Hard News: I'm in yr Beehive tellin yr MPs about teh internets
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I'm not gonna launch into the climate change thing but Andrew if you put something up like you did then it's at least polite to throw in links to what you have said before so latecomers can catch up.
I only watch an Inconvenient Truth recently and would like to know what it is that was false in it.
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I don't have have a geeky cell in my body, and party because it's so hard to do well.
Craig, I'm waaaay late, but that's a beautiful typo (my bold). I can see the premise of a movie right there.
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Andrew, no no. You publicly put it out there that Al Gore has lied about climate change. So, let's publicly hear those lies and see them for what they are.
Well, I saw the An Inconvenient Truth for the first time a couple of weeks ago, and while I haven't looked into lists of inaccuracies, cannot believe there was not a single New Zealand audience to view his magnum opus that didn't stifle a laugh at the claim that Pacific Islanders were moving to New Zealand because their islands were sinking under rising oceans.
Not 'this might happen if we continue without fossil fuel burning ways' but 'climate change has happened already and the populations of whole Pacific islands have moved to New Zealand'.
Maybe it's the only lie, but given this howler I suspect there might be others.
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lol! sorry i'm a bit slow on the uptake. where would i be without google and the urban dictionary
those crazy walruses, they get me every time
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Graeme...that's your definition of a a howler?
Gosh and golly my heart sinks.
One could be forgiven for thinking that "somewhere else to go" is and will continue to be NZ and Australia.
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Graeme - a good start. I think Chris de Freitas has also made this point.
He made some other rather good points in his NBR article (10 Nov 2006) ... doesn't appear to be online, but it includes a rather lengthy list of points regarding "exaggerated and distorted information" (perhaps not lies per se).
By way of example, de Freitas argues that Gore portrays the summer heat wave in Europe in 2003 as "unusual" when in fact it was due to an anticyclone deflecting warm air from Africa northward, something that has happened 4 times since the end of WW2.
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Don, de Freitas claims "sea level change in the tropical Pacific, such as around Tuvalu, has stabilised over the past 15 years."
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oh well, since we're going hammer and tongs with climate change again...
Graeme might have a point. while it's not a howler, it's stretching the truth a bit - tuvalu-ians might have to move to NZ in the future, but not yet.
i googled these articles which seem to show that the sea level in tuvalu isn't rising (yet?!)
Personally I'm inclined to believe the IPCC - if not because they represent such an overwhelming majority of the scientific community, then definitely because i'd rather we tried to be a bit more sustainable that we really need to be
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Maurice Williamson, who had been regaling me beforehand with tales of how he uses his DVD recorder (he pays his nine year old son $5 for every programme he goes through and edits out the ads from!), certainly seemed to take the point.
What's he going to be minister of when the govt changes next? If he gives out that much money to his son for that, then I might look for a job in his department.
"Yes Maurice, I removed all the tabs from that memo you sent me, and used margin and para indents instead. $50 please."
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Kyle, hey, it's at least a novel way of getting your kids to earn their pocket money doing something that isn't completely 'make work' nor also completely disgusting or tiresome the way most of my childhood chores were. It does amuse me that this kid earned as much from editing the ads out of 4 programs (I'm thinking about 10 mins work) as I used to from 7 hours of paper deliveries, but that's just my 'bad old days' story. I did also get pocket money just for nothing so I can't complain that much.
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Oh, the title of this made me crack up (and search flickr for pics of RussB, the Beehive and cute cats for a mashup) - then Juha's one just made it that much better.
Thanks guys, from the other side of the world (Madison, WI)
:)
"I made you a beehive, but I eated it"
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Mark, the Listener captures not only the idea of uncertainty but also the trend.
Australia’s anti-Kyoto stand has raised issues of NTC’s credibility, but University of the South Pacific oceanic geosciences professor Patrick Nunn says he is happy with that. “What troubles me is that the data is not being interpreted properly by many scientists and that certain political choices are consequently being supported on this basis. The long-term trend in most of the Pacific is sea-level rise.”
Greame seems to apply a legalistic interpretation to scientific investigation and analysis...if there is scientific uncertainty then any conclusion drawn must be lies?
I had not heard of Chris de Frietas before. Is he on the IPCC?
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3410,
I was surprised - although perhaps I shouldn't have been - at the extent to which MPs aren't familiar with the whiffier details of the Copyright Amendment Bill...
I'm surprised you were surprised.
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i'm surprised you were surprised he was surprised.
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maybe we'll get a Pull It Surprise?
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Greame seems to apply a legalistic interpretation to scientific investigation and analysis...if there is scientific uncertainty then any conclusion drawn must be lies?
There is not scientific uncertainty - 100% of scientists everywhere with any knowledge of the situation know that the populations of entire South Pacific Islands have not fled to New Zealand as climate change refugees.
A statement that they may have to leave, or will have to leave if climate change goes unchecked I would not term a lie. A statement that they have left for New Zealand is a lie, or is so reckless and ignorant that it's hard to tell the difference when one is talking about someone with the intellect and knowledge of climate change as Al Gore.
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Hadyn, my Mother always thought of me as a polite sort of lad..I am hurt by being called impolite. I suppose I'll get over it.
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I don't think anyone's doubting that An Inconweenient Truth was a good piece, especially if compared up against any of the excuses for non-fiction Michael Moore has served up recently.
My beans with it though was that it only showed one side of the story, without showing opposing and/or comparative data to give weight to the points it was trying to make. Gore showed some really good graphs, and made some very persuasive points. But a sole graph can be taken out of context, and points can be explained to represent the presenters point of view. If other background/baseline date had been included therein, it would have given the perspective needed to bring weight to the argument. Not that I inherently mistrust Gore . . . just as I don't inherently mistrust Dr. David Bellamy.
I *hated* the whole GE debate because as a biological scientist, I'm well and truly on the other side of it. I know what the facts and reality of the debate (sic.) are, yet had to endure the media's sensationalising of it time and time again. With respect to the whole climate change thing, I'm as un-learned as everyone else . . . I *want* to form my own opinion, but having seen how the mainstream media origami'd the GE thing, I'm loath to take anything I see/read there from that general direction as being solid. I want facts, I need solid data from both sides of the fence before I can decide which sit to sit on. But there just doesn't seem to be a reliable source of good, honest, unbiased information.
An Inconweenient Truth was a good story, but needed more comparative data to give it's claims weight.
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Andrew, it's po-lite brother.
Po-lite, because I could get off my arse and find the links myself (even if it's hard because teh roflcopter made me lmao @ lolrus).
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Russell, did you use visual props?
Like say an ipod, an axe and a large sad face?
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"My beans with it though was that it only showed one side of the story"
I take your point, but a part of me wonders, does every documentary or piece of non-fiction have to pass the 'perfectly balanced/showing both sides of the argument' test?
While that migt be good for some, I think it would mean that convincing the people of anything will become a lot more difficult (and will probably gut the PR industry in a single stoke :))
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it though was that it only showed one side of the story, without showing opposing and/or comparative data to give weight to the points it was trying to make.
Here's an article that looks at the topic from both sides.
I thought that this Independent article was good at putting up both sides and deciding. It is not hard to find facts and figures from both sides and can lead to interesting headaches.
I like the Real Climate site because it is run by Climate scientists and would be interested if a similar sceptics site existed.Sadly all of the ones that I have seen tuen out to be run by the Heritage Institue or an offshoot and usually have some dodgy front person. -
Chaos Buddha, I know what you mean. The global warming debate does have the problem of not being amenable to localized experimentation, so it's not as hard a science as many would like. We can't really prove (or disprove) that humans can affect the climate until we try, which is a huge call. Because trying involves a very costly effort over a very long time.
I was a real climate change skeptic for a looong time, but for me the tipping point was the sheer number of credible scientists thinking there is something to it reaching a sort of critical mass. I don't really care what Al Gore (politician) or David Bellamy (botanist) think about it.
It would be nice if the Kyoto process were approached as an experiment rather than buying into a religion. If after 10 years of most of the major CO2 producers cutting back, we haven't seen any appreciable changes in climate, perhaps it could be scaled back again. Then if we do see changes again, that's another experiment. Naturally those figures are highly political, so a really clear evaluation method needs to be established.
The time using less CO2 doesn't need to be a languishing period though. It could be used as a time to develop more efficient alternatives to fossil fuels, something we certainly will need sooner or later. Even if it's as ungreen as nuclear power, it's still helping us cope with the impending peak oil crisis. We may find quite rapidly that Kyoto is not as costly as it seems. Or not, in which case humans are going to have to suck on it at some point! Wouldn't it be better to do it whilst there is still cheap oil?
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Hadyn, I don't understand you, but I know it's probably all cool. I REALLY must get back to work...
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Chaos Buddha wrote:
With respect to the whole climate change thing, I'm as un-learned as everyone else . . . I *want* to form my own opinion, but having seen how the mainstream media origami'd the GE thing, I'm loath to take anything I see/read there from that general direction as being solid. I want facts, I need solid data from both sides of the fence before I can decide which sit to sit on. But there just doesn't seem to be a reliable source of good, honest, unbiased information.
I know just how you feel. Another good (albeit slightly older) article that tries to look impartially at this debate is from New Scientist:
Climate change: Menace or myth?
We are also trying to put something factual together on this topic for PA Science -- but I am having a hell of a job pinning down one of my interviewees...
Addendum:
I've just noticed that the online version misses out some important information from the print version. I'll see if I can find this elsewhere.
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