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Al Gore to cause Global Warming? — 43 Comments

  1. Well, all I can say is it used to be all Bill Clinton’s fault. And now it’s all Al Gore’s fault? What is it with you guys?

  2. I have thought about this, and have two thoughts that have me reasonably satisfied at the moment that they’re right.

    1) The Earth is big, yes. About 12,700km across big. But you only have to go up about 100km to be considered in space, and we’ve all heard how thin the air is on top of Mt. Everest, less than 9km up. To me, that makes the atmosphere look really thin, and quite within the reach of 6 billion people to screw up.

    2) The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is apparently much higher than any time in at least 650,000 years, which covers several ice-age cycles. Unless you disagree with the idea that CO2 keeps the heat in, that also has me worried.

  3. Good post grandad. Its so strange how humiliating it has been, when I haven’t spouted all the Al Gore rhetoric when in conversation with others that have taken it on as a cause.

    This old world has been around a long time, and I believe it will be here for much longer. I hate being afraid every time I see the news, and someone Al Gore like…is telling me I am destroying everything. I am like you…taking care where and when I can. Because it makes sense to. The scare tactics are not called for though.

    Laurie

  4. Right on. The whole global warming huballoo is nothing more than a way for rich Hollywood idiots and irrelevant former politicians to try to add some meaning to their pointless narcissistic lives.

  5. I trust the scientists.
    No, I have done no original thinking on this.
    But there is a consensus (important distinction) that global warming is real.
    The way I feel about it is: if they are right and we do nothing we screwed it up for kids and grandkids. If they are wrong and we did something, what is the harm?
    A couple of nuclear incidences killed our chances in my lifetime of getting off coal fired energy sources.
    That’s too bad for the U.S.
    I don’t do as much as you do for the environment. I have a gas guzzler, put plastic in the landfill bin, fly on airplanes, run the a/c in the house, and fart a lot.
    But U.S. industries have to stop pumping filth into the air so that I can do all those inappropriate things.
    @Laurie: We need a good scare, we don’t act on economic impact, we have to be scared out of our wits!

  6. I don’t think the jury is out, Grandad, I think there’s a pretty solid consensus on the dangers of global warming. Though there again, there was a solid consensus that the earth was flat. I’m with Going Like Sixty – take action to safeguard future generations, and if we’ve got it wrong, we haven’t lost anything, in fact we’ve saved resources and lived more intelligently. And it’s up to governments to take the lead, because there’s only so much individuals can do.

    And yes, Al Gore is a high-carboning hypocrite.

  7. Little Gw lives in a little house where there are 132 rooms, 35 bathrooms, and hallways on 6 levels. I wonder how many light bulbs that takes never mind the lights outside.

    There are also 412 doors, 147 windows, 28 fireplaces, 8 staircases, and 3 elevators.
    With five full-time chefs, the White House kitchen is able to serve dinner to as many as 140 guests.
    The White House requires 570 gallons of paint to cover its outside surface.
    For recreation, the White House has a variety of facilities available to its residents, including a tennis court, jogging track, swimming pool, movie theatre, and bowling lane.

    Think of all the power needed to keep that lot going and that is before he steps outside to the Helipad, or on board Airforce One.

    I am unable to find figures for Downing Street or Royal Households right now.

    And there’s me worrying about my 28 bulbs!

  8. goinglike60….perhaps you are right. Personally, I think I am just plain tired of being afraid of everything. What I eat…what I don’t eat…what the terrorists are doing…who is doing what where….lousy politicians. I am afraid of it all. I am a humanist 60….but just feeling a tad vulnerable I suppose. Like I said…I do what I can.

    On the other hand…the younger generation, for instance my 35 year old daughter and 31 year old son….take great care. They seem to grasp it more than I do I guess.

    Laurie

  9. Great post Grandad. Amazing reading the comments. People really believe this stuff, even though in terms of science, it is not even a theory, still a hypothesis! I bet religious leaders wish they could learn some preaching tactics from the global warming people, as everyone seems to blindly believe. For every scientist who says it’s real there is another equally accredited one saying it’s a pile of horse dung. Sad fact is that research is funded. Who wants to fund said research? Environmentalists groups won’t in case they’re wrong and big backers like corporations won’t in ase they are right. It is biased research that is out there and absolutely nothing concrete. If the Pope could get people to believe him as readily I’d say he’d be a happy man.

    P.S. Al Gore – ugh… don’t get me started. I met him at a campaign rally years ago. Far from charming.

  10. Vigilante – From now on, I’ll just blame everything on Americans 😉

    Andrew – I agree to an extent with what you say. BUT. One thing that occurs to me is during the industrial revolution, coal was burned in vast quantities, so you would expect some kind of atmospheric reaction starting at that stage? The only thing that has increased dramatically in the last fifty years is jet aircraft. Correct me if I’m wrong.
    Also, as far as I’m aware, there have been huge variations in global CO2 over the millennia. Many experts are saying that Gore is completely misinterpreting the relationships between CO2 and global temperature. He is manipulating the facts to fit the theories.

    Laurie – You have used the key word – Cause. This has become so politicised that people can’t see the wood for the trees. Mind you, they’ve cut down all the trees……

    Sixty & Nick – I always trust scientists. However, which scientists do I trust? ‘Consensus’ is another word for Popular Opinion. And popular opinion is generally created, not by informed judgement but by advertising and repetition.
    I agree that it is always better to err on the side of caution, but they are starting to go too far. They are trying to create a mass panic in the world’s population.
    I am all for saving resources [as I said]. I think that modern day wastage is appalling, and I’m all for tidying that act up, but Global Warming?

    Grannymar – You have hit the nail on the head. If global warming is such an issue, how come heads of state still fly all over the place? How come Gas Guzzlers are not taxed? How come jet travel isn’t being curtailed? [As a matter of interest, the weather patterns changed dramatically over America in the days after 11th September 2001, because all planes were grounded!!] How come big industries aren’t being whipped into shape? How come they aren’t doing more to protect the rain forests?

    Yet I can be prosecuted for burning a couple of leaves in my garden, because of the horrific damage I’m doing to the atmosphere??

  11. Deborah – It’s the same blind faith that has caused other strange movements. Look at the anti-passive smoking lobby, where it has become a capital crime to smoke in the presence of others, even though there isn’t a shred of hard evidence that it causes any harm.

    Someone comes up with some fancy idea of their own, and it gathers its own momentum. Once it starts rolling, there is no stopping it.

    Incidentally, what happened to the holes in the ozone layer? We never hear about them and the CFCs any more?

  12. Woops! I missed JT’s comment above as it slipped into my ‘dubious comment’ box. Sorry, JT!!

    In fact, take a trip across to his post and see what you make of it?

  13. At the risk of being a total ignoramus, are we talking about ‘An Inconvenient Truth’?

    Please don’t tell me that someone picked up a Nobel Prize for this sensationalist crud? Watching this film made me want to go outside and burn tyres in the garden.

  14. The issue here is gross consumerism. Whilst Al Gore’s doc is tabloid and selective with the ‘truth’ it resonates with the masses and if it has an impact, I’d broadcast it daily. There is an issue that needs to be dealt with whether natural or man made. There are carbon indicators in prehistoric ice cores that prove carbon saturation has been around before. We live on a small planet with too many people. Simplistic but true. Carbon footprinting is only one of the issues but it cannot be ignored. And Grandad, whilst I sometimes share your opinions on America, (and we should continue to berate them for their obscene levels of consumerism) we should not ignore the developing nations such as China and India . . .they are the giant economies of the future. Massively populated and crudely industrialising. I am still a great believer that every little thing counts and will continue to reduce my carbon footprint as well as recycling, composting, lobbying for the use of reusable and natural energy and spreading the word that we don’t need half the ‘things’ we accumulate over a lifetime. The 15th is Blog Action Day for the environment . . .I encourage you all to think about the effect you have on your own little patch of the planet and how you can make it better for future generations. And don’t get too hung up on hypotheses vs theory – time’s a wastin’

  15. K8 – Yup. That’s the one. Now, if he’d received the Nobel Prize for Fiction…..?

    Doc – Any time!

    Sneezy – Gore is the one invented by a bull in the bull-ring at Madrid.

    Baino – I agree with you completely on consumerism and the environment. I also agree about China and India, but it is Gore who started all the shouting.

    I don’t know if you are aware of this, but they were going to show “An Inconvenient Truth” in all schools in the U.K., but the courts stepped in and stopped it. Why? Because it was found to be scientifically incorrect on many major points.

    Sixty – There is no unity amongst scientists on this issue. There are a hell of a lot who will argue strongly against Global Warming being man made.

  16. Don’t need to be an expert to bang a drum– Global warming is a good drum to be banging right now even if it isn’t as bad as his documentary is claiming. It’s now or never… We need to get a cleaner burning fuel, to assure a better future for our future generations. We,re not only killing our selfs, we’re killing the planet.

    I’m not embarrassed to be an American, because a: I leave a pretty small foot print and b: I didn’t vote for the dumb ass who has just about has done us in. I voted for Al Gore and I’m still rooting for him. Did he deserve the Noble Peace Prize? Damn if I know, he did however win it. I applaud his efforts to educate in any way he can, and yes I’m pretty sure he probably flew to go get it. Guess what I would have too.

    I just drove back from Denver Colorado, something going on there that wasn’t going on there 20 years ago, a million more people and a brown cloud you could cut a knife with. Well the brown cloud was there on occasion 20 years ago, it’s an inversion thing, but a breeze could blow it to Pueblo. Now it takes a hurricane to blow it there. Makes me sick!

    I for one am glad someone has brought the environment to the for front in a way that Stupid F**king Americans can understand, oh and lets not leave out China, however their not broke like the US for pouring money into Iraq to clean up a mess we started, why?

    Ok I’m jumping down from my bandwagon now and going to bed. Probably should proof this tomorrow when I’m more awake. Oh what the hell, here ya go.

  17. I say that with issues like global warming, Faith, Religion, Spirituality, as long as there is debate it contributes to group consciousness/awareness which hopefully results in an increase in knowledge. Ignorance is the ultimate enemy.

    keep stirring that pot Grandad!

  18. Janet – But that is just what it is – banging on drums to make a noise.

    What if the world leaders are just a modern day King Canute, claiming they can stop the tide? You can be sure that massive amounts of money are going to be made out of this, and we are going to pay for it.

    I completely agree that the world is a dirty place. We are raping the planet and it should stop. It’s the only one we have. We should be cleaner, and more environmentally aware. All I am saying is that there is no conclusive proof that we are the cause of Global Warming.

    Ashley – Why do you think I write these things? I love stirring the sh*t 😉

  19. Gore gets the Nobel prize in the same week that a british judge bans the use of An Inconvenient Truth in some schools because much of it turns out to be a convenient lie.

    For centuries those in authority – governments and religions – have kept the masses living in fear of something, whether it be hellfire and damnation, communism, nuclear war, terrorism and now global warming. We have to be kept afraid in order for us to conform and to take our eyes of what is really going on in the corridors of power.

    For me, blindly believing the scientists is the same as blindly believing the preachers of Judaism, Christianity. Without the scientific knowledge, resources and ability to check things out personally, we only believe what we are told because we are told it by people who sound convincing. Al Gore was not convincing.

    Like Grandad, I recycle, eat organic, use cloth bags and refuse plastic, I try to be a responsible inhabitant of this planet, but I think Al Gore has probably done a lot more harm than good for the environmental way of living and he has certainly done nothing for world peace.

    By the way, if we really want to save the planet we should all become vegetarians, that way we can produce more food on the land which is currently used for cattle and, apparantly one of the biggest contributors to global warming is the amount of methane produced by all the cows farting!

  20. Spot on, Jim.

    I reckon I might have about 600 air miles in my lifetime. How many has Gore clocked up? And how many more will he clock up on his global rampage?

    I’m not a vegetarian, but don’t eat much meat. I’m not a steak kind of person. In fact I very rarely eat beef.
    I do fart a lot, and make no apologies for it.

    What gets to me is the complete hypocrisy of these people.

  21. Baino – Gee, thanks! I was beginning to look like Michelin Man.

    Actually, there is a quote from the BBC [somewhere] –

    Flatulence from cows, sheep and other ruminants is a serious environmental problem, accounting for about 15% of worldwide emissions of methane – one of the most potent of greenhouse gases.

  22. Just about the solar impact on climate change, results released a few months ago from a study on the cycles of solar activity ruled out the sun having any impact. The report said that the sun should actually have had a cooling effect on earth in the last few years. Link here:

    http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSL101501320070711

    There has been a big backlash against the climate change front recently, and I don’t understand where this aggression is coming from. Yes Al Gore won the Nobel Prize for Peace. No, he does not have any scientific credentials, he is a figure head, a personality for the concern, which has for years now been a growing issue for many scientists in different areas. However, this is the Peace Prize we are talking about, not one of the Scientific Prizes. So in what respect does a university degree matter?

    Did he deserve the prize? Well, ultimately that depends on the accuracy of the concept of global warming, does it not? Personally, I believe there must be some man made influence on the climate, not because “everyone else is saying it”, as you seem to imply, but because it is a logical fear, and human activity has been seen to have huge impact across all areas of ecology, even apart from climate change. Plus, to be honest, although the burden of truth obviously must rest on the proponants, many of the arguments against the concept are limp indeed.

    With regards to “For every expert who says climate change is man made, there is one who says it isn’t”, that is a huge overstatement of the disagreement within the scientific community, it quickly reminds me of that travesty of a film, “The Great Global Warming Swindle”, far more a work of fiction than “An Incovenient Truth”. A British scientific body released a statement on the film heavily criticising it’s assertions on the link to solar activity, and going on to say…

    “Any scientist found to have falsified data in the manner of the Channel 4 programme would be guilty of serious professional misconduct.”

  23. blast, I thought I could post and then edit, so I wouldnt lose everything, but now my comment ends abruptly. Oh well-

  24. Coimhéadaí – A well thought out response! I have to agree and disagree.

    Maybe I am making a sweeping statement when I say that “For every expert who says climate change is man made, there is one who says it isn’tâ€?. I retract that. But you must admit there are a considerable number of weighty voices who are expressing concern?

    I completely disagree that he should have received the peace prize. I am baffled by that one. You could equally argue that the developer of Prozac should get the peace prize?

    Global Warming is an environmental issue. Ultimately, if there are significant changes to the world’s climate, there will be problems with resources and migration, and there may well be conflict but that is a long way off.

    I am still to be convinced that we are not going through the process of a natural kink in the normal climate process. There have been countless cycles and kinks over the past millions of years, yet we are panicking over the effects we may have caused over the last fifty years or so?

    Even if Mankind is responsible for Global Warming, how come the major powers are doing damn all about it? All they are doing is telling us to switch off our TV at night and to stop having bonfires. But the powers that be [including Al Gore] still continue to jet around the world………?

  25. And here in lies the problem… spouting disproved things about the sun causing climate change as backing up your argeument….

    ideally you should update your post with a link to the reuters article provided by Coimhéadaí.

    It’s the only way to kill off falsehoods, something you seem keen to do. People always quote the fact that some scientists dispute climate change. And that arguement usually works in a 4 pints in the pub conversation, but not if anyone actually goes and reads up on it.

    What would be interesting would be to come up with a blog post where you write what you feel, like you did above, and then systematically try and undermine each point you’ve made by looking it all up.

    As it stands, your post screams of hear-say, mis-information and everything else in exactly the emperor’s new clothes style that you attack the climate-change advocates as having.

  26. Danger [!] – Coimhéadaí’s link is there for all to see.

    You talk as if there is irrevocable, 100% incontrovertible proof that Global Warming is man made. That is not the case.

    I can prove that gravity exists by dropping an apple, and this is universally accepted.

    I cannot prove that God exists, even though this is almost universally accepted.

    Is this a matter of faith in the majority, or incontrovertible proof?

    All that aside, I still stand by my argument that if Global Warming is man made, and the world is on the brink of catastrophe, then why are the loudest voices doing the least about it?

  27. I’m not going to find proof for you. I am suggesting that you go off and try and change your own mind. Play your own devils advocate and see if what you put in your original post was really anything more than misinformation and hogwash. It would make for a very interesting blog post.

    Also, if we break your arguement down as you frame it in your final sentence:

    1. Is Global Warming man made?
    2. Why are the loudest voices ding the least about it?

    Well, we’ve two seperate issues there, and the latter does not prove the former false.

  28. grandad, i made a reply, but it seems to have dissapeared… possibly a spam issue? Let me know and I’ll post again.

  29. Sorry, Danger – You went into Moderation again for some reason.

    OK. You have broken things down to two points –
    1. Whether Global Warming is man made. I’m still open minded about this. Only last night I was watching the BBC talking about scientists taking core samples from the sea bed in the North West Passage to ascertain whether the current change in climate is a general trend or just a temporary ‘blip’ [their word, not mine]. In other words, they are still gathering data. I think you would agree that it would be unfair of a jury to pass verdict until all the evidence had been presented? There is also a lot of debate going on as to whether CO2 levels precede a warming spell or post-date it.

    2. Being open minded, I concede that there is a possibility that GW is man made. If that is the case then why am I being asked to switch to CFL bulbs [saving an immeasurably small amount of energy] while Al Gore is jetting around the world promoting his theories and adding relatively vast amounts of pollution? I think that is a fair question?

  30. There is still so much debate going on about the causes of global warming as to the real cause, however, those who stand on the side of “it is all down to human activity” seem to be trying to say that it is already proven. They often come across as having a closed-mind with an evangelical fervour that refuses to accept that they might possibly be wrong and are not prepared to examine all the evidence – which has not yet been gathered. What happened to “innocent until proven guilty”?

    Anyone in their right mind can see that global warming is real, and yes I do believe that our behaviour and habits add to the problem (but are not necessarily the cause) and we need to be responsible citizens of the planet and do what we can, but I’m not going to let it scare me into being fanatical.

    The earth has survived incredible periods of climatic change in the past and I have no doubt she will do in the future, and if that means that in years to come the population is drastically reduced – then that might not be a bad thing. There are too many people on this small planet and maybe this is nature’s way of saving herself.

    As for Al Gore – The Tennessee Center for Policy Research took a look at Al’s energy bills. It reckoned that his 20-room, eight bath-roomed mansion in Nashville sometimes uses twice the energy in one month that the average American household gets through in a year. The combined energy and gas bills for his estate came to neary $30000 in 2006.

  31. It’s not a question of incontrovertible proof. And anyone who says any of these things are definite isn’t a true scientist. A true scientist is quite capable, if new evidence comes along, of throwing his present ideas out the window and starting over. That’s the whole point of science. At the moment, there is a lot of evidence pointing to global warming being a real problem. No doubt, there is some that isn’t. And also, no doubt, there are scientists that dispute the problem as well. However, if the majority and it is the majority, are agreed that there is a problem, then why do we hold up the small minority as evidence that the jury is still out, or far worse; that it’s nonsense?

    As for the following:

    As for Al Gore – The Tennessee Center for Policy Research took a look at Al’s energy bills. It reckoned that his 20-room, eight bath-roomed mansion in Nashville sometimes uses twice the energy in one month that the average American household gets through in a year. The combined energy and gas bills for his estate came to neary $30000 in 2006.

    That has nothing to do with this issue. You’re basically saying that because Al Gore uses lots of energy, he can’t go around the place campaigning for a better world. It’s not a valid argument in the context of attacking his views. You are attacking a fact about him, rather than combating his arguments. It would be interesting to see a fact by fact attack on his inconvenient truth presentation – that I would like to see. But a point by point attack on Al Gore in the manner above is nonsense: Person X is a Y therefore person X’s views on Z are not valid. Attack the views, not the person behind them.

  32. The original title of this posting was “Al Gore to cause global warming” – so the comments about Mr Gore are totally relevant to this thread and yes, they are a criticism of him as a hypocrite and for that I do not apologise. There are many more incidences that show Al Gore to be a hypocrite and a liar and not just on environmental issues – look them up.

    The majority are not always right, and just because one group is the majority does not mean the rest of us should follow them. Someone once said that “democracy is two foxes and a chicken voting on what to have for breakfast”. There once was a time when the majority, scientist included, believed the sun circled the earth, and before that that the earth was flat.

    As for Mr Gore’s arguments in “a convenient lie” (sorry, that wasn’t the title was it?), “An inconvenient truth” – during a recent court case in the UK the film which has been sent to thousands of schools has been criticised by a High Court judge for being ‘alarmist’ and ‘exaggerated’.

    Mr Justice Burton said former US vice-president Al Gore’s film, An Inconvenient Truth, was ‘one-sided’ and would breach education rules unless accompanied by a warning.

    Despite winning lavish praise from the environmental lobby and an Oscar from the film industry, Mr Gore’s documentary was found to contain ‘nine scientific errors’ by the judge.

    In the recent UK court case Mr Justice Burton ruled that the statement by Al Gore that the rises in Carbon dioxide and temperature over the last 650,000 are almost an exact fit was false, science generally accepts that there is a connection but nowhere near a precise correlation. And scientists are still looking at it as a chicken and egg situation – what game first, high temperature or high C2O.

    Gore also predicts that the sea level will rise by 20ft in the near future – that’s total bull. According to Mr Justice Burton’s ruling that will only happen after millions of years.

    The low-lying Pacific atolls that Gore claims have been evacuated by their inhabitants and settling in New Zealand – this is not true and there is absolutely no evidence to back this up.

    Gore makes a claim that Polar bears have drowned looking for ice. Again, there is no evidence of this. Only four bears have been reported as drowned, and that was the result of a storm.

    The judge also cast doubt on Gore’s claims that global warming has caused such catastrophic events as Hurricane Katrina, the disappearance of snow on Mount Kilimanjaro and the drying up of Lake Chad – which he concluded probably results from “other factors, such as population increase and overgrazing, and regional climate variability”.

    Justice Burton’s ruling is an indictment of those climate scientists who so heartily endorsed Gore’s film while they must have known of the flaws that destroy its claim to be a scientific exposition of climate change.

  33. I had a conversation recently with a friend who assured me that “what is undeniably clear is that global warming is a reality”. This man is no fool. He’s intelligent, educated, capable of figuring things out from the evidence. Yet here he was saying this to me. I was amazed.

    Not for the first time I was confrronted with the sad reality of how otherwise intelligent people, decent people, can be taken in by this whole business.

    There is no consensus. The Oregon petition contained the names of 17,000 scientists. Most of them far more qualified in areas related to climate than the 2,500 of those on the UN’s IPCC reports. Those who nod wisely and frown intelligently, declaring in tones of vast understanding and profound wisdom that “yes, in fact there is…..there is indeed a consensus” are simply wrong. I’m sorry if you don’t like it. I’m sorry if it offends you somehow of makes you angry but there you are!

    But even if there was a consensus . . . it would make no difference. Truth doesn’t depend on consensus, it depends on truth!! Something is either real or it isnt.

    The greatest example of scientific consensus getting it wrong. . . . . .

    The world is flat!

    Anthropogenic global warming is not real. The merry-go-round we see played out on our media today is the result of a snowballing effect. It’s like a big lie that keeps feeding on itself.

    Don’t worry. Gobal warming will go away, just like the global “cooling” of the 1960’s and 70’s.

  34. Robbie – I couldn’t agree more. I think there is a lot of fitting the figures to the facts, rather than the other way around. And even if the conclusive scientific proof were there, all they can do is argue over what to do about it. Pathetic…

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