“And in some places, it doesn’t even make sense to try.”
The evidence of this has been significant for decades now, but Americans have kinda sorta ignored it since it always seemed to affect faraway places like the Solomons and Maldives, or little-known island countries with exotic names, like Nauru and Tuvalu.
Now, however, some of America’s natural treasures, the low-lying Florida Keys, are in immediate danger, and their county is evaluating engineering projects that could cost hundreds of millions of dollars to benefit very few people – in one case affecting only 20-30 homes. Their decision will likely be to give up.
“How do you tell somebody, ‘We’re not going to build (up) the road to get to your home’? And what do we do?” Mr. Gastesi asked. “Do we buy them out? And how do we buy them out — is it voluntary? Is it eminent domain? How do we do that?” Administrators and elected officials are going to have to start to rely on a “word nobody likes to use,” Mr. Gastesi said, “and that’s ‘retreat.’”
A pithy aphorism that seems relevant: “You can’t reason a man out of a belief that he didn’t reason himself into.” (Probably first stated in another form by Jonathan Swift)
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/07/10/reason-out/
I like Adam, and I am concerned that he is working too much.
When you love what you do it isn’t work. But it is wasted motion trying to convince someone when their belief is based on faith not facts.
That’s what needs to be realized. The best you can do is frame it that they accept conclusions in other parts of their life that are the exact same, but pick and choose on what’s true or not true because of what alt-right Nazi-esque propaganda tells them to think.
Go look up the flat-earthers who purchased an expensive gyroscope to prove the earth was flat. The documentary ‘Behind the Curve’ shows it. This exchange particularly:
“What we found is, when we turned on that gyroscope, we found that we were picking up a drift,” Knodel explains. “A 15-degree per hour drift. Now, obviously we were taken aback by that – ‘Wow, that’s kind of a problem We obviously were not willing to accept that, and so we started looking for easy ways to disprove it was actually registering the motion of the Earth.”
“We don’t want to blow this, you know?” Knodel then says to another Flat Earther. “When you’ve got $20,000 in this freaking gyro.”
“If we dumped what we found right now, it would be bad? It would be bad.
“What I just told you was confidential.”
There are no ends to a vested cultist adhering to propaganda and conspiracy. If conclusive results don’t fit their worldview, then they change the worldview to make it fit. There are quite a few documentaries on the Scientology cult, you could replace L Ron Hubbard with Trump in today’s age, and see the futility of arguing objective fact with cultism.
So, to sum up, there are a number of claims made by Al Gore where he got the time frame wrong, but the larger concern correct. I note that two of the claims the Daily Caller article didn’t mention: rising sea levels and destruction of coral reefs are also cases where the science seemed to get the time frame wrong in that these things are occurring faster than predicted. So, since the time frames were wrong both ways, it seems hard to conclude this is in any way ‘hysteria.’
the only claim made where Gore was most likely wrong is the European deep freeze and the scientists themselves have acknowledged for years now that there is no evidence this is going to occur.
In regards to the major media global warming deniers, Rupert Murdoch is also interesting. I remember a video on youtube of a panel of scientists (but not climate scientists) on a show on his tv network in Australia where they laughed at the notion of coral reef destruction and even claimed that the Pacific Ocean warming would benefit the coral reefs. This certainly seems to be a tactic of the global warming deniers; make a false claim for as long as possible, and then drop it completely and even deny having ever made such a claim.
So you did not like a link to the Telegraph article, here is the same information and a lot more from the New York Times.
https://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/10/british-judge-bruises-al-gores-movie/
Here are some climate change arguments from and I quote the about page “Friends of Science is a non-profit organization run by dedicated volunteers comprised mainly of active and retired earth and atmospheric scientists, engineers, and other professionals.”
https://friendsofscience.org/index.php?id=3
Adam, you threw out the polar bears. Here is a great article on truth about their “extinction is eminent”. Here are some of sources and their countries that contribute to this site.
The Independent Barents Observer | Kirkenes, Norway
Nunatsiaq News | Iqaluit, Nunavut
High North News | Bodø, Norway
The Iceland Monitor | Reykjavik, Iceland
https://www.arctictoday.com/narrative-polar-bears-become-problem-arctic-environmental-groups/
Scoop, I want to say thank you for allowing us to have these types of conversation on your site. Yes it gets a bit terse at times but I have learned a lot on both sides of the conversations. I also appreciate you doing your due diligence at keeping the conversations real and pointing out how some have been trying to steer the ideology by using puppet accounts. I might not agree with all of your opinions but you have my utmost respect!
1.”Friends of Science” is a Calgary, Alberta based organization. Calgary, Alberta is the headquarters of the Canadian oil patch and not surprisingly “Friends of Science” is a fossil fuel industry front group.
“The Heartland Institute” is a similar organization in the United States, among others, and it’s almost entirely funded by the Koch Brothers.
In regards to the Heartland Institute and possibly Friends of Science as well, one of the regular guests on Coast to Coast AM is a climate denier named Tim Ball AKA Sleaze Ball. The Calgary Herald, of all newspapers, published an article critical of Sleaze Ball and Ball tried to sue for libel. The Calgary Herald replied in a statement of defense that was accepted by the Judge to the effect that they dismissed Ball’s “credibility and credentials as an expert on the issue of global warming,” saying: “The Plantiff (Dr. Ball) is viewed as a paid promoter of the agenda of the oil and gas industry rather than as a practicing scientist.” Sleaze Ball then dropped his lawsuit.
It’s interesting the number of people who lie that they are ‘skeptics’ who naively fall for the propaganda of industry front groups.
2.The New York Times article is also from 2007.
3.I never said ‘extinction is imminent’ for polar bears, what I wrote is ‘it’s a lie that they are thriving,” and I posted a link to a lecture from a scientific researcher who actually does his research in and around the Arctic. His observations conclude polar bears are struggling due to a number of factors.
One more thing, I find it interesting that I wrote previously about how global warming deniers ‘make a false claim for as long as possible, and then drop it completely and even deny having ever made such a claim.’
So, I rebutted most of the claims in that Daily Caller article even pointing out that the article seemed to deliberately misquote An Inconvenient Truth on one thing. You didn’t even attempt to defend the article. Do you now acknowledge that article is pretty much ‘wrong on everything’?
The reason I know that it’s a lie that polar bears are ‘thriving’ is a lie is because I attended a lecture by one of the few research scientists actually up there. He criticizes the claims of both ‘polar bear populations’ are declining or ‘polar bear populations’ are not declining because he says the data on past numbers is actually pretty much non-existent, but he concurs with ‘polar bears are thriving is a lie.’
This is the video if anybody is interested: https://open.library.ubc.ca/cIRcle/collections/12708/items/1.0352005
I don’t think you need to argue the merits of climate change. It should not even be a political issue, but like anti-vaccers, somehow these things get tied to conspiracy theories.
There is a 97% consensus in published climate research on this, and that about as high as you will get on any subject matter whatsoever. And that’s astonishing because there are quite a few PhDs who believe some crazy shit.
One of the early researchers on cancer is an HIV denier and doesn’t believe AIDS is caused by HIV. One believed up until his death, high doses of Vitamin C was the cure all for every human affliction. Hell, I’ve even seen on 9/11 truther who is a PhD believe that 9/11 was caused by some type of beam from a satellite!
Like everywhere else in the populace, a PhD doesn’t certify you are sane or logical. For the vast major of subjects they don’t have any more insight than a standard college student does, except the very narrow field they have gone into. And some aren’t humble enough to admit they are wrong and stepped out of their field.
Unfortunately that’s the ‘both sides’ thing talked about. You can find anyone, with ANYTHING, to agree with you on. For what reason the media chooses to do it with this specific thing, I have no idea. They’re not brings on the AIDS deniers for HIV, not bringing the 9/11 deathray person on to peddle conspiracies. In every murder they could probably find some Darwinist nihilist with a degree to argue it doesn’t matter.
Those wackjobs are rejected just like the climate ‘conspiracy theorists’ should be.
Yes, I commented on that in the recent Canadian election. There were a couple candidates the mainstream media pointed out who were 9/11 truthers and made suggestions/demands that their parties dropped them. The concern from the media seems to be that 9/11 conspiracy theories are tied to anti-semitism. I pointed out to them on twitter
1.Not all 9/11 conspiracy theories are tied to anti-semitism
2.A good deal of global warming denying conspiracy theories can also be tied to anti-semitism: one world government, the Jew George Soros is allegedly behind a lot of the ‘climate change fraud.’
We had two parties in Canada that ran a number of global warming denying candidates, the Conservative Party and the People’s Party of Canada. I asked several in the media on twitter why they did not then make similar suggestions/demands for these candidates to be dropped from the ballot.
Not surprisingly, none of them responded to me. Media outlets each have codes of conduct. They want conflict and they thrive on sensationalism and at this time, the number of global warming deniers, unlike the number of 9/11 truthers, is large enough and is politically aligned enough (9/11 truthers are on all sides of the political spectrum) that the mainstream media outlets don’t want to alienate them. So, consistency be damned and, in regards to global warming, truth be damned.
I act too much like Columbo. I always remember one more thing later on. (unlike Columbo though, I’m not pretending to forget.)
Two more things in this case:
1.”Hell, I’ve even seen on 9/11 truther who is a PhD believe that 9/11 was caused by some type of beam from a satellite!”
Dr Judy Wood, directed energy beam weapon. I’ve heard her on Coast to Coast A.M
2.I didn’t finish my point about media outlets codes of conduct. I tried my own little Columbo routine with a journalist and agreed how George Soros often came up with 9/11 truther claims and asked is it that particular outlets policy to not publish any claim from a 9/11 truther.
They replied it was. So, I replied along the lines of George Soros is also often brought up with global warming denying claims, so why are they still allowed in your outlet? It was at that point the person didn’t get back to me. Of course not, what could they say?
I’ve never understood the climate change conspiracy theorists. Seriously using the Daily Caller as a source? They host articles by neo-Nazis, you know that right?
Here’s a news flash for the uneducated that support these conspiracy theories: rich corporation, with rich men, pay a lot of money to put lies out because it threatens wealth and power. Look at the war big tobacco put on concealing that it causes cancer by withholding and suppressing information.
It’s scientific consensus that CO2 warms the environment, and it’s not even a difficult concept. You can make a DIY lab with a thermometer to prove it!
You would believe an electrician who tells you your wiring is horrible and a hot wire is exposed and could electrocute you. You would believe a doctor if he says you will die unless you do a procedure or treatment for a terminal illness. So someone just, if not more, educated than those just don’t believe it? Sounds like a hypocrite to me.
And if so, to what end? Lets assume that climate change ISN’T happening. Do you like pollution in the air and living in fog? Do you like the fact we’ve polluted the ocean so much that too much of certain fish can cause methyl-mercury poisoning?
And who are these ‘great gatekeepers’ of freedom? Exxon? BP who wasted the Gulf of Mexico with toxic crap? Saudi Aramco, the richest company in the world, owned by dictators of a theocracy who murder people who disagree with them?
None of it makes any fucking sense. None of it. Ignorant nutjobs need to stop living in a bubble and reading a bunch of bullshit and get off their asses and study.
It should read “…not everyTHING can be saved…” *People* can be saved by relocating, especially given the timeframes involved. The property and some of those small, low-lying islands may not make fiscal sense to save.
I had the same reaction to their chosen verbiage.
But that’s the rub. That’s how it’s always worded. As catastrophic as possible. They want to scare people into acting. They don’t get that doing so psychologically drives people AWAY from acting.
If humans feel a danger is too high, they’ll do what the title allows to: we give up. Screw it, we’re doomed, smoke em if you got em.
Like I said in my first comment, there’s a growing surge of climate types against this type of rhetoric. Let’s be more conservative in our prophecies of Doom. Stop banging the drum of the worst case scenario and communicate how it’s not too late, there’s hope, it doesn’t require that entire nations destroy their way of life. Because all of that is true.
Is that a riskier move? Maybe, but it’s better than the alternative, which is to scare everyone into total denial or total hopelessness.
Are you working on answering my question? What specific ‘blown predictions’ were made in An Inconvenient Truth?
So your argument effectively boils down to:
1 – The science isn’t settled, so its better to do nothing.
2 – Smear your political opponents while your benefactors make more money.
Gee, this sounds familiar. Are you going to bring a snowball to congress while your at it?
How much more time should I give Mr Dark before concluding that he actually can’t cite any specific ‘blown predictions’ in An Inconvenient Truth?
If he doesn’t respond I think it would be fair to conclude that my initial reaction, that he’s not worth responding to, was the correct response, and therefore he has nothing and ‘I win.’
I beg to differ on your “I win” statement. Because you never like to research the opposing views of your opinion, a quick search finds all kinds of issues with An Inconvenient Truth. Now I do know from the past the you will dismiss all evidence as opinion and not facts and will make sure to include snarky comments that have nothing to do with the subject but attack the individual stating their opinion.
https://dailycaller.com/2016/05/03/an-inconvenient-review-after-10-years-al-gores-film-is-still-alarmingly-inaccurate/
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/earthnews/3310137/Al-Gores-nine-Inconvenient-Untruths.html
There’s a lot of nonsense in that article. For example, the so-called “15 year hiatus” didn’t really exist. It was a cherry-picked period specifically chosen because 1998 was a freakishly hot el nino year, and 2012 was kind of cool relative to the years around it. If the creators of that myth had picked 1997-2011 or 2000-2014, for example (basically the same years), they would have found a large increase! Any good analyst would look at a smoothed curve for data like this, or would plot a regression model to show the long-term trend and the outliers.
What is happening now, however, is scary. If global temperatures and sea levels didn’t rise as rapidly as expected for about a decade, they are now rising faster than expected. But that’s not the really scary part, which is that it may be too late to do anything about it. I think you will see more and more people losing their insurance coverage against acts of nature like floods, tornadoes, hurricanes and wildfires, because nature is truly acting up. Similarly, you will see banks denying mortgages to people who want buy or build homes in threatened areas. Florida has placed a cap on the annual premium increases for flood insurance, and California is now engaged in a massive battle against insurance companies who want to start dropping insured property owners in potential wildfire areas.
(Both states would probably lose a protracted court battle. It is unlikely that a government can force a private corporation to market a product that is guaranteed to lose money.)
Largely I don’t give a shit about Gore or his movie.
Is the movie incorrect? Maybe but there is far, far more to climate science than one movie. Further, the average climate denying politician frequently works to weaken other pollution regulations whilst ignoring that they’re defending the use of dwindling resources that continually get harder to extract.
Did Gore make lots of money? Maybe but far less than the oil industry makes. The Koch Family alone is far, far more wealthy and their sins are much greater than just contributing to global warming.
Non subjective opinions are based on claims of fact that are either verifiable or falsifiable. If the claims of fact are false, then the opinion is invalid and the opinion is not a valid ‘opposing view.’
Both the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Caller are well known global warming denying lying rags and shills. I might take a look at them later, but neither of them have any credibility.
I have a few minutes and I found the transcript of An Inconvenient Truth. There don’t seem to be a lot of counter claims in the Daily Caller article, but a lot of snark.
1.”Kilimanjaro Still Has Snow”
Yes, this is what Al Gore said: ” Another friend of mine Lonnie Thompson studies glaciers. Here’s Lonnie with a sliver of a once mighty glacier. Within the decade there will be no more snows of
Kilimanjaro.”
“Snows of Kilimanjaro” seems to be a specific reference as Gore is clearly talking about ice and glaciers.
From Wiki: Almost 85 percent of the ice cover on Kilimanjaro disappeared between October 1912 and June 2011. Of the ice cover still present in 2000, almost 40 percent had disappeared by 2011.
A perhaps foolhardy reference to snow and certainly not all the glaciers have melted by this time, but this clearly suggests, as I wrote earlier, a prediction that was made for too near a time frame and not a misstatement of what is occurring.
The Wiki article certainly disputes the claim of Imani Kikoti in the Daily Caller article.
2.Gore Left Out The 15-Year “Hiatus” In Warming
Heatwaves have become more common. Gore is right and the Daily Caller is wrong.
Economist Headline, July 25, 2019 “Greenhouse-gas emissions are increasing the frequency of heatwaves”
3.The Weather Hasn’t Gotten Worse.
The weather has gotten worse.
Canadian Financial Post headline: Counterpoint: Insurance claim costs are rising because severe weather is making flooding worse.
Opinion: IBC fully stands by our insured loss numbers and their attribution to escalating severe weather events driven by climate change (IBC is the Insurance Bureau of Canada)
4.The North Pole Still has Ice
This is what the Daily Caller article says: “Gore also claimed the Arctic could be ice-free in the coming decades. He said “within the next 50 to 70 years, it could be completely gone.”
This is from the transcript of An Inconvenient Truth
Starting in 1970 there was a precipitous drop off in the amount and extent and thickness of the arctic ice cap. It has diminished by 40 percent in 40 years. There are two studies showing that in the next 50 or 70 years in SUMMERTIME (caps mine) it will be completely gone.”
I’m not sure why the author of the Daily Caller article did that, but I’d say it’s at least 50/50 that it was a deliberate lie.
This is especially the case since the article repeats the lie that Arctic polar bears are thriving. In fact, they are struggling and have been forced to move further inland where they come in to increasing contact with civilization and have been getting shot.
A “Day After Tomorrow”-Style Ice Age Is Still A Day Away
Calling it ‘a day away’ is snark based on the movie The Day After Tomorrow. Yes, scientists themselves now say this Europe going into a deep freeze based on ocean conveyor is very unlikely.
So, indeed, some of Al Gore’s predictions were a little premature and the European freeze probably isn’t going to happen, but the rest is happening and The Daily Caller article relies on falsehoods to claim otherwise.
These are claims from the film that aren’t disputed in the article:
1.Increase in infectious diseases
2.Coral Reef bleaching and destruction
3.Sea Level Rise
The Daily Telegraph article is from 2007. A great deal more is known about the science of global warming now, including that Europe is not likely to go into a deep freeze, and many of the concerns of the judge were that the claims in an Inconvenient Truth were not proven in that there were other possible explanations. Of course, in science nothing is proven conclusively, there is just better and better evidence, and the evidence has certainly increasingly pointed in the direction of Al Gore’s claims on all the other 8 areas the judge cited.
I didn’t quite make the point I wanted to on The Telegraph article.
There are a number of ways that claims can be looked at. They can be looked at individually or they can be looked at in their totality.
Al Gore’s movie was based on the global warming theory and the claims made were based with that mindset. The judge chose to look at the claims in the movie individually and concluded that there were 9 claims that could not be fully substantiated. I don’t think this is all that different from a murder trial. If you break down each individual claim (or evidence) in a murder trial, you can likely always conclude that there are alternate possible explanations. It’s only when each claim is linked together that it forges a chain where each claim strengthens the other (this is how Vincent Bugliosi described as the way to look at prosecutorial evidence in Helter Skelter.)
The judge either rejected the mindset or did not understand how all the claims were meant to be linked together. Either way, the article is now 12 years old, and Al Gore’s global warming theory mindset is now even far less open to dispute.
As soon as ONE of these dire predictions happens, I’ll start taking the issue more seriously.
Till then, I side with the growing number of climate scientists who say alarmist predictions hurt the discussion overall, because you either hit the mark or (up to now, every single time) you gut your own argument.
Nobody in this issue seems to remember The Boy Who Cried Wolf…especially Al Gore, who made tons of money on his predictions (all entirely wrong) and then used it to buy beach front property on an island.
I suspect the claim about Al Gore is complete fiction. If you are referring to An Inconvenient Truth, I don’t know how much he made off of that, but he didn’t make any of his own predictions, but quoted the IPCC reports at the time.
In regards to the rest, they may be small at this time, but it’s not just Florida. This is occurring in Ontario as well where ‘beach front’ property that used to be several hundred feet from the water (at high tide) have now been destroyed by high tide.
There are two absurdities in your argument:
1.You are claiming that not only does the claim of the future event have to be correct but so does the date. If the date isn’t correct, then the entire prediction is wrong.
2.Taken from that, you would be saying “they told me the rising water levels would have flooded my home but it’s still 25 feet away, it’s just hysteria.’
One year later: “it’s still 10 feet away. Such hysteria.”
Two years later “I’m now under-water and I’m drowning, but they got the date wrong, so it was all just hysteria.”
I remember now that Al Gore made most of his money selling his TV network to some foolhardy people. I suppose you can question the ethics of that, but, yes, the claim is pretty much a complete fiction.
Look up his “cap and trade” business and how much he made from that. Oh, and that it was the only company trading in that notion of “going green” (selling and buying carbon credits) when he was out there advocating cap and trade.
Look up his purchase following his divorce.
I’m not saying there aren’t signs of climate change. There aren’t signs of complete catastrophic change, despite 40 years of failed predictions of catastrophic change.
It’s the alarmist claptrap (like this story) that I’m not on board with. The world changes, and it’s changed much more drastically than it’s changed recently. There needs to be a sane and sober global discussion that doesn’t start with “the United States can sacrifice massive chunks of its economy before nations like China even come to the table” which is how these things seem to go. That tips me off that this is more about part of the world getting cash from us rather than lowering the mean temperature.
I could give a point by point reply, but you’re not worth the time. Instead I’ll just quote the Jedi Master to mock your ignorance, naivety and stupidity “Amazing, every word of what you just said is wrong.”
Which means you have nothing and I win, which works for me. I know I’m right about his carbon credit brokerage business, and about his Caribbean property purchase after he divorced Tipper. Those are kinda easy to verify, and they’re very very old news. It’s also old, provable news that all of the doomsday predictions in his movie have come and gone without happening, which is kinda important to me and anyone who doesn’t just cling to every voice out there in the world that sings a tune they happen to like.
Politician with zero expertise in anything besides being a politician makes a movie and spends time promoting movie. Movie and politician claim one thing that will help calamity predicted by the movie is trading and selling carbon credits. Politician starts company doing just that and takes in a massive amount of profit. Calamity predicted in movie doesn’t happen, at all.
Back in the day, we called that a scam. You can call it what you like.
I’m still looking for someone who believes that climate change will cause near-immediate catastrophic damage to humanity who is willing to actually address this stuff, the lengthy history of blown predictions, and any step to resolve it besides the United States sacrificing massive amounts of its economy while other nations go right on polluting like mad.
Nobody wants to have that chat. Instead, it’s let’s stop eating beef because of methane emissions.
Well, let’s see what you have. Could you please tell me what specific ‘blown predictions’ are in An Inconvenient Truth? It would help if you cited the time in the movie each incorrect prediction was made as well.
There is no alarmism in that article. It’s about local people trying to come up with a solution to an urgent and immediate problem.
So, they know that they will need the road to be an inch higher in five years. Fair enough. Nothing crazy or alarmist about that. Purely pragmatic. An inch is nothing.
But here’s their dilemma: do they patch the road up one inch to cover 2025, then keep raising it an inch every decade or so, or do they raise it now to the predicted 2060 level, because doing it that way will probably be cheaper in the long run.
Or do they just do nothing – by deciding there’s no justification for the cost?
Ultimately, what they probably will decide to do is nothing. They figure if the sea wipes out that road, the people can get to their homes by boat for some months of the year, or they can leave. The option for the county is to spend at least $50 million of taxpayer money to provide a service to two dozen people in preparation for something that can’t be predicted very precisely.
The point of this is not alarmism, but an illustration of the very practical problems coastal areas will all have to face in the near future, and the hard decisions they may have to make when they find it is too costly to fight the entire fuckin’ ocean.
One sensible thing they have already done: some areas in the Keys no longer offer permits to build. (And although the local authorities in Miami have not yet followed suit, the banks have beat them to the punch. Many lenders will no longer issue mortgages in parts of Miami, thus making it impossible to build new homes, or even to sell existing ones, in those areas.)
This is not something in the vague future. They have to decide whether to spend the money now in order to save the road by 2025. That’s not far away.
I don’t mean to be snarky, but to me Katrina and the flooding of New Orleans counted as one of those dire predictions happening. I suppose it can be explained as being largely to other factors…but “other factors” are going to be involved in every other specific example too.
I guess it depends on whether you WANT to explain things away, or look honestly for the causes of things. I am prepared to believe the New Orleans flood was not due to climate change, but I am not prepared to believe there is no climate change.