Excellent, middle of the road, article on Gore and Climate Change

[calculoso]

Title: From a Rapt Audience, a Call to Cool the Hype
Source: The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/13/sc...erland&emc=rss

Definitely a good read. It mentions, criticizes, and supports each side in the debate, but calls for rational and panic free debate:

Hollywood has a thing for Al Gore and his three-alarm film on global warming, “An Inconvenient Truth,” which won an Academy Award for best documentary. So do many environmentalists, who praise him as a visionary, and many scientists, who laud him for raising public awareness of climate change.

But part of his scientific audience is uneasy. In talks, articles and blog entries that have appeared since his film and accompanying book came out last year, these scientists argue that some of Mr. Gore’s central points are exaggerated and erroneous. They are alarmed, some say, at what they call his alarmism.

Even Gore encourages the scientific community to question his assertions, even if he says that it would only be "around the edges of the science":

In his e-mail message, Mr. Gore defended his work as fundamentally accurate. “Of course,” he said, “there will always be questions around the edges of the science, and we have to rely upon the scientific community to continue to ask and to challenge and to answer those questions.”

Most scientists don't take up extreme positions on either side of the debate:

Many appear to occupy a middle ground in the climate debate, seeing human activity as a serious threat but challenging what they call the extremism of both skeptics and zealots.

IMO, the real message should be:

Bjorn Lomborg, a statistician and political scientist in Denmark long skeptical of catastrophic global warming, said in a syndicated article that the panel, unlike Mr. Gore, had refrained from scaremongering. “Climate change is a real and serious problem” that calls for careful analysis and sound policy, Dr. Lomborg said. “The cacophony of screaming,” he added, “does not help.”

and people should refrain from painting others on the opposite side of the 'debate' with a broad and unfair brush, such as:

Getting personal, he mocked Mr. Gore’s assertion that scientists agreed on global warming except those industry had corrupted. “I’ve never been paid a nickel by an oil company,” Dr. Easterbrook told the group. “And I’m not a Republican.”

[Devils'Advocate]

But the problem with this "rational, free debate" is that it has been going on for 25 years. And will go on for another 25 years. And then 25 years after that. The United Nations panel said that 90% of their scientists were in agreement that we've ALREADY screwed up the environment to the point that temperature will go up 2 to 3 degrees over the next few decades. The time to act was during Kyoto. The Liberals, the Democrats, the Republicans and now the Conservatives have done little to address the issue that was on the table years ago. Europe have tried to do their part, but their progress is more than wiped out by the increased CO2 production in the developing world.

Now that we are 15 years too late to accomplish anything, we want a nice rational panic-free debate that will be a continuation of the analysis paralysis that we've been in. We're in a holding pattern that I doubt we will ever get out of.

Like I said in the other threads, the time to act has come and gone and what our scientists should be doing is finding ways to adapt to the higher temperatures. I did see that one scientist came up with the idea of solar deflectors; a project with a cost of 4.5 trillion dollars - that would deflect some of the suns rays and keep the temperatures from rising. As looney-toons as I thought this guy, I give it more of a chance of success than I do the "reduce carbon emissions" hoopla.

[MelBridgeman]

The fastest way to get people's attention is to scare the out of them..

There is arrogance on both sides - arrogant enough that people think we have no effect on our environment and arrogant enough to think we have such an effect that it will lead to destruction.

Its all about convenience- take humans out of the equation and this planet is going to go through cycles of climate change regardless...however big our contribution is, its happening now to what extent - we can only predict...and we are now realizing that maybe it wasn't such a smart idea to build most of our cities near the coast etc...

But who can really say how earth will react to what we have or have not done....only time well tell.

We are now no longer nomadic peoples..maybe in the future will well have to be.
________
Volcano Digital Review

[SoCalFlamesFan]

4.5 Trillion Dollars. Isn't that about the cost of the war in Iraq and the 'lost' money in the Deparment of Defence down south?

[SoCalFlamesFan]

Originally Posted by MelBridgeman

There is arrogance on both sides -

We are now no longer nomadic peoples..maybe in the future will well have to be.

I agree.. there is IGNORANCE on both sides. I mean, we just don't really know what's causing the warming. Could be us. So we should move quickly just in case it is. If it isn't.. well it will cost us a bunch of money and effort, but I imagine that we will discover some cool techonology in the mean time (much like wars often lead to periods of intense techonological discovery... and porn 2.)

And I cannot imagine 6+ billion people all rushing for that one green spot where you can grow crops this summer. 6 billion gypsies. Crazy.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by NickYoung

4.5 Trillion Dollars. Isn't that about the cost of the war in Iraq and the 'lost' money in the Deparment of Defence down south?

4.5 trillion?

http://nationalpriorities.org/index....per&Itemid=182

Holy hell, I just found that site. Wow.