Watch Al Gore's Actual Slide Show (c. mid-2005)

"Watch Al Gore's Actual Slide Show (c. mid-2005)" on Google Video
I found on Google Video (OMG they're useful for something!!) this recording of Al Gore's climate crisis presentation sometime last year. If you're interested in watching the presentation outside of the An Inconvenient Truth constructs, I recommend it. One of my strongest wishes after seeing the movie was to see the actual slide show that he does, since the movie cuts much of it out. I found out last week that Gore was training 1000 volunteers at his ranch to take this slide show on the road, but I was too late to get involved. I think that would be an incredibly meaningful job, and I would take it in a second. The event was sponsored by MoveOn.org, an organization which is progressive but not shy about their political leanings, so the introductions are quite political. Additionally, the presentation by Gore gets very political around the 1-hour mark, since he customizes his presentations for each audience. But it still provides a great opportunity to see what his presentations look like. I also recommend the director's and producers' commentaries on the AIT DVD. They give a lot of behind the scenes comments about why certain things were done in the movie. Some of my favourites: When he's shown working on the laptop, he was actually working: it was not staged. Even at 4am on the flight to China. When they include his family stories, etc, it is actually against his original wishes. He thought the movie should be pure science and no personal stories, but the director and producers believe that the personal stories allow a connection to him that is not possible with just graphs. Melissa Etheridge donated her song for the credits, and when the Director went to her house and showed her the movie, she immediately kicked him out so that she could write the song. "I need to write a song right now."

Going Carbon-Neutral

I'm flying to Charlottetown for work in January. I just learned that I can cancel out the carbon emissions of my flights for about $4.22 CDN.

I wonder if I could expense that.

(how to go carbon-neutral)

Resources for Debating Climate Change with Skeptics

1. Wikipedia page on Global Warming Controversy. My favourite parts: the list of organizations supporting the scientific consensus view on climate change:
   • The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
   • The national academies of science of the G8 countries and Brazil, the People's Republic of China and India.
   • The US National Academy of Sciences, both in its 2002 report to President George W. Bush, and in its latest publications, has strongly endorsed evidence of an average global temperature increase in the 20th century and stated that human activity is heavily implicated in causing this increase.
   • The American Meteorological Society.
   • The American Geophysical Union.
   • The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
   • The Union of Concerned Scientists
   ...and the list of individuals opposing the consensus, which features ten names.
2. David Suzuki's page discussing skeptics (who are they, who funds them, statements, science, and more information)
3. How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic at Gristmill, featuring an incredible list of articles responding to almost every common skeptical response to the climate crisis. Here's just the first section:
   



# There's nothing happening

   1. Inadequate evidence
          * There is no evidence
          * One record year is not global warming
          * The temperature record is simply unreliable
          * One hundred years is not enough
          * Glaciers have always grown and receded
          * Warming is due to the Urban Heat Island effect
          * Mauna Loa is a volcano
          * The scientists aren't even sure
   2. Contradictory evidence
          * It's cold today in Wagga Wagga
          * Antarctic ice is growing
          * The satellites show cooling
          * What about mid-century cooling?
          * Global warming stopped in 1998
          * But the glaciers are not melting
          * Antarctic sea ice is increasing
          * Observations show climate sensitivity is not very high
          * Sea level in the Arctic is falling
          * Some sites show cooling
   3. No consensus
          * Global warming is a hoax
          * There is no consensus
          * Position statements hide debate
          * Consensus is collusion
          * Peiser refuted Oreskes