There is a debate if winning the Nobel will push Gore into the 2008 presidential race. Only time can tell!

1) The US EPA Personal Emissions Calculator:

This test estimates the household greenhouse gas emissions resulting from household energy use and waste disposal and takes a good 20 minutes to complete, so get comfy and get started.

2) The Ecological Footprint Quiz:

This actually calculates the number of Planet Earth it’ll take to support you! Takes about 5 minutes.

3) An Inconvenient Truth Carbon Calculator:

The fastest of the three, but I believe the calculator is less accurate as it has less variable to work from. I changed just one parameter in the test (can’t tell you which) and it took me from way below average to close to average, which does not make sense. But overall, a very lightweight calculator nonetheless!

For a suburbanite, my impact was below average for most parts. Let us know how you fared.

This reminds me of a scene from “The Inconvenient Truth” where Gore points to a 90′s poster that has the earth on one scale of the balance and gold bullions on the other. China now gets the pick, and if any of them have at least half an ounce gray matter up there, they will chose a policy unlike that of our beloved Bush’s administration!

For a list of scientific studies on global warming and hurricane, visit net.org. For a light read on how it affects the political scenario in America, visit BBC for an op-ed by NET’s Philip Clapp.

The National Environmental Trust is a non-profit, non-partisan organization established in 1994 to inform citizens about environmental problems and how they affect our health and quality of life. Check out our campaigns and special reports (links to the left) to learn about the issues on which we currently focus.

Photo Courtesy: NASA

Speaking in an auditorium of more than 800 Wal-Mart employees, former Vice President Al Gore said, “I believe that this kind of commitment is so important that the rest of the world is likely to be listening and learning.”

Read the rest of the store at here.

 

Tags: News, Al Gore, Global Warming, Ozone, Activism, Conserve, Carbon, Sustainability, Greenhouse, Air Pollution, Wal-Mart

Apparently, Brokaw’s wife, Meredith, is vice president of the environmental organization Conservation International. They’ve traveled to some of the places featured in the Discovery documentary, like Patagonia and Mongolia, and have seen firsthand the effects of global warming.

Patagonia? Mongolia? Do we need to go that far to figure out the effects of global warming, can’t he just tell by looking at his utility bills in summer!!!

Well anyway, another liberal media mogul joining the “global warming awareness” crusade only makes for good…news. Who’ll be next, Stephen Colbert?
 

Read the complete interview: Associated Press by David Bauder
 

 

 

Tags: News, Al Gore, Global Warming, Activism, politics, Movie, Brokaw, TV, Politics, Oddities, Media, Non-profit, GETM, Geography, US, Humor, corporation, pollution, Al Gore, Movie, Environment

 

In an unprecedented move, the nation’s top climate scientists gave 5 stars for Al Gore’s documentary on global warming, making it an historic first for scientific topping Ebert and Roeper who gave the movie a B-.
William Schlesinger, dean of the Nicholas School of Environment and Earth Sciences at Duke University said, “excellent, he got all the important material and got it right.” Robert Corell, chairman of the worldwide Arctic Climate Impact Assessment group of scientists read the book and saw a presentation said, “I sat there and I’m amazed at how thorough and accurate,” he continued, “After the presentation I said, `Al, I’m absolutely blown away. There’s a lot of details you could get wrong.’ … I could find no error.”

One exception amid the back patting was Brian Soden, a University of Miami professor of meteorology and oceanography, who said, “I thought the use of imagery from Hurricane Katrina was inappropriate and unnecessary in this regard, as there are plenty of disturbing impacts associated with global warming for which there is much greater scientific consensus.”

Contrary to the academic praises, Dave White a columnist for movies.com said “OK, here’s my beef with Al Gore, and then I’ll talk about the film’s message: He’s a hypocrite. During the Clinton administration, the causes of global warming were chugging right along with help from the government. Global warming didn’t stop when the first Bush left the White House and start up again when the second Bush stole the place back for the Republicans. Gore himself gave the Tellico Dam project a waiver from the Endangered Species Act. George W. Bush might be a nightmare for the EPA, but the Democrats weren’t their wet dream by a long shot.”

Somehow, by the end of it all, I personally believe the debate should not be “whether the film was right or left wrong,” but rather “how to combat global warming,” after all the effects are felt by one and all, irrespective of how dramatized or underplayed it is in movies.

 

Tags: Urban, News, Al Gore, Global Warming, Bush, Global Cooling, Activism, Conserve, Carbon, weather, Environment, politics, greenhouse, Movie, inconvinient truth

So I took on the task of researching these two topics, to my surprise the answers were astonishingly simple. (Click to Enlarge Images)

The 70’s were a time when issues like smog, particulate pollution, and acid rain were the focus of public concern (never really figured out why acid rain did not burn down the Amazon? but anyway), Carbon Dioxide was not such a big deal after all. While the press was hot on Global Cooling, among others, a notable theory suggested that the cooling effect was resultant of increased Aerosols in the atmosphere; a combustion by-product of… you guessed it “fossil fuel”. But in hindsight, what really happened between mid 1950’s and 1970 was in fact a slump in the rise of ground temperature, and came into attention only because of the unusually high temperature experienced between 1905 and 1955, the period preceding the slowdown. (Click to Enlarge Image)

A Newsweek article in 1975 pointed to “a drop of half a degree [Fahrenheit] in average ground temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere between 1945 and 1968. (Click to Enlarge Image) And rather than proposing environmentalist solutions, the Newsweek article suggested that “simple measures of stockpiling food or of introducing the variables of climatic uncertainty into economic projections of future food supplies” would be appropriate. The 70’s ended with many books of prophecies predicting the catastrophic return of the “Ice Age”.

Global Warming can be summarized with this scientific consensus, the average global temperature has risen 0.6 ± 0.2 °C over the 20th century, and that it is very likely attributable to human activities. (Click to Enlarge Image) And then there are the critics, some more wacky that others, even the US President joined in the bandwagon of skeptics and said this in a recent press conference when asked about his 2000 presidential election rival Al Gore’s movie, Mr. Bush said “And in my judgment, we need to set aside whether or not greenhouse gases have been caused by mankind or because of natural effects, and focus on the technologies that will enable us to live better lives and, at the same time, protect the environment.” Mr. President, with all due respect, Global Warming is caused by humans, and if you need proof, this link might help you understand it better, even they say that the “world’s leading climate scientists think that things people do are helping to make the Earth warmer”. Since you are not a scientist, the least you could do is pay heed.

United Nations created the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to address whether or not global warming was anthropogenic. The result was the Kyoto Protocol. The IPCC in its Second Assessment Report (SAR) said that the “balance of evidence suggests that there is a discernible human influence on global climate” and strengthened this in its Third Assessment Report (TAR) in 2001 to, “There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities.”   Here are the major conclusions from their findings:

There is a longer and more closely scrutinised temperature record and new model estimates of variability. The warming over the past 100 years is very unlikely7 to be due to internal variability alone, as estimated by current models. Reconstructions of climate data for the past 1,000 years (Figure 1b) also indicate that this warming was unusual and is unlikely7 to be entirely natural in origin. 

 

There are new estimates of the climate response to natural and anthropogenic forcing, and new detection techniques have been applied. Detection and attribution studies consistently find evidence for an anthropogenic signal in the climate record of the last 35 to 50 years.

 

Simulations of the response to natural forcings alone (i.e., the response to variability in solar irradiance and volcanic eruptions) do not explain the warming in the second half of the 20th century (see for example Figure 4a). However, they indicate that natural forcings may have contributed to the observed warming in the first half of the 20th century.

 

The warming over the last 50 years due to anthropogenic greenhouse gases can be identified despite uncertainties in forcing due to anthropogenic sulphate aerosol and natural factors (volcanoes and solar irradiance). The anthropogenic sulphate aerosol forcing, while uncertain, is negative over this period and therefore cannot explain the warming. Changes in natural forcing during most of this period are also estimated to be negative and are unlikely7 to explain the warming.

 

Detection and attribution studies comparing model simulated changes with the observed record can now take into account uncertainty in the magnitude of modelled response to external forcing, in particular that due to uncertainty in climate sensitivity.

 

Most of these studies find that, over the last 50 years, the estimated rate and magnitude of warming due to increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases alone are comparable with, or larger than, the observed warming. Furthermore, most model estimates that take into account both greenhouse gases and sulphate aerosols are consistent with observations over this period.

 

The best agreement between model simulations and observations over the last 140 years has been found when all the above anthropogenic and natural forcing factors are combined, as shown in Figure 4c). . These results show that the forcings included are sufficient to explain the observed changes, but do not exclude the possibility that other forcings may also have contributed.

 

In the light of new evidence and taking into account the remaining uncertainties, most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely7 to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations.

 

Furthermore, it is very likely7 that the 20th century warming has contributed significantly to the observed sea level rise, through thermal expansion of sea water and widespread loss of land ice. Within present uncertainties, observations and models are both consistent with a lack of significant acceleration of sea level rise during the 20th century.

 

Source: IPCC

With that said, the concerns of Global Cooling is far from over, the possible cooling effects of a slowdown or shutdown of the thermohaline circulation, which might be provoked by an increase of fresh water mixing into the North Atlantic due to glacial melting is a prevalent issue. If that is not enough, there are articles like this one in the Moscow News that does not warrant my comment.

Footnote: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been established by WMO and UNEP to assess scientific, technical and socio- economic information relevant for the understanding of climate change, its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation. It is open to all Members of the UN and of WMO.

Photo Courtesy: Wikipedia

 

Tags: global cooling, global warming, al gore, bush, US, IPCC, EPA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

President Bush says that greater use of nuclear power is the way to reduce greenhouse gases blamed for global warming. Bush said “Nuclear power helps us protect the environment and nuclear power is safe,” in addressing a crowd at the Limerick Generating Station nuclear plant 40 miles northwest of Philadelphia, Bush said “let’s quit the debate about whether greenhouse gases are caused by mankind or by natural causes. Let’s just focus on technologies that deal with the issue.” Critics believe this sudden shit from immigration to issues concerning global warming is in part a response to Al Gore’s new documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” [you can find a discussion on this documentary here].

 

America has not build any new nuclear power plants since the Chernobyl incident in 1986. This recent call by the President has critics worried. Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project On Government Oversight (POGO) commenting on the Bush speech said “We hope the administration and the Congress will acknowledge the severe threat to our nuclear power plants because of inadequate security, excessive government secrecy and a lack of whistle-blower protections for nuclear plant employees,”

 

Source: Reuters, report by Tabassum Zakaria 

United States is largest supplier of commercial nuclear power in the world, with more than 100 commercial nuclear plants generating about 20 percent of the Nation’s electricity. Nuclear power generation requires the mining, conversion and disposal of material that are radiological and hazardous.

By the end of the day, when we pit nuclear energy against green technologies like solar and wind energy we can clearly see that nuclear power generation is not renewable, not clean and definitely not safe. Increased focus on renewable source of energy and conservation of natural resources is the only path that would lead to sustainable development.

Footnote: Founded in 1981, POGO is an independent nonprofit that investigates and exposes corruption in order to achieve a more accountable federal government.

Photo Courtesy: Nucleartourist.com

 

The study notes that climate models used as the basis for global warming claims routinely miss key climate factors, which results in false predictions of catastrophe. Furthermore, some official reports, including the U.S. National Assessment, published in 2000, describe only the 2 most extreme predictions, ignoring 30 other models that are far less radical.

 

Many activists have attributed increases in hurricanes, floods, droughts, tornados, hail storms and heat waves to global warming caused by human activities. However, scientific evidence does not support their claims. For instance, the unprecedented destruction caused by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita was blamed on climate change – but experts say these recent storms were part of a natural cycle and the increased damage was due to increased coastal populations and development.

 

Some have also attempted to link global warming to species extinction. However, the study notes that the link is tenuous. These over-hyped claims of extinction are the ‘Coca-Colalization’ of science,” concluded NCPA Senior Fellow H. Sterling Burnett. “If you want to sell a product, or a cause, just tie it to a cute, cuddly animal. Snails, snakes and spiders withering in the sun just don’t pack the same emotional punch as a cuddly, furry polar bear slipping beneath the melting ice.

 

Source: NCPA.org

Al Gore’s documentary stresses on how real the threat is, the following is a summary of his claims.

The vast majority of scientists agree that global warming is real, it’s already happening and that it is the result of our activities and not a natural occurrence. The evidence is overwhelming and undeniable.

 

We’re already seeing changes. Glaciers are melting, plants and animals are being forced from their habitat, and the number of severe storms and droughts is increasing.

 

• The number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes has almost doubled in the last 30 years. 
• Malaria has spread to higher altitudes in places like the Colombian Andes, 7,000 feet above sea level.  
• The flow of ice from glaciers in Greenland has more than doubled over the past decade. 
• At least 279 species of plants and animals are already responding to global warming, moving closer to the poles. 

If the warming continues, we can expect catastrophic consequences.

 

• Deaths from global warming will double in just 25 years — to 300,000 people a year. 
• Global sea levels could rise by more than 20 feet with the loss of shelf ice in Greenland and Antarctica, devastating coastal areas worldwide.
• Heat waves will be more frequent and more intense.
• Droughts and wildfires will occur more often. 
• The Arctic Ocean could be ice free in summer by 2050.  
• More than a million species worldwide could be driven to extinction by 2050.

Source: http://www.climatecrisis.net/thescience/

Irrespective of who is correct or what the cause or consequences of Global Warming are, it is definitely not wise to continue the irresponsible dumping of pollutants, be it in the air, into water or on ground. Those who disagree with me should visit a coal fired power plant, especially the wastewater plant treating scrubber waste, I bet no one would want that in their backyard!

Footnote: The NCPA is an internationally known nonprofit, nonpartisan research institute with offices in Dallas and Washington, D. C. that advocates private solutions to public policy problems. We depend on the contributions of individuals, corporations and foundations that share our mission. The NCPA accepts no government grants.  

Footnote: Al Gore is Al Gore.

Photo Courtesy: Climatecrisis.net