[davidjuliowang (OP)]

Sorry to start a new post for such a simple subject.

My abasement aside, I'd like to propose, encourage anyone who reads to watch, or consider watching Al Gore's film <b>An Inconvenient Truth</b>.

Yes, it's Al Gore, that almost president fellow who actually cares about the environment.

Why watch the movie?
Well...because he really does care (Al Gore that is).
and, he will explain Global Warming to you with all the clarity and import he can muster.

It's our planet.
our home.
our responsibility.

Thanks! []

"When Given A Choice Between Two Paths, Take The Third Path." (Talaxian Saying)

Please see Al Gore's Movie "An Inconvenient Truth". The earth is our home, our responsibility.

[moonfire]

Yes, Al's degree is in horticulture...I am sure he does care.  I am sure it is a good movie.

"Lo" Loretta

[another_someone]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7037671.stm

A High Court judge who ruled on whether climate change film, An Inconvenient Truth, could be shown in schools said it contains "nine scientific errors".

Mr Justice Burton said the government could still send Al Gore's film to schools - if accompanied by guidance giving the other side of the argument.

A Kent school governor wanted the film banned from secondary schools.

The judge said nine statements in the film were not supported by current mainstream scientific consensus.

The Oscar-winning film was made by former US Vice-President Al Gore.

In his final verdict, the judge said the film could be shown as long as updated guidelines were followed.

These say teachers should point out controversial or disputed sections.

Without the guidance, updated after the case was launched, the government would have been breaking the law, the judge said.

The government has sent the film to all secondary schools in England, and the administrations in Wales and Scotland have done the same.

'Landmark victory'

Mr Justice Burton told London's High Court that distributing the film without the guidance to counter its "one-sided" views would breach education laws.

The Department for Children, Schools and Families was not under a duty to forbid the film, provided it was accompanied by the guidance, he said.

"I conclude that the claimant substantially won this case by virtue of my finding that, but for the new guidance note, the film would have been distributed in breach of sections 406 and 407 of the 1996 Education Act", he said.

The nine errors stated by the judge included:

# Mr Gore's assertion that a sea-level rise of up to 20 feet would be caused by melting of either West Antarctica or Greenland "in the near future". The judge said this was "distinctly alarmist" and it was common ground that if Greenland's ice melted it would release this amount of water - "but only after, and over, millennia".

# Mr Gore's assertion that the disappearance of snow on Mt Kilimanjaro was expressly attributable to global warming - the court heard the scientific consensus was that it cannot be established the snow recession is mainly attributable to human-induced climate change.

# Mr Gore reference to a new scientific study showing that, for the first time, polar bears had actually drowned "swimming long distances - up to 60 miles - to find the ice". The judge said: "The only scientific study that either side before me can find is one which indicates that four polar bears have recently been found drowned because of a storm."

The case was brought by Stewart Dimmock, from Dover, a father of two.

His lawyers described the ruling as a "landmark victory".

Mr Dimmock said: "I am elated with today's result, but still disappointed that the film is able to be shown in schools.

"If it was not for the case brought by myself, our young people would still be being indoctrinated with this political spin."

The judge awarded Mr Dimmock two-thirds of his estimated legal costs of more than £200,000, against the government.

Children's Minister Kevin Brennan had earlier said: "It is important to be clear that the central arguments put forward in An Inconvenient Truth, that climate change is mainly caused by man-made emissions of greenhouse gases and will have serious adverse consequences, are supported by the vast weight of scientific opinion.

"Nothing in the judge's comments today detract from that."

[Karen W.]

Seany said we should watch it. he said it was good too!

[Alandriel]

It's definitley a good one to watch ~ even if not everything is totally accurate (what is??) and it's a bit one-sided and 'spinned'.

[paul.fr]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7037671.stm

A High Court judge who ruled on whether climate change film, An Inconvenient Truth, could be shown in schools said it contains "nine scientific errors".

Mr Justice Burton said the government could still send Al Gore's film to schools - if accompanied by guidance giving the other side of the argument

The 9 error's have been known for a long time, and ofcourse it's one sided. Anyone who thought otherwise is clearly mad, yet the message of the film is still relevant. Can we now expect our kids to receive "guidance" in RE classes?

[another_someone]

Can we now expect our kids to receive "guidance" in RE classes?

But RE is not science.  Are we simply accepting the global warming debate as a religion, and Al Gore's polemic being one of the books of the Bible, and if it says the universe was created in 7 days, that should be taught as science?

If you allow bad science into the argument is merely to discredit any good science that might be done.

OK - this is not science, but many members of the public don't know the difference, and school kids were going to be given this information unchallenged (the court now has said it must have some balancing of the debate - but I suspect when applied in practice, the amount of time given to highlighting the errors in the film will be minimal, and kids will still be left with the impression that the film is a definitive truth).

Some years ago I had a friend of mine mention that she had believed that dinosaurs and humans coexisted because she had seen the film 1 million BC.  While nobody expects that one can address this kind of erroneous interpretation of pure fiction, but this film was going to be distributed to schools as factual information, not as pure fiction.

[Karen W.]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7037671.stm

A High Court judge who ruled on whether climate change film, An Inconvenient Truth, could be shown in schools said it contains "nine scientific errors".

Mr Justice Burton said the government could still send Al Gore's film to schools - if accompanied by guidance giving the other side of the argument.

A Kent school governor wanted the film banned from secondary schools.

The judge said nine statements in the film were not supported by current mainstream scientific consensus.

The Oscar-winning film was made by former US Vice-President Al Gore.

In his final verdict, the judge said the film could be shown as long as updated guidelines were followed.

These say teachers should point out controversial or disputed sections.

Without the guidance, updated after the case was launched, the government would have been breaking the law, the judge said.

The government has sent the film to all secondary schools in England, and the administrations in Wales and Scotland have done the same.

'Landmark victory'

Mr Justice Burton told London's High Court that distributing the film without the guidance to counter its "one-sided" views would breach education laws.

The Department for Children, Schools and Families was not under a duty to forbid the film, provided it was accompanied by the guidance, he said.

"I conclude that the claimant substantially won this case by virtue of my finding that, but for the new guidance note, the film would have been distributed in breach of sections 406 and 407 of the 1996 Education Act", he said.

The nine errors stated by the judge included:

# Mr Gore's assertion that a sea-level rise of up to 20 feet would be caused by melting of either West Antarctica or Greenland "in the near future". The judge said this was "distinctly alarmist" and it was common ground that if Greenland's ice melted it would release this amount of water - "but only after, and over, millennia".

# Mr Gore's assertion that the disappearance of snow on Mt Kilimanjaro was expressly attributable to global warming - the court heard the scientific consensus was that it cannot be established the snow recession is mainly attributable to human-induced climate change.

# Mr Gore reference to a new scientific study showing that, for the first time, polar bears had actually drowned "swimming long distances - up to 60 miles - to find the ice". The judge said: "The only scientific study that either side before me can find is one which indicates that four polar bears have recently been found drowned because of a storm."

The case was brought by Stewart Dimmock, from Dover, a father of two.

His lawyers described the ruling as a "landmark victory".

Mr Dimmock said: "I am elated with today's result, but still disappointed that the film is able to be shown in schools.

"If it was not for the case brought by myself, our young people would still be being indoctrinated with this political spin."

The judge awarded Mr Dimmock two-thirds of his estimated legal costs of more than £200,000, against the government.

Children's Minister Kevin Brennan had earlier said: "It is important to be clear that the central arguments put forward in An Inconvenient Truth, that climate change is mainly caused by man-made emissions of greenhouse gases and will have serious adverse consequences, are supported by the vast weight of scientific opinion.

"Nothing in the judge's comments today detract from that."

I just watched the BBC news about Al gore for his inaccuracies toward the science aspect of the whole program. Pretty much exactly what George has posted here! I was glad to have read it here as well as having watched the news feed!

[paul.fr]

I just watched the BBC news about Al gore for his inaccuracies toward the science aspect of the whole program.

It is not the whole "programme", just a small part of the film.

[paul.fr]

George, there is bad science on both sides, I suspect. With one side trying to out do and discredit the other. I am not saying we should support bad science, because I believe the message of climate change. I just shudder at the thought of our schools turning in to mad cap American style schools where this sort of thing goes on.

we are already seeing it now, schools are refusing to teach or watering down evolution. Where will it end? We have kids who will receive a lesser education because of the nonsense creeping in to schools, another American export that we can do without.

Just look at the teenagers of today, especially the girls, they talk and act like they are living in a substandard American teen drama. They don't know the difference between the word me and I, or me and my. This really annoys me.

As for "...I had a friend of mine mention that she had believed that dinosaurs and humans coexisted because she had seen the film 1 million BC..." This is true of many things, personally I think people watch too much TV. It turns in to reality for them, and they can not tell the difference between fact, fiction or drama.

How many times do you hear that a TV soap opera "star", has been verbally assaulted in the street because people think they "are" the character off the TV? Madness, get a life is what I say.

Perhaps this should be in a different topic? Sorry for deviating from the original post.

[another_someone]

George, there is bad science on both sides, I suspect. With one side trying to out do and discredit the other.

Agreed - that is a natural and inevitable consequence of the politicisation of science.  OK - there always is bad science, in all science; but where politics is not a major factor, there are better processes for filtering out the bad science, or at least not regarding it on an equal footing with good science.  The problem is that political involvement will always distort the filtration process, and certainly in much of the world the political bias is towards the climate change argument, so that is the direction in which the greater distortion is allowed to go unchecked (that is not to say that equal distortions do not happen on the other side, but the external checks tend to be applied more rigidly on the arguments on the other side, at least in Europe, and probably slowly turning around to that in the USA as well).

I am not saying we should support bad science, because I believe the message of climate change.

But that is what the distribution of Al Gore's film to our schools is doing (the irony is that the effect of the court judgement might have the exactly opposite effect to that which was desired by the distribution of the film).

The problem is that the government is treating the climate change issue in the same way it treated the WMD issue in Iraq before the gulf war.  It is to some extent in the nature of all politicians to distort reality to fit their agenda (and this includes Al Gore), but that is the reason why we should try and resist the politicisation of science in schools, just as we should resist the dilution of science by religion.  Politics and religion have their place, but not in science.

[Alandriel]

The problem with this, as with so many environmental things these days is balance.

Where IS the balance? What exactly does one believe nowadays? It's really hard.
So I tend to watch / read as much as I can, both/all sides if at all possible and then
make up my own mind ~ which sometimes can result in some very interesting conclusions
 []

but that's why I'm here. To discuss my loopsided notions with you lot
 [] []

[Karen W.]

I just watched the BBC news about Al gore for his inaccuracies toward the science aspect of the whole program.

It is not the whole "programme", just a small part of the film.

Yes I understand that and they still feel that event hose 6 or 9 points of contention with educating behind them  on the points that were wrong, and re acknowledgement of the real facts could make it acceptable.. am I mistaken on that?

[JimBob]

I do not believe there is any doubt that the present industrial revolution based culture does upset the carbon cycle. How can it not with more carbon being produced than is being sequestered?

http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/content/interviews/interview/518/

By banning anything that has scientific inaccuratcies from schools, then there would be no science text books. All of them were written at least two to three years ago and ipso facto are out of date and contain inaccurate statements. What schools teach (or should teach) is the scientific method along with the mostly accurate science in the textbooks. Until lately, teaching people to think has been the main purpose of education. (I agree it has not been very well done for a while.) When politics is injected into the discussion, the it can no longer be called education, it would be indoctrination.

Using the argument "it contains inaccuracies" I guess we should also ban courses on hygiene, philosophy, history (which is written by the winner) and many other subjects. It just is totally unreasonable.

By the way, today, it was announced that Al Gore won the Nobel Prize for Peace along with the environmental arm of the United Nations. I guess they thought the whole was more important than the small inaccurate parts.

 

[another_someone]

I do not believe there is any doubt that the present industrial revolution based culture does upset the carbon cycle. How can it not with more carbon being produced than is being sequestered?

Do we know how much CO₂ is being sequestered?  Do we know that other sources of production of CO₂ have remained constant over that time - I would doubt they have?  Do we actually know how much impact CO₂ has on global climate (yes, it is a greenhouse gas, but so are so many other gasses, not least being water vapour - and the amount of CO₂ in the atmosphere still remains a minuscule fraction of the amount of water vapour in the atmosphere).  So far, no climate model has demonstrated sufficient accuracy to be regarded as proving any particular assumption, either for or against, any of the greenhouse theories.

By banning anything that has scientific inaccuratcies from schools, then there would be no science text books. All of them were written at least two to three years ago and ipso facto are out of date and contain inaccurate statements.

There is a difference between being out of date, and being known to be wrong at the time the statements were made.  The kind of statements that Al Gore made, if made in a research paper, would have been tantamount to fraud.

What schools teach (or should teach) is the scientific method along with the mostly accurate science in the textbooks. Until lately, teaching people to think has been the main purpose of education. (I agree it has not been very well done for a while.) When politics is injected into the discussion, the it can no longer be called education, it would be indoctrination.

I don't disagree with this.

Using the argument "it contains inaccuracies" I guess we should also ban courses on hygiene, philosophy, history (which is written by the winner) and many other subjects. It just is totally unreasonable.

Hygiene, medicine, and even engineering, are practical implementations of knowledge, and so you have to go with the best you have, and accept that it will change.

Science, history, and philosophy, and forms of enquiry, and none of them have to accept any fact as given, but should teach the ability to question everything.  I do agree that history has always been written by the victors, but a good historian should be able to challenge accepted historical doctrine.

By the way, today, it was announced that Al Gore won the Nobel Prize for Peace along with the environmental arm of the United Nations. I guess they thought the whole was more important than the small inaccurate parts.

Well, it wasn't the Nobel prize for a science - but it may as well have been a Nobel prize for literature.  It is highly dubious as to how Al Gore's contribution to world peace compares to those who have genuinely tried to resolve conflicts around the world.  Then again, I suppose the Nobel peace prize always has had some controversy surrounding it, since it often ended up rewarding people for making peace, the same people who were previously responsible for making war.

[JimBob]

George, I know you don't believe in global warming and I will not debate you on this issue. You can disagree, but I said mostly thing tings about education, that are my opinion, there is no tutor system.

But about carbon sequestration - the research has been done. It is not good for the future unless the issues is addressed. This conclusion is held by well over 90% of the people who have done the peer review work. The deck is stacked against what you are trying to argue and that is the LAST thing I will say in this thread.
 
P.S. Many better minds than yours had to agree to the Nobel Prize. I doubt that I have the intelligence to doubt their collective wisdom.

[another_someone]

George, I know you don't believe in global warming and I will not debate you on this issue.

No, it is not the case that I do not believe in global warming - it is just that I am not convinced about the causal arguments regarding global warming (global warming started before the industrial revolution, and I believe is also happening on Mars).

But, as you say, we can go around in loops over this.

P.S. Many better minds than yours had to agree to the Nobel Prize. I doubt that I have the intelligence to doubt their collective wisdom.

Many better minds than mine genuinely believed there were WMD's in Iraq - I never did.

[paul.fr]

George, how can the case for global warming be a "casual argument"? The evidence is there, even the US now admits we are causing the problem.

Yes, there was global warming prior to the industrial revolution, but we have accelerated the process.

[another_someone]

George, how can the case for global warming be a "casual argument"?

Sorry, but you have corrected a spelling mistake I did not make - I spelt "causal" bacause that is what I meant, not "casual".  Not saying I don't make spelling mistakes, except that on this occasion it was not (maybe my grammar was ambiguous).

The evidence is there, even the US now admits we are causing the problem.

As I said before, there were many, including the US government, who also earnestly believed that Iraq had WMD's.  I prefer to look at hard facts rather than look at the list of proponents and opponents who believe one religion or the other.

Yes, there was global warming prior to the industrial revolution, but we have accelerated the process.

Again, this shows the ambiguities that are used.  Earlier you said "we are causing the problem", whereas no all you are saying is that you believe we are exacerbating the problem - they are very different issues.

The fact is that none of the climate models is accurate, and nothing has been proven on any basis.  Even if humans have had an impact (and it may well be argued that humans must have some impact on the environment we live in, since we are a major part of that environment, and so our impact upon it is unavoidable), but I have yet to be convinced that any of it is as simple as saying that human CO₂ production is the primary impact we have on our environment, or that reductions in CO₂ production will have any major impact on the wider environment.

As I said, it is inconceivable that human activity would not have an impact upon the environment is many different ways, but what is different is that this is only the second time that humans have suggested that they could deliberately redirected the impact humans are having on the environment in a global way (the first such case was the Montreal Protocol, in 1989, which although far simpler in its projected impact, and in its policing, nonetheless has yet to prove that it works - the ozone hole is has not responded - although this may be explained, it nonetheless means the experiment, which is less adventurous than the CO₂ experiment, has yet to prove itself).  I think in such circumstances, whatever the effect of anthropogenic CO₂, it is a massive and unprecedented gamble to believe we can somehow deliberately direct global climate simply by reducing CO₂.

The problem is, even after 100 years, and even if we not only reduced our CO₂ output, but actually started removing CO₂ from the atmosphere in an attempt to cool the planet, we will still be in a position where we probably would not be able to tell how the climate we are experiencing then had been influenced by our actions.  We have no baseline climate model that is provably accurate (to date, they are all provably inaccurate), so we could still have people who would be saying "well, it would have been a lot worse if we had not done as we had", while others will say "it had no effect because we did not do enough of it, and if we only redouble our efforts we could yet have the desired effect", while a third group might be saying "it has not only not had the desired effect, it has had many perverse effects", and a fourth group will be saying "it has had no significant effect at all" - and I suspect none will be able to prove their position.

As for why politicians may increasingly support the greenhouse theory (apart from the fact that politicians are salesmen, and by nature, the most gullible people to sell to tend to be salesmen), is that it is a useful tool to reduce our dependence on imported oil.  The problem is that by using a false pretext to do this, we will have many secondary adverse impacts.  We could as well reduce our dependence on oil by increasing our usage of coal, of which most of the Europe and America has ample supplies of (South Africa, during the apartheid era, developed a very successful oil synthesis from coal program, because it had to overcome the oil embargo imposed upon it, which it continues to use today).  Ofcourse, we don't by any means need to become totally dependent on coal, as we were 100 years ago; but we could at least include coal in the mix, which at present is not an option if we regard all carbon as an environmental poison.

[paul.fr]

George, i did not intend to correct your spelling. I read your reply too fast and obviously read it wrong.

You can not use the WMD issue as a good analogy, that was a politically motivated decision. Not one based on scientific facts. You may argue that the issues surrounding climate change are politically motivated, and to some degree they are. Vote for me and i will do this or that about climate change.

But the truth is, this was an issue before the politicians got involved. For years politicians refused to listen, and personally i don't much care who promises what, as long as they act. What action should they take? Well i am not in a position to know all the facts, so i will be happy to leave that up to the chief scientist advising the government.

You said that you "prefer to look at hard facts", which facts are you looking at that so persuade you that global warming is not the consequences of man?

You are correct that i have said "there was global warming prior to the industrial revolution, but we have accelerated the process." and "we are causing the problem". Why do you think these are two different things?

The process of global warming is a natural one, hence my statement "there was global warming prior to the industrial revolution, but we have accelerated the process." We are causing the problem, we have changed the fine balance that nature has to regulate. Too much carbon and other products have been released in to the atmosphere and altered the balance.

Why has the hole in the ozone layer not reduced? you ask. Well it is not getting any bigger, the reason it has not reduced is because the CFC's have a life span (in the atmosphere) of up to 100 years. How long is it since we stopped using CFC's? Only a matter of a few years, countries such as china still continue to produce CFC's...can you see the problem? There is not quick fix, you can not discount the evidence because the hole has not shrunk.

I don't think anyone is saying that we can reverse climate change, simply by reducing our carbon emissions. But we can go some way to prolong the effects until we have a better idea of what needs to be done.

What is the harm in wanting or encouraging us to live a greener lifestyle? Walk the kids to school instead of driving them. less emissions and possibly healthier slimmer kids.
Recycle those aluminium cans and plastic bottles, why waste landfill when you can recycle?
There are many things we can do as an individual that do not cost you one penny, why not do it?