2+2=5, or a brief essay on "Inconvenience".
" In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. And what was terrifiying was not that they would kill you for thinking otherwise, but that they might be right. For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable—what then?"
George Orwell wrote in "1984" about a state where all information provided to the public was first written, re-written, or fabricated by the Ministry of Truth. Today, we live in a society not ruled not by an ever present "Big Brother", but an elected democracy. Hopefully, they follow our beliefs that we elect them to follow, but it doesn't always happen.
What I often find now, is that beliefs are easily swayed in the public. Often, the result of this shift is due to media, television, or movies. I recently ran into one of these shifts in belief in my own home. "An Inconvenient Truth", Al Gore's documentary on global warming, has made Slea into a new ecophile. She proceeded one morning to berate me about global warming and what we do to destroy the earth and we should change everything we do or else there will be no planet for our children. etc etc etc...
I got pissed for several reasons. First, I had worked all night, and was preparing for another 10 hour shift with the ambulance. Second, she started in on me upstairs in the bedroom, I told her I was tired and had had a bad night, so she follwed me downstairs and continued to berate me about my bad habits. Finally, she was basing all of her argument on this one movie. I know that she's smart enough to find the truth out eventually, but I know that there are too many impressionable people out there, especially the 18-21 year olds, who will take this movie as the truth and not even question the facts. I'm not arguing that global warming is a myth perpetrated by left-wing, sandal wearing, dope smoking hippy scientists. I know that it's a fact that we're contiributing to the problem of global warming, and that changes in our impact on the environment need to be changed, but I also know that one-sided "documentaries" don't get all of the facts out there.
What if someone came up to you and said 2+2=5? You'd think that they were crazy. What if 10 people did that? They'd all be wrong. Now continue to take it up in number to 100, 10 thousand, 1 million, 1 billion. At what point does the false statement become fact? What if the people telling you the fact that 2+2=5 were authority figures, or were teaching this to students without any mathematical background. You know that it's not possible for two plus two to equal five, but 6 billion people can't be wrong, right? The truth can be changed, not easily, but it can be done. Whether through news, science, or philosphy, facts can be presented to create any belief you want. Through the ignorance of people seeing this movie, taking it as truth, and not looking at all the facts out there, we may get to a point where two plus two does equal five.
Several points in "Inconvenient" are brought up as facts proving that global warming exists. Glacial melt, ice cap retreat, Arctic core samples, and severe weather are some of the changes that our planet is going through. I intend to show other scientific views, contradictory to those presented in the movie.
Gore does an excellent job discussing the ice caps of Greenland and Antarctica. Again, Gore's graphics are superb, and he does a nice job narrating. He shows animations of what a 20-foot rise in sea level would do to Manhattan, Florida, India, and China. A 20-foot sea level rise is what we expect if all of Greenland or all of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet were to melt. Such a 20-foot rise is not expected by 2100, and it would have been appropriate for Gore to acknowledge that the consensus of climate scientists--as published in the most recent report by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)--is that sea level is likely to rise between 4 and 35 inches, with a central value of 19 inches, by 2100. He should have also mentioned that temperatures in Greenland in the 1930s were about as warm as today's temperatures, so the current melting of Greenland's glaciers does have historical precedent.
Gore shows an impressive series of "then and now" images documenting the widespread retreat of many glaciers over the past century. Most dramatically, he shows Kenya's Mt. Kilimanjaro, whose 11,000 year-old glaciers are almost gone. While not all the world's glaciers have retreated in the past century, Gore's presentation is an effective and reasonable way to show how global warming has affected the majority of the world's glaciers.
But why are the tropical glaciers in Africa melting and retreating? A glacier is like your bank account. Whether your wealth is growing or dwindling depends on how much money you deposit vs. how much you withdraw each year. The Kilimanjaro glaciers are nearing bankruptcy, but is this due to excessive withdrawals or insufficient savings? Gore's movie would have you believe that global warming (withdrawals) is the reason for the glacial melt. However, as Andy Revkin writes in his March 23, 2004 article:
"We have a mere 2.5 years of actual field measurements from Kilimanjaro glaciers, unlike many other regions, so our understanding of their relationship with climate and the volcano is just beginning to develop", Dr. Douglas R. Hardy, a geologist at the University of Massachusetts and an author of the paper, wrote by e-mail. "Using these preliminary findings to refute or even question global warming borders on the absurd." In short, Kilimanjaro may be a photogenic spokesmountain "no matter what the climatic agenda" but it is far from ideal as a laboratory for detecting human-driven warming. The debate over it obscures the nearly universal agreement among glacier and climate experts that glaciers are retreating all over the world, probably as a result of the greenhouse-gas buildup. "
And so Gore uses data that is, in the scientific community, not necessarily proof of a global catastrophe. While ignoring the larger problem, I believe that using these scare tactics draws the viewers' attention away from the facts about real issues in global warming.
The biggest failure in the movie's presentation of science comes in the discussion hurricanes and severe weather events. The devastation wrought by Katrina is used to very dramatic effect to warn of the dangers climate change presents. We are told that Katrina grew "stronger and stronger and stronger" as it passed over the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico that were heated up by global warming. We are told that global warming is increasing the intensity of hurricanes, but not provided information on the great amount of uncertainty and vigorous scientific debate on this issue. Graphs showing recent record insurance losses from natural disasters are presented, but no mention is made of how increasing population and insistence on building in vulnerable areas are the predominant factors causing recent high insurance claims from disasters such as Katrina. Gore points to some unprecedented events in 2004 as evidence of increasing severe weather events worldwide--the record 10 typhoons in Japan, the most tornadoes ever in the U.S., and the appearance of Brazil's first hurricane ever. However, examples of this kind are meaningless. No single weather event, or unconnected series of severe weather events such as Gore presents, are indicative of climate change. In particular, the IPCC has not found any evidence that climate change has increased tornado frequency, or is likely to. Gore doesn't mention the unusually quiet tornado season of 2005, when for the first time ever, no tornadoes were reported in Oklahoma in the month of May.
But what of our efforts to combat global warming? As I said, I know that it's real and not a boogeyman monster created to get us into hybrid cars. But where do we go from here? Obviously, global warming didn't happen in the past 10 years of aerosol use, it's been going on for years. We are paying for the sins of our fathers, their scientific advances in the industrial revolution paved the way for our current state of technology. Yet their advances also caused our environmental problems. So we are left, not only trying to understand what is happening to our climate, but also trying to improve our impact on the environment. The scientific community is working to improve alternative fuel sources, emissions regulations, energy consumption, and the like. But as I asked Slea the other morning, "Where do we go? Do we put ourselves back in the stone age or try to keep advancing?"
I feel that the first action is to be informed. Look at all sides of the spectrum, not just the facts presented in one case. Talk about issues with friends and family. Read, read, read. Do anything you can to keep on top of issues and advances in this problem. Second, act on what you can. Act locally, starting with your own home. Recycle, reduce energy use, and teach your family on what they can do to help. gradually look at what you can do to help in your community, expanding your circle of influence as much as possible. Finally, do what you can to keep advancing the research into global warming. The easiest way for us Americans is to vote. Too many people ignore this right, but feel free to complain about the state of the country.
As I said before, if enough people believe that 2+2=5, it will eventually become the truth. It can be true technnically, but I'll save that for another post. It is up to us to keep false statements from becoming fact. Here are a few sites to help you study more on global climate changes.
http://www.wunderground.com/
http://www.realclimate.org/
http://climate.weather.com/blog/
George Orwell wrote in "1984" about a state where all information provided to the public was first written, re-written, or fabricated by the Ministry of Truth. Today, we live in a society not ruled not by an ever present "Big Brother", but an elected democracy. Hopefully, they follow our beliefs that we elect them to follow, but it doesn't always happen.
What I often find now, is that beliefs are easily swayed in the public. Often, the result of this shift is due to media, television, or movies. I recently ran into one of these shifts in belief in my own home. "An Inconvenient Truth", Al Gore's documentary on global warming, has made Slea into a new ecophile. She proceeded one morning to berate me about global warming and what we do to destroy the earth and we should change everything we do or else there will be no planet for our children. etc etc etc...
I got pissed for several reasons. First, I had worked all night, and was preparing for another 10 hour shift with the ambulance. Second, she started in on me upstairs in the bedroom, I told her I was tired and had had a bad night, so she follwed me downstairs and continued to berate me about my bad habits. Finally, she was basing all of her argument on this one movie. I know that she's smart enough to find the truth out eventually, but I know that there are too many impressionable people out there, especially the 18-21 year olds, who will take this movie as the truth and not even question the facts. I'm not arguing that global warming is a myth perpetrated by left-wing, sandal wearing, dope smoking hippy scientists. I know that it's a fact that we're contiributing to the problem of global warming, and that changes in our impact on the environment need to be changed, but I also know that one-sided "documentaries" don't get all of the facts out there.
What if someone came up to you and said 2+2=5? You'd think that they were crazy. What if 10 people did that? They'd all be wrong. Now continue to take it up in number to 100, 10 thousand, 1 million, 1 billion. At what point does the false statement become fact? What if the people telling you the fact that 2+2=5 were authority figures, or were teaching this to students without any mathematical background. You know that it's not possible for two plus two to equal five, but 6 billion people can't be wrong, right? The truth can be changed, not easily, but it can be done. Whether through news, science, or philosphy, facts can be presented to create any belief you want. Through the ignorance of people seeing this movie, taking it as truth, and not looking at all the facts out there, we may get to a point where two plus two does equal five.
Several points in "Inconvenient" are brought up as facts proving that global warming exists. Glacial melt, ice cap retreat, Arctic core samples, and severe weather are some of the changes that our planet is going through. I intend to show other scientific views, contradictory to those presented in the movie.
Gore does an excellent job discussing the ice caps of Greenland and Antarctica. Again, Gore's graphics are superb, and he does a nice job narrating. He shows animations of what a 20-foot rise in sea level would do to Manhattan, Florida, India, and China. A 20-foot sea level rise is what we expect if all of Greenland or all of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet were to melt. Such a 20-foot rise is not expected by 2100, and it would have been appropriate for Gore to acknowledge that the consensus of climate scientists--as published in the most recent report by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)--is that sea level is likely to rise between 4 and 35 inches, with a central value of 19 inches, by 2100. He should have also mentioned that temperatures in Greenland in the 1930s were about as warm as today's temperatures, so the current melting of Greenland's glaciers does have historical precedent.
Gore shows an impressive series of "then and now" images documenting the widespread retreat of many glaciers over the past century. Most dramatically, he shows Kenya's Mt. Kilimanjaro, whose 11,000 year-old glaciers are almost gone. While not all the world's glaciers have retreated in the past century, Gore's presentation is an effective and reasonable way to show how global warming has affected the majority of the world's glaciers.
But why are the tropical glaciers in Africa melting and retreating? A glacier is like your bank account. Whether your wealth is growing or dwindling depends on how much money you deposit vs. how much you withdraw each year. The Kilimanjaro glaciers are nearing bankruptcy, but is this due to excessive withdrawals or insufficient savings? Gore's movie would have you believe that global warming (withdrawals) is the reason for the glacial melt. However, as Andy Revkin writes in his March 23, 2004 article:
"We have a mere 2.5 years of actual field measurements from Kilimanjaro glaciers, unlike many other regions, so our understanding of their relationship with climate and the volcano is just beginning to develop", Dr. Douglas R. Hardy, a geologist at the University of Massachusetts and an author of the paper, wrote by e-mail. "Using these preliminary findings to refute or even question global warming borders on the absurd." In short, Kilimanjaro may be a photogenic spokesmountain "no matter what the climatic agenda" but it is far from ideal as a laboratory for detecting human-driven warming. The debate over it obscures the nearly universal agreement among glacier and climate experts that glaciers are retreating all over the world, probably as a result of the greenhouse-gas buildup. "
And so Gore uses data that is, in the scientific community, not necessarily proof of a global catastrophe. While ignoring the larger problem, I believe that using these scare tactics draws the viewers' attention away from the facts about real issues in global warming.
The biggest failure in the movie's presentation of science comes in the discussion hurricanes and severe weather events. The devastation wrought by Katrina is used to very dramatic effect to warn of the dangers climate change presents. We are told that Katrina grew "stronger and stronger and stronger" as it passed over the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico that were heated up by global warming. We are told that global warming is increasing the intensity of hurricanes, but not provided information on the great amount of uncertainty and vigorous scientific debate on this issue. Graphs showing recent record insurance losses from natural disasters are presented, but no mention is made of how increasing population and insistence on building in vulnerable areas are the predominant factors causing recent high insurance claims from disasters such as Katrina. Gore points to some unprecedented events in 2004 as evidence of increasing severe weather events worldwide--the record 10 typhoons in Japan, the most tornadoes ever in the U.S., and the appearance of Brazil's first hurricane ever. However, examples of this kind are meaningless. No single weather event, or unconnected series of severe weather events such as Gore presents, are indicative of climate change. In particular, the IPCC has not found any evidence that climate change has increased tornado frequency, or is likely to. Gore doesn't mention the unusually quiet tornado season of 2005, when for the first time ever, no tornadoes were reported in Oklahoma in the month of May.
But what of our efforts to combat global warming? As I said, I know that it's real and not a boogeyman monster created to get us into hybrid cars. But where do we go from here? Obviously, global warming didn't happen in the past 10 years of aerosol use, it's been going on for years. We are paying for the sins of our fathers, their scientific advances in the industrial revolution paved the way for our current state of technology. Yet their advances also caused our environmental problems. So we are left, not only trying to understand what is happening to our climate, but also trying to improve our impact on the environment. The scientific community is working to improve alternative fuel sources, emissions regulations, energy consumption, and the like. But as I asked Slea the other morning, "Where do we go? Do we put ourselves back in the stone age or try to keep advancing?"
I feel that the first action is to be informed. Look at all sides of the spectrum, not just the facts presented in one case. Talk about issues with friends and family. Read, read, read. Do anything you can to keep on top of issues and advances in this problem. Second, act on what you can. Act locally, starting with your own home. Recycle, reduce energy use, and teach your family on what they can do to help. gradually look at what you can do to help in your community, expanding your circle of influence as much as possible. Finally, do what you can to keep advancing the research into global warming. The easiest way for us Americans is to vote. Too many people ignore this right, but feel free to complain about the state of the country.
As I said before, if enough people believe that 2+2=5, it will eventually become the truth. It can be true technnically, but I'll save that for another post. It is up to us to keep false statements from becoming fact. Here are a few sites to help you study more on global climate changes.
http://www.wunderground.com/
http://www.realclimate.org/
http://climate.weather.com/blog/
posted by monkeybrigade at 12:09 PM
1 Comments:
hmmm, you know a lot about the movie for never having seen it. did you just rely on reading what someone else had written about it?
At some point, we all have to rely on what someone else says. It's not like each of us is going to become a scientist just to figure this shit out for ourselves. that is what they get paid to do.
also, it's amazing how two people can be in the same arguement and remember things so differently.
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