The “holy shit” that came with watching An Inconvenient Truth did wear off a little when it started to actually feel a little cold today. At least we got near freezing and had some chance of snow in the forecast.
That aside, I’m trying to figure out just how biased Gore is in his portrayal of the climate crisis. I don’t think there’s any questioning that everyone should do more in terms of energy conservation — easy things like switching to compact fluorescent bulbs, turning off lights and gadgets, insulating our dwellings, buying and using energy-efficient appliances, driving less, and so on. That’s just making an effort to be respectful of the earth, and there’s no good reason not to do these things.
But, will the oceans rise enough to drown parts of Manhattan, Florida, Bangladesh, and other parts of the world by 2100? Will hurricanes like Katrina become more common? These are questions that Gore makes look very likely, but I have to say that the links appear not to be completely solid. Not right now, anyway.
I’ve looked at junkscience.com, which is named fairly, though not for the reasons its author has chosen. Steven Milloy has a lot on the site that deals with global warming (he calls it debunking), and I’m sure there’s some truth there, but I just can’t trust someone whose site has a tight relationship with a tobacco company. The effects of the sun burning hotter over the past 100 years are something I’ll be interested to see elsewhere; there’s a whole lot of other stuff on there, but I don’t want to link to the site directly.
Skeptic Magazine seemed like a better bet, and I turned up a more apparently reliable source: Ronald Bailey from Reason Magazine. He reviews the movie pretty level-headedly. He is skeptical of the conclusions of the movie, but agrees that much of the science is correct. I’m interested in dealing with the problem in a way that’s not crazy and overzealous, and the information he presents seems good to look at.
So far, the only people I’ve read disputing that global warming as something important to look at seem sort of nuts.
I just watched An Inconvenient Truth at the library this afternoon. I’m having a little bit of trouble articulating everything that I’d like to about it. Part of me was scared shitless, another part of me (which I hope is the bigger part) was inspired to take some action. If you haven’t seen it, but you’ve read anything at all about this movie, you’ve probably read that Al Gore is eloquent, passionate, and persuasive. He is all those things, but he also manages to convey the information in a way that, while deadly serious, is not based on fear. He does make it clear that ignoring this crisis any longer will continue (ala Katrina) to bring grave consequences, but that’s not the main message. The main message is that the problem is solvable with tools and techniques available to us today.
I’ll be writing more about those techniques, and my spin on them, soon. Assuming I come up with something worth writing. For now, I strongly encourage anyone who reads this to go rent it (Netflix has it), buy it (Amazon has it), just please invest the hour and a half to see what the guy has to say. It’s time well spent — the pill may be bitter, but it’s important.