An inconvenient truth

[offense74]

Ok, so I saw a bad copy of "An inconvenient truth" and it is an awesome movie.

All of the world have been coming down on the US for some time now because of all the greenhouse gases that the US puts out. Since the US usually are blamed for every bad thing on this planet it seems like Americans are sceptical to outside critique (which is understandable according to me).

 

What I was meant to ask the US people in here is if you believe that a prominent person like Al Gore that critiques "from the inside" can turn things around a bit in the US?

[Jay]

He's not inside. He was demolished by the US MSM in 2000. The election that year was stolen. His movie has been seen by virutally no one. I saw it with my wife and parents. There were two other people in the whole theater....

 

It was a good movie. I especially liked the stat about a perfect 100% of scientific articles don't question global warmng while 53% of MSM articles do. That is the most important point. And one that he didn't emphasize. As long as the MSM continues to distort like that, nothing will ever change. And to be honest I have no reasonable doubt that Florida will be under water soon enough.

[buzz]

Saw it recently and thought it was pretty good. It's premiering at the Flim festival in Edinburgh just now and Al Gore is over here for q&a after the showings. Hopefully will get a decent audience and open some folks eyes.

[finbarrio]

Saw it, liked it a lot. He's a new man - much more engaging than the statue that ran for pres in 2000. I'd vote for him.

 

Offense - it's hard to characterize or label the U.S. as being anything (like "skeptical of outside opinions"). 50% of the people may be skeptical, but the other 50% might be embarrassed at the way the world sees the U.S. Had Gore "officially" won in 2000, the opinion of the U.S. in the world would be very different, as Gore would have pushed a much more world-friendly agenda.

[plc3]

What I was meant to ask the US people in here is if you believe that a prominent person like Al Gore that critiques "from the inside" can turn things around a bit in the US?

 

No, the fact that he is American doesn't mean anything to me. He is a politician. Politicians lie and twist facts to suit their aganda. Aside from that, he doesn't have any experience/expertise/education in the area of environmental science or global warming. So why would he sway me? (if I needed swaying )

 

Personally, I think it is best to be safe and assume that we are affecting the earth's temperature with our pollution. But there are a lot of people that believe that global warming is a crap theory. They would point to studies that say that the earth goes through cycles of heating and cooling, and that the volcanic activity does more to promote global warming that anything man does. But I don't really know what to believe because in the end it all comes down to politics.

 

I haven't yet seen the movie. And nobody I know has seen it yet either, so I doubt he will "turn things around " here.

 

BTW Jay, what does MSM mean?

[tofuPUNK]

I dont disagree with the fact or statment that the global warming is occuring. However, I do disagree that mankind is the sole causative agent in the warming of the earth. Global temperatures have only been recorded for the last 150 or so years, and there is not enough data to suddenly blame mankind for this warming trend. If you check the weather forecasts in your daily newspapers, be sure to check "record" temperatures for that date. You'll find that alot of the record temperatures were in the late 1800's where the industrial revolution was just getting out of the starting gate.

 

I believe that there are natural cylces in the earth as it goes through heating and cooling phases. It may also be attributed to certain cycles of the sun which may have a cooling/heating cycle every 500-1000 years or so. The eruption of one volcano is probably 200 times more pollution than the amount generated by cars and industry per year.

 

I am not a big fan of Al Gore (even though he might claim that he invented the internet). Also, I dont agree with the statment that the US is the cause of all the worlds pollution. Third world countries like Mexico, China, and the former Soviet Republic don't have many environmental laws if at all. This is why businesses build factories in these countries because they get cheap labor and dont have to pay for waste disposal and pollution control.

[offense74]

I see politics as a (if not the biggest) contributor to the problem.

 

First of all politicians are supposed fixed problems. That's the only incentive we have to keep them. More often than not though they can't fix the problem without simplifying it to redicoulusness. This is the case in the environment issues.

To fix this problem you need to increase the people on the boat before you sail off. It has to start with presenting better ideas to just about every individual in society. It's possible! The minds of people have been changed throughout history and they will keep on changing as long as old ideas are challenged by better, new ones.

This is where the politicians becomes the problem. To be able to make a political problem of these individual problems they have to simplify them.

The problem is that after the simplification the problem is not the original problem anymore and they are instead solving a problem that doesn't exist. But to many people they seem to be on top of things which is of course the purpose of their actions. This sends a powerful message to all who believe that politicians are anything more than clowns, namely this: "You just sit back and relax, we got it all figured out. Don't worry about a thing, you are not the problem. Just go vote, ok."

What Al Gore is trying to do is to turn this around and leave the wortless politicians out of it (at least for now) and istead tries to get more people on the boat. It actually is our problem and we actually are both causing it and we can turn it around.

 

The second problem is the connections between business and the government. These connections (in both ways) are hurtful in the long run but usually not in the short run and this is why we still have them. Politicians need to be reelected every 4 years so they chicken out.

 

The only place on earth that is ignoring the problem is the US. The data and research are clear:

1. The higher the carbon dioxide in the air the higher the temperature. They have data on this since at least a few 100.000 years back.

2. The burning of fossil fuel creates carbon dioxide as a by-product.

 

Everywhere else people are aware of this even though they have no idea on how to go about with the solultion. Everywhere in the world politicians say that they are on top of things and the public needn't worry. In the rest of the world this is done by (usually) BS actions. In the US it's done by ignoring the problem. Both are equally lame.

To me it doesn't matter if others are worse than me or if a vulcano is producing more CO2 than my refridgerator. Me and my refridgerator are still a part of the problem and by ignoring it I put other peoples happiness and lives at risk. It's not my right to do that.

[offense74]

Offense - it's hard to characterize or label the U.S. as being anything (like "skeptical of outside opinions"). 50% of the people may be skeptical, but the other 50% might be embarrassed at the way the world sees the U.S. Had Gore "officially" won in 2000, the opinion of the U.S. in the world would be very different, as Gore would have pushed a much more world-friendly agenda.

I liked Bill Clinton and I think Al Gore would have been even better. I have no idea how the George W Bush incident happened. To me he just seems like a dude that got too little attention from his mom and dad. He's just a sad person and I actually feel sory for him when I see him. Al Gore seems much stronger and more together.

 

And I know about the 50% thing. The diversity of everything in the US was probably the thing I was the most impressed with while I was there. The extremes are bigger in the US than in, for example, Sweden.

[plc3]

I'm curious - what types of environemental laws and regulations do European countries have for businesses/industry versus regular people/homeowners? I was under the impression, until recently, that EU regs would have been much more strict than US regs, then I came across an article this past spring that made reference to the fact that in the UK, they just started regulating flourescent light tubes. So I am not sure now....

 

Here in the US, we have pretty extensive regs for industry/business but individuals are not regulated at all or very little. For example, here in NH, there is a land ban (for industry) for electronic waste (CRTs are actually regulated as a hazardous waste) but not for individuals. Some towns may not accept e-waste if they see it in the trash, but there is no formal law and no process for taking steps against those that throw out e-waste that they shouldn't. ( I did hear at a meeting recently though that the state of NH will extend the land ban to homeowners as well - good news!)

 

Anyway, my point (and to tie this in with the discussion) is that perhaps American mentality is the issue here, not just "ignoring" global warming. A big generalization, but we don't like being told what to do (Our state NH motto is Live free or Die......) I suspect that those across the pond will say that you are no different in that regard. This is why I ask about your environmental regs. I am thinking that maybe you are individually regulated (environmentally) to a much greater degree than we are (ie. your choice of vehicles)

 

Anyway - just a theory

[tofuPUNK]

I too was a huge Clinton supporter (aside from the scandals), but I voted for Bush in both elections. I did not feel Al Gore would have been a strong leader at the time, and I still feel that way. Although I was not, and am not too keen on Bush, I still voted for him for his re-election bid. In the 2004 elections, I did not like either candidate. I feel that the democratic party put a weak candidate in the election as John Kerry was a flake. I would have voted for Howard Dean given the chance. I put a lot of thought into my vote for the last election and decided to vote for the lesser of two evils. I didn't trust Bush, and I didn't trust Kerry even more.

 

A South Park episode summed up the election that reflected my feelings exactly. If you had a choice between a douche bag and a turd sandwich, which would you choose? At least I knew what to expect from Bush.

[finbarrio]

I put a lot of thought into my vote for the last election and decided to vote for the lesser of two evils. I didn't trust Bush, and I didn't trust Kerry even more.

 

A South Park episode summed up the election that reflected my feelings exactly. If you had a choice between a douche bag and a turd sandwich, which would you choose? At least I knew what to expect from Bush.

 

Yep, that sums it up for me too, and pretty much everyone I know. I'm from Mass and I could barely vote for Kerry. Both parties give us crap to vote for and then complain about low voter turnouts.

[offense74]

@plc3:

We do basically the same thing here. It's so much easier for politicians to point finger at abstract entities like business and blaming them for the poop floating around in the air. This is what I meant by saying that they simplify and at the end don't solve the real problem. Politicians are never going to critique regular people (unless they first create a victim) because it won't win them enough votes. So they manage to duck the real, hard to solve problem and instead fix an easy BS one.

 

The main reason that the US is putting more poop in the air than any other nation is the US lifestyle. Meat, fortress-like cars, AC everywhere, everybody owning their own house, etc. The basic principles of this lifestyle don't have to change but people have to start thinking. This thinking process is not going on as much as needed, neither in the US nor in Europe since the politicians say that they are on top of things. Politicians are cowards and it is usually wise not to listen too much to them.

 

I know NH have some kind of libertarian thing going on . If you have liberalism as a foundation for your beliefs (I do myself) you have to realise that it's not your right to destroy what isn't yours and therefore it is not a positive right you have to put poop in the air that is going to destroy other peoples lives.

If I took a dump at your lawn every day, you would probably want me to pay to clean up the mess on your property and try to have me stop doing it. Well, the air is collectively owned by every person and animal on this earth and people are taking dumps on my/our property all the time. I think it's time to stop it and start making people pick up their dump (ie. pay for the damage). The first step to take is to make people realize that it is not their right to destroy the air.

[finbarrio]

I dont disagree with the fact or statment that the global warming is occuring. However, I do disagree that mankind is the sole causative agent in the warming of the earth. Global temperatures have only been recorded for the last 150 or so years, and there is not enough data to suddenly blame mankind for this warming trend. If you check the weather forecasts in your daily newspapers, be sure to check "record" temperatures for that date. You'll find that alot of the record temperatures were in the late 1800's where the industrial revolution was just getting out of the starting gate.

 

I believe that there are natural cylces in the earth as it goes through heating and cooling phases.

I don't know if you saw the movie, but Gore covers this point well. He agrees that natural cycles occur, and points out that we are probably towards the peak of a high temp cycle now. However, he says, and depicts with a very effective graphic, that man's contribution to warming will cause the peak high temp to be MUCH MUCH higher than it naturally would have been. If he's right, and many more scientists think he is than don't, we're in deep trouble.

[offense74]

Yup, Kerry seemed lame and he looks like a zombie. I wouldn't vote for him either. I think I would have voted for Michael Badnarik since both Bush and Kerry seems to be morons anyway.

[pazios2002]

@plc3:

We do basically the same thing here. It's so much easier for politicians to point finger at abstract entities like business and blaming them for the poop floating around in the air. This is what I meant by saying that they simplify and at the end don't solve the real problem. Politicians are never going to critique regular people (unless they first create a victim) because it won't win them enough votes. So they manage to duck the real, hard to solve problem and instead fix an easy BS one.

 

The main reason that the US is putting more poop in the air than any other nation is the US lifestyle. Meat, fortress-like cars, AC everywhere, everybody owning their own house, etc. The basic principles of this lifestyle don't have to change but people have to start thinking. This thinking process is not going on as much as needed, neither in the US nor in Europe since the politicians say that they are on top of things. Politicians are cowards and it is usually wise not to listen too much to them.

 

I know NH have some kind of libertarian thing going on . If you have liberalism as a foundation for your beliefs (I do myself) you have to realise that it's not your right to destroy what isn't yours and therefore it is not a positive right you have to put poop in the air that is going to destroy other peoples lives.

If I took a dump at your lawn every day, you would probably want me to pay to clean up the mess on your property and try to have me stop doing it. Well, the air is collectively owned by every person and animal on this earth and people are taking dumps on my/our property all the time. I think it's time to stop it and start making people pick up their dump (ie. pay for the damage). The first step to take is to make people realize that it is not their right to destroy the air.

 

I always vote libertarian

 

Please dont poop on my front yard

[plc3]

I know NH have some kind of libertarian thing going on . If you have liberalism as a foundation for your beliefs (I do myself) you have to realise that it's not your right to destroy what isn't yours and therefore it is not a positive right you have to put poop in the air that is going to destroy other peoples lives.

First, I just want to clarify that liberal and libertarian are VERY different! Second, I agree with you wholeheartedly! I most closely identify with the libertarian stance, except on the area of the environment (and eating habits of course). I am a live and let live type of gal - I don't care what you do as long as you don't harm me or my quality of life (or the animals and others that don't have a voice). I realizedthat the earth and it's resources are shared so I try to minimize my contributions to pollution.

 

Meat, fortress-like cars, AC everywhere, everybody owning their own house, etc.

 

I see the meat, cars, and AC, but how so for home-owning. People have to live somewhere - whether it's an apartment or your own home, if you live in a cold climate, it has to be heated.

[plc3]

I always vote libertarian

 

Please dont poop on my front yard

Tell you what - you don't poop on mine, and I won't poop on yours!!

[tofuPUNK]

Offense77 wrote:

 

The main reason that the US is putting more poop in the air than any other nation is the US lifestyle. Meat, fortress-like cars, AC everywhere, everybody owning their own house, etc. The basic principles of this lifestyle don't have to change but people have to start thinking. This thinking process is not going on as much as needed, neither in the US nor in Europe since the politicians say that they are on top of things. Politicians are cowards and it is usually wise not to listen too much to them.

 

The US is a relatively new country with very large land mass. We do not have the historical infrastructure that countries of the EU accumulated over thousands of years. Plus, most of the land in the EU was owned by few people and common man could not own his own plot of land. In Europe (Now I've only been to Germany, so I can only draw on what I saw there) most of the people lived in towns and villages, and all the farm land surrounded these towns and villages. It is still pretty much the same way today. Because of this, people are able to walk to stores from there homes and shop for food almost daily (hence the cupboard size refrigerators).

 

In the US, newcomers could buy their own land, and as the US territory expanded people could buy more land and spread out on their own property. Because of this every thing was built spread out and people had to go considerable distances to get to towns (especially if they lived in rural communities). People could only get to the towns a couple times a month (hence they had to buy and store more to get them by - larger refrigerators). Also, the streets in European Cities and towns are much narrower due to all the buildings having been there for 700+ years. So naturally the cars would be smaller. Again in the US, the infrastructure was not there, thereby not limiting the size of city and town streets - hence bigger cars.

 

Now, I am not arguing the fact that the size of american cars have gotten out of hand. I know these people are paying for their choices now by the high gas prices. I myself drive a Honda Civic and get the best gas mileage that I can get. But I too am paying the price for the high gas prices. A year after I bought my house in the country. My company closed the plant I worked at and transferred me to another plant 45 miles away from my house (I was one of the lucky 10 who got the transfer, not one of the other 47 people who lost their jobs). I don't want to move, as I like where I live, and am close to my family. Also, who's to say I wouldn't get laid off a year after I move again. I cannot just take a train or bus in to work, as they don't exist where I live, and again where I work.

 

As far as AC goes, folks in the nordic countries such as yourself, and even in Germany, probably wouldn't find it necessary to have air conditioning in their homes and cars due to the climate conditions. Spend some time in Houston, Texas in the middle of August, with 100% humidity and 102 F temperatures and get back to me on that.

[Jay]

Actually corporate power in America was used to influence the politicians to rip up existing mass transit and make sure no more mass transit came about.

 

MSM means the mainstream media.

 

It's all about corporate power. Individuals don't stand a chance against it. Power must be as evenly distributed as possible in order to cause the least harm. You need a DEMOCRATIC government that is powerful enough to regulate corporate power. The US government is instead controlled by corporate power and helping them get stronger and stronger.

 

I'm a marxist but I would suggest voting democrat. In the current US news media system any third party vote is simply wasted. Only with serious media reform is there any point at all to voting for anyone who isn't dem or republican.

 

Sure Kerry was no good. But Bush has killed 300,000 civilians in Iraq. I don't think Kerry would have done that. I also don't think he would have had Aristide kidnapped in Haiti. I don't think Gore would have tried to overthrow the Venezuelan government. And I think he would have slightly reduced pollution. (Almost certainly not enough to matter in the end.) Of course he was in the pocket of the pharmacidical(sp) companies who are raping old people. But he has to be in someone's pocket to have a chance.

 

Today where I live the actual unemployment rate is over 40%. (Officially it's only 8%.) And I'm employed but as a hospital janitor whom happens to have a MS in mechanical engineering. This because 2.9 million manufacturing jobs have been lost in the last 5 years, moved to third world countries where it's cheaper. And we have the Chairman of the Federal Reserve cautioning us against protectionism. instead we must happily get retrained in new jobs in the new exciting US service economy. So after 7 years of college I'm going back for yet another degree. This time as a nurse.

 

I think this situation with the economy might not be so ridiculous if a democrat were in office.

[willpeavy]

What I was meant to ask the US people in here is if you believe that a prominent person like Al Gore that critiques "from the inside" can turn things around a bit in the US?

 

No, the fact that he is American doesn't mean anything to me. He is a politician. Politicians lie and twist facts to suit their aganda.

 

I agree with this, I don't view politicians as a good source of information.

 

Politics aside though, I think the scientific evidence overwhelmingly supports the view that humans are the major factor contributing to greater amounts of carbon in the atmosphere and thus an temperature increase

[CollegeB]

I think that with obesity rates increasing cars will have to get bigger to accomodate these large bodies. More food and waste is created, and more A/C to cool them down.

[willpeavy]

I think that with obesity rates increasing cars will have to get bigger to accomodate these large bodies. More food and waste is created, and more A/C to cool them down.

 

Clearly the solution to the AC problem is to package and ship cold air from Alaska down to the rest of the states

[CollegeB]

I think that is perfect. They already have bottled water....why not cool air.