Politics and 'An Inconvenient Truth'

Frogbeater writes "The producer of 'An Inconvenient Truth' is accusing the National Science Teachers Association of being in the pocket of Big Oil because she can't get preferential treatment for her film. The entire situation is turning into a 'if you're not with us, you're against us' yelling match. Regardless of the viewpoint, is it even possible that science can remain apolitical? Has it ever been?" The Washington Post makes things out to be less than above board: "In the past year alone, according to its Web site, Exxon Mobil's foundation gave $42 million to key organizations that influence the way children learn about science, from kindergarten until they graduate from high school ... NSTA's list of corporate donors also includes Shell Oil and the American Petroleum Institute (API), which funds NSTA's Web site on the science of energy. There, students can find a section called 'Running on Oil' and read a page that touts the industry's environmental track record -- citing improvements mostly attributable to laws that the companies fought tooth and nail, by the way -- but makes only vague references to spills or pollution. NSTA has distributed a video produced by API called 'You Can't Be Cool Without Fuel,' a shameless pitch for oil dependence."

Comments

Re:I'm SHOCKED

[ArcherB]

Here is the link btw:
Accuweather

Natural variability allowed excessive dust from Africa and the el niño effect to kill the ability of hurricanes to grow this year. Both the dust and the el niño effect were likely caused by global warming.
If they could not predict the dust and el niño effects over a period of less than a year, why should I respect their predictions 10 years out?

What about the 2005 hurricane season? It was also global warming that caused that.
Oh was it? You mean that global warming snuck up on us all last year? Why wasn't 2004 worse than 2003 which was worse than 2002 and so on? So I guess next year, if we don't have el niño and African dust, is it going to be another bumper year for hurricanes, increasing every year until we have hurricanes in Idaho? If we are talking about "Global Warming" here, why was 2005 an average year for hurricane's globally? (yes, it was a bad year in N. America, but average world-wide).

You telling me you know what caused last year's hurricane season is about as ridiculous as some preacher saying that it was caused because God was mad at the US policy toward homosexuals.