35 Flaws in Gore's Movie

[Chris C]

I think I'm starting to lean that way as well. It doesn't even look like our contribution to CO2 is significant. It doesn't look like CO2 is the greenhouse gas to be worried about. And I question the motives of this usual cast of anti-Capitalism characters.

Finally, I haven't heard the great arguments for why global warming will be a bad thing. Slowly-rising water is something you can combat with technology, ingenuity, and hard work. The glaciers which carved out the Great Lakes are something you could not combat. Cities would be slowly pushed over. It is a scenario that far-distant generations will have to deal with. I hope they don't blame us for not taking the "long-view" while we think we are doing just that.

Let's talk about real problems, like getting some of our eggs out of this single basket.

CO2 is well known to be an effective greenhouse gas. If you are getting information from andre on this issue, I assure you that you are being misled. You might want to check out some work by Dana Royer on CO2's effect on past climates.

Impacts depend on how much warming. 1 or 2 degrees probably won't be bad, but we're introducing a climate shift an order of magnitude greater than the noise of natural variability, and at a very fast rate. Ice is not doing well, ecosystems will not adjust to rapid 3 C warming, and poor countries and those that live off of glaciers may not do well under business-as-usual. There is a lot of mention on impacts in the literature, including IPCC AR4 WG2.

 

[iceaura]

The problem is the past warming events can neither be attributed to be caused by CO2 nor enhanced by CO2.

They can have been very easily, and in fact almost undeniably were, enhanced.

No one has managed to come up with a mechanism by which CO2 increases can have been prevented from doing that, and the data is consistent with such enhancement as is expected.

It doesn't even look like our contribution to CO2 is significant.

Our contribution to CO2 concentration is 40% and rising.

 

[scifitm]

I don't see why it really matters if we are causing a realtive small or large impact, the world cleaning up it's act can never be a bad thing. Also even if Mr.Gore's movie is slightly off base, even the United Nations have (mostly with the exception of one nation) decided something is aloof and needs attention. Proof or not the cleaner we are the better, why shoot the messenger when the call to action is beneficial whatever the facts? Also I have seen many many articles

i.e. Experts on summer sea ice say it's not likely to suddenly reappear. Arctic sea ice this summer plummeted to its lowest levels since satellite measurements began in 1979, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado.

‘A death spiral’
"Certainly we look like we're on a death spiral right now," said Mark Serreze, senior research scientist. "Losing that summer sea ice over by 2030, within some of our lifetimes, is a reasonable expectation." -MSNBC.com
That address issues spawing from a global rise in temperatures. The fact that the earth may cool down again (though far fetched in my mind) may happen, but I for one don't want to lose entire species of animals if at all possible. You can argue about trivialities in a movie, but you cannot refuse to see that something is occuring, and it is most likely not for the better for us as humans, or the world in general. Even if we aren't directly responsible (which I highly doubt), are we not at least tasked with trying to resolve the issue?

 

[Red Devil]

One of the main reasons for the increase on CO2 is internal cumbustion engines. Also. the seas are not absorbing CO2 anywhere near as much as they used to.