Minimal
stressed for motivation and achievement2006-09-26
An Inconvenient Truth
Tonight, I watched Al Gore’s film-cum-presentation, An Inconvenient Truth (currently showing at the Tyneside Cinema). In it, he:
- presents the case for the existence of global warming,
- explains how it is on an unprecedented scale,
- examines how little debate there is over its existence in the scientific community, and
- offers the consequences of its continuation
As you might expect, it’s a heavily biased presentation. On occasion, non-sequiturs creep in and are quickly left behind. Throughout the presentation, graphs are used whose axes don’t begin at zero (not necessarily a problem, but it can be misleading). Where case studies were cited, there often wasn’t consideration given to the possible existence of opposite cases (e.g. retreating vs. advancing glaciers).
Despite all this, however, there was one graph that stood out a mile for me. It showed atmospheric CO2 levels over the course of thousands of years; hundreds of thousands, I think. (The data itself was purportedly taken from air trapped in the polar ice caps.) Within that timeframe, levels varied, clearly showing ice ages and so forth. Right at the end, however, the plot climbed steeply outside the bounds of its previous levels. No doubt some statistician would be able to say something interesting about standard deviations and so forth, but I just looked at it and thought “Shit!”
So, if that’s the kick up the backside I need to take action, what can I do and will it be enough? Well, I might not be able to answer the second question, but I can answer the first. I can vote: both as a citizen living in a democratic state and as a consumer. The former is easy. The latter will take willpower — lots of it. As much as it pains me, I’m wondering whether it’s time I gave up the fast cars... :(
I do what I can to reduce my carbon footprint, but I'm feeling that I need to do more. Ideas?
Oh, and watch the film and recommend it to your friends, should you feel you agree.
Most of the claims for global warming is that the world is warmer (true), and there is more CO2 (true), so there is a cause and effect going on. Which is dodgy. Like believing in god.
Water vapour is a far more potent greenhouse gas than CO2 and theres infinitely more of that in the atmosphere. I'm not dismissing GW and cutting CO2 will be a good thing anyway, but I'm still prepared to believe the GW is not a given fact yet.
And I don't own a car. You can buy my carbon credits if you want :)
: 9:36 amI'm interested in the water vapour thing, though - where did you hear about that? Is it's cause down to the CO2 (etc.) warming the water and thus accelerating things, or is down to there being more large animals than ever on the planet? (The stats on world population in the film were pretty impressive, so I guess we're exhaling a lot more water vapour as a species these days. Whether that's a significant change is another matter.)
Incidentally, what *would* convince you that GW is a fact? That graph I mentioned in the main post was enough for me (assuming its veracity).
I would be convinced if simply someone produced a report stating that the CO2 is causing the warming. But I've never seen one. All there is currently is evidence saying that the world is hotter than a few decades ago (But Greenland is not yet green again, and Lindisfarne can't yet grow its famous grape vines like in previous centuries) and that there is more CO2. So perhaps theres a link. Thats what the hockey stick diagram shows.
Yes, CO2 fell at the times of ice ages, but thats what you would expect of organic chemicals anyway because there would be less chemical reactions going on in the colder climes. Yes, there is a greenhouse effect on Venus but thats because the atmospheric is 400 times thicker, not just because its the dreaded CO2.
: 1:22 pmI don't really understand how anyone can argue "I'll keep on as I am until somebody proves what they're claiming." I'd rather play it safe just in case they're right and run the risk of finding out later that I had some slight inconveniences for a while but, hey, at least I didn't hasten the destruction of the planet through simple selfishness.
The potential cost of not acting is much higher than the cost of changing now.
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