President Gore?……
God, I hope not!….. Anyone seen this award winning documentary on the environment by our former second-in-command?….. Seems a lot of Senators think it’s way off the mark and that Al Boy is just using the whole thing as a scam to boost his political status….. I’d like to hear some opinions….. I personally never cared much for the man….. He just has that look that makes you not want to turn your back on him…… A male version of Hillary….. Wasn’t there something about a “Lock Box” the last time he ran for office?…… I wonder where that box is now?…….
March 23rd, 2007 at 2:30 pm
I have seen the movie and I highly recommend it. I bought extra copies just to circulate to friends. Senators are not the people to ask if climate change is real — the overwhelming scientific consensus (98%+) is that it is quite real. The few who deny global warming/climate change are those scientists bankrolled by the oil companies. This is the one of the most important issues of our time — our economic future and the viability of human life on the planet are at stake. Do yourself a favor and spend the $4 to rent it.
March 23rd, 2007 at 11:04 pm
I’m gonna have to agree with TTop on the climate change question. As for the possibility of Uncle Al running for president again, I don’t think he will. If he did, we could do worse, and we definitely did do worse in ’04. In 2000, Gore drew more of the popular vote than Dumb-ass Dubya. I’d vote for George Leroy Tirebiter if he had the best chance of taking the White House from those G.D. Repubs.
March 24th, 2007 at 10:46 am
Please place my vote for none of the above, I don’t like anything that has been put before me as of yet.(Small lean toward Barock) I am getting tired of the media telling me who to vote for instead of just letting the candidates present their platform and letting me decide. If we don’t step up and MAKE them allow a 3rd party were all F***ED Another thing I am possibly leaning SLIGHTLY toward a amendment lowering the age of eligibility to perhaps 35-40 There’s too many old Farts stepping up, I seems that the last new fresh face we saw was in ’60 and we all know how that turned out.
March 24th, 2007 at 12:46 pm
ELLIOT SPITZER FOR PRESIDENT. Lets start a ground swell here on MR Cental.
March 24th, 2007 at 3:10 pm
What is his platform, I’m Game.
March 25th, 2007 at 12:18 pm
He doesn’t have a formalized platform yet, but I think it would go something like “BUST THEIR CROOKED ASSES”. (Is he still thinking of running for Governor of N.Y.?)
March 25th, 2007 at 8:08 pm
Oops, Spitzer is Governor of N.Y. and is in a fight over health care reform. Maybe we better see how he does.
March 26th, 2007 at 11:11 pm
I’m no fan of Gore, but his movie, at least the lecture part on the science itself, is pretty good. The schmaltzy personal vignettes drag on, but it’s certainly worth a watch.
Just when he seems to be educating himself about things, however, out from his mouth recently comes the colossally silly metaphor likening the climate system to a feverish baby whom a concerned parent would certainly take to the doctor. As if the global climate system is a static system with a 98.6 degF-like normal body temperature.
Humans are unquestionably causing an increase in atmospheric CO2, and, all else being equal, basic radiative transfer physics indicates that the temperature will increase. Unfortunately, a multitude of feedbacks make things devilishly complicated. Some of these feedbacks are positive: water-vapor, ice melt; some are negative: sulfate combustion byproducts, clouds. I’m not sure where TTop’s 98% consensus number comes from (a couple of sociologists [har har] have tried to quantify consensus), but I would express the consensus this way: most scientists agree that warming is/will occurring/occur. The largest uncertainty is the form the warming will take, specifically regional impacts. In particular, the uncertainty involving clouds and precipitation patterns are even greater than the temperature uncertainties.
Whether or not countries (developing countries only, do note) abide by Kyoto, or whether everybody in the US and Europe switches to CF lightbulbs (which is good) probably won’t make much difference since China is slated to build ~2000 dirty, inefficient coal-fired power plants over the next 40 years (lots of slop in these estimates; I’ve also seen 568 over the next five years). So it’s a bit like pissing in the wind.
For an absolutely outstanding primer on the science and the difficulties involved, I strongly recommend the following:
http://bostonreview.net/BR32.1/emanuel.html
Emanuel is an outstanding scientist, and a nice guy to boot.
March 27th, 2007 at 11:01 am
World population, whatever happened to that issue, seems to left out of the equation. Oh yeah, “abstinence”. No problem.
March 27th, 2007 at 10:44 pm
We’ve discussed population before, haven’t we huskysooner. If I remember correctly, you seem to think this old planet can support a lot more folks, but in your comment # 8 above, it seems to me that you make a pretty good case FOR population control–especially in China.
March 27th, 2007 at 11:45 pm
Or nuclear power.
I’m not sure how many people the planet can support, but I seem to remember saying simply that Paul “Population Bomb” Ehrlich’s dire predictions didn’t come to pass (too lazy to look it up).
March 28th, 2007 at 11:34 am
Yes, it was discussed some time back. What I was trying to say in an oblique sort of way was that in all the talk around the world about how to reduce pollution caused by energy use, population growth never seems to come up. The issue is always framed as we will need x amount of energy by this date. So, if we can just produce more clean energy everything will be OK and we can still keep expanding our need for energy . And implicit in that solution is an expanding population.
Our resources are finite. I read that the war in Iraq is a battle for the worlds remaining resources. No solution to energy and pollution can ignore population. Bush’s policy of “abstinence” and family planning in third world countries is no option. Meanwhile we here in the U.S. are sucking up resources faster than anyone.
Technology may save our collective asses but I am mistrustful. It was technology that got us in this mess. We will have to be extra smart to get us out of this fix. That includes understanding what we are as a species.
As the battle for oil continues, flying under the radar, is a stealth war for water.