BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned

Subject: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Bill D
Date: 25 Jan 07 - 12:53 PM

well, in one school district, anyway...and some folks wonder why religious fervor in general gets some of us upset. Dictating to schools what they 'approve' for education is just one example.


"FEDERAL WAY, Wash., Jan. 24 -- Frosty E. Hardiman is neither impressed nor surprised that "An Inconvenient Truth," the global-warming movie narrated by former vice president Al Gore, received an Oscar nomination this week for best documentary.

"Liberal left is all over Hollywood," he grumbled a few hours after the nomination was announced.

Hardiman, a parent of seven here in the southern suburbs of Seattle, has himself roiled the global-warming waters. It happened early this month when he learned that one of his daughters would be watching "An Inconvenient Truth" in her seventh-grade science class.

"No you will not teach or show that propagandist Al Gore video to my child, blaming our nation -- the greatest nation ever to exist on this planet -- for global warming," Hardiman wrote in an e-mail to the Federal Way School Board. The 43-year-old computer consultant is an evangelical Christian who says he believes that a warming planet is "one of the signs" of Jesus Christ's imminent return for Judgment Day.



more here

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 25 Jan 07 - 01:26 PM

I wouldn't advise him to look forward to Judgement Day with any great confidence of a favourable outcomem to the hearing.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Rapparee
Date: 25 Jan 07 - 01:50 PM

Might be such a "sign" but ain't nobody agrees if The Elect are gonna be taken up before, during, or after -- or at all.

Me, I opt for the last.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Don Firth
Date: 25 Jan 07 - 02:36 PM

Washington State, particularly western Washington, is a pretty progressive area (hence the epithet of some years back, "the forty-nine states and the Soviet of Washington"). But there are a few areas, such as a small town near the Canadian border and a couple of pockets northeast of Lake Washington, where the Dark Ages are still in force. I wasn't aware that Federal Way (between Seattle and Tacoma) was one of these until I heard this story on the local news.

The would-be American Taliban strikes again!.

Red alert! Shields up!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Cluin
Date: 25 Jan 07 - 03:02 PM

That's some fucked-up shit. Where's Spencer Tracy when you need him?

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: katlaughing
Date: 25 Jan 07 - 03:23 PM

Maybe they will experience their own "inconvenient truth" when their Rapture occurs!

Sign me, Disgusted,

kat

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Amos
Date: 25 Jan 07 - 03:33 PM

A computer consultant? Hmmm....not someone I'd trust to work out the logic of a large system, anyway. I can see the block diagram now. All the little sub-routines and sub-assemblies tie in to one large uber-box labeled "FM Process occurs here".

A

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Bee
Date: 25 Jan 07 - 05:28 PM

Why people think that their religion should be allowed to dictate their version of reality to the rest of us is beyond me. It seems much worse in the US than in Canada, but perhaps that's just perception.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Naemanson
Date: 25 Jan 07 - 05:50 PM

I tried to tell my Japanese wife about the "debate" between religion and reality. I had been reading in Archaeology Magazine about a Gallup Poll asking Americans about science. It seems that 49% of Americans do not believe in evolution and 51% of Americans believe that dinosaurs and humans co-existed.

She was incredulous. She asked me how they could be considered 'educated'. She wanted to know what the vaunted American education system was good for.

So then I explained to her that the President of the United States does not believe in evolution, that he was one of those in that 49%. This floored her.

It seems that, in Japan, ignorance is considered shameful.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Greg F.
Date: 25 Jan 07 - 06:42 PM

God must love flaming arseholes- he's made so many of 'em.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Little Hawk
Date: 25 Jan 07 - 06:50 PM

No, Greg. They made themselves. Whether or not God exists... they made themselves. Trust me on this.

And then too, government, church, and school propaganda helped make them what they are. God is not behind any of that, as far as I'm concerned. People are responsible for every last iota of it.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Hrothgar
Date: 25 Jan 07 - 07:30 PM

Maybe God made them - and they provided their own polish.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Cluin
Date: 25 Jan 07 - 07:32 PM

Well, God made the sandbox.

Whoever put the cat turds in there is up for grabs, though.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 25 Jan 07 - 08:15 PM

"Maybe they will experience their own "inconvenient truth" when their Rapture occurs!"

or doesn't...

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 25 Jan 07 - 08:18 PM

" All the little sub-routines and sub-assemblies tie in to one large uber-box labeled "FM Process occurs here"."

... with no code, but the comment

Must really write something useful here...

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: GUEST,Truther
Date: 25 Jan 07 - 09:48 PM

Al Gore's a pro rassler who took a dive in the 2000 election and now shills for the big-money "fix-it" corporations that are going to tax you til you bleed to fix a non-existent problem. What a whore. His movie is bad science, he's a bad actor, he's a GOOD whore though, and he's not worth any more effort from these digits.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Amos
Date: 25 Jan 07 - 10:41 PM

Then I suggest you return them to your dark passages where at least they make somebody more comfortable.

A

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Bill D
Date: 25 Jan 07 - 10:48 PM

*grin* they DO crawl out from the woodwork, don't they? You s'pose roach powder in the cracks would help?

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Cluin
Date: 25 Jan 07 - 10:58 PM

GUEST,Truther, you do realize Stephen Colbert is a put-on, don't you?

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Don Firth
Date: 26 Jan 07 - 12:34 AM

"It seems that, in Japan, ignorance is considered shameful."

Your wife is right, Naemanson. Ignorance, particularly of this magnitude, is shameful.

And it would appear that GUEST,"Truther" wallows in ignorance as well. Some folks just love a good wallow.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Don Firth
Date: 26 Jan 07 - 01:48 PM

Last I heard (this morning's news), it looks like the Federal Way school board is backing down from the religious pressure and will allow the film to be shown after all. But the battle is still going on.

An interesting side note is that, in the Federal Way area, all the movie rental places are out of copies of "An Inconvienient Truth" because a lot of parents are renting it and showing it to their kids at home. One father said that after watching the movie, his daughter (eighth-grade) dashed around the house turning off all the lights that weren't being used and said that she wants to enter politics so she can do something about environmental pollution and global warming. She's motivated! Surprised the hell out of her father!

In any case, it would appear that Frosty E. Hardiman's crusade to stop the showing of "An Inconvenient Truth" in the Federal Way schools may have backfired on him. It's stirred up a lot of interest and people want to see the movie so they know what all the fuss is about.

Ya know what, Frosty? The Lord works in mysterious ways!

(snicker snicker snicker)

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: John Hardly
Date: 26 Jan 07 - 02:07 PM

It shouldn't be shown in a science class. Political science, maybe (I guess that would be "Social Studies" at the junior high level).

Same arguement that has been thrown about here as regards teaching "creation" of any kind in public schools. Science classes should be that -- the study of science. "An Inconvenient Truth" contains way more than science.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Kim C
Date: 26 Jan 07 - 02:10 PM

With all this global warming going on, seems like Frosty ought to change his name.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: John Hardly
Date: 26 Jan 07 - 02:18 PM

"Melty"?

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: John Hardly
Date: 26 Jan 07 - 02:18 PM

I think Berle has a trademark thing on "Uncle Melty".

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Bill D
Date: 26 Jan 07 - 02:25 PM

"It shouldn't be shown in a science class." ????

John...it is ABOUT science! It is a scientific theory. It is not about Al Gore's politics. Scientific theories are meant to be tested and examined...and this one has been for years now. More & more data and computer models are saying that it IS an accurate prediction and that we should pay attention. Does that make it 100%? Of course not....they 'predict' that the Sun will burn out in 12-15 billion years, we can't be sure.. but that is not a current concern.

The point is, anyone who does NOT agree with the prediction can do MORE tests, analysis and 'choose' to put their head in the sand and ignore what a majority of respected scientists tell us...but if the prediction is "danger" by most experts, it makes sense to bahave as if they are correct and change our habits!

Those to whom this evidence is "Inconvenient" had better get used to it.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Ebbie
Date: 26 Jan 07 - 02:27 PM

John Hardly, I would be interested in hearing you explicate on the film. What part(s) do you find objectioanble or questionable or on shaky scientific ground?

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Don Firth
Date: 26 Jan 07 - 04:25 PM

I have not yet seen "An Inconvenient Truth," but I've just put it at the top of my NetFlix list and it should be here in a few days. But I have been following this matter for decades.

The vast majority of scientists say—and have been saying for some time now—that the evidence for global warming and climate change is verifiable and incontrovertible.

Although there may be other factors involved (periodic natural variations in climate and minute fluctuations in the sun's radiation), the major contributor to the current increase in the earth's mean temperature is man-cause atmospheric pollution. Those with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo ("Screw the future—all that matters is the Quarterly Financial Report!") point to these natural fluctuations and try to claim that that's all there is to it and there is no cause for concern. But that is not a knowledgeable scientifically based opinion, nor, for that matter is it even a defendable political opinion. It's pure self-induced blindness.

It is the intellectual—and moral—equivalent of refusal to acknowledge that they are enjoying their picnic between the railroad tracks while the train is rushing toward them.

Those who try to debunk the idea of global warming, or claim that it is a political issue, not a scientific issue, simple do not understand—do not want to understand—what they are really dealing with.

It is possible, and the way we're going, it is very likely, that in a much shorter time that anybody (except scientists, particularly meteorologists and planetologists) think possible, we could reach a tipping-point, and set off an irreversible runaway green-house effect, and within a frighteningly short period of time—a few very short and agonizing years, not a few centuries, or even a few decades—this planet will be rendered uninhabitable. Once we hit that tipping-point, there is absolutely nothing that can be done to stop it.

Those who claim that this is a political issue, not a scientific issue simply have no concept of the enormity of what they are playing at.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: John Hardly
Date: 26 Jan 07 - 04:31 PM

It cherry-picks empirical data and specultes very non-empirical conclusions.

I question the specifics about rises in sea level.

I question the amount of human contribution.

And I question that it is "science" to even draw conclusions about drastic consequences. We don't even know on balance whether warming would be a good or bad thing.

You guys accept it because, for you it is a "Convenient" film. It confirms what you already believe to such an extent that you don't question it.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Don Firth
Date: 26 Jan 07 - 04:45 PM

And when I say "uninhabitable," I mean take a look at Venus, our nearest neighbor. Its current state (much hotter than a pizza oven) is the result of a naturally occurring runaway greenhouse effect (we assume that it was natural) that took place millions or billions of years ago. Planetologists believe that it started out to be much like earth, but the same volcanic activity that happened on earth in its early stages, combined with its proximity to the sun, precipitated Venus's current state, uninhabitable by any life-form anywhere near similar to life as we understand it.

That could be us sometime in the not too far distant future.

Don't think it could happen here? That's a comforting self-deception. But eco-systems are far more delicately balanced than most people believe. We've been pretty lucky so far. But we could very easily screw up big time!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Bill D
Date: 26 Jan 07 - 05:15 PM

"It confirms what you already believe to such an extent that you don't question it."

good grief, John! I hope you don't really mean that! That borders on an insult to my/our fairness & even intelligence. I have prided myself on NOT just buying into dire predictions at first glance. As Don Firth says, this has been studied for years in detail by many people who have no hint of bias.

YOU offer no refutation beyond "I question..." Measuring sea-level rise in relation to X amount of melting is just math! We are now SEEING some serious melting...ask the Inuit what THEY think about the changing climate...and ask the polar bears what has happened to the ice where the seals live. Weather bureau statistics SAY something is happening, and the computer modeling says the trend is scary....I hope you aren't accusing the programming of being political!

It's pretty simple...YOU cannot afford to be wrong. If we refuse to accept these studies until the water is up to out knees, it's a bit late to buy hip boots.

Still, if you must continue to be adamant, please confine it to data and real arguments, hmmm? Don't accuse honest people of political bias about such important issues.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Cluin
Date: 26 Jan 07 - 05:22 PM

"...But eco-systems are far more delicately balanced than most people believe.."

Amen. Read Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything for a quick lesson on how extremely unlikely our even being here is and how thin the thread that holds our continued existence is. Paranoia is too tame a word for the feeling you'll be left with.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: John Hardly
Date: 26 Jan 07 - 05:39 PM

Bill,

I'm sure you'll tell me if I'm wrong, but the "Inconvenient Truth" speculation about rising sea levels goes something simply like this:

If all ice on the globe was melted, the seas would rise by X.

But then, nobody is calling for all the ice on the globe to melt.

The movie also implies through its video editing that the rise would be tsunami-like. It does this by showing video of huge breaking waves crashing in on an unprepared land-mass.

But even if I allowed that all the melt would occur and cause the predicted rise -- it would not happen in tsunami-like manner, rushing down and up from the poles instantaneously. The melt would occur (as what has happened so far) over such a period of years that rise would be gradual.

A gradual rise wouldn't have made good, dramatic film footage, nor good propaganda.

Furthermore, the notion that all the ice would melt is not what science is predicting anyway. I don't know any science that has concluded that the warming that is occurring is going to result in ALL the ice to melt -- no cold poles -- summer vactions at the Antarctic beach house.

But even if it did, again, not all of it would rush to the sea -- not even on the Antarctic. Much of the water would still likely remain land-locked much as our glacier-made lakes in N. America.

And you can't have it both ways. If we are the principle cause of global warming, then our contribution will not remain a constant. Our use of hydrocarbon fuels would necessarily decrease with a warming.

But, again, pointing out that probablilty didn't fit the political agenda of the movie.

Bill, which of the scientists is predicting that we will become another Venus as Don suggests? Because unless you agree with Don, I'd like to see some of your outrage directed his way in your demand for "science".

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Don Firth
Date: 26 Jan 07 - 05:47 PM

I have a couple of oceanographer friends who would disagree with you on every point, John.

Even now, at the present rate of melt, most of Florida will be under water within a couple of decades. And New Orleans? Don't buy real estate there if you're smart.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Cluin
Date: 26 Jan 07 - 05:49 PM

Then it can join the ranks of Atlantis, Ys and Lyonesse.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: John Hardly
Date: 26 Jan 07 - 05:51 PM

What? They think that all ice on the planet will melt?

Wow. New Orleans. What a brave prediction. Wasn't it global-warmed-below-sea-level some time around 1850? Kinda like predicting that it will be darker at night than during the day. I gotta go with you to Vegas some day. I bet you're just a terror at roulette.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Greg F.
Date: 26 Jan 07 - 06:09 PM

Another ostrich for junk science.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Bunnahabhain
Date: 26 Jan 07 - 06:09 PM

The trouble with it isn't the basic science. It's the way it's presented, and some of the specific claims it makes.

The simple truth is scary enough without sexing it up, or heading towards a Hollywood disaster movie. Sea levels will rise an amount, an amount of time. We've only got order of magnitude estimates for height and time.

A 50/50 chance of changes in rainfall and temperature greatly reducing our viable crop-lands is far more dangerous than a one in a billion chance of a runaway greenhouse creating another Venus.

But the day responsibly presented science gets the attention of the general public for a long enough for them to learn something, I shall eat this keyboard.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Bill D
Date: 26 Jan 07 - 06:31 PM

*sigh*...no, giant waves will be intermittant when LARGE chunks of ice break off near population centers. This already happens at times. Most of the sea level rise WOULD be gradual....and there will likely still be polar ice....unless the runaway scenario gets ahold. But *IF the most conservative estimates are correct, Florida and New Orleans will be real problems. Offshore islands in Virginia and N. Carolina already see erosion...and rising waters are only part of the picture. Temperature changes affect vegetation, land use, farming, fishing (already an issue in Alaska and New England), recreation, cities...(you think Phoenix is hot now...), tourism, .......how long a list do you want?

It's hard to win though...if we DO become conservative and beat the worst of it, people like you will say in 30-50-80 years, "see...it wasn't really a problem after all! Let's go back to how we WERE doing it!"

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: John Hardly
Date: 26 Jan 07 - 06:36 PM

yup, Bunnahabhain, that's what I'm saying. And you're betting that the dramtics, dubious specific claims, and exaggerated magnitude estimates are to sex it up to gain the attention of the general public...

...and I'm agreeing, but saying that doesn't change the fact that they are dramtics, dubious specific claims, and exaggerated magnitude estimates -- not science.

And yet they are swallowed whole here by the same crowd that would laugh the same kind of dubious science -- offered from an opposing political pov -- right off the mudcat. And has done so often and arrogantly.

I mean, really, if you were discussing the topic on a more scientifically oriented website (not a folk music site) caould you really imagine...

"Planetologists believe that it started out to be much like earth, but the same volcanic activity that happened on earth in its early stages, combined with its proximity to the sun, precipitated Venus's current state, uninhabitable by any life-form anywhere near similar to life as we understand it.

That could be us sometime in the not too far distant future."

...not being laughed off the site? Really?

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Don Firth
Date: 26 Jan 07 - 06:39 PM

Oh, yeah, things will get pretty nasty before the earth turns into another Venus. But it's pretty hard to predict just how far it can be pushed before that tipping-point is reached. And there is considerably more than one chance in a billion of it happening, and assuming that it's hardly worth worrying about is a kind of dangerous way of looking at it. That's sort of like figuring that because the number of people who get run over by cars is relatively small, it's statistically perfectly safe to play in the traffic. We do know that it is possible. But we don't know exactly where that point is. If we did, we could deal with it better.

I've talked to planetologists and meteorologists who maintain that even if we stopped pouring greenhouse gases into the atmosphere today, it may already be too late.

Don Firth

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
                           —T. S. Eliot

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Don Firth
Date: 26 Jan 07 - 06:52 PM

". . . not being laughed off the site?"

Really, John?

What I said there is the opinion of a substantial number of scientists, particularly planetologists and meteorologists. It took me a while to be convinced of the possibility, but then I saw the data. I'm not making this up, as you seem to (would like to) think! So stop patronizing me. You might try reading a little scientific rather than political information on the subject for a change.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: John Hardly
Date: 26 Jan 07 - 06:59 PM

Don, you could not be patronized by another. Not legally anyway. You have the proprietary rights to the verb, and all usage thereof.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Naemanson
Date: 26 Jan 07 - 07:29 PM

You know, the majority of scientists now agree that global warming is occurring and a sizable proportion of them are coming to agree that humans are in large part to blame. (Source: I read this somewhere. *grin*)

The thing to take from this is that they MIGHT be right. IF they are and we do nothing we are being criminal in our treatment of future generations. If they are NOT right and we act then we are taking sensible precautions and leaving the world cleaner for those future generations. So it's a win-win, right?

Well, yes, but only if you can think beyond next year's profits. As I understand it the people who fight hardest against the idea of global warming are the companies who would have to change their ways. It is possible to make cars that burn cheaper, cleaner fuel but that would require change and change is scary. It is possible to make power using cleaner technology but that would again require change. Plus all this change would require money and the proper use of money is to take it as profit.

I live in the western Pacific Ocean. I have friends who are from some of the smaller islands in Micronesia. They remember their islands being larger. There is evidence all around us of the rise and fall of oceans. I live on the side of a mountain. I think I am safe from all but the highest, roughest ocean hijinks. But my friend Manny comes from Polowat. They are not much higher than sea level there. The people of Yap, Satawal, Palau, Pagan, and all the other little islands have every right to keep their homes but the say the islands keep getting smaller.

Humans MIGHT be to blame this time. They certainly were not in the past. But we MIGHT be this time. Do we really want to take that chance?

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Don Firth
Date: 26 Jan 07 - 07:33 PM

Merriam-Webster online dictionary
patronize
def 2 : to adopt an air of condescension

I don't think I'd be laughed off any genuinely scientifically oriented web site for making a statement like that. In fact, a fairly brief google search turned up quite a number of scientific web sites that discussed the matter of global warming and runaway greenhouse effects in some pretty ominous terms. You might try putting "global warming" and "runaway greenhouse effect" into the google "Advanced Search" boxes and see what you come up with.

One site that poo-pooed the idea of global warming being at all detrimental or dangerous to human life mentioned the possibility of a runaway greenhouse effect turning the earth into a second Venus. It said that 47% of the scientists interviewed said that they didn't think it was possible.

Very interesting.

What about the other 53%, John? They didn't talk about them.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: John Hardly
Date: 26 Jan 07 - 08:01 PM

47% agreed that it isn't possible. Of the other 53%, 50% were laughing too hard to answer. The other three percent took off their tin foil helmets, removed the gravity-proof ball point astronaut pens they got with two box-tops off of specially marked boxes of Captain Crunch cereal, and wrote the following proclamation:

"Let any and all who read this know that Don Firth understands the way things are and we appreciate his help in our War of the Worlds"

Signed,

The Venutians"

They HATE it when people call them "Venetians". But they do have a terrific comeback line for it. They always say, "Venetian? ....What are you, blind?!"

God, how those Venutians crack me up

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: John Hardly
Date: 26 Jan 07 - 08:03 PM

(was your posting of the dictionary definition of "patronize" some sort of further claim to ownership? I mean, I already allowed as how you own it. Maybe you could tag one of those "TM" thingies to your posts though, in case anyone else doesn't know.)

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Ebbie
Date: 26 Jan 07 - 09:36 PM

Damn. I hate to think it but I strongly suspect that neither John Hardly nor Bunnahabhain has seen the documentary.

I'm disappointed in the both ofcha.

Incidentally, here in southeast Alaska they project that rather than our waters rising we will experience the opposite, that our land will be 17 to 43 inches higher than it is today.

This is because of our glaciers. We are already logging the changes as the glaciers melt. The 'uplift' is already measureable.

They also project that as the land rises we in southeast will note more frequent and stronger earthquakes.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Don Firth
Date: 26 Jan 07 - 10:57 PM

47% said they didn't think it was possible, but apparently they weren't willing to go on record as making that a firm "impossible," otherwise I'm quite sure the writer on that particular web site would have really made hay out of it.

Of the other 53%, you don't know what they said and are going strictly on your own pie-in-the-sky, everything-is-just-peachy imagination.

The rest of your post is way off base and getting a bit snotty, so I'll simply ignore it and leave it for others to judge.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 26 Jan 07 - 11:40 PM

I don't get exactly how the melt water is going to stay on land??????

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: katlaughing
Date: 26 Jan 07 - 11:59 PM

Using high tech monitoring devices, including satellite images, scientists have reconstructed a major climate event that occurred on August 13, 2005. That afternoon the forty-one square mile Ayles Ice Shelf broke free of Canada's Ellesmere Island. It now floats free, an ice island off northeastern Canada.

Satellite images and earthquake monitoring devices recorded the event. Nobody lives in the area so it was only digital evidence that existed. Now scientists have visited the newly formed ice island. Its position will be closely watched.

Only five Canadian ice shelves remain connected to land. And measurements show they are 90% smaller than they were a century ago.

At the recent Geophysical Union conference, one report said most Arctic ice will be gone by 2040. Don't buy any real estate near sea level.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 27 Jan 07 - 12:22 AM

"But the day responsibly presented science gets the attention of the general public for a long enough for them to learn something, I shall eat this keyboard."

Would you like some ketchup?

This isn't a question of politics. The information is available and not from any political party.

Watch the film, read a book, and then decide. The signs are already there and no amount of spin doctoring can change it.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: dianavan
Date: 27 Jan 07 - 02:30 AM

...it makes you wonder why anybody would want to be a teacher.

Whats wrong with controversy?

I bet that Federal Way doesn't allow teachers to discuss Iraq, either.

Must be a very boring school if the principal has to approve any and all 'controversial' materials.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: John Hardly
Date: 27 Jan 07 - 05:41 AM

"I don't get exactly how the melt water is going to stay on land?????? "

Seriously? That's exactly how Lake Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario were formed, not to mention the thousands of lakes in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, Indiana and throughout Canada.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Don Firth
Date: 27 Jan 07 - 03:17 PM

And the Antarctic ice shelf? Or the Greenland ice sheet? Baffin Island, Ellesmere Island, and other such places, with huge ice shelves breaking off ("An ancient ice shelf the size of 11,000 football fields that broke off Ellesmere Island could be dangerous when it starts to drift in the spring, a scientist says."--CNC News, Dec. 2006)? Alaskan glaciers such as the Mendenhall?

When these bodies of ice melt, the water goes directly into the oceans.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Bill D
Date: 27 Jan 07 - 04:33 PM

Since floating ice displaces water, they don't need to melt for their effects to be felt. Maybe some of the signs Naemanson mentions IS from these first big chunks. Lots more to come.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Don Firth
Date: 27 Jan 07 - 05:31 PM

Good article HERE, and some good links as well. I think one would be a bit over the top to try to claim that this magazine has a political bias.

More HERE. And still MORE. Keep on TRUCKIN'. Need any more? If so, according to the google heading, I can supply over 10,117 more links to similar articles.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Ebbie
Date: 27 Jan 07 - 09:52 PM

Juneau's Mendenhall Glacier is making a remarkable retreat. When I first saw it just under 19 years ago it was still far enough forward that the little waterfall still fell into it. Now, not only is the ice wall close to a half mile away but even the wall has thinned and collapsed and become just a wedge curving around the landpoint. A few more years and it will have disappeared entirely from view, it will have slunk behind the point.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: GUEST,282RA
Date: 27 Jan 07 - 11:34 PM

The danger of global warming is not rising sea levels. I mean, that's not good but it's not going to just flood overnight. We're not in any immediate danger of that. The more immediate danger is that with the poles melting and the freshwater ice runoff flowing into the oceans, the salinity content of the ocean will become more diluted. Even a 1% change in salinity content could be pretty catastrophic.

The salinity content has a direct bearing on earth's ability to regulate its temperatures. Normally, the winds sweeping over the icecap on Greenland chills the waters off Norway--a place called Lofoten. That causes the seawater to want to freeze but it can't because it's holding so much salt. So the salt begins to leech out of the freezing seawater and falls to the bottom of the ocean in what are called "chimneys" taking a great deal of chilly water down with it.

This very salty water at the bottom moves southward hugging the Eastern Americas due to the earth's rotation. When it gets to Antarctica, it joins more heavy, cold, salty water there and it all flows into a huge faultline in the ocean floor. The earth's rotation propels this water through this seam or trough that takes the water to the Pacific and Indian Oceans where it surfaces. This cools the waters of the tropical regions and prevents the tropics from overheating. It flows around Africa and works its way North until it hits the Arctic waters near Lofoten. Now the water is warm because it came from the balmier southern climes. Because it's warmer, it retains its salinity quite well until the winds sweeping over the Greenland icecap chill it and cause its salt to leech out and the whole cycle starts again.

Lowered salinity levels in the seawater due to polar melting causes smaller, weaker chimneys to sink and not nearly as much cold, heavy, salty water is moving south and hence the tropics won't be cooled sufficiently causing the waters to heat up which will kill a great deal of ocean life.

Couple this with the fact that Greenland's icecap is melting, the waters off Lofoten are not being sufficiently chilled to form chimneys anyway. So the Arctic waters heat up but don't get chilled anymore and that overheats the Arctic. That also destroys a great deal of marine life.

Ultimately, the earth will survive this change but life will be dramatically altered and there is no guarantee that humans will survive...or want to.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: John Hardly
Date: 28 Jan 07 - 06:48 AM

I still don't see how the "Greenland Icesheet" numbers add up. The numbers are all available. I don't see how you can take the mass of ice covering 1/129th of the area of the oceans, and even if I granted you that the whole thing was 328 feet thick (instead of 328 feet thick at its thickest point) -- the most one could hope for in raising sea level would be 2.54 feet. (And before someone says "but 2.54 feet would be catastrophic in and of itself!" -- remember that the ice ISN'T 328 feet thick).

Greenland boasts the Northern Hemisphere's largest ice sheet—694, 981 square miles (1.8 million square kilometers)—which covers 85 percent of its total area • Humboldt, its largest glacier, is 62 miles (100 kilometers) wide and 164 to 328 feet (50 to 100 meters) thick.

The Atlantic covers an area of 82 million square kilometers (32 million square miles).
Arctic Ocean, the earth's northernmost cap. With an area of 12 million square kilometers (5 million square miles),
Indian Ocean covers an area of about 73 million square kilometers (about 28 million square miles)
the Pacific Ocean covers more than 166 million square kilometers (more than 64 million square miles)—about one-third of the earth's surface.

So the Greenland icesheet is 694, 981 square miles (.69 million sq mi)

The oceans that it is going to completely melt into are collectively approximately 129 million square miles.

That's approximately 129 times bigger than the Greenland icesheet.

And yet, somehow that 1/129 surface area is going to raise sea level 22 feet?

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Jan 07 - 10:32 AM

>>I still don't see how the "Greenland Icesheet" numbers add up. The numbers are all available. I don't see how you can take the mass of ice covering 1/129th of the area of the oceans, and even if I granted you that the whole thing was 328 feet thick (instead of 328 feet thick at its thickest point)<<

Because that's wrong. You need to quote your sources. Here's mine:

also called Inland Ice , Danish Indlandsis single ice cap or glacier covering about 80 percent of the island of Greenland and the largest ice mass in the Northern Hemisphere, second only in size to the Antarctic ice mass. It extends 1,570 miles (2,530 km) north-south, has a maximum width of 680 miles (1,094 km) near its northern margin, and has an average thickness of about 5,000 feet (1,500 m).

http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9037979/Greenland-Ice-Sheet

>>the most one could hope for in raising sea level would be 2.54 feet. (And before someone says "but 2.54 feet would be catastrophic in and of itself!" -- remember that the ice ISN'T 328 feet thick).<<

Right, it's 5000 ft thick. And that's AVERAGE thickness.

The Greenland ice sheet occupies about 82% of the surface of Greenland, and if melted would cause sea levels to rise by 7.2 metres[3]. Estimated changes in the mass of Greenland's ice sheet suggest it is melting at a rate of about 239 cubic kilometres (57.3 cubic miles) per year [1]. These measurements came from NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite, launched in 2002, as reported by BBC News, 11 August 2006.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_sheet

I called it an ice cap but apparently an ice cap is under 20,000 sq. miles while an ice sheet is over 20,000. However, the Britannica link above does call it an ice cap so take your pick.

But, regardless, the danger is not the flooding--at least not yet--the more immediate danger is the Oceanic Conveyor Belt, which regulates earth's temperatures, is being disrupted and that can cause the planet to overheat and we know this is already happening. Quite frankly, I don't think anything can be done about it and that's pretty sad and scary.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: GUEST,282RA
Date: 28 Jan 07 - 10:32 AM

That last post was mine, sorry.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: John Hardly
Date: 28 Jan 07 - 10:54 AM

Good information, Guest. Thanks. What I had came directly from the National Geographic site.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Don Firth
Date: 28 Jan 07 - 02:00 PM

I don't recall that. Where on the National Geographic site, John?

United States Coast and Geodetic Survey is not exactly a collection of liberal hippy freaks and they say THIS. In case you're not up on your metric system, 80 meters is about 262 feet (262.47 to be precise).

Very interesting graphic representations HERE.

Prepare to tread water.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: pdq
Date: 28 Jan 07 - 02:41 PM

At the bottom of the site Don Firth links to you will see:

------------------------------------------------------------------------
U.S. Department of the Interior
U.S. Geological Survey                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   USGS Fact Sheet 002-00
January 2000
------------------------------------------------------------------------
This page is http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs2-00/
Maintained by Eastern Publications Group Web Team
Last revised 01-31-00


That page was set-up for the 2000 presidential campaign and has not been changed. I know people in the USGS and federal EPA and they say both agencies were so politicized during the Clinton years that many people who would not parrot-back the party line were forced to quit. Can we say Nazi tactics.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: annamill
Date: 28 Jan 07 - 02:54 PM

Hi. Wonderful thread. Best in a while. I was thinking...;-)

Maybe if we all turned our refrigs and freezers up real high...

Love, Annamill

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: GUEST,Frank Hamilton
Date: 28 Jan 07 - 03:04 PM

Truther, you are wrong. Bush was never duly elected but ramrodded through an illegal election based on crooked electronic voting machines and a corrupted US Supreme Court decision.


"Al Gore's a pro rassler who took a dive in the 2000 election and now shills for the big-money "fix-it" corporations that are going to tax you til you bleed to fix a non-existent problem. What a whore. His movie is bad science, he's a bad actor, he's a GOOD whore though, and he's not worth any more effort from these digits."

As for his movie being bad science, let's see you prove it. Today's atmosphere being dictated by religious wing-nuts have denegrated science to such a degree that it's impossible to give scientists their just due. "Creationism" and the vapidity of "Intelligent Design" have polluted the discussion to such a degree that there is an attempt to smash Galilleo's telescope once again. The majority of credible scientists in the US support Gore's conclusion and recommend his film for its authority and common scientific sense.

As to the implication of "corporatism" to Al Gore, that's not his fault. The whole electoral system has been contaminated by lobbyists and those who hold the purse-strings are unfortunately from K-Street. But the point is being missed. Gore has gone against the corporate interests in this film and the most static that you here are from those who have a vested interest in keeping the oil, coal and nuke industry alive and eschewing alternative energy sources.

Frank Hamilton

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Don Firth
Date: 28 Jan 07 - 03:13 PM

Your biased opinion, pdq. The U. S. Geological Survey is an unbiased, multi-disciplinary science organization. Just because their findings are not to your liking does not make them biased.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Wolfgang
Date: 28 Jan 07 - 03:14 PM

Climate-related sea-level changes of the last century are very minor compared with the large changes in sea level that occur as climate oscillates between the cold and warm intervals that are part of the Earth's natural cycle.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Ebbie
Date: 28 Jan 07 - 04:29 PM

Wolfgang, have you seen the documentary, 'An Inconvenient Truth'? Its analysis and conclusions are as valid for you as they are to the USA. This is not an isolated phenomenon.

Gore talks about the pre-historical fluctuations and concludes that this is something different or at least something very much more immediate and impactful to the human race. If we- as the human race - are major contributors to the event, it should behoove us to reduce our impact as much as possible as soon as possible.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: pdq
Date: 28 Jan 07 - 06:54 PM

Don Firth,

The following link gives you a pdf file of 111 KB. I'm sure you will read it as you have such an open mind:

             ponder this

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Don Firth
Date: 28 Jan 07 - 07:25 PM

I read it, pdq, and it's a crock. A screed in defense of Exxon-Mobile's resistance to the whole idea of pollution and global warming (and why might that be, I wonder?), submitting to regulations, and being required to clean up their act.   Remember Prince William sound? Being legally required to clean up that bit of sloppiness cost Exxon-Mobile a bundle!

And just who is the Viscount Monckton of Brenchley anyway, and what makes him any kind of authority on global warming?

I see nothing in that document that goes beyond the usual whining and attempting to obscure the facts about something that the vast majority of climatologist are in agreement about.

Yes, I am open-minded. But not so open-minded that my brain has dropped out.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: 282RA
Date: 28 Jan 07 - 09:25 PM

>>The following link gives you a pdf file of 111 KB. I'm sure you will read it as you have such an open mind: ponder this<<

You'd think if this character, whoever he is, had any relevent evidence that refutes the fact that earth is warming up that he would want a public debate on the subject to prove what a crock it is. But all this letter amounts to is "You're disrespecting us and therefore trampling our constitutional rights so why don't you just resign?" To which he deserves the coveted, "Why don't you just shut the fuck up, asshole" award. The guy sounds like Shambles which shows you how much his opinion is worth.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: GUEST,Truther
Date: 28 Jan 07 - 09:52 PM

So let me get this straight. If you have ice cubes in a glass of water and measure the water level (put a mark on the side of the glass), then let the ice melt, the liquid level will be ABOVE the mark on the glass?

Now THAT'S some pretty special science. I always thought frozen water took up more space than liquid water, but now I learn it doesn't. Same as I discovered Continuation of Angular Momentum was suspended on 9/11 when the WTC towers fell.

We just left a 7-year cycle of record-high solar activity, and now we're entering one that'll be 50% greater, scientists say. Sure things are going to heat up, so here comes Al Gore, on cue, trying to use a natural phemonenon to make some fast tax profit for his commie U.N. army. Ponder Al Gore's scorched-earth scenario this week, my fellow Americans, when the Siberian cold masses hit us. When your power lines are down and you're freezing to death, remember that Al Gore says it's all in your mind.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Ebbie
Date: 28 Jan 07 - 10:05 PM

Truther (HA!), you say: "If you have ice cubes in a glass of water and measure the water level (put a mark on the side of the glass), then let the ice melt, the liquid level will be ABOVE the mark on the glass?"

Most people have learned differently by the time they are 10 years old. Surely you don't expect anyone here to make that mistake?

So, now, consider: What about ice that is currently on land? Why do you think Antarctica is called a continent?

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: GUEST,Truther
Date: 28 Jan 07 - 10:14 PM

Okay, so there's one vote for the higher water mark when the ice cubes melt. That means ice will EXPAND when it melts. Wonder why those bottles explode in my freezer? I think I learned not to forget the bottles in the freezer by the time I was 10.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Ebbie
Date: 28 Jan 07 - 10:21 PM

Ice will expand as it melts? Whose vote is that?

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Don Firth
Date: 28 Jan 07 - 11:16 PM

An ice cube in water (or whiskey) displaces it's own volume, hence when the ice cube melts, the level in the glass stays the same. But if you put the ice cube in another glass, let it melt, and then pour it into the whiskey glass, the volume increases

Simple arithmetic.

The ice on land is like the ice cube in its own glass before it's poured into the whiskey. Rush Limbaugh used that argument a few years ago. It was bogus then, and reality hasn't changed that much since then. Still bogus.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: John Hardly
Date: 28 Jan 07 - 11:46 PM

"In case you're not up on your metric system"

Just showing off that patented patronizer, huh?

282RA,

I looked at your links and it sent me looking for how the two things (your figures and the ones I got from the National Geographic site) could both be true. I had the hardest time finding maps of Greenland to show me the exact location of the Humboldt glacier (finally found its coordinates and sussed it out from there).

Since the Humboldt Glacier is a VERY large part of the whole of the Greenland Icesheet, and it's only 300-400ft at its thickest, that means that the elevations on Greenland have to be approaching those of the rocky mountains. I mean, at 5000 ft AVERAGE thickness, that means the peaks have to be two or three times that high -- or else the entire top elevation of the entirety of Greenland is higher than the highest peak of the Appalachian mountain range.

Need to do some further digging. Are the elevations on Greenland really as tall as the Rockies? I'd never heard that before.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Jan 07 - 11:58 PM

When you want information on any topic, don't trust bloggers, don't trust talkshow pundits, don't trust folk music forum pundits, and don't trust TIA. Trust the experts (thousands of them). For global warning, try starting here. Notice the word "start". This is not the be-all-end-all:

http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science/global-warming-faq.html

For politicizing science, the above also holds true. Start (*start*) here:

http://www.ucsusa.org/scientific_integrity/interference/a-to-z-guide-to-political.html

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Don Firth
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 12:03 AM

Slight misstatement above. The ice cube displaces its own weight, not volume. The volume of ice is slightly—very slightly—larger than its equivalent weight as water, but nowhere near enough to account for the scam that Rush Limbaugh was trying to peddle.

20,000 years ago, when the last ice age was still on, the sea level was 160 feet lower than it is now. That's what created all the "land bridges" that allowed for migrations, such as the influx of peoples who became the Native Americans. These land bridges have since disappeared, but there is still sufficient ice to raise the sea level enough to inundate a substantial amount of dry land. Things have been relatively stable since the end of the last ice age, but suddenly the ice is melting again. The primary precipitating factor is the man-cause increase in greenhouse gasses.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: fumblefingers
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 12:09 AM

According to what I've read, the earth has gone through a number of ice ages and temperature increases resulting in thaws. Most of this took place before human existence. Who or what caused all those thaws? Was it perhaps volcanic emissions or maybe dinosaur flatulence?

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Naemanson
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 12:36 AM

I'm not going to try to out-quote everyone here. It is useless to try to get people to shift their position based on research or political arguments. What we need is clear anecdotal evidence.

Remember the iceman? Hikers in the alps found him and reported the body as being a modern hiker. But when the authorities got there they found that he had actually be frozen there for 5,300 years. So let's work this out. Over 5,000 years ago, before the great pyramids were built this man was trying to cross the mountains and he was lost. For 5,000 years he has been covered in ice. NOW the ice is melting.

Why? Does it matter? The FACTS are correct. The ice is melting. It MIGHT be us. It might not. Once again, if we do nothing and it is caused by us then the results will be catastrophic. If we do something and it was not our fault then we prepare for and escape catastrophe and we clean up the environment.

So, why are we arguing? Why can't the human race look beyond the next few years and look at the big picture?

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 12:56 AM

Sorry. Me at 11:58 above.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Don Firth
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 02:19 AM

Excellent web sites both, TIA. Thank you. I've turned them into links, HERE and HERE

John, I'm not patronizing anyone, nor am I being condescending as you have accused me of being. Some folks, particularly Americans, are not up on the metric system. I know that a meter is about 3" more than a yard, but when you have a lot of meters, those three inches add up, so I worked out the conversion myself just to be sure, and posted it to save others the bother.

Sorry if it disappoints you, but not everything I write here is addressed to, or about, you.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: GUEST,JTT
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 03:21 AM

May I suggest that everyone posting here look at the film before posting any more about it?

I was impressed particularly by one figure in the film - the study showing that virtually all peer-reviewed scientific articles warn of catastrophic global warming, while a large proportion of articles in the popular press dismiss the idea.

So scientists, who need to protect their reputation, are warning of the danger, while journalists, who need to protect their advertising revenue, are pooh-poohing it.

One of the greatest dangers is that the Atlantic Conveyor - the current running from Mexico to Greenland and back, salinating the sea, warming it, providing an ecosystem for thousands of marine species - may be destroyed if the tongue of ice near Denmark that spurs it back towards Mexico breaks off.

If this happens, and it's now considered almost certain to happen, very fast we'll have an ice age in the eastern US and northern Europe.

Someone invent an alternative to oil, quick.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: John Hardly
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 06:46 AM

It doesn't have to be addressed to me to clearly see that you are patronizing. I just can't imagine interpreting "In case you're not up on your metric system" as anything but patronizing. Well, maybe condescending as well. You have trouble addressing your peers as it seems you have none.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: John Hardly
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 07:13 AM

This is kind of interesting. It seems to be finding that the mass of the Greenland ice sheet is staying relatively the same in that, even with the melt that is occuring at the lower elevations, there has been a steady net gain in the upper elevations. And some speculation relative to the possibility that there may be something about the warming conditions that cause the lower melt that is the very cause of the net gain in the upper elevations.

And apparently there are elevations in Greenland that are on a par with the American Rockies.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: GUEST,Bardan
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 07:46 AM

Speaking as someone from outside the US who travels a fair bit and knows people from all over the place, it seems to me that only in America is the reality of global warming being meaningfully contested. Over here, anyone who claims that global warming isn't real is consigned to the lunatic fringe. (Not necesarily a reason to believe I know, but interesting nonetheless.) My guess is it has something to do with the crowd who seem to live in terror of left-wing politics ever since the cold war.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: John Hardly
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 07:52 AM

"...it seems to me that only in America is the reality of global warming being meaningfully contested."

It isn't being meaningfully contested in America. Its cause and the possibility or probability of what could or should be done about it is.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: TIA
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 08:51 AM

Key couple of paragraphs from Joh Hardly's 7:46 AM link:

"Modelling studies of the Greenland Ice Sheet mass balance under greenhouse global warming have shown that temperature increases up to about 3ºC lead to positive mass balance changes at high elevations – due to snow accumulation – and negative at low elevations – due to snow melt exceeding accumulation.

****Such models agree with the new observational results. However after that threshold is reached, potentially within the next hundred years, losses from melting would exceed accumulation from increases in snowfall – then the meltdown of the Greenland Ice Sheet would be on.****"

Emphasis added by TIA. Rush Limbaugh (among others) has trumpeted this accumulation zone thickening as proof that the shrinking ice caps are a fraud. As this article makes very clear, this thickening is actually conistent with global warming models.

As in all things, carefully selected data can be made to show just about anything. Always check the context.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Don Firth
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 01:37 PM

"In case you're not up on your metric system. . . ."

John, within my experience, most Americans I know, and that includes the vast majority the people I know personally, are very fuzzy on the metric system, often not knowing a kilometer from a centimeter. I am fuzzy on it myself and still don't have the conversion tables down solid. For that matter, I've met Canadians who are a bit bewildered when it comes to converting between Celsius and Fahrenheit, for example. My son, who has been living in Canada for a couple of decades, is one of them. My intention, in converting meters to feet in my above post was exactly as I said it was:   to avoid confusion and to save those who might be interested the trouble of having to look up conversion tables and do the arithmetic themselves.

Now, if you want to interpret that as "patronizing" and "condescending," then that is your interpretation. Certainly not my intention. And that says more about you than it does about me.

Let's just drop this personal animosity and stick to the subject of the thread. This constant sniping makes both of us look like a pair of twits.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: dianavan
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 02:21 PM

John - The metric system confuses many Americans, myself included. I've been in Canada for over 30 years and still have trouble 'thinking metric' because I didn't learn it in school.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: John Hardly
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 02:59 PM

Okay.

When we last talked I was puzzled by the notion of how a 200-300 ft thick slab of ice, covering an area 1/129th the size of the planet's oceans, could possibly raise the sea level 22-27 feet. The numbers were all there and one could easily do the math.

So I dug further. I figured there had to be something more to it if a guitar-playing potter with a DSL connection could confound all of modern science (or at least that half of modern science bought and paid for by the fear industry and Greenpeace .....JUST KIDDING!!!!!!).

Anyway, I found that, though the Humboldt Glacier is only about 200 ft thick on average, Encyclopedia Britannica online says that the Greenland ice sheet (of which the Humboldt Glacier is a large part) is actually said to be 5000 ft thick……. AVERAGE!!!

Well, when I read that I sure felt shot down, I'll tell you. I stopped my Nobel Prize-winning research paper right then and there (the paper wherein I bring the world of science to its knees, begging me for but a taste of my "mythology"), sat down and played a couple of AABB's of "Nail That Catfish To A Tree" (a fiddle tune I've been learning to play fingerstyle. MAN is that a fingerbuster!).

And then it hit me.

Not the catfish. The catfish is just part of that fiddle tune and more or less fictional. What hit me was..........5000 feet .........AVERAGE?!!!!!

?

So I got to thinking about the implications of a 5000ft AVERAGE thickness to this ice sheet. And it dawned on me that that would imply that – not just the peaks, but the entire elevation of Greenland would be nearly as high as the highest peaks of the Appalachian Mountain range. Said another way – if the Greenland ice sheet AVERAGES 5000 feet thick, that means that if you could fit all that ice neatly into your freezer, your icecube tray would have to be 5000 ft tall (a shade less than a mile high – almost as high as anything in the Appalachian range) and three times the size of the State of Texas.

That is, pardon me, a shitload of ice.

And then the implications further grabbed me. The Humboldt Glacier (remember it? …the biggest glacier in the Northern Hemisphere) is part of that ice sheet and at 100KM wide (I've searched high and low for length and cannot find it) is only 200-300 feet think. That is a SERIOUS chunk out of a 5000 foot AVERAGE. I mean, it's like that damn F on the test you were too lazy to study for. Just TRY to get that grade back up to an A average once you've failed one stupid test. A 300 ft thick swath taken out of the 5000 ft average thickness means that there has to be some SERIOUS ice thickness makeup goin' on in Greenland. So now we're talking thicknesses that have to approach 6000, 7000 feet in order to bring the average thickness back up to the purported 5000 ft average.

But that's not the half of it.

Remember we're ONLY talking about ice thickness of Greenland. We've not even broached the subject of ground topography yet. Yikes. That means that WITHOUT anything but flat land, Greenland's upper elevation is 5000 ft.

From that I concluded (smart guy that I am) that Greenland, though I was unaware of it, must have mountains that are AT LEAST as big as the peaks of the Rocky Mountain Range. And because the 5000 ft thick ice is an average ice thickness, those mountains could be entirely ice.

They're not.

I was right. Greenland has peaks of 12,000 ft, 11,000 ft and at least two that are 9,000 feet. Depending on what you need to prove though, the bad news is that those peaks are not solid ice. They are rock.

So that means that in order to come back up to that 5,000 ft ice average, one is going to have to find some serious area to house it because it's not sitting atop those peaks – it's resting down in their crevices. Crevices that don't leave enough cu ft area for a block of ice a mile thick and three times the size of Texas.

Oh, did I mention that I think you actually do need pretty much that whole 5000 ft average thick block of ice to come up with the nearly 30 ft of sea level rise that the global warming scientists have predicted is going to come rushing our way in the next few years ??? Yeah, it's that 5000 ft average that gives those huge sea level rise numbers.

Wanna hear another bummer? (I mean, a bummer if your fighting for your right to believe in apocalypse)…

Apparently scientists in very warm clothing (or sitting in very cushy labs observing satellite data) have observed that even with the melt that is occurring at the lower elevations of Greenland, Greenland is still experiencing a net GROWTH of ice because of the gains it is having in its upper elevations (and as we've established…..MAN, has Greenland got UPPER elevations!!!!!). They are even speculating that it may be warming conditions that are causing MUCH more snowfall in the upper elevations of Greenland.

Ain't Mother Nature a bitch?!!

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: John Hardly
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 03:09 PM

It's shrinking, it's growing, it's shrinking, it's growing

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: 282RA
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 04:57 PM

Maybe this will help

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 05:19 PM

Putting politics aside, which I realize is a difficult task for SOME people, what do we have to lose by paying attention to global warming?

I saw the film, and I had questions.   First of all, there have been a number of "ice ages" in the history of this planet, and there will be more before the lights are shut off.   

Most scientists seem to agree that humans are contributing to global warming, but there is difference as to what extent.

The question is - what do we have to lose by trying to correct the balance?   By controlling emissions the worse that can happen is nothing. The air will be easier to breathe, cars will be cheaper to operatre, and live goes on.   Failure to act can result in deeper problems.

If you have a festering boil on your neck, you can say it is nothing and leave it alone and hope it doesn't spread or turn into something else. Or you can stop whining and worrying and do something about it.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: 282RA
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 05:29 PM

I'm also puzzled by your repeated assertion that the Humboldt glacier is a "large part" of the Greenland ice sheet. It is, in fact, a miniscule portion of it. From Britannica online:

largest known glacier in the world, northwestern Greenland, 210 miles (340 km) north-northeast of Dundas. It rises to a height of 328 feet (100 m) and discharges into the Kane Basin along a 60-mile (100-km) front. It was discovered in 1853 by an American expedition headed by Elisha Kent Kane.

http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9041490/Humboldt-Glacier

So it's 210 miles from Dundas. Funny that it could be a large part of the ice sheet and yet be so far from this town. It discharges along a 60-mile front. Well, Greenland has over 24,000 miles in of coastline! From a Wikipedia article:

The total area of Greenland measures 2,166,086 km² (836,109 square miles), of which the Greenland ice sheet covers 1,755,637 km² (677,676 square miles) (81%). The coastline of Greenland is 39,330 km (24,430 miles) long, about the same length as the Earth's circumference at the Equator.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenland

Now, before you go off trying to prove that the scientists who have been studying Greenland and the ice sheet firsthand are wrong and you are right, consider this map of the Humboldt Glacier:

Scroll down a little

As you can see, it is really nowhere near the size of Greenland's total ice sheet. It's a huge glacier to be sure but it is only a very small portion of the an island so prodigiously huge that it boggles the mind.

And, yes, with that kind of land area being 80% or more covered with ice, you could easily have 5000 feet of ice average--easy. Moreover, the article also states the weight of the ice has depressed Greenland in the central part by a good 1000 feet.

It looks like you read things into articles that are not really there. Whether it's because global warming frightens you (it very definitely should) or because you have the anti-intellectual's innate distrust of scientists or a little of both, I don't know. But you seem to argue in favor of a view that is largely manufactured via misinterpretation.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: katlaughing
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 05:32 PM

Look out Australia:

January 30, 2007
Page 1 of 2 | Single page

The Great Barrier Reef will become "functionally extinct" within decades at the current rate of global warming, while wilder weather is set to affect property values and drive up insurance bills in many Australian coastal communities.

A confidential draft of a major international report, obtained by The Age, shows that without massive greenhouse gas emission cuts to slow global warming, damage to coastal areas, key ecosystems and the farming sector is likely to cost Australia's economy billions of dollars.

On Saturday, The Age reported that the world's authoritative body on global warming, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), was preparing to strengthen its findings in a scientific assessment being released in Paris this week.

In coming months, the panel will also release two more reports, summarising key research on global climate impacts and solutions to climate change. CONTINUED HERE.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: TIA
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 05:38 PM

This should help as well. These are the guys who study the Geenland ice balance. You can see the actual thickness profiling data.

http://cresis.ku.edu/research/data/

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Bunnahabhain
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 05:40 PM

You are aware that large parts of the land masses of Greenland and Antarctica are well below sea level?

The ice is so heavy the ground has been depressed by it.

The highest Point of the Greenland Ice cap is just over 3200m (10,500ft) above sea level.

The Humboldt glacier. You probably can't find a length for it, as nobody is quite sure how long it it. It's an an area where the Ice cap descends to the sea, and thins as it does so. How long it is depends on where you draw the line of where the ice cap ends and the glacier begins. 500m thick, 1000m, 1500m? They'll all give

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: 282RA
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 05:47 PM

I should correct myself when I said the central portion of Greenland is depressed by ice by 1000 feet. I should have completed the sentence by saying 1000 feet below sea level.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: John Hardly
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 06:18 PM

My comments on the Humboldt glacier were to point out that the ice sheet is not of even thickness. That if it averages 5000 ft thick, but also has areas that are a mere 200 feet thick, that means all the more ice in other areas.

And if I had never mentioned the Humboldt glacier, but had merely said "y'know, 5000 being an average, that means there is still an even greater elevation of pure ice -- 5000 feet high and twice the size of Texas --- I would have been saying the same thing.

If you want to subtract the areas of Greenland that are, as you say, 1000 ft below sea level, that's fine, It still means the elevations of pure ice are at 4000 feet and twice the size of Texas.

But if I grant you that some of Greenland is 1000 ft below sea level, let's not forget that a substantial amount of it is at Rocky Mountain elevations. Probably more than is below sea level.

And that below sea level thing? ...that, and the movement of ice is exactly why many say (and probably quite correctly so) that even if in a worse case scenario ALL of Greenalnd melts, MUCH of that fresh water will stay put in some GI-NORmous "Great Lakes".

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 06:21 PM

With this, as with any other contentious matter, most people will cling tenaciously to the first position they took on it...almost till Hell freezes over. Why? Well, because their ego has already invested a good deal in defending that first position, and it is NOT about to recant now! Nosiree. It's the "Vietnam" syndrome. ;-) "We can't withdraw now, because that would mean that all those lives were 'lost in vain'..." LOL! What vanity. Such lives are pretty well always lost in vain.

The mountain of evidence, however, now confronting those who scoff at the notion that there is global warming occurring and that humans are significantly contributing to it, is managing to cause many of even the most stubbornly recalcitrant egos to amend their past position...or just become a little bit less vociferous about defending it. Their numbers are steadily dwindling.

The same is true of those who assert that invading Iraq was a really terrifically excellent and necessary thing to do.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: John Hardly
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 06:28 PM

I would agree with you LH if I hadn't changed my mind so much over the past few years. I just don't think there's anything wrong with healthy skepticism. In fact, it is often the thing that keeps those prone to irrational extremes from spoiling (by poor framing, careless logic, or irrational fear) the value of a good point.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 06:35 PM

Healthy skepticism is a useful thing, John. No doubt. I often go against the general flow myself on any number of things. Like who planned the destruction of the WTC and carried it out, for example... ;-)

Matter of fact, there's something quite seductive about questioning a common popular viewpoint. It's very appealing to think that one sees through something that almost everyone else has fallen for. Is it not?

That too can be a pitfall.

What do we have to lose by reducing CO2 emissions? (in the long run, I mean)

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: John Hardly
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 06:39 PM

Nothing. Nothing at all. And we should be just as adamant about doing it ourselves as we are angry at the Chinas, Indias and others who don't see it that way.

But if it is our goal to stimulate interest in reducing CO2 emissions, it is a too-easy trap to fall into to think that disinformation, disseminated in the name of doing good, is our friend. It is not.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: 282RA
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 06:43 PM

Am I the only one who has no idea why this individual is continuing to argue only to agree and then continue to argue?

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 06:44 PM

Can't argue with that.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Naemanson
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 06:50 PM

I just want someone to say WHY they disagree with the notion that humans MIGHT be part of the cause. I know WHY people are worried that global warming is caused by humans. I want to know why the rest of you do not believe it to be a cause of concern. I don't want to see a political discussion not do I want to hear any fingerpointing. I just want a simple statement.

Here, I'll help you. I believe global warming is at least partially caused by humans and ignoring it will cause disaster. I believe making changes now will save lives and improve conditions for our children's children. The changes I advocate include reduction of greenhouse emissions and preparing for the increased temperatures and the rise of the sea levels.

There. That's my statement. What is yours?

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: John Hardly
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 06:58 PM

"Am I the only one who has no idea why this individual is continuing to argue only to agree and then continue to argue?"

Can you not address me directly or are you looking for a cheerleader instead of a discussion? Or is the "individual" to whom you refer not me?

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: 282RA
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 07:02 PM

You're talking about a New Orleans type mass exodus and relocation occurring on every coastline on the planet. Hundreds of millions of people fleeing. You're talking islands as Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, England, Iceland, Hawaii etc. quite possibly getting submerged or made much smaller. Whose going to take in the refugees when every country already has to find room for their own displaced coastline dwellers?

Hate to say it but even cutting all greenhouse gas emissions at this moment will not stop the warming trend. I don't think there is anything anyone can do. We can only hope that we are not the sole cause of it and pray it might just turn around on its own but that could take centuries and we don't have centuries. What will have to happen is that there must be a mass die-off of life, including human (especially human), so that what land areas are still above the water won't be unbearably overcrowded and there's still room for any wildlife that survives.

I just hope I'm dead by the time things get to that point because it's not all that far into the future. All the sudden immortality doesn't look like such a desirable thing.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: pdq
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 07:35 PM

"The Great Barrier Reef will become 'functionally extinct' within decades at the current rate of global warming..."

It has been stated over and over again, on this forum and others, that the Pacific Ring of Fire is in a period of unusually high activity. Underground volcanoes are warming the Pacific Ocean, threatening the health of The Great Barrier Reef as well as softening the ice at the edges of Antarctica. It is not just bad science to call this Global Warming, it is dishonest.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 07:36 PM

Damn shame they can't turn the ocean into beer first, then, if it's as bad as that. Shane would die happy.

I doubt that Japan or Hawaii or most other islands would be "submerged". They've got plenty of high mountains. But a lot of their valuable shorefront and lowlying areas would be inundated. The most vulnerable places, all things considered, are Bangladesh and Holland. In Bangladesh it would be a catastrophe almost beyond imagination. There is a huge population there, and they're living on a floodplain.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 08:03 PM

You're right, pdq. In that case it should rightly be called "oceanic warming" in regards to those areas you mention. ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: John Hardly
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 08:06 PM

"Damn shame they can't turn the ocean into beer first, then, if it's as bad as that."

Jump in the water
Stay tight all the time

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: pdq
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 08:09 PM

Warm beer. How British.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Bill D
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 08:24 PM

282RA...yes, it 'might' be that bad. It is NOT clear yet. *IF* islands & low areas start getting submerged, serious steps will have to be taken, and population reduction is one of the major ones. (we should have been doing it for years, already). Areas like Bangladesh simply can't deal with much sea-level rise, and India & Pakistan won't be in the mood to help...

On the other hand, Canada & Russia might gradually get warm enough to support more. If it gets bad, it WILL be at a rate higher that we'd like to deal with.....the lower we can get the population first, the better off we'll be.

I'm just speculating...there are people who do this all day long, and have better ideas of the details.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 10:14 PM

"...even if in a worse case scenario ALL of Greenalnd melts, MUCH of that fresh water will stay put in some GI-NORmous "Great Lakes"."


Wrong, wrong, wrong. Go do a bit of reading on isostasy and post-glacial rebound. The lithosphere is quite elastic. If all of the ice melts, first, there will be a giant depression into which the sea will flow, then Greenland will not only pop back up, it will overshoot and develop a nice hump. Ain't gonna be no ginormous lakes there.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 11:21 PM

Uh-huh. Tell me this...if people can invent grotesque words like "Gi-normous" then how come no one says "E-gantic"?

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 11:43 PM

Oh crap, you mean the "i" is long? I was picturing a lake full of Bombay Saphire. Now I am sad.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Naemanson
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 11:54 PM

So, 282RA, you're saying it's such a big problem that we should just ignore it until it happens?

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Bill D
Date: 30 Jan 07 - 11:00 AM

Why, Brett...what a way with words you have.. ;>)

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: GUEST,282RA
Date: 30 Jan 07 - 01:03 PM

>>So, 282RA, you're saying it's such a big problem that we should just ignore it until it happens?<<

No, I'm saying we have long ignored it and hence it has already begun to happen and nothing can now reverse it. Nothing we can do anyway.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Amos
Date: 30 Jan 07 - 07:49 PM

"Bush accused of distorting evidence on climate change
By Andrew Buncombe in Washington
Published: 31 January 2007

From here

... The Bush administration has been accused of routinely misleading the public over the threat of global warming and of orchestrating efforts to try to suppress scientific findings that highlight the reality of climate change.

The chairman of a Congressional committee investigating the administration's actions said yesterday that government officials had sought repeatedly "to mislead the public by injecting doubt into the science of global warming". Democrat Henry Waxman also said the government was refusing to make public documents that would expose its behaviour.

Meanwhile, two pressure groups provided survey findings to the committee that suggested almost half of federal climate scientists who responded said they had experienced pressure to eliminate the words "climate change" or "global warming" from their writings. One third said they had experienced officials at their agencies making public statements that misrepresented their findings.

There have long been accusations that Mr Bush's government has interfered with scientific findings for ideological and political reasons. In the field of reproductive health, it has discredited the effectiveness of condoms for preventing sexually transmitted diseases and refused to authorise emergency contraception. In oncology it has sought to show a link between breast cancer and abortions.

But nowhere has the government's efforts been more focused than in the field of global warming - something Mr Bush has only recently been willing to publicly accept has a link to human activity. Despite the belated acknowledgement, he remains adamantly opposed to an enforced reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

Mr Waxman said his committee had sought documents from the White House that would reveal its strategy but the government had not been forthcoming. He added: "We know the White House possesses documents that contain evidence of an attempt by senior administration officials to mislead the public by injecting doubt into the science of global warming and minimise the potential danger."

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Ebbie
Date: 30 Jan 07 - 10:21 PM

I saw that on the news tonight, Amos, and felt like cheering LOUD.

From Bush's perspective he must feel like *everything* is going wrong. Couldn't happen to a more deserving guy.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Naemanson
Date: 31 Jan 07 - 03:28 AM

From 282RA: "No, I'm saying we have long ignored it and hence it has already begun to happen and nothing can now reverse it. Nothing we can do anyway."

So, let me get this straight. We COULD have done something years ago but didn't. Now we SHOULDN'T even try because it's too late. Now that's the good old American get up and go that we all know and love. Why, with that kind of enthusiasm we shouldn't have tried any large projects at all. Why build a canal through Panama? Ships can go around the Horn. Why build a railroad all the way across America? We have ships going around the Horn and stagecoaches to do the in-between work. And going to the Moon is a ridiculous idea! Why bother? It's too much work.

We'll leave it to the Europeans and the Red Chinese to solve this one for us.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: dianavan
Date: 31 Jan 07 - 03:32 AM

From the same article:

"Meanwhile, in Washington, Mr Bush has signed a directive that will give him greater control over government policy statements on public health, the environment and civil rights."

When everything is going wrong for Bush, he just tightens the controls.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: katlaughing
Date: 31 Jan 07 - 10:59 AM

And a little more...why am I not surprised:

US CLIMATE scientists have accused the White House of deliberately censoring their research and politically pressuring them into downplaying the threat of global warming.

Two private groups representing government scientists made the explosive claims of interference by the Bush Administration during a Congressional hearing yesterday.

A survey of 279 American climate scientists responded to a questionnaire showing two out of five of them believed their work had been edited to change its meaning.

Nearly half of those surveyed by the Union of Concerned Scientists also said that at some point they had been asked by the Bush Administration to remove references to global warming or climate change.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Amos
Date: 31 Jan 07 - 11:05 AM

Today's Times reports:

PARIS, Jan. 29 — Scientists from across the world gathered Monday to hammer out the final details of an authoritative report on climate change that is expected to project centuries of rising temperatures and sea levels unless there are curbs in emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases that trap heat in the atmosphere.

Scientists involved in writing or reviewing the report say it is nearly certain to conclude that there is at least a 90 percent chance that human-caused emissions are the main factor in warming since 1950. The report is the fourth since 1990 from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which is overseen by the United Nations.

The report, several of the authors said, will describe a growing body of evidence that warming is likely to cause a profound transformation of the planet.

Three large sections of the report will be forthcoming during the year. The first will be a summary for policy makers and information on basic climate science, which is expected to be issued on Friday.

Among the findings in recent drafts:

¶The Arctic Ocean could largely be devoid of sea ice during summer later in the century.

¶Europe's Mediterranean shores could become barely habitable in summers, while the Alps could shift from snowy winter destinations to summer havens from the heat.

¶Growing seasons in temperate regions will expand, while droughts are likely to ravage further the semiarid regions of Africa and southern Asia.

"Concerns about climate change and public awareness on the subject are at an all-time high," the chairman of the panel, Rajendra Pachauri, told delegates on Monday.

But scientists involved in the effort warned that squabbling among teams and government representatives from more than 100 countries — over how to portray the probable amount of sea-level rise during the 21st century — could distract from the basic finding that a warming world will be one in which shrinking coastlines are the new normal for centuries to come.

...

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: TIA
Date: 31 Jan 07 - 11:50 AM

I watched the hearing on C-Span last night. Republican buttheads were still pushing the real scientists to admit that the scientific consensus is not unanimous, and not 100% certain. The scientists, of course, admit this freely because NOTHING in science is ever 100% certain. EVERYTHING is always open to doubt and critical testing and possible revision. That is how science works fer crissakes. These R-jerks are playing upon (and fostering) public misunderstanding of science so they can keep the big oil campaign contributions rolling in. They are selling out my (and yours, and everyones') kids' future for bags of silver.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: fumblefingers
Date: 31 Jan 07 - 01:20 PM

John Hardly,

What do you reckon the temperature of the earth is down 5000 feet? Way above freezing you can bet.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: GUEST,282RA
Date: 31 Jan 07 - 04:50 PM

>>So, let me get this straight. We COULD have done something years ago but didn't. Now we SHOULDN'T even try because it's too late.<<

I said no such thing. You can try anything you like. It just won't do any good. Far be it from me to tell anyone what they should or shouldn't do. Just don't say in the end that no one told you the truth.

>>Now that's the good old American get up and go that we all know and love. Why, with that kind of enthusiasm we shouldn't have tried any large projects at all. Why build a canal through Panama?<<

I don't know. why?

>>Ships can go around the Horn.<<

Fine with me.

>>Why build a railroad all the way across America?<<

To ruin the Indians' hunting grounds?

>>We have ships going around the Horn and stagecoaches to do the in-between work.<<

And if they'd stuck with that, we probably wouldn't be crying big crocodile tears over global warming, would we?

>>And going to the Moon is a ridiculous idea! Why bother? It's too much work.<<

I could care less that we ever went to the moon. What's that to me? So what?

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Little Hawk
Date: 31 Jan 07 - 04:58 PM

LOL! Now there's a refreshing point of view on a few different subjects. You tell 'em, 282! ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Naemanson
Date: 31 Jan 07 - 05:22 PM

LOL! How convenient. Just shrug off human progress because it goes against your argument.

I admit there were very negative side effects of each of those points I made. In crossing this country the "civilized" races destroyed a series of complex and highly developed cultures that got in their way. The same type of argument dribbles down through your entire post.

But the point is... we don't KNOW what we can do until we try. You apparently don't even want to do that. I detect the heavy sigh of regret in your post. I seem to hear the tapping of hammers as you start to construct your tomb. But is that what we really want to do, give up and roll into our graves? A few million years ago our ancestors had the choice of leaving the trees for the far more dangerous ground. Where would we be if they all said, "It's no use. We might as well stay here."?

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: GUEST,282RA
Date: 31 Jan 07 - 05:59 PM

>>LOL! How convenient. Just shrug off human progress because it goes against your argument.<<

It all depends on what you call progress.

>>I admit there were very negative side effects of each of those points I made. In crossing this country the "civilized" races destroyed a series of complex and highly developed cultures that got in their way. The same type of argument dribbles down through your entire post.<<

Right. And the Panama Canal was built virtually with slave labor and countless men were killed or maimed in the process.

>>But the point is... we don't KNOW what we can do until we try. You apparently don't even want to do that.<<

I know when to pick my battles. But Mother Nature always wins.

>>I detect the heavy sigh of regret in your post. I seem to hear the tapping of hammers as you start to construct your tomb.<<

Seems to me as good a time as any to get started. I'm like Queequeg and his coffin.

>>But is that what we really want to do, give up and roll into our graves?<<

That's not our choice to make. Global warming is going to run its course and when it's done, the earth will have been transformed. But we'll be like old growth forests--we need to be struck down so that new life may grow. Maybe earth really is an organism in its own right and maybe we're like a virus ravaging her body. But now her system is starting to fight back--eradicate the virus.

>>A few million years ago our ancestors had the choice of leaving the trees for the far more dangerous ground. Where would we be if they all said, "It's no use. We might as well stay here."?<<

If they saw what was coming, they just might have.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Little Hawk
Date: 31 Jan 07 - 07:01 PM

I wouldn't be a bit surprised if that oft-repeated cliche about our ancestors "coming down out of the trees" has utterly no foundation in fact whatsoever. I bet we NEVER had ancestors who lived in trees, although I'm sure they took refuge in them now and then to get away from a large bear or similar carnivore. After all, we still do that if we have to.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Amos
Date: 31 Jan 07 - 07:39 PM

The chances are very good that they did hide out in trees a lot prior to about 65M years ago. Then, after things warmed up a good deal from the after effects of the Yucatan impact and its nuclear winter, those that survived found it a lot safer than it had been to walk about in daylight. The difference was that a lot of the prior hierarchy of food-chain entities were gone, including the big meat-eater dinosaurs. So the current theory goes, anyway.

It is fairly certain that we have, at least, a common ancestor with chimpanzees and bonobos.

And they spend a lot of time messing about in trees.

A

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Little Hawk
Date: 31 Jan 07 - 09:18 PM

Ah, but it is far from proven. It remains another interesting theory. There are other possibilities. Probably many.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: GUEST,Truther
Date: 31 Jan 07 - 11:44 PM

Glad I checked back in here for the science update. I learned I can quit worrying about bottles exploding in my freezer. Liquid doesn't expand. Al Gore is a genius. He's changed the laws of physics (in the minds of some here).

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Feb 07 - 12:18 AM

Ah, but ice does expand, my friend. Ice expands within a certain range of temperature change. That's why it buckles sidewalks and heaves shallow foundations when they get moisture under them before a deep freeze.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Amos
Date: 01 Feb 07 - 12:59 AM

Ice when it melts occupies less space than frozen ice because of the re-arranging of the molecules between 2 degrees C and 0 degrees C, or thereabouts. This peculiarity of water is one of the reasons there is life on the planet.

A

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: GUEST,Truther
Date: 01 Feb 07 - 11:34 PM

Now I'm really confused. Water occupies less space than ice? And they're saying sea levels will RISE when polar ice melts. I must've stepped in something going from step A to B. Sure smells.

Anyway, I just came back here to see the celebration over Al Gore being nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, but where's the PARTY?!

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2007/02/01/D8N0SUK80.html

I mean, here's this guy, just an aw-shucks trustworty former senator/vice-president who helped destroy Yugoslavia, then took a dive so GWBush could get into office...son of another diabolical globalist senator...and Junior's out shilling for British Petroleum and other corporations with his bogus film, when he goes and gets himself a Nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize.

And I bet he wins it. It'll help pave the way for a global tax on the "bad countries" that have "harmed mother earth."

What a crock.

Solar activity is thawing the moons in the outer rim of the solar system for possibly the first time ever, so why don't we just blow up the sun because of what it's doing to the earth? Cattle and other animals produce more methane, so just kill them all. One volcanic eruption produces more "greenhouse gas" than all of automotive history, so let's cork the volcanoes. Man. Some people can be sold anything.

You're being flim-flammed on the environment, and Al Gore has found his new role in life as head snake-oil pitchman. And maybe soon he'll be able to use the Nobel Seal of Approval to lube the tube.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Barry Finn
Date: 01 Feb 07 - 11:50 PM

Still love the old saying "the more we learn the less we know"

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Feb 07 - 11:56 PM

I don't follow your reasoning about water and ice in the least, Truther. ;-) I think your hatred of Al Gore is clouding your understanding of the problem.

The ice at the poles is not floating down in the water like an iceberg. It's sitting on solid ground for the most part or extending itself in a thin coastal shelf on the surface. If it were all floating deep in the water in the form of icebergs, of course then it would displace a lot of water, but it's not. It's mostly sitting on the ground in various places. A little of it is floating (and melting) in the form of icebergs. If it mostly melts, the ground under it will gradually be exposed and the sea level worldwide will rise.

Are you not aware that ice expands in a certain temperature range? If you completely fill a glass bottle with water, then freeze it, the ice will break the bottle, because it expands enough to do that. Is that hard for you to understand? Why not put it to the test then? I have no idea what you think the volume of ice as compared to the volume of water has to do with proving or disproving global warming as a theory.

It has nothing to do with it.

If the poles melt, the sea rises, because that ice was mostly above the existing sea water before it melted. Another thing that happens is this: the ocean currents become affected by a decrease in salinity where the melt flows in and they change, and that causes climatic change in certain regions. It could trigger a new ice age in northwestern Europe and northeastern Canada/USA...for example.

We live in a flexible and ever-changing environment, and there are many different factors involved. Some of them are due to human civilization, some are not. We can do something about some of them, and nothing about others.

Just because you already hate Al Gore (for whatever reason) is a very poor reason for deciding that if he's for anything, it must be a lie, and you should therefore be against it.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Barry Finn
Date: 02 Feb 07 - 12:42 AM

Thanks for the above Amos. The ancient navigators of the South Pacific & now todays navigators know that the changes in water temp & salinity are causes for weather changes on the ocean surfaces, which also has a neg effect on the undersides of ice shelves it comes in contact with further causing the decline in salinity.
When we start getting into the vicious cycling we may create our own whirlpool into a world of shit, spiriling down & out of control.

But what the hell do any of the scientists know. The government fires those that worked for them when they didn't agree anyway. So who knows best, the ones who still have their jobs, the ones that work for the other world agencies that are just trying to scare us, the now other concerned nations or our US politcians? That's right, the politcial leaders, they alway know what's best.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: dianavan
Date: 02 Feb 07 - 01:05 AM

Truther - I guess you figure you know better than the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Lets just hope the rest of the world isn't quite as ignorant as you are.

google global warming sometime tomorrow for the full report.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601085&sid=ah28ExCCdmm8&refer=europe

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: John Hardly
Date: 02 Feb 07 - 07:01 AM

"The ice at the poles is not floating down in the water like an iceberg. It's sitting on solid ground for the most part"

Better check your geography, LH. The water at the pole (South) is sitting on solid ground (a continent) for the most part. The water at the pole (North) is "floating" like an iceberg. Submarines have gone entirely under the N. pole icecap.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Don Firth
Date: 02 Feb 07 - 01:36 PM

True indeed, much of the northern ice cap floats on the Arctic Ocean, but one should not forget that there are vast ice sheets covering Banks Island, Victoria Island, the Queen Elizabeth Islands, Resolute Island, Elllesmere Island, Baffin Island. Greenland, of course, Svalbard, Franz Josef Land, Novaya Zemlya, Severnay Zemlya, New Siberian Islands, not to mention the snow and ice covered coastlines of the continents, from the Bering Strait, across Alaska and Canada, the islands north of Canada which I have already listed, along with Greenland, then Northern Europe from Norway's North Cape, across Russia and Siberia and back to the Bering Strait again. And I've listed only the larger islands. There many smaller ones, also covered with snow and ice.

That's one helluva lot of frozen water!

In this morning's news:

"Scientists and government officials from 113 countries issue a new report on climate change that blames humans for rising global temperatures. The report predicts changes in temperature, precipitation patterns and sea level over the next 100 years.

Susan Solomon, a top U.S. government climate scientist and co-chair of the meeting in Paris, speaks with Steve Inskeep about the report."

To hear the report, go HERE and click on the "Listen" button at the top of the page.

Full text of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report HERE. PDF document.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Little Hawk
Date: 02 Feb 07 - 05:34 PM

In an effort to avoid typing even more words than I already did, John, I did not bother to mention specifically about the Artic section of ice, much of which, as you say, is sitting on the ocean. Yes, I know that. I am not ignorant of that fact. I know about the submarines going under it too.

My point was that a great deal of ice is now sitting on land, is sitting above sea level, and that the melting of that ice would necessarily raise sea levels as it ran off in the form of water.

Do we agree on that? If so, we agree...period. It is the ice on Greenland, the South Pole, and a whole lot of other land areas kindly listed by Don Firth which I was alluding to.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Little Hawk
Date: 02 Feb 07 - 05:37 PM

'Scuse me....not "Artic"..."Arctic".

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Don Firth
Date: 02 Feb 07 - 06:01 PM

The first submarine to travel under the Arctic ice cap was the USS Nautilus, the first American nuclear submarine. The journey was not exactly a piece of cake.

Information about the Nautilus and its voyages, including a description of its epic journey under the Arctic Ocean, HERE.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: John Hardly
Date: 02 Feb 07 - 06:26 PM

Artic Garfunkle is a cold, cold man.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Little Hawk
Date: 02 Feb 07 - 06:32 PM

Yes, I built a Revell model of the Nautilus sometime in the early 60's. The sub's navigation under the polar ice was commented on quite a bit at that time.

The Revell model wasn't much of one. As I recall, it had about 10 pieces.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Amos
Date: 02 Feb 07 - 06:45 PM

So if you made a movie about the ice caps melting would it have an Artic Thieme?



A

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Cobble
Date: 02 Feb 07 - 08:54 PM

The ice is melting but the bigger danger is the biggest store of methane on this planet, held stable by the icy waters, if this goes kiss your ass goodbye. Do a search and learn. And Hardly your a mindless fart.

             Cobble.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: GUEST,Truther
Date: 02 Feb 07 - 09:02 PM

Al Gore isn't the issue here. His lies are. He's shilling for the industry that controls petroleum, among other things. A hundred years ago a group of men began buying up oil reserves and buying up competing alternative energy sources. They've forced the world onto petroleum as a power source, by and large, and now they're fighting wars for control of even more reserves (the Iraq war started when one of their boys decided to start accepting Euro dollars for oil, which wasn't allowed at the time). So these petro-bankers have us all hooked on oil, and now they want to force us all into debt slavery, and they'll do it by 1) limiting the flow of the endless supplies of oil, 2) not building new refineries, and 3) convincing the more gullible among us that people and their cars are somehow killing the planet. To combat #3, we need punitive taxation. What crap. Al Gore is what he is, a whore, same as the Clintons and Bushes and Blairs of the world. And hatred doesn't mar perception as much as adulation does.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Don Firth
Date: 02 Feb 07 - 09:45 PM

". . . and I don't like anybody very much!"
         --They are Rioting In Africa, recorded by the Kingston Trio.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Ebbie
Date: 02 Feb 07 - 10:24 PM

Give you three guesses: Think Truther is in politics? Bet he doesn't like himself either.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Little Hawk
Date: 02 Feb 07 - 10:58 PM

We already suffer punitive taxation, don't we?

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Amos
Date: 03 Feb 07 - 12:01 AM

Truther:

Unless you can substantiate any of your ridiculous statements, I would say you are full of hot bile, and slandering someone who is not guilty.

You sound venomous, bitter, and as paranoid as a French floozy in a Massachusetts meeting house.

A

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: autolycus
Date: 03 Feb 07 - 06:32 AM

As far as I can see,neither John or GUEST Truther have produced a response to the latest statement fom a vast number of scientists in relevent fields that they are 95% certain humans are contributing to climate change.

    Ahhhh,a moment's thought and I got it. The certainty hasn't reached 100%.


    My mistake.






       Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: John Hardly
Date: 03 Feb 07 - 07:29 AM

autolycus,

You seem to mistake me for someone wishing to win an argument. I am not. I am a person who doesn't mind asking the obvious question that is often the stick in the spokes of bicycle moving faster than it should. A bicycle that everyong seems more than tickled to be riding.

cobble,

Thanks for the kind words. I think you dropped this...

'

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: autolycus
Date: 03 Feb 07 - 12:55 PM

I'm all for the awkward-questions squad;it can be necessary work.

Nevertheless ,John,do we have it right that you don't have a response to the latest from the wider scientific community?






       Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Amos
Date: 03 Feb 07 - 07:20 PM

Of interest:

an Sample, science correspondent
Friday February 2, 2007
The Guardian

Scientists and economists have been offered $10,000 each by a lobby
group
funded by one of the world's largest oil companies to undermine a major
climate change report due to be published today.

Letters sent by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), an
ExxonMobil-funded thinktank with close links to the Bush administration,
offered the payments for articles that emphasise the shortcomings of a
report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
[...]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,2004230,00.html

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Don Firth
Date: 03 Feb 07 - 11:04 PM

Well, that about says it. We can't allow trivialities like a potential world catastrophe to interfere with profits, now can we?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: John Hardly
Date: 09 Feb 07 - 04:45 PM

A Very Convenient Truth

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Bill D
Date: 09 Feb 07 - 05:06 PM

The most interesting part of that 'cute' little bit was the looks on the faces of her audience. Not a giggle.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: John Hardly
Date: 09 Feb 07 - 05:26 PM

um...........

..........never mind.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: robomatic
Date: 09 Feb 07 - 06:47 PM

I have every intention of seeing the movie. I'm convinced that there 'could' be a relationship between human releasing of locked up energy into the environment and the weather we've been having lately, but there is 'science' and then there is 'accepted theory'. The two ain't always the same.
I enjoyed Sarah even though she didn't get a laugh on camera. That bum should have applauded when she removed his blanket!

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Feb 07 - 06:56 PM

Sarah was kind of amusing, actually. Definitely stretching the bounds of what might be considered "appropriate" at the moment, but still amusing.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: GUEST,Truther
Date: 09 Feb 07 - 08:12 PM

CLIMATE CHANGE CONCERTS 'TO DWARF LIVE AID'

Judy Garland part played by Al Gore. Mickey Rooney part played by a gung-ho environmentalist.

MICKEY: Your cheeks look overly-rouged today, Al...I mean, Judy. Why're you dolled-up?

JUDY: Because we're gonna put on a big show in Mama Earth's barn, that's why. We'll have an "Inconvenient Truth" show.

MICKEY: You mean to promote the idea that the climate's in danger and all that?

JUDY: Right. We'll sew together some old flour sacks to make costumes, and build a stage out of old crates, and we'll pipe in about two billon godzilla-watts of precious electricity to show how much we care.

MICKEY: Great idea, Judy! We'll show those pricks how much we love humanity. By the way, how many pounds of rouge do you use on each cheek?

CUT TO MONTAGE of bulldozers gouging amphitheaters out of hillsides, forests being felled to make bleachers, etc.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: GUEST,Truther
Date: 09 Feb 07 - 09:06 PM

"The threat of environmental crisis will be the 'international disaster key' that will unlock the New World Order." -- Mikhail Gorbachev, 1996

"In the technotronic society the trend would seem to be towards the aggregation of the individual support of millions of uncoordinated citizens, easily within the reach of magnetic and attractive personalities effectively exploiting the latest communications techniques to manipulate emotions and control reason." -- Zbigniew Brzezinski, 1971

http://www.911kemet.co.uk/nwoquotes.html

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Ebbie
Date: 09 Feb 07 - 10:24 PM

Question: Is there more than one Sarah Silverman video? I didn't see an audience of any sort but I did hear lots of laughter, addressing TWO issues. What did you guys see?

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 09 Feb 07 - 11:36 PM

She is hot, hot, hot.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: GUEST,282RA
Date: 10 Feb 07 - 10:34 PM

>>"The threat of environmental crisis will be the 'international disaster key' that will unlock the New World Order." -- Mikhail Gorbachev, 1996<<

Truther, I am going to have to call you on this one. There is no such quote by Gorbachev.

The only one I could find where he alleges uses "new world order" in a sentence is the following from 1987:

"We are moving toward a new world order, the world of communism. We shall never turn off that road."

I got it here:

http://www.amerikanexpose.com/quotes1.html

Since this quote shows quite unequivocally that Gorbachev considered the new world order to be communism, it renders your phony statement entirely suspect because communism is clearly NOT what the spurious quote is referring to.

Where did you get that quote?

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Don Firth
Date: 10 Feb 07 - 11:05 PM

What Gorbachev REALLY says about the environmental crisis.

Most interesting in the light of the above "quote,"

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 12:08 PM

Gorbachev, as always, has something valuable and timely to say. He is a remarkable man.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: GUEST,Truther
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 11:18 PM

cont...

MIKHAIL: Look at me, Al. Al, look at me.

ALBERT: I can't. It's just so...beautiful. I'm jealous.

MIKHAIL: Don't be. I was born with it.

ALBERT: But do you know how many pounds of rouge I have to use to get that effect on my cheeks? I hate you.

MIKHAIL: No you don't, big boy. Look at me.

Albert looks at Mikhail. Electronic music starts to pulse.

CUT TO Sir Elton John in green spandex rehearsing a Busby Berkley dance number for the "Inconvenient Truth Show." Sir Elton sweats buckets.

Return to Mikhail and Albert, each smoking a cigarette. Albert is laughing.

MIKHAIL: Honest. We made the whole thing up. The Soviet Union, all that Philby and Burgess stuff, the whole thing. Now we're telling people the sky is falling. The earth is ending.

ALBERT: I know. I'm supposed to put on a concert about it. They put my name on a movie about it.

MIKHAIL: I think they put my name in some articles about the environment thing. Took some pictures, had me take off the tinfoil to show the...you know...for the picture. And they made me say things like "The threat of environmental crisis will be the 'international disaster key' that will unlock the New World Order." Things like that. I think that quote was in an article called "The Wildlands Project Unleashes Its War on Mankind," by Marilyn Brannan, Associate Editor of Monetary and Economic Review. Or was it Samantha Smith's "Gorbachev Forum Highlights World Government," The Patriot Press, Volume 3, Issue 1, page 8? Or was it quoted in "Behind the Green Curtain: The Globalist Radical Environmental Agenda," McAlvanly Intelligence Advisor, October 1997, page 7?   Or was it... Hey, Al, are you listening?

ALBERT: Hmm? Oh, sorry. It's just that it's so...purple.

Electronic music starts to pulse again. CUT TO Sir Elton having CPR performed rhythmically over his dead body. Wild applause rises.

ALBERT (voiceover): You th' beast, Gorby.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Little Hawk
Date: 12 Feb 07 - 10:50 AM

You really have a problem, don't you? ;-)

Thought of getting counseling yet?

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Ebbie
Date: 12 Feb 07 - 12:06 PM

'Truther' is well into truthiness.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: GUEST,Truther
Date: 12 Feb 07 - 01:35 PM

The "environmental movement" is a scam. There is pollution, but giving all power to the likes of Gorbachev is NOT the solution. Stalin, Andropov, Gorbachev. Those weren't nice guys. A former leader of the Soviet Union is now holed up in the Presidio in San Francisco, fer chrissake, and he's applying the old Soviet control tactics to the environmental movement. He's just ratcheting up the level of control, increasing the number of people to be affected.

This is TRUE eco-terrorism...to make people think the problem is worse than it really is so they'll be willing to turn over other peoples' property in the name of 'protecting the environment.' If you don't own property you're in favor of it, if you own just a little you're in favor because they're talking about 'wilderness area,' and so on. It's always someone else's property. But read the article at the link above...Behind the Green Curtain. It gets interesting about 1/3 of the way down.

Big 'biodiversity' areas have been set up around the world. I live in one. The central Texas biosphere. The land I own is mine, yet the U.N. has claim over it through some treaty. So where's my government? Why did the U.S. govt sell me out? And how did so many Americans get duped into prizing the rights of snakes over the rights of people? The U.N. says it owns my land, and the new NAFTA superhighways are going to claim 10 miles on both sides of the roadbeds, so what will the effect be? To drive people off the land and into compact cities. Where our population can be controlled with managed kill-offs.

The Nazis won WW2, people. The Queen of England is a German Nazi. The Bushes are American Nazis. The eugenics program is going forward just like Hitler said it would. It's taking a roundabout course, but it's getting there. First, you have to put people into concentration camps (cities). How do you get them there? You make land off limits for "environmental reasons," and you build unnecessary highways and grant 20-mile wide easements so people have to give up their homes. You road-tax the hell out of people in the U.K. so they can't commute anymore and have to move into the cities, closer to their jobs (and if it works, do it in the U.S.). Just get those people concentrated in the cities so the bioweapons can do their stuff.

Private property ownership is the basis of a free society. Without the right to own property, you live in a dictatorial society. The environmental movement has been hijacked by virulent anti-private property fanatics. I just hope Gorby personally comes to boot me off my land.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: dianavan
Date: 12 Feb 07 - 02:10 PM

Truther - A sustainable economy is dependent on a sustainable environment.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Amos
Date: 12 Feb 07 - 02:24 PM

The traditions of private property ownership since the Renaissance have been adjusted by the restraint that the owner may not do harm to others through the use of his property. Every state in the Union, as a result, has zoning laws at the state or county level, and some smaller divisions such as planned communities go so far as to outlaw aesthetic offense be defining acceptable color schemes.

There is nothing about private property that justifies -- for example -- burning rubber tires in a lot near a nursery school, or near a populated office center. On the larger scale, private ownership fdoes not justify massive carbon emission if it is demonstrably harmful to the environment.

A

Don't be specious.

A

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: DougR
Date: 12 Feb 07 - 03:06 PM

Weather forcasters cannot guarantee their predictions for the following day are 100% absolutely unequivocally without a doubt correct. What makes you folks so certain that today's computers can predict with absolute certinty what the earth's temperature is going to be 100 years from now?

The latest report I heard was that the "experts" who released it predicted that they were 90% sure that global warming is caused by us humans. Ninety percent ain't 100%.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Ebbie
Date: 12 Feb 07 - 03:15 PM

"The land I own is mine, yet the U.N. has claim over it through some treaty. So where's my government? Why did the U.S. govt sell me out? And how did so many Americans get duped into prizing the rights of snakes over the rights of people? The U.N. says it owns my land," Truther

Interesting. Since this is a new thought to me, Truther, please cite references to the United Nations owning your Texas land. I want to look it up.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: dianavan
Date: 12 Feb 07 - 03:47 PM

Doug R - I think 90% represents a majority. If you want to depend on the 10% who are uncertain, then I guess you think we should not act on the evidence. Its a probability, Doug, not a certainty.

Since its probable, according to 90%, we should act. To do nothing based on the uncertainty of 10% is to risk the future of your children and grandchildren.

Of course its much easier to blame it on God than it is to take any personal responsibility.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Little Hawk
Date: 12 Feb 07 - 04:48 PM

I would regard 90% as fairly persuasive, Doug, were I trying to decide what to do about a problem...

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: GUEST,Truther
Date: 12 Feb 07 - 07:28 PM

Let's see...Ebbie... I'll look that up. It's been a while. Agenda 21, all that stuff. I'll look it up later when I have time.

What should concern people is that control of property is being handed over to N.G.O.s. Non-Governmental Organizations. Look around your local community and your state at all the new "districts" and "boards" announcing new rules. Our corporate-controlled govt is now shuffling governmental duties onto non-elected organizations. Our elected leaders are becoming powerless. And our elected leaders are in on this power shift. Either through payoffs or for ideological reasons, our representatives are divesting themselves of power...giving it to NAFTA and... bah, hundreds of new NGOs. Most of them "environmental." But at the end of the day, it doesn't matter if Halliburton or the Sierra Club took your land, it was still stolen by pirates. "Land rights advocates" are now on the list of "terrorists" in Virginia, and the Supreme court has ruled private businesses can take your land (New London Connecticut case), and everyone's being given a big environmental wedgy now by Al Gore and the likes. It's all about who owns the land.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Little Hawk
Date: 12 Feb 07 - 07:50 PM

Ah...now you're onto something. You are absolutely correct that control of money, land, resources, and society in general is being shifted from public representatives (the government) to N.G.O.'s. (the corporations). The government is giving over its power to the N.G.O.'s because the N.G.O.'s unofficially run the government. Why? Because they have most of the money! He who controls the pursestrings controls the politicians and their political parties, and he controls who runs for office and who gets elected. The politicians become merely corporate servants. Note how many people in the Bush administration were highly placed in the oil industry. The oil industry runs the Bush administration.

Corporatism is Big Brother.

Whether or not they are using the current environmental issues to extend their control is not clear to me...but I'm sure they will do so if they can find a way to.

For an interesting read try: "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" by John Perkins. It explains the rise and activities of the Corporatocracy since the end of WWII in great detail, and it names names. Written by a man who served the Corporatocracy faithfully for about half his life, and then couldn't take it any longer and bailed out. 20 years later, he finally dared to publish a book about it.

If they kill him now, it won't do them any good, because the book is already out there. Matter of fact, it might increase sales of the book if they did.

The really weird thing is that mega-corporations are a lot like Communism...in this sense: they massively centralize power and control in the hands of an untouchable elite.

They are utterly unlike Communism in outer style, because they gain power mainly through aggressive, profit-driven marketing of consumer items. But they are very like Communism in their monolithic centralization of power, their love affair with military production, and their tendency to make everything everywhere exactly the same (like the fast food and big retail chains you see around every town now).

They are the antithesis of small-scale individually creative local capitalism, and they do not establish freedom, they establish slavery.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: pdq
Date: 12 Feb 07 - 10:20 PM

GUEST,Truther -

Please keep that Supreme Court case in people's faces as much as possible. It is the most important case since Roe v. Wade, and it effectively ends the traditional US right to personal property. Socialists can always find a better use for your property than you can. Just ask them. It is called "04-108, Kelo et al. v. City of New London et al., (06/23/05)" or "Kelo v. New London" or just "Kelo".

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 12 Feb 07 - 10:24 PM

Imagine that a new snack food for children is introduced to the market. Soon, 90% of pediatricians agree that it is carcinogenic. DougR would be certain to advocate continued sales until 100% of pediatricians agreed.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: GUEST,Truther
Date: 12 Feb 07 - 11:57 PM

All the links below open pretty quickly.

Agenda 21:

This global contract binds governments around the world to the UN plan for changing the ways we live, eat, learn, and communicate - all under the noble banner of saving the earth. Its regulations would severely limit water, electricity, and transportation - even deny human access to our most treasured wilderness areas. If implemented, it would manage and monitor all lands and people. No one would be free from the watchful eye of the new global tracking and information system.

Chapter 28 of Agenda 21 specifically calls for each community to formulate its own Local Agenda 21:

Each local authority should enter into a dialogue with its citizens, local organizations, and private enterprises and adopt 'a local Agenda 21.' Through consultation and consensus-building, local authorities would learn from citizens and from local, civic, community, business and industrial organizations and acquire the information needed for formulating the best strategies. (Agenda 21, Chapter 28, sec 1,3.)

This tactic may sound reasonable until you realize that the dedicated "Stakeholder Group" that organizes and oversees local transformation is not elected by the public. And the people selected to represent the "citizens" in your community will not present your interests. The chosen "partners", professional staff, and working groups are implementing a new system of governance without asking your opinion.

http://www.crossroad.to/text/articles/la21_198.html

The below from a site about the Wildlands Project (part of Agenda 21). Click on the top link, "Wildlands Project" for a map of what is targeted for restriction of use. I'm in a red zone:

http://propertyrights.org/headline2_frame.asp

Another program below. It adds a handful of new "Biosphere Reserves" each year. The "buffer" around each zone is 150 miles, as I recall:

http://www2.unesco.org/mab/br/brdir/europe-n/USAmap.htm

The "World Heritage" project:

What do the Statue of Liberty and a tropical rainforest in Australia have in common? What links the Grand Canyon and Yosemite to Stonehenge, the Great Pyramids, Machu Pichu, and Auschwitz Concentration Camp?

All these, along with hundreds of other scenic and cultural treasures around the world, have come under the "protection" of UNESCO through the World Heritage Convention. Signed by former President Nixon in 1973, this treaty gives the United Nations authority to guide the safe-keeping of international sites and monuments "considered to be of such exceptional interest and such universal value that their protection is the responsibility of all humanity." 1

What if some Heritage lands are privately owned?

It doesn't matter. In the eyes of UNESCO, private owners can't be trusted to guard "a World Heritage which belongs to all humanity"2 any more than parents can be trusted to raise their own children. The rights of the global collective must replace the old Western individual rights. To persuade the public, a new revolutionary way of thinking -- often called holistic, integrated, or "systems thinking" -- must replace the contrary old Western thoughts and ways.

http://www.crossroad.to/text/articles/whpwans97.html

Below is a link to various biological treaties. Just some of them. All of them will be Private property-infringing, by their very nature:

http://sedac.ciesin.org/entri/TextsToc.jsp

Then on top of the land grabbing by the environmentalists just barely outlined above, we in Texas have to contend with the private investors who are being given ownership of the roads our taxes built. So it's the environmentalists grabbing land on the one hand, or the developers grabbing land on the other.

And yes, the Kelo Decision paved the way for private investors to start stealing privately owned land. The most stunning Supreme Court decision in modern history.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Little Hawk
Date: 13 Feb 07 - 12:28 AM

Not all that surprising, considering the general trend in the last few decades, Truther, but I don't think it's environmentalists that are your problem. I mean...I don't think it's real environmentalists who are your problem. I think it's big entrenched financial interests who don't care all that much about the environment. What they do care about is exercising control over just about everything.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Ebbie
Date: 13 Feb 07 - 02:43 AM

He has since died but for years I had a wealthy friend who had a large farm (After he retired, he leased it to another farmer). He lved on a country road a few miles from town. Realizing that under the local land rules he was not able to chop off some of his land to build some homes to sell, he was very much against Oregon's strict rules.

Then one day I asked him that if his neighbor across the road wanted to build some condos would he like it? He grimaced. Of course not, he said, it would change everything about this area.

Our world, our country, our towns, our countryside, are all filling up. Without ground (ha!) rules we would have a chaotic hodge podge

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Bunnahabhain
Date: 13 Feb 07 - 04:43 AM

Truther, is there any Governmental intervention in your property that you would not regard as threatening or overly restrictive?

For instance, would a ban on you building a replica Chernobyl in your back yard seem unreasonable?

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: GUEST,Truther
Date: 13 Feb 07 - 08:19 PM

You know, Little Hawk, I read Confessions of an Economic Hitman, and it's good, but I didn't like the way Perkins harped on the U.S. as being the center of the economic machine. He rightfully pointed out over and over that it is the World Bank & International Monetary Fund, but then he'd go back to talking about "American" policy and "American" empire. Made me wonder if he wasn't still on the payroll, telling the truth that Joseph Stiglitz made public (former head of the IMF), telling the truth because Stiglitz made it public, but then focusing anger on the U.S. But Halliburton and KBR and the rest aren't American. Trans-national corporations. A truthful book, as far as I could tell, but it seemed like some spinning was going on.

And Bunnahabhain, there is a balance between freedom and dominance. Like most people I'd be somewhere in the middle. Govt is bad enough, but now there are new "regulatory" agencies everywhere.

Do you know about the International Property Maintenance Code? Most people don't. A 40-page PDF of it is located here:

http://www.talgov.com/dncs/neighborhood/pdf/intpropmaint.pdf

It outlines how you have to maintain your property. Drawn up by an international group and being used worldwide. In the northeast US last year some flood victims got low-interest govt loans to rebuild, then afterwards they found this Code in the fine print of their loans. They had agreed to abide by these rules. Problem is, no piece of real estate in the world could pass this inspection. And govts and agencies are starting to use it selectively to fine people. Crushing fines, too. Within a month or so you owe the value of your property in fines. This is one new way that agencies are seizing land. A discussion of this can be found here:

http://www.politicalhotwire.com/2125-international-property-maintenance-code.html

Private property ownership has been targeted for elimination in the U.S. The corporations are buying the govt and the govt is making it possible for environmental groups to claim more and more land. It'll all end up being administered by 1% of the elite, who will keep the other 99% of us off of their wilderness areas. I don't care for the arrangement.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Little Hawk
Date: 13 Feb 07 - 09:12 PM

Yeah, I know what you mean, Truther. My guess is that he sees it that way partly because he IS an American, and also because the primary military and intelligence forces that are brought to bear when the Economic Hitmen fail to do the job for the multi-nationals are forces made in the USA...or are trained by forces made in the USA (at places like the School of the Americas).

Would you agree that the multi-national corporations are a lot like international communism in certain respects (but not in the way they market consumer goods to establish themselves)?

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: GUEST,Truther
Date: 13 Feb 07 - 11:25 PM

Communism? Don't know. But it's incredible usury. The most extreme form imaginable. And they're loaning fiat money. Worthless. But more and more countries are starting to realize the debt they're in is non-existent. Collateral was put up for worthless fiat money, under false pretenses, and signed for by criminals. So in that case, what debt DOES the country have to the IMF/World Bank, which loaned the money? I'd say none. The Great Lakes in the U.S. were put up as collateral for a loan like Perkins describes, but it was a criminal transaction. The debt is null and void.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Little Hawk
Date: 13 Feb 07 - 11:50 PM

Yeah, well, it's all flim-flammery anyway. The fact that people buy into it is the really sad thing. We have the ability on this Earth right now to provide a good life and good opportunities to every man, woman, and child AND protect the natural environment at the same time, and it's not being done because a tiny elite wants it all for themselves. It's ludicrous.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: John Hardly
Date: 14 Feb 07 - 06:11 AM

wow. who took all the oxygen?

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Feb 07 - 11:15 AM

Why? Are you short of breath?

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: GUEST,Truther
Date: 04 Mar 07 - 12:58 PM

Simultaneous warming on Earth and Mars suggests that our planet's recent climate changes have a natural—and not a human- induced—cause, according to one scientist's controversial theory.

Earth is currently experiencing rapid warming, which the vast majority of climate scientists says is due to humans pumping huge amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Mars, too, appears to be enjoying more mild and balmy temperatures.

In 2005 data from NASA's Mars Global Surveyor and Odyssey missions revealed that the carbon dioxide "ice caps" near Mars's south pole had been diminishing for three summers in a row.

Habibullo Abdussamatov, head of the St. Petersburg's Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in Russia, says the Mars data is evidence that the current global warming on Earth is being caused by changes in the sun.

"The long-term increase in solar irradiance is heating both Earth and Mars," he said....

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070228-mars-warming.html

AL: This is bad, Gorby. Now any idiot can see the temperature rise on earth is solar-related.

MIKHAIL: Nah. Just say it's the Martians abusing their environment. Americans'll buy it, if it's on TV. Tell them you're, uh...you're going to run for President of Mars so you can implement a planet-wide methane tax. You've built up the base for that kind of move.

AL: Yeah. And I could make another movie about it. On my next trip there.

MIKHAIL: You do that, Al. Gotta go.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Bill D
Date: 04 Mar 07 - 02:21 PM

Sure...we KNOW that there are natural cycles to Earth's climate changes....but this is the first time we have been able to exacerbate and hasten one. Just because we know something 'may' happen, it's not an excuse for helping it happen faster and making it worse.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: GUEST,Truther
Date: 04 Mar 07 - 08:10 PM

Tell it to the Martians.

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2007/02/27/D8NIGG3O0.html

The Gores used about 191,000 kilowatt hours in 2006, according to bills reviewed by The Associated Press. The typical Nashville household uses about 15,600 kilowatt-hours per year.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: bobad
Date: 04 Mar 07 - 08:12 PM

Al was staying up late working on a movie.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: GUEST,Truther
Date: 04 Mar 07 - 08:43 PM

Probably Tipper's vibrator.

And then there's this sentence from the same article:

"Kreider said Gore purchases enough energy from renewable energy sources such as solar, wind and methane gas to balance 100 percent of his electricity costs."

So what the hell does that mean? They give the figure he uses according to the power company, then his spokeswoman says they purchase an EQUAL amount from other sources? So his actual energy use is DOUBLE what the power company reported? Damn Tipper's insatiable.

Your posterboy's a fraud, people.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: kendall
Date: 04 Mar 07 - 08:49 PM

Sure. Shoot the messenger. That should stop global warming.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: kendall
Date: 04 Mar 07 - 08:50 PM

So, where does this "Rapture" thing come from? As far as I know, it is not mentioned in the Bible.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: GUEST,Truther
Date: 04 Mar 07 - 09:04 PM

The messenger. He's a whore. He's making a political buck. The sun's flaring so he cranks up his air conditioners and tells you that YOU are to blame. Messenger. Geez.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Bill D
Date: 04 Mar 07 - 09:11 PM

gee, 'truther'...you read that sentence in your own way, don't you? The spokesperson said nothing about "DOUBLE" usage...Gore has a big house. It does use more total electricity than mine. So what? He makes extra effort to get that energy from the best sources...and he is installing solar panels to further reduce his energy footprint.

What IS your real complaint? You just don't want a liberal getting credit for doing anything right?

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Don Firth
Date: 04 Mar 07 - 10:19 PM

"Truther," eh?

GUEST,"Truther" seems to be quite selective in what he, she, or it chooses to quote and post from articles. This particular article goes on to say,

But company spokeswoman Laurie Parker said the utility never got a request from the [Tennessee Center for Policy Research – a conservative propaganda organization] policy center and never gave it any information.

Gore spokeswoman Kalee Kreider said: "Sometimes when people don't like the message, in this case that global warming is real, it's convenient to attack the messenger."

Kreider said Gore purchases enough energy from renewable energy sources such as solar, wind and methane gas to balance 100 percent of his electricity costs.

Gore, who owns homes in Carthage, Tenn., and in the Washington area, has said he leads a "carbon-neutral lifestyle." To balance out other carbon emissions, the Gores invest money in projects to reduce energy consumption, Kreider said.

I'd say that changes the picture just a bit.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: lennice
Date: 04 Mar 07 - 10:38 PM

Oh my god. I can only say this after reading this tragic string:

Clearly some people like to argue just because they enjoy it - and I see evidence of it on both sides. Ordinarily I just ignore such aimless arguing, but this is too serious to even watch people play badmitten with it.

re one of the early posts, I'm with you Bill, get the Raid. Or maybe the Glade - something smells fishy.   

All the deadly sins are often tarted up and renamed "Truth."

LH was right about people being backed into a corner being inclined to refuse to admit they are wrong.

No one ever thinks bad things will happen to them. The Romans thought their empire would last forever, and if the dinasaurs had brains bigger than peas they would have thought the same thing. Who would have ever thought that a big hunk of NYC, in particular that hunk where our financial world is concentrated, would vaporize in just a few minutes? We are constitutionally incapable of really believing our world can end. I think it's a survival thing, but in this case it's backfiring.

I have a friend who conducts every aspect of his life as if nothing bad can happen. He is a statistician, and he justifies this self-destructive behavior by citing probabilities. He once set off for a 3 hour drive to Boston with virtually no breaks, and cited statistics for how little he was likely to need them. I am not kidding. Would you ride with this guy? As people have said over and over again, what's the point of arguing how many Al's can dance on the head of a pin? Looks rocky ahead, lot's of good science INDICATES that even if you don't think it proves it, and as I am riding in this car, I prefer we fix the breaks.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: pdq
Date: 04 Mar 07 - 11:01 PM

John Edwards Catching Heat for 'Monster' House

NewsMax.com Wires

Wednesday, Feb. 7, 2007

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. -- Two homes, two images, one candidate.

Democrat John Edwards, who has made an anti-poverty message the theme of his 2008 presidential campaign, is taking heat for the lavish home he has constructed in Orange County, N.C.

In December, Edwards chose the modest backyard of a New Orleans woman who had lost her home to Hurricane Katrina as the image that best underscored his campaign theme.

Now voters are seeing another, sharply contrasting image of Edwards: his own home.

Sitting on 102 secluded acres - surrounded by trees and defended by no-trespassing signs - the 28,000-square-foot estate that Edwards and his family call home has presidential privacy.

A main home has five bedrooms and six-and-a-half baths. It's connected by a covered walkway to a bright red addition known as "The Barn," that includes its own living facilities along with a handball court, an indoor pool and an indoor basketball court with a stage at one end. Nearby, the family has cleared space for a soccer field.

With a current building value of $4.3 million, the unfinished Edwards estate is already about $1 million more expensive than any other house in the county, according to tax records. It sits on land worth about $1.1 million.

Edwards first purchased the land in 2004, during his failed run as vice president. He recently sold his mansion in Washington's tony Georgetown neighborhood for $5.2 million.

Edwards, a former trial lawyer who made millions before winning a seat in the Senate representing North Carolina, has faced criticism regarding the estate. It also has become the subject of late-night jokes.

"Well, I think we know which America he's living in," Jay Leno quipped on NBC's "Tonight Show," a riff of Edwards' frequent mention of the "two Americas" - one for the wealthy and one for the poor.

Monty Johnson, a neighbor whose property sits directly across from the Edwards tract, recently posted a "Go Rudy Giuliani 2008" sign just 100 feet from Edwards' driveway.

"The home is a monster. It's way over the top," Johnson said. "There's no way that a normal family could ever need a house like that. It's only going to hurt him. I don't think he's going to be able to sell his story that he's for the poor people."

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Bill D
Date: 05 Mar 07 - 06:24 PM

What is all that supposed to mean? Edwards was a high-priced trial lawyer for years. He could afford a big house. Why is a description of it in large red type supposed to make him a bad..or good...candidate?

This is a typical conservative attempt to 'spin' the facts to make an issue out of a non-issue.

Now...you wanta discuss Edwards' policies, education or resumé? Or would you rather go on to his haircut, wife's dress length and the cost of his suits?

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Don Firth
Date: 05 Mar 07 - 08:43 PM

pdq has discovered how to use HTML codes. It's a bit like giving a four-year-old a drum. The only way you can get the kid to stop driving you crazy with the damned thing is to hog-tie him and burn the freakin' drum! Then you have to listen to him bawl for the next two weeks. Then, someone gives him a set of bagpipes and you have to kill him.

It's his way of saying
LOOK AT ME!   LOOK AT ME!
Kinda sad, really. . . .

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: pdq
Date: 05 Mar 07 - 08:51 PM

Feel Better now, eh Don?

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Don Firth
Date: 05 Mar 07 - 09:22 PM

See? Still doing it.

I'll stick to saying what I have to say and letting people just read that and judge for themselves without their having to read something that resembles a ransom note made up of letters cut out of a magazine and pasted onto a blank piece of paper. Less distracting, and the content is easier to understand.

But be my guest. It if satisfies some inner need for artistic expression, then have at it!

Be aware, however, that it does tend to distract from what you're saying.

Don Firth

P. S. But then again, maybe that's the whole idea. . . .

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Bill D
Date: 05 Mar 07 - 09:47 PM

He STILL can't close italics!

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: pdq
Date: 05 Mar 07 - 10:14 PM

You really can't see a connection between the energy needed to heat a 28,000 square foot house and global warming?

How about the hypocrisy of conspicuous comsumption while demanding that other people reduce their 'ecological footprint'?

That does not include the question ' how can this guy really claim to represent the poor people' when he lives in such opulence.

Subject: RE: BS: 'An Inconvenient Truth'-banned
From: Don Firth
Date: 05 Mar 07 - 10:57 PM

I called GUEST,"Truther" for being selective in his excerpting of articles and it looks like pdq is doing the same thing. How about we finish the article from which pdq quotes (but rather than posting it all in red, I'll post it as it appeared on the source web site):

Laurin Easthom, a Democrat and town council member in nearby Chapel Hill, said Edwards has earned the right to build a large home.

"I see somebody who has come from a very humble background and with really hard work has gotten to the point where he is," Easthom said. "He's out there trying to do some good, and he's giving back both financially and by what he plans to do through his campaign."

Jennifer Palmieri, an Edwards adviser, dismissed the brouhaha as of little interest to voters.

But political consultant Bill Miller said the lavish estate could become a sore point for the candidate.

"Anything that appears to be extravagant or over the top is not the best card to play when you're running for president - especially when you're trying to differentiate yourself the way John Edwards is," said Miller, who has worked closely with the Republican Party.

After introducing their new home on her husband's campaign Web site, Elizabeth Edwards explained the couple had taken special precautions to make the house energy efficient - keeping in line with Edwards' environmental platform. But she spent the next week battling blog-based critics who wanted to discuss the building's size - and she suggested that one posting on the campaign's Web site may have come from a Republican or a rival Democrat.

"Did it come from the right? Did it come from another campaign? I have no idea," Elizabeth Edwards wrote. "What I do know is that it is no news bulletin that John and I have money. It is no news bulletin that he earned every cent."

Edwards and his wife live in the house with their two young children, Emma Claire, 7, and Jack, 5. Their older daughter, Cate, is a student at Harvard Law School.

Many of the other 2008 contenders also own expensive homes. New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and husband Bill, the former president, own two homes: a Dutch Colonial house in Chappaqua, N.Y., that they purchased for $1.7 million in 1999, and a Washington home that went for $2.9 million in 2001.

On the GOP side, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, the founder of venture capital and investment firm Bain Capital, owns three homes. Arizona Sen. John McCain also owns real estate worth millions of dollars.

In the interest of honesty and full disclosure.

Don Firth