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An Inconvenient Truth
I have been working like a mule this week (going to bed before 02:00 in the morning local time is becoming a rare occasion on this side), so finally I decided to watch a DVD of Al Gore's film An Inconvenient Truth to relax for a change.
This whole discussion kind-of tears me in two. First of all, please allow me to say that I do not like Al Gore. I am suspicious of him for various reasons. Firstly, because he is a politician, and politicians can generally not be trusted. They seem to make a living out of fooling other people.
Secondly, I just don't feel any kind of spiritual connection with him. As a matter of fact, my inner feeling strongly warns me against him. And since I (try) to listen to my feelings, I really have no trust in him whatsoever.
It goes without saying that I heavily oppose pollution. I really care about the environment and since I believe that we are part of nature, we must use it responsibly and protect it as far as possible. Technology that pollutes the environment is old-school, crude shit. Modern technology is (or at least, should be) sophisticated enough to be effective in keeping the environment clean. However, greed often drives people not to upgrade because they want to add yet another billion to their yearly profit.
In many countries like South Africa, forestry is (mostly) done responsibly and in a sustainable manner. However, in many other countries this is sadly not the case. I can find no excuses for these people. That's just terrible and it has to stop.
However, there are a few things I have my doubts about. If the melting of the ice is such a problem, why have we not seen a significant increase in the level of the ocean yet? If you look at the figures of how the temperature is increasing and the ice is melting, I'm sure we must have seen a change by now.
Apparently low-lying countries like the Netherlands will be covered with water if things go on like they are now. Well, if they were smart enough to keep the water out for hundreds of years, I'm sure they'll be able to make a plan now. What they did with water management is flipping awesome. The Netherlands is probably the #1 country in the world when it comes to water technology so maybe their role will become very important in the years to come.
Also, there is a predicted shift in the earth's magnetic field. In other words, the magnetic north pole is supposed to become the magnetic south pole, and vice versa. Many of the natural disasters such as extremes of weather, earthquakes, etc could be attributed to this as well.
Al Gore states towards the end of his movie that the world managed to solve the hole in the ozone layer. I'm not so sure about that. In the southern hemisphere, we had unusually high radiation levels the past summer. Maybe some people are right; maybe the hole doesn't even matter that much. Because if the ozone layer has been strong the past summer, there's something else that is seriously wrong!!!
The earth indeed does have certain weather cycles. This fact cannot be entirely ignored. Although we might be part of the problem, we should keep a clear, scientific point of view on this. I don't care if I am one of the "skeptics", but only a fool believes everything they hear.
Now this really does not matter much to me. We are "teh suck" when it comes to protecting the environment. I am certainly not going to stand around and say all of this is a load of nonsense. I am really happy that these issues are receiving a lot of attention now, and so far I can't see how any bad can come out of it, so I'm all for it.
We are polluting because we are burning coal and abusing uranium. What about some solar panels and wind turbines? What happened to that uber-leet South African solar panel technology that was invented? When will it hit our shops? Or will it be like the coal-to-petrol technology where we are the last to benefit from our own developments?
Copyright © 2004-2009 Charl van Niekerk. All articles are released under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 South Africa licence, unless where otherwise stated.
1 Comments
Comment by
Lifeboy on Monday, July 23, 2007 11:10:00 AM
I share your sentiment re Al Gore. Apart from what you have mentioned, there is also the issue that he picks his "facts" selectively and then applies them to suit his theory/agenda, rather than go about it in a scientific way.
Al Gore skips many, to him inconvenient, truths quite adeptly. For instance, the historical increase in carbon dioxide, which is gleaned from the ice-core drilling projects, clearly follows a rising temperature cycle, not vice versa, yet, because it would seriously handicap his presentation, he fails to mention it.
You should watch "The Great Global Warming Swindle" to see a more scientific angle on the whole matter, some of it by the people that actually originally got the whole ball on man-made global warming rolling.
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