(Junk) Scientists warm to climate flick, despite bad science

AP ^ | Wednesday, May 5, 2004

[presidio9]

A super storm envelops the globe, sending tornadoes skittering through Los Angeles, pounding Tokyo with hail the size of grapefruit and burying New Delhi in snow.

Brace yourself. After decades spent tackling volcanoes, aliens, earthquakes, asteroids and every other disaster imaginable, Hollywood has turned its attention to one of the hottest scientific and political issues of the day: climate change.

No one is pretending the forthcoming film "The Day After Tomorrow" is anything but implausible: In the $125 million movie, global warming triggers a cascade of events that practically flash freeze the planet.

It's an abruptness no one believes possible, least of all the filmmakers behind the 20th Century Fox release. "It's very cinematic to choose the worst-case scenario, which we did," said co-screenwriter Jeffrey Nachmanoff.

[Hodar]

I'm surprised by the articles for this movie.

I guess "GhostBusters", "Independance Day", "Star Wars" and "Aliens" weren't true either? "The Core", "Deep Impact", "Twister" and "Back To the Future" are nothing more than entertainment. Apparently, there is a large subset of the population that cannot discern reality from fantasy. Thankfully, these individuals tend to flock together and vote Democratic; so at least they can be identified. Now, if we could only correct this genetic defect.

[KellyAdmirer]

The hype won't end until this piece of trash is released. I remember when that asteroid-hitting-the-earth movie came out a few years ago, and oh-so-coincidentally there were suddenly "serious" reports of finding one on a collision course with earth. Anything to make a buck.

[Paul Atreides]

I've always marveled that, in disaster flicks, cultural landmarks are always hit, with such precision. Also, in such films, the sufferings of Flyover Country are that big a deal.

[Paul Atreides]

the sufferings of Flyover Country are that big a deal.

Should read: the sufferings of Flyover Country aren't that big a deal.

[Paul Atreides]

The biggest flake to warm to this movie is Algore.

[.cnI redruM]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1133347/posts

An excellent thread addressing a similar topic.

[Snuffington]

The movie's producers and promoters don't bother me. Trying to gin up public anxiety about global warming is just a new spin on an age-old promotion tactic to sell tickets.

But these guys are disturbing:

"The science is bad, but perhaps it's an opportunity to crank up the dialogue on our role in climate change," NASA research oceanographer William Patzert said of the premise.

Ah yes. We all know science proceeds calmly and dispassionately most often by conducting itself in the midst of misinformed hysteria. So let's keep stoking it.

[RightWingAtheist]

I'm saving my money for Primer. Not only is it guaranteed to be more intelligent and impressive on a budget that's exactly a thousand times less expensive, but it was made by the son of a Freeper (TexasChip-he also acts in the movie)

[mudblood]

"The Core", "Deep Impact", "Twister" and "Back To the Future"

I agree that most of these movies represents bad science, including The Day After Tomorrow. However, the Earth could conceivably get hit by an asteroid, so Deep Impact should be off the list. If anything, it should be off the list for being different than Armageddon, which was scientifically laughable. Oil drillers sent to take out a non-plausible, spiky asteroid? Ladders on the MIR space station so that WHEN THEY SPIN IT they can use them in a gravity environment? Oil drillers sent to take out the asteroid!!!??? Heh. True, Deep Impact wasn't perfect, but it was the best one yet. For a really good, entertaining novel on this very idea, I recommend Lucifer's Hammer by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle.

[Hodar]

I recommend Lucifer's Hammer by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle.

Now THAT was a powerful book!! And it would make a killer movie.

[Poohbah]

There is a hell of a lot more chance of a BFR smacking into the Earth and wiping us out than global warming wiping us out.

[Weimdog]

The EU Reporter reports that Dr. Rajendra K. Pachauri, chairman of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), compared Bjorn Lomborg, author of The Skeptical Environmentalist, to Adolf Hitler in a recent media interview. Dr. Pachauri commented:

What is the difference between Lomborg's view of humanity and Hitler's? You cannot treat people like cattle. You must respect the diversity of cultures on earth. Lomborg thinks of people like numbers. He thinks it would be cheaper just to evacuate people from the Maldives, rather than trying to prevent world sea levels from rising so that island groups like the Maldives or Tuvalu just disappear into the sea. But where's the respect for people in that? People have a right to live and die in the place where their forefathers have lived and died. If you were to accept Lomborg’s way of thinking, then maybe what Hitler did was the right thing.

That's the UN for ya...

[Izzy Dunne]

"Fox is not going to make a movie that goes on for 10,000 years," Patzert said.

Thank goodness for small favors.

[RightWingAtheist]

What's really scary for me is that they are only helping Art Bell and Whitely Streiber, as well as other snake-oil peddlers of pseudoscience. I wouldn't be surprised if NASA was less concerned about the political implications of their scientists speaking out on the movie than of the implications of inadverantly giving credibility to Bell and Streiber.