Al Gore"s "An Inconvenient Truth"

[Gerr]

I just watched Al Gore's film. It's possible I'm being gullible, but it has confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt what I was beginning to believe 21 yrs ago. Twenty-one years ago, my wife & I took a vacation and drove all the way to Banff, Canada. We saw several glaciers the bottom of which have receded upwards hundreds of feet. I was convinced then that there was truth to global warming. What the film shows is a dooms-day scenario if we don't do something about it now.

Have you seen it? How do you feel about it?

Gerry

[olger]

This is a fascinating treatise of the question.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6Wr1hcIp2U

`G

[Woody]

Thank you Olger. This is the proof we needed about "The Great Global Warming Swindle"

[Amelia]

How do you know that is the truth?

[Woody]

I never said it was the "truth".!!! But ... I suspect it is just as much proof as what the other side has.

[olger]

:)

[Bravus]

olger has posted that vid several times, and each time I've posted links to accounts of scientists shown in it who were very angry about the way the producers had edited their contributions to misrepresent their actual views. Believe it if you want, but it has very little credibility, scientific or journalistic.

On 'An Inconvenient truth', Al Gore is doing good work in publicising the issue of climate change, but unfortunately people are tending to focus on him, not the issue. Climate changeis not Al Gore and Al Gore is not climate change. Ignore him (and his big house) and read the actual climate scientists at realclimate.org if you want the straight dope from those who know.

But I've retired from the lists on this one: let him who is skeptic be skeptic still.

[olger]

Twice, friend.

`G

[D. Allan]

Quote:

Have you seen it? How do you feel about it?

Can one rent it at blockbusters?

Quote:

What the film shows is a dooms-day scenario if we don't do something about it now.

Its too bad we didn't start to do something 20-some years ago. We are replacing lightbulbs in our house (a very small contribution). If ethenol becomes widely available I'll use it in my car. I can't afford the new hybrids.

What else can I do?

[Bravus]

OK, sorry olger, it felt like more, but that's probably because it's been sent and posted by other people in other places too. Please change 'several' to 'two' in my post above. :)

[Gerr]

I rented it from a video place.

Gerry

[Gerr]

This is a fascinating treatise of the question.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6Wr1hcIp2U

`G

Have you seen the film? I don't think Mr. Gore invented all the graphs presented in the film. If the glaciers, the polar icecaps, and Greenland ice are shrinking, the ocean temperatures rising, what else would account for it? Even just common sense tells me it has to be true.

Can you cite some reputable scientists who believe the opposite?

What if people are just burying their heads in the sand? And when they take their heads out, it's too late? I can in fact envision that some of the plagues in Revelation will be forces of nature gone awry. Like the heat. The hail.

Gerry

[Dr. Shane]

I must say that I was really impressed with Gore in this movie. This is Gore at his finest, if you ask me. I think he is doing a good job of drawing much needed attention to the issue. He does go to extreme in the video and I think can honestly be classified as an alarmist. Nonetheless I was impressed with his presentation. He didn't seem stiff and awkward like he normally does.

[Amelia]

A while ago I posted photographs of glaciers, before and after, that have totally melted away and not returned. Could they have been "doctored"? Sure. But I have also seen with my own eyes, where glaciers have melted away.

[phkrause]

They had a report of this on 60 minutes the other night.

pkrause

[D. Allan]

Last night on ABC's news with Charlie Gibson there was a story about a Pacific island named Kiribas, I think. It has been losing area to the ocean for a long time. I now stands merely 6 feet above sea level. The governor or chief, whatever he is called, says that before mid-century everyone will have to evacuate. They are losing population now as they lose land area. People have been living there for 3000 years, Charlie reported.

[Bravus]

yeah, it's spelled 'Kiribati' but pronounced 'Kiribas'.

[jasd]

QR frame:

So, how does one explain the forming oceans on Mars? Of course, it would be the melting polar caps and what may be permafrost..

That said, as I recall, there is only a small solar powered scooter running about upon its surface and mebbe, bacteria locked away in its rocks.

CO2 emissions? flatulence? don't think so. Something galactical or solar system-wide is occurring. Note the other anomalies system-wide.

[Bravus]

Was it here that we had the long and detailed discussion on this point? I think so. I'll try to dig up a link to that, but the short version is that yes, the sun is showing increased sunspot activity, and increased heat output at the moment. This accounts for observed changes on other planets. It also accounts for a measurable but small (as in an order of magnitude smaller) proportion of the observed changes on earth. That is, we can measure the sun's energy output pretty precisely, and we know it's hotter, but it's not enough hotter, by a wide margin, to account for the observed heating of earth.

[Bravus]

It must have been archived, or lost in the move to the new server, because I can't seem to find it. Here's the gist:

(from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/globalwarming.html)

"Since our entire climate system is fundamentally driven by energy from the sun, it stands to reason that if the sun's energy output were to change, then so would the climate. Since the advent of space-borne measurements in the late 1970s, solar output has indeed been shown to vary. There appears to be confirmation of earlier suggestions of an 11 (and 22) year cycle of irradiance. With only 20 years of reliable measurements however, it is difficult to deduce a trend. But, from the short record we have so far, the trend in solar irradiance is estimated at ~0.09 W/m2 compared to 0.4 W/m2 from well-mixed greenhouse gases. There are many indications that the sun also has a longer-term variation which has potentially contributed to the century-scale forcing to a greater degree. There is though, a great deal of uncertainty in estimates of solar irradiance beyond what can be measured by satellites, and still the contribution of direct solar irradiance forcing is small compared to the greenhouse gas component. However, our understanding of the indirect effects of changes in solar output and feedbacks in the climate system is minimal. There is much need to refine our understanding of key natural forcing mechanisms of the climate, including solar irradiance changes, in order to reduce uncertainty in our projections of future climate change." (my added emphasis)

So their best estimate is 0.09 watts per square metre from solar radiance change compared to 0.4 watts from greenhouse gases. That's just over 4 times as great an effect from the greenhouse gases as from the sun, so even if both estimates were out by 100% in the direction that reduced the difference (i.e. the solar radiance was 100% bigger at 0.18 and the greenhouse effect 100% smaller at 2.0) the two effects would then be about the same size, with the greenhouse effect slightly predominant. On the other hand, if it went the other way, the greenhouse contribution could be 16x the solar. So, on the admittedly limited science we have, yes there is a solar effect (which accounts for the changes on the other planets), but the CO2 effect is larger.

And I found this analysis of the 'Global Warming Swindle' movie on RealClimate while I was searching: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/03/swindled/

[Dr. Shane]

If the sun is melting the ice caps on Mars, and I am not convinced it is, certainly it would have a greater impact on us since we are closer to it and have an atmosphere that traps heat. Tell me where I am going wrong here.

[Bravus]

You're not going wrong, you're correct on both those points. And still the warming caused by human generated greenhouse gases is around 4 times greater than that effect.

Edit: Incidentally, Mars' ice caps are predominantly not water but solid carbon dioxide (dry ice).

[Gerr]

I must say that I was really impressed with Gore in this movie. This is Gore at his finest, if you ask me. I think he is doing a good job of drawing much needed attention to the issue. He does go to extreme in the video and I think can honestly be classified as an alarmist. Nonetheless I was impressed with his presentation. He didn't seem stiff and awkward like he normally does.

I paid more attention to what he was saying than what he looked like. I don't think he is just being an alarmist. If the data he presented are even just half true, we have reason to be alarmed. But true to human nature, we won't do anything until something drastically bad happens.

Gerry

[Gerr]

Last night on ABC's news with Charlie Gibson there was a story about a Pacific island named Kiribas, I think. It has been losing area to the ocean for a long time. I now stands merely 6 feet above sea level. The governor or chief, whatever he is called, says that before mid-century everyone will have to evacuate. They are losing population now as they lose land area. People have been living there for 3000 years, Charlie reported.

I read in the papers last year about some Pacific Islanders abandoning their homes because of rising water level, so what Mr. Gore presented in the film about people evacuating to New Zealand is true.

Gerry

[Dr. Shane]

Al Gore said sea levels will rise 20 feet. He shows graphics of water pouring through Manhattan and covering much of Florida. In order for that to happen, all the ice in Greenland would have to melt. (I guess that would give the island folks a place to live.) Al Gore's film is based on worse-case, computer predictions. The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts a rise of from 3.5 to 34 inches. That isn't even half, not even a quarter, not even a fifth of what Al Gore predicts in his film. So, to me, he sounds a little alarmist.