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December 14, 2006 3:35 PM PST
Gore urges scientists to warn public about global warming
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"It is time for the scientific community to consider playing a more active communications role," Gore told an audience of a few thousand at the American Geophysical Union, a weeklong scientific conference taking place here. "We have to find a way to connect the dots and make clear and compelling the basis for dramatic change."
Climate change presents an unusual, and dire, set of circumstances, he noted. For one thing, the effects of global warming appear to be accelerating. Just this week, a report released at the conference predicted that the permanent arctic ice sheet could nearly melt away by 2040. (The earlier estimate was 2060.)
"If we let it go, it won't come back in any time scale relevant to the human species," he said. "I was shocked that (researchers') horizon is now 34 years."
Getting the public to understand the problem, though, and then act upon it is not easy. Humanity will essentially have to make large changes in how it consumes natural resources, and instilling massive societal changes is difficult. Typically, reform movements only begin after an irrefutable disaster.
To top it off, society has become more short-term in its thinking, he asserted. Television has crimped the attention span of the average person. Politicians now concentrate on overnight polls, and financial analysts look at shorter and shorter time horizons. The future doesn't get a lot of attention, he said.
"We have somehow persuaded ourselves that we don't have to concern ourselves much about what we are doing to future generations," said Gore.
He particularly criticized the role of TV. In the past, individuals did more reading, and the printing press allowed a marketplace of ideas to flourish, he said, noting that many of America's Founding Fathers stayed up on the latest scientific advancements. But TV functions differently than print. TV stations, for example, tend to be controlled by a handful of individuals, and that old marketplace of ideas has given way to sitcoms.
"The well-informed citizenry has become the well-entertained audience," he said. "The age of print that began with Gutenberg essentially ended."
He later added: "The Internet, for all of its limitations, is growing, and it offers a hope of a meritocracy of ideas accessible to all," he said.Gore also told the audience that scientific research appears to be under attack. The Environmental Protection Agency has resisted attempts by Congress to give the public access to files concerning pollution and global warming. A new federal directive will force some scientific research to be submitted for political review, a move that some researchers have compared to censorship.
The general public, he said, is becoming "desensitized" to the issue of scientific censorship.
But the speech wasn't a complete downer. Gore opened up with some jokes. He told a story about how a Nigerian news reporter mistakenly reported that he and his wife, Tipper, were going to open a Shoney's restaurant. (Shoney's is a chain of Denny's-like restaurants, mostly in the South.) Gore also did a short, but fairly spot-on imitation of former President Bill Clinton.
And he concluded by noting that climate problems can be tackled.
"In the U.S., the will to act is a renewable resource," he said.
See more CNET content tagged:
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Instead, I'm always reading about him motoring around in limos or Suburbans, and traveling by private jet instead of going commercial. And he has three residences? One of which supposedly runs about 10,000 square feet. That quite a bit of floor space for just him and Tipper.
And he wants everyone to go around waving their arms in the air and think "the end of the world is nie"?
I say start practicing what you preach before you ask me to have some kool aid.
I didn't read it because I think Global Warming is FUD. I don't believe in it at all.
Just wanted to write in and tell you that. This article to me is not even worth the electricity to illuminate the pixels that its printed on.
Cheers!
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=1610696
Which is it Al? Why did you not mention alternative energies at this summit or the world's need to distance ourselves from the oil economy? Are you really "green" as in "Green Tea" or "green" as in "Texas Tea"?
They said that we were going to experience MANY hurricanes this
season... Where are they? I do not see anybody saying that they
were wrong... after they scared the public.
For example, the formulations of medicines and vaccines have to be constantly adjusted to deal with the fact that bacteria and viruses continuously mutate to improve their chances of survival. This very observable phenomenon provides an indisputable confirmation of the theory of evolution. Yet, many people still choose to deny the fact behind constantly-modified medicines and vaccines, even as their lives and well-being depend on it.
Religious fundamentalists are adamantly against any environmental protection because they believe in divine providence. They think humans have a special place in the universe because their god says so. Hence, it is only natural that the earth and its living creatures be exploited to the fullest for the benefit of human beings. The consequences are immaterial as god will protect his most favoured creation from harm. Even when it becomes clear that the ecosystem is near total collapse, nothing should be done to halt its final demise as it is god's will. In fact, the end of life on earth should be welcomed as the arrival of Judgment Day, where non-believers who tried to save the planet will realise the futility in their attempts and be rewarded with being barbecued for eternity. Believers shall rise to heaven and laugh at the foolishness of those who had cast god aside in favour of "facts".
Hurricane Season in America and how it would be so deadly and
destructional..... we only have 2 weeks left in the year 2006 now
and I am still waiting for all of these hurricanes to come,
especially the ones that were supposed to batter the northeast
states and New England.
If the media wants to report about pollution, they should report
about Gore's private-airplane flights and the huge Tennessee
house he lives in and the other homes he owns. If Tipper Gore
stopped eating so much, half of Africa wouldn't be hungry.
Why do we need to go crazy about it ?
These changes seem to accelerate from one year to another invalidating all these "scientific" predictions and models.
Our species is doomed anyway (not in a stupid religious way, Matrix - agent's Smith description of our species is unfortunately a precise one), no worries fellas, IF our species can adapt to whatever the climate will be here in the future, and can live for another 100,000 years, the Y chromosome will be in such an advanced degraded state that we will be unable to have offsprings anyway.
Some pseudo-politicians with too much free time on their hands feel like they can push things around with their climate+disaster+ecological+"science"+political scenarios, and some media companies feed some people's fears.
Al Gore, go fishing !
If the man-bear-pig won't bite your bottom.
Many of us are aware, WE LIVE HERE, TOO, ON THE SAME PLANET, we see the changes, no solution seems to be right and/or can be implemented fast enough to have a fast positive impact, so far !
Global warming will hit two days before the day after tomorrow !
help. No one can dispute his claims as its pretty much evidence. I
live in Iowa and here we are in December and its 45-50 degrees
almost every day? It's crazy what's going on....and people still can't
get it through there heads. China has better standards when it
comes to MPG for cars..come on China? Why are we using the
same technology (Oil/Gas) as we were 50 + years ago? The
technology is there to get rid of it, but money talks and apparently
people still aren't grabbing a hold of what is going on...wake up!
any other. The child is raised to consume as much resourses it
can. Espesially food and petrol. The most important human right
in Calif. is «fill it up». Cheap gas is the freedom item you go to
war for and. This has to stop. OK. Thats on side.
The USA is also maybe the only country that can realy start
doing something because of attitude of getting the job done if
the the ordinary man makes his mind up. The problem is that
most american people dont want to save the nature, they want
to consume it. And the upper class i US is the worst kind of all.
- first tripple the gas price, then use your warbudget to fix up
Africa instead. Gives cred and it is cheaper. Environmental
friendly politics is difficult in europe where I come from (Norway)
because of silly political systems. It is in some way easier i US.
- GLOBAL WARMING A SAFE BET POLITICALLY
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by BustaScammerNow
December 16, 2006 11:40 PM PST
- Getting the economy squelched will 1)lead to a reversal of global warming, or 2) not lead to any lessening of global warming which 3) allows the pseudo-scientists and their allies,the publicity hounds in politics to continue their ignorant quest for that which neither they,nor anyone else, has one speck of control. What happened to the ice age that was about to engulf us a decade ago? Al Gore,Jessie Jackson,and Al Sharpton are all a bunch of publicity hounds.
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