Al Gore, Stand-up Comedian

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There is a web site called http://www.ted.com that calls itself "TED: Ideas worth spreading."

TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from those three worlds. Since then its scope has become ever broader.

The annual conference now brings together the world's most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes). It presently includes a presentation by Al Gore that was created after An Inconvenient Truth. The first half is Al Gore, the stand-up comedian. I was always perplexed at the critics that called his personality to be "wooden." I personally was pleasantly surprised at how animated he was in the 2000 campaign, especially the "debates" (I agree that they are really joint press conferences). You can see an update to his famous PowerPoint presentation at http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/1.

The site says

About this Talk

With the same humor and humanity he exuded in An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore spells out 15 ways we can address climate change, from buying a hybrid car to inventing a hotter brand name for global warming. First, though, comes a hilarious set of stories from The New Gore, who turns out to be a stand-up comedian. The former Vice President has plenty of joke material, and he's funnier than you've ever seen him. Then he gets down to grittier matters with a list of actions ordinary people can take to stem the tide of global warming. His message: Doing something is easier than you think.

Sounds like a winner to me.

Global Warming: A Divide on Causes and Solutions

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From the highly respected Pew Research Center for the People and the Press comes a research article from January 2007 showing that a large majority of Americans (77% and more) report they believe the earth is warming, but under half believe it is due to human activity. The information about this article comes from The Pew Research Center.


Ironically, the article begins by noting the unusual weather that had preceded its publication in the winter of 2006-2007 and before the incredible summer weather we are experiencing from serious flooding in the midwest to unprecedented heat in a very larger portion of the central and southern U.S. Amazingly, "global warming" ranked dead last in a list of 23 items about which the respondents were polled. Only the Chinese in an earlier study expressed less concern than U.S. citizens. That's alarming when you consider that the U.S. and China are at the very top of the list of polluters contributing to global warming.

In addition, the Pew Research Center found that conservatives are far less concerned about global warming than liberals. Although it comes as no surprise, when I consider it I would like to better understand why conservatives are far more sanguine about global warming than liberals. Some probable answers are the misperceptions that addressing global warming means more government spending and, therefore, an issue conservatives would rather ignore or, perhaps worse, discredit. As I recall Al Gore explaining when he ran for president in 2000, the irony here is that there is money to be made in the private sector by companies that work on technologies to "fight" global warming such as any technologies that reduce the introduction of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and technologies (including plants) that will help suck CO2 out of the atmosphere. I invite the experts to comment here on technologies to lower carbon emissions, and the one elephant in the living room are the oceans that cover 2/3 of the earth. Perhaps they hold the key, but I won't pretend to be an expert on oceans and CO2. I plan to become one, however.

All images are courtesy of Pew Research Center for the People & the Press and were accessed from http://pewresearch.org/pubs/282/global-warming-a-divide-on-causes-and-solutions. on 27 August 2007.

Gore-backed group will spend big to convince Americans climate change is real

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Greetings and salutations from Atlanta where we seem to have put an end to the 2 weeks or more of 100 degree plus temperatures. We're now in the mid-90s, nearly 15 degrees above normal. Certainly any give day's weather is not necessarily an indication of climate change (or calling a spade a spade, Global Warming), but I'll bet there are plenty of farmers in the U.S. who have to wonder if 2008 will be the next year to break the string of hottest years on record that we have seen in the last decade.

In an article published over a year ago, Amanda Griscom Little wrote from

http://www.grist.org/news/muck/2006/05/19/gore/index.html:

Think you've been hearing a lot about global warming lately? If a new climate-focused group hatched by Al Gore has its way, you ain't seen nothin' yet.

After nine months of behind-the-scenes planning and wrangling, the Alliance for Climate Protection is now nearly ready for prime time. Gore spoke about the alliance in an exclusive interview with Muckraker. He said the group aims to raise big bucks for a single goal: "To move the United States past a tipping point on climate change, beyond which the majority of the people will demand of the political leaders in both parties that they compete to offer genuinely meaningful solutions to the crisis."

It is my personal desire to "get certified" as an expert on "climate change" but the last I checked, the Gore folks had been overwhelmed with recruits and they weren't taking any more. I will see if I can climb about the train anyway (and remember, it's always better to climb on board the train than to get run over by it).

So what if the earth warns a degree or two, right?

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Source: http://www.ethicurean.com

Whenever an expert on Global Warming comes on television, for example, and tells the interviewer that "we can expect global temperates to increase 1 degree Fahrenheit every x number of years if we continue on our current path," the average Jo will say, "What? A degree? Who cares! That means it will be 74 instead of 73. Big deal!" I confess when I was perhaps a teenager and some foresighted scientists such as the ones measuring increasing carbon levels from high atop a mountain in Hawaii, far away from local polluters may have made this warning, I probably thought the same thing. Those of us who lived in the north probably thought "Good! Less snow!" (I happen to like snow, so I would not have been as enthusiastic.)

I've discovered a way to explain this to even the most doubting of Thomases:

Your job is to increase annual world temperatures by 1 degree Celsius in three years. How are you going to do it?

Give me feedback on this, let me know if this explanation works, because what it shows the army of Doubting Thomases is that to increase global temperatures by 1 degree Celsius (or Fahernheit, but Celsius is a little more dramatic) would require an outrageous amount of energy. Next, add up just how much energy would be required to raise global temperatures 1 degree C. If you even try to get your mind around this, I think you can understand that this is a tremendous amont of energy in our atmosphere and it clearly will lead to dramatic changes in the weather. Hurricanes may get most of the attention, and they should because they are nature's way of venting heat energy from the ocean back into the atmosphere.

The Weather Naysayers Meet the Doomsayer

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I found it almost comical that a group including local television weathercasters came out a few years ago with a strong statement that global warming didn't exist, we were just experiencing normal fluctuations in the weather. Uh....yeah. It seemed to me these folks were saying "We're the experts around here. And since so many non-experts are talking about Global Warming, we're going to chip in and say "It doesn't exist!" Yes, you've seen the certificate of approval that Jo Weathercaster is "endorsed" by the American Meteorological Society.

(cue the music)

Well, they have changed their tune. In their 2007 report, Climate Change: An Information Statement of the American Meteorological Society (http://www.ametsoc.org/policy/2007climatechange.html accessed 26 August 2007), here is one example of the 180 degree change: "Global mean temperatures have been rising steadily over the last 40 years, with the six warmest years since 1860 occurring in the last decade." (Anecdotally or if you have been watching the weather including the dramatically large number of wild fires around the earth, 2007 will be the hottest year on record.) In addition, this paragraph comes in the very beginning of the report:

"Why is climate changing?"

Climate has changed throughout geological history, for many natural reasons such as changes in the sun’s energy received by Earth arising from slow orbital changes, or changes in the sun’s energy reaching Earth’s surface due to volcanic eruptions. In recent decades, humans have increasingly affected local, regional, and global climate by altering the flows of radiative energy and water through the Earth system (resulting in changes in temperature, winds, rainfall, etc.), which comprises the atmosphere, land surface, vegetation, ocean, land ice, and sea ice. Indeed, strong observational evidence and results from modeling studies indicate that, at least over the last 50 years, human activities are a major contributor to climate change.

I've mentioned earlier my personal criticism of The Weather Channel as a huge player in the Global Warming discourse that has also been extremely cautious about "climate change." Now they are running "Storm Stories" that include mini-documentaries about climate change. This is good news.

I'll bet Bob Reiss got a lot of negative feedback when he had the courage (?!) to publish his book "way back" in 2001, The Coming Storm: Extreme Weather and Our Terrifying Future (Hyperion. 2001. 323 pages.) This is amazing coming about 7 years ago:

Journalist Reiss takes us to the front lines of some of the decade's most destructive storms and describes global warming through the eyes of those most involved—researchers, meteorologists, and the families that have been affected. A frightening, enlightening, and fascinating portrait of climate changes and its impacts. Check price/buy book.

Source: World Future Society Book Store, http://www.wfs.org/bkblurbs.htm#malthus, accessed 26 August 2007.

I posted this because I was on the WFS web site, but it's probably a better idea to post books that try to discount or refute global warming, because those authors and their followers are unlikely to pursue lifestyle changes that all of us need to proactively begin to change.

Arctic Warming: Scenarios for 2040

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In the current issue of The Futurist (September/October 2007), there is a cover story called Thinking About the Arctic's Future: scenario for 2040:

The warming in the Arctic could mean more circumpolar transportation but also an increased likelihood of overexploited natural resources. An Arctic researcher explores the challenges and opportunities of this key region.

The article is available for purchase at http://www.wfs.org/Sept-Oct07%20files/FuturecontSO07.htm but this publication should be available even in local public libraries. It's worth noting that The World Future Society has no stake in forecasting global warming one way or another, but it's very responsive to what's happening. Of all the people on earth, futurists are surely among those most concerned with global warming because they understand its possible implications for the future. In fact, a search of "global warming" in the search box provided at http://www.wfs.org/ produces a plethora of articles from The Futurist. If you're serious about doing something about Global Warming, The World Future Society is an appropriate group to join (understand that Global Warming is not its focus, but it's so important that it is a very hot topic (no pun intended) for this group).

Among the many resources at is a bookshelf with titles such as The Carbon Buster's Home Energy Handbook by Godo Stoyke. New Society Publishers. 2006. 170 pages. The following breif overview of the book is incliuded:

Paperback. Stoyke, president of Carbon Busters Inc., systematically analyzes energy costs and evaluates which measures yield the highest returns for the environment and the pocketbook. The book provides answers to questions such as: Which measure is more effective, putting solar panels on your roof or buying a hybrid car? Where do I need to invest first: in high-efficiency shower heads or solar tubes? Is a $500 fridge that uses 800 kWh of power per year a good buy? The goal of the handbook is to enable readers to dramatically reduce their carbon emissions. Check price/buy book.

More-Fertile Forests Can Fight Greenhouse Effect

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Increasing the growth of trees in forests through intensive
fertilization may increase the amount of carbon that the forest
absorbs, thus helping to slow global warming.

Experiments in a spruce forest by the Swedish University of
Agricultural Sciences show that the forest could triple its growth if
the trees have access to all plant nutrients, particularly nitrogen.
This extra growth offers not only an improved carbon sink, but also an alternative source of fuel to replace fossil fuels, which would also
help reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, the researchers note.

SOURCE: Swedish Research Council, http://www.vr.se/english/