Gore's 'Truth' needs to be acted upon now

Capital Times ^ | 6-22-06 | Judy Ettenhofer

[SJackson]

Judy Ettenhofer: Gore's 'Truth' needs to be acted upon now

By Judy Ettenhofer, June 21, 2006

When "Fahrenheit 9/11," the Michael Moore screen diatribe against our current president, arrived in Madison theaters shortly before the 2004 presidential election, people sympathetic to its message couldn't get enough of it. They flocked to screenings and breathlessly implored their friends to see the movie that bolstered all their reasons for hating George W. Bush.

It is my profound hope that the same kind of passionate evangelism occurs as a result of a much, much more crucial film that arrived at Westgate and Eastgate cinemas last weekend.

"An Inconvenient Truth," former Vice President Al Gore's sobering look at the pressing danger of global warming, truly is a must-see movie. It won't massage your political biases, it will rock your world view.

Unless, of course, you are one of those who have been suckered by certain right-wing groups that have conducted a startlingly successful propaganda campaign to sow doubt among the public about global warming. Gore describes this effort in the film, having obtained an internal memo from one such group that openly reveals its disinformation strategy.

AP Photo/Paramount Classics/Eric Lee

Al Gore has traveled the world delivering a presentation on the global climate change.

"An Inconvenient Truth" will rightly dispel any doubts.

Of nearly 1,000 peer-reviewed scientific articles about global warming, not one takes a contrary view of the growing risks we face from the continued warming of our atmosphere due to our fossil fuel use.

The brutal reality is this: If we don't stem the carbon dioxide emissions, we will see nations' entire coastlines under water from the rise in sea levels due to melting glaciers, other nations with such severe droughts that their populations risk starvation, and the extinction of millions of species that cannot adapt to radical temperature changes in their habitats.

Some scientists say the severity of Hurricane Katrina, which powered up from a category 1 to a category 5 storm while passing over the warm Gulf of Mexico, can be linked to global warming and signals more catastrophic hurricanes to come.

"The moral imperative to make big changes is inevitable," Gore says of the need to face global warming seriously. "It is deeply unethical if we allow this to happen."

Two hundred western U.S. cities set high temperature records last year. Just last week, the Western Governors Association, whose states contain major coal and oil reserves, passed a resolution acknowledging the need to reduce global warming.

But the most important point to take away from "An Inconvenient Truth" is that global warming is not a problem that's "out there" somewhere else. It is a problem each of us contributes to each day we live on this planet. Yes, we need our elected officials to take action and stop burying their heads in the sand about this threat, but we as individual citizens also must take action to reduce our fossil fuel use.

In fact, Wisconsin bears a disproportionate share of the responsibility for global warming. Six Midwest states, including Wisconsin, contribute 20 percent of the U.S. global warming pollution, from our coal plants. Three-quarters of Wisconsin's electricity generation comes from coal. Even with the obvious detriments of continued coal use, Wisconsin utilities are currently building two new coal plants.

Let's bring the climate crisis even closer to home:

If you want Madison Gas & Electric to meet its goal to stop burning coal at its Blount Street plant by 2011, if you want to slow the expansion of high-voltage power lines by American Transmission Co. across Dane County, you have to act now.

At a minimum, every single local resident should:

• Replace your regular incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs.

• Get a setback thermostat that allows you to program your heating and cooling for optimum savings.

• Turn your air conditioner up 2 degrees and your furnace down 2 degrees. Heating and cooling account for half of your home's energy use

• Sign up for your electric utility's green energy option. MGE, Alliant Energy and Wisconsin Public Power Inc. offer such programs, which charge customers a bit extra to support renewable energy sources like wind power.

• Make sure your car's tires are properly inflated, to get the best gas mileage.

On WIBA/AM radio Monday morning, WKOW-TV meteorologist Brian Olson urged listeners to see "An Inconvenient Truth." He said he had gone to the theater over the weekend a bit skeptical about the threat posed by global warming, and come out a believer.

We all need to believe.

Throughout the film, Gore talks about the lack of political will to address this threat that may well devastate our planet. Action will have to start with each of us, one by one. If we build enough momentum, our politicians will be forced to act.

"It is your time to seize this issue," Gore says. "It is our time to secure our future."

[SJackson]

At least her version of the things we HAVE TO DO NOW are mild. I turned my heat down 6 degrees, just to make uup for two of you procrastinators.

• Replace your regular incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs.

• Get a setback thermostat that allows you to program your heating and cooling for optimum savings.

• Turn your air conditioner up 2 degrees and your furnace down 2 degrees. Heating and cooling account for half of your home's energy use

• Sign up for your electric utility's green energy option. MGE, Alliant Energy and Wisconsin Public Power Inc. offer such programs, which charge customers a bit extra to support renewable energy sources like wind power.

• Make sure your car's tires are properly inflated, to get the best gas mileage.

[SJackson]

If you'd like to be on or off this Midwest outdoors and rural issues list, please FRmail me.

[Fudd]

Where's the BARF ALERT?

Really. I read Al Gore's book. He faked the data. He is a liar.

[sefarkas]

The argument is not over whether or not there is global warming. The argument is over determining the cause. Unless the cause is properly/scientifically determined, policies to reverse or stabilize ambient temperatures are based on what? A socialist craving to control the economy? A communist desire to put enough brakes on the American economy to throw the world into depression? The problem is identified. The cause is not. Policy to address a problem without an identified cause is folly and a lame politicians gambit to make it look like something is being done.

[DManA]

• Turn over your life to a global government.

[toddlintown]

I'm releasing freon into the atmosphere...and I'm digging it!

[kenth]

It was 96 today. I've got my heat off.

[sport]

What truth?

The words "Al Gore" and "truth" should never be used in the same paragraph, let alone the same sentence.

[Radix]

Gore should be incarcerated at the Arkhem Mental Asylum for his own well being.

Michael Moore should be his cell mate!

[Jaxter]

"We all need to believe."

[Doogle]

[hsalaw]

"It is my profound hope that the same kind of passionate evangelism occurs as a result of a much, much more crucial film that arrived at Westgate and Eastgate cinemas last weekend."

Thus gushed the author of this article, referring to the "passionate evangelism" accompanying Michael Mooreon's F/9-11. And we know how well that worked in electing Kerry, so how well do we think "An Inconvenient Truth" will work in advancing the "manmade global warming" argument.

[Argus]

"The moral imperative to make big changes is inevitable," Gore says

"It's inevitable."

"What?"

"I said, It's inevitable."

"How's that again?"

"It's inevitably inevitable that things are going to change. Jeez, open your fuggin' ears!"

[leadhead]

Obviously global warming of the brain is taking place in Madison if this article is to be believed.

[Doogle]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1653770/posts

[AZLiberty]

If you want Madison Gas & Electric to meet its goal to stop burning coal at its Blount Street plant by 2011, if you want to slow the expansion of high-voltage power lines by American Transmission Co. across Dane County, you have to act now.

At a minimum, every single local resident should:
<snip>
Make sure your car's tires are properly inflated, to get the best gas mileage.

I don't see how keeping my car's tires properly inflated will help MG&E stop burning coal.

[ATOMIC_PUNK]

Yea and it was cooler 400 years ago

Do you think Fire and Brimstone can be stopped by not driving your SUV or changing your lightbulbs ?

God would not have given us a planet that could have been so easily destroyed...

Don't start thinking what you do can stop God you can't even delay it!

Al Gore is Godless and could do much more good by reading the History of the world !

The Bible ...

Go Ahead Start Flaming.

[keithtoo]

Global Warming is a control mechanism for the Socialist Central Planners of the world. I would rather die due to climate change than live under the tyranny of Liberals.

[keithtoo]

The Earth is a self-correcting system. The Earth has gone thru much much more than mankind can ever inflict upon it.

[Tiberius109]

At a minimum, every single local resident should
( exceprt for fat rich cats like me and Boxer and Fienstien and Kennedy , who all need to fly all over the world on our private jets and heat our multiple mansions and pollute the air with the fuel from our jet skis and...)
FRAUD GORE IS !

[PhillyRepublican]

We MUST ACT NOW!! Gore needs some serious mental therapy! It would be a crime not to heed his obvious cry for help!!

[bfree]

Sign up for your electric utility's green energy option. MGE, Alliant Energy and Wisconsin Public Power Inc. offer such programs, which charge customers a bit extra to support renewable energy sources like wind power.

The old tax me more concept. Bet even the pukin' liberals aren't signing up for this scam. I think I'll set my thermostat to 68 now, it's hot outside so it will be nice inside. Global warming is just another plot to separate you from your money.

[snuffy smiff]

Try 102 here today. But at least we finally got some rain after 43 days without.

[Richard Axtell]

"An Inconvenient Truth" will rightly dispel any doubts.

I have no doubt whatsoever that the author is clueless.

"Of nearly 1,000 peer-reviewed scientific articles about global warming, not one takes a contrary view of the growing risks we face from the continued warming of our atmosphere due to our fossil fuel use."

Interesting... that they call this "Science". This is "Politics" nothing more. There is no scientific proof of the above statement, only conjecture, computer model data, and convenient omission of any facts that collide with this socialistic power grab. Of course there are numerous articles, that "take a contrary view", by climatologists, in particular.

"The brutal reality is this: If we don't stem the carbon dioxide emissions, we will see nations' entire coastlines under water from the rise in sea levels due to melting glaciers, other nations with such severe droughts that their populations risk starvation, and the extinction of millions of species that cannot adapt to radical temperature changes in their habitats."

She knows! She saw it, it was right there on the movie screen! Movies are all true, right?

"Some scientists say the severity of Hurricane Katrina, which powered up from a category 1 to a category 5 storm while passing over the warm Gulf of Mexico, can be linked to global warming and signals more catastrophic hurricanes to come."

Not the ones who know what they are talking about.

"The moral imperative to make big changes is inevitable," Gore says of the need to face global warming seriously. "It is deeply unethical if we allow this to happen."

So, let's reduce America to an overtaxed 3rd World, basket case nation, sacrificing our economy, property rights, and sovereignty, to assuage the hysterical fears of a few international leftist proto-totalitarians who hate us all anyway.

"Two hundred western U.S. cities set high temperature records last year. Just last week, the Western Governors Association, whose states contain major coal and oil reserves, passed a resolution acknowledging the need to reduce global warming."

Every city in the country sets high temperature records at some time of the year, on one day or another. This statement is so pedestrian in its guilelessness as to be laughable.

Sorry hun, but hysterical emotionalism isn't going to motivate entire nations to commit economic and social suicide and return to the 19th century or earlier, on the promise that it might just avert a disaster that no one can prove will happen.

[dhuffman@awod.com]

No. The argument is not over the cause but of the magnitude of the anthropogenic contribution. It is buried in the noise. See my tagline...

[Richard Axtell]

Oh, by the way.... Judy Ettenhofer's comparison of "An Inconvenient Truth" with Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" is surprisingly apt. Moore's film was filled with factual distortions and outright lies, 59 that can be specifically debunked, by last count. How many lies does "An Inconvenient Truth" contain, a similar number? Would be an interesting exercise in truth telling, needless to say.

[marron]

Variations in solar output aren't going to be offset by anything you or I do. Feel free to leave your SUV running while you shop.

[F.J. Mitchell]

I'm way ahead of Gore. I have moved into a den where several bears hibernate in winter, comfortably warmed by their body heat, while in summer it is cooled by their absence.

Life is good!

[Publius6961]

I've been doing most of those things for years and I still think Gore is an ignorant doofus a*****e!

[TenthAmendmentChampion]

ROFL!!!!

[sasportas]

The argument is not over whether or not there is global warming. The argument is over determining the cause.

I agree. I'm no scientist, but I say the cause is probably an increase in the output of the sun. Only slightly, but something the size of the sun doesn't have to change its output but slightly to be felt on earth to a great degree.

[sergeantdave]

This cooling has already killed hundreds of thousands of people. If it continues and no strong action is taken, it will cause world famine, world chaos and world war, and this could all come about before the year 2000. -- Lowell Ponte “The Cooling,” 1976

[gotribe]

We all need to believe.

Where's the pseudo-religion alert?

[jtal]

We all need to believe.

Where's the pseudo-religion alert?

Exactly right. This is further evidence of an idea that seems increasingly clear - that anti-religious secular leftists try to fill the hunger for God written into the human heart with pseudo-religions : socialism, activism, environmentalsim, whatever.

They even have "conversion" stories. And Al Gore says that he is grateful that our generation has been given the "moral mission" of fighting global warming. Sorry, I already have a moral mission, Al. And it's hubris to pretend your "mission" should even be mentioned in the same breath.

[Northern Yankee]

This is garbage.

Why don't they ever wonder if the sun has to do with the heating and cooling of the planet?

I am reminded of a story from the book, Three Flags at the Straits, by Walter Havighurst.

In it he sites how the Father Marquette met up with the Huron on Lake Huronin 1669. They implored him to stay.

They showed him their encampent, and pointed back 100 yards to where their ancestors used to camp. When he asked them why would they set up so much farther back from the shoreline, the Huron told him that the waterline used to be so much further back.

Things go in cycles. The ebb and flow continues, except in the mind of Algore.

[Northern Yankee]

The brutal reality is this: If we don't stem the carbon dioxide emissions, we will see nations' entire coastlines under water from the rise in sea levels due to melting glaciers, other nations with such severe droughts that their populations risk starvation, and the extinction of millions of species that cannot adapt to radical temperature changes in their habitats.

The sky is falling, the sky is falling...

They were saying the same damned thing back in the 197o's. By now California was suppose to be underwater.

[Snickersnee]

We all need to believe.

And I believe I'll have a beer.

[samm1148]

I saw a great presentation on CSPAN about this last weekend. A doctor from the U of Colorado debunked alot of the global warming nonsense. He showed three separate covers from Time. In the 1940's they showed a picture of a sweating earth with a caption something to the effect of 'is the earth burning up'. Next he showed a cover from the 70's asking if the next ice age was impending (there was a period of cooling then). Finally he showed a present cover with dire warnings about global warming again.

In each case he pointed out how the experts of the day base lined their temperatures from short range readings. (I thought immediately of the stock warning: Past performance is no indicator of future earnings). There was a period of warming (or cooling) in each case but the future predictions were all in error.

This guy Gray said that these scientists claiming this stuff cannot tell you the temperature NEXT YEAR. Yet insist they can do so 100 years from now. He pointed out that these guys use models and that statistical uncertainties in these models increase exponentially after a ten day forecast. Anyway just my two cents.

[Never2baCrat]

Has anyone sent ABC their stories about how 'global warming' is affecting or has affected their lives? If we put our minds to this, we could have a ball!