An 'Inconvenient' statement (ROGER EBERT STILL WHINING ABOUT WEIRD AL)

Chicago Sun-Times - The "Bright" One ^ | June 11, 2006 | Roger Ebert

[Chi-townChief]

Dear Readers,

I've received so many messages about my review of Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" that, frankly, I don't see how the Answer Man can process them. I could print a dozen or a hundred, but that would lead us into an endless loop.

Many are supportive. More are opposed to the movie and just about everything in it, and are written by people who have not seen the movie and will not see it for a variety of reasons, including the theory that it is "liberal propaganda." What I fail to understand is why global warming should be a liberal or conservative issue. It is either happening or is not, and we can either take action to try to slow it, or we cannot. That is why a great many conservatives have agreed with Gore on this.

When I am told "this is another one you're trying to blame on Bush and Halliburton," all I can say is, somebody is listening to way too much talk radio on which they are told global warming is being blamed on Bush and Halliburton. Actually, Gore blames neither and mentions neither. "It got worse on his watch as vice president." Yes, it did. "He flies around on a jet to warn against it." Yes, one of thousands of jet flights every day.

One person says that when Gore finds a "100 percent agreement" among scientists about global warming, that proves he is wrong, because 100 percent of scientists do not agree on anything. Then they quote scientists who disagree with Gore. What he said was, a random sampling of 935 recent articles published in peer-review scientific journals shows agreement with the basic findings reported in his film.

Many people inform me that they just read a story saying that the South Pole was tropical many eons ago. So it was, as reported in "March of the Penguins." I don't know what they want me to do with this factoid. Applaud our actions to bring that condition around again as quickly as possible?

I cannot get into a scientific discussion here. There will be no end to it. All I can say is, the Gore documentary made a deep impression on me. I urge you to see it. You will not be seeing a "campaign film," or "sour grapes," or "Gore still being bitter." George W. Bush has repeated for six years that global warming "requires more study." If Gore has spent six years studying it, aren't his findings worthy of attention? Yes, I'm "being political." But saying the issue "needs more study" is a political statement when energy groups are among your major supporters and your family is in the oil business.

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/99999999/GENERALINFORMATION/40909004

[Chi-townChief]

As the old Staples Singers number went:

"If you're walking around thinking that the world owes you something 'cause you're here
You're going out the world backward like you did when you first came here.
Keep talking about the president won't stop air pollution.
Put your hand over your mouth when you cough, that'll help the solution."

Not to mention the line they included about democrats like Bobby Byrd and the late Al Gore Sr.:

"You the kind of gentleman that want everything your way
Take the sheet off your face, boy, its a brand new day."

[Chi-townChief]

CHICAGOLAND PING

[JLS]

Ebert is a boring leftist. I did not see his review of An Inconvient Former Candidate, but I am sure he liked Algore more than Harold Stassen?

[Socratic]

"liberal propaganda." What I fail to understand is why global warming should be a liberal or conservative issue.

That's why you're just a movie critic.

[the invisib1e hand]

What I fail to understand is why global warming should be a liberal or conservative issue. It is either happening or is not, and we can either take action to try to slow it, or we cannot.

Or, it is not happening, and so the second proposition becomes spurious. That would be an inconvenient truth, as opposed weird Al's convenient myth.

[digger48]

If Gore has spent six years studying it, aren't his findings worthy of attention?

No, because he spent the first 4 of the last 6 years mumbling to himself in a closet made to look like the Oval Office.

[wvobiwan]

Hello Mr. I'm-an-Economically-Ignorant-crappy-movie-critic. Global warming is a world wide socialist scam to take from rich nations and give to poor ones. This is what happens with idiots have a public platform, they are easily fooled into promoting BS like global warming.

[finnman69]

The Farenheit 9/11 of Global Warming

GLOBAL WARMING PRIMER
http://www.clearlight.com/~mhieb/WVFossils/ice_ages.html
http://vathena.arc.nasa.gov/curric/land/global/climchng.html
http://junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/historical_CO2.htm
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Carboniferous_climate.html

These two figures show former temperatures with major periods of glaciation labeled. The dashed lines are the present global average temperature of about 15° C (59° F). Thus the solid curves show small changes from this average; note that the temperature drops only about 5° C during a glaciation. This has occurred about every 100,000 years, with smaller wiggles in between. That is, there has been a 100,000 year glaciation cycle for the past million years or so, and there may be shorter cycles as well.

The most recent glaciation, 20,000 years ago, is called the Laurentide, and Earth is still recovering from it. This map from the The Illinois State Museum exhibit on ice ages shows the extent of that ice.

The most recent small drop in average temperature caused the Little Ice Age of 1500-1700 AD, which history describes. Mountain glaciers advanced in Europe and rivers like the Thames in England froze solid, which doesn't happen now.

Click image for animation

The growth of the ice sheets began about 120,000 years ago as ice built up on the continents in the Northern Hemisphere, especially in Canada and Europe. The largest extent of these ice sheets occurred 18,000 years ago. At that time the largest ice sheets were between 3.5 and 4 km thick. In North America the largest ice sheet was the Laurentide Ice Sheet centered on Hudson Bay with other sheets centered on Greenland and in the Canadian Rocky Mountains. As these ice sheets expanded they grew together, covering Baffin Bay and eventually the Great Lakes and New England. In northwestern Europe the Fennoscandian Ice Sheet began to grow and expand south to cover what is now Norway and Sweden and north to cover the exposed continental shelf. Over time the ice sheet grew to cover Finland and the United Kingdom. This ice sheet extended east to the Ural Mountains where it met the Siberian Ice Sheet. Before the last ice age ice sheets already existed on Antarctica and on Greenland.

Most people seem surprised when we say current levels are relatively low, at least from a long-term perspective - understandable considering the constant media/activist bleat about current levels being allegedly "catastrophically high." Even more express surprise that Earth is currently suffering one of its chilliest episodes in about six hundred million (600,000,000) years. Given that the late Ordovician suffered an ice age (with associated mass extinction) while atmospheric CO2 levels were more than 4,000ppm higher than those of today (yes, that's a full order of magnitude higher), levels at which current 'guesstimations' of climate sensitivity to atmospheric CO2 suggest every last skerrick of ice should have been melted off the planet, we admit significant scepticism over simplistic claims of small increment in atmospheric CO2 equating to toasted planet. Granted, continental configuration now is nothing like it was then, Sol's irradiance differs, as do orbits, obliquity, etc., etc. but there is no obvious correlation between atmospheric CO2 and planetary temperature over the last 600 million years, so why would such relatively tiny amounts suddenly become a critical factor now?

[HonduGOP]

Unfortunately Siskel is dead instead of this liberal loon.

[Bommer]

I cannot get into a scientific discussion here.

Thats because you majored in WATCHING MOVIES FOR A LIVING! What kind of mental giant does it take to get that gig? No Ebert, you lack the intellectual ability to get into any discussion beyond how great the lighting and makeup was in the latest Hollywood POS movie or that there's too much butter in your popcorn!

[johnny7]

What a country! Ebert proves a point... you can make it being fat, ugly... AND stupid.

[Nightrider]

how is it determned how thick a no longet existent ice sheet was 120,000 years ago?

[Ma3lst0rm]

Ebert like most liberals don't seem to understand that no matter how long someone studies something with the intent to justify wrong conclusions the conclusions will still be wrong regardless how long they spend cutting a pasting facts and trimming the truth to fit those conclusions as is the case with most liberal truths. They are not interested in finding the truth or understanding the dynamic nature of things but instead like Arabs justifying the acts of their suicide brothers find all kinds of circuitous routes and spurious details to support their cause.

[FreedomNeocon]

I have some suggestions of where he can stick that thumb of his...

[HalleysFifth]

"An Incoherent Goof"

[Dionysius]

If Ebert is fer it, I'm agin it!

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Gore's movie made an impression. His brain is only a 1/4 inch thick...

[crashthe24]

"Fahrenheit 9/11" is a compelling, persuasive film, at odds with the White House effort to present Bush as a strong leader. He comes across as a shallow, inarticulate man, simplistic in speech and inauthentic in manner. If the film is not quite as electrifying as Moore's "Bowling for Columbine," that may be because Moore has toned down his usual exuberance and was sobered by attacks on the factual accuracy of elements of "Columbine"; playing with larger stakes, he is more cautious here, and we get an op-ed piece, not a stand-up routine. But he remains one of the most valuable figures on the political landscape, a populist rabble-rouser, humorous and effective; the outrage and incredulity in his film are an exhilarating response to Bush's determined repetition of the same stubborn sound bites.

I wonder why people think you are just "being political"
YOU HACK!

[MrCruncher]

Who is Roger Ebert?