"Uncouvenient truth"

Its inconvenient that its the truth...

I got it , seen it and saw the spin off in the simpsons:p

Good documentary. Most Americans I know scoff at ex-President Gore though and say he's part of a "liberal, environmental conspiracy" to ruin businesses and force us to abandon traditional values. It saddens me that so many people are this ignorant and close-minded. On the other hand, maybe this is only true in Montana where we've got big lumber industry and even bigger coal reserves.

The inconvenient truth is just that, I agree, and it is very important that people hear Gore's message and do something to help become part of the global solution that is required. Sure I haven't made any huge lifestyle changes but I do recycle now even though it is not mandatory here, I turn off lights when they are not needed, and the house is set to 66F instead of 72F. Someday when I have my own home the first thing I'll do with it is install a bank of solar panels. If at all possible I will find a way to work from home so that I don't need to drive 20-30 kilometers a day.

Perhaps the mindset is very different in Europe, but I don't understand why people in the US have such a hard time realizing that moderate environmentalism is a good thing. It saves us money (both business and consumer), it allows us to live longer and healthier, it takes us closer to ensuring the limitlessness of our resources (not to mention the self-sufficiency that we now seem obsessed with attaining), preserves the climates that we need to have in order to maintain our agriculture, and on top of it all it furthers science and technology that undoubtedly will be applied to other things.

I don't know... maybe my society is one that is too concerned with short-term pleasure and profit to give a damn about the future. Maybe it'll take the passing of a generation to come to grips with this problem, but by then it will likely be too late to fix the damage.

Ignoring for a moment that it was co-produced by someone who still has sour grapes over losing an election by a "hanging chad", the film makes the same type of mistake made by many "scientists" with regard to long-term cycles and issues related to the age of the Earth/universe: nearly all such estimations assume that current conditions are a result of a constant rate of change. Many geologic, atmospheric and cosmological events can be caused by rapid changes and/or unexpected phenomena, but the hubris of our current generation of scientists is that everything that is seen is also known & understood.

Who is to say that the human contribution to recent climate changes is unique? Volcanic & seismic activity dwarf anything humans can produce, let alone the rare but catastrophic incidents of asteroid collisions, or even passage of our Solar system through denser portions of our local region of the galaxy. At the end of the day, the premise is that humans cannot be left without strict regulation, or else they will inevitably wreck their home planet; humans are too stupid to make rational choices on their own, so they need governments to tell them what to do!

Hey, the polar ice appears to be melting, so move inland! Why must people abdicate their own free will to some prophets of doom, when they can choose to do something to protect themselves? The entire enterprise is being misused to further concentrate power into the hands of those who would tell you how you can live, right down to the kind of toilet paper you can use... [3]

The problem CA is that it doesn't matter whether or not human development is causing it. Hubris aside from scientific community, by what right do you say to people you want to continue this lifestyle, and as a result all of the people in Los Angeles, New York, New Orleans, Miami, and many others must abandon their cities to the rising oceans and move someplace else? What about the Netherlands and Bandladesh - countries that will largely submerge once Greenland and the poles start to give way? What do you tell the African nations that expect hundreds of millions of starvation and dehydration-related deaths in the coming decades due to the deserts getting drier and the tropics flooding more often, or Europeans if the ocean conveyers shut down and their weather turns all latitude-appropriate for a change?

Even if the entire scientific community are just a bunch of naysaying prophets, the world's warming is an established fact. Better to be safe than sorry, no? If they're right it's not like "God's shielding hand" will actually intervene or something. Whether the problem is man-made or not does not matter - the scientific community and the religious ones before it have always claimed to have definite, irreputable answers. Theories will always change, but changing ones beleifs doesn't eliminate problems.

It is the human race's duty to preserve itself and look after its own well-being. There are many geological events that could lead to our detriment or perhaps extinction, but that doesn't mean we should resign to that fate. This is our planet, and if we intentionally don't take care of it the blood will not only be on our hands, but all of mankind's struggling and civilization will have been in vain. People give up freedoms here for stupid things all the time, m8. If we have to give up some of our rights, ensuring climate stability is a helluva lot more important than national security or our maintaining our cultural imperialism.

As for Gore, he won the election and then a court essentially helped Bush stage a coop. If that's not a rigged election I don't know what is. I'd have sour grapes too, but realize he had been championing this idea for more than 20 years prior to that. After all, the reason Clinton put him on the ticket was to balance it - Gore had military and environmental experience that Bill did not. [rofl]

Quote

Originally posted by Marshal Cunningham
I don't know... maybe my society is one that is too concerned with short-term pleasure and profit to give a damn about the future. Maybe it'll take the passing of a generation to come to grips with this problem, but by then it will likely be too late to fix the damage.

just like:

'Resources exist to be consumed. And consumed they will be, if not by this generation then by some future. By what right does this forgotten future seek to deny us our birthright? None I say! Let us take what is ours, chew and eat our fill.'
- CEO Nwabudike Morgan,
"The Ethics of Greed"
Alpha Centauri

ofc i do not agree, but it's important to understand some ppl think like that all their lifes.

Quote

Originally posted by Marshal Cunningham
What about the Netherlands and Bandladesh - countries that will largely submerge once Greenland and the poles start to give way?

Well I am impressed - never thought my own country would be mentioned on a section of the SWAT forum - and here it is.

Bangladesh Marshall.

This film was subject to a recent court case in the UK as the Government was distributing it to all schools as an educational tool to aid the study of global warming etc

The judge ruled that although the film contained some errors - it could still be distributed.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7015723.stm

See this link also

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5348692.stm

Quote

The problem CA is that it doesn't matter whether or not human development is causing it. Hubris aside from scientific community, by what right do you say to people you want to continue this lifestyle,

You are contradicting yourself, young padawan! The popular assumption is that is the lifestyle causing the problem, when in fact, the most developred countries have already adopted the cleanest industries on the planet, including industries devoted to cleaning up the environmental errors of the past.

Global warming is a fact, but to blithely assume that it is only caused by gluttonous living by selfish humans is not necessarily accurate. Sadly, once this assumption has been accepted, most of the "science" directed at the problem looks for data to support it, rather than accepting data indicating other conclusions. Most of the inequities of resource availability on the planet stem from greed & corruption, mostly in countries that have the greatest need of resources. True, many nations will be severely affected by such a climate shift, and of course, I deplore any form of human suffering, but who is to say that this is not one of the mechanisms by which the planet self-corrects for unsustainable population growth? The good news is, we're not dinosaurs (yet), and we have the intellect to take reasonable measures to minimize the anticipated effects through mutual cooperation (as if that were really possible in today's divided world!).

ca, i can only guess u have used to vote for solar shades and mirrors in the alpha centauri's council, from ur point of view. or u maybe still do.

I understand what you're saying CA, but... nvm, I've tried to come up with the right reply for almost two hours now here in this reply text-box, but the reality is that I am not capable of communicating my ideas on this one - no matter how hard I try to organize them. I'm opting out of this discussion isntead in favor of getting some sleep. G'nite.

actually i dislike watching documentaries but a friend gave me a cd of it and i watched it and....

"oh crap!"...

>>> wtf... relax ur self...

please don't do gravedigging

ouch...old habit.. [holy] by accident... ...cough...this *wtf*maybe link to somewhere...(whistling)

just ignore magnet... on the off topic boards it doesnt matter