Have any of you seen Gore's film? I have not and do not intend to, but my ex showed it to my teenage son and my son said it was HILARIOUS as a piece of fiction. I thought it would be some showpiece with Gore's face in nearly every frame, him holding up a pointer to distorted data on a screen behind him, and images of polar bears struggling in the water. My son says there is a plot and story to the film and it sounded like it was one of those cheapo natural disaster films, with giant tidal waves and a family struggling in the frozen city, etc. Oy vey.
I saw it on a 12 hour flight to Germany, what can I say, I was bored.
It was like watching a Freshman lecture hall presentation, but w/o the opportunity to scope out the room for potential, IYKWIM.
I have seen the film. It is really a poor made film and it shouldn't have won an Oscar.
I think there are a lot of people who get too worked up about this movie. Knowledge is power, and knowing what the movie is talking about gives us as parents insight that we can offer our children.
I believe their is a warming of our planet, but I believe it is from the sun. I also believe that this warming is natural and we can't do anything about it except to adapt.
As for pollution, regardless of whether it causes global warming, we should make efforts to reduce air pollution anyways. I live in the Inland Empire in southern Cal. and I see the crappy air all the time.
The movie "Happy Feet" is also animated environmental porn. It is put together in a slick way so that kids will enjoy it, but it slams industry.
I'm sure more will start popping up.
Perhaps a wicked suggestion here...but if a smart video guy...were to take Al's film...and take 98 percent of the content out and add alot of fake bogus accusations (like cows contribute 80 percent of the methane to the world, with horses contributing 22 percent and finally people contributing 12 percent...someone might actually sit there and realize that you can't have 114 percent). Then you remarket the video as Inconvent Truth Number Two. You have a Al impersonator, who goes around and just says..."ACCEPT the truth!"
I'll bet we can sell 500k copies within two months and clear $1.5 million easily as personal profit.
My 20-something son talked me into seeing it with him recently. It was interesting. The only part that I felt was really over the top was the polar bear scene. Before I watched the movie I felt that there is data suggesting that global warming could be a real phenomenon, but that it hasn't yet been proven that it is a terrible crisis and that proponents are making predictions that have not been supported scientifically. That is the same way I felt after the movie.
The central points made by Gore in the film centered on a graph showing the temperature and CO2 for the last 650,000 years. The fact that these two variables have risen and fallen together over this whole period is very suggestive, but as I recall the film does not answer the question of whether it has been shown that the temperature depends on the CO2 and not the other way around.
Also Gore makes a big point to show how much higher the CO2 is now than it has been at any time over the last 650,000 years. This is true but after watching the film I wondered if Gore had not exaggerated the amount of increase somewhat by not having the bottom of the graph correspond to zero CO2. I would have to see this part of the film again check if he did this.
Basically I would have no problem with older students watching the film as long as there was some classroom discussion of how the data might be interpreted in other ways. There is nothing wrong with provoking thought and discussion. I would be concerned about younger students being shown the film, or if it was not presented with discussion of alternative interpretations and the reasons why some people are skeptical.
To my thinking it would obviously be wrong to somehow prevent young people from seeing the graph presently by Gore as I don't think the actual measurements are in question. Of course the graph could be presented without the movie.
One thing I did like about the movie was that the graphics were presented in an attractive way that might get young people more interested in a discussion of scientific data.