Al Gore Shares Nobel Peace Prize with UN Panel 937
eldavojohn writes "Former US Vice President Al Gore has been announced as a co-recipient of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his work on environmental awareness & climate change. He shares his award with the the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. 'Speaking in Washington, Mr Gore praised the IPCC, "whose members have worked tirelessly and selflessly for many years". "We face a true planetary emergency," Mr Gore warned. "It is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity." He said he would donate his half of the $1.5m prize money to the Alliance for Climate Protection, reported the news agency Reuters.'"
Congratulations (Score:2, Insightful)
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His stance goes in stark contrast to Bush's idea that carbon emission reductions should be pretty much be defined by the economic desire of the US, rather than l
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Then I see your Subject "Idiot with mod points" and think, "oh good, I'm not alone." Then I read your message and totally disagree with you!
OK, maybe it shouldn't have been marked as Troll. Maybe Off Topic or Overrated. But certainly not informative. Definitely Modded
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Re:Congratulations (Score:4, Insightful)
Gore has done nothing for peace. In fact, truth be known, he's done little for the environment. All he's done is talked about it, talked about how we have to make concessions in our daily lives, while making none himself.
Gore's movie was not about Darfur. If it was, and motivated people enough to help, it'd be an entirely different story. As such, all it is is a "see! look at the effects of climate change!"
Congratulating Gore is like congratulating your favorite soccer team because they won the world cup on a bad referee call, and knowing they didn't really deserve it, no matter how much you like the team or how great you think they are.
Congratulations Al! (Score:2, Insightful)
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Re:Congratulations Al! (Score:5, Insightful)
Science must 'fight fair' or it isn't science. If you distort the facts then it isn't science at all, it's a belief system.
All part of the plan (Score:2, Insightful)
2. Win Nobel Prize
3. Announce candidacy for US presidency.
4. Profit.
Re:All part of the plan (Score:5, Funny)
Re:All part of the plan (Score:5, Insightful)
He's got fame, fortune, influence, and more importantly the freedom to spend his time at whatever he finds interesting and fun. If a political enemy wants to stir up hatred of him, Al Gore has a better defense than Teflon: the problems of the world don't belong to him. If some but straps a bomb to himself and blows a bunch of innocent people up, nobody is demanding what Al Gore will do. Al Gore doesn't own the mortgage crisis. Al Gore doesn't have to fight the health care industry over the the way costs are bleeding US competitiveness.
So if Gore wants to speak out on climate change, he's just a distinguished private citizen exercising his right to state his opinion. You have to be an accomplished hater to work up much resentment over that.
Mr. Gore is pretty much in the catbird seat: beloved senior statesman, wealthy entrepreneur, admired environmental sage. Personally, I wouldn't dream give that up to jump into the shit pile of presidential politics, where your every utterance or sigh is twisted into a weapon of character assassination.
The only personal reason he's got to throw his hat into the ring is to get the policies he wants enacted, and that only counts if he doesn't think the next president will agree with him.
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I think you mean the catbirdpig seat.
Wow (Score:2)
Here's what this has to do with peace (Score:5, Insightful)
The committee said it wanted to bring the "increased danger of violent conflicts and wars, within and between states" posed by climate change into sharper focus.
If climate change happens as some expect there will be mass migrations, and territorial and resource wars. Like now, but only more so.
Re:Here's what this has to do with peace (Score:5, Insightful)
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Not the case. If you avert the worst case scenarios, you avert a major global conflict on an unprecedented scale.
If you avert the conservative scenario, you avert a marginal increase in the rate of regional conflict. Over the course of decades, this amounts to quite a lot of conflict averted, but climate change will be an irrefutable sine qua non in few of t
Re:Here's what this has to do with peace (Score:4, Informative)
Gore: "Climate change requires YOU to adapt" (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Gore: "Climate change requires YOU to adapt" (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Gore: "Climate change requires YOU to adapt" (Score:4, Insightful)
"Reduce your carbon footprint OR 'buy' offsets from a company you have a large stake in."
He says,
"Reduce your carbon footprint."
Btw, the "carbon indulgence" sites I've visited claim that you can offset your carbon emissions, (i.e. the carbon externality) for an average family of four, for $200.
So why bother telling people all these inconvenient things to do, when they could just pay $20/month?
I'll tell you why: because carbon control has nothing to do with the environment.
Re:Gore: "Climate change requires YOU to adapt" (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, by your cynical reasoning, wouldn't he be better off advocating offsets?
So why bother telling people all these inconvenient things to do, when they could just pay $20/month?
Exactly which inconvenient things has he advocated?
Changing incandescent bulbs to compact fluorescents is hardly inconvenient. You pay more for the bulb up front but save many times that over the life of the bulb in reduced energy costs.
Driving a more fuel efficient vehicle an inconvenience? It too, at $3 a gallon, is an investment that pays for itself.
Much of what Gore advocates people do will actually save them money if they do it. It's called enlightened self-interest.
You're not going to find a lot of people who will pay an extra $20/month to keep doing exactly what they're doing. They'll just keep the money. Are you paying for carbon offsets? I don't. I use Compact Fluorescent bulbs, drive a car that gets over 30mpg, and buy my energy from a green provider.
I'll tell you why: because carbon control has nothing to do with the environment.
What's it all about then?
Re:Gore: "Climate change requires YOU to adapt" (Score:4, Insightful)
That's WAY to naive or disengenuous (some basic math comparing the personal cost delta of keeping a car that gets 25mpg vs. having industry build for you and then buying a car that gets 30mpg shows that it's likely a money LOSER, rather than "paying for itself"). I'm thinking the latter, given the rest of your tone. And that makes the rest of your sentiment suspect, and suggests a merely political adherence to and support for Gore. However green you may be, you're ignoring the theatrical use to which people like Gore put much of this topic expressly so that they can re/gain political power. Creating a climate of fear, and then proposing feel-good-do-little/nothing measures, and riding the warm and fuzzy glow of having made those recommendations into political power is BS. But then, most politicians do it. What bothers me is that along with the power that the leftier side of spectrum is hungering for (say, to green-ify everything by edict) we're also going to get some lovely Marxist health care farms, or really swell relations with people like Hugo Chavez. You can't cherry pick what people like Gore and his supporters stand for, any more than you can with right-wing types. You just have to choose your battles. And to the extent that Gore's not out there, all day every day, preaching the need to produce 50 more nuclear power plants in the next decade, he can't be taken in any way seriously, except as a politcal manipulator.
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He's citing the fact that, at $3.00/gallon, consumers pay no price premium when buying a new hybrid (as opposed to a traditional new vehicle). Did you really think he was claiming that every time someone trades in a vehicle for a more fuel-effici
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Wrong. Those vehicles cost substantially more to manufacture, and at least some of that cost is pushed onto the buyer at the dealership, with the rest being eaten by the manufacturers who have a marketing need to appear greener than the next guy. That difference is passed along to purchasers of their other products. And of course, you're ignoring the really ugly re
Re:Gore: "Climate change requires YOU to adapt" (Score:4, Informative)
you fail to understand the real issue (Score:4, Insightful)
i don't think al gore could adapt as mightily as he could to less emissions to the degree required for you to take him seriously, but that's a side issue. to shut you up effectively, let us suppose that your observation is 100%, and then let's pack on a few thousand more sins. let us suppose for argument here that al gore ran his own personal coal plant, that he is, for the sake of argument right here, the giant hypocrite you see him to be
EVEN THEN, his words on climate change are sound
do you understand that?
if al gore were a pedophile, a murderer, listened to cold play, or any other number of heinous crimes, real and imagined, that you could fling at him, guess what?: his argument on climate change remains untouched, remains true. you don't defeat an argument by attacking the arguer, by doubting his integrity and his conviction. all you do is wind up changing the subject
CLIMATE CHANGE is the issue, not AL GORE
do you get that?
but in some people's minds, changing the subject form climate change to al gore means they have reaosn (in their deluded minds) TO IGNORE CLIMATE CHANGE
that's the problem with attacking al gore
the whole point is, assassinating al gore's character isn't the point. do you follow that? the point is climate change. and those who oppose al gore want to make al gore the subject matter INSTEAD OF climate change
but when you make al gore the subject matter, people forget all about climate change, and it becomes a giant retardfest of al gore did this and al gore did that. who cares about al gore?
al gore: "climate change is real"
porpagandized critic: "yeah but you pollute, therefore, i can ignore everything you say about climate change"
it is in fact a classic form of propaganda: rather than debate a speaker on his points, his argument, the issues, merely attack the speaker. as if that somehow nullifies the points he is making!
if al gore lived in a shack in minnesota, or if al gore ran exxon mobile, it doesn't matter; THE WORDS HE SPEAKS ON CLIMATE CHANGE ARE THE TRUTH. AND THAT IS THE REAL ISSUE
except to propagandizers like yourself, who want to make al gore the subject, rather than climate change
repeat after me, propagandized fool: you don't have to be a saint to point out a sin
Why he's not running for president (Score:2)
He was VICE PRESIDENT when the Kyoto treaty... (Score:3, Informative)
I know you don't like Wikipedia... (Score:3, Informative)
"On July 25, 1997, before the Kyoto Protocol was finalized (although it had been fully negotiated, and a penultimate draft was finished), the U.S. Senate unanimously passed by a 95-0 vote the Byrd-Hagel Resolution (S. Res. 98),[65][66] which stated the sense of the Senate was that the United States should not be a signatory to any protocol that did not include binding targets and timetables for developing as well as industrialized nations or "would resu
Winning must be sweet. (Score:5, Insightful)
I read "Earth in the Balance" in October before the 2000 presidential election just to get an idea of what Gore was like. Perhaps slashdotters might be better able than the average joe to appreciate what writing a book requires: thinking about something. Questions, hypotheses, research, thinking. The philosopher Ortega wrote that the act of thinking about things instantly puts you in the minority; most people don't do it. Well, Gore does it. Maybe his personality isn't suited to the job of presidency, although it's hard to imagine that he would have been worse than Bush. But just maybe this role suits him better. He deserves the recognition he is getting now. Bush vs Gore: I know whose legacy I'd rather claim.
Deserving but political (Score:5, Informative)
Again, I think the Nobel prize committee wanted to send George Bush a message: "You are wreaking destruction and death; see how much better some other people are spending their energies." So this was as much an anti-war Nobel as it was a peace Nobel.
We Finns have been wondering why our Martti Ahtisaari [wikipedia.org] has not been considered worthy by the Scandinavians in the Nobel prize committee. Ahtisaari has been instrumental in the independence of Namibia, negotiating an end to the NATO-Serbia war and bringing peace to Aceh. He has also participated in other efforts like bringing Kuwait on its feet after the first Gulf war and trying to find a settlement between Serbia and Kosovo.
I don't know if I'd call it deserving (Score:3, Interesting)
1) That global warming is human caused. I'm not interested in debating this, but realise that it is an assumption.
2) That Gore/the IPCC's proposals will cause it to be stopped. Just because they are propo
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The NPP has been a political pop gun for a very long time. I've not considered it a true honor for over two decades.
personally I think his internet work more profound (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the Internet has had a more profound effect on human affairs than climatic change so far. And Al was an important contributer to the former. But there arent Nobel prizes for legislation.
Sick of Skeptics. David Suzuki and Al Gore. (Score:4, Interesting)
I always notice that in my local paper, when they publish articles from global warming skeptics... these individuals are often the heads of various organizations and groups, professors, history buffs, basically anything but actual climatologists or environmental scientists. Not always, but often. I find that interesting.
The MAJORITY of climate scientists agree that humans are contributing to warming. I'm going to go with that conclusion because it's better to be safe than sorry, and because I can see the proof with my own eyes.
Climate Myths Examined: http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/dn11462 [newscientist.com]
As for Mr. Gore and the IPCC winning the peace prize... good for them. Someone is standing up and shouting about this. Yes, I feel Mr. Gore is a bit of a phony in his personal life, but his message isn't. If I had the choice I would have recognized Canada's Dr. David Suzuki ( http://www.davidsuzuki.org/ [davidsuzuki.org] ) for his work educating the public about all kinds of environmental issues... and he does so in a more science based rather than hollywood-dazzle kind of way. He recently toured across Canada giving talks and raising awareness in a very locally focused down to earth way and he's been doing this for DECADES. He deserves this prize as much if not more than Gore.
Either way, I'm glad environmental issues get a nod of recognition here.
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While your heart's in the right place, your argument simply doesn't cut the must
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As a scientific question, there is (was) an entirely legitimate question of whether one race might actually be superior to another. But formulating the question requires concrete observable criteria (the word "superior" alone is meaningless), and the valid studies on those criteria that have actual
Re:No confidence (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:No confidence (Score:5, Insightful)
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What exactly is wrong with this decision? apart from the fact that you may not like al gore?
Re:No confidence (Score:4, Insightful)
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Wars over water, for one thing.
Chaotic conditions provide perfect opportunities for extremists of both the left and right to seize power. The biggest danger we face is not from the direct effects of global warming but the political upheaval that will follow.
Re:No confidence (Score:4, Informative)
methinks you have been watching too much fox news. Its perfectly possible to live a modern lifestyle and not destroy the environment. It means you might not have air conditioning, but actually open a window, might not wear a t shirt in winter with the heat blasting full on, and means you might need to get used to the sight of the odd wind turbine and solar panel, but your assumption that green == mud huts is just farcical, and certainly not 'insightful'.
I love the way that, especially in the US, if people suggest even marginal regulatory improvements to the minimum fuel standards of vehicles (as happens every year in the US, and is hugely lobbied against), they get called "eco nazis who want to live in mud huts". Here in Europe, we have much more fuel efficient cars, yet amazingly do not live in mud huts.
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Here in San Francisco I don't even need a car. I have a 10-minute commute to work on natural gas and electric powered buses. Because the climate is mild,
Re:No confidence (Score:5, Interesting)
Anti-AC crusaders have blood on their hands for all the elderly who die during Europe's infrequent heat-waves.
I'm all for green technology, but if you think I'm going to watch my grandma die of heat stroke so that you can end the "evils" of climate control, you are dead fucking wrong.
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This is a salient point. Here in Dallas, we have summers that top 115 degrees F (46C), with relative humidity of over 60%. For about five months from late April to mid September (sometimes October) simply standing outside for a length of time will kill you. That's why Texas state law requires any and all business establishments to provide water free of charge to any person requesting it.
Something else to remember about those carbon credits. When Rwanda sells you theirs, they can
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You dumb bastard, you've got it the wrong way round. The only reason you do live there is because of AC. Florida was a shitty swamp populated by nothing more than alligators, mosquitoes and a few crazy fishermen before AC became easy and cheap.
And yo
Re:Peace Prize != Good Science (Score:4, Insightful)
or perhaps they are a member of the intergovernmental panel on climate change,. made up of scientific experts from every country on Earth who have agreed that man is the factor.
Its true, the fact that we are causing climate change is such an 'inconvenient' truth, that people will get VERY annoyed and arrogant in attempts to deny what is really going on. Some will even rant on slashdot that the worlds climate experts have a 'poor understanding of the underlying science'.
No offence, but who the fuck are you that your scientific understanding trumps every respected climate expert alive?
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Re:Peace Prize != Good Science (Score:4, Insightful)
My problem with Al Gore and the rest of the Chicken Littles is the way they frame the argument. It's a lot of "everyone agrees that we're most definitely causing the end of the world and we have to act this very second" as opposed to the truth. The truth is really pretty simple: Things are warming up. That warming is correlated to human activities. It seems likely that we're causing the warming, but because we're not doing a nice controlled experiment, there's no easy way to determine causality.
Science doesn't speak in absolute truths. Talking heads trying to scare people into action via sound bites do.
IMO the doomsday scenario arguments are poorly framed, and have enough holes that industry shills can obfuscate the issue so much that nothing gets done. As surprisingly few people have suggested, a lack of strong evidence for direct causality doesn't mean we shouldn't act immediately. Sure, it'll cost billions or even trillions of dollars to convert to alternative fuels. But even if there were only a 10% chance that anthropogenic global warming is real, it's worth the investment. Switching to clean energy has tons of side benefits, too, given that we'd be jump starting a whole new industry, diversifying our energy supply, lowering asthma rates in places with a lot of exhaust pollution, etc.
That just seems harder to argue with than scare tactics based on misinterpretation of science.
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source for this please. you are up against:
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change)
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
Joint science academies'
U.S. National Research Council,
American Meteorological Society
American Geophysical Union
American Institute of Physics
American Astronomical Society
Federal Climate Change Science Program (commissioned by bush)
etc etc. need I go on? Its farcical to suggest that only 13% of climate scientists support the IPCC conclu
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You must be referring to Chris Landsea who did indeed resign, in january 2005.
that's one guy out of how many?
"People from over 130 countries contributed to the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report over the previous 6 years. These people included more than 2500 scientific expert reviewers, more than 850 contributing authors, and more than 450 lead authors" (w
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I thought the jury was still out on that...?
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Here's something you might try: provide some examples of your accurate science, and proof of why your interpretation is correct.
And maybe offer up some credentials.
And opinions of respected peers.
Can you do that? Or are trolls allergic to due diligence?
(those last two are rhetorical, don't worry.)
A link to your own journal? (Score:4, Informative)
Perhaps you missed the last few sentences:
The existense of a number of naturally-driven cycles is well known and well supported. But their existence does not supplant anthropogenic carbon as a forcing--rather, they interact with it. Natural cycles and carbon dioxide impacts are operating simultaneously, and understanding their interactions is one of the goals of computer modelling.
Re:A link to your own journal? (Score:5, Interesting)
Ah, the sparse but satisfying advantages of being a scientist...
Here's my problem (Score:3, Interesting)
http://motls.blogspot.com/2006/05/global-warming-on-jupiter.html [blogspot.com]
So, why are they giving Gore the Nobel Prize for giving out misinformation about a natural event that we can't do anything about?
Re:Here's my problem (Score:5, Informative)
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/dn11642 [newscientist.com]
Re:Here's my problem (Score:4, Informative)
And what part of "The Sun's energy output [metoffice.gov.uk] has not increased since direct measurements began in 1978" did you not understand?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I am confident that human emissions of CO2, methane, etc. are of at least some cause for concern because the basic mechanism of warming (pdf warning) has been well understood for over 100 years [google.com] (that's "On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground" by Svante Arrhenius, 1896, for you pdf-phobes). All the feedbacks, etc. are complicated;
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Re:No confidence (Score:4, Insightful)
The desperation of the right-wing to "debunk" the fact that a century of industrial and transportation pollution is seriously fucking up our environment is sort of sad.
It's all of a piece with the need to "debunk" evolution, and attack science generally. I guess, when you have a world-view that pretty much denies reality, you can't let things like facts take hold in the minds of your "base". So, you pretend that everything in the news is phony, all science is suspect, government is bad, etc, etc. It's like the Right is trying to home school the entire nation so we don't get our minds all corrupted by reality. It also explains why religious fundamentalists tend to lean to the Right. The more we learn about our universe, the harder it is to swallow fairy tales.
So, when the news from the War in Iraq is bad, it's easier to say "the news is all wrong" instead of admitting a fuck-up. When soldiers start coming home saying that things are going badly in Iraq, it's easier to say they are "phony soldiers" than to say maybe things really aren't going well. When polls say most Americans want some form of Socialized Medicine, it's easier to say "the polls are lying" than to try to fix a complicated problem. When scientists say that the pollution human society has been dumping into the world is messing things up, it's easier to say "the scientists are lying" than for a president to tell his corporate bosses they're going to have to stop dumping sulfur in the atmosphere and mercury in the water.
The good news is that the bullshit doesn't seem to be holding up as well as it did a few years ago. Even the regular folks in flyover America who work for a living are starting to realize that the stuff we're being sold is starting to smell really really bad. And more and more, the pinheads who peddle nonsense are hollering into an echo chamber. Notice how even the most dependable right-wing trolls are starting to run out of gas, and their little sniffing comments just don't have the zing they used to? Hell, you go over to little green footballs or free republic and you'd think there was ambien in their cheetohs.
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Re:No confidence (Score:4, Interesting)
The melting of the Laurentide ice sheet over North America at the end of the last ice age produced a 20 meter rise in sea level over roughly 500 years. Granted, it was larger than Greenland, but definitely it's on par with Antarctica. The volume of ice contained in Antarctica is 30 million cubic kilometers of ice. Spread that out over the ocean surface area of the world (362 million sq km) and you get about 80 meters before you account for the fact that ocean surface area increases as sea level goes up. Greenland's ice sheet is roughly 1/10th that of Antarctica (and is firmly on land), I'll let you do that math.
Actually, not quite true. The floating ice has a lower salinity than the ocean, meaning even in liquid form it's less dense. So it does contribute, just not as much as melting a block of ice that's firmly on land.
Re:No confidence (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No confidence (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No confidence (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:No confidence (Score:5, Insightful)
No changes this fast, and not with this number of people in the world, and this percentage of planet area changed due to agriculture...
it's just alarmist nonsense your pushing there.
The science supports him, not you.
Are you a climate scientist? (Score:5, Informative)
it's just alarmist nonsense your pushing there.
You got your degree in climate science where? You've been studying this topic for how long?
I actually have friends doing research on the topic, both in the lab here in the US on the global climate model an in the field in the Antarctic. They are more alarmed about current trends than is filtering through to the media. The rate at which permafrost and glaciers have begun melting recently is sending shock waves through the scientific community. We are now only beginning to discover environmental feedback mechanisms that likely mean the scientists have UNDERESTIMATED the rate and impact of global warming, not overestimated it.
We used to talk about the climate problems our children and grandchildren will be dealing with. Guess what, the bill came early. Now YOU will likely be suffering the consequences. We are seeing the leading edge of it now with shifting weather patterns and encroachment of invasive species... just as the models predicted, only sooner. Because of climate deniers like you, it is probably now too late to stop it, but we still must do everything we can to slow the change and give our society and economy time to adapt.
Alarmist? Hardly. If anything the message from the scientist has been overly softened and toned down.
BTW, the friends I mentioned work at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution [whoi.edu] and on the global climate model at Argonne National Laboratories [anl.gov], in case anyone is curious.
Re:No confidence (Score:5, Insightful)
The logic here is that the destruction of resources caused by climate change would lead to global conflict, so preventing climate change would prevent war. And world leaders will never make the commitments necessary to resolve the problem unless the electorate is informed.
There might be reasons to disagree with this logic, but I don't think it should be dismissed out of hand.
Re:No confidence (Score:4, Informative)
The entire organization is nothing but a group that goes through vast quantities of research and makes conclusions based on that research, this includes discussions of potential solutions [www.ipcc.ch].
Re:No confidence (Score:4, Insightful)
Its more of a popularity contest now. (Score:2, Insightful)
Couldn't this have been rewarded in a science category or were they afraid that that category would get mocked for what the award is about?
Re:So the IPCC... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Please go to some other corner of the internet and share your stupidity with someone who cares.
PS: invent means:
1. To produce or contrive (something previously unknown) by the use of ingenuity or imagination.
And yes he is one of the key figures in creating and shaping the internet.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Gosh, that's stange (Score:3, Informative)
2) The US has actually done much better in reducing green house gas emissions compared to most Kyoto signatories. Name me one country that will actually meet its obligations.
3) Russia only signed onto Kyoto because their CO2 levels were set before the huge decline in industrial output there so they had credits to spare that there were hoping to make a buck on selling.
A
Re:Gosh, that's stange (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Gosh, that's stange (Score:5, Insightful)
Theree are 2 ways of looking a this - the US is already the largest consumer of energy per person... way too high compared to most other nations.
http://earthtrends.wri.org/text/energy-resources/variable-351.html [wri.org]
Some clips: 2003 2000 1990
Asia (excluding Middle East) 991.2 911.3 753.7
North America 7,844.1 8,113.1 7,544.8
China CHN 1,138.3 946.4 791.7
India IND 512.4 501.4 425.7
United States USA 7,794.8 8,109.0 7,543.4
India and China are home to over 35% of the World's population; but it appears they do not have much of a scope to reduce consumption. The US consumes more than 15 times the energy per person consumed in India; and there is a huge scope for reduction. Inaction by the US govt. is dangerous for the entire planet, including India and China.
And on a more personal note:
4) President Bush's home in Texas is actually a surprising green residence while Gore's pool house consumes more power than the average person's home.
It doesn't matter if Mr. Bush lives in a thatched shed and uses biogas to light up his dwelling. He is responsible for the energy consumption of the entire USA, not just his hut.
U.S consumption myth is misleading (Score:5, Funny)
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What does the US produce which requires 10 times more energy than consumed in China, per person? Most computers and electronic goods are actually manufactured in China; even those consumed in the US. Most of America's wealth is actually services, not manufacturing.... and it's been like this for decades now.
Nothing warrants such disproportionate energy consumption in the US, IMO.
Re:So you want us to live in huts too? (Score:5, Informative)
Are you aware that you are replying to someone from India? WE don't HAVE NOTHING. I'm in the IT industry for over 18 years now (Unix SVR3 days, DOS 2.0 days), and posting on
Believe me, life is not crappy here... certainly not so bad as you make it out to be.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Ouch. I'd feel sorry for the GP, were it not for the fact that to all appearances he is so full of self-righteous aggression there no room left for embarrassment.
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I think, though, that you're making a faulty inference and therefore grossly mischaracterizing his argument. I took his argument to be that since the US consumes much more energy per capita than India, it's a lot easier for the US to make reductions. Furthermore, your point, that the US has much more affluence on average, only reinforces his position: one benefit of having wealth is having mor
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Some facts for you to chew:
1. The middle class population in India is larger than the entire population of the US.
2. There is a system of reservation in higher education; which ensures that people belonging to lower castes get adequate opportunity. This system has been in place for ove
FYI (Score:3, Insightful)
Granted, the nature of that wealth is somewhat different given their overall proportion of the country's population. That indeed would be a valid point. It would also be a good point to say that we should disaggregate the per capita figures to compare apples to apples.
On the other hand, you can't expect a country like India to make the same kinds of g
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If China and India don't have to eat their vegetables, I'M NOT GOING TO EITHER!
*feet stomping, teeth gnashing, screaming*
God knows, the US would never show initiative and do anything pre-emptively, without the support of other nations, right?
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Germany is reducing it's carbon emissions. [ornl.gov] This must be the new conservative talking point or something because this is like the third time I've heard this view espoused. The fact is that on the whole the EU may not be meeting it's obligations, but for the most part that can be blamed on Spain and Italy whose industrial capacities are expanding. Germany, Scandinavia, France I are all doing
Re:A Well-Deserved Honor (Score:5, Insightful)
Environmentally speaking, the world may be better off with Gore having lost. Not because Bush did anything wonderful, but because of what Gore has been driven to do since then. If he had won the presidency, I'm afraid he never would have made it as far as he did. Back in 2000, many people felt Gore's commitment to environmentalism was merely the usual Democratic Party lip service, and it very well may have been. Today, he's actually working for a change beyond trying to win votes.
Climate change will cause war (Score:3, Interesting)
Changes in the balance of resources can trigger the biggest wars of them all. How many wars has the world already fought over oil, food, water, or salt? (yes, salt, look it up).
Add to that the fact that the world will know in advance who is primarily respo
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Re:Surprising with recent controversy (Score:4, Insightful)
It was actually a very good court decision I think, and I say that as someone who is generally convinced by climate change - I dislike the scare mongering type of arguments since they have so many holes in them that sceptics tend to just dismiss them (and be less likely to take a rational argument seriously).
Re:Surprising with recent controversy (Score:5, Informative)
Did you actually read what the judge said? Or did you only read what Fox News said?
The Times [timesonline.co.uk] covered this in rather good detail. The parts of the film that were considered unfounded:
* That sea levels could rise seven metres 'in the immediate future'
* That atolls in the Pacific had already been evacuated
* That CO2 levels and temperatures are 'an exact fit' - this, said the judge, overstated the case
* That the drying of Lake Chad, the disappearance of snows on Kilimanjaro, and Hurricane Katrina can be directly attributed to global warming
* That polar bears are known to be drowning as a result of melting ice
* That coral bleaching is due to climate change
Note what the judge did not dispute: he agreed 'that climate change is mainly attributable to man-made emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide ('greenhouse gases').' He further agreed that 'global temperatures are rising and are likely to continue to rise, that climate change will cause serious damage if left unchecked, and that it is entirely possible for governments and individuals to reduce its impacts'.
Re:That'll be a kick in the nuts... (Score:5, Insightful)
Before 911 hit the bricks, the only major issue we 'netters had to deal with was the ack-acks. Now we have to deal with illegal monitoring of our 'net traffic, wiretapping at-will, surveillance on all levels, et al.
Oh, and police breaking up (and using weapons, nonlethal or otherwise in doing so) peaceful, and with all the right permits, gatherings.
Makes one want to immigrate to Switzerland or Denmark.
Re:I can't believe it... (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmmmm, let's see the teams:
Believe humanity's activities have increased global temperature:Thousands of highly trained climatologists who have spent their entire professional careers researching the subject.
Don't believe humanity's activities have increased global temperature: You, who have no training and have apparently spent 10 minutes researching the issue.
Who to believe, who to believe...
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Go ahead and latch on to anything you need to. I'll go with the majority opinion of climate scientists. Since I'm not one. Source: http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/dn11462 [newscientist.com]
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