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Banned
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Quote:
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/05/26...rugman.html?hp
A Test of Our Character
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: May 26, 2006
In his new movie, "An Inconvenient Truth," Al Gore suggests that there are three reasons it's hard to get action on global warming. The first is boiled-frog syndrome: because the effects of greenhouse gases build up gradually, at any given moment it's easier to do nothing. The second is the perception, nurtured by a careful disinformation campaign, that there's still a lot of uncertainty about whether man-made global warming is a serious problem. The third is the belief, again fostered by disinformation, that trying to curb global warming would have devastating economic effects.
I'd add a fourth reason, which I'll talk about in a minute. But first, let's notice that Mr. Gore couldn't have asked for a better illustration of disinformation campaigns than the reaction of energy-industry lobbyists and right-wing media organizations to his film.
<b>The cover story in the current issue of National Review is titled "Scare of the Century."</b> As evidence that global warming isn't really happening, it offers the fact that some Antarctic ice sheets are getting thicker — a point also emphasized in a TV ad by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which is partly financed by large oil companies, whose interests it reliably represents.
Curt Davis, a scientist whose work is cited both by the institute and by National Review, has already protested. "These television ads," he declared in a press release, "are a deliberate effort to confuse and mislead the public about the global warming debate." He points out that an initial increase in the thickness of Antarctica's interior ice sheets is a predicted consequence of a warming planet, so that his results actually support global warming rather than refuting it.
<b>Even as the usual suspects describe well-founded concerns about global warming as hysteria, they issue hysterical warnings about the economic consequences of environmentalism. "Al Gore's global warming movie: could it destroy the economy?" Fox News asked.</b>
Well, no, it couldn't. There's some dispute among economists over how forcefully we should act to curb greenhouse gases, but there's broad consensus that even a very strong program to reduce emissions would have only modest effects on economic growth. At worst, G.D.P. growth might be, say, one-tenth or two-tenths of a percentage point lower over the next 20 years. And while some industries would lose jobs, others would gain.
Actually, the right's panicky response to Mr. Gore's film is probably a good thing, because it reveals for all to see the dishonesty and fear-mongering on which the opposition to doing something about climate change rests.
<b>But "An Inconvenient Truth" isn't just about global warming, of course. It's also about Mr. Gore. And it is, implicitly, a cautionary tale about what's been wrong with our politics.
Why, after all, was Mr. Gore's popular-vote margin in the 2000 election narrow enough that he could be denied the White House?</b> Any account that neglects the determination of some journalists to make him a figure of ridicule misses a key part of the story. Why were those journalists so determined to jeer Mr. Gore? Because of the very qualities that allowed him to realize the importance of global warming, many years before any other major political figure: his earnestness, and his genuine interest in facts, numbers and serious analysis.
And so the 2000 campaign ended up being about the candidates' clothing, their mannerisms, anything but the issues, on which Mr. Gore had a clear advantage (and about which his opponent was clearly both ill informed and dishonest).
I won't join the sudden surge of speculation about whether "An Inconvenient Truth" will make Mr. Gore a presidential contender. But the film does make a powerful case that Mr. Gore is the sort of person who ought to be running the country.
Since 2000, we've seen what happens when people who aren't interested in the facts, who believe what they want to believe, sit in the White House. Osama bin Laden is still at large, Iraq is a mess, New Orleans is a wreck. And, of course, we've done nothing about global warming.
<b>But can the sort of person who would act on global warming get elected? Are we — by which I mean both the public and the press — ready for political leaders who don't pander, who are willing to talk about complicated issues and call for responsible policies? That's a test of national character. I wonder whether we'll pass.</b>
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Here's the anecdotal evidence of the "push back"....the propaganda "catapult"....the "Op":
Quote:
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/05/23/gore-movie-g/
Exxon-Backed Pundit Compares Gore To Nazi Propagandist
Sterling Burnett is a senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis, an organization that has received over <a href="http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?id=55">$390,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998.</a> This afternoon <b>on Fox</b>, Burnett compared watching Al Gore’s movie, <a href="http://www.climatecrisis.net/">An Inconvenient Truth</a>, to watching a movie by Nazi propagandist <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Goebbels">Joseph Goebbels</a> to learn about Nazi Germany. <a href="http://images1.americanprogress.org/il80web20037/ThinkProgress/2006/goresmear.320.240.mov">Watch it:</a>
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Quote:
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/05/25/...eview-warming/
FACT CHECK: National Review’s Cover Story Distorts Facts On Global Warming
<img src="http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2006/05/snowjob22.jpg">
The National Review’s June 6 cover story, Scare of the Century by Jason Lee Steorts, has several serious errors and omissions. By distorting evidence, Steorts misleads his readers about the threats of global warming. Here’s a debunk of some of Steorts’s inaccurate claims:
CLAIM: “[T]here is wide disagreement about the extent to which carbon-dioxide emissions are responsible for the warming we’ve seen so far.”
FACT: In 2002, the Environmental Protection Agency concluded that the recent warming trend “is real and has been particularly strong within the past 20 years…due mostly to human activities.”
FACT: The U.S. Climate Change Science Program concluded that humans are driving the warming trend through greenhouse gas emissions, noting that “the observed patterns of change over the past 50 years cannot be explained by natural processes alone, nor by the effects of short-lived atmospheric constituents such as aerosols and tropospheric ozone alone.”
FACT: Science Magazine analyzed 928 peer-reviewed scientific papers on global warming published between 1993 and 2003. Not a single one challenged the scientific consensus the earth’s temperature is rising due to human activity.
CLAIM: “When it’s not even clear that the warming we’ve seen is hurting us — many argue that it’s a boon, citing its benefits to agriculture and its potential to make severe climates more hospitable — such draconian solutions should be unthinkable.”
FACT: The 2001 report by the IPCC finds that global climate change’s “negative health impacts are anticipated to outweigh positive health impacts.” Assuming that current emission levels continue, an increase in heat waves and a deterioration in air quality “will increase the risk of mortality and morbidity, principally in older age groups and the urban poor.” Additionally, any “regional increases in climate extremes (storms, floods, cyclones, etc.) associated with climate change would cause physical damage, population displacement, and adverse effects on food production, freshwater availability and quality, and would increase the risks of infectious disease epidemics, particularly in developing countries.” ..............
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Quote:
http://mediamatters.org/issues_topics/global_warming
# Easterbrook baselessly accused Gore film of lacking "factual precision," ignored his own record of twisting facts on global warming
Friday, May 26, 2006 5:21PM
# Questioning extent of global warming, Beck falsely claimed temperatures "in America are pretty much flat" This article has video.
Friday, May 26, 2006 3:19PM
# Fox News' Hemmer hosted Wall Street Journal's "convincing" Du Pont, who continued to mislead on global warming This article has video.
Thursday, May 25, 2006 2:07PM
# PBS' Ifill failed to identify Competitive Enterprise Institute as conservative, energy industry-funded This article has video.
Thursday, May 25, 2006 1:37PM
# On Special Report, Barnes misled on global warming This article has video.
Thursday, May 25, 2006 12:01PM.....
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Two questions......
If, as the "pro Bush policy oriented media" claims.....Gore is truly "on the fringe".....why has he been right about important issues that the Bush administration has been so wrong about? Did you notice his speech, when he
was making it in 2002?
Quote:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv...ext092302.html
Text: Gore Assails Bush's Iraq Policy
eMediaMillWorks
Monday, Sept. 23, 2002
Following is the text of former vice president Al Gore's speech before the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco:
............ I want to talk about the relationship between America's war against terrorism and America's proposed war against Iraq.
Like most Americans, I've been wrestling with the question of what our country needs to do to defend itself from the kind of focused, intense and evil attack that we suffered a year ago September 11th. We ought to assume that the forces that are responsible for that attack are even now attempting to plan another attack against us. .....
.......... I'm speaking today in an effort to recommend a specific course of action for our country, which I sincerely believe would be better for our country than the policy that is now being pursued by President Bush. Specifically, <b>I am deeply concerned that the course of action that we are presently embarking upon with respect to Iraq has the potential to seriously damage our ability to win the war against terrorism and to weaken our ability to lead the world in this new century.</b>
To begin with, to put first things first, I believe that we ought to be focusing our efforts first and foremost against those who attacked us on September 11th and who have thus far gotten away with it.......
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Why the huge effort now to "push back" against Gore and his movie...if he is on the "fringe" as they claim?
Is America ready to elect someone who is serious? |