Posted on 05/19/2006 8:49:10 PM PDT by Libloather
"Carbon dioxide... we call it life," TV ads say
By Deborah Zabarenko
Wed May 17, 6:58 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A little girl blows away dandelion fluff as an announcer says, "Carbon dioxide: they call it pollution; we call it life," in an advertisement targeting global warming "alarmists," especially Al Gore.
The television ads, screened for the press on Wednesday and set to air in 14 U.S. cities starting on Thursday, are part of a campaign by the conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute to counter a media spotlight on threats posed by worldwide climate change.
The spots are timed to precede next week's theatrical release of "An Inconvenient Truth," a documentary film on global warming that features Gore, the former vice president and Democratic presidential candidate.
Against backdrops of a park, a beach and a forest, one celebrates the benefits of greenhouse gas-producing fuels.
"The fuels that produce CO2 (carbon dioxide) have freed us from a world of back-breaking labor, lighting up our lives, allowing us to create and move the things we need, the people we love," the ad runs. "Now some politicians want to label carbon dioxide a pollutant. Imagine if they succeed -- what would our lives be like then?"
The other ad questions media reports of the threat of climate change, especially a Time magazine issue devoted to the topic, and shows film of a glacier melting and then runs in reverse to show the glacier reconstituting itself.
"We had started work on this several months back, but we sort of changed course once the flood of glacier-melting stories began," said Sam Kazman, an institute lawyer who worked on the ads. "So we did want to get out there before the Al Gore film got into national opening."
'RUNNING FOR ARCH-DRUID'
Fred Smith, president of the institute, a lobbying group closely allied to the Bush administration that stresses limited government regulation and a free-market approach to environmental issues, said he had seen the film and found it "very alarmist," although well-produced.
"There's a lot of pictures of Al Gore pensively looking into the sunset," Smith said. "I don't think he's running for president, but he might be running for arch-druid."
The institute and environmental groups such as Washington-based Environmental Defense agree that average global temperatures have risen about 1 degree Fahrenheit (0.6 degrees Celsius) in the last century.
But the institute questions the impact of global warming while a broad range of scientists and environmentalists, including Gore, have linked it to more severe storms, melting ice caps and rising sea levels.
"They fly in the face of most of the science," Charlie Miller of Environmental Defense said of the institute ads. "The good news is that there's not a trade-off here between prosperity, jobs, growth and protecting the Earth. We can do both."
Environmental Defense and the Ad Council released public service announcements in March featuring children as future victims of global warming, and these were mentioned critically at the briefing where the new ads were released.
The institute ads will run from May 18 through May 28 in Albany, New York; Albuquerque, New Mexico; Anchorage, Alaska; Austin, Texas; Charleston, West Virginia; Dallas; Dayton, Ohio; Denver; Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; Phoenix; Sacramento and Santa Barbara, California; Springfield, Illinois, and Washington.
I agree with this. I don't agree with the alarmists like Gore, but I also think its crazy to discount all fears of global warming.
then you oppose hydrogen fuel vehemently.
"There's a lot of pictures of Al Gore pensively looking into the sunset," Smith said. "I don't think he's running for president, but he might be running for arch-druid."
LOL
"There's a lot of differing data [about global warming], but as far as I can gather, over the last hundred years the temperature on this planet has gone up 1.8 degrees. Am I the only one who finds that amazingly stable? I could go back to my hotel room tonight and futz with the thermostat for three to four hours. I could not detect that difference." ~~Dennis Miller
In the 1970's "we're heading into an ice age!!! BWAAAAAAAAA!!!!" was all the rage. So it's crazy not only to discount all fears of global warming but its also crazy to discount all fears of the impeding ice age headed this way.
Hmmmm... maybe the two will balance each other out (WE'RE ALL GONNA BURN UP!!! WE'RE ALL GONNA FREEZE!!!) and we'll survive just fine.
My earnings taken away from me by the govt aren't paying for this cr*p are they?
Could be, could be. But I've yet to see any proof that any significant portion is attributable to man and/or
industrialization. Aka, "the modern age".
Again, the other planets in this solar system are ungoing climate change, with little or no physical contact from "Earth".
So, it appears to be part of a natural solar cycle. Why get everyones' panties in a wad over it? Because climate
change is an excuse to foist failed social policies on Americans and other free and successful societies.
The Global Warming Hoax is the Y2K Bug, and Carter's "Population Bomb" and the Alar scare, and Aluminum contamination, and Ebola Plague, and, and, and
Sorry, I ain't gonna swallow another one.
dung.
Discount? No.
But there are many questions that need to be answered before it is labelled "a hard truth". People like Gore want to make major changes to our way of life based on incomplete data.
And I always wonder, if these people are truthful, why aren't they demanding more nuclear power plants? There is no better way to reduce CO2 emissions than to build more plants.
Anyway, I'm of the opinion that warmer temperatures and higher CO2 levels will be a very good thing. Longer growing seasons, increased crop yields, reverse desertification, better irrigation....
Those all are undisputed positives.
I'm not sure of your point here. Hydrogen fuel cells produce no emissions, except for water. That is, unless you factor in the energy needed to extract the hydrogen in the first place. But why would he oppose hydrogen fuel if he was not yet sure of the truth of global warming? Seems to me, it would be the other way around (you know, better safe than sorry, etc.)
"I don't think he's running for president, but he might be running for arch-druid."
THAT is an insult to all good practicing Druids.
"I also think its crazy to discount all fears of global warming"
Why?
Isn't it crazier to to believe that man has the capability to alter the impact of NORMAL SOLAR CYCLES?
I pointed out in my post that the only emissions from a fuel cell is water. But there are a few questions, how much more water is produced as opposed to a conventional internal combusion engine? Given the short life span of water vapor, how much will make it into the atmosphere? Also, how does the pure water emitted react with the atmosphere as opposed to mixed with other emissions?
These all make a difference in how you view hydrogen fuel cell technology as a viable alternative to other means. It is overly simplistic to say "hfcs poduce water vapor therefore they are bad". There are many other variables to the equation.
do some research.
I asked a simple, polite question. Why the attitude?
How very ironic and very true!
This man died recently, and I was shocked to find out that he wasn't an Indian at all. He was Italian, and could never get any work after that ad campaign.
Al Gore isn't at all who he appears to be, but I have to give him credit for inventing the Internet...
Not at all. In a year 189 billion metric tons of CO2 is released into the atmosphere:
90 billion comes from evaporating oceans.
Another 90 billion comes from a combination of decaying vegetation and volcanic activity.
and 9 billion is created by us!
Global warming is caused by one thing and one thing only...the sun. The time to start worrying is when the temperature starts to decline.
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