<p>I wanted to bring back this thread to tell a story. </p>
<p>I got on the Metro Transit bus a couple of mornings ago here in Mad City to go to work, and the bus driver hands me a yellow sheet of paper. The heading of the flyer says: "By far the most terrifying film you will ever see." He ask me if I've seen An Inconvenient Truth, which he says is great. I say "no," but I mention my son's recent internship at Participant Productions, which produced the film. He also worked the LA premier. I looked at the hand-out. It thanks everyone for riding Madison Metro and urges the bus riders to take the flyer to the theater where the film is playing and they'll get a free bag of popcorn.</p>
<p>Does this thread seem a bit Day-After-Tomorrow-ish to anyone else? Yes, Pollution is BAD--surprise! But I don't think we need to call Dennis Quaid just yet...</p>
<p>OH NOES! THE SKY IS FALLING! THE SKY IS FALLING!<em>covers underneath a desk</em>
Look, first of all, Al Gore is a POLITICIAN who is using his own movie to enhance his agenda. (Politician making a movie to spread his ideas=classic! Lawers should do that more often to make the views of their convicts appealing.) (Oh, and although agenda usually means something bad for some reason, all it means is to influence or determine his own views. Just pointing that out before getting flamed) How in the hell can you consider that trustworthy? Even if you don't believe in Global Warming, (the fact that it's only a belief shoes the validity of the subject) you know about Acid Rain, Smog, and all other pollutants...but what is the alternative? Shut down all the factories a food prosessing plants and let billions (including probably yourself) starve? (and animals, since livestock, believe it or not, depend on our food we feed to them. Irony, isn't it?)We ARE doing something about it gradually. Just look at how well Hybrids are selling lately. WE THE PEOPLE are doing something about it...just we aren't going to starve ourselves for 'the good of the world'. (since what's the point of O in the atmosphere anyway, if we just die? Unless you're emo, of course. Then we'd just hand you a swiss-army knife. :p)</p>
<p>(This is to the guy who mentioned 'Kerry lossed because America is stupid')
Kerry lossed because he asked like he would sell his mother just to get one vote. (He acted like a sleazebag during one of the campaign competitions) He made a billion promises that any idiot could see would not come true. He lossed because of trying too hard to sway voters, and just made him look bad in the end. (It didn't help that he kept switching his views specifically against Bush just to get voters)</p>
<p>as an independent, i must say that john kerry is one of these most inept politicans of all time, who stood for absolutely nothing and just said whatever he he thought stupid liberals would want to hear - even if that changed day to day</p>
<p>ha, i think it will be funny to watch everyone grow up, study and specialize in things and listen to others try and theorize on them with authority. campaigns have nothing to do with the candidates and the last election should be a beyond obvious example of that. john kerry simply trusted the wrong handlers and george bush had the best consultant in american politics. period. it's not john kerry's job to run his campaign. as an aspiring campaign manager/consultant, that's the most basic piece of information to know. mary beth cahill understood this better than jim jordan and that's how kerry made the biggest come from behind victory in the primaries in history to beat dean.<br>
no one said kerry "lossed," as that isn't a word. and god forbid a politician do whatever they can to get a vote. just because you don't believe that the ends justify the means doesn't make kerry an idiot. and as someone who knows about kerry outside of the 04 campaign, as a leader in the Iran Contra and BCCI scandals, a foreign policy expert who chaired the foreign relations committee for years and a champion of small businesses and universal health care for children who beat uber popular william weld in one of the closest senate races in mass history in 1996, he may have trusted the wrong consultants and made mistakes (which he now admits to) in the 04 campaign, but to call him inept and to definetivly say kerry lost because he tried too hard to tell people what they want to hear is an absolute joke.</p>
<p>and al gore is no longer a politician, as he has said repeatedly that he is not interested in running for public office ever again. his agenda is to make people aware of global warming, and his solution is, beyond obviously, not to shut down all factories and let everyone starve. perhaps if you'd actually seen the movie you'd know that and also know that it is only in the popular media that global warming is a "theory," in a huge distribution sample of scientific journals, zero percent concluded global warming was anything but a fact.</p>
<p>Actually there's been a great deal of research published in scientific journals demonstrating that icebergs are not melting and global temperatures are not going up any more than can be expected in the 500 year long cycle of warming our planet has been going through for the last 3 or 4 centuries.</p>
<p>can you cite any of these scientific journals?
i am truly curious. i have never seen any scientific publication present evidence against humans contributing significantly to global warming.</p>
<p>you are completely correct. there HAS been a gradual incerase in global temperature dating back to at least 1750, according to this temp graph from the IPCC. however, taking a look at the temperature from the 1970s to modern day, we can see that the change here is significantly more prounounced than that of the centuries before. this is impossible in any gelogical cycle. this leaves humans as the only other source.</p>
<p>On an interesting note, you can see a dip in the temperature from the mid 1950s to 1970s. This is attributed to the massive amounts of aerosols pumped into the atmosphere by the postwar boom after World War II, evidence that humans indeed do have the power to affect global climate.</p>
<p>i have seen many people either brazenly dismiss or support evidence of global warming in this thread, yet NOBODY has yet presented any sort of data/proof to back up their arguments.</p>
<p>Actually there's been a great deal of research published in scientific journals demonstrating that icebergs are not melting and global temperatures are not going up any more than can be expected in the 500 year long cycle of warming our planet has been going through for the last 3 or 4 centuries.</p>
<p>Are you kidding me? Cite some sources, please, if you're going to post statements that go against all common knowledge.</p>
<p>Since when do we Republicans need to justify anything with facts and scientific journals? Give me a break- we're right and that's the end of it.</p>
<p>For Shaganov: If I spelled everything perfect 100% in genneral, let alone on this forum (which is because of typing on a keyboard extremly fast) I wouldn't have needed to cancel my SAT score June. :(
Anyway, Kerry messed up more then a few times during the election. It doesn't matter who was at fault. He still made mistakes whether you liked it or not. Lots of people (whether was true or not, we will never know) smelled him as a snake. The perfect used-car salesman. Bush, even with most of the people fed up with him already, was known. Kerry was not, and people were afraid that he would turn out to be worse than Bush. So that's why Bush won. Not because America 'was brainwashed into voting for him' (actually, if anything, even most Republicans were fed up with him at the time) He won because the majority thought the other guy was worse.</p>
<p>Look, I don't agree or disagree with Global Warming...the same way I don't agree or disagree with Evolution, because both are just THEORIES! There is no proof for either. Anything that is considered 'proof' has some conflicting data. (or else it would be a fact) Mitosis (can't spell it. lol) is a fact. Evolution is not a fact. (unless we were Napolean Dynamite's brother. ;)) Same with Gllobal Warming. </p>
<p>Oh, and he can claaim whaever he wants. He's still a politician, unless he is now a preacher of some kind...</p>
<p>I'd rather watch Superman Returns then watch some snoozefest made by this guy who has no credentials to talk about the subject matter oher than his ego. (unless you want a snoozefest. If you have trouble sleeping, this is the movie to spent $10+ on ;))</p>
<p>
[quote]
For Shaganov: If I spelled everything perfect 100% in genneral, let alone on this forum (which is because of typing on a keyboard extremly fast) I wouldn't have needed to cancel my SAT score June.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Do not feel bad for yourself. Shag's spelling is just as poor, if not poorer.</p>
<p>put me firmly in the "global warming as junk science" camp. i did two papers on this very topic for two classes last summer (extinction theory and oral communication), and have come to the conclusion that all this hyseria is just that...hysteria. </p>
<p>yes the world is getting warmer, but that trend has been going on for over a thousand years. antarctica is not melting, its getting larger and thicker. the calving of ice videos that gore likes to show is completely normal as the ice expands into warmer waters and falls off.</p>
<p>if anyone had any understanding about what the greenhouse effect really was, you would notice that the majority (>90%) of greenhouse gases are natural like water vapor, and that human contributions have been negligible given the sheer enormity and complexity of global climate.</p>
<p>no climate prediction given has ever been "proven" accurate. a prediction cant be true because it hasnt happened yet. we cant predict whether it will rain or not two hours from now, how the hell can we claim to know what will happen in a thousand years? climate and weather forecasting is a risky and vague area, and does not lend credence to any claims of "global warming"</p>
<p>i have dozens more little tidbits and scientific journals to back it up if i could find those papers buried on my computer.</p>
<p>i dont really care what al gore's "goals" are. to make people more aware? check that off. but somehow i doubt anyone is going to be in much of a rush to buy a hybrid car, start hugging trees, or lobby for the kyoto protocol (which is also complete bull).</p>
<p>i dont have a problem with the issue of global warming. i respect it for what it is: a theory. what i do have a problem with is those who would use it to further their own causes whether political (katrina is bush's fault!), economic, or personal, and those who would put the "planet" and "environment" over basic human rights and needs.</p>
<p>nspeds, shut the f uck up, i would never spell 'lost' 'lossed,' and it was spelled like this more than once meaning it wasn't a typo. and why do you feel the need to throw petty drivel into other people's arguments?</p>
<p>you can think whatever you want about why john kerry lost, but that question haunted me enough to turn me into a gov concentrator and an aspiring campaign manager and unless you are right and hundreds of consultants, intellectuals and fellows at think tanks are wrong, that is not why john kerry lost the election. </p>
<p>if you want to waste time thinking global warming is a theory while people who accept it as a fact make lifestyle changes, great. IF florida, calcutta, boston and the netherlands are under 20 feet of water in 50 years, i hope you don't have any family living there or anything...</p>
<p>and since al gore "lost" the 2000 election, he's studied global warming relentlessly, met with leading scientists in the field and taught people about it. while not phd credentials, those are indeed credentials, especially since what he said is backed up by leading scientists. and if you were bored during this (wait, have you actually seen the movie?) that's strange because "agree" or "disagree" with it, it was well presented and interesting. </p>
<p>of course its frustrating, its an intensively divisive issue rooted in politics.</p>
<p>i dont care what camp your in, i just care that you are well informed and are able to make your own decisions. and by "well informed" i mean do more that watch gore's movie. gore was never a scientist so i take everything he (and his movie) says just like i took his claim to "invent the internet"</p>
<p>didnt mean to get so political there. i apologize for that.</p>
<p>Fact: Carbon levels in the atmosphere have been rising at a very high rate since the industrial revolution
Fact: The earth has been heating up</p>
<p>Neither side disputes this, the only question is one of causation.</p>
<p>Early in the 20th century Dupont invented a new refrigerating system using CFCs - chloroflourocarbons - instead of ammonia. Years later, some scientists found that the CFCs were destroying the ozone. Dupont spent years fighting those scientists but eventually the US government took action to limit CFC emissions. The ozone layer has been improving ever since. In this case, the US government took action without definitive proof for the first time and it played a big part in keeping the ozone hole from growing. Later Dupont would admit that CFCs did in fact destroy the ozone layer and promised to completely phase out their use.</p>
<p>The point? Sometimes you have to act before you find definitive proof because by the time you get that proof it could be far too late.</p>
<p>BTW Gore did study science for a long time and even wrote a book about it. Personally, I'm glad he chose politics instead because it seems that no one listens to scientists these days.</p>
<p>that is an admirable stance, and one i do agree with only when acting for "the future" does not have an even more adverse effect on the present.</p>
<p>in my opinion, legislation and politics based on global warming theory (ie: kyoto) will prove to be more detrimental to the world economy and developing countries that any potential benefit that we will never truly see if we "prevented" it from happening in the first place.</p>
<p>there is no purely "beneficial" action. someone will always suffer for the "good" of the whole. example: banning CFCs to save the ozone. (there remains a great deal of dispute over how strong the correlation is). the ban on CFC's eliminated cheap refrigeration, making it more difficult for third world countries and developing nations and leading to increased famine and starvation.</p>
<p>another example: banning DDT. again the correlation between DDT and cancer was shaky, and its ban lead to a surge in malaria cases and millions of deaths/year:</p>
<p>"To only a few chemicals does man owe as great a debt as to DDT... In little more than two decades, DDT has prevented 500 million human deaths, due to malaria, that otherwise would have been inevitable."</p>
<p>[National Academy of Sciences, Committee on Research in the Life Sciences of the Committee on Science and Public Policy. 1970. The Life Sciences; Recent Progress and Application to Human Affairs; The World of Biological Research; Requirements for the Future.]</p>
<p>once again, there is no action without consequence, good or bad.</p>
<p>
[quote]
and why do you feel the need to throw petty drivel into other people's arguments?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>It is really not "petty drivel." You should not criticize the spelling of others when you yourself cannot spell.</p>
<p>Words you have mispelled in this thread:
"exerpts" -> excerpt
"irrelivent" -> irrelevant
"unstopably" -> unstoppably
"conciousness" -> consciousness</p>
<p>The above was derived from a cursory examination of your posts in this thread.</p>
<p>You are above no one. Present the argument, but do not do so bombastically lest you defame Harvard with your hypocrisy.</p>
