Inconvenient Truths
Hello I live in the UK. Its really cold. I mean, -1 degree this morning. Icy! I know some people who live in the USA. Where right now (yes i realise its a big place) there are catastrophic ice storms which have killed 22 people. Global warming? I’m probably going to hell for this, certainly my children will burn in eternal fire if the IPCC is to be believed, but i quite like the idea of it all warming up a bit. I wouldn’t have to fly anywhere to go and catch some summer holiday sun. I wouldn’t have to drive to work on dangerous freezing roads in the winter. Scraping ice of a car window is a bitch.
Anyway, much aside from all that (its 90 degrees on the equator, will they really notice one more?), Al Gore recently got theNobel Peace Prize. I love the idea of him holding peace talks with the raging weather systems, he certainly fucked up the middle east with Clinton. I hate Al Gore. More than Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas (London Bridge doesn’t go down you drug muppet, that’s Tower Bridge - meth sure does destroy the brain). He’s a despicable tosspot. Ex vice president needs to make cash quick. Needs a career really - i mean ever since George Dubbya stole his presidency. What to do? What’s hip, vogue, and absolutely guaranteed to cash in on peoples fear and hysteria (an American politicians specialisation)? CLIMATE CHANGE.
Trouble is “Call Me” Al, when you were vice president of the worlds largest economy, for 8 years (8 lonnnnng years) you did slightly less than fuck all about Americas carbon footprint. Heres one for the records. Al Gore the money grabbing morally bankrupt “fund raiser”? No, not Al Gore the vice president who would rather batter developing nations with trade sanctions to protect his own countries drug companies than prevent the spread of the worst disease faced by human kind? Yes Al that’s a no brainer, of course greedy multinationals come before human life. Those inconvenient truths get everywhere don’t they.
Now, I’m not going to enter into the debate on whether or not global warming, climate change etc is happening and whether or not its human led. But, lets not be alarmist about the whole thing. In fact a UK high court judge has ruled that An Inconvenient Money Spinner can only be sent to schools when accompanied by a document detailing the other side of the argument
- Mr Gore’s assertion that a sea-level rise of up to 20 feet would be caused by melting of ice in either West Antarctica or Greenland “in the near future”. The judge said this was “distinctly alarmist” and it was common ground that if Greenland’s ice melted it would release this amount of water - “but only after, and over, millennia”.
- Mr Gore’s assertion that the disappearance of snow on Mount Kilimanjaro in East Africa was expressly attributable to global warming - the court heard the scientific consensus was that it cannot be established the snow recession is mainly attributable to human-induced climate change.
- Mr Gore’s reference to a new scientific study showing that, for the first time, polar bears had actually drowned “swimming long distances - up to 60 miles - to find the ice”. The judge said: “The only scientific study that either side before me can find is one which indicates that four polar bears have recently been found drowned because of a storm.”
But then who would let facts get in the way of stirring up a storm?
I mean the fact that Global Dimming, caused by such things as aeroplanes flying in the sky, is actually contributing to keeping our surface temperature down? That’s no fun! No fun at all! You can’t tax the bollocks of people going on holiday in planes if they think they might be helping Africa get some chilly respite. Evidence for this was observed by scientists during the three days after the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Centre. During that time all commercial flights were grounded, and gave scientists the opportunity to study the effects on temperature without contrails. The effect was that the range in temperature increased by 1 degree centigrade. This was considered to be a significant and substantial effect for such a short time.
But you know, even that’s being one sided. See how easy it is to manipulate the facts to keep yourself on the lucrative lecture circuit (and the cash prize from Nobel)? Global Dimming of course has its drawbacks - for a start its masking the effect of any warming that is actually occurring - global warming could be worse than it is (this is also rightly a positive if its holding back catastrophe). Read the article and side effects like acid rain (not tasty) and asthma in kids (not tasty) become apparent.
The crux of the whole thing though? Interfering bastards. I get up. Its raining. I get out my coat and i go to work like every other day of the year. A politician gets up. Its raining. He immediately asserts that a) he should do something to stop this and b) this might give him some leverage on his political opponents.
And guess what? It doesn’t always work. Brazil, being pressured by chaps like hypocrite Gore, are about to build shitloads of hydro electric dams.
Brazil has plans for a massive reservoir-building programme in the Amazon region that would increase the surface area of the country’s reservoirs twentyfold. That, says Fearnside, would raise emissions of greenhouse gases from Brazil’s reservoirs to the equivalent of more than 200 million tonnes of CO 2 a year—over three times the country’s current annual emissions from burning fossil fuels.
The BBC have a more idiot proof article.
Turns out Al, its not quite as simple as your bandwagon makes out.
And Live Earth….. how much carbon did that cockfest burn? ALL THOSE LIGHTS. And the plane tickets for the predominantly American cast playing in London.
Those inconvenient truths really do get everywhere.
Filed by Kieran at December 15th, 2007 under Complaint!, Science, Topical?