Man Based Global Warming....

Al Gore's and the IPCC's tatements are not mutually exclusive. Al Gore gave no timeframe for the 20 foot rise in sea level. He was illustrating the point of how much sea level would rise if Greenland or the Antarctic thawed.

The IPCC (conservative) estimate is for the year 2100.

They are two different numbers to illustrate two different points. You may think Al Gore is an alarmist. I think he is raising conciousness...

Politics Blog An Inconvient Truth Transcript

 

For the record, he said "in the near future". But that's the great thing about being vague -- you can never be proved wrong.

Here's a great recap of Gore's recent congressional testimony, in the Washington Post, no less:

[SIZE=+2]With Al Due Respect, We're Doomed[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]By Dana Milbank
Thursday, January 29, 2009; A03
[/SIZE]
The lawmakers gazed in awe at the figure before them. The Goracle had seen the future, and he had come to tell them about it.
What the Goracle saw in the future was not good: temperature changes that "would bring a screeching halt to human civilization and threaten the fabric of life everywhere on the Earth -- and this is within this century, if we don't change."...

 

Which major indicators are way ahead of schedule?

 

A small fraction of the water and food? Based on what modeling and evidence? al gores 20 ft wall of water?

 

The words "in the near future" are not anywhere in the transcript.

 

do you have a link to the transcript?

 

Interesting graph. Shows the effectiveness of Kyoto....Latvia, and the rest of the baltic states are doing great hitting their targets, how about hte rest? I suppose China and India were left off because the their reductions wouldn't fit on the graph.

 

http://forumpolitics.com/blogs/2007/03/17/an-inconvient-truth-transcript/

I posted a couple of posts ago. Alternatively you can google "inconvenient truth transcript".

 

global warming faster than predicted - Google Search

 

Listen to Climate Wars episode 2 http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/ideas_20090126_11172.mp3

 

from Global Warming: Sea Level Rise Could Be Twice As High As Current Projections, Greenland Ice Sheet Study Suggests

 

Remaining blissfully ignorant as you were was certainly not going to help anything. It's not like you were going to support CO2 reduction initiatives anyway, for reasons you've already stated. So no loss there.

As it is, it seems to have been successul rather than backfiring. Most of the denialists were that way before so no net change with them. It perhaps has been more polarizing by waking those in a veritable coma. The problem for you is that it has shifted far more into the AGW camp than the denialist camp, a very inconvenient truth.

But it wasn't just Al Gore's movie that did this. The energy crisis, Dubya/Cheney's "Energy Policy", some particularly nasty hurricanes, a war in Iraq, and GOP anti-science policies in general have proven counterproductive to denialist credibility. And rather than being inconvenient timing, it was predictable, in that Dubya's efforts to suppress Global Warming measures and research created an inevitable backlash that would inevitably find an outlet. You've got cause and effect reversed.

You see, your wanting it to backfire and it actually backfiring are two completely separate things.

 

I think the AGW fear-mongering will cause a backlash against the science community in general as the science continues to unravel. That development would no tbe good for any of us.

 

What is the unraveling?

 

The current issue of _Sky & Telescope_ has an article on the 11-year Solar cycle and the effect it can have on climate. Summary: the total cyclical variation in insolation (the energy received at Earth from the Sun) amounts to about 2 W/m^2, while the "forcing" (the additional heating effect) from excess CO2 since about 1900 is also about 2 W/m^2.

Unfortunately for us the CO2 forcing continues growing, while insolation has been at its relative minimum for the past few years and is about to increase again when the next Solar cycle starts. It would be extremely foolish for us to rely on the faint possibility that something like another Maunder Minimum is about to occur and give the Earth a reprieve from global warming.

 

What the hell are you talking about? Nothing in the science is unravelling - if you kept your eyes open you would be able to see that from this thread.

But there will be a global backlash, and it will be big. The US military establishment is on top of it:

National Security and the Threat of Climate Change - Report

from New CNA Report Shows Climate Change a Threat to National Security | Homeland Security Digital Library Weblog

 

Malorn might have meant to say "unfold" rather than unravel.

 

No they are not. This is from the transcript:

"In 1992 they measured this amount of melting in Greenland. 10 years later this is what happened. And here is the melting from 2005. Tony Blair’s scientific advisor has said that because of what is happening in Greenland right now, the map of the world will have to be redrawn. If Greenland broke up and melted, or if half of Greenland and half of West Antarctica broke up and melted, this is what would happen to the sea level" ...... (Then he talks about all the populated areas that will be underwater.)


I draw your attention to the phrase "because of what is happening in Greenland right now." It is purposely vague but gives the impression that the event projected will happen in the near future. The first two sentences give the impression that computer models are 100% accurate. (We forecast it, then it happens)

Nothing in the text gives the impression that the events talked about are 10x the worst case scenario. Instead the text gives the impression that the forecasted events are to be expected.

 

You've...almost...got...the straws...keep grasping..keep grasping..

 

Yes, "An Inconvenient Truth" did push people into the alarmist camp. The question is how long with they stay there. It was about 2 years for me. What happens if the doom and gloom doesn't happen? What if global temperatures decline for the next 10 years? Most of those people will dismiss the entire concept of global warming. Fool me once.....

As for as it being inconvenient for me? Not really. If the global temperature rises, so be it, life goes on. It is far better than the alternative, global cooling. The questions isn't if the globe has warmed for the past 150 years. The question is why, and more importantly what happens if the warming continues. The AGW case for climate apocalypse is entirely based on computer models. You believe them, I don't.

Energy Crisis? What does the rise in energy prices have to do with global warming? It does show the relation of supply and demand as we near the peak of global oil production. It should be taken as a forewarning that we need to move ourselves away from imported energy and focus on energy independence.

Katrina? Again, how is this related to global warming? Katina came onshore as a category 3, hardly a end of the world type storm. It did prove how inept the Bush Administration was at reacting to a domestic emergency. It also proved that New Orleans lacked adequate levies and an workable evacuation plan. We are also proving that we can't learn from history as New Orleans is rebuilt to mirror the city that was destroyed and without any sort of central planning.

Edit: I missed the "War in Iraqi" thing. Again, nothing to do with global warming. Again this relates to peak oil, a push by the US to send a message to oil producers, and George W. Bush's need to finish what his father started.