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Al Gore: New thinking on the climate crisis

Posted on: April 11, 2008 8:13 PM, by Greg Laden

In Al Gore's brand-new slideshow (premiering exclusively on TED.com), he presents evidence that the pace of climate change may be even worse than scientists were recently predicting, and challenges us to act with a sense of "generational mission" -- the kind of feeling that brought forth the civil rights movement -- to set it right. Gore's stirring presentation is followed by a brief Q&A in which he is asked for his verdict on the current political candidates' climate policies and on what role he himself might play in future.

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Comments

very good

Posted by: mlf | April 11, 2008 10:09 PM

Interesting. If people didn't succumb to wild scare tactics the first time, just try wilder and harder.

Posted by: RK | April 11, 2008 10:55 PM

Al Gore is a liar or an idiot or both; and, it's amazing that so many people believe his crock of nonsense and are willing to destroy economies and to move massive sums away from medical research and education to fight a monster that doesn't exist and couldn't be beaten if it did. Wake up.

Here's an objective site run by scientists and which has lively debate with knowledgeable people.

Posted by: Woody | April 11, 2008 11:01 PM

Nuts. Here's the site: http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/

I also enjoy this site: http://antigreen.blogspot.com/
Here are a couple quotes from it.

"Motives: Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is generally to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless."

"The intellectual Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius (AD 121-180) must have foreseen Global Warmism. He said: 'The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.'"

Posted by: Woody | April 11, 2008 11:05 PM

I inadvertently left out the link and see that my follow-up and expanded comment with it is awaiting moderation. Here's the original link that I meant to reference in the meantime. It's very good and fair. http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/

Posted by: Woody | April 11, 2008 11:21 PM

Posted by: Woody | April 11, 2008 11:22 PM

damn, is there a full moon out tonight?

Posted by: mlf | April 11, 2008 11:22 PM

Woody,

I'm totally with you. The oil companies have always had our best interests at heart and they obviously are the ones to talk to about climate change. It's like during the cigarettes cause lung cancer hoax and everyone ran to "scientists" for answers when the tobacco companies had the real answers all along. You are totally right, it's those fat cat scientists trying to make a buck off of the little guy. Good things Exxon is looking after us, just like they looked after the people in Alaska's whose lives they ruined.

Posted by: Jim RL | April 12, 2008 12:24 AM

Why has being concerned about the environment become a partisan issue? I don't get it. Apperently if you believe in Al Gore then that means you've been suckered into an evil socio-communist plot or something. The entire global science community is united in the opinion that global warming is real and something should be done about it. There are probably about half a dozen scientists who disagree with the findings and they all work for oil companies. Even if you don't believe in global warming you have to at least awknowlege the fact that it has become obvious that world isn't an endless cornucopia that we can consume and pollute with abandon. Some day the bottom's going to drop out of the bucket and it will be a bad day when it happens. So even if you think Al Gore is an idiot maybe consuming and polluting less might be a good thing just in principal. At least leave something for your kids to consume and pollute.

Posted by: Susan | April 12, 2008 2:44 AM

I remember back in the 1970's there was Newsweek, and other claiming the earth would go into a little ice age. In the mid-1980s it became "global warming", and in the 1990's as the Earth showed signs of a warming trend, Gore wrote a book about it. In 2008, it's not longer called; "global warming" but "climate change" which basically is the same thing.

Humans contributed very little in CO2 to the atmosphere. Around 8 percent out of 100,000 particles. The problem is, the Earth has historically warmed and cooled before. Greenland which was warm at one time but not anymore as it's pretty cold there. I'm sure the Vikings were not causing "global warming" oops I mean "climate change." Since the industrial age, these Global warming alarmists seem to imply natural warming and cooling don't occur anymore...And if these things do happen, they believe it's man without no real evidence.

Posted by: Michael | April 12, 2008 4:10 AM

No, it's not a full moon for another week. On Earth at least. I've no idea about whatever planet it is where AGW isn't happening.

Let's see, so far we've had the myth that dealing with AGW is necessarily bad for the world's economy; the wacky claim that small amounts CO₂ cannot have large effects; that it's all a plot by Mr Gore (the UN hasn't been blamed yet, queueing 3...2...1...); the canard about a previously projected cooling (the one about the model's don't work hasn't shown up, queueing 3...2...1...); and blithely ignoring the accumulating mountain of evidence. And a few other predictable denialist tricks.

There's some kind of interwoowoo bat signal, which Greg seems to have (inadvertently?) sent.

Posted by: blf | April 12, 2008 6:20 AM

From what I can see the evidence towards skepticism is what is mounting as new research (Aqua satellite, station issues) is being done. I am observing more people leaving the alarmist camp; which is causing Gore and his kinship to ratchet it up.

The skepticism is healthy AFAIK, because it'll focus our attention on reality more often than not.

Posted by: RK | April 12, 2008 10:43 AM

Most of you accept the left-wing views of matters without doing research on your own. Sure, it's easier to be sarcastic and misleading about alternative views, because that way you go with the flow and don't risk ostracism from your crowd. Grow a backbone while you work on your brain.

Posted by: Woody | April 12, 2008 11:10 AM

I remember back in the 1970's there was Newsweek, and other claiming the earth would go into a little ice age.

Debunked long since.

Posted by: Alexandra | April 12, 2008 11:12 AM

Al Gore always brings out the loonies. They have some weird obsession with him.

Al Gore is incidental. It's not his opinion that matters, although he happens to be right. It's the opinion of scientists that matters - he is simply a spokesperson.

Posted by: jeffk | April 12, 2008 11:15 AM

Alexandra, the global cooling movement wasn't debunked at Real Climate, which claims to debunk a lot that isn't debunked by them. They give you just a piece of information and say "that's it."

It's so typical of global warming alarmists to pull out references of which they have no understanding and think that ends discussion. Start thinking as an independent person rather than following herd mentality.

Posted by: Woody | April 12, 2008 1:50 PM

the talk was nice, but I am afraid that the New Found Land house falling was totally out of context - ie. it had nothing to do with melting ice...

Posted by: steppen wolf | April 13, 2008 6:33 AM

The problem is that the AGW movement is fueled by the collective guilt of developed societies more than plain scientific evidence. And, Al Gore embodies that philosophy more than anything else.

Posted by: RK | April 13, 2008 8:22 AM

The Unbelievers will cling to the last bit of flotsam/ice floe as they SINK to their watery graves still refusing to believe that maurading Humans have anything to do with
Climate Change

Posted by: Betty L Khoo-Kingsley | April 13, 2008 7:01 PM

...are willing to destroy economies and to move massive sums away from medical research and education to fight a monster that doesn't exist and couldn't be beaten if it did.

"... move massive sums away from medical research and education?" That's plain loony. Consider this: We are currently spending about $12mil/hour on the Iraq war in no little part to preserve reliable access to Middle East oil, and it is in the process of helping to wreck our economy. (FYI, I trade professionally in the relevant derivatives markets, including the oil market and the fixed income markets.) Surely we can spare $1mil/hour of that. The monster exists, and there is some chance (though not as great as Gore seems to believe) that it can be tamed. I'm rather glad that I don't have children: Those who are now children will be the ones that pay for our inability to mount the political will to act.

Posted by: RBH | April 14, 2008 8:32 PM