Climate Change: An Inconvenient Truth

I agree to a certain extent about Gore. I guess that's the difference between saying things when you're aspiring to power and then doing them when you're in power. Realpolitik, in a word. Bush's 'Who gives a f**k?' line seems to chime with a lot of people. Easier to ignore the problem or pretend it doesn't exist, rubbish the people who say it does, carry on as you are, and hope someday - probably when you're dead and gone and beyond having to worry about it anyway - that someone will come up with a solution (and hopefully one that doesn't impinge too much on comfortable Western lifestyles and mass urban SUV ownership and cheap flights). Recipe for disaster, if you ask me - but then, what's my word against that of nominally the most powerful man on earth? * stops wagging finger, steps off soapbox *

Yeah, AG - that's the extent to which I agree about Gore. I don't think there's usually too much doubt about who's really boss in that relationship. Cheney's probably an exception 'cos he's even more of a basket case than Bush. I guess I'm just a bitter old cynic, but I always think the main priority with any leader once they're in is staying in - so any moves that will disaffect the voters are out. That's why Bush has never signed up to Kyoto and has done little else to address climate change. I can't see Gore running for prez again - he probably has more influence as a maverick figure, anyway. I wonder how quickly Cameron's green paint will fade once he's in. And I can see Tony Blair in about five years' time coming out of the closet and raving on about how the Labour Party needs to return to its socialist roots, reinstating Clause 4, etc. Well, okay - maybe not!

"Is the world getting warmer? Yep, I'm pretty sure it is. Are we the cause? I'm pretty sure we aren't." What makes you so sure, RD? I'm interested to know. 'Cos to me, it's pretty basic cause and effect stuff. You don't need a science degree. If you increase greenhouse gas emissions as a result of industrial activity at the same time as depleting or reducing the effectiveness of natural counteractive resources (carbon sinks, reflective ice caps, etc) as a side-effect of that industrial activity, there has to be an effect. Keep pissing in a clean lake for long enough, and in a great enough volume, and you'll end up with a lake of piss. Do you mean 'principle cause' or 'subsidiary cause' - or are you saying our activities have no effect at all?

Sure, the science is complex - but the basic principles can still be grasped by the average person without too much oversimplification. If a science duffer like me can understand the dynamics of the positive feedback process, the consequences of the reduction of hydroxyl ions in the troposphere, the effects of a reduction of photosynthesis on the production of dimethyl sulphide (a cloud nucleator), the implications that ice cap depletion and ocean warming have in terms of the earth's resistance to UVB rays, etc., etc., then many other people can. As for a definite conclusion... well, the greatest scientific brains on the planet can't come to one. As you say, Maddan, we have to trust what we are told, and choose between the two inconvenient 'truths'. But it's the old thing: whether you're talking about philosophy, politics, religion, art or boy bands - people are usually going to go with an argument that most closely accords with their view of the world and what it's most convenient - financially, morally, politically, aesthetically - for them to believe. The true groundbreakers in any argument like this are the people who, after rationally evaluating all the available evidence, are prepared to accept they may be wrong and to change their lives accordingly. Passivity is easy. All you have to do is nothing.

Whey-hey... I thought I was a cynic. Gore can be a certified basket-case who slept with his mother into his 30s and gave Bill a bj after Monica had finished for all I care. If he's doing something now which is making people stop and think, then power to his good ole elbow, I says. Sooner that than the populist posturing that sometimes appears to be evident in the likes of Michael Moore.

Nihilism would be more like it with some people, AG. Or, simpler even that that, just complete disinterest. "The world's gonna end one day anyway, and we're all gonna be dead probably before it does, so why give a fuck? All this worrying and wrangling and intellectual wanking is just a complete waste of time, 'cos there's things out there to enjoy." That seems to be the subtext.