You may have heard that, as ABC News reported, the footage of the “collapsing Antarctic ice shelves” in Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth was actually made up of special-effects shots taken from the 2004 sci-fi doozy The Day After Tomorrow:
Well, it’s fake but accurate, you might say. “Just because Big Al manipulated my emotions with spectacular Hollywood fakery doesn’t mean we’re not ALL GONNA DIE FROM GLOBAL WARMING!!!” If you really believe that, there’s no point in arguing with you. But you’ll have to forgive me for laughing at the look on your face when you find out what the effects guys used to make all those “glaciers”:
Sculpted from Styrofoam and later scanned into a computer, the ice shelf “flyover” looks real.
That’s right, Styrofoam! You know, the evil, evil stuff that’s being banned all over the place because it’s destroying the environment. Wonder what the studio did with it when they were done with their dumb movie? Five hundred years from now, will the last few survivors of the human race stumble upon those beautifully sculpted glaciers, completely intact, in some forgotten landfill?
Guess it’s kind of like Al’s blazingly incandescent house: You can’t save the world without destroying more than your fair share of it.
(Thanks to faithful Deceiver reader Jenn for the tip!)
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I am forced to comment on this news story about Al Gore- what fascinates me is not that there were purportedly special effects in “An Inconvenient Truth” (which I doubt), but that you cling to the concept that global climate change is not a reality. Please try to understand that the processes through which climate change affects global weather are much more complex than an even heating of the globe. Our climate is not a toaster! Processes that affect weather events on a global level are fairly complex. For example, whatever you may say about styrofoam special effects, the rate of melting of the ice caps is increasing. This process has produced large amounts of cold, fresh water in both the Arctic and the Antarctic oceans. Instead of sinking to the bottom of the ocean to drive the current “conveyor belt” as saltier cold water does, this water is floating at the surface. This kind of shift in the temperature structure of the water column can have drastic effects on the way that large-scale ocean currents work. What that means is that major currents like the gulfstream and the california current, which are closely tied to the cold water influx from the arctic, may be affected in unpredictable ways. The key word is unpredictable. Hail in July in California? Maybe that sounds extreme, but recent bizarre weather fluctuations in the Pacific NW are screwing up crops severely- we had record temperatures for April 2 weeks ago- 80 degrees and sunny in Seattle- followed 5 days later by record lows with several inches of snow, hail, and a thunderstorm. Stick to gossip, people, because you’re missing the point when it comes to science!
Ha! I can’t stop laughing. Thank you Deceiver!
Did you watch the video? That was the special effects supervisor for The Day After Tomorrow saying it was the same clip. She actually seemed proud.
Maybe. Maybe not.
(Ain’t it funny how, now that things are getting cooler, it’s no longer “global warming” but “climate change”?)
I thought we were in between ice ages — wasn’t that the theory in the 1970s(?), oh but wait maybe it was infintile technology back then and therefore doesn’t ‘apply’
I don’t think any of us know for sure what’s happening and the earth has had climate shifts since before we ever got here, but what i do know is that Al Gore is a hypocrite and publicity whore, this just proves it. nicely done Deceiver !
If the footage that was copped from the movie had been footage of ice melting or of damage from global warning, then yes, that would have been deceitful. But that was a beauty shot! It was used to show how deliciously lovely ice can be, NOT as a shot that showed the actual effects or projected future results of global warming.
An Inconvenient Truth actually uses a lot of shots like that to show how things looked “before”. At one point they even use a shot of an old postcard.
Oh lawdy, lawdy have mercy on us all! We are doomed to global warming…er, climate change. Why can’t it stay the same temperature as it was on March 2nd. Such a beautiful day! I can’t take the rising and falling of temperatures, this ever changing of climate! Abigail, please come save me from the heat…or is it the snow…or hail…or….?
Abigail ruins the argument she was going to make in the very first sentence as Simon so gracefully points out. Why am I not surprised she resides in Seattle?
Cosmic rays and solar flares have more to do with global warming - climate change, whaever you choose to call it.
This from Nir Shariv, an astrophycist who is one of many scientists who have recanted their earlier stand - Al Gores stand (and Abigails apparently)
“The sun’s strong role indicates that greenhouse gases can’t have much of an influence on the climate — that C02 et al. don’t dominate through some kind of leveraging effect that makes them especially potent drivers of climate change. The upshot of the Earth not being unduly sensitive to greenhouse gases is that neither increases nor cutbacks in future C02 emissions will matter much in terms of the climate.”
Come on out of your global warming bubble Abigail - the science is changing
(Ain’t it funny how, now that things are getting cooler, it’s no longer “global warming” but “climate change”?)
Even when it was touted as “global warming” the term encompassed a large complex problem that is occurring. The environment is changing and places are beginning to see phenomenon’s not typical of their regions. it was probably changed to “climate change” as to not confuse those obtuse people who simply regard (and therefore deny) the state of our environment as merely warming a bit & who don’t seem to mind that the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has been rising by unnatural rates. I know of people who don’t believe in it because “it is colder in some places than it used to be.” Exactly. True, the history of the globe’s climate seesaws over time, and we may just be in a natural part of the cycle. However, regardless of how you feel regarding climate change, isn’t it better for our globe to not be so damn wasteful and pollution happy? The fact that you may still buy a brand new 2008 car which gets 10 miles to the gallon is ridiculous.
I don’t ever hear anyone screaming about doom, but rather I hear a plea to people to be more conscientious when it comes to waste because it’s having an obvious effect. and those who say it’s “a liberal agenda” and those “liberals” scream about it all time… I tend to look at the evidence and listen to the scientists when it comes to something like this…not the opining of Dr. O’Reilly, Dr. Hannity or Druggie Limbaugh. some of the comments above had to have been the response to listening to one of the previously listed names. I have never in my life heard anyone legit say “WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE BECAUSE OF GLOBAL WARMING.” I have, on the other hand, heard people blame things like hurricane’s on Gay people and not on the fact that the waters are warming, causing more and more hurricanes to not only form, but to be a helluva lot more powerful. Bottom line is that we are far too wasteful. Waste and pollution may not be the origin of the change in climate, but it certainly has been speeding things along. To get hung up on a shot in the film or one thing or another is a waste of time, which causes one to miss (or dismiss) the larger picture.
I’m sure that I will be berated for my comments. I can’t wait to read all the clever sarcasm.
Meh heh—well said.
(Ain’t it funny how, now that things are getting cooler, it’s no longer “global warming” but “climate change”?)
You know I thought about that. So I went home and turned up the heat in my house, and wouldn’t you know it? As the temperature went up, it actually got colder! It really is a miracle. I’ll save a TON on A/C this summer!
Please do yourself a favor and research before doing a complete Chicken Little. Check out the web site http://www.icecap.us/ if you’re open to hearing the other side or the equation you’ll become enlightened.
When it gets warm, it’s because of global warming.
When it gets cold, it’s because of global warming.
Buy some carbon credits.
Yep. Don’t forget I’m sellin’ ‘em! $150 bucks (min. 10) Any takers? C’mon it’ll make you feel less guilty.
What I find funny is that dinosaurs suffered massive global warming. They didn’t have cars, they didn’t domesticate methane producing cows, and they didn’t recycle. Maybe if people stopped listening to the alarmists who are making money off of this great scam job and started looking at the evidence, they would notice that the earth is always undergoing some sort of climate change or another.
Anybody think hurricanes and floods may cause more damage and claim more lives because more people are living in the path of such naturally occurring natural disasters? I mean, the world’s population is increasing and more people die in natural disasters but somehow that conclusion takes a back seat to cows farting and diesel trucks spewing methane into the air which makes the earth’s atmosphere warmer which raises the temperature of the seas which leads to more powerful hurricanes (that’s like that butterfly effect theory).
I, in my life, have never heard anyone say gays are the causes of hurricanes. I, however, have heard people say the path of hurricane can be altered by seeding the clouds with tiny, tiny bits of chopped up tires. Now I do believe in global climate change, its been happening since time immemorial. People used to call it the weather.
How do you know dinosaurs didn’t have cars? Peddle cars of course. No oil yet but still….
The visual, Pastafarian, of dinosaurs in Flintstone cars just made my morning.
@Rampage: Well, I never in my life listened to any of those whackos (since I am from Germany), but this doesn’t dispute that cliamte is in fact utterly complex. So complex that I doubt we could even start to guess what would happen if the continuous ice-melting would really continue without a stop. However, like most climates and most self-controlling environments, the Earth is largely a negative feedback environment which means that it has negative feedback effects that kick in when one of the positive feedbacks go out of bounds.
The assumption from global warming researchers and advocates is that the positive feedbacks dominate, while conservative researchers say it is not clear which of the effects dominate and common sense dictates that negative feedbacks are more likely to be dominant. The difference is positive climate feedback is like placing a ball on the tip of a hill, a small nudge and it will roll down the hill increasing in speed and thus in impact energy.
Negative feedback however is like placing a ball in a valley, it has to go up the hill-sides and most likely will fall back. Surely, the rate of change to the rate of time is important, but the maximum stays the same (and we had far worse climate situations in the past).
Most sceptics I know don’t dispute the role of CO2 in climate changes, but they believe in other factors to be more dominant and the sensitivity of CO2 to be greatly exaggerated.
If the change of CO2 would matter, than temperature would be equal to the rise of CO2 (especially with fast changes), but it does not rise as fast, so we may be have to look for other factors, too.
Max S.(Germany)
Yeah T-Rex, and Triceratops waiting for a bus ala “The Far Side”. Newspapers tucked under their vestigial arms, one with a pipe. One saying to the other “Boy it sure is warm today!” “Yeah I hope no asteroids come today” on, and on. You know.
I fail to see how using the particular shot from “the day after tomorrow” is deceptive. Irregardless of the particular facts you cite, I’ve no idea. Though my take is that something like that video can be used for illustrative purposes. Its no different from using say hand drawn sketches to communicate a point. If people are dumb enough to take that shot as proof of overall melting, they deserve to be misled as the sheeps they are (NB., not saying Gore is misleading or not, just saying that for the sake of argument).
Citing this ILLUSTRATION as a justification for denying Gore’s claim seems incredibly inane. Moreover, I noticed Gore prefaced that particular shot by saying something like: “If one were to fly in a helicopter.” Using the “IF” statement, imho, takes away any possible hope of debunking his work based on this his particular clip. The whole context of his statement is clearly meant to describe, on a micro level, what is happening along the coast of ice shelf.
-MVR
Depends on what the definition of “if” is. Clintonian parsing forever!
I’m usually not one to be a grammar nazi but irregardless isn’t a word. And decimated means reduced by 1/10th not wiped out. Just saying.
80 degrees in Chicago today. I got the heat cranked up in my house. MAN it’s FREEZING in there!
Abigail Abigail ABIGAIL!!!
Global climate change IS a reality. It always has and it always will.
The global temps plateued 10 years ago and this year they will actually fall. Not so much as you would notice and it is such a small fall so as to be laughable…sorta like the relatively small rise over the last 150 years that is behind this faux hysteria. Where was man, SUVs and the industrial pollution 2,500 years ago when we went through a similar change? The have found plants and signs of small animal life in arctic ice cores. That ice shelf is actually becoming thicker in the center today. 200 ocean robot just reported back that (GASP) the oceans are NOT getting warmer! DIDJA ever hear that on the nightly news?
Did you also know Gore’s poor polar bear on the small ice floe was taken in AUGUST?
Do you care?
It maken so sense whatsoever to poo where you live but let’s let REAL science be our guide, not one opinion where there is no room for dissent (or worse, you lose your job or are shouted down for asking honest questions.) There is plenty of academic and qualified people wh have doubts about man’s role in climate change.
Oh, did you also know Al Gore has become insanely wealthy from this flim flam? Do you know that even with the improvements he was forced to make in his Tenn. compound, Goerge Bush’s Texas ranch is still far more energy efficient and “green” than his?
Do you care?
The energy Styrofoam saves in its insulation value far exceeds any negative impact it has in its manufacture. I assume you’re actually talking about Styrofoam. Foam cups and the like are NOT Styrofoam. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Styrofoam
Wow, are all the sound arguments against the writing of “Simon Scowl” deleted? That’s pretty weak.
Actually, your earlier comments got snagged by our automated “Akismet” spam filter (not joking). I don’t know why.
I’ll reinstate them.
The sooner the Antarctic thaws out, the sooner we can pave it over and put up a McDonald’s, a Wal-Mart, and a Barnes & Noble.
So what if its just a clip from a movie? so what?! Its purpose is to demonstrate what WILL happen via climate change, whether natural or not. Ice caps are melting fast and no one can deny that. The north polar has grown disturbingly smaller each year.
Though i believe in global warming, even if you dont, you have to take in consideration the life style that humans have right now is effecting the earth and our bodies. The pollution, the unnatural toxins in our food today. Its incredibly sick. Our bodies are going crazy, no wonder cancer rates are on the rise!!!
WE NEED CHANGE. we must change to save ourselves and the planet
I couldn’t very well call myself a fascist if I didn’t try to repress dissent, could I? Curses, foiled again!
The point of this video isn’t that global warming isn’t real. The video isn’t even about a scientific point being faked.
Global warming is real. It’s going to take Florida going underwater for all of the dumb***es in here to admit they were wrong, but it’ll happen. God knows Bushie isn’t doing much.. He’s only just recently admitted to Global warming being real at all.
Global Warming panic mongers are wrong. Plain and simple.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/04/nasa_measures_global_temperatu.html
http://www.junkscience.com/
You gotta actually read the articles. You can’t just dismiss it because it questions what is, essentially, your religion. I can cut, and paste them here all day long. This is basically from NASA. So you can’t blame the big oil boogie man. The other is just a good place to start.
The Earth might be getting warmer. But it’s not because of people. You’re wrong.
perhaps climate change is the result of natural causes. Still theres no denying what were doing now is not effecting the earth. whats so bad about living a sustainable green life style? everybodey wins. the planet and our health
Well said.
Being environmentaly responsible is good sense, but knee-jerk cure-all remedies are causing undo suffering around the world, and the poor are the hardest hit-the bio fuel debacle is a prime example.
The enviro-NIMBY’s prevention of increasing OUR oil production is another. Who pays the price? The great unwashed masses are now spending a substantial percentage of thier paycheck on day to day survival thanks to the ignorant feel-good policies of the ivory-tower policy makers.
Sensible oil production, with the US Gov’t leasing lands and putting the profits to benifit the Citizens would not only benifit the our Country’s owners (that is us, for those who did not take American Civics) but would be more environmentaly responsible than shipping it across thousands of miles of oceans. It may even restore sanity to the prices at the pumps.
To call for energy independance out of one side of your mouth and condeming in-house oil production while awaiting some miricle alternitive-energy source is hypocritical.
We need to stop the panicing and start thinking logicaly.
NEWS ALERT!
There is climate change. It’s been happening ever since there was a climate. 800 years ago there were farms on the south shore of Greenland and houses in Scotland and Holland were built without chimneys. Two hundred years later the Zuider Zee (same area) would freeze over solid. Salt water doesn’t freeze until well below 32 degrees. Several thousand years ago there was a chunk of ice sitting where the Great Lakes are now about a mile thick. All of the man-made carbon dioxide adds up to about 1% of the natural level present. As a side note, when farmers pump carbon dioxide into real greenhouses, plant growth increases and CO2 levels drop below normal. Why would that not happen in the real world? And how do you know it isn’t happening?
Despite all the claims of proof by the Gore crowd, I have seen no reproducible experiments that show cause and effect. The actual mechanism is supposed to be a change in the Earth’s albedo, the amount of energy reflected and reradiated into space. The jump in carbon dioxide is supposedly increasing the absorption of infrared light, causing warming. The problem is, the biggest effect on albedo is the amount of global clouds at any given time, and their location. Until you can account for any changes in that factor, you cannot prove if the IR absorption has increased. Small problem, there aren’t enough weather satellites to watch a serious fraction of the globe’s surface at the same time, so we don’t know how much cloud cover there is.
The amazing thing to me is how easy it is to sell Gore’s nonsense to some people.
(and those who say it’s “a liberal agenda” and those “liberals” scream about it all time… I tend to look at the evidence and listen to the scientists when it comes to something like this…not the opining of Dr. O’Reilly, Dr. Hannity or Druggie Limbaugh.)
It is painfully clear which side you ah, lean. Did you actually LISTEN to O’Reilly’s comments when Gore was up for the Oscar? He didn’t care if Gore got an Oscar or not, didn’t really comment on ‘global warming’ but rather stated that if all this ‘globale warming/climate change’ made people more aware about pollution and the like, then it was ok by him. Try listening next time and not just disregarding the information because the speaker does not follow your liberal religion.
(Moreover, I noticed Gore prefaced that particular shot by saying something like: “If one were to fly in a helicopter.” Using the “IF” statement, imho, takes away any possible hope of debunking his work based on this his particular clip.)
He used a fake, computer generated clip. Why not use actual footage? Is it not as pretty? Was the ice not quite melted enough? He had several ‘facts’ incorrect in his ah, ‘film’. The guy made the film because he doesn’t want to be remember as the ‘guy who lost to Bush by this much’. Now his a an Oscar and Peace Prize for this piece of nonsense? Please, give me a break. You have to ask yourself just how rich did he get off of this? How rich is getting off of the whole scam? PLENTY; don’t buy into the ’sky is falling’ theory just because some fat ex-pol says so. That’s what he’s got all his Hollywood types for.
(It’s going to take Florida going underwater for all of the dumb***es in here to admit they were wrong,)
When Florida is under water I will gladly admit to my mistakes about this whole thing. Give me a call when that happens, ‘k? Should I hold my breath as to not further pollute the earth with my C02?
(The enviro-NIMBY’s prevention of increasing OUR oil production is another. Who pays the price? The great unwashed masses are now spending a substantial percentage of thier paycheck on day to day survival thanks to the ignorant feel-good policies of the ivory-tower policy makers.
Sensible oil production, with the US Gov’t leasing lands and putting the profits to benifit the Citizens would not only benifit the our Country’s owners (that is us, for those who did not take American Civics) but would be more environmentaly responsible than shipping it across thousands of miles of oceans. It may even restore sanity to the prices at the pumps.
To call for energy independance out of one side of your mouth and condeming in-house oil production while awaiting some miricle alternitive-energy source is hypocritical.)
Absolutley correct.
(to cows farting)
Let’s just cork the cows!
(you have to take in consideration the life style that humans have right now is effecting the earth and our bodies.)
I agree with this. People ARE polluting the earth, which is bad. Big corporations feed this waste by continually offering ‘multi-packaged’ items; ‘disposable’ items; ‘hummers’ and the like; by ignoring protocols and just paying the fines when caught polluting; etc, etc, etc. Global warming or climate change (notice how the ‘C02/carbon footprint’ lingo has slowly faded away?) whatever its called today is a bunch of alarmists making a buck on people’s fear and ignorance. However, man has polluted the earth since the beginning and it has continually gotten worse. If all this rah-rah cleans the earth up, then its fine by me. But my guess is that this will all fall out of favor just as soon as the climate ’stabilizes’ and some other crises takes its place. This whole topic was big news some 30 years ago. We were all going to melt from the increase in temps and the like. Whats old is new again. Everything is cyclical, including the weather.
I attended a lecture last night. A scientist spoke about his findings and opinions. From his view, this is what’s coming down the pike, no matter what we do - we will have an ice free arctic ocean by the end of the century, and Greenland will be clear of ice within 150 years. In his opinion the biggest problem are methane hydrates locked up in the permafrost. If that all goes, then we’re looking at a Permian Level Extinction Event.
I attended an atmospheric science conference last year. The things they could say with near-dead certainty of today weren’t that extreme, but the fear behind their eyes was palpable.
We need to cap and then reduce the use of fossil fuels immediately. No exceptions, anywhere. It has to be global, and it has to be fast.
As a theoretical physicist, what Gore and the new generation of eco-fascists (my term for fanatical greens) are doing sickens me.
They exploit the ignorance of the general public, throw in a few scary statistics alongside edited clips and present that as proof that “CARBON” is the greatest threat to humanity EVER.
Who needs proof when you have the masses behind you?
Thousands of years of religious and racial bigotry taught us nothing I guess!
I am tired of hearing news readers state that “scientists” (who and where, based on what evidence?) predict the Earth melting by 2050 etc.
Oh, a recent earthquake/flood/hurricane/asteroid is due to “global warming” or “climate change”. Really? Wow! I’d better go back to living in the forests then!
You have to back these claims up with verifiable research.
Scaring people with vague arguments and “opinions” just doesnt cut it.
If a few hundred fluid dynamics experts tell me that we have a serious problem, then I might start believing them, but I’d still want to see their data, equations and computer models.
i’d still pick the results apart and question every piece of data, every assumption and conclusion.
That, my friends, is peer-reviewed science.
But to Gore et al. that makes you a climate change denier, in league with the dark forces of industry, a paid minion of the fat-cats (I wish! I’m but a poor twenty-something student)
No theory is infallible. Criticism is essential to the scientific progress .
It is really disheartening to see that millions of people are so vain, so incapable of handling the guilt of living in the West that they will resort to moral masturbation like “carbon off-setting”, i.e. sacrificing lives and the progress and prosperity of the Third World so that they can still drive their hybrid-SUVs and build big concrete and steel wind-farms that ruin untouched habitats.
By assuming that this planet has and will forever stay in a nice, comfortable, predicatable climate pattern the climate change alarmists bare their arrogance and stupidity for all to see. The climate system is probably the least understood phenomenon on the planet…why do you think weather forecasts are only made/guessed for several days in advance? We don’t really understand how it works!
Anyone who tells you that climate change is happening NOW is perfectly correct…however it has been constantly changing for over 4 billion years, going through very brief periods of relative “stability” before undergoing sometimes radical changes every couple of hundred or thousand years. These transitions are to be expected. Just because we cannot see the bigger picture does not warrant the type of hysteria the media have latched onto and fed the public.
The fact that fossil fuel emissions correlate with some changes in global temperature averages does not imply causality. I could point to the increase in cow populations and subsequent methane emissions, but nobody blames the cow, despite methane having a far greater greenhouse effect than carbon dioxide. Or the correlation with the increase in the number of Jews, or Muslims, or decrease in facial hair leading to increased Caucasian skin reflectance thus causing an escalating greenhouse effect…You could go on and on, with each cause becoming more and more ridiculous but no less implausible. Oh, and don’t forget that big ball of gases in the approximate centre of the solar system…it could be a bigger culprit than we give it credit for. But we understand the Sun fairly poorly too.
Carbon dioxide is just the biggest and thus easiest target. Water vapour and methane barely get a look in! They must feel left out!
Far worse things than fossil fuel emissions have happened to the Earth, and life is still here!
When you factor in the dodgy data and analysis that Hansen et al. seem to get away with (also known as “fraud”) and the numerous other factors that we know of (and those we don’t) the overblown emphasis on CO2 becomes obvious.
Hansen seems to have a reputation for this sort of thing…he presents his findings to great acclaim and induces panic worldwide, before someone looks at his (and others) work in detail and points out various errors.
Then he will reply with a glib “Oh, well that doesnt make any difference to our overall global results…”, and dismiss the criticism.
Yeah, and my thumbs have no impact on my everyday life.
Things we can do now, cheaply are dismissed…using nuclear fuels, or even planting more trees are rejected by the Green movement because undoing 300 years of industrial development is obviously more in line with their agenda.
Unfortunately, science IS a business, and often the talent goes where the money is. Presently, ignorant decisions are being made by media-dependent populist politicians, thus putting the CO2/global warming/climate change issue before poverty, starvation, and disease…problems that deserve our immediate attention.