An Inconvenient Truth

[Jester]

The facade of "one world" easily vanishes as soon as someone wants more than the color television you postulate above.

No. The *reality* of one world disappears as soon as competition and greed enter the picture. People adopt the totally insane notion that the biosphere, somehow, cares about our borders, our sense of right and wrong, our desire to live the good life.

We only have one of these planets. If we destroy its ability to maintain us, colour televisions will seem scant consolation, as will petty arguments about whose economies it would have wrecked.

-Jester

[Occhidiangela]

No. The *reality* of one world disappears as soon as competition and greed enter the picture. People adopt the totally insane notion that the biosphere, somehow, cares about our borders, our sense of right and wrong, our desire to live the good life.

We only have one of these planets. If we destroy its ability to maintain us, colour televisions will seem scant consolation, as will petty arguments about whose economies it would have wrecked.

-Jester

One world implies people. One planet doesn't necessarily need people. My comment was aimed explicitly at the "one world" theme and its complete fallacy. We don't live in "one world," though we live on one planet.

The biosphere isn't animate, we agree on that, but it most certainly is not benign. It has been for most of mankind's tenure an obstacle, and a challenge, as much as it has been a source of nourishment and shelter. The two edged sword of a round orb hanging in the universe. :) The biosphere provided the timely population control device known as athe Indonesian Tsunami; it gave us earthquakes that recently killed thousands in Pakistan; other gifts include Hurricanes Katrina and Rita last year which would have been far more lethal had our advanced civilization's evil advanced tech not allowed more people to GTFO via warning.

The Earth is a Harsh Mistress.

Occhi

[Jester]

Coupled with rippple effects of higher gas prices, the US will likely meet the 2012 Kyoto goals.

You're right.

You are an optimist.

-Jester

[Occhidiangela]

You're right.

You are an optimist.

-Jester

What is ironic is that even with slightly reduced demand, the gross rise in gas prices will continue to fund / finance exploitive development to meet demand in places other than where sincere efforts are being made to regulate carbon emissions and environmental impacts. This will enable a whole new swarm of carbon emissions to blossom where none existed before, all the while funding the resurgent communist movement in South America and Islamist agendas.

The drug addiction has sucked money out of the American economy into the hands of criminals, and the oil addiction sucks it out of our wallets and into the hands of our enemies. (Still consider Canada a friend, for the record. ;) )

If that isn't "hoist in history's petard" I am not sure what is.

All preventable by a policy not taken by Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan in succession: more nukes, ignore the hysterics. Oh, wait, that brings us back to the original post's opening GAG: Green Al Gore. :whistling:

Occhi

[kandrathe]

What is ironic is that even with slightly reduced demand, the gross rise in gas prices will continue to fund / finance exploitive development to meet demand in places other than where sincere efforts are being made to regulate carbon emissions and environmental impacts. This will enable a whole new swarm of carbon emissions to blossom where none existed before, all the while funding the resurgent communist movement in South America and Islamist agendas.

The drug addiction has sucked money out of the American economy into the hands of criminals, and the oil addiction sucks it out of our wallets and into the hands of our enemies. (Still consider Canada a friend, for the record. ;) )

If that isn't "hoist in history's petard" I am not sure what is.

All preventable by a policy not taken by Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan in succession: more nukes, ignore the hysterics. Oh, wait, that brings us back to the original post's opening GAG: Green Al Gore. :whistling:

Occhi

16.75% Canada
13.10% Mexico
11.94% Saudi Arabia
10.43% Venezuela
8.22% Nigeria

With the exception of the top two, our major oil import buddies are pretty shaky. You are right, we are giving them the power they will be using in a short time to make the world more miserable in their regions. Hugo Chavez is shaping up to be another regional trouble maker.

[Occhidiangela]

16.75% Canada
13.10% Mexico
11.94% Saudi Arabia
10.43% Venezuela
8.22% Nigeria

With the exception of the top two, our major oil import buddies are pretty shaky. You are right, we are giving them the power they will be using in a short time to make the world more miserable in their regions. Hugo Chavez is shaping up to be another regional trouble maker.

You are aware, I hope, that there are a lot of Muslims in Africa, to include in Nigeria.

The US is not the only market for oil. We add to global demand, which has an impact on global prices. Everyone who buys oil from the PG feeds the Islamist coffers.

Where is China going to get their oil? India? Japan? The Rest of the World, whose demand will grow?

The spot market responds to global demand, not just US demand, even if that shrinks modestly.

Occhi

[kandrathe]

You are aware, I hope, that there are a lot of Muslims in Africa, to include in Nigeria.

The US is not the only market for oil. We add to global demand, which has an impact on global prices. Everyone who buys oil from the PG feeds the Islamist coffers.

Where is China going to get their oil? India? Japan? The Rest of the World, whose demand will grow?

The spot market responds to global demand, not just US demand, even if that shrinks modestly.

Occhi

Well, true enough. But, what has changed since the 60's when asian and middle east oil barrons took control of their nations oil wealth and saw the means to promote their communist revolutions or 12th century jihad? We are familiar with rich wahabists redirecting poor zealots with bombs toward their political enemies in the name of Allah and martyrdom. The Nigerian, Sudanese, Somolian, etc islamic twist just provides a fresh new source for cheap lives to fling at random western targets.

The fact that Mr. Chavez is nationalizing oil companies, then redirecting the wealth to buy russian war planes, guns, and build a bigger and bigger army is a concern. The fact that Mr. Chavez is unveiling memorials to Simon Bolivar in Terran is also a concern.

I'm most worried about anti-western governments seeking to spend their wealth on weapons and armies.

[Occhidiangela]

Well, true enough. But, what has changed since the 60's when asian and middle east oil barrons took control of their nations oil wealth and saw the means to promote their communist revolutions or 12th century jihad? We are familiar with rich wahabists redirecting poor zealots with bombs toward their political enemies in the name of Allah and martyrdom. The Nigerian, Sudanese, Somolian, etc islamic twist just provides a fresh new source for cheap lives to fling at random western targets.

The fact that Mr. Chavez is nationalizing oil companies, then redirecting the wealth to buy russian war planes, guns, and build a bigger and bigger army is a concern. The fact that Mr. Chavez is unveiling memorials to Simon Bolivar in Terran is also a concern.

I'm most worried about anti-western governments seeking to spend their wealth on weapons and armies.

Just as a lot of third worlders look with apprehension at Western governments spending their wealth on weapons and armies for the past 50 years. ;) The arms race, the chest thumping, is a never ending cycle. All the renditions of Kumbaya can't stop the signal, and the signal is: have an edge.

Occhi

[Lissa]

You are aware, I hope, that there are a lot of Muslims in Africa, to include in Nigeria.

The US is not the only market for oil. We add to global demand, which has an impact on global prices. Everyone who buys oil from the PG feeds the Islamist coffers.

Where is China going to get their oil? India? Japan? The Rest of the World, whose demand will grow?

The spot market responds to global demand, not just US demand, even if that shrinks modestly.

Occhi

AFAIK, China is being smart and building more Nukes. Last I heard, there were actually setting up a city that would use the waste heat from cooling the electrical power side loop to heat homes and business with no detrimental effects (since the coolant loop for the electrical power loop would have a very low possiblity of radioactives getting into it).

Now if we could only convince the US public that Nuclear power is safe, we could get back to building them. The next thing to do as well would be to convince the world to have the IAEA handle reprossessing of spent fuel to recycle the still usable fuel (about 95% of the actual volume removed from the reactor) so that we can adequately deal with the true waste (about 1% of the material by volume in fuel is not usable at all, the 4% that is not usable as fuel can be used by various industries for various purposes, most going to medicinal uses). Place the reprocessing facility on some neutral ground and have everyone in the world ship their spent fuel there (which there are extrememly safe methods of transport, http://www.uic.com.au/graphics/flaskload1.gif (Seaborne) and http://www.nuclearfaq.ca/cask.htm (Truckborne or Railborne used in US and Canada, note the survivability of the cask in the shots).

[Occhidiangela]

Now if we could only convince the US public that Nuclear power is safe, we could get back to building them. The next thing to do as well would be to convince the world to have the IAEA handle reprossessing of spent fuel to recycle the still usable fuel (about 95% of the actual volume removed from the reactor) so that we can adequately deal with the true waste (about 1% of the material by volume in fuel is not usable at all, the 4% that is not usable as fuel can be used by various industries for various purposes, most going to medicinal uses). Place the reprocessing facility on some neutral ground and have everyone in the world ship their spent fuel there (which there are extrememly safe methods of transport, http://www.uic.com.au/graphics/flaskload1.gif (Seaborne) and http://www.nuclearfaq.ca/cask.htm (Truckborne or Railborne used in US and Canada, note the survivability of the cask in the shots).

So how does one educate, or is it indoctrinate, a public soaked in "nukes are evil" folk lore for the past 20 years? Why are the MSM not all over this?

Occhi

[Lissa]

So how does one educate, or is it indoctrinate, a public soaked in "nukes are evil" folk lore for the past 20 years? Why are the MSM not all over this?

Occhi

I've been wondering that myself. Part of it seems to be that the Nuclear Industry in the US refuses(d) to challenge the lies and half-truths that have been plastered by much of the Ant-Nuclear crowd. (Hell, they didn't even try to correct what was reported as the radioactivity at the plant gate of TMI when TMI-2 melted down. The reported radioactivity at the gates to TMI was the radioactivity at the pressure release valve on the pressuizer in the containment building, the actual radioactivity at the plant gate was the normal background level and all radioactivity was contained within the containment building.)

One of the things I find funny is that if you have an accident at a nuclear plant where a turbine throws blades, causes no injuries, does a little structural damage, and has nothing to do with the nuclear side of the operation, it makes front page news all over. OTOH, if you have a boiler explode at a Coal fired or Oil fired power plant, 40 works die, it languishes 10+ pages back in the newspaper or isn't even reported. It's sad that people dying is less newsworthy than some equipment being destoryed... :wacko:

[Occhidiangela]

I've been wondering that myself. Part of it seems to be that the Nuclear Industry in the US refuses(d) to challenge the lies and half-truths that have been plastered by much of the Ant-Nuclear crowd. (Hell, they didn't even try to correct what was reported as the radioactivity at the plant gate of TMI when TMI-2 melted down. The reported radioactivity at the gates to TMI was the radioactivity at the pressure release valve on the pressuizer in the containment building, the actual radioactivity at the plant gate was the normal background level and all radioactivity was contained within the containment building.)

One of the things I find funny is that if you have an accident at a nuclear plant where a turbine throws blades, causes no injuries, does a little structural damage, and has nothing to do with the nuclear side of the operation, it makes front page news all over. OTOH, if you have a boiler explode at a Coal fired or Oil fired power plant, 40 works die, it languishes 10+ pages back in the newspaper or isn't even reported. It's sad that people dying is less newsworthy than some equipment being destoryed... :wacko:

I am unimpressed.

I spent 25 years in Naval Aviation.

The media dumbacity in coverage of aircraft mishaps used to make me mad. Now, since I am retired, it makes me laugh. My status now allows me to call news reporters I meet at bars here in Corpus Christi the filthy names they have earned. I have been thrown out of 4 bars in the past 6 months on that topic alone, but I can no longer be chastised by my boss at work for doing so.

Go me! F*** them.

I can't tell you how much fun that has been. 26 year old morons dying to receive my boot up their backsides. It is like shooting carp in a dried up mill pond with an M-60.

The Fourth Estate now hires morons, I promise you. Therefore, it is no surprise to me that the Fourth Estate assigns morons to cover "nukular" issues. Most Fourth Estate / journalist c**ts know no more of reactor physics and industrial safety, nor logic and reason, than they do of fornication -- to badly misquote G.S. Patton, Jr.

Like Will Rogers, most people "only know what they read in The Papers" if they even know how to read . . . which is in question.

Occhi

[Merlinios]

The arms race, the chest thumping, is a never ending cycle.
Occhi

Not quite. It does have an end, but no one wants to admit it's there. It's not a pretty end, at least from the human perspective. Notions that humans can kill the planet are nothing but illusions of grandeur. The possibility that we kill ourselves, however, seems to be quite realistic.

I don't pretend to know enough about nuclear power to either decry or endorse it, but Three-Mile Island seems kind of...odd to me. Chernobyl was cause for panic. Three-Mile was, if anything, something to justify nuclear power. There was a meltdown. It was contained completely. And this inspires panic and not faith?

The drug addiction has sucked money out of the American economy into the hands of criminals...

The solution here is actually relatively simple, but politicians don't want to hear it. Legalize and tax them. This completely undercuts the black market, unless the taxes are completely obscene AND it regulates them AND it will help pay off, if not completely destroy this enormous debt that the current administration has accrued. For historic examples, one need look no further than Prohibition. How many Al Capones are completely incapacitated if we take out their primary source of funding?

As for the oil addiction...that one's a little harder. The answers are out there, but the lobbyists won't let the majority of them in. Brazil is running largely on Ethanol now. A combination of Big Oil and protection for US farmers (Good Idea™) is killing the idea in the US at the moment...so why can't we irrigate all of that Texan oil-land and turn it into cornfields? Ethanol is obviously not the only answer, but it's the most concrete at the moment. And lest we forget, it burns MUCH cleaner than standard gasoline. But the infernal combustion engine has been run on everything from cooking oil to pig excrement, and hydride engines are (presumably) in development. There are simply too many political and mental barriers for a conversion to happen right now, though.

'Course, we could always go with giant hamster wheels filled with republicans...erm...the dregs of society. And no, not the guys who are living out of the garbage. That isn't (necessarily) their fault. Howsabout the ones that drop out of school and work at McDonalds forever to get by and stay in a perpetual state of stoned...ness? I've heard it said that SOMEONE has to do that job. No they don't. If there's anything America doesn't need, it's McDonalds. Genius marketing idea? Maybe. Good for the country? Not really, except in the sense that it creates jobs. Maybe we could get some of those idiot politicians and media icons into the wheels as well (not just the Republicans this time <insert smilie here, because I refuse to>.

--me

[Occhidiangela]

No. The *reality* of one world disappears as soon as competition and greed enter the picture. People adopt the totally insane notion that the biosphere, somehow, cares about our borders, our sense of right and wrong, our desire to live the good life.

We only have one of these planets. If we destroy its ability to maintain us, colour televisions will seem scant consolation, as will petty arguments about whose economies it would have wrecked.

-Jester

The problem, and my initial barb about teaching my kids about propaganda with this film, is the messenger, not the message. A number of reviews I read at Rottentomatoes hit the words I was looking for, even though most reviewers gushed like an oil well in the East Texas fields of the 1920's. (That's all to the good, until one considers Hollywood, and the entertainment industry, has a significant liberal slant.)

The fact of global warming is not in dispute with me. Trust me on this, I live in South Texas. It impact is felt here. The clmiate patterns now and 20 years ago, when I was a young flight instructor, are significantly different, and significantly drier, not to mention warmer. The cause and effect relationship is where the scientists are still trying to find answers -- may their efforts not be in vain.

The critical question to ask, in my view, is why Al Gore? How is it that he is the front man for this "documentary," unless it is a film whose aim is propaganda? There are many very outspoken environmentalists, scientists, and Green advocates who would be more credible witnesses if one were to presume an objective look. (I saw Blue Water, White Death as a teenager. That was a documentary.)

Is it because no one else would make it? Probably not.

It is because only Al Gore could call in enough favors in liberal Hollywood to get the distro and spin machines there to support it, to get it massive press, and to get it to a wide audience? More likely.

Is it therefore reasonable to suspect, as cynical old me does, that there is more to this than an objective documentary? Yes, particularly given Al's unclean hands, his emotions regarding the party politics in the US over the past 20 years.

From a complimentary review:

Even with gas prices it's still winning, which is why "An Inconvenient Truth," for all its limitations as cinematic agitprop, deserves an audience

From one of the reviews that was less than complimentary:

What is missing from “An Inconvenient Truth” is the inconvenient truth that global warming actually accelerated during the 1990s, when Gore was the number two man in the Clinton White House. The film also omits that the U.S. auto industry (including the auto workers union) have repeatedly and successfully fought against energy standards during the 1990s – and that Clinton and Gore never forced them to acquiesce since they were profiting from their financial campaign contributions.

While the last sentence smells to me like an overstatement, and a secondary effect of the return to the Republicans to a majority in Congress during that decade, the more critical question is this:

How is he credible when his efforts, when in a position of influence, were so etched with political opportunism and Green failure?

I am going with my son tonight.

Maybe the message is: Don't wait for a politician to do something, people, take the initiative on your own, and take the initiative for political change on energy policies on your own.

All that politicans, like Al Gore and others, are interested in is their own exercise of power and influence.

Occhi

[kandrathe]

I concur.

The message is true, but I would prefer the messenger be more like Rachel Carson with Silent Spring. When a big "R" republican or big "D" democrat, or even a "G"reen start making movies most of the population will see it as propaganda and a ploy for political power. When a reknowned environmental scientist is willing to place their bacon on the line I'm more inclined to listen.

The trouble with activism today is the cacaphony. Pick an emergency and let's stick with it.

[Occhidiangela]

I concur.

The message is true, but I would prefer the messenger be more like Rachel Carson with Silent Spring. When a big "R" republican or big "D" democrat, or even a "G"reen start making movies most of the population will see it as propaganda and a ploy for political power. When a reknowned environmental scientist is willing to place their bacon on the line I'm more inclined to listen.

The trouble with activism today is the cacaphony. Pick an emergency and let's stick with it.

I just came back, and I am madder at Al Gore than for any of his previous political stunts. He takes a winning hand, the core science, the data, the decades long trends, and the evidence science has collected --and all the briefs he has done over the years -- and he throws half of it away on petty politics. At least his call to action at the end, what we as people can do to reduce emissions, is a small salvaging of the over all gaffe in presentation.

Some good stuff nonetheless -- I particularly liked the ice shelf discussions, the melting tundra, Lake Chad, and the population graph that showed Malthus to be right for the wrong reasons (earth's population triples in two generations). Some of his points were bolstered with good examples of flawed thinking, to include his shot with the "all doctors smoke Camels" ad of the 1960's. I also like the way he pointed out the politicization of "science," though I note how those were painted. Richard Nixon's little move on speed limits, anyone? Unleaded fuel, anyone?

At too many places in the presentation, he approaches killer points and lets them drop as he wanders off with personal focus on him, Al Franken. Sorry, Al Gore. *grrrrrrrr* Population. Economic choices versus forward thinking versus policy formation. MPG averages by nation. *rends garment* Have you ever seen someone pitched a perfect, down the middle, fast ball that they didn't swing at? He threw himself a medium speed fastball and chose to watch it hit the glove while looking at himself at bat on the Jumbotron.

Unbelievable.

Full disclosure. I am a certified Power Point Commando. I know how to give a brief, how to stay on topic, and how to close out a presentation. Al Gore's power point commando drill put to film was a pathetic case of losing his message in a cloud of self serving BS. *slams head into desk* The Admiral or the General would have thrown him out on his arse if he were on any of the staffs I worked on.

Which is a damned shame. The message is worth sending.

He has the audience, the name recognition, the connections to get the message out, and he is a fine public speaker. I also think that he believes, at least somewhat on a personal level, in the environment as a non trivial issue.

This could have been "The Silent Spring" put to film, as you suggest kandrathe, put into the visual medium for the Generations Baby Boom, X, Y, and Z.

He watered it down with "it's all about Al Gore" and a lame bait and switch appeal to Kyoto. Opportunity not only wasted, but thrown into a toilet and flushed. It could have been an umimpeachable appeal, divorced of partisan garbage. He has the material for that.

Damn that man for not being able to change his leopard's spots as a partisan politician. Damn him to Hell, which is where the road paved with good intentions leads far too frequently.

Occhi

[Vandiablo]

Oh calm down, willya? Have some decaf... I think you're picking the wrong things to complain about.

From what I understand from his interviews (Leno, Stewart), Al Gore did not make the movie. He made the slide show. Some filmmakers (forgotten the names) saw the slide show, and thought they could make a movie of it, or more precisely, about Al Gore trying to spread the message within the slide show.

The movie is not a documentary about global warming. The movie is a documentary about Al Gore giving talks about global warming. So including Al Gore in a documentary about Al Gore was only natural. Now, most of us find the topic of global warming more interesting than Al Gore, so I can understand your disappointment. I found repeated shots of him <strike>typing</strike> keyboarding at his <strike>laptop</strike> notebook tiring.

But also remember this: if the movie had had unbroken coverage of global warming, for the entire movie, I can guarantee that every eye in the house will have glazed over within 20 minutes.

Also, you seem disappointed that the movie lets you connect the dots yourself rather than beating your head with them. But, don't we continually hear that environmental warnings are usually presented in "shrill chicken-little" style? Isn't using understatement better then? Or is this another "damned if you do" etc. that seemingly all liberals or Democrats get saddled with?*

I found that one little thing at the end of the film to be uplifting. One of the things the ordinary citizen can do is to promote truth. If someone says something you know to be false, challenge it. This requires that you learn the facts, and remember them so you can back yourself up rather than be just issuing opinion. (Opinions such as "I believe the earth will survive" or "I don't think this is anything humans are doing" IMO should be smacked down, but I need to get more facts.)

Occhi, you have the freedom to spout against warming without getting behind Gore at all. You can be your own master. Or maybe you can hitch your hybrid wagon to that skeptic guy from SciAm, mentioned elsewhere in this thread. So don't fret about the movie so much, just be glad that more people are paying attention. Maybe if people dismiss warming because of Gore you can set them straight. (I think you like trying to set people straight, no?)

I don't agree with Kandrathe about the one "crisis" at a time, if that's used as a justification for not taking action. If you do that, then you're always just handling one issue at a time, and yes, you'll only be dealing with crises. Deal with a crisis, but don't let that interfere with taking rational action on other issues, especially those that can or will become crises later if no action is taken.

On a side note, I agree with you that nuclear power should be part of the solution. The most shocking thing about Bush for me lately was that he said something I agreed with: that we should implement "recycle-fuel nuclear", something you're no doubt aware of (esp since Lissa was mentioning it I think), but of which I only learned about 6 months ago. I used to be against nuclear power, but I feel that the combination of the lesser-risk fuel with passive safeguards (smaller, pebble reactors) have made it "safe enough". (Note that my level of knowledge about it is only as deep as that of a Scientific American reader.) ... but I also have questions-- where does all the uranium come from?? Will demand for uranium ever become another energy crisis? Will it make some African nation too powerful in world affairs? I am ignorant about this. Thank you. Do I just leave the microphone right here? Okay.

-V
Emergency Response Coordinator
The Forsaken Inn


*e.g., if you might have done anything wrong you're "Slick" but if you haven't you're a "Boy Scout"; e.g., if you didn't go to Vietnam you're a draft dodger (Clinton but also Bush, Cheney, Rove) but if you did you either had it easy (Gore) or did not serve to the satisfaction of 100% of the other vets (Kerry)... oops, long digression for another thread

[kandrathe]

Van: My point was that political will is needed to make the needed environmental changes without driving the world economy into the toilet. I've been watching this train wreck my entire life, while people run around defocused on crisis followed by crisis. I studied the impending end of the hydrocarbon economy while in high school in the late 1970's, and wrote a thesis on energy alternatives while at the university in the 1980's. Yet, auto manufacturers are still delivering only the minimal restrictions while we consumers are still demanding 6 mpg muscle cars and Hummers.

I would just like to see a little political leadership on this, and in fact something as simple as

• We have a big problem, <>
  
• We need to do these things now <>
  
• Your children might survive.<>
  [st]
  

  During the 1960's, smog in America was increasing at a worrisome rate; predictions were that smog controls would render cars exorbitantly expensive. Congress imposed smog regulations, and an outpouring of technical advances followed. Smog emissions in the United States have declined by almost half since 1970, and the technology that accomplishes this costs perhaps $100 per car.
  
  Similarly, two decades ago a "new Silent Spring" was said to loom from acid rain. In 1991, Congress created a profit incentive to reduce acid rain: a system of tradable credits that rewards companies that make the fastest reductions. Since 1991 acid rain emissions have declined 36 percent, and the cost has been only 10 percent of what industry originally forecast. Gregg Easterbrook, Visiting Fellow, Governance Studies -- The Brookings Institute Full Article

  
  And to Jester from a different thread: If the world economy hits the crapper, starving parents will not be thinking about conservation. So it's not the "poor American" who is forced to pay 1$ per KwH I'm concerned about. It's the cronically unemployed Central or South American parent who has joined a paramilitary group bent on destruction.

[Occhidiangela]

The usual.

Van:

My son's comment was "that movie was 40 minutes too long, they should have stuck to global warming and left the Al Gore story out of it." And he was right.

As to the rest, I was raised to waste not want not, and we are trying to teach that to our kids.

Democraps are not the only public figures who get damned if you do, damned if you don't situations, so please let's not divert this to a partisan line of BS, as we are wont to, now and again.

To badly paraphrase Jester, the biosphere doesn't care who you vote for. ;)

Al had a chance to take his position and do something wonderful with it -- the sort of thing Ralph Nader did for about 30 years -- and do it credibly since he believes in it. In today's climate, credibility is tough to come by. A film clip of Ray the Moron Nagin, hanging chads, Al's departure, etc, had bloody *&^% all to do with Global Warming and policy issues -- which lie in Congress where the money is controlled -- it has to do with damned foolishness of another sort. The energy policy failures since 1973, particularly in the Auto Industry, are a bipartisan failure of enormous scope, likewise the failed nuclear energy policies.

Ghandi, with less money and more ethical bottom, was able to change the world. All Al does with this film is recycle the same tired sniping under the guise of "for the greater good."

But maybe you are right. Maybe by simply getting the film out, by getting people to talk and (hopefully) take away the message of the last 5 minutes of the film, a seed will be planted.

I doubt it.

The theater I was in had 7 people last night, at the 7:30 show, to include my son and I.

This is a blue county.

Check the demographics in my county, and you will perhaps see where the future problem lies in implementation.

Comment to Kandrathe: the price of a car is indeed now outrageous. So is the cost of repair. The 1974 Super Beetle that I bought in 1979 for $1700, a five year old used VW, would cost me roughly $11-12,000 (used 2001 Beetle) That car has a lot fewer parts and systems I can fix myself, with only marginally better fuel economy (2 Mpg) and (YAY!) reasonably improved emissions profile.

Occhi

[Jester]

Van: My point was that political will is needed to make the needed environmental changes without driving the world economy into the toilet. I've been watching this train wreck my entire life, while people run around defocused on crisis followed by crisis. I studied the impending end of the hydrocarbon economy while in high school in the late 1970's, and wrote a thesis on energy alternatives while at the university in the 1980's. Yet, auto manufacturers are still delivering only the minimal restrictions while we consumers are still demanding 6 mpg muscle cars and Hummers.

I would just like to see a little political leadership on this, and in fact something as simple as

• We have a big problem, <>
  
• We need to do these things now <>
  
• Your children might survive.<>
  [st]And to Jester from a different thread: If the world economy hits the crapper, starving parents will not be thinking about conservation. So it's not the "poor American" who is forced to pay 1$ per KwH I'm concerned about. It's the cronically unemployed Central or South American parent who has joined a paramilitary group bent on destruction.

Most unemployed Central and South Americans, especially the most marginal, work in industries with very little environmental consequence. (At least outside of Brazil, because of the forest, and Argentina/Chile/Uruguay, due to greater industrialization.)

And, as the collapse of the USSR more or less proved, the economic devastation of insurrection more than compensates for the drop in environmental awareness. Ecologically speaking, a worldwide revolution (sans nukes) would probably be fantastic for our greenhouse gas output. Industry can't pollute if it can't operate, and it can't operate if there's no stable market.

-Jester