I finally watched "Inconvenient Truth" yesterday.

[phantom power]

Climate-wise, there wasn't much new to anybody who spends any time here at E/E. I was most interested in the biographical stuff relating to Gore's career. I wasn't aware how long he's been pursuing the climate change cause. Evidently, his entire adult life. I thought it was a bit odd, how surprised he was at the non-response he got from Congress on this issue. He really seems to have that "pure-science" idealism. "Once they see my data, everybody will surely see the light and join me!" I was impressed. My scientific idealism was crushed by my mid-30s. I think it required an addition 20 years, plus the Supreme Court, to crush Gore's.

[Mabus]

1. Did you watch it on Showtime?

Just curious. I caught the last few minutes of Gore's update on Showtime after I watched the lastest episode of "Rome" on HBO.

[phantom power]

3. No, Mrs. Phantom bought the CD last week.

I missed the last 10 minutes or so for a little potty training interlude with our daughter, but I gather that was just the obligatory "yes virginia, there is still time to avoid climate crisis" hoo-ha that I don't think the facts support. When I returned from potty training, Mrs Phantom, who had said not a word thru the entire movie, was at the computer donating bags of cash to ClimateCrisis.net

Heh :-)

I wonder if Mrs Phantom would be amused to find out she has a secret identity? Probably not her bag.

[Mabus]

17. Mums the word

My husband doesn't know how many secret identities he has had over the years either. :evilgrin:

[pretzel4gore]

2. the graphs are stunning...

the way they all correspond, the way they go along over the eons, then begin going up during industrial revolution, then the way they litterally climb up off the charts!
i had never really seen that before: the IT put it in perspective.
Yet the enemy poohpoohs!

[phantom power]

4. I did like the mechanics of his presentation. It was a fancy little venue they constructed.

[jpak]

12. I saw the original author of that data set give that presentation at the National Academy of Science

s several years ago.

He didn't use a mechanical lift to emphasize the point - but it elicited gasps and mummers from the scientists in attendance nonetheless.

Pretty powerful stuff...

[phantom power]

14. I think it's a real stunner for anybody who can read a graph. Lifts or not.

[stuntcat]

5. I'm glad it made Showtime

It's not an action/thriller/blow-out movies but maybe a few more people watched it.
I was afraid to watch it because I get really sad and upset at this stuff but I watched anyway, alone.

[Democrat 4 Ever]

6. I asked a good fundie friend to go see a free screening of "An Inconvenient Truth"

with me Wednesday night, March 14th in Louisville. (She barely "tolerates" my "extreme liberal views") We could make it a evening out, nice meal, movie and discussion.

I thought we could see the movie and then see if she still thought global warming is a concern or not. She refused (surprise, surprise) to go with me to see the movie. There is no global warming because she "trust in the Lord to take care of earth, just like He always has." In the same conversation she did admit to once upon a time really liking Chucklenuts but not as much now. Her husband spends every minute I am around him trying to save my soul.

How to you get through to these people? I mean, honestly, how do you get through? She is 70, a foot washing Baptist friend of 35 years. We go a long ways back and I love her dearly but somewhere along the way either she or I took a wrong turn and ended up in Wackytown. We have always gotten along fine, agree to disagree on matters of religion. That is, up until the last 6-8 years when the Evangelicals decided they mission in life is to not rest until everyone agrees with them.

She and her husband are very well off, have made a lot of money off the backs of people more unfortunate then themselves but they are in the church every Sunday morning, night and Wednesday. They do not have a modicum of compassion for the poor, weak, or infirmed. "They pulled themselves up by their bootstraps - every one else can, too."

I know these people. They are smart, funny, good to family, friends and people they go to church with - but they are mean as a snakes to everyone else. Really. Save that unborn baby but once it gets here let it starve, go uneduated and sick because its parents should have known better than to have sex is their type of reasoning.

Sorry, I just let go of a rant. I have been stewing about this since Friday. "The Lord will protect the earth, just like He always has."

[stuntcat]

9. rant, let it out.

The Lord apparently didn't plan what we've done the last few decades

[Nihil]

22. No reason to suspect that ...

> The Lord apparently didn't plan what we've done the last few decades

Oh I don't know ... the phrase is "The Lord will protect the earth,
just like He always has". Nothing in there about protecting the bunch
of greedy destructive apes that have been trashing it over the last
few millenia, just protecting the Earth in the same way as before ...

It ain't "The Lord"'s fault that some of said apes think that they
are somehow deserving of better treatment ...

:shrug:


(Edit for typo)

[BonnieJW]

11. I know you go a long way back, but

why do you remain friends with unscrupulous, evil people? And they are evil.

[Democrat 4 Ever]

15. Because of personal circumstances I have to see these people

fairly often. I try to make it as quick and painless as possible. I mourn for the loss of a good friend - we still "go through the motions" because of the necessity of seeing each other on a weekly or monthly basis but we both know that we will never be close again. If she had decided to go to the movie with me it would have been the first time in over 10 years that we have done something together. Once upon a time it was a weekly thing for us to go on an "adventure."

I took a shot that enough of our long ago friendship remained and would allow her to open her mind for just a couple of hours. I was wrong.

[ClintonTyree]

13. Good rant...

everyone needs to purge themselves of the bullshit every once in a while. I do it quite often in fact. ;)

There's no reaching these people. They're so convinced that their's is the only RIGHT way to live and act that they automatically shut out everyone else's viewpoint without the common courtesy of examining it first. I have an Uncle like that. If he even SEES a picture of Hillary he covers his eyes, and he watches the news with the sound off so he won't have to hear anything he doesn't agree with. :eyes: In short, he a freaking fruitcake, but he's still family. You'll never "get through" to them so don't bother wasting your effort. As far as them trying to "save" you, tell them that discussions about religion and politics should be avoided among friends if they plan on remaining friends. You're never going to change them nor they you. Let it be.

Good luck. I know exactly where you're coming from here. :)

[phantom power]

7. I also overhead him doing Sagan's "pale blue dot" bit. Did he credit Sagan for that?

[stuntcat]

10. (I use the pale blue dot bit)

on other message boards. Not in those exact three words. But I like pointing out to self-important youngsters the real size of the Earth, the real signifigance of their mighty opinions!
But I didn't know it was Sagan's.

[woodsprite]

8. I've only seend bits and pieces of it. My daughter has seen it

and it watched it again in 8th grade science class last week. That was an interesting experience for her. Her science teacher is a born-again, ex-military, Repub that actually does believe in global warming. Although he doesn't think it's moving nearly as fast as Gore or current science tells us it is. He told the kids it was more like we have hundreds of years to fix it. According to my daughter, the class lamblasted him back about the ice melting much faster than predicted in Greenland, the artic, etc. The polar bears, deforestation and desert creep, etc.

[NNadir]

16. Let me get this straight, the *science* teacher needed correction by the kids?

Something is really, really, really wrong here.

[ramapo]

18. Really wrong but typical

Both my kids were always correcting their teachers. The dumber ones seem to wind up teaching high school. Perhaps the lack of knowledge just isn't as apparent at the lower levels. Their younger teachers (just out of school) were almost uniformly uninformed. The older teachers were generally better, except those suffering from burnout. Those were just awful.

On edit: I forgot to add...this is in a "good" (i.e. wealthy) district.

[NNadir]

19. Actually my son's 6th grade teacher is very well informed.

She treats climate change exactly as it should be treated. No "creationism" in her class, zero.

[phantom power]

20. What's it like to tell a class of 6th-graders that the future is a nightmare?

[NNadir]

21. She doesn't put it in quite those terms.

She states the facts.

My son is optimistic about solutions and even I don't have the heart to tell him what I really think.