"Plummet" means "increased" at Power Line

Your UPI link doesn't work. *[Fixed. Thanks. Tim]* Going there via Powerline, I read: "the film has brought in $9.6 million to date, making it one of the most successful documentaries to date."

I wish I could turn out box-office flops like that.

Kevin,

You can - just make a documentary alluding to some aspect of earth science tha supports a pre-determiend worldview and political agenda, one that would be heavily promoted by various corporate-sponsored and PR-financed lobbying groups, think tanks and the like. Support from few pseudo-scientists with no pedigree in the field might just help, too.

I have noticed that the "failure" of Gore's movie has become a talking point for the right. Not surprising. I live in northern California and frequently see the San Francisco Chronicle. It published a letter from a right-winger who was delighted that An Inconvenient Truth was out-performed by Cars (the weekend's #1 box office movie). These people live in a fantasy world just as far-fetched as Cars itself!

The letter and some debunking information are cited here.

You can - just make a documentary alluding to some aspect of earth science tha supports a pre-determiend worldview and political agenda, one that would be heavily promoted by various corporate-sponsored and PR-financed lobbying groups, think tanks and the like. Support from few pseudo-scientists with no pedigree in the field might just help, too.

So the skeptics' proposed blockbuster "Global Warming - The Hype, The Horror" is bound to be a huge moneyspinner, right?

Yeah, Jeff, the corporations are all over Al Gore and his flick, for sure. I guess if the bar on conservative stupidity is lowered any further we'll need to dig a trench. What you fools never seem to understand is that there is much more money at stake in conservative lies and misleading about the dangers of global warming than the left will ever see, no matter how well a movie does. "Support from a few pseudo-scientists" means the overwhelming majority of them, by the way.

Our local Democratic committee is showing "An Inconvient Truth" as a part of their fund-raising in mid July. I am not sure how much of the suggested donations will go back toward actual sales for the movie. But I wonder if there are other groups using it that way as well - and so the dollar sales won't necesarily reflect number of tickets sold.

Interesting how FAUX made the exact opposite point the first week of Inconvenient Truth release- damning it by emphasizing overall gross when it was in only 4 theatres, & ignoring per screen earnings.
Now that it is clearly a success (& a great movie) the wankers take refuge in whatever makes them feel better.

There's a new descriptor that ought to be tagged onto nimrods like Assrocket and Jeff Harvey: EARTH HATERS. Use it early and often, i.e., just like Sean Hannity and his ilk have used "America Haters."

Umm, I hate to point out the obvious, but movies almost always make less money the longer they're out -- the reason being that there's fewer and fewer people each week who haven't seen the movie. "Titanic," for example, had $33 million in weekend grosses when it was released; a month later, despite adding about 300 screens, its gross was $21 million. Yeah, that was a big flop, too. Who wants to see a movie about an iceberg?

So the skeptics' proposed blockbuster "Global Warming - The Hype, The Horror" is bound to be a huge moneyspinner, right?

Posted by: Tony Lee

Expect large blocks of tickets to be purchased by Scaife, Kaloogian, etc. where the seats never get warm.

Box Office Mojo says An Inconvenient Truth's box office take increased 5.5% last weekend. It was the only movie in the top 17 (apart from two new releases) that had an increase over the weekend.

. . . they said there would be no math.

Expect large blocks of tickets to be purchased by Scaife, Kaloogian, etc. where the seats never get warm.

Posted by: Tom - Daai Tou Laam | June 28, 2006 09:59 AM

"Purchase Ann Coulter's latest book, '100 Liberals Who Eat Babies', for only $2.99 from the Conservatron Book Club and get SIX FREE(!) TICKETS to the blockbuster movie 'Convenient Truthiness' so you can see how we say Al Gore is just a big poopyhead!"

Next week "entertainment headlines" -- Ann Coulter runaway bestseller! "Convenient Truthiness" sells out theaters!

Keep subsidizing the propaganda, and may you bankrupt yourselves doing it.

If the big corporate interests had any sense, they'd be totally against global warming. I remember reading an economic analysis back in the days when the Kyoto Protocol was being debated, it said that environmental services could be America's biggest export in the 21st century. American corporations already possess environmental technology that is the best in the world, if they'd only USE it, and it could be tremendously lucrative to export it and help other countries with their pollution problems. But oh no, it's easier to go for the low hanging fruit, making easy money by burning oil.

"But oh no, it's easier to go for the low hanging fruit, making easy money by burning oil."

CEOs and the like are paid for short-term profitability, not for investing money for long-term profitability. This is enforced by stockholders who demand high rates of growth, now. Said stockholders are mostly large mutual funds, pension funds, retirement funds, etc. Who are, by golly, us; who demand that our funds provide us with growth.

"Who wants to see a movie about an iceberg?"

Won't be long before people won't even know what an iceberg is.

"Bah, they expect me to believe there was a giant piece of ice floating in the ocean? Big enough to sink a ship? No way..."

Actually, I wonder if there will be an absolute crazy period of icbergs in the north atlantic as greenland gives way.

American corporations already possess environmental technology that is the best in the world, if they'd only USE it, and it could be tremendously lucrative to export it and help other countries with their pollution problems.

I find this claim somewhat doubtful - it seems more likely to me that companies located in countries where they actually focus on the environment, would be doing better in the field of environmental technology.

OT: Tom Durkin, if you're THE Tom Durkin, shoot me an email and say hi.

Its true, Fred, that most films will earn less and less over time and this fact alone is no reason to attack a film.

HOWEVER, "An Inconveinent Truth" has genuinely earned more every week it has been out. There have only been three individual DAYS in its entire run that were less than that day a week earlier. The movie it showing some great legs and could well end up the No. 3 documentary of all time before its done.

Wandered over here via Eschaton. Thanks for the wit and intelligence in your article about Gore's film. Sending it on!

Just one observation: Because Australia is at the bottom of the globe, all melting glaciers and polar ice will clearly drain down and flood you guys first. Uh, gotta go drive my Hummer aimlessly around Southern California now!

There's a new descriptor that ought to be tagged onto nimrods like Assrocket and Jeff Harvey: EARTH HATERS.

Um, if I may, the last person on this blog who is an earth hater is Jeff Harvey.

Sarcasm, people.

Best,

D

I've always been a bit puzzled by the right-wing bloggers' obsession with circulation figures, sales figures, viewer numbers, etc: presumably when you have so much faith in the power of the market to determine correct choices you feel compelled to assert that everything you like is popular and everything you don't like isn't?

Obviously it is good to know that a message you believe in is getting some publicity, but that's about all.

Dano, I stand corrected!

Jeff Harvey, mea culpa, mea maximus culpa!

But I still stand by my suggestion of using "Earth Hater" to describe those (esp., many American "conservatives") who mock and spin the issue of global warming.

Charlie wrote

If the big corporate interests had any sense, they'd be totally against global warming.

One industry is beginning to take it seriously: insurance companies, and in particular reinsurance companies, those that 'regular' insurance companies lay off their risk on. See here, here and here for examples.

*[Republican press release deleted. See here. Tim]*

Hmmm....seems liberals are pretty good at spinning themselves.

So Gary, are you suggesting we do nothing and let things take their course until:

a. the very last sceptic and naysayer is finally convinced.

b. the average global temperature begins to drop.

Given the potential risk, is it prudent to spend time fighting amongst ourselves?

I have a condo on the beach in a building that is 8' above sea level. Given your strong beliefs, are you willing to put your money where your mouth is and buy my condo?

What I'm suggesting, Pete, is that even in the scientific community, there is widespread disagreement when it comes to the topic of global warming. What I am against is propagadic tools such as Gore's film which are one-sided and full of half-truths and distortions couched in legitimacy. If we're going to have a national debate on this, then let's do just that...have a debate, where BOTH sides get to weigh in on the matter. Instead, what we've been spoon-fed is one side of the issue by a non-scientist.

My religious friends sometimes accuse me of using theism as a one-stop shopping place for all my boogeymen, but I can't see how abuse of the environment would even be thinkable on a planet where the "most intelligent" lifeform recognized that this atmosphere, those oceans, that landmass, are the only places we will ever, ever call home.

From Gary-

"even in the scientific community, there is widespread disagreement when it comes to the topic of global warming"

Hi gary-what climate research do you do? How are you involved in the climate community? Because I do climate research (focused on land surface-climate interactions) and I have to say, based on all the workshops, meetings, and classes I've gone to or taken, it sure doesn't look like there is much disagreement to me about the cause of the warming.

There are uncertainties-this is true. We are unsure exactly what clouds will do, the impact aerosols might have, how the biosphere will ultimately respond. But the overwhelming bulk of the evidence (based on data, reconstructions, and modeling work) is that human GHG emissions are the dominant forcing responsible for the recent temperature trends.

"where BOTH sides get to weigh in on the matter"

Fair and balanced does NOT mean boths sides get to weigh in equally. I'm sure some people still reject plate tectonics, believe the earth is flat, and that the geocentric model of the universe is correct. Should we invite these opposing views to be keynote speakers at the next Geological Society of America conference?

Hi Gary

Just because a few scientists disagree with what is well on its way to becoming a well grounded theory does not a controversy make. (The ridiculous situation with regards to Evolution being taught in schools illustrates that clearly. I disagree because it pains me is not a legitimate argument with which to declare the existence of a controversy. Neither is claiming "well we've always done it that way", or "more people believe this over that" or "it'll cost a lot of money if we do that".)

The background of those claiming the existence of a controversy is important as is the source of their funding and political aspirations. (The dude at NASA supressing any data on climate change being a case study in this.)

That's why it really is important to ensure that there really are two sides to the issue that can weigh in with validity, rather than just sounding off because they are uncomfortable with what is being said or are being paid to do so.

Sometimes there are no two sides to any story, there is an explanation that is supported by all the data and then there is something other than that. So why should we have to give the "other than that" equal credence with out expecting it to be supported by all the data too?

I saw Zeno at PZ's about this, started to add a brief note, came here.... What can I say? As another northern Californian I'm aware of how brilliant the population is around here.

While Zeno is correct, there's a missed teaching opportunity, which I tend to see everywhere because...well, because they are every where and hardly anyone uses them. Zeno mentions it with "propaganda".

One of the most effective tactics against psychomarketing campaigns is to name them. Deconstruct them. Because they target and work best, generally, through subconscious processing. making the audience cognizant of the technology being used on them, blunts it's effects. It helps them notice, makes them more conscious of the real transaction which, as here, is rarely about the specific content.

There are many ways to do this, such as ridicule. What's important not to do is to get caught up in the details of the overt content. Psychomarketing is usually intended to work subconsciously and interact with memes/frames/whatever, already in the public's mind. Often planted there earlier. So it's virtually impossible to rationally interfere with it, the technology works on pre-conscious cognition and processes. [I'm not advocating no response to content, that's necessary.]

Just beware of getting sucked in by overt content to the exclusion of the real, operative forces at work. Here, it matters not whether Gore's movie is actually failing. You can't counter the tactic by rationally proving it isn't true. The purpose of this is to blunt, or kill the film's momentum. Such focus comes straight out of the movie industry. It's a professionally thought-out counter-campaign. They're trying to reduce downside risk. The worst possible for them is if the movie takes off and becomes a real blockbuster. That's a horror. Blockbuster momentum is a phenomenom impossible to generate on command, and unlikely here. But a smart business response is to do easy things that reduce that risk. So, this is the furthest thing from being a stupid, moronic, right-wing fantasy! It's applying the standard, "best-practices" of modern American corporate management, through psychomarketing, to political problems.

They've been doing this for 30 years. There's a Board of Directors and an R&D department and a marketing department. They fund basic research. They've developed an extensive, innovative franchise system to carry it out. Just follow this meme to see it in action. Lately we're seeing the refinement of a kind of joint-venture plug-in capability, which is what this. My guess is that through co-investing/providing revenue you get to use it. GW Skeptic, Inc. Announces Joint-Venture With Well-Known Psychomarketing Concern, Straussian Associates. I could actually write that press release. I don't mean a satire.

[For an instructive lesson, the historical turning point when the light bulb went on over Hollywood's head about marketing movies, find a synopsis of the court case about Billie Jack and the fallout. It was an accidental, giant, controlled experiment on marketing movies. With unequivocal results to very high levels of significance. An experiment that would never, ever be run on purpose. The result? 50% of the cost of a movie is marketing.]

Try to figure out specific button pushers in specific memes and campaigns, how those fit into the larger structure these guys are building, and hammer it. This way you take the mark's mind away from the right, away from where it needs to be for this crap to work. The only caveat is your own subconscious transmitter. Always keep audience and goals in mind. Too much sarcasm, or demeaning the intended audience, etc. Then you give the other side opportunity. Audience, audience, audience. That's exactly what the Gore-movie-failure meme is for -- a specific effect on a specific audience. The promulgators couldn't care less how stupid they look. They only care about results and they play the odds.

I don't know which side tony's sarcasm falls on, but I will suggest he think a little deeper. The anti-GW blockbuster he hypothesizes has already happened -- Chriton's State of Fear. And this is what I mean, the right is so far ahead of the left in this area. Focus on psychosocioprocesses, media techniques, etc Do that and you realize the title of that hypothetical movie also has already been psychomarketed, meaning researched, picked, contextualized, and introduced. I paraphrase -- Inhouse's, "The Greatest Fraud Ever Perpetrated on the American People." ["Inhouse", as in, "He's the oil industry's own inhouse congressman, at beck and call 24/7.]

Last night I posted to Framing Science's topic on Frank Luntz's GW "switch" and did a [much shorter!] similar approach by pointing out how this "switch" could be just a further part of the campaign. It hadn't shown up last I looked.

ronjazz is right about the money. But there's an effective counter. For the footsoldiers on the left to get smart about psychomarketing and thus stop spoonfeeding the right by our mistakes. The right's psychomarketing can't function well in the face of effective opposition because it's entire, highly-organized, 30-year-long campaign is built on deception, distraction, etc [psycho, not content] It can't work, otherwise. Such consciouness raising is the avenue to getting the left's leadership into the game. see PZ link

Hey, gramma millie, is that you? I actually have a gramma millie, crica 100, who I can't imagine at a screen and keyboard. gramma, I have to strongly disagree with you. Hannity, et. al. didn't pick that up from some blog comment, nor did the meme being discussed here spontaneously arise from a good idea. These things are developed, designed, tested, analyzed, refined by professional psychomarketers steeped in research and knowledge about how to accomplish whatever it is specked out for them, in that particular audience.

Then, their results are passed into a sophisticated media machine. If the left thinks that a few good ideas from a few footsoldiers can compete, well, that's as much a fantasy world as the right's. Anyone interested in details, see PZ link.

And I beat you to the title of MizCee's next book [not my subject idea]. Pervert: Why Liberals Want Your Children. MizCee as leftie intelligence test? see PZ link

Last weekend I posted an at obscenely long post PZ's that gives a number of detailed examples, evidence, that the left has a psychological block about this approach. And, more or less, a step by step procedure for counteracting the right and removing the block. [It was written into the wee hours until I started nodding off, after days of other long postings, so it's a bit wordy. But on target with this topic per these comments.]

PS. The biggest fantasy world noted so far here is Gary's. National debates, you know, actual debate, are extinct. Gone. Over. Presently fossilizing. U.S. media habitat underwent a massive, invasive biota turnover. Debate couldn't adapt. The only potential descendent species would a horribly distorted one, one side debating itself. This invasive biota is rapidly spreading around the globe, like Homo out of Africa.

I'm not being flippant. I spent two months, Mar-Apr, discussing this at length on SciBlogs and presented lots of evidence. For a specific example of it's operation, Iraq, look at my comment entitled Led to War by Proximity Soundbites on a Mooney blog topic on GW mass communication. I also provide an explanation why, a kind of media-cognitive one, later in the thread, Who Da Foo', and above those two a specific example how this new American communications environment can be approached ethically and effectively in GW The Evidence Project. All, and more, are here --
[http://scienceblogs[dot]com/intersection/2006/04/nordhaus_shellenberger…]

This isn't something I find preferrable. It just is. In terms of "national debates" there's been squat for, maybe two decades, at least. But for sure they're gone, gone, gone, gone. We now live in a nation where absolutely anything can be, and is, turned into a national political issue. The golden age of scientific knowledge driving government policy is gone with it. There is no longer a species called apolitical science. Grieve, then get on with solving problems.

What I am against is propagadic [sic] tools such as Gore's film which are one-sided and full of half-truths and distortions couched in legitimacy.

Examples?

If we're going to have a national debate on this, then let's do just that...have a debate, where BOTH sides get to weigh in on the matter.

Well, one side seems clearly to have lost the scientific debate. So the options are to (a) wait until someone presents some *science* supporting the anti-consensus position, or (b) have a *political* debate.

Which of these are you espousing?

Whoops.....

That's Senator Inhouse. "congressman" must have been wishful thinking.

He's espousing a fantasy. And that's a general problem in science. It will likely remain a refugia for some time.

For a documantary that is basically just of Al Gore doing a power point presentation An Inconcenient Truth is doing great business. If you take the cost to make the film compared to what it is taking in - it's doing just fine.

Dave C.: I guess if you consider 17,000+ scientists a "few", well, more power to you (by the way, that's the number who signed a petition against the Kyoto Treaty because it's conclusions were based on "shaky scientifical grounds" and whose conclusions could not be supported by the evidence.) 2,500 scientists signed on in agreement to the accord. Hmmm, 17,000 vs. 2,500. You do the math.

And, by the way, I love how you dismiss the other side as not having "data on their side." They do. Pro-warmists just love to ignore it, because it doesn't jive with their "theory."

Ben: I do the same climate work that Al Gore does, which means, none. I look at the data and draw different conclusions than Gore does. Sorry, he's no expert, and there IS widespread disagreement about this issue, no matter how much pro-warming scientists wish it to be otherwise.

Hi Gary

Interesting figures, could you please cite a reference for them?

Also I mentioned nothing about Kyoto, but I do believe that some of those who signed a petition against Kyoto did so for reasons other than a disbelief in ongoing climate change. The Kyoto accord had a lot of things in it with scientists could disagree and quite a few of these issues didn't involve the issue of climate change at all. Implimentation of rectification strategies for starters..... You are not trying to throw up a smoke screen here are you Gary?

Additionally a lot of people opposed to the whole issue of climate change know where their funding and other important issues comes from and are loath to bite the hand that feeds or promotes them.

The other Gary above is repeating discredited talking points from years ago. The 17,000 "scientists" were anyone with or without a degree, who often didn't even exist, who signed a petition by a shyster group from about 10 years ago. You can still sign it if you declare you are a "scientist", just like Doctors Pierce, McIntyre, Houlihan, Burns and Potter (characters from the TV show MASH.)

There was a conservative attack on the study of 900+ papers on human caused global climate change versus 0 against. A British scientist "supposedly" discredited it. So a different group did the same scientific journal citation search and found 900+ to 1. The one study opposed to human caused global warming was in a petrochemical industry journal.

No science, no facts, lots of silly ill-informed goons from the right lead the opposing fight now.

Much like conservative news sites are hyping sales of Ann Coulter's trash by selling it for $5 and she gets Free Republic goons to flood the Jay Leno audience to make it sound like she is popular. For weeks and later months Drudge Report repeatedly ran links on what a box-office failure Brokeback Mountain was. Was this a campaign that didn't realize no financial failure is still showing months later or part of a political policy frame or just feeding the readers what they wanted to read - repeatedly?

Gore should be applauded for getting a real science policy debate out there. It is instructive to see the non-science or lying opposing responses to this issue.

re: Gary the first

"They've developed an extensive, innovative franchise system to carry it out. Just follow this meme to see it in action."

"...it matters not whether Gore's movie is actually failing." Or, I'll add, the attacks/critiques/mechansims used on it and him are true. "The purpose of this is to blunt, or kill the film's momentum.

I used a troll at Tim's next, Inhouse, topic to illustrate "beware of gettiing sucked in by overt content to the exclusion of the real, operative forces at work" by deconstructing how immoral the troll's attack was on Tim's morality.

But I could have stayed right here and done the same with Gary the first.

There is something I try to remember about gary [and thumper and others of their species] because it helps remind me to express gratitude for my life -- I don't have his job.

Take a moment and imagine THAT disaster scenario!

....hold it Gary! I know enough, buddy, enough.

Nobody commenting here is an idiot. So you can shut off that script in your mind you use to pretend we are so you can make it through your work day. It ain't helping you fake sincerety, at all. Nobody buys, for an instant, you believe what your saying or doing. You're a dishonest transparency.

Consider taking a vacation. Or if that's not possible, then working the junior-high blog circut for awhile.

"there IS widespread disagreement about this issue".

Well, of course. There is still disagreement about whether average temperature exists. We must certainly establish that concept beyond **all** disagreement before we can even think about addressing whether the climate is entering a tipping point, and of course we need to establish that beyond all disagreement before we can begin to examine whether the effect will be to knock civilization back half a millenium or merely to destroy the lives of yet another few million anonymous thirdworlders.

"scientist", just like Doctors Pierce, McIntyre, Houlihan, Burns and Potter"

Don't forget Michael Crichton.

why does the bush administration hate earth?

why does the bush administration hate earth?

They have discovered it holds a finite amount of oil. This is an unconscionable assault on the principles they hold most dear.

"why does the bush administration hate earth? "

Well, Marx said capitalists would sell the rope which would be used to hang them. Apparently, he wasn't thinking on a large enough scale.

The screechings about Gore's movie by the usual right-wing suspects mirrors quite well their screechings over Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11," not least the (not too bold) claim that it isn't doing as well in the box office as "Titanic" or any "Star Wars."

The issue is not how much money the movie's making. Our local alternative theater is going to show it for five weeks, just to make sure everyone in town makes it to the film. I'm going to give tickets to people. We have got to beat these conservatives back, beachhead by beachhead. Global warming's an emergency that should have everyone on deck.
Gore in '08!

If those against Kyoto are "earth-haters" then I suppose those who support it are "people-haters". Take your choice from a menu provided by George Orwell. Gore invented the internet and was robbed in Florida, dude! Who am I (or some other loser like, let's say, Michael Crichton) to criticize his (non) science? Plummet means rise? Cooling means warming. I need someone REALLY SMART to tell me what the difference is, exactly?

I need someone REALLY SMART

Given the evidence you have kindly provided, I must agree with your conclusion.

Why does the Bush administration hate Earth?

They don't necessarily. They love power and affirming their beliefs more. It's that dopamine rush, which they mistake for God.

Tom, read my comment above to Gary the first and put some effort into understanding it. It already applies to you.

I hope Gore's movie turns out to do as badly--in documentary terms--as the rightwingers predicted Brokeback Mountain would do!

So much falsehood has passed for truth in the last few years, the righties keep thinking if they say it, it will be so. Let them chant: failure, failure, failure. While people go see it, or buy the DVD when it comes out.

They're the ones who truly hate America, America the free.

No. I meant really smart as in intelligent. You're merely being smart-assed, Tookie, my little friend. Maybe you have trouble distinguishing between more immediate things than the warming/cooling trends of many millenia.

Minds that have no problem accepting cooling as part of warming should be able to swallow almost anything. Read Crichton's newest, State of Fear, for some contrast, at least. Science as religion. Allahu Akbar, y'all.

http://www.crichton-official.com/speeches/speeches_quote05.html

http://www.crichton-official.com/fear/index.html

|"Read Crichton's newest, State of Fear"
wow, I didn't know Crichton was a scientist
his dinosaur movie was great, was it based on
a true story.

"Read Crichton's newest, State of Fear, for some contrast, at least."

Yeah, Crichton really knows his stuff - he's the man! As he ably demonstrates, it ain't climate change we should be worried about, it's intelligent, self-replicating nanites, turning the world to greay goo.