An Inconvenient Review
Uh-oh…you know you’re in trouble when a movie review, for cryin’ out loud, starts like this:
“An Inconvenient Truth,” Davis Guggenheim’s new documentary about the dangers of climate change, is a film that should never have been made. It is, after all, the job of political leaders and policymakers to protect against possible future calamities, to respond to the findings of science and to persuade the public that action must be taken to protect the common interest.
But when this does not happen — and it is hardly a partisan statement to observe that, in the case of global warming, it hasn’t — others must take up the responsibility: filmmakers, activists, scientists, even retired politicians. That “An Inconvenient Truth” should not have to exist is a reason to be grateful that it does.
The most gag-inducing passage is yet to come, however:
I can’t think of another movie in which the display of a graph elicited gasps of horror, but when the red lines showing the increasing rates of carbon-dioxide emissions and the corresponding rise in temperatures come on screen, the effect is jolting and chilling.
Don’t get me wrong – I am concerned about global warming, and I don’t doubt Gore’s sincerity. I sincerely doubt, however, that the graph in question ‘elicited gasps of horror’, but then again, I wasn’t in the room. Nor have I seen the movie – it may, in fact, be a masterpiece for all I know.
It sounds more like a polemic, however, than a reasoned debate, and polemics tend to convince only the already-converted…
I wouldn’t be surprised by any gasping; this is the Cannes choir he’s preaching to, don’t forget.
Actually, I think it is a topic that is worth pursuing, although it bugs me when I see its most ardent proponents treating it as a partisan problem. It seems to me that there’s not much support from any politician for pursuing a message that, at its core, says that prosperity is hurting us. Because it’s the resource-draining nature of prosperity that ultimately is the culprit behind global warming.
On the contrary, prosperity is part of the solution here – the richest countries can afford to build cleaner cars and energy plants. The question is the will and the appropriate means to do so – and given that recent auto figures have confirmed the abrupt shift to high – mileage cars, perhaps the marketplace can adjust to the problem on its own, without excessive gov’t regulations or incentives.
Poor countries will be the primary cause of excessive emissions in the coming years, so the sooner they become prosperous, the less they will eventually contribute to the overall problem.
The problem is that the average person in China or India is not likely to be prosperous anytime soon. If they all start using more electricity and driving crap cars, we are quickly screwed. If the relatively small number of propserous people start driving hybrids or even start riding bikes, will that counter the effects of industrialization of the third-world? Take a look at a plot of total world population and compare it to a plot of atmospheric CO2 concentration. They look pretty similar.
Comrades,
Actually, the climate is most likely returning to it’s normal temperature. The cause of rising temperatures is not, it turns out, particulates in the atmosphere, but the lack of them.
It seems that those nasty old chimneys and factories spewing tons of particulates into the air reflected a greater portion of the sun’s radiation, thereby cooling the planet… much like that predicted for a “nuclear winter”. When areas like California imposed strict emissions guidelines, it caused a significant reduction in atmospheric particulates, and an accompanying rise in temperature.
Seems clean air is warm air. Perhaps a better analogy is Gore air is Hot air…
Respects,
Gwedd
I’d be interested in hearing a debate on this subject featuring Dr. Robert C. Balling Jr.
Inconvenient Truths Indeed
“….An Inconvenient Truth” is billed as the scariest movie you’ll ever see. It may well be, but that’s in part because it is not the most accurate depiction of the state of global warming science. The enormous uncertainties surrounding the global warming issue are conveniently missing in “An Inconvenient Truth…..”
Dr. Robert C. Balling Jr. is a professor in the climatology program at Arizona State University, specializing in climate change and the greenhouse effect.
http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=052406F
dmac, I didn’t make myself very clear here. I generally agree with you that the natural market probably holds a better solution than any government bureaucrat. My (poorly made) point was that the most vociferous enviornmentalists often treat prosperity as the chief culprit, and that if we all were required by government fiat to live in smaller houses, drive smaller cars, stay cooped up in cities, etc., all our problems would be solved. And in a democracy, this constant “eat your spinach” moralistic hectoring isn’t likely to help your cause much (just as, despite all the hue and cry about the religious right, they’ve been spectacularly unsuccessful in lecturing Americans back into some straitlaced world).