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JDC

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An Inconvenient Truth opens in the Triangle next week (catch it early ~ Thursday, June 15 at The Carolina Theatre in Durham :thumbsup: ). Anyone out there heard about this film? I figure it fits in with this forum because it's about global warming and there's often discussion about transit and "alternative" methods and fuels here.

I hope this doesn't turn into an Al Gore bashing...

An Inconvenient Truth official site

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It's at the Colony Theater in Raleigh.

1:30 4:00 7:00 9:30

Just be careful that if one person leaves the movie theater for a moment to grab a snack, you don't assume that everybody is going to continue leaving and it will make you have to leave and that the theater is closing for business which will cause the shopping center to close and make the police shut down the block which will make the Governor call in the National Guard which will cause the Iraq War to end because we have to start saturation bombing the shopping center until the earth's core melts and causes the earth to explode and make us all live on Mars with down jackets on until our brains freeze and the entire human race is eliminated. ;) (Just playin' wichya)

I found this neat way of searching Google for Raleigh movie listings by movie, not by theater. This is the link, and it also is linked in the Raleigh Info section of Raleighing's right-hand column.

http://www.google.com/movies?hl=en&q=movie...G=Google+Search

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I saw this in Charlotte on Friday. Wow. The reality is very scary... a much needed smack-and-shake wake up call. Sadly, I doubt anything will change our course until our low-lying coastline is 20ft under water. People in Orlando are gonna make a killing with their soon-to-be oceanfront property.

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Why are we to expect that the coastlines won't change? It's changed for centuries upon centuries before the industrial age began. Did the movie discuss constant irregular energy pulses from the sun? Is it remotely possible that our powers to change the earth, positively or negatively, are misunderstood?

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I'm not really sure that the coastlines of the world have changed all that much within the last several thousand years. The movie dealt directly with increased CO2 levels in the atmosphere (exponentially over the past few decades) and the direct correlation of those higher levels and the melting of the ice caps, as well as glaciers, snow-covered mountaintops, etc. The photo documentation of this was quite chilling. Pictures of glaciers in Switzerland in the 1930s that had been there for thousands of years and are now either completely gone or reduced to not much more than an overgrown icicle. I don't think phenomena like irregular sun-pulses could account for the the dramatic and relatively sudden disappearance of the eight or so examples shown.

And it's not just higher sea levels. Increased atmospheric and ocean temperatures lead to stronger, larger, and much more frequent hurricanes/typoons as well. We've seen evidence of that over the past couple of years.

If you haven't seen the documentary yet, you owe it to yourself to do so at some point. I'm not a Greenpeace radical or anything of the sort, but it was hard to dispute what was presented. And as for us changing the earth for the positive... frankly, I don't think it's possible. We can only hope to do as little damage as possible.

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The thing that bothers me is this...a few small changes by EVERYBODY--as the movie suggests--would really go a long, long way. But it seems that many people are unwilling to make these changes. For example, a coworker and I were discussing SUVs. She said, "Well, some people just want SUVs, and they're willing to pay the money to gas them up and that's their personal choice". It seems like everybody has that attitude--I'm going to do what I want to do, and not really think of the consequences or how they affect anyone else.

That's why I think it sort of comes down to leadership on the part of government officials (i.e. creating standards for gas mileage on cars and other laws that would help the environment), and also showing this documentary (or others like it--CNN had a really good one that was very similar) to children as youngsters so they can grow up in with positive habits (recycling, using low-flow shower heads, washing clothes in cold water, limiting trips by car, etc.)

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The thing that bothers me is this...a few small changes by EVERYBODY--as the movie suggests--would really go a long, long way. But it seems that many people are unwilling to make these changes. For example, a coworker and I were discussing SUVs. She said, "Well, some people just want SUVs, and they're willing to pay the money to gas them up and that's their personal choice". It seems like everybody has that attitude--I'm going to do what I want to do, and not really think of the consequences or how they affect anyone else.

That's why I think it sort of comes down to leadership on the part of government officials (i.e. creating standards for gas mileage on cars and other laws that would help the environment), and also showing this documentary (or others like it--CNN had a really good one that was very similar) to children as youngsters so they can grow up in with positive habits (recycling, using low-flow shower heads, washing clothes in cold water, limiting trips by car, etc.)

The centrality of price is everything. You're right that most people don't live consciously, but so many signals they get from the structure of our current way of life encourage them to be selfish. Just look at the price of a gallon of gas in Europe, and look at the size of cars people drive there, and look at the amount of quality farmland available near cities, and it's very easy to see that this stuff doesn't happen by accident.

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I just got back from seeing this. WOW, it really opened my eyes even further to the problem. We really are in trouble unless something is done soon. Seeing how the polar ice caps are melting away, the effects on temperature, huge storms (Katrina), species dying off, new viruses (SARS, avian flu, etc) spreading rapidly, etc... it's really overwhelming. I am aware of the problems and I think I do a lot to help (walk to work, live in a compact space, limit driving, recycle, etc.) but I know that we all must do more... drive more fuel-efficient cars, use less energy, vote green, etc.

Please see this film. It will open your eyes.

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I'm curious why we should think Gore is qualified to speak on this subject.

Global warming has been his #1 issue for about 30 years. He has studied all the scientific data for many years, held congressional hearings, given 1000s of presentations, etc. He knows what he's talking about. Coming out of the movie, I couldn't help but wonder how many ppl would have the reaaction "here goes left-wing wacko Al Gore again..." So many people have a distorted view of the man thru the media. He's been painted so far out of the mainstream, that I wonder if moderates and right-wingers will take him seriously.

If we let politics get in the way of this issue, we'll all be in trouble. As I said, just watch the movie.

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Sounds like politics will be the last thing on our minds when Mother Nature comes to call.

I hope the movie does well and is taken seriously by policy makers who can rise above the infighting and understand we're all in the same boat. Haven't seen it yet, myself, but it's on the list.

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I think Gore's credibility is a major issue. He IS NOT a scientist and probably doesn't understand any of the data-this is complex climatology/ecology data that is still being debated in the scientific community today. Remember, Gore is the self-proclaimed developer of the internet and the inspiration of the movie "Love Story" (which wasn't true). I don't dispute the potential for global warming but Gore is a megalomaniac.

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He IS NOT a scientist and probably doesn't understand any of the data-this is complex climatology/ecology data that is still being debated in the scientific community today.

Does he need to be? The issue, like any, needs a champion, not a data-driven scientist to lead the charge. And BTW, the data is NOT under debate.

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It's beyond me how people can refuse to believe that there is a HUGE problem. The #1 US scientist on global climatic change, who works for NASA came out and stated on 60 minutes a few months back that his reports on climate change had been heavily edited by the admin's environmental "czar," who is an oil industry exec with zero scientific training whatsoever....

Hansen is arguably the world's leading researcher on global warming. He's the head of NASA's top institute studying the climate.

What James Hansen believes is that global warming is accelerating. He points to the melting arctic and to Antarctica, where new data show massive losses of ice to the sea.

Is it fair to say at this point that humans control the climate? Is that possible?

"There's no doubt about that, says Hansen. "The natural changes, the speed of the natural changes is now dwarfed by the changes that humans are making to the atmosphere and to the surface."

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I think Gore's credibility is a major issue. He IS NOT a scientist and probably doesn't understand any of the data-this is complex climatology/ecology data that is still being debated in the scientific community today. Remember, Gore is the self-proclaimed developer of the internet and the inspiration of the movie "Love Story" (which wasn't true). I don't dispute the potential for global warming but Gore is a megalomaniac.

Are you kidding me dude. Who cares if Gore is a scientist or not. The facts are there. GLOBAL WARMING IS REAL; THE DEBATE IS OVER. At least Gore isn't spending 300 billion dollars on a war that seems to be getting worse and worse every day.

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