Quite true about the whole 'Al Gore invented the internet' thing. Badly worded satement that was totally spun out of proportion.
I think the fire in this topic shows one thing to be true, the message is an important one but it is being put behind the messanger. There are so many things that we can all come to agree upon when talking about the effects of pollution on our enviroment. Letting Al Gore get in the way of people coming togeather and actually discussing solutions to the problems is pure politics.
An Inconvenient Truth.
by Blueblades 34 Replies latest jw friends
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drew sagan
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james_woods
Yeah - I know Al was kind of spun around on that internet thing, but he did kind of try to make himself look like the futurist father of it...think of it as my humble attempt as a little strawman joke!
Did you know that the same thing happened to George Bush the first when they tried to say he had never seen a grocery store scanner?
The Drew post is correct, this is all very serious business. It certainly is way more important to me than the 607 date or the length of the prophetic year...or whether CTRussell was a mason.
Thanks, James
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mavie
I highly recommend you read Michael Crightons book, "State of Fear". Especially those of you who are 'intrigued' by Gores book or movie. The book is entertaining as a thriller with a fictional plot line, but the facts presented (and documented) are authentic and educational.
After watching the movie, then coming on the board to see someone advocating a fictional book as a refutation....with all due respect, is laughable. Jurassic Park had some hard science in it as well....
There is one figure in the film which plots the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere and the global temperature of the earth over the past 650,000 years. This data is based on ice core samples from Antartica. The tail end of the plot (modern day) shows CO2 levels at an all time high. Now, I've heard others claim that CO2 levels have been 10 times higher than currently observed. Can anyone tell me how this absurdly high estimate was calculated?
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Terry
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide
The most direct method for measuring atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations for periods before direct sampling is to measure bubbles of air (fluid or gas inclusions) trapped in the Antarctic or Greenland ice caps. The most widely accepted of such studies come from a variety of Antarctic cores and indicate that atmospheric CO 2 levels were about 260–280µL/L immediately before industrial emissions began and did not vary much from this level during the preceding 10,000 years.
The longest ice core record comes from East Antarctica, where ice has been sampled to an age of 650,000 years before the present. [3] During this time, the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration has varied between 180–210 µL/L during ice ages, increasing to 280–300 µL/L during warmer interglacials.
Some studies have disputed the claim of stable CO 2 levels during the present interglacial (the last 10 kyr). Based on an analysis of fossil leaves, Wagner et al. [5] argued that CO 2 levels during the period 7–10 kyr ago were significantly higher (~300 µL/L) and contained substantial variations that may be correlated to climate variations.
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james_woods
Excellent point, Terry. There are complex environmental issues here. They should not be taken hostage by anyones individual political agenda.
A Personal Point in Fact: I support realistic efforts to reduce man-made release of carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and sulphur compounds into the atmosphere. I am not, however, certain of the theory that this is the primary cause of climate change upon the earth - nor that automotive airconditioning media is the cause of the ozone/ultraviolet issues in the upper atmosphere.
Second point - having already been called a liar (or at least an ignorant car-loving redneck) within this thread - let me quote our green hero Al Gore:
March 9, 1999: (During an interview with Wolf Blitzer, while contesting the Democratic presidential nomination against Bill Bradley): "During my service in the U.S. Congress, I took the initiative in creating the internet".
As a historical reference - the DOD ARPANET (the origins of today's internet) existed in 1971, five years before Gore entered Congress. He did sponsor bills which supported government funding of the internet.
Quotation from Al Gore's book Earth in the Balance (1992 bestseller which predates and forms the basis for the recent movie An Inconvenient Truth) - "Within the context of the SEI (Strategic Environmental Initiative) it ought to be possible to establish a coordinated global program to accomplish the strategic goal of completely eliminating the internal combustion engine over, say, a twenty five year period."
My problem with Mr. Gore is precisely the same problem that I have with the Jehovah's Witness Governing Body - I greatly dislike gloom and doom prophets who are perfectly willing to tell me (and in fact the entire global human population) that I should make radical changes in my free lifestyle according to their whims. I also fault the robotic antics of persons who follow such teachings with such a fervor that they cannot engage in realistic discussion of the issues at hand - unless you agree with Mr. Gore's (or Mr. Rutherford's) self-serving initiatives, you are automatically worth of derision or destruction.
I think we live in a better and more enlightened society than that.
Sincerely, James
PS - I know plenty about the Kyoto Accord. It is, of course, one of those Japanese little cars which gets good mileage but has relatively poor performance. I am thinking about dropping a Chevy 350 into mine.