic Climate During the Holocene

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/sci;294/5549/2130

While solar minimums have been shown to have the opposite effect. The "Maunder Minumum" - a period from 1645 to 1715 that saw very few sunspots - coincided with frigid winter weather in Europe called "The Little Ice Age."

We are just now ending a particularly strong active solar phase. The globe's temps should start to cool or, at least, level off now since the sun's disk is blank. No sunspots. And it has been that way almost every day since the beginning of February. It's a signal that the sun has entered the "minimum" phase.

|6.17.06 @ 6:52PM|#

I shoulda said: "The evidence is that *very strong* solar maximums were responsible for the Holocene Climatic Optimum"

|6.17.06 @ 6:53PM|#

I see no reason to get so worked up over GW since Yellowstone or some other super volvano is due to erupt sometime in the next few centuries. That will wipe out a lot of people right there, not to mention it screwing up the Earth's atomosphere for a while.

Or we could get hit by a asteriod or comet anytime, which would be even more devastating.

The Earth's been around a few billion years so whatever we do to it, nature will find a way to get it's revenge, one way or another.

And then in a few billion more years, our sun will supernova and we'll experience the ultimate global warning.

So for now I need to fill up my SUV with gas so I can make it to the grocery store to buy more charcoal for my grill.

|6.17.06 @ 8:21PM|#

Dale writes: "And just for the sake of argument, what if *every* bit of the extra energy in this scenario comes from the sun? Are you proposing that we embark on a mission to reduce solar output?"

Of course added *energy* in the system comes from the Sun. Global Warming isn't caused by human-generated *heat*.

The issue is changes in the atmosphere's composition that modify what happens to the energy that the Earth receives from the Sun.

If the Sun's output itself is increasing, then we'd better cut down on emissions of CO2 which is known to cause greenhouse warming.

To do otherwise is to be a climatological surrender monkey. "Oh, we're doomed, let's just take the easy way out and keep doing what we're doing and hope for the best."

|6.17.06 @ 10:22PM|#

Simple solution, blow a layer of retroreflective dust into the upper atmosphere and chill out but if Tambora blows like in 1815 and you'll feel pretty silly errr... chilly

|6.17.06 @ 10:32PM|#

Jon H.

Okay, I worded that example a bit inaccurately.

If the Sun's output itself is increasing, then we'd better cut down on emissions of CO2 which is known to cause greenhouse warming.

What about water vapor? It's a much more effective greenhouse gas than CO2, smaller decreases would be required.

And even if we decide that we can compensate for solar energy increase by reducing CO2, how far do we go? You do realize that there is some lower level of concentration below which plant life would be affected?

This is entirely the crux of my arguments. While the anthropogenic contributions we made were made largely through ignorance, and I'm entirely cool with the idea of making reasonable efforts to counteract that contribution, in any intentional manipulation, we'd essentially be flying blind, without any certainty (or even meaningful positive probability, more than likely) of generating the results we expect.

There is substantial, legitimate, debate concerning the effect (and the degree) of our current actions. Attempting to design any kind of tailored effect on our climate, at this time, would be sheer folly.

What is probably the best solution is a combination of amelioration (of the human component that we can control), and adaptation (to adjust to the way the climate will be, rather than what we *wish* it would be, or *fear* it will be).

And as for your 'surrender monkey', feel free to tell the rest of us how it is that you are 100% certain that the actions you choose to commit us to will not just be effective, but that they won't actually do more harm than doing nothing.

|6.18.06 @ 8:58AM|#

Richard, nations with population growth rather have "tax credits" with which to manipulate population. Indeed, most nations with a government that sophisticated have birth rates well below replacement levels and little or no native population growth. Right now, the US population would be barely growing without immigration (legal and illegal), and countries like Japan are already heading backwards.

When it comes to any "population control" solution to environmental problems, you have to address countries with high birth rates such as Nigeria. Unfortunately, "tax credits" is the least of the problem there.

Also, as a side note, birth-rates are falling everywhere (India, China, Iran, Pakistan, Indonesia etc being very important). Population will probably reach a maximum in 50-70 years and then start declining. The debate about what do do about low birthrates is already common polictics in some Asian and European countries. It will spread here too once it gets much worse.

uncle sam|6.18.06 @ 11:11AM|#

The debate about what do do about low birthrates is already common polictics in some Asian and European countries. It will spread here too once it gets much worse.

heh, heh
The reduction in birth rates is very worrying to the administrators of social security schemes. If the birth rate falls too low, there won't be enogh sheep to shear to pay off the retiring sheep.

|6.18.06 @ 11:57AM|#

Thoreau

"MainstreamMan is a Cyan, I guess. Ralph Nader is a Yellow."
If purple is the color of the center, then I'd say, actually, that I'm a purplish Cyan since I see the most likely strategy to be successful as a combination of bottom-up (market if you want) and top-down (regulation) influences. This is how all complex systems in nature evolve naturally (with a balance between top-down and bottom-up), so it makes sense that attempts to influence the direction of a complex system in a particular direction will require a dynamic approach that incrementally implements both strategies.

|6.18.06 @ 12:05PM|#

From 3quarks daily

E.O Wilson cited one encouraging sign. "In 1960, women on the planet gave birth to an average of six children each," he told a group of Harvard alums celebrating their 50th reunion during the University's June 8 Commencement celebration. "That number is down to three children today, and the trend is likely to accelerate." He sees the 21st century as "the century of the environment," a time when humans will celebrate and preserve biodiversity, or wreck life on Earth...In thinking about the outcome, Wilson likes to quote John Sawhill, the late president of The Nature Conservatory, who said, "A society is defined, not only by what it creates, but by what it chooses not to destroy."

|6.18.06 @ 12:46PM|#

Chad & Uncle Sam, thanks for addressing my entry about population growth. I clumsily attempted to make a three points above:

The first and most annoying to me is that population growth and personal birth rates are never brought into the discussion of GW for fear of insulting someone's mother or some politician grinding an ax. If population growth stops in 50 years -- say at 12 billion -- we will have 10 times the number of people that were on the planet in 1900. That's the "anthro" in anthropogenic. Duh.

Chad, for a long time I have wondered whether the ultra-low birth rates in Spain an Italy were the result of cultural processes or government policies. Do you have a reference on this subject? Also, regarding where to control population growth: Doing so in Third World countries will improve the local environment, but more greenhouse gasses are produced and most resources are used in developed countries.

The second point is about credibility: Many GW-theory proponents ignore population growth as a factor, often contribute to population growth themselves by having more than two children, and sponsor social programs that prop up the birth rate. How can we accept their science when they undermine their own lofty goal?

Regarding your point about worried social-security administrators, Uncle Sam: Prolific progenitors like to talk about how their children are funding my retirement -- without talking about the taxes they don't pay (e.g. the $1,000-per-head child tax credit), or how the people with low birth rates make up the difference. Clearly, an equitable system would have people paying taxes in proportion to the services they and their children require. But in the world of entitlement politics, this will never happen.

My third point was about economics and motivation: As someone who is not culpable, who has paid is own and other people's dues, and who has no heirs to worry about, GW alarmists -- whether correct or not -- are not going to motivate me to save the planet when they ignore fundamental factors that contribute to GW.

|6.18.06 @ 9:37PM|#

A nice essay on the topic from Martin Rees...

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/rees06/rees06_index.html

|6.19.06 @ 9:29AM|#

Let's not forget, Ron Bailey's first post on this movie was an endorsement of the AEI's ad which states that Carbon Dioxide can't be a pollutant, because our bodies expel it.

Not enough hours in the day.

|6.19.06 @ 1:12PM|#

that's CEI. And it wasn't really much of an endorsement.