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Al Gore Shares Nobel Peace Prize with UN Panel
eldavojohn writes "Former US Vice President Al Gore has been announced as a co-recipient of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his work on environmental awareness & climate change. He shares his award with the the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. 'Speaking in Washington, Mr Gore praised the IPCC, "whose members have worked tirelessly and selflessly for many years". "We face a true planetary emergency," Mr Gore warned. "It is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity." He said he would donate his half of the $1.5m prize money to the Alliance for Climate Protection, reported the news agency Reuters.'"
So the IPCC helped Al Gore invent the intarweb?
My blog
Today is April 1st, right?
Well, there goes any confidence I've had in the competency and integrity of the Nobel committee.
"The mind works quicker than you think!"
Congratulations to the recipients. They've earned it. As with all peace issues, there is much much more work to do.
Al Gore certainly deserves this award, but I think I speak for all geeks when I say that I wish he would be a little more accurate. I have a hard time recommending his film An Inconvenient Truth due to his factual errors and exaggerated claims. Nonetheless, he has performed an invaluable service in bringing climate change to the center stage.
to king george II and his minions. Al found his niche as a Green and done good. Now let's see if the rest of the world will stand up and take notice.
Oh and first post?
First rule of holes; When in one, stop digging.
It's half man, half bear, and have pig! I'm being super, duper serial about this.
He really must have killed manbearpig.....I'm serial....
1. Deny you're running for president. Nobel prize committee wouldn't want to be seen as endorsing a particular front runner.
2. Win Nobel Prize
3. Announce candidacy for US presidency.
4. Profit.
Free the Quark 3 from asymptotic confinement! Bring your charm! Don't get down! All colours and flavours welcome!
You'll be a good president
One more word: Congratulations
He cheated.
I want the geek card of whomever guy/gal modded parent troll revoked.
if you are not able to discern positive stuff from troll, you shouldnt be usin mod points.
Read radical news here
That had to help sway the committee, too.
Maybe if you keep attacking Al Gore global warming will go away!
If there's one person who made the entire world aware of the dangers posed to the environment; with his stubborn attitude - it's got to be Mr. Bush himself. By not ratifying the Kyoto protocol, by stonewalling global efforts to reduce emissions etc. ... the list is long of Mr. Bush's singular contributions to environmental awareness.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
Al Gore know what is best for humanity and ALL MANKIND!!
I'm super...duper...cereal.
I thought GW Bush would be a shoe-in
"And then I visited Wikipedia
There are many people more deserving of the award who actually work towards peace, most at the risk of their lives. However I seriously doubt the Nobel committee would dare cross China or even some Islamic factions to award these types of people.
Couldn't this have been rewarded in a science category or were they afraid that that category would get mocked for what the award is about?
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Jeez, funny no one ever mentioned Rush Limbaugh was up for the award also? He didn't profit from the running either unlike ALGore aka Egore..... Good Ole, Al, and the lemmings will follow..
-------- Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most. --Ozzy
People that don't read (and digest) TFA will wonder what climate change has to do with peace.
The committee said it wanted to bring the "increased danger of violent conflicts and wars, within and between states" posed by climate change into sharper focus.
If climate change happens as some expect there will be mass migrations, and territorial and resource wars. Like now, but only more so.
Free the Quark 3 from asymptotic confinement! Bring your charm! Don't get down! All colours and flavours welcome!
for fucking up the 2000 campaign so badly that George W. Bush actually had a chance at winning?(Note, I didn't say he won) That election should have been Gore's for the taking, but instead of campaigning on what he did and what he stood for he just seemed to live in constant fear of the rightwing media and foolishly listened to their advice and kowtowed to their demands.....and now look what we have, maybe the worst president in US history......peace maker indeed.
Monstar L
Ought not a Nobel Peace Prize winner practice what he preaches?
I know there are going to be a tonne of "He should run" posts but think about it. It was no secret what Clinton was going to do in 2008. That would of divided the Clinton campaign funds and democrats in general. Gore knows he has one more good run in him. Gather your accolades (Nobel Prize, Oscar, etc) and wait till you're really needed. Hell, he has more sway as a campaigner than a candidate right now.
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what your country did to you
That would've required actual verifiable science...
Of course on Slashdot.. the Nobel Peace Prize *is* a science topic...
It is a rare event in this world that a good person doing a good thing is recognised. Except for the odd right-wingers who will respond to this (as an anonymous coward, no doubt), everyone on this planet owes Mr. Gore a debt of gratitude. Even if you don't believe in the human-influence on global warming (something I accept), you must admit that it's pretty obvious that all the pollution and greenhouse gases that we humans cause to be put into the atmosphere cannot be a good thing. Anything that causes us NOT to soil our nest is to be applauded. Mr. Gore is part of the force of good and I applaud him. Worked on his 2000 campaign in Council Bluffs too. Damn shame that he lost to the current asshat Bush by a vote of 4 to 5.
If Nobel giving one to Yassir Arafat didn't, giving one to Gore now has officially mad ehtem jump the shark.
IMO
Gore joins recipients Jimmy Carter, Yasser Arafat, and Mohammed El Baradei as the worst Nobel recipients of all time.
A judge in the UK calls it political
British schools ordered to provide balance when showing the movie.
But the Nobel Peace price isn't political....
Just remember - if the world didn't suck, we would all fall off.
1) Congress is responsible for ratifying treaties. President Clinton didn't even bother submitting Kyoto knowing it was dead on arrival.
2) The US has actually done much better in reducing green house gas emissions compared to most Kyoto signatories. Name me one country that will actually meet its obligations.
3) Russia only signed onto Kyoto because their CO2 levels were set before the huge decline in industrial output there so they had credits to spare that there were hoping to make a buck on selling.
And on a more personal note:
4) President Bush's home in Texas is actually a surprising green residence while Gore's pool house consumes more power than the average person's home.
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
Awarding that prize to such a high profile PARTISAN poltician has pretty uch destroyed the reputation of the prize. This isn't the first time the decision has been a bad one. Irish biggots won it a few years ago too when they were the main people who caused the problems
"... a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity."
Humanity? Shouldn't he be including the right wing too?
Technically, murder-suicide does not violate the golden rule.
A little embarrassing that "An Inconvenient Truth" was banned in schools in Britain for its inaccuracies. The judge said it met the criteria for political indoctrination.
"It is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity."
Moral, sure, but spiritual? I don't see how that has anything to do with it. If there is a god, we have nothing to worry about. I can't help but think he said that particular comment only to make people note that Al is a spiritual person, and therefore, eligible for president.
That said, I think he'd make a better president than all of the people who actually had a chance to win the next election.
Are you familiar with my friend Al Gore? Funny if he really did end up on the back of a $500 note..
Seriously good for him - and I do hope he does run for WH 2008..
...happened! The USA didn't sign it. Yeah, he did pretend he was in favor, but... He should have done more when he was Vice-President!
The whole global warming issue is cyclic. It even follows the pattern of the sun. His data is flawed, his platform is based on media frenzy and hype.
I can't believe they'd give someone that high of an award based on lies.
And, no, this isn't political - this is a matter of truth vs propoganda. In 10-50 years, when the media is crying about the coming ice age, maybe then...nah - they'll "forget"...
If someone spends 10 minutes researching the issue, instead of eating the cornbread and drinking the kool-aid, we'd have a lot of people asking questions that need to be asked.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win."
I read "Earth in the Balance" in October before the 2000 presidential election just to get an idea of what Gore was like. Perhaps slashdotters might be better able than the average joe to appreciate what writing a book requires: thinking about something. Questions, hypotheses, research, thinking. The philosopher Ortega wrote that the act of thinking about things instantly puts you in the minority; most people don't do it. Well, Gore does it. Maybe his personality isn't suited to the job of presidency, although it's hard to imagine that he would have been worse than Bush. But just maybe this role suits him better. He deserves the recognition he is getting now. Bush vs Gore: I know whose legacy I'd rather claim.
Oh, yeah, it's not easy to pad these out to 120 characters.
"Mr Gore praised the IPCC, 'whose members have worked tirelessly and selflessly for many years'."
Coincidentally, they also helped to make an already obscenely wealthy man even more obscenely wealthy. Let's be clear about one thing - Al Gore is a business man first, and an activist second. His primary goal is to promote a product - namely his movie and book. When I see him flying next to me in coach and living in a 2000 sq ft house, I may pay attention to what he has to say. But until that time, that smarmy bastard can suck my fucking cock.
Al Gore's 'Inconvenient Truth'?
This man spends almost as much on electricity as the average American makes in a year. Al Gore receiving this award is a sign of how irrelivant it has become.
It isn't banned.
Oh dear.
According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize should be awarded "to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses".
What Al Gore is doing is important but based on those standards how does Al Gore win the peace prize?
Look at the list of former Nobel Peace Prize Winners many of these people risked their lives or personal fortunes in endeavors that made the world a more peaceful place. Al Gore made a film about Global warming and crusades for the cause. Talk about cheapening the award.
I think the invisible hand of the market has its middle finger extended
--A wise old fart named SC0RN
I just don't understand what a propaganda file chock full of inaccuracies, misleading data, and outright falsehoods had to do with the promotion of peace?
How about the following court findings (thank you Great Britain)
* The film claims that melting snows on Mount Kilimanjaro evidence global warming. The Government's expert was forced to concede that this is not correct.
* The film suggests that evidence from ice cores proves that rising CO2 causes temperature increases over 650,000 years. The Court found that the film was misleading: over that period the rises in CO2 lagged behind the temperature rises by 800-2000 years.
* The film uses emotive images of Hurricane Katrina and suggests that this has been caused by global warming. The Government's expert had to accept that it was "not possible" to attribute one-off events to global warming.
* The film shows the drying up of Lake Chad and claims that this was caused by global warming. The Government's expert had to accept that this was not the case.
* The film claims that a study showed that polar bears had drowned due to disappearing arctic ice. It turned out that Mr Gore had misread the study: in fact four polar bears drowned and this was because of a particularly violent storm.
* The film threatens that global warming could stop the Gulf Stream throwing Europe into an ice age: the Claimant's evidence was that this was a scientific impossibility.
* The film blames global warming for species losses including coral reef bleaching. The Government could not find any evidence to support this claim.
* The film suggests that the Greenland ice covering could melt causing sea levels to rise dangerously. The evidence is that Greenland will not melt for millennia.
* The film suggests that the Antarctic ice covering is melting, the evidence was that it is in fact increasing.
* The film suggests that sea levels could rise by 7m causing the displacement of millions of people. In fact the evidence is that sea levels are expected to rise by about 40cm over the next hundred years and that there is no such threat of massive migration.
* The film claims that rising sea levels has caused the evacuation of certain Pacific islands to New Zealand. The Government are unable to substantiate this and the Court observed that this appears to be a false claim.
to have elected him President.
it is in fact proof that anyone who opposes al gore has achieved rhetorical and intellectual bankruptcy
basically, rather than counter al gore on any facts or logic or rationale (because they can't), the last few blind idiots who don't agree with al gore (most of the world does now) have their backs to the wall and go for the final desperate charge against him: doubt the guy's integrity and conviction
so you're saying "if you think it's so important to stop polluting the atmosphere, why don't you stop using electricity"
heh
1. as if there were valid options besides modern electric grids for modern life
2. as if you need to be a complete saint to be critical of anyone or anything
3. as if you need to turn on a dime and radically change your life just so you can be able to say everyone needs to gradually and slowly and deliberately change course
in other words, some fools want al gore to lead by example, when that is not necessary to understand his observations, and not possible to do because of how the entire world's energy usage patterns are structured
they find al gore responsible for things like the emissions of the jets he flies. so what do you want him to do? not fly? oh yeah, that will shut him up really well, wouldn't that be nice? i understand your real point now in wanting him to live in a shack without running water or electricity before he can say anything (smiles)
or how about al gore design and build a no emissions airplane before he can go anywhere and talk about climate change. will that make you happy dear propagandized fools? (rolls eyes)
well, he did design and build the internet (joke)
look, propagandized fools: if al gore were in a position to be an important world figure AND use far less energy, he would
but he can't be both in today's CURRENT energy usage patterns... not AL GORE's energy usage patterns, but the WORLD's energy usage patterns. which is the WHOLE F***ING POINT: WE ALL USE TOO MUCH ELECTRICTY. THE ISSUE IS ALL OF US, NOT AL GORE. NICE ATTEMPT TO CHANGE THE SUBJECT
again, al gore is NOT a hypocrite... but... let's run with the propagandized fools for a moment, for the sake of argument right here, and say al gore WAS a complete and utter hyprocrite. ok, where does that lead us now?
guess what: it doesn't nullify any of his observations and our need to move away from current energy usage patterns!
so: one last time: doubting someone's integrity and conviction is the last redoubt of the desperate loser who is rhetorically and intellectually bankrupt in their opinions
al gore is not the subject. CLIMATE CHANGE IS
nice propaganda bait and switch there, losers
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Dude, looking over my comment that you are responding to, I fail to see any mention or attribution in regard to the war. So, WTF are you talking about? Apparently, you were looking for an excuse to blame the left but I do not follow your logic. Oh, forgive me. If you're coming from the right you are absolved from introducing logic into your reasoning.
it is in fact proof that anyone who opposes al gore has achieved rhetorical and intellectual bankruptcy
basically, rather than counter al gore on any facts or logic or rationale (because they can't), the last few blind idiots who don't agree with al gore (most of the world does now) have their backs to the wall and go for the final desperate charge against him: doubt the guy's integrity and conviction
so you're saying "if you think it's so important to stop polluting the atmosphere, why don't you stop using electricity"
heh
1. as if there were valid options besides modern electric grids for modern life
2. as if you need to be a complete saint to be critical of anyone or anything
3. as if you need to turn on a dime and radically change your life just so you can be able to say everyone needs to gradually and slowly and deliberately change course
in other words, some fools want al gore to lead by example, when that is not necessary to understand his observations, and not possible to do because of how the entire world's energy usage patterns are structured
they find al gore responsible for things like the emissions of the jets he flies. so what do you want him to do? not fly? oh yeah, that will shut him up really well, wouldn't that be nice? i understand your real point now in wanting him to live in a shack without running water or electricity before he can say anything (smiles)
or how about al gore design and build a no emissions airplane before he can go anywhere and talk about climate change. will that make you happy dear propagandized fools? (rolls eyes)
well, he did design and build the internet (joke)
look, propagandized fools: if al gore were in a position to be an important world figure AND use far less energy, he would
but he can't be both in today's CURRENT energy usage patterns... not AL GORE's energy usage patterns, but the WORLD's energy usage patterns. which is the WHOLE F***ING POINT: WE ALL USE TOO MUCH ELECTRICTY. THE ISSUE IS ALL OF US, NOT AL GORE. NICE ATTEMPT TO CHANGE THE SUBJECT
again, al gore is NOT a hypocrite... but... let's run with the propagandized fools for a moment, for the sake of argument right here, and say al gore WAS a complete and utter hyprocrite. ok, where does that lead us now?
guess what: it doesn't nullify any of his observations and our need to move away from current energy usage patterns!
so: one last time: doubting someone's integrity and conviction is the last redoubt of the desperate loser who is rhetorically and intellectually bankrupt in their opinions
al gore is not the subject. CLIMATE CHANGE IS
nice propaganda bait and switch there, losers
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Whatever you think about the guy (and his energy hogging mansion), it's admirable that he's put so much time into a non-partisan cause at a point in his life when most politicians would probably resign to a cushy retirement.
The Norwegian Nobel Comittee should be modded flamebait -500. No. No. Not because of any opinion I have on their nomination. Simply because whichever side you take here, there will be molotovs headed in your direction. You can already see people getting modded troll for saying congratulations or questioning whether there were others that may have had a more concrete impact on global peace. 2000 comments by noon EST. Only those aiming for funny will be able to tread water above 4.
Notmysig
Congrats to the Nobel committee on reducing the honor of the NPP to that of a Grammy award.
Turn down that a/c thermostat in your mansion, Mr. Gore! It's a little too humid today to comfortably practice your pilates.
Al Gore has done good, tireless work on an important issue for a long time. However, I don't think his merits were sufficient for the Nobel prize.
Again, I think the Nobel prize committee wanted to send George Bush a message: "You are wreaking destruction and death; see how much better some other people are spending their energies." So this was as much an anti-war Nobel as it was a peace Nobel.
We Finns have been wondering why our Martti Ahtisaari has not been considered worthy by the Scandinavians in the Nobel prize committee. Ahtisaari has been instrumental in the independence of Namibia, negotiating an end to the NATO-Serbia war and bringing peace to Aceh. He has also participated in other efforts like bringing Kuwait on its feet after the first Gulf war and trying to find a settlement between Serbia and Kosovo.
On Thursday science fiction and sociology novelist Doris Lessing received the Nobel Prize in Literature. I'm please the Nobel committee finally recognize this genre.
On Friday Al Gore received the Nobel Peace prize for his decades of advocacy on global climate change. For the most part I think hes been fairly factual; occasionally overboard alarmist. Its a serious topic that needs some theatrics to capture people's attention.
(The title is just a troll to get attention.)
There's no question that the earth is going through some sort of warming trend. However, it's far from conclusive that that warming is man-made. In fact, there seems to be evidence that global warming is occurring on other planets in the solar system, too, suggesting that the cause is the Sun getting warmer:
http://motls.blogspot.com/2006/05/global-warming-on-jupiter.html
So, why are they giving Gore the Nobel Prize for giving out misinformation about a natural event that we can't do anything about?
Actually, I mostly admire and respect Al Gore, but you know what they say about the path to good intentions--it leads to spam. The problem is that Al did too good a job when he was helping to fund the development of the Internet. He kept telling them not to worry about the money, and he kept it flowing. When you think about it that way, you have to say the SMTP fantasy of free email is partly his fault.
Yeah, his intentions are still good, but that isn't always enough.
(Just for the record and risking the karma: If the will of the voters was the criterion (as it says in the law, even in Florida), then I'm sure Gore won Florida in 2000. On the other hand, no one really knows what differences that might have made... What we do know for sure is what happened: Dubya the miserable failure was not competent to prevent 9/11.)
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
A movie gets an Oscar when it was clearly inferior to its peers.
A website that nobody ever went to gets an award for "transforming television."
And now this travesty to the Nobel name.
I might just have to start believing those Foxistas about the limousine liberals and their Hollywood circle jerk.
I hope the science Nobels are selected better.
Frankly, I'm rather surprised. Usually a peace prize is given after you do something. Gore has certainly spoken a lot about this issue, but he has yet to make a real difference. This strikes most as a big 'Fuck You Bush' from the world community.
That being said, it is fun watching all the wingers heads explode over this. They're already out on the intertubes wining and ranting and spewing cheetohs on the keyboard. I sort of feel sorry for them. All I can say is get your blood pressure checked regularly.
So I do feel sorry. The Republicans have invested so much into their Dear Leader, and at every opportunity he just turns up looking like a chump. It must be so hard, defending a loser like that. Wingers everywhere, you have my pity.
What the Republicans today need to validate their world views is for Nobel to offer a War Prize.
Although sadly even if they did offer a Nobel War Prize, President Bush still wouldn't win it.
And it's comments like these that show you don't even understand what the Peace Prize is all about.
It's not about who the most peaceful person on earth is... if that were true, my grandmother should have won it years ago. The Peace Prize is awarded to people who put forth an effort towards peace in the face of adversity and bias.
These "Irish biggots (sic)" and Palestinian leaders made an effort towards peace despite the strife that has lead to so many of their people to violence. The Prize recognizes that they put aside the hatred, violence, and hostility that everyone expects from them and tried to find peaceful ways to express their beliefs.
As far as Mr. Gore, the prize is recognizing a man who has devoted his life to raising awareness to an issue that has either been ignored by so many or met with hostility (see the trolls above).
November 2nd is the filing deadline in New Hampshire.
Leave the gun, take the cannolis.
It's a shame that so much focus is placed on a rise in temperature of a few tenths of a degree along with a whole bunch of unsubstantiated scare stories about consequences, to the exclusion of all of the other problems there are in the world. Deforestation, over-population and over-fishing are probably an order of magnitude worse for the biosphere than a small temperature increase (which may well have more positive benefits than negative in terms of bio-diversity). Perhaps it would be better for Gore to spend his time promoting the spending of an annual 1/4 trillion dollars on those things (even half that amount would fix a whole lot). If you really want to see how sound are the calculations and peer-review processes involved in all of this climate hand-wringing, check out climateaudit.org. You'll be very surprised at what you find.
A sure sign of the coming apocalypse. I wish I could be as "green" as Al, driving around in a gas guzzling, terrorist supporting SUV, fly around the world in private jets, and after getting heat from the public try to look "green" by starting to update my mansion to be a "green" mansion. Yeah, he's just an average Joe.
And did I read that he has been called a filmmaker...OMG he only narrated a small part of a propaganda movie.
People joke about Al Gore creating the Internet. But it was his sponsorhip of the 1988(?) Information Superhighway Bill that changed computer networks from an academic toy into a world wide force. It encouraged several existing subnets to adopt national standards and financed a high speed backbone that universities, companies, and government could all share. Six years later the NSF Supercomputer Center freeware release of Mosaic jump-started the application software side of the Net. And the internet pretty much became self-financing and important economic engine.
I think the Internet has had a more profound effect on human affairs than climatic change so far. And Al was an important contributer to the former. But there arent Nobel prizes for legislation.
"you must be new here" ...
Read radical news here
I'm sorry, but this just proves to me that the Nobel Peace Prize is a big crock of politically correct shit. Fat boy gets a Nobel Peace Prize. What an embarrasment!
I have a hurricane insurerer as a client and all of these global warming induced hurricanes that were supposed to happen haven't happened at all. There just hasn't been. So I wonder, what other predictions of our doom aren't going to come true.
I'm not saying that there isn't some kind of climate change taking place, or that man isn't somehow partly to blame, but, hey, one would think that the supposedly prestigious nobel prize committee would come out of its liberal ideology for a second, do some math (for a change). They would see that the likes of Kyoto won't reduce carbon levels in the earth atmosphere, that its just a transfer tax designed to bring about some form of global socialism backed by the fear mongering lie of planetary catastrophe, and that, domestically, the big companies like GE, pushing for CO2 laws are doing so soley because they have CO2 laws to sell.
If Global Warming were the big threat to mankind that Al Gore hypes it to be, then we should be building hundreds of nuclear plants and millions of electric cars, starting yesterday. Clearly the longer term problem of nuclear waste is not so severe as the ice caps melting tomorrow. But if the far most environmental crazies can be content to wait for some sort of a breakthrough in solar power or windmill to replace the 80% of the US electrical capacity that comes from fossil fuels, then perhaps all of the hype about global warming is just that, hype.
If there is no time, then build nukes, and if there is time, then I'm getting a V8 engine, and Al Gore and his likes bitch about it, they can take that nobel prize and shove it up his ass while he flies around on his personal carbon belching jet.
This is my sig.
Because W. came in and encouraged Americans to buy big SUVs, he made us more dependant on foreign oil than ever before (When Carter sounded the alarm in 1978, it was 2% foreign; now it is 66). Now, EVERY American is aware that this is disasterous. We are paying attention to the costs of gas, oil, and pollution. As such, we have a renewed interest in hybrid AND electric cars. All in all, I think that W's actions will certainly slow terrorist oil, and may kill off oil for use of transportation (note that oil will never stop; we use it in so many more useful areas; plastics, fertilizers, perfume, chemical feed stock, etc).
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
It should be noted that most of the science Al Gore uses is junk science or poorly interpreted science. His case, though, is not based on science its based on emotion. Some would say "fear mongering". But, this is the highly politicized "Peace Prize" not one of the Science prizes, where showing your proofs is required.
By now, anyone who claims that there is a scientific concensus on man-caused global warming is either a "kool-aid drinker" or being highly disingenuous.
Yes, global warming is occuring. The cause is far from certain but a lot of evidence is piling up that it's an on-cycle occurance with little to do with man. Yes, polluting is bad, but science shows we've survived numerous heating and cooling cycles ("numerous" as long as you don't believe that we've only been on earth for 6 thousand years).
I'm beginning to believe that the faithful of Holy Church of Global Warming are much like our ancestors. In an effort to stave off the disappearance of the sun in the winter, to keep the dragon/snake/lizzard from eating the sun, to keep floods from the village, we are making blood sacrifices. They had a poor understanding of the underlying science. Those that did understand the science used it to their own advantage. "Priests" showed their power by "blessing" the congregants through the events, and surprise, everyone survived the eclipse, except for a few unfortunate virgins.
With people like Al Gore, and our eco-frauds selling "carbon offsets", acting as the temple priests, they warn us of this great coming catastrophe. Meanwhile, the sacrifice we make is to their pocket books. Money, effort, energy, and electorate good will that could be better spent on feeding the poor, healing the sick, and educating the masses is instead spent on halting a natural process that the world has survived many times before.
Can we live greener? Yes. Should we clean up our backyards? Yes. Can we help emerging nations build clean? Yes, and that will improve their living standards. But, to spend the money and electorate goodwill on halting development will lead to the improvement of the most poor.
People like Al Gore will eventually distract us from our real work, caring for the poor, the sick, the hungry, and the less fortunate. Why? Because we will be too busy "Saving the World", so that we can't save the world.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
If you think creating an inaccurate politicized & overly hyped documentary and merely being it's spokesman (ie: the Ronald McDonald clown for Globally Warmed Burgers) is more prize worthy than a woman who risked her life to save 2,500 lives during WWII.
Then something is seriously wrong with you...
And DON'T say his movie has helped raise awareness and thus saved lives in danger of global warming. Because his over-hyping, and questionable statements merely clouded the arena and debate; creating more controversy and less positive action.
I actually believe we need to reduce pollution, clean-up our act, become resource efficient. But every time I hear someone being an alarmist and quoting questionable figures I get upset. Because that hurts environmentalism by putting off a large portion of the populace rather than working toward a common ground.
A good example of such a working were the actions Jean-Michel Cousteau who's appealed to President's own nature and found common ground - the result the nation's largest national park and first marine national park was created.
This is a much better method than Al Gore's...
doesn't matter if Mr. Bush lives in a thatched shed and uses biogas to light up his dwelling. He is responsible for the energy consumption of the entire USA, not just his hut.
spoken like a true nazi. Bush is only responsible for the government, of which there is too much. You are responsible for your own energy usage.
India and China are home to over 35% of the World's population; but it appears they do not have much of a scope to reduce consumption. The US consumes more than 15 times the energy per person consumed in India; and there is a huge scope for reduction. Inaction by the US govt. is dangerous for the entire planet, including India and China.
Guess what, those people in India and China are FUCKING POOR AND HAVE NOTHING. What you are advocating is that the people of the USA go back to living in the same kind of crappy lives that people live in the third world. How much more proof do you need to see that you are advocating the injection of a massive level into the USA in order to make the world more equal. Faced with such stark choices, and stark facism by the enviro-left wing, how can any sane person not think that g.w. is a massive left wing lie designed to bring about socialism.
This is my sig.
So you're worried about the poor, eh? Okay. How about Bangladesh. You should know that any rise in sea levels would innundate this country. Does that qualify as affecting the poor? You're for DDT. Have you not heard that the primary problem with DDT was its chemical resemblance to sex-selection hormones? I find it amazing to have to again convince people it's a dumb idea polluting the environement on which you depend.
You mention that others have said pollution is bad. So you think that's the sum total of what Mr. Gore has done? Mentioned pollution?
As for your insistence on hypothesis that can be tested--I totally agree. But speaking anecdotally, haven't you noticed a change in the weather over your lifetime? I have lived all over the United States and locals everywhere comment on the virtual disappearance of winter. Agreed, though, this is merely anecdotal evidence.
I agree that it sucks how this is going to affect poorer countries. But anything negative always affects the poor the worst. However, if the effects that are threatened by global warming happen, the poor will get the worst of that. I think this is the lesser of evils. Granted, we do not have a smoking gun on this issue, owing to the complexity of the science. Using that uncertainly as a reason to assume there is no problem is foolish. Shouldn't we err on the side of caution? If we reduce greenhouse gases, can't you see that as an opportunity for business to step in and sell products that fit that model? By the way, corporations are already taking global warming seriously.
I just find it despicable how Republicans and right-leaning Americans use this temporary scientific uncertainty as a justification that the problem is fictional. Funny how the GOP always spins anything that happens in a way that they can get even richer than they are. Funny how the Republicans always push the view that allows the business community that supports them to pollute without controls or abandon. Funny how that works.
I've noticed an extremely alarming trend that I think may eventually lead to world wide war. Last week there were no crows in my back yard. Then one morning there were 5, the next morning 10, then 20, then 40, now 80. 80 crows. And they call it a "murder" of crows.
I sat down and calculated this out, and at the rate the crows are multiplying we're going to be living with Alfred Hickcock's The Birds in no time. This is going to result in mass migration of humans, food shortages, and contention over limited resources. This will *clearly* and inevitably lead to war.
I plan on publishing my Murder of Crow manifesto in early November, to make it clear to all about this impending and unavoidable danger to humanity. If things go well, I hope to be able to save the world, win the Peace Prize, and maybe even become US president if I play my cards right. Wish me luck!
Chicken Little, who has been saying for decades that the sky is falling. Since it's become popular, if not fashionable, to make such statements, the Noble committee felt that Little was due for recognition. Little was quoted as saying, "Remember, the ice caps on Mars are melting too. We must have polluted the planet with robots! When will the madness end?"
Seriously, you have to wonder how someone like Thomas Schelling feels about this. Granted, his prize was in Economics rather than Peace, but just much will Gore's 'achievements' tarnish the overall reputation of the Nobel?
l On October 21, 1999, gearing up his campaign, Al made a flat-out, scouts-honor, 100%-guaranteed, cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die pledge to end oil drilling off the California coast: "I will take the most sweeping steps in our history to protect our oceans and coastal waters from offshore oil drilling. I will make sure that there is no new oil leasing off the coasts of California and Florida."
The very next month, the Clinton-Gore administration granted oil company requests to extend 36 drilling leases in California coastal waters. Oil companies were $2 million donors to Gore and the Democratic Party for the 2000 election.
l In 1992, candidate Gore pledged that the new administration would be a ferocious defender of America's vanishing wetlands. Yet with direct subsidies and lax EPA enforcement, the administration has encouraged the sugar industry to continue destroying the Everglades. Among the sugar daddies, Alfonso Fanjul and his Flo-Sun sugar empire in the Everglades have sweetened Clinton and Gore's various money pockets with more than $300,000 in contributions.
Also, despite Al's pledge, another 500 acres of sensitive New Jersey wetlands are set to be destroyed by an upscale shopping center and entertainment complex being built by the Mills Corporation. Various federal agencies opposed the construction, but the Council on Environmental Quality, which was closely affiliateded with Vice President Gore, brokered the dirty deal for Mills Corp. Less than a week later, contributions totalling $43,000 came to the Gore 2000 campaign fund from the grateful folks at Mills.
l In 1996, as part of his "reinventing government" flim-flam, Gore achieved what Nixon and Reagan could not get Congress to sit still for: privatizing the Navy's strategic oil reserve, known as Elk Hills. This huge oil field near Bakersfield, California, is big-time black gold, and the industry has drooled over it for decades, just as environmentalists had fought to prevent its development. It was the largest privatization of federal property in U.S. history.
The winning bidder in the sell-off was Occidental Petroleum Corp. Just coincidentally, Al and Occidental go waaaay back. Indeed, the major source of the wealth amassed by Gore's father came from his long relationship with Occidental and its legendary chairman, Armand Hammer. Gore has extended the familial ties to the company; he currently owns about a million dollars worth of Occidental stock, and also enjoys a unique neighborly relationship to the corporation.
Adjacent to the Gores' bucolic, old family farm back home in Tennessee, right along the Caney Fork River that Al talks of so wistfully, he owns another farm--less bucolic but far more profitable--that he prefers not to talk of at all. This chunk of farmland is rich in zinc, and it was sold to Al in 1973 in a sweetheart transaction by Armand Hammer. "Mr. Green" turns out to be a zinc miner! As a by- product, he also turns out to be a polluter--some environmentalists say that run-off from the mine is getting into his beloved Caney Fork.
Gore draws annual zinc royalties that have totalled some $500,000 since he acquired the land from Occidental, and he has also mined more than half a million dollars in campaign funds from Occidental since he became vice president--including $50,000 that came after one of Al's infamous telephone solicitations from the White House, and another $100,000 wad that rolled in after Occidental's CEO had enjoyed two nights in the Lincoln Bedroom.
These cozy connections caused industry eyes to roll when it was announced that Occidental had won the bidding on Elk Hills. Writing in The Nation, Alexander Cockburn reports that the company was viewed as a bankruptcy waiting to happen until it got its hands on this sensationally profitable oil reserve.
Normally, the Department of Energy would decide whether a national asset like Elk Hills, the military's largest strategic fuel reserve, should be sold off. Instead, Gore arranged for a private consulting firm named ICF
"* That sea levels could rise seven metres 'in the immediate future'
* That atolls in the Pacific had already been evacuated
* That CO2 levels and temperatures are 'an exact fit' - this, said the judge, overstated the case
* That the drying of Lake Chad, the disappearance of snows on Kilimanjaro, and Hurricane Katrina can be directly attributed to global warming
* That polar bears are known to be drowning as a result of melting ice
* That coral bleaching is due to climate change"
So what do you think you've refuted by posting inaccuracies that the judge used to determine made the movie unreliable?
Apart from proving that the judge and OP were correct, what did you think you'd accomplished?
I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
So first they give the NPP to a group responsible for large amounts of violence over 70 years (murdering thug Yasser Arafat + 2 Israeli PMs) and now they give it to a man using outright hyperbole and scare tactics for his own personal gain. I feel sorry for all those that truly deserved the prize over the years, having the credibility of the award diluted to this point.
Well, first, let me say I'm thrilled Gore has been recognized for his very fine work.
But a thought did occur to me, and it's partly underscored by your choice of words in this question. Strictly speaking, any of the world's historically prominent totalitarian dictator types (I'll decline to mention them by name, since they tend to be conversation stoppers, but you know the usual suspects) have raised awareness (usually through attack) about issues affecting the world peace (like their attacks). And yet we'd presumably not want the prize to go to them. So this caused me to wonder what the criteria were for the prize.
Francis Sejersted, Chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Commitee (1991-1999) wrote in an article, The Nobel Peace Prize: From Peace Negotiations to Human RightsI took the remark about the difficulty of the preceding year to mean that you can't know for sure how history will regard the actions, and whether, in fact, they were a contribution to peace. For example, in theory, Gore's contributions could lead next year to a sudden realization of imminent resource scarcity that might otherwise have waited some number of years, and could actually precipitate a war. Good intentions are not always enough to ensure good outcomes. It's so hard to know, when the timeline between the doing and the analysis of the result is short. So while I'm comfortable with the award, I have considerable tolerance of those who doubt the propriety of giving this award at this time. Probably they're just saying the timeline of the award should, in general, be longer. And yet, the good effect of the short timeline might be to affect an ongoing situation in a pro-active way, not merely to comment on history (as are so many of the other Nobel awards).
For myself, I regard the climate crisis with the highest priority the world faces, and something that the world must confront together. I hope that doing so will reduce the set of issues faced, and that a reduced number of issues will lead to greatest peace. So I'm willing to see this award as appropriate even in a theoretical sense.
But even if it's only has the practical effect of helping to underscore that there really is global concern, I'm willing to live with a world that has given out an award that some think is undeserved, if it still has the good effect of raising consciousness about this serious issue. If the only effect is to incentivize others to do greedy, selfish, mercenary work on how to raise climate awareness and/or fix the problem, not for the good of humanity but just so they can win an award like Al's, I'm afraid I just don't see that as a remarkably bad outcome.
Besides, with Bush at the helm, anything that raises world consciousness that not everyone in the US is out to start a war is also good, and perhaps protects the peace as well.
Kent M Pitman
Philosopher, Technologist, Writer
My thoughts are it is half scam so far. I'm pretty pro environment and keeping things efficient and clean, but I think these offsets and trading them on the market are just another way for the trader parasites to make money without working for it, and as a stick for governments to beat their subject's heads with. You aren't gong to see rich guys drop driving around in convoys with armored limousines, or giving up multiple mansions, etc. You won't see governments stop wasting money and creating vast megatons of pollution with their tanks and jetplanes and warships and fleets of bureaucrats who drive around doing..something. And etc. You won't see big corporations just stop building those big architectural and mostly unneeded office-penis towers even though the vast bulk of office work can now be done via telecommuting. Like, the biggest problem with commuting to work in the big city isn't the cars, it's the companies forcing people to get in those cars needlessly to go someplace when they could do the same work at home with much more efficiency and savings of energy and raw resources. Homes are a given, office towers nowadays with electron bits being so easy to move are highly dubious for the most part.
It was already cheapened. Just look at the 1994 winners: Terrorists and war criminals.
Best Slashdot Co
repeat after me, propagandized fool: you don't have to be a saint to point out a sin
i don't think al gore could adapt as mightily as he could to less emissions to the degree required for you to take him seriously, but that's a side issue. to shut you up effectively, let us suppose that your observation is 100%, and then let's pack on a few thousand more sins. let us suppose for argument here that al gore ran his own personal coal plant, that he is, for the sake of argument right here, the giant hypocrite you see him to be
EVEN THEN, his words on climate change are sound
do you understand that?
if al gore were a pedophile, a murderer, listened to cold play, or any other number of heinous crimes, real and imagined, that you could fling at him, guess what?: his argument on climate change remains untouched, remains true. you don't defeat an argument by attacking the arguer, by doubting his integrity and his conviction. all you do is wind up changing the subject
CLIMATE CHANGE is the issue, not AL GORE
do you get that?
but in some people's minds, changing the subject form climate change to al gore means they have reaosn (in their deluded minds) TO IGNORE CLIMATE CHANGE
that's the problem with attacking al gore
the whole point is, assassinating al gore's character isn't the point. do you follow that? the point is climate change. and those who oppose al gore want to make al gore the subject matter INSTEAD OF climate change
but when you make al gore the subject matter, people forget all about climate change, and it becomes a giant retardfest of al gore did this and al gore did that. who cares about al gore?
al gore: "climate change is real"
porpagandized critic: "yeah but you pollute, therefore, i can ignore everything you say about climate change"
it is in fact a classic form of propaganda: rather than debate a speaker on his points, his argument, the issues, merely attack the speaker. as if that somehow nullifies the points he is making!
if al gore lived in a shack in minnesota, or if al gore ran exxon mobile, it doesn't matter; THE WORDS HE SPEAKS ON CLIMATE CHANGE ARE THE TRUTH. AND THAT IS THE REAL ISSUE
except to propagandizers like yourself, who want to make al gore the subject, rather than climate change
repeat after me, propagandized fool: you don't have to be a saint to point out a sin
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
there's always been change in climate and we have dealt with it, changes which have been far more then small.
it's just alarmist nonsense your pushing there.
You got your degree in climate science where? You've been studying this topic for how long?
I actually have friends doing research on the topic, both in the lab here in the US on the global climate model an in the field in the Antarctic. They are more alarmed about current trends than is filtering through to the media. The rate at which permafrost and glaciers have begun melting recently is sending shock waves through the scientific community. We are now only beginning to discover environmental feedback mechanisms that likely mean the scientists have UNDERESTIMATED the rate and impact of global warming, not overestimated it.
We used to talk about the climate problems our children and grandchildren will be dealing with. Guess what, the bill came early. Now YOU will likely be suffering the consequences. We are seeing the leading edge of it now with shifting weather patterns and encroachment of invasive species... just as the models predicted, only sooner. Because of climate deniers like you, it is probably now too late to stop it, but we still must do everything we can to slow the change and give our society and economy time to adapt.
Alarmist? Hardly. If anything the message from the scientist has been overly softened and toned down.
BTW, the friends I mentioned work at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and on the global climate model at Argonne National Laboratories, in case anyone is curious.
The Bolachek Journals
Just because you don't recognize it doesn't mean it's off-topic.
LOL.
I think Doris Lessing, recipient of the 2007 Nobel Prize in Literature put it best... "pure political correctness".
I'm totally serial!
He used the word creating, as in to bring about the internet as we know it now, by pushing for funding. He did NOT use the word inventing.
This space available.
when faced with more of the same slobbering typical stupidity, it is not beholden on me to be novel and creative in my replies each time. same stupidity deserves the same answer
ps: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=326215&cid=20952515
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Before NCSA Mosaic, there was Pei-Yuan Wei's ViolaWWW (released in 1991), which he developed as an undergraduate at UC Berkeley, as part of Berkeley's XCF undergraduate research center. ViolaWWW (which ran exclusively on X Windows) had a number of innovations that inspired Marc Andreessen. For example http://dale.oreillynet.com/stories/storyReader$31:
Mosaic took off because it was ported to...gasp, Microsoft Windows. (Here's the irony: the first web browsers were created by Tim Berners-Lee for the Next Computer, which was Steve Jobs' old company; but the Web would explode in popularity due to Windows.) However, given the typical porting of software from Unix to the PC, it was only a matter of time that somebody would have had a browser for the Internet on the PC. Did Al Gore create Windows? I guess that's why Gore sits on the board of directors of Apple Inc.
to not even bother to read politically sensitive articles so I can keep my blood pressure down. It's just not healthy.
It doesn't matter which side of the argument you're on, it just doesn't seem to me there's enough data (considering the age of the earth) to say we are / aren't significantly impacting the global temperature. We have maybe one or two millennia of recorded data on climate. That's not a significant sample size.
Oh, and what exactly does climate have to do with world peace?
I don't recall that memo...
And has been nominated for a Grammy for Best Opera Recording and an Industrial Design Excellence Award.
Yes, the United States consumes more per capita. But we also produce more per capita also. Simple Economics 101.
Apparently the people in China who aren't poor are leading a huge increase in demand for American SUV's and stretched hummers. (Details: http://www.rfa.org/english/features/lelyveld/2007/01/22/china_wealthgap/)
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
Because it's missing. Might besomewhere on his desk.
Why is this posted in science and not in politics?
you believe climate change is important, al gore merely an imperfect messenger. ok, good for you
but you have to admit a lot of assclowns ou there think that by assassinating al gore's character, they can safely put climate change out of their minds. and in fact, they do
you're not the problem. but you don't admit to what the real problem is with the propagandistic ploy of making al gore the issue instead of climate change: the important issue of climate change gets swept under the rug, and the retarded political partisan knife fight of the assassination of people's character takes center stage
partisans and their propaganda are at work here by making al gore the issue instead of climate change. they are far worse than an al gore who drinks oil and farts smog
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Then why don't you act like it, Mr. Gore? If there were a huge asteroid headed this way, I can guarantee you'd be out building a bunker to protect your family. Why not in this case? Is it, perhaps, because it really is NOT that scary to you after all?
There is loads of evidence for global warming. To say there is no consensus is like saying that there is no consensus that smoking causes cancer. There may be a few maverick scientists who go against the consensus, plus the scores of industry sponsored mouthpieces but there certainly is a consensus.
1.Bush elected.
2.Gore -- however ordinary like us he may be, at least truth-speaking -- not elected.
3.Can you imagine this happening in Japan, or India, or Germany (ok, these did screw up almost 70 years ago...)?
4.I guess the US is nowadays, well, un-American.
I also fail to understand how Al Gore could completely ignore some very obvious facts in his movie, namely:
1. It's a geological/climatological "given" that the Earth has gone through several Ice Ages (i.e. climate changes) even before man ever came on the scene. Therefore not all climate changes are man-made.
2. There is a so far totally unproven "chicken and egg" situation with regard to CO2 emissions - namely that it's possible that more CO2 is emitted by the oceans because of a (natural?) temperature change.
3. Whilst Mr Gore picked on regions of the poles where ice is melting, he failed to mention that in certain regions, the ice is getting thicker also.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
With recent winners of the Nobel Peace Prize going to clearly left-wing liberals and anti-capitalists such as Jimmy Carter and Yassir Arafat, the Prize has lost all credibility in my book. What happened to the days of Mother Teresa and others who actually worked for peace? How about one of the other contenders Irena Sendler, a Polish woman who saved more than 2,500 Jewish children during the Holocaust? How does Owl Gore compare to her? Until the Prize committee starts recognizing some real activists for peace instead of the most anti-capitalist liberal they can find, I won't be paying any attention to it. It might as well be the Grammys.
The Indian middle class is almost the same size as the entire US population: about 250 million middle class Indians vs. about 300 million US residents total.
Granted, the nature of that wealth is somewhat different given their overall proportion of the country's population. That indeed would be a valid point. It would also be a good point to say that we should disaggregate the per capita figures to compare apples to apples.
On the other hand, you can't expect a country like India to make the same kinds of gross per capita energy use reductions that Americans could. There is much more opportunity for us to reduce our energy use because we use so much of it in ways that are just mindless habit left over from the days of cheap and abundant oil. For example, most households have multiple cars. My next door neighbor has a household of four, which is served by four large SUVs. If households with multiple SUVs replaced one of them with a fuel efficient sedan, they'd save more energy than a poor Indian family uses.
The problem isn't that we refuse to live in huts. It's our stubborn refusal to make even changes that pose no hardship at all -- even changes that would benefit us individually and collectively.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Bit higher than India's national average, isn't it?
There will never be an end to the number of people who will fight any mention that humans are causing climate change. No one is saying we are the ONLY factor. But we are a big part of it, and we can control our actions, compared to trying to control other natural factors. Shouldn't we do so... just in case?
I always notice that in my local paper, when they publish articles from global warming skeptics... these individuals are often the heads of various organizations and groups, professors, history buffs, basically anything but actual climatologists or environmental scientists. Not always, but often. I find that interesting.
The MAJORITY of climate scientists agree that humans are contributing to warming. I'm going to go with that conclusion because it's better to be safe than sorry, and because I can see the proof with my own eyes.
Climate Myths Examined: http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/dn11462
As for Mr. Gore and the IPCC winning the peace prize... good for them. Someone is standing up and shouting about this. Yes, I feel Mr. Gore is a bit of a phony in his personal life, but his message isn't. If I had the choice I would have recognized Canada's Dr. David Suzuki ( http://www.davidsuzuki.org/ ) for his work educating the public about all kinds of environmental issues... and he does so in a more science based rather than hollywood-dazzle kind of way. He recently toured across Canada giving talks and raising awareness in a very locally focused down to earth way and he's been doing this for DECADES. He deserves this prize as much if not more than Gore.
Either way, I'm glad environmental issues get a nod of recognition here.
Besides all technical inaccuracies on the movie, besides watching him drive by in his limousine and fly over Katrina in his private jet while he tells you to use a bicycle and public transportation (I hated that), besides he was vice president when the US was at war and besides the political bias that wraps it, his work is why we are all[*1] here talking about climate change. It rose awareness about a topic that concerns us all. It made the topic mainstream. So, although the "peace" word doesn't fit that exactly, I think it's the right thing. It doesn't matter WHO wont it (don't forget the IPCC), but what are the news talking about today.
/. crowd, I refer to everyone, from taxi drivers and the guy at the grocery store to politicians.
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2007/
"for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change"
*1 - By all I refer not to the
Are you aware that you are replying to someone from India? WE don't HAVE NOTHING.
Yes, there is a middle class, but there is a huge impoverished class that constitutes the majority of Indians. Don't forget them! Maybe they are not in your caste, so let me remind you of what wealth is and isn't.
The per capita income in India is $800 a year. That's not even enough for a playstation 3 and a couple of games. By contrast, the official poverty line in the USA is around $10,000 a year for a single person, increasingly gradually with the size of the family. Most liberals would argue that this line is too low, and I'd be hard pressed to argue with them.
The average upper middle class family in the USA has of a few thousand square feet, two cars that are less than 7 years old, sometimes their own private swimming pool (35,000 gallons of fresh water), a few tv sets, digital cable, clothing that is usually not more than one or two years old, and usually eats some sort of dish consisting of either a variety of meats and imported vegetables often twice per day. For the most part, it is possible for an American to spend the vast majority of their time in an air conditioned building, either at home, or, at work. So, unless you are pulling down more than, I'd say, 30-40k as a minimum, have a big house, a couple of new cars, a few ipods (including a couple the kids broke), some video games, a few computers, in addition to all the stuff that I mentioned before, then you really don't have that much.
And, again, you ought to take a drive and visit the vast majority of your countrymen that do not even have barely enough food, let alone an air conditioned house.
This is my sig.
It's hardly a mansion. I've seen it. It's a house. It's also the headquarters for his entire organization. He uses it for entertaining and fundraising. He has $1000 a plate dinners to support democratic congressional candidates and that kind of thing.
Seriously, what is he supposed to do when he has private dinners for visiting world leaders? Rent the banquet room at the Holiday Inn?
He is what he is: a leader on the world stage. There is a degree of pageantry that comes with that job that can't be ignored.
To make things realy go, you need to make carbon penalties very large. New Jersey has decided to do away with its solar rebates and now plans to set penalties for utilities not having the required amount of solar power in their system at more than double the current $0.30 per kWh sold. People who buy solar power systems will be issued Solar Renewable Energy Certificates (SRECs) according to their generation which they may sell to New Jersey utlities at a market price (around $0.20/kwh presently http://markets.flettexchange.com/njsrec units are $/MWh). Utilities are planning on making loans to help people install solar power which would be repaid in these SRECs. Because the penalty is so high, and the opportunity for those with solar power capability to profit is so large, it seems likely that New Jersey's Renewable Energy Standards for solar will be met with ease. Offsets can be traded voluntarily and such, but mandated fractions of renewable energy with effective enforcement penalties will be more sucessful I think.
--
Rent solar power for you home and save (unless you want NJSRECs): http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users-selling-solar.html
to them and STILL increased your pollution.
How fucked up is that?
His acceptance speech should be: "I'd like to thank George Bush for making me look like a total genius"
"And ofcourse the Starbucks coffee sipping, internet browsing macbook using hippies".
...since he invented global warming. ;)
laugh people...it's not the end of the world...ok, maybe it is...but laugh anyways
Perhaps you missed the last few sentences: During the last 1000 years, snow cover on Lake Baikal has been inferred from past diatom assemblages, and is closely linked to weakening of the North Atlantic Oscillation, allowing increasing intensity of the Siberian High to develop and during the 17th and 18th centuries. In the last 150 years, diatom species have been shown to be sensitive indicators of recent warming. However, impacts from future global warming will be complex, and are likely to impact not only on the balance between endemic and cosmopolitan diatoms throughout the lake, but on the balance between siliceous and non-siliceous algae, and sources of primary productivity. What I did not see is any reference to or debunking of human-generated carbon dioxide as a current forcing. That angle was helpfully added by the DailyTech writer you link from your journal entry.
The existense of a number of naturally-driven cycles is well known and well supported. But their existence does not supplant anthropogenic carbon as a forcing--rather, they interact with it. Natural cycles and carbon dioxide impacts are operating simultaneously, and understanding their interactions is one of the goals of computer modelling.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
The truth is whether or not global warming is natural or man-made is a side topic. The fact is that we should be doing everything to reduce pollution that we can. We made great strides in reducing pollution from cars, and this same approach needs to be vigorously applied to industry. Do that and we will also reduce our green house gas emissions. The debate on the cause of global warming distracts from our need for cleaner air and water. The Indians and Chinese don't want to cut down their levels of pollution, and look at their rates of environmentally caused diseases.
_ Myth: The prize is awarded to recognize efforts for peace, human rights and democracy only after they have proven successful.
More often, the prize is awarded to encourage those who receive it to see the effort through, sometimes at critical moments in a process.
Read the rest of this very interesting article here.
And when I think about all the recent Nobel peace prize laureates, I can see that the above holds true. No one knew the 2005 winner, the Iranian Women and Children rights activist, Shirin Ebadi, before the Nobel prize was handed out to her (and I am saying this as an Iranian), but the prize did bring months of media attention and world focus to the issue (the issue of human rights in Iran).
--
Again, I think the Nobel prize committee wanted to send George Bush a message: "You are wreaking destruction and death; see how much better some other people are spending their energies." So this was as much an anti-war Nobel as it was a peace Nobel.
Much like the Dixie Chicks winning all those Grammies, this was a statement against Bush than for Gore.
Shouldn't he have been nominated for the prize in physics? Why did he win a prize in a political category? How does putting out a pseudo-scientific Hollywood blockbuster film help the situation in Darfur, or the tensions between Kurdish Iraq and Turkey, or the violence in the Gaza Strip? Oops, I'm sure that last one was taken care of by Yasser Arafat, when he won in 1994!
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Neil Stephenson's book The Diamond Age had a great passage about hypocrisy, which unfortunately I don't have at hand. The one-sentence summary is that the Victorians should be admired because knew they were hypocritical but they tried to better themselves and their society anyway.
:-)
People fixate on the hypocrisy of Gore because it is an easy attack. But while you can tear a man down, if his message is right then it will survive and grow. People used to kill the messenger all the time if they didn't like the message. The cliched admonition against it reflects its ultimate impact--close to none. It's satisfying but a waste of time.
Or let's look at his co-recipient this way--each IPCC report is thousands of pages long. Just printing the new version every couple years fixes quite a bit of atmospheric carbon.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Has someone developed a photovoltaic solar panel that produces natural gas?
we like it here. you'll see if you make a MAJOR mistake there will be comments that says "please leave your geek membership card to reception on your way out".
high school is dead. this is internet.
Read radical news here
If you contribute to carbon fixing then that offsets from the carbon you release, reducing the net product. By your argument maybe we should judge companies just by their revenue and ignore their expenses and investments?
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Apparently you really can win even if you don't buy the magazines!
I bet he was really surprised when that Prize Patrol van pulled up
in front and they came to the door with all the balloons. Man,
that is exciting.
I'm gonna make sure I send in my entry next year. You gotta
enter to win!
Er, no, that doesn't follow from any argument I made.
My point is that instead of e.g. listing everything some committee decided is wasteful and banning it or otherwise ridiculing people who don't stop it; and instead of trying to discern which offset company is really deducting from my footprint, we should just, assuming the claims of carbon harms are too be taken seriously:
- Place a tax on carbon fuels at $X per ton of emission and let people decide how to adapt.
- Place a bounty of $Y per ton of CO2 removed from the atmosphere (i.e. that you can prove you removed, through some auditable transparent process), and let the most effecient organizations get these bounties.
But then, that's minimal inconvenience and maximum robustness so obviously it's no good.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
So you can say what you want about the current award participant, but you are dead wrong about the peace prize being in any way inferior to the other Nobel prizes.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Nomads & herders are ALWAYS in conflict with farmers. It's called 'civilization'.
--
phunctor
Let's see: your first point is about Mr Gore allegedly redefining words. Funny I read several daily newspapers and closely follow this issue and I have not been struck by Mr Gore attempting to redefine words. Is it really that important? More important that the underlying issue of Global Climate Change? Seems to me you're quibbling. Your second point is merely about Bush and is showing your Republican leanings. So, you're an apologist for the Republicans? That's what's really important to you about this issue, that I may have defamed George Bush by implying that he did not win the presidency? Is that really your take away point from this? I am so bored with Republicans...
Why give a prize for something someone DID when you could give him a prize for something he MIGHT do?
In fact, let's just award the next Peace Prize to someone for something she WOULD HAVE done!
At that time, he was preaching that we would have cheap gas for a decade or more, while Gore was saying that Gas prices HAD to go up. At the time, the gas was something like 1.40/gal. By trying to paint a false picture, he was actively encouraging large gas guzzlers, and said so.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
...but there's this great section in Wikipedia on this:
"On July 25, 1997, before the Kyoto Protocol was finalized (although it had been fully negotiated, and a penultimate draft was finished), the U.S. Senate unanimously passed by a 95-0 vote the Byrd-Hagel Resolution (S. Res. 98),[65][66] which stated the sense of the Senate was that the United States should not be a signatory to any protocol that did not include binding targets and timetables for developing as well as industrialized nations or "would result in serious harm to the economy of the United States". On November 12, 1998, Vice President Al Gore symbolically signed the protocol. Both Gore and Senator Joseph Lieberman indicated that the protocol would not be acted upon in the Senate until there was participation by the developing nations.[67] The Clinton Administration never submitted the protocol to the Senate for ratification."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol
Maybe you should get facts straight before accusing him of anything. Looks like Gore was the only one in all of government who supported it.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
Condemning hypocrisy over all other sins neatly optimizes the power of the media. I find media fondness for this meme unsurprising -- and correspondingly easier to discount.
--
phunctor
1985: International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War - "for spreading authoritative information and by creating an awareness of the catastrophic consequences of atomic warfare." Because that was so unclear, before? The Nobel committee clearly just wanted to jump in with a big "F-you Ronald Reagan" like everyone else in Europe.
1988: United Nations Peace-Keeping Forces - sure, because we can count all the places where they've been employed, that are now firmly at peace....
1990: Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev - "for his leading role in the peace process which today characterizes important parts of the international community"...unbelieveable. This was the second of the "F.U.-USA" nobel prizes.
1994: Yasser Arafat? Har de har har.
2001: United Nations & Kofi Annan - "for their work for a better organized and more peaceful world" bwahahahahaaha
2002: Jimmy Carter - for being the last US president impotent enough to satisfy the world community.
2005: International Atomic Energy Agency & Mohamed ElBaradei : Another direct "FU USA (Bush)" nobel prize. Nice job in India, Pakistan, NKorea, and Iran!
They've made some good choices over the decades, but in the last 20 years their penchant for political 'statement' and theatricality has made them mostly irrelevant.
-Styopa
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Sorry, but I can't give Gore any kind of pass on technology when he was such a great proponent of the Clipper Chip, which would have been government controlled key escrow with the government literally holding the keys to communication!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Again showing the Prize goes to the loudest liberal decrying the largest liberal cause.
What those who want activist courts fear is rule by the people.
I can't believe that this choice for the prize is anything but a political statement by the committee.
Hate to break it to you, but politics are exactly what the Nobel Peace Prize is all about.
According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize should be awarded "to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses".
I don't know why China and India shouldn't bear so much of the burden of the Kyoto Protocol. Oh, hang on, perhaps because they are poor, third world countries perhaps.
WTF? China, perhaps you've heard of them? Spending countless billions hosting the Olympics next year?
Even India has a huge GDP, I don't think you can really get away with calling the nation a "third world" country.
By your standards what is Russia?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Scientists are whores, aye? Spread the doom-n-gloom (never mind if it's all made up) and you can make a bundle.
I'm tellin' ya guys, this is just another hoax. See also:
Killer Bees that will attack people on the streets as early as 1979
The coming Ice Age that will engulf NYC before the year 2000
The invisible Ozone Hole that'll burn off our skin
Killer Earthquakes, cats sleeping with dogs, it's all over.
There *is* a climate change going on. But CO2 (now called a 'pollutant' by the EPA) doesn't cause it, it corrects it.
There is no 'perfect' climate...how do we know the change won't be better?
These are the people who can't predict the weather past 3-5 days; how can they tell us in 20 years we'll be under sea water?
The media is sure in control of those who can't be bothered with the facts.
And in balance, recall the recpient of the first Nobel Peace Prize: Orville and Wilbur for the aeroplane. With it, wars would be impossible.
--- For a good time mail uce@ftc.gov
It is very interesting to compare legacies and post-office work done by the past few presidents and VP's.
On the Democrat side we have Clinton, Gore, and Carter. Two Nobel Prizes there, and Clinton has been globablly recognized for his foundation work and even been suggested for high-ranking positions at the UN.
On the Republican side you have Reagen, Bush Sr, Bush Jr. Most Republicans just fade into obscurity after their terms are over. Okay, so Bush Sr did do some travel after the tsunami a few years ago, but he did that with Clinton as well.
He should have won for the best (only?) implementation of Apple's fine Keynote software. (keeping it in the tone of slashdot)
He needed the other half to buy carbon offsets for his private jet.
I will gladly agree with you that Clinton did lie about Monica Lewinsky. However, I find it absurd that you do not mention GW Bush's lies that ended up getting us into this train wreck of a war? [The peace prize went to Gore and so you bringing Clinton into this has as much relevance as me bringing in Bush/] Sir, your outrage is misguided. In the eyes of history--which will be written long after we are all dead--which lie do you think will seem more egregious?
A lie that caused embarrassment to everyone? [Clinton]
Or
A lie that caused the deaths of thousands of humans, both American and Iraqi?
I speak as someone who lives in Manhattan and travels by the World Trade Center site daily. Despite the deaths there, I find Bush's lies tremendously evil and counter productive. Notice I don't have a problem with Bush's war in Afganistan--that was justified. But Iraq? That was Bush finishing his Daddy's business. GW Bush will live in infamy for the rest of his life and beyond.
Actually, his work with his wife in saving my children from harmful song lyrics is by far his best work yet!
2005
MOHAMED ELBARADEI (Chairman of the International Atomic Energy Agency). He done such a good job covering for Iran.
2004
WANGARI MAATHAI. The Kenyan ecologist teaches that the AIDS virus is a biological agent deliberately created by the White Man.
2002
JIMMY CARTER JR., former President of the United States of America.
Was given prize for undermining the foreign policy of his own country. Has vouched for the bona fides of tyrants and murderers all over the world, and can be counted on to whitewash fake elections everywhere.
2001
UNITED NATIONS, New York, NY, USA, and KOFI ANNAN, United Nations Secretary General.
Among other things, they respectively served as the vehicle for, and presided over, one of the biggest frauds in history -- Saddam's Oil for Palaces scam.
1994
YASSER ARAFAT (joint winner), Chairman of the Executive Committee of the PLO, President of the Palestinian National Authority.
A cold-blooded murderer before and after receiving the award.
1992
RIGOBERTA MENCHU TUM, Guatemala. "Author" I, Rigoberta Menchu, which fraudulently claimed to be her auto-biography, but was actually communist propaganda fabricated by the wife of a noted French Communist.
1988
THE UNITED NATIONS PEACE-KEEPING FORCES New York, NY, U.S.A.
Failed to prevent genocide in Rawanda. Committed rapes and sex abuse in Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea and the Congo. Has not brought peace anywhere.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
Improving fraternity between nations, reducing military forces and promoting peace are ACCOMPLISHMENTS. Modern politics is nothing but idiots slinging mud at each other and has nothing to do with real solutions to problems. In the past, the Nobel Peace Prize has been given to recognize people and groups who have made progress. By giving the prize to Gore and the IPCC, they are hoping that the committee's action IS the progress, in an area unrelated to the purported purpose of the prize to boot. Nothing but an attempt to give a black eye to those they disagree with. They want some action taken on global warming and are abusing their positions to attempt to force it.
Al Gore and the IPCC haven't done jackshit for fraternity between the nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies or for the holding and promotion of peace congresses, and the Nobel Prize committee should be fucking ashamed of themselves for veering away from the achievement based prize selections of the past.
. . .of meaningfulness of the Nobel Peace Prize.
Maybe next year it'll go to Ahmedinejad or Kim Jong Il.
...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
5,000 tons of polution is 5,000 tons of polution, regardless of if it comes from 500 people or 5 people. It still does the same damage.
Per Capita is totally irrelvant, only absolute levels matter.
You obviously missed the part where global warming will lead to major international conflicts and wars if we don't do something about it. His work does have a major effect on future peace.
Sorry, but BS.
Yes, it's true that Al Gore wrote and sponsored the High Performance Computing and Communications Act of 1991 (aka "Information Superhighway Bill"), and I'll agree that it should be considered one of, perhaps the most important, highlights of his congressional career, but anything more is giving him too much credit.
First of all, the internet was inevitably growing with or without congressional funding. Tim Berniers Lee created HTML and the first web browser two years earlier. Email had been around and growing steadily in usage since 1966. TCP/IP, which is perhaps the most important element in the universality of the internet, was created in the 70's. All the information superhighway bill did was speed things up a little bit.
Speaking of which, what did the bill do? It set goals for federal use of the internet and provided funding for educational use and several development projects, most notably the Mosaic web browser. Applaudable, but in the grand scheme of things a footnote in internet history.
Lastly, this was hardly some revolutionary concept Gore came up with. It was based on a 1988 report to congress by a technology group chaired by one of the creators of ARPAnet.
However, if you want to argue that his contributions to the internet were more profound than his hypocritical fact-twisting on global warming, I whole-heartedly agree.
"However, I'd guess if you look around hard enough, you could find five, or maybe even six billion people around the world who live out Al Gore's message better than he does."
Given that at the end of "An Inconvenient Truth", they put up on the screen that you can reduce your carbon output to 0, I would guess that there are not any people who live by Al Gores message. Although, I do look forward to Al Gore demonstrating his technique for this.
This just proves that he would have been a great president, to bad that slimy, good for nothing got away with literally stealing it 7 years ago.
It seems that it is you who doesn't know what the Nobel Peace Prize stands for. So please read this link about the misconceptions people have. The price is there to award, and especially: raise awareness of a person (and his cause/message) who devoted time and energy into promoting a more peaceful world. They are not awarded for actually attaining peace - just have a look at the Israel-Palestinian conflict: Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin got the price in part for their efforts but in particular as an encouragement by the (neutral) panel to signify they were going in the right direction and people should follow that spirit. Unfortunately certain people didn't and the 1994 price, as of now, failed its true purpose.
So, after seeing what the price really stands for (granted, the name might be a bit misleading), it isn't really that strange that Al Gore got it this time around.
Oh, but it is highly relevant if you want to do something more practical than argue about who is to blame.
The reason we look at per capita pollution is because we are not so unrealistic as to believe that people can avoid polluting altogether. Therefore it is safe to say that if you have a case of 5 people generating 5000 pounds of pollution on one hand, and 500 hundred people generating the same net pollution on the other, your greatest opportunity for reductions are with the five people. It may not be possible to achieve any reduction from the 10 lb per capita in the latter case, but it is at least physically possible to reduce the pollution in the former case by as much as 4,550 lb.
The question is whether you can do so without reducing the five people to the state of misery currently experienced by the 500. On the other hand, the 500 people might not be able to survive at all, so if those were your only choices, sure, I'd send five people to huts rather than 500 to their grave.
The unreality of this discussion is it ignores the power of wealth. Where there is wealth, ingenuity goes to serve it. This means that wealthy people have choices, and their choices matter. If the five people want to reduce their pollution, they either have or soon will have alternatives that are nearly good (or maybe better) than what they are using now, but generate less waste.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
That same page you link to has an interesting graph. Seems to correlate to global warming nicely. You should look up some solar radiation studies, you'd be surprised how well the data correlates.
Look at the prize winners in other fields. There is no question as to their contribution to that specific discipline. Here, however, there is a very tenuous connection. They say that global warming will cause wars, and thus by preventing it will prevent wars. That relies off of a whole bunch of assumptions:
1) That global warming is human caused. I'm not interested in debating this, but realise that it is an assumption.
2) That Gore/the IPCC's proposals will cause it to be stopped. Just because they are proposing things limiting CO2 doesn't mean it'll be enough to affect global warming. There are a good number of alarmist types out there who say we are way past the critical point and we'd have to shut down like 90% of human industry to stop it, something that Gore fell well short of advocating.
3) That anything can be done. May be that no matter what we do we just aren't capable of preventing it.
4) That global warming will lead to bad things. Again this is an assumption, there are plenty of arguments to how a warmer globe will lead to more abundance, nor more scarcity.
5) That wars wouldn't break out anyhow in the same regions for different reasons. Sadly enough, the "issues" behind a war often aren't, they are simply an excuse for the behaviour, not the actual reason behind it.
So only if that's all true, if humans are causing global warming, if we can stop it with change, if what Gore is proposing is the required change, if that change will prevent scarcity and preventing scarcity will prevent wars, is his work actually peace related. Even if that's all true, it's still pretty tenuous. I mean someone might make an amazing discovery in physics that gives us nearly limitless energy, that allows for the improving lives everywhere. Still, that's be a prize for Physics, not Peace, even if we thought the ultimate result would be less war because of more abundance.
As such I'd say it is real tenuous to say he's helping peace. Sounds like your man is a much better candidate. It is entirely possible that Gore/IPCC's work is more important in the scheme of humanity, but that doesn't matter. This is an award for the work in peace, and Martti Ahtisaari seems to have done that, whereas Gore's work lies along another path.
Freedom of speech at it's finest. Idiots taking advantage of a Nobel Peace Prize announcement to knock Clinton and Bush. Not sure I see the connection, but such is Slashdot's finest.
As the climate changes, somewhere upwards of a billion coastal dwellers will be displaced. If melting arctic ice shuts down the gulf stream, the temperature decrease could reduce the productivity of farmland in Europe and North America by 75% or more.
Changes in the balance of resources can trigger the biggest wars of them all. How many wars has the world already fought over oil, food, water, or salt? (yes, salt, look it up).
Add to that the fact that the world will know in advance who is primarily responsible for the CO2 emissions that f*cked up their countries (1st world nations, most notably the US), and will be looking for someone to blame. If you think the world hates the US now, just wait until many great cities are underwater and half a billion have died, and they can point to a single nation for having emitted 40% of world's historical output of greenhouse gasses and having refused every treaty to try to reduce them. Al Qaeda will have a lot of friends.
Climate change may not be causing wars *now*, but many people believe it will likely lead to the worst worldwide wars in history. The biggest difference one can make to any war is to prevent it in the first place, and Gore is working as hard on that front as anyone is. He absolutely deserves the peace prize.
I stole this sig from someone cleverer than me.
"it" being the problem.
Developing countries like China and India haven't had an enormous bonfire of fossil fuels over the last two centuries. It's the developed world that did that. So the current increase in CO2 is not the fault of china or india, it's the 'fault' of the west.
And please, can we stop pretending that what we do with our individual homes is the problem? The problem is transportation and industry, especially manufacturing. Talking about Gore's home is like standing in a burning building and blowing out a candle.
The plural form of "anecdote" is "anecdotes", not "evidence".
hmm run for president.
fail.
make a sensationalist scaremongering documentary full of inaccuracies
fail.
win oscar and nobel peace prize!
I thought the nobel peace prize was for people that help eliminate human suffering. All Al Gore did was make a bullshit politicamentary and lose an election.
-AC
"Al Gore's one message is that CO2 drives climate change. ALL scientific evidence points to this being false -- in fact, not even plausible."
are you like the climate change version of a creationist or ufo cultist?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Who would have thought that not being president in 2000 would lead him to get an Academy Award, an Oscar and now the Nobel Prize. I think I would rather win all of these awards than be president anyways with all of the stuff that is going on now. I think Al Gore is correct about global warming and I hate to scratch biblical or poetic, what if we win the war on terrorist but destroy the entire world to environmental disaster what would we have gain? Again, congratulations to Al Gore and his colleagues for promoting peace in the world.
Only goons like you will be living in mud huts.
The rest of us will be living it up in our new (or retrofitted) environmentally friendly, off-the-grid homes. We'll be driving electric cars, and loving every minute of it. Technology is a wonderful thing, eh?
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
Interesting things happen with the scores on this very topic. While parts of Gore's film are definitely lacking scientific background, and emotional manipulations are used extensively and intentionally, there is still a core truth inside. Watching the conversation here I see a tendency to forgetting that while we are picking the questionable parts of Gore's work. Is this the thing we call "critical intelligence"? As a true elite we should give an example here on how to discuss controversal theories properly - for the sake of everybody. So many other Slashdot discussions have been great pieces of information and inspiration, even for people actually working on the stuff discussed. Let's make this one the same quality. Greetings, Chris
"An operating system must operate."
- not science.
There's no doubt the climate is changing, is it man made change? That debate is NOT settled.
Retreating glaciers in Europe have uncovered mines used by Romans 2000 years ago.
The Nobel prize now has about as much meaning to me as UN Security Council resolutions.
Enjoy your kool-aid.
All the complaining at /. reminds of a funny story:
Last semester there was a debate at my school between a resident climatologist and some national "Global-Warming-doesn't-exist" guy. The climatologist cited lots of numbers; studies; and published, peer-reviewed articles. The anti-climate-change guy just attacked Al Gore over and over again.
Finally, the climatologist said, "Al Gore isn't here, isn't coming, and isn't relevant. Do you have any argument that doesn't include him?" He didn't.
There are legitimate reasons not to support the carbon emission standards and other environmental initiatives. Unfortunately, the best that side can muster is, "Al Gore is a loser!" And that argument's not going to change anyone's mind.
What the hell. What WOULD make you happy. The man has basically devoted his life for the past seven years to this problem. If he has introduced some inaccuracies in his movie--so what. The basic science and overall point is not in dispute. The vast majority of what he said in that movie was accurate and meaningful. And, if you read a daily newspaper you might have noticed that climate scientists have been surprised at the speed of the disintegration of the arctic, Greenland [as of 13 days ago, in fact] and antarctica.
What would you expect him to do? The point is not that he's a scientist doing original research--he's not and never claimed to be. The point is not the state and condition of climate science. The point is that Gore used his celebrity and powers of persuasion to raise the visiblity of this issue. You said:
"He also trades in certain mistruths (eg water levels rising) that lose all respect."
He's not teaching a graduate-level class in climate science, dude. He's trying to explain to Joe Sixpack why it's the concensus of the climate science community that we have a problem and that humans are a cause of it. I just find it amazing how people spend their energy whining about niggling issues that are not relevant. Where is your sense of proportion? Do you think that the generally insignificant inaccuracies in the movie proportionally outweigh the benefits of his message? If you say we lose respect--in whose eyes? The GOP? Who the fuck cares what they think? They never cared a damn about the environment--not ever. They just care about staying rich. If you think Gore is the problem--you're a fool.
Are we at war with our climate? We seem to get what we want for the most part. Green house gases? Not our problem burn that s***. It is the classic sheep hearder problem. You win by having the most sheep you can, you lose because everyone tries to do that and there isn't enough food.
I hope he lives long enough to see them take it back.
He's full of shit, and he jumped on the bandwagon just to keep his name in lights. He hasn't raised awareness of the issue, rather he has injected fallacious arguments into the feeble minds of the general population. Now the hard part is to change their minds to reflect the real truth. ie. Are they really suggesting that we try to halt climate change ?
Think about it before you flame.
Most of the cars you guys send over here don't get very impressive gas mileage and they break all the time. Anyone who is interested in good gas mileage is freely able to buy a Japanese econo-car here.
The judge did not say all those assertions were "unfounded."
His ruling referred to items that were in dispute as "errors" (notice the quotes).
...He was talking about "errors" that were alleged by the plaintiff, and thus, in dispute in his courtroom.
For example, look at this sentence, which I just made-up:
In the interest of a fair and informed debate in the classroom, these "errors" may require a contradictory argument in the classroom.
An 'error' is not the same thing as an error
...The Nobel Prize for alchemy has also been awarded to Al Gore, for transmuting bullshit into gold.
The skeptics are the "doom and gloom" crowd. The optimists are the ones saying it isn't actually so bad.
You don't like the optimists.
Al Gore has done as much to Climate Change awareness as much as Richard Gere has to AIDS awareness in India! Al Gore's message is practically for idiots who have no idea about global warming. Even in that category, I think Discovery Channel, National Geographic etc seem to have done much more. Even the IPCC is a joke. You get Nobel for publishing reports which every scientist already agrees? I thought IPCC was a farce put on by governments to keep on talking and not doing anything that actually matters.
I'm so confused.
I took his comment to mean that he did understand the whole thing, but still can't thinking of the statement and making the parody of a joke. I.e., he's laughing at those who think that Al Gore said he invented the internet and is not actually one of them himself. At least, that's how I interpret his statement.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Please don't lump those two together. Michael Moore's movies do tend to have a fair bit of misrepresentation in them. Perhaps not as much as a typical Bush/Cheney speech, but still...
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Setting aside the question of whether humans cause Global Climate Change [which I accept], we cannot fall for the delusion that this would be good for us.
Why? Okay, around the world plants and animals have evolved to match their environment. Plants are located in the spots where they are because--overall--the climate at that location is appropriate for that plant or that animal. So, if we alter the climate on any timescale beyond a few millenia, all those plants and animals are suddenly not suited for the climate where they live. They die then. Have you ever heard of a thing called a Tree lie on a mountain? Well, that means the point at which trees are suited to their environemtn. The tree line is that place where suddenly the prevailing environment crosses a line where it no longer allows the trees. If we change the climate quickly--all those animals and plants and their evolutionary adaptations are screwed--dead.
Now, if you're someone who doesn't give a damn about the animals or the plants--fine. You of course won't mind the awakened tropical diseases and the insects that will flourish. That means mosquitos. Sound like a lot of fun?
In short, global warming will not be a benefit to anybody. The introduction of greater amounts of energy into the system is expected to make for more severe weather. Now, we were fortunate that hurricanes did not hit the US last year. Well, maybe the prevailing hurricanes would--for the sake of argument--no longer strike Florida, Louisiana or Texas. What, then, if they move North? Say to South Carolina. I'm just using that as a hypothetical example.
The overall point is that nobody should be foolish enough to think that global climate change somehow has an upside. It does not.
So I shouldn't bother with the florescent lights or turning down the thermostat if I can afford it? Or does that personal exemption only apply to Al?
I thought the point was we all have to do our part.
878659 - yep its prime.
That's the rub exactly. And my new position as well on my future Nobel Prize.
Gore wins Nobel Peace Prize.
Supreme Court to seize it and award it to George W. Bush.
You know, when I first read about this I thought it was a joke.
I still cannot believe it.
It is ridiculous, really.
-Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
If we want to restrict the emissions of carbon, we need to put a price on it. Period. The price need not be onerous. Say that we went the route of taxing carbon emissions. The tax could be small in the beginning, but there would be a clear promise that the tax would rise in the future (along with a corresponding decrease in income tax). It is the expectation of a higher future price that will cause individuals to buy more efficient cars and houses. If they invest in an efficient car, and in devices to make household heating more efficient, then they will not pay the higher tax rate in the future, because their emissions will have fallen.
If you knew that gasoline prices would rise significantly in the future, would you buy a 10mpg suv? Would you buy a huge suburban house 50 miles from your workplace if you knew that the price of daily commuting would double in 10 years? If you knew heating costs would rise significantly in the future, wouldn't you want to put forth the effort to build an efficient home? Ground-source geothermal heating systems cost $10000 to $20000, and can save 30% or more in heating/cooling costs. Having a tightly sealed/well insulated home with an outside air heat exchanger can also save huge amounts too. In the grand scheme of things, the investments needed to reduce individual carbon emissions are not huge. All we need are the economic incentives to cause such products to become mainstream.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
What a farce! I haven't been paying attention in the past, so someone please tell me when the Nobel Peace Prize plummeted to the status of being worth __less__ than a bucket of s(h|p)it. This is an outright embarrassment!
Perhaps we could use a new "Not fucking up the world" Nobel Prize, because personally, as much as I do respect Al's work, it doesn't really fall into the peace catagory.
Actually, the reverse is kind of true. A more inhospitible world = a world that is unable to carry as large a population as our world today does = less people to bicker and fuck shit up with each other = less wars = more peace.
Unless, of course, there was some overarching and immediate threat that applied equally to every human being to pull us all together such as....oh I dunno, the environment getting well fucked?
Oh nevermind...that didn't work...
that on one hand, we have Al Gore, elected president by the people of the USA but didn't become it somehow whom which is consumed in his free time to fight climate change, is now a Nobel Peace Prize winner and another on the other, we have Dubya, who was not elected president but somehow became president anyway, whom which is consumed in his free time to fight brush at his Texas ranch, now probably a war criminal.
bleah.
"So I shouldn't bother with the florescent lights or turning down the thermostat if I can afford it? Or does that personal exemption only apply to Al?
I thought the point was we all have to do our part."
Well, as much as that makes for a "bon mot", it doesn't make for much of an argument.
No, it's not that you shouldn't bother, or that Gore gets an exemption, (although I've read some allegations that Gore has since cleaned up his act by installing solar panels and buying from more-expensive-but-cleaner sources of electricity, like wind power. No idea if that's true, just food for thought...) it's that even if Gore lives in a 20,000 square foot mansion, and commutes to work by helicopter, it's still a drop in the bucket compared to things like coal fired power plants. The actions of one person compared to the actions of millions are just not that significant.
So given those of us who would like to agitate for change have finite time and other resources, should we concern ourselves with Al Gore's house or are there bigger fish to fry?
The only reason Al Gore's house is worth mentioning is if you accept the premise (very common these days, even though it's grade A bullshit) that one can only speak out on a particular issue if your own personal life is in some sort of 'state of grace' regarding the issue in question.
Which, incidentally, is a great way to silence debate and preserve the status quo.
The plural form of "anecdote" is "anecdotes", not "evidence".
Amusing to see the ranting against Al Gore. We all know he won in 2000, not just nationally, but even in Florida. At least we know it if we believe "the will of the voters" is supposed to count.
In a sense it doesn't matter. Reality ultimately prevails. The reality delivered by Dubya Bush is miserable failure.
By the way, I don't hate Dubya. I just love America and hate to see it harmed. Dubya is just grist for the historians' mills now--and his record of miserable failures will hopefully never be surpassed.
Regarding the actual ruler of America, the Dick Cheney just wants to die with the most toys. I hope he gets his wish--and as soon as possible.
Oh yeah. A joke. There should be a "poor joke" icon for this kind of post. Spam is Al Gore's fault. As a Senator, he was too good at getting money for them while they were developing the Internet. He kept telling them not to worry about the money, and he kept it flowing--and that's why SMTP has the built-in fantasy that email is "free". No such thing as free in a real economy. (Free is only for such things as ideas, but that's too tangential here.)
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Al Gore is responsible for the biggest flame war on the internet (which he invented!)
I'm not really comparing Moore to other documentaries, I'm really comparing recent Moore to Moore-classic (and An Inconvenient Truth). Each of Moore's documentaries seems to play a little looser with the facts than the previous one (although I haven't watched Sicko). I really liked Roger & Me and have nothing but praise for it. Bowling for Columbine took a few liberties but might not be worse than the "average documentary". Fahrenheit 9/11 bothered me with the liberties it took. I don't frequent Michael Moore "fact-check" sites, so I don't know what they're saying—I just know the things that struck me as wrong, which I then compared to what I found out through research to be, in fact, wrong. (It's been a while since I've watched it, so I could only give you a limited list if you're really interested.)
As for the seriousness of his mistakes as compared to Bush's mistakes, I agree completely. Moore's responsibility to truth is not as grave as Bush's. That said, his mistakes do undermine the cause he's trying to support, and, as such, he should try to remain ever vigilant.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Don't pretend that your armchair analysis is balanced or reasonable. "to me it's clear there's NOT scientific consensus on the _cause_ of global warming or what's going to happen 50 years from now" The IPCC report is the consensus:
"Most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations."
Footnotes on page 4 of the summary indicate very likely and likely mean "the assessed likelihood, using expert judgment", are over 90% and 66% respectively.
(IPCC Report #4)
=S
I can only assume we have some impact. Is it 100% our fault? I find that difficult to believe given that we have not been collecting data for very long and we occupy such an insignificant amount of the surface of this planet it is ridiculous.
Who is moderating your "assuming" and "believing" unreferenced no-citation mindgames as Insightful? The activities of 6 billion people emit vast quantities of CO2 (5,410 million metric tons per year from the USA alone), enough to account for the large, unprecedented, accelerating increase in the level of CO2 in the atmosphere. You would expect by the simple well-understood physics of the greenhouse gas effect that this might have a warming effect. Which of those do you find difficult to believe? Why should anyone care?
From those observed phenomena and scientific principles, it's all up to climate scientists to model the effects on the atmosphere, NOT base it on what people feel.
=S
Where are you getting that information? Last time I checked the committee had a strict policy about not releasing the list of nominees...
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Read radical news here
Bit higher than India's national average, isn't it?
Yes, it is, and when you try to make me lower my energy consumption, you are ultimately trying to make me poorer. But of course, like all Orwellian double thinkers, Enviros will argue that if you have to have smaller houses, smaller cars, less water, less washing, that you will somehow have more. I bet finding that more will be harder than finding Jesus, for sure.
This is my sig.
Al Gore's 'nine Inconvenient Untruths'
Sally Peck
London Telegraph
Thursday October 11, 2007
Al Gore's environmental documentary An Inconvenient Truth contains nine key scientific errors, a High Court judge ruled yesterday.
The judge declined to ban the Academy Award-winning film from British schools, but ruled that it can only be shown with guidance notes to prevent political indoctrination.
In the documentary, directed by Davis Guggenheim, the former US vice president and environmental activist calls on people to fight global warming because "humanity is sitting on a ticking time bomb".
But Judge Michael Burton ruled yesterday that errors had arisen "in the context of alarmism and exaggeration" in order to support Mr Gore's thesis on global warming.
His criticism followed an unsuccessful attempt by Stewart Dimmock, a Kent school governor, to block the Government's plan to screen the documentary in more than 3,500 secondary schools in England and Wales.
(Article continues below)
The father of two claimed An Inconvenient Truth included "serious scientific inaccuracies, political propaganda and sentimental mush".
The film's distributor, Paramount, warns in its synopsis of the film: "If the vast majority of the world's scientists are right, we have just ten years to avert a major catastrophe that could send our entire planet into a tail-spin of epic destruction involving extreme weather, floods, droughts, epidemics and killer heat waves beyond anything we have ever experienced."
But the judge ruled that the "apocalyptic vision" presented in the film was politically partisan and thus not an impartial scientific analysis of climate change.
It is, he ruled, a "political film".
The nine alleged errors in the film
Mr Gore claims that a sea-level rise of up to 20 feet would be caused by melting of either West Antarctica or Greenland "in the near future". The judge said: "This is distinctly alarmist and part of Mr Gore's "wake-up call". He agreed that if Greenland melted it would release this amount of water - "but only after, and over, millennia"."The Armageddon scenario he predicts, insofar as it suggests that sea level rises of seven metres might occur in the immediate future, is not in line with the scientific consensus."
The film claims that low-lying inhabited Pacific atolls "are being inundated because of anthropogenic global warming" but the judge ruled there was no evidence of any evacuation having yet happened.
The documentary speaks of global warming "shutting down the Ocean Conveyor" - the process by which the Gulf Stream is carried over the North Atlantic to western Europe. Citing the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the judge said that it was "very unlikely" that the Ocean Conveyor, also known as the Meridional Overturning Circulation, would shut down in the future, though it might slow down.
Mr Gore claims that two graphs, one plotting a rise in C02 and the other the rise in temperature over a period of 650,000 years, showed "an exact fit". The judge said that, although there was general scientific agreement that there was a connection, "the two graphs do not establish what Mr Gore asserts".
Mr Gore says the disappearance of snow on Mt Kilimanjaro was directly attributable to global warming, but the judge ruled that it scientists have not established that the recession of snow on Mt Kilimanjaro is primarily attributable to human-induced climate change.
The film contends that the drying up of Lake Chad is a prime example of a catastrophic result of global warming but the judge said there was insufficient evidence, and that "it is apparently considered to be far more likely to result from other factors, such as population increase and over-grazing, and regional climate variability."
Mr Gore blames Hurricane Katrina and the consequent devastation in New Orleans on global warming, but the judge ruled there was "insufficient evidence to show that".
Mr Gore cit
This means that any Tom, Dick (sorry mr. vice pres.), or Harry can get a noble peasce prize just by producing a DVD. I think the current president should go out and make a DVD on how he killed all those unarmed women and childen in the middle east so his military industrial complex friends could siphon off billions and rob the American people. He could get a great "peace prize" for that. All he needs to do is make a DVD. Cool thing is; Make a DVD, Put millions in you pocket and get the peace prize. Very nice process. I love the new world order. This is a very good thing.
Gore did not invent MTBE. He even did not initiate using MTBE in US. But surely he helped to introduce legislations supporting the MTBE. The list of his contributions is long. So let me just remind the year 1997. Around that time Gore had nominated Carol Browner to be a head of EPA (the Environmental Protection Agency). And EPA continues its governmental role issuing a series of rules related to the Clean Air Act.
There were many reports about increasing presence of MTBE in drinking water (famous at the time the Santa Monica affair), but EPA and the presidential "National Science and Technology Council" (NSTC) did everything to hash the problem ... interpreting the
data as "below level of danger", "anecdotal evidence", etc.
Maybe someone would like to read one of the documents, available at
http://www.epa.gov/otaq/regs/fuels/ostpfin.pdf (the "Interagency Assessment of Oxygenated Fuels").
As is the rule, the NSTC is chaired by president (Clinton, at the time) and the v-president (as a member of this council) plays the executive prime role. ...
So, this way Al Gore had played a very important role into popularizing use of the MTBE.
Clearly, everybody can may mistakes.
But use of MTBE by 1997 was much more than just a mistake. There were already many signals from the academia about the dangers coming from MTBE. What a responsible leader should do in such a case? Should issue an executive order to stop using the chemical (at least temporarily) and request more studies on the subject.
Gore did not do it!
But now he is getting the Noble price for his role in the environment protection
The world is strange, indeed.
-zenon
"I think the Internet has had a more profound effect on human affairs than climatic change so far."
You said it : "so far".
And the nobel comittee it telling us to look into the future...
So you prefer to do it per country? Allow Luxembourg to produce as much pollution as the US? Or bring US down to the Andorra level? If you're considering limits (and actually, I don't think you are: free for all and who cares about next generations), you have to do it per something. So what would be your preferred way of quantifying the impact? Per country, per acre, per unit of economic output, or per capita? What would be the fairest way to make distinctions between various polluting entities?
Not according to this British Court:
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1670882,00.html
The "errors" this judge points out are some BIG ONES. Such as the alleged causal link between CO2 and temperature. Does anybody ever point out the ridiculous amounts of money Gore and other corporations stand to make if this hysteria goes any further and forces more legislative and trade policy changes?
Al Gore's lies have even be been disputed by his own environmental allies from the IPCC. John T. Houghton, co-chair IPCC Scientific Assessment working group 1988-2002, acknowledges that ice core samples show CO2 driven by temperature, not the reverse, as stated by Al Gore.
No, the Little Ice Age didn't begin until the 16th century. The Vikings were killed off centuries earlier, by the Black Death.
Which is why a carbon tax would do the job without any complicated, draconian state.
I started to lose any respect for the Prize in the late 80s, and a known terrorist receiving it just ended any respect the Prize could have possibly had left.
There are not Nobel Prizes for legislation, but the Peace prize is as close as it gets.
HOWEVER, there are Nobel prizes in SCIENCE. Note that neither the panel, nor Mr. Gore got one of them. There is a very good reason for that. Neither of them do science.
Then again, neither of them do Peace work either. But at least we still expect quantifiable results in the Peace prize scientific category. IIRC the Peace prize is the sole non-quantifiable, non-objective one.
It could be argued that the attempts by the politicians on the UN IPCC to create a world government, to control the economies of other countries and to generally lower the availability of energy, health care, and increasing standards of living amount to furthering the cause of war.
After all, the more well off a country, the less likely it is to go to war. When your country has no jobs because it doesn't have the energy to run an economy, and people are rioting or starving, peace accords are often among the first to go. When people flee natural disasters en-masse because they are not equipped to handle them because the governments have mandated the ability to do so away in the name of AGWH, and those people flee to neighboring countries, hostilities are likely to ensue.
My Suburban burns less gasoline than your Prius.
Although skeptical, I decided to do a little Google search to see if your information was accurate. I was surprised to find out that it is. (Surprised not because of you, personally, but because most unsourced claims on Slashdot turn out to be garbage.)
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Although that's arguably true, when you get your facts wrong, it tends to make it harder to convey that Truth...
Personally, I'm a big fan of unassailable facts—which, of course, have a well-known liberal bias!
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
I have read the reports also, and your statements leave me with a choice. Either you have spotted an obvious mistake that 2500 Nobel prize winning scientists somehow missed over the last 20 yrs...or...your comprehension is not so good.
Since I firmly belive in the scientific method I am bound to accept the second premise until you produce something other than a dead horse.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
I can't disagree with that. When I said "unassailable", I meant unassailable through the use of logic and observation. Once you throw those out the window, all bets are off.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Even if you factor in Gore running a business from his house (I suppose a check of zoning laws might be in order :-D) he still was consuming vast amounts of power. A large portion of that being the bill for his swimming pool and pool house.
He also has a habit of zooming around the world on private jets while shouting "the sky is falling!".
So, Gore is paying a premium for his wastrel life style. Goody for him. You realize of course that since he's buying that "green power" then someone else has to use the non-green power for their consumption.
Whatever happened to "conservation begins at home"? If things are really so darn bad then why isn't Al acting like it by changing his life style?
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
Were calling CO2 a bad gas despite the fact water vapor is a far more contributory factor to the 'greenhouse effect'. Were pushing CF bulbs because they are more energy efficient despite the fact that they contain mercury. As a father of two young kids Im uncomfortable having bulbs in my house which require I carefully air out the room, keep them away, and be sure to clean in a prescribed manner. This says nothing of the effects of *millions* of CFB and the mercury in them making their way to the dumps. Were pushing Ethonal which (1) raises the price of food in the US an Mexico (food which is of course a bigger part of the budget for the poor than the rich and (2) Actully produces more C02 per unit of energy than Gasoline. Were pushing Kyoto which holds no account over the two fastest CO2 producing nations in the worlds (China and India) Now All Gore gets the Nobel prize for his docudrama so riddled with 'small inaccuracies' and 'deceptive tactics' that in the UK its been labeled as political propaganda (and rightly so). Still the Nobel prize has lost allot of luster after they decided to give one to the founder of an organization that promoted suicide bombings against civilians, Gore is in good company...
I lived in Malaysia for a couple of years (check the weather: hot and humid).
Since a corporation was paying my bills they commented on them. They were quite happy because I was using 75% less electricity than the previous occupant of the flat in question. Venture a guess where this guy came from. I can almost bet you can figure out from which US state he was. This wasn't atypical, USians were the one using more energy and driving more miles. I walked regularly to the office, European colleagues used to bike (in spit of the horrendous traffic in Kuala Lumpur on those days, worsened by the construction of the Petronas Twin Towers) and our bills (non USians) were consistently substantially lower.
I also mandated that temperature in the office was raised to 22 degrees (Celsius, what the civilized world uses) from the insane, idiotic 17 that the previous person in charge (guess his country) has mandated.
To round my anecdotal experiences, I visited several times offices in the US, and very often people had to wear jumpers because it was too cold inside.
My conclusion, based entirely in anecdotal evidence, is that USians do not know how to use energy responsible.
Even Bush recognized the addictive relationship the US populace has with energy usage.
So keep finding excuses, nobody serious believes them.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
In all civilized countries you are given water when you request it in restaurants and shopping centers, independently of the climate.
Now check my very previous comment, I talk precisely about why this is all nonsense. You USians (but may the bunny help us when it comes to Texans) are not willing to do anything at all and frankly as dispendious beyond what is rationally acceptable.
You clearly don't understand how carbon credits work. Rwanda (or any other poor country) pollutes comparatively little (guys, screw this on your fucking head somewhere, you are 3% of the population, but contribute 25% of global pollution). Thus you buy credits from them so you can keep polluting (but it becomes an expense, so you will have to take measures against polluting to remain competitive) and they will use that money to finance those green technologies that you deride as expensive (go and for bunnies sakes visit Africa. Great people and you will stop the idiotic assumptions).
In Africa, with little or no infrastructure whatsoever, it is immensely cheaper to put solar panels in each house than to line expensive electric power lines for small villages scattered in big areas. The population of Africa is about the one in the US but the area is much bigger (check this for an idea: http://www.bu.edu/africa/outreach/materials/handouts/howbig.html). Local solar energy in a sunny continent becomes the only logic way forward, dispendious expensive mammoth projects are only economical for big towns, of which Africa hasn't got many.
As for Africa being where it is, it certainly does not help that both the EU and US keep subsidizing their agricultural industries (where the Africans could have a competitive advantage) and that they support the dictators your mention when it is convenient to their interests.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
In the US you just experienced the quasi destruction of a major city (New Orleans) due to a severe climate event.
According to most models, events like this will become more common in the future if nothing is done about green gas emissions. The US more less managed to cope. In the case of countries like Bangladesh you would have millions or refugees looking for resources far from the current coastlines. If you think that is not going to create any issues, well, is nice to know that some people can live detached from all reality and practical considerations.
There are many examples like how climate change would strain severely geopolitics, but frankly I don't feel like throwing my pearls of wisdom to the pigsty.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Oh yes, and 4000 years old.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Now that some perspective has been achieved the right wingers are left with a an ignorant political pygmy that gives conservatism a worst name than it deserves.
In the other hand everybody around the world, except the most rabid US ayatollahs, recognize Al Gore's efforts to use his high profile to highlight the issue that may define politics for the next century.
The difference between the stature of both individuals could not be greater.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
By large most Indians have little or nothing...
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
SO should we wait that millions of people die to raise the alarm?
You can work for peace by preventing the causes that give rise to conflict.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Yes buddy, the world is also 4000 years old and the fossils are all fake.
Whatever you want buddy, whatever.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Lying through your teeth and enjoying it.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
US.
Population: 3% of total.
Pollution in green house gases: 25% of total.
Commitment to control this: pretty much zero.
What a fucking great hero the US is playing.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Holly shit Batman? Really?
You need to source better your statistics....
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
"He said his beliefs had made him an outsider in popular science".
So he is in the minority.
Great, wake us up when the colling he mentions happens (next 15 years according to him).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.