Bush vs. Gore in energy consumption

You bastard... hope you got coal.On Dr Cranium, hadn't heard of him, but checking the link got me interested. I like puzzle games.Now Gore!As far as his misstatements go, there is a link here, and here at RealClimate which discuss them. Although crash wanted to pretend that they were saying no errors, that was not accurate especially if one looks at the second page (before they got politically semantic about the thing). I don't think Gore was being malicious, just at best mistaken and at worst deceptive.And in any case I still believe you hit the most important inaccuracies, besides Katrina which they gloss over and I am not happy about. He could have picked any OTHER Cat5 hurricane and pointed to their damage, or he could have picked any OTHER large hurricane of that season (or recent seasons). He picked that one for its dramatic effect. But the devastation was from failed engineering, that's it. It may have been triggered by that hurricane, but that's chance. It would have eventually occurred (with subsidence, or lesser normal hurricanes), much like that bridge which collapsed more recently. It was inaccurate to point to that as an example of what might happen in the future, as related to CC.The rest of what you wrote I think comes down to a difference in opinion or taste. Its not something I can argue against, only state why I feel the way I do and hope you might prefer that "taste". I saw his slideshow (online by the way, though he did not distribute it), nearly a year before I saw the movie. I found the movie awful by comparison. Really, I did not find it entertaining at all. Snoozeville, which is surprising because I like the general topic and the director. But that is totally subjective artistic opinion. To me if he could have cut out everything about Gore's life, and politics, and made the science much more exciting. Why not show what goes into that science? How it's done? Hell if you want hurricanes show a NOAA plane flying around one to measure strengths. That's action.I always hate when global problems get made personal. It seemed to revolve all around Gore. Inconvenient Truth: he's boring. I'm not saying I can't see why he did it. I'm saying that to my mind his actions speak of choosing convenience and routine over environment and novel was of doing things. And that to me spells the difference between someone who is just like everyone else, and a real cutting edge leader.If not for his already vast wealth and fame, his activities would not have stood out in the crowd. So what's the hoopla for someone with a lot of hoopla doing something in the public eye. It might be laudable, but not massive credit worthy.It is my prediction that 10-20 years from now InTru will be viewed as an overhyped movie that didn't deserve the credit it got, and Gore a man that was equally so. Not horrible, just not worth the hype. You are in good company with that opinion. I realize that I am in the minority stating that fear is exactly what is NOT needed. It is a serious divide, but one based on opinion alone. Neither of us are objectively right.Here is why I do not like using fear:1) When discussing nature, it is cyclical, and we will have to face the problems we are now anyway. That does not suggest we shouldn't reduce our factors, but it does suggest having fear about the situation is not going to be useful. It will NOT be the end of the world. And it could be seen as an exciting opportunity for use to move forward with technology. I see it as exciting that we can know this much about the world, and try to effect changes for our advantage, or start planning for ways to protect ourselves against the inevitable. Should people really panic in the future when manmade GHGs are gone and the temps shoot up?2) Use of fear in general, legitimizes that as a way to move the public. That creates a dumber class of citizen which reacts wholly to irrational arguments. This is what Bush does now and somehow liberals can see it is bad when he does it, but not when it is their issue. I cannot make that divide. Fear is no way to learn about a subject so as to understand it, and no state to be in to choose the best course of action.3) I feel it is condescending to humans to treat them as if they will only react to fear, or that it is necessary to motivate them. It is clear fear CAN be used, it is effective for shirt term gains, but that does not justify its use, or make it less insulting. When Gore says things like we should be more concerned about the environment than terrorists, I cringe. What kind of moron does he take me for? I'm going to fall for that base propaganda? Maybe many will, but its a turnoff for people that understand what's going on, and is needlessly patronizing to those who don't... even if they do eat it up. There are better routes.Let me know what you think.

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h
"Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing." - Robert E. Howard

I never liked the pure puzzle games, but I loved the adventure games. Hardly anyone makes them anymore since they are too intellectual for today's average gamer. Your first link was more charitable towards the movie than I am, ending with: "Overall, our verdict is that the 9 points are not "errors" at all".Your second link had this to say: "How well does the film handle the science? Admirably, I thought." It then went on to address two minor errors/exaggerations. I was not aware of these, but I am in agreement with the author that neither are of much concern to the point of the movie.In total, it looks like there is only one falsehood that has been found in the entire movie: you can't visually see the effect of the clean air act in the ice cores, but that has nothing to do with CO2/global warming anyway and was probably just an honest mistake. There are also a couple of minor exaggerations and the two more major parts that I pointed out which could mislead the audience but were still factual.All in all, despite the obvious motivation Gore would have to bend facts to agree with Democratic politics, his movie was more accurate than a lot of the science programming you'd see on the Discovery Channel in the US, so I really can't complain too much. That also annoyed me. I had to struggle not to laugh during a couple of the cheesy transitions when it cuts to Gore in a dramatic, still pose. I could also have done with less details about his personal life. To rephrase what I was saying before, there are three basic steps to making things better. 1) Convince people there's a problem. Then 2) Develop strategies and laws that can be applied to businesses and try to get them passed, and 3) Develop and communicate ideas for how individuals can improve things. What you want to see is much better for 3 but I think would have made 1 and 2 less effective. I think that Gore's approach was fantastic for 1 and will strongly drive 2, but he hasn't done as much for 3. Maybe he needs to change tacts and work on 3 for a bit - this would require him to become a more effective role model as you want to see - or maybe we need someone else with less baggage to step in here. What we are seeing is almost certainly beyond the slow paced cycles of nature. Ice that has been frozen for more the 50,000 years is melting and we are only at the beginning of the projected increase in temperature. Of course it won't be the end of the world, and I know that some environmental crazies like to make this claim, but it doesn't mean that we won't run into terrible problems as a result of the sudden warming. Based on past trends, statistically I am more likely to be killed by a stray deer than by terrorists, so I consider conservative "the terrorists are going to get us" fear mongering irrational and I hate it. Global warming on the other hand is a very rational thing to be afraid of because the science tells us that there is an ~X probability of Y devastation that would lead to millions of deaths. I wish you could just present the evidence and have people act on it, but human nature is to ignore long term consequences unless you repeatedly pound the facts into their heads that there is significant danger.Got to go. Hope you're having a good Christmas!

If it is one puzzle after another, with no narrative, it'd get a bit tedious. Throw in a bit of a narrative (such as Myst) and I like it, throw in adventure and that's better still. Dr. Cranium certainly suggests adventure. I pretty much agree with your assessment. Though I might add saying residents of an island had to vacate for the wrong reasons is probably also a falsehood. Not necessarily intentional, but I didn't buy their gloss on that with suggestions that it would happen in the future. I don't think that would cut it if Bush said something similar.Also, the Katrina thing bothers me for the reasons I outlined. The guys at RC kept looking at it from the vantage point of if he was wrong mentioning it (large hurricanes) in the context of CC, stating that he didn't say it caused the hurricane... which would be true. But the devastation what he was using and that is NOT an accurate depiction of the damage of a large hurricane. That was another tragedy altogether and one which (though it is my opinion) much more important for people to be worrying about. Any distractions from the real lesson of Katrina is setting the stage for future disasters.Realistically, he could have pointed to other hurricanes. It was disingenuous to choose that one, even if it is not factually incorrect to say the atmospheric phenomena of a storm like Katrina might happen more often. Okay, and this is where I realize it is my opinion that makes the difference here. I am a major supporter of science, proper reasoning, and accurate public understanding of science. I guess I feel that that is more important than any message one is trying to get out using science.I have a problem with many modern science programs. Man it feels like the world got dumber since I was young, but I think its just expectations. The producers feel they have to compete with MTv, and the violent spectacle of modern entertainment. I think that's the wrong move. Keep it sophisticated. I mean exciting is fine, but keep the facts running solid and coherent. Actually there is no indication that such shifts in temperatures have not occurred. In fact some of the more dramatic dips and climbs tend to suggest that can happen. It is just not likely applicable to other sources than manmade GHGs right now.And more importantly, assuming that this change is a bit faster than normal, the heights are not more extreme, and neither are the effects (even if in a bit faster mode). Many species have gone extinct in the same way the polar bears might now. Even given the slower shifts seen in history, they were not slow enough for creatures to evolve some defense when the changes are on vast areas.This is not to say people should not be concerned, simply that fear is not the right medium to be working in. Understanding, caution, useful action. This one I'd have to call you on. I tend to think you have a greater chance of being killed by a terrorist than CC related devastation, even though I do agree that one is more likely to get killed by a stray deer than terrorists.We don't really have accurate predictions (which I know of anyway, so I ask) which present probabilities and casualty figures. And even if we did, that would have to be within the assumption of no changes in human behavior besides cutting GHGs or not. For example people starve around the world today, but there is no reason for that to be happening accept poor distribution, largely politically/militarily caused. If we changed what we were doing the results would be different.If CC resulted in droughts, they will be regional, and likely would not have to result in more deaths as we are already producing (worldwide) surplus crops. Illness, requires better distribution of medical aid. Flooding requires better forethought in settlements and engineering for coastal defenses. These we should be doing anyway, and I have seen no estimates which include improvements in these capacities.The only way I have seen this addressed is in fearful words of how much such improvements are going to cost. To that I say, what are you more afraid of? It sounds like the same arguments I hear against socialized medicine. I am not afraid of changing my methods and tax structures to ensure my health and those of others. And if we can argue that the costs of switching away from fossil fuels is worth it to reduce GHGs, so we shouldn't be afraid of that... then why not for improvements in the face of CC?Despite Dr. Cranium's glare, I must maintain that fear is not the best mechanism for accurate resolution of the Climate Change issue. It can be used, but it isn't worthwhile for what I find valuable.

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h
"Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing." - Robert E. Howard

Yeah, I used to love those games. Unfortunately I don't have much time for computer games anymore, and most of those old fun ones don't work on modern computers. Ok, I did not quite understand what you were saying before. To summarize it: hurricane frequency and intensity is likely to increase as a result of global warming, but the vast majority of hurricanes are less destructive than Katrina. To use Katrina as the example in the movie bothers you because that can't result from most hurricanes. I suppose I agree with that assessment at current sea levels. It may happen to New Orleans again, but if so it will again be because of engineering problems. Though in the future, if we have dozens or hundreds of cities hiding behind levees to ward off the rising seas, the rate of failures due to hurricanes may become a more regular issue. If GW models are correct and temperature rises continue to accelerate, the damage to humans and ecosystems will be very significant. I don't deny that this can happen naturally as well. Every 100,000 years or so ice ages and warm periods sweep over the earth, shuffling which areas are habitable and reshaping ecosystems. But this is so infrequent as to make me not care, and it does not make me feel any better about doing it to ourselves. Sorry, I wrote that quickly and sloppily. I don't mean to say that I am personally afraid of getting killed by GW - that would be irrational, like being afraid of terrorists getting you. The people who may be in danger are those who will be living in impoverished parts of the world that may turn into deserts, or the areas that depend on snow pack and glaciers for drinking water. And if the ice melts faster than projected there could be great hardship and deaths as hundreds of millions of people relocate away from costal cities. My point is that these are real dangers that may face a sizeable fraction of the earth's future population. I also don't want to see the mass extinctions humans are causing to be exacerbated by this problem. So I agree that it is wrong to scare people into acting because they are afraid for their own safety. But these dangers are significant, and humans are notorious for ignoring future problems that seem abstract. That's why I think these dangers need to be beaten into all of our heads, repeatedly, until we disprove them, or acknowledge them and take action.And I guess Al Gore did not emphasize such a distinction, so perhaps in that sense he was being a bit of a fear mongerer.

Actually its more specific than that.... though this is a complex subject. Louisiana is a delta. Humans already made a huge mistake by trying to straighten and specify the channels of the Mississippi which would normally sweep across the delta adding landmass. Although it would suffer from subsidence anyway, our previous efforts to minimize flooding (by altering the Mississippi) has increased that problem. This effects any coastal engineering.The levees were already designed poorly in that they were designed to hold nothing (and that is at best planning) greater than a Cat3. That is a major design flaw when clearly they'd get hit by that and more naturally. If that were the only issue then it would be accurate to say that CC might deliver more threats to that defense system, but its not like we had to build that system. You really can build them as tough as you want. The dutch have been doing it for centuries.In fact, after a rare massive storm surge in the 50s broke through their defenses and delivered what could be argued as something much more catastrophic than Katrina, they went to work and sealed their connection to the sea with giant flood gates. Man that is really something, forward thinking and beautiful. They are currently suffering from subsidence problems, but they are simply dealing with them.Okay, so we could have built it better and we could have improved it. But because of subsidence and other inherent engineering flaws itself, that thing was going to fail sometime anyway. Hurricane or not. Residents had already been noting flooding from the levee structure. Katrina was coincidence, it could have happened with a lesser more common hurricane, and it could have happened with nothing but river currents (in time).There were some previous Cat5 hurricanes Gore should have pointed to. In fact I would have been extremely impressed if he mentioned Katrina, and what the real problems were... using that to discuss the changes we'll have to make as environmentally conscious people besides GHG reduction, then point to other cases for more likely damage we'd see. This is where I agree and where Jar's repeated points (in other threads) always strike me as the right attitude. To all the people who think that it isn't terribly worrisome because we've had such things in the past... yeah okay, but why inflict that kind of change on yourself if you don't have to? Its almost masochistic to keep going when changing our habits will not change life all that much, and result in having to make more extravagant changes later... that is until Nature makes us do it. While possible, I still don't think that is plausible unless people do nothing at all, and then get "caught by surprise". And you know what? I think maybe that would be evolution at work. Any human with their nice big brain who can't figure out what they need to do to avoid these problems, maybe their loss is a help overall.The information really is out there. You might note something else, he never presented anything as an answer except himself. Fear this, look at me, fear that, look at me. See I am telling you these things, I know. That is base propaganda.If he was more than that, he would have been focused on how the data is collected, what it is telling us, how we can figure out what might happen, what it would take to change the situation, and then who to go to for more answers (or how to find it themselves).To my mind, IncTru was essentially a horror movie with himself as the lead character. Reprising his role in "Election 2000, the Empire Strikes Back". Heheheh.

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h
"Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing." - Robert E. Howard

Well, I think Katrina is a demonstration of how people insist on living in places that are known to be dangerous or even doomed. It was known that the levees could not withstand a powerful hurricane. This did not stop people from living there. After the disaster, levees are being rebuilt stronger (we hope), but it is still known hurricanes occasionally will come along that will still have the power to break them. People still choose to live there. Out in CA hundreds of thousands of people still choose to live in areas that are virtually certain to get burned or are on earthquake fault lines. You may not know when disasters will come along to destroy these places, but you know they will come eventually, and yet people still put their lives at risk. The same thing will happen with rising sea levels. Insurance companies will stop covering homes and sea levels will rise, but people will refuse to leave the city that they love and will build walls around their city instead. These walls will eventually fail and the city will flood. Perhaps that is just evolution in action, as you said. At the end of the film he does make suggestions about what can be done to cut our CO2 impact. I agree that the emphasis is more on the danger than on the solutions, but as I've said before I think that is justified because at the time people still needed to be convinced of the danger. I don't think I'm blind about these things just because I agree with the liberal POV. For example, I agree with most things Michael Moore preaches, but his movies are full of lies and I don't trust him at all. We will probably have to just agree to disagree on this point, but I did not get anywhere near the same sense out of Gore. As I've said before, Gore covered a lot of topics, and there is only so much you can do in 90 minutes. And since he was aiming at a non-technical audience, spending too much time on data collection techniques, reconstruction models, etc, would have lost a large fraction of his viewers.

Sorry for the abrupt, and long, silence. Things came up, and now I am back (though likely not for long). I definitely agree that is one of the things Katrina demonstrates. A poster child for over-development of residential areas, ignoring practical realities. It is that as well as not appropriately understanding the engineering required for proper maintenance of infrastructure.But this was my point. There were plenty of other Cat4+ storms to choose from. Using Katrina to hype GW, keeps people in the dark about its real causes and a totally different thing they need to be worried about. I don't know how many times I have heard people link K and GW. Gore did a great disservice in that regard. Agreed. Frankly, I'd lump MM and AG both into the category of propagandists. Although I will say MMs film Sicko is one of his least propagandist efforts. I can forgive MM much, just because he succeeds at being entertaining. I know I'm not supposed to take him completely seriously. Well I'll repeat a point I think we both agreed on already. He lost me on all that personal crap. He could have easily fit some better science into those rather lengthy slots. And it would have been loads more exciting. Oh my god, Gore lost the election of 2000? How could that happen? I wasn't sure if I should laugh or yawn at his reminiscences... the yawn won.Edited by Silent H, : and/as well

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h
"Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing." - Robert E. Howard

Sorry to interrupt on your conversation, but I have to say that the lengthy slots of his personal crap really bothered me. I first had the opportunity to see the film in my local library when they had a film night thing. After the second slot, I couldn't take it anymore and got up and left... yanking my wife along with me... she didn't like it either. THEN, I rented the dvd and watched it at home. Why? So I could just fast forward through those boring slots.

It was really a lame movie, in and of itself, which surprised me because I liked the director. Terrible. I think its one of those that will fade with time, and later on its enthusiasts will watch it and ask "why the hell did I like that?"Interestingly I got hold of a vid of Gore's actual lecture. I watched that wayyyyyy before I saw the movie. It was better, even if he makes the same mistakes. I think a movie allowed for personal indulgences which a live presentation simply could not.

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h
"Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing." - Robert E. Howard

I completely agree that the personal sidetracks were out-of-place, and I cringed whenever one of them came on.Also, after having had more time to think about it, I think I am coming around to agree with you more. Climate change is a long term danger, not a short term one. My opinion is that long term dangers such as this are important to prepare for, but that does not give you the excuse to exaggerate the immediate threats. I agree with the message, but it was carried out in a deceptive way.That said, it's still a far cry from the exaggerations and lies of your typical Michael Moore movie. I certainly would not say that Gore is as bad as Moore .

I think we've achieved complete agreement... Agreed. With the exception of Sicko. He really seems to have done a good job sticking with facts this time. Not to say he deviated from being a propagandist and polemicist, just that he did stick better to facts. Info contained in the DvD made it even better.

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h
"Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing." - Robert E. Howard

Well, I'd disagree with you two on Michael Moore. I don't think he's lied or exaggerated too much in his documentaries. He's just putting the issues in more extreme lighting than most people do.It's like saying "you're a shorty short short" and "you are vertically challenged".

I must be doing something wrong. This is a debate forum and I keep agreeing with people instead of arguing with them. As for Sicko, that did seem more evenhanded than Bowling for Columbine or F911, and based on my own dealings with health insurance companies I am fully prepared to believe that there isn't a shred of honesty between them. If only he had restrained himself and not done the Cuba bit at the end I think it would have been a really good movie.

I share Moore's views on most social issues, but I really don't trust the facts he brings up in his movies. I also haven't done a lot of research to back up my distrust, so I could be giving him an unfair rap, but I am skeptical.

I actually liked the Cuba thingy, though it was pure provocateur and not so much documenter. To my mind it did not involve lying, or even exaggeration, even if it was designed to cause offense.It is wholly true that you can travel to any other first world country and get better and cheaper medical care than in the US. And it SHOULD be disconcerting that one really can get better and cheaper medical care in Cuba, than the US. I think the major point in that section was not just to showcase Cuba, but to point out that even in Castro's Cuba (a dictatorship) one can get free care, and that in US's Cuba (Guantanamo... at tax payer expense) we provide free care for people considered enemies of the US. In other words, health wise, you are better off being an enemy of the US, or under a dictatorship.Any offense really ought to turn into reflection. It was a mirror.Edited by Silent H, : subbie and out+gh

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h
"Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing." - Robert E. Howard