al gore nobel peace prize? wtf?
 

okeiii....

to be fair, he did invent the internet...

mommy, that man is looking at me funny.

I thought that was The Penguin there for a second.

Is that REALLY such a good thing?

Without the internet, I wouldn't have the unfortunacy of knowing who khchris and Norma J are.

What a porker.

Is it for making a movie out of his power point presentations about Global Warming?

I haven't seen The Inconvenient Truth, but I think Waterworld ran the point home well enough. Maybe Kevin Costner should get a Nobel Peace Prize for warning the world about Global Warming 10 fucking years ago in a brilliant post-apocalyptic film.

Seriously, what is a new scientific theory that is making headwaves? 20 years from now I'll make a film about it and win a nobel peace prize.

British Court Deems Gore Film 'Political'

Friday, Oct. 12, 2007 By WILLIAM LEE ADAMS/LONDON
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Al Gore may have just won the Nobel Peace Prize, but some of his ideas are under fire in the British court system. Showing schoolchildren Al Gore's award-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth is a political act, a High Court British judge has said, ruling on a challenge by a parent to remove the film from secondary schools. Although it does not ban the film, the decision requires that the film be shown with guidance notes to comply with laws prohibiting "partisan" material in the school curriculum.

In his 17-page ruling, published Wednesday, Justice Michael Burton wrote: "It is now common ground that it is not simply a science film although it is clear that it is based substantially on scientific research and opinion but that it is a political film."

The criticism comes after months of legal and political maneuvering. In February, the national government announced plans to send a DVD of the documentary to each of England's 3,385 secondary schools as part of a climate change packet.

In May, Stewart Dimmock, a parent of two from Kent and a member of a local school's governing board, initiated court proceedings to remove the film, which he called "propaganda," from schools. He also gained the support of the New Party, an independent, right of center political party, and launched a website called Straight Teaching, which explains his position.

"I am elated with today's result, but still disappointed that the film is able to be shown in schools," Dimmock said following the ruling. Gore, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize this morning for raising awareness of man-made climate change, has not commented publicly.

While accepting the broad arguments of the film, the judge pointed out nine scientific errors and omissions that he believes Gore raised in the context of alarmism and exaggeration. For instance, Gore refers to a study indicating that polar bears have, in recent years, started drowning as they swim up to 60 miles (97km) in search of ice.

According to Justice Burton, "The only scientific study that either side before me can find is one which indicates that four polar bears have recently been found drowned because of a storm." He also dismissed what he called the film's "Armageddon scenario" in which the world's melting ice caps could cause sea levels to rise by up to 20 feet (6m) in the near future. Such a rise could take place, he said, but "only after, and over, millennia."

There was also not sufficient evidence to back the film's claims that global warming caused Hurricane Katrina, the melting of snows on Mount Kilimanjaro or the evaporation of most of Lake Chad, he said.

Government attorneys amended their existing teacher guidance notes following a preliminary ruling last Tuesday, and specifics of those guidelines were debated with Dimmock's attorneys before the court. Those notes detail, on a scene-by-scene basis, the areas where teaching staffs nationwide will be required to point out opposing arguments and scientific errors.

According to the guidance, which is now available on the government's Teachernet web site, it is designed to help teaching staff "encourage their pupils to assess the validity and credibility of different information sources and explore different points of view so as to form their own opinions."

John Day, Dimmock's attorney, still wants the film removed and has plans to appeal the ruling. He believes the new guidance is no solution.

"It's an unfair burden on teachers," he told TIME, noting that teachers will now need to wade through a 60-page document in order to understand the film's inaccuracies. "At the end of the day, if a teacher makes a mistake, they'll be breaking the law," he said. For already overworked teachers, that's an inconvenient truth indeed.

yeah i read that it features "9 scientific errors", ha ha. i actually havent seen it.

still, he's getting a huge wad of money for the nobel prize.

julian-- waterworld? you actually SAW that? ha ha ha ha

Have you seen the article about the government blaming cows farts for producing more greenhouse gasses than a four wheel drive?

Basically its all the cows faults!

no-- what government?

Only the British Government would be stupid enough to blame cows The US has at least the sense to blame everything on Al Qaeda

From The Times
July 10, 2007


How to stop cows burping is the new field work on climate change








Lewis Smith, Environment Reporter


They have become the fashionable target for environmentalists, but four-wheel-drive vehicles may be less damaging to the environment than the cows and sheep essential to the rural economy.

The methane emissions from both ends of cattle and sheep are causing so much concern in government that it has ordered researchers to find ways to cut down on the emissions from livestock, which account for about a quarter of the methane – a greenhouse gas 20 times more powerful at driving global warming than carbon dioxide – pumped into the atmosphere in Britain. Each day every one of Britain’s 10 million cows pumps out an estimated 100-200 litres of methane.

This is the equivalent of up to 4,000 grams of carbon dioxide and compares with the 3,419g of carbon dioxide pumped out by a Land Rover Freelander on an average day’s drive of 33 miles.

With the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation predicting that methane emissions from livestock could increase by as 60 per cent by 2030, the issue is being treated with some urgency.

Scientists attempting to find new foods for cattle have already exploded the myth that most bovine emissions come from the rear. They have found the majority come from belching.

Attempts to find a diet for cattle that will result in less flatulence are being made by researchers as part of a government-backed project.

A study in New Zealand suggested that the methane output could be reduced by up to 50 per cent and small-scale research in Britain has found that “significant quantities” could be prevented from getting into the atmosphere. A Department for Enivonment, Food and Rural Affairs spokesman said: “Recent research suggests that substantial methane reductions could be achieved by changes to feed regimes in farm animals.

“Improving the longevity of dairy cows may also result in decreased methane production as a result of a reduction in the total number of animals needed to produce the same quantity of milk.”

He added that in the longer term the department was also looking at the feasibility of reducing methane from livestock by genetically engineering the digestive system.

Sheep are now being sealed in polytunnels in field experiments to find out if the results of laboratory tests can be matched outdoors. They were chosen in place of cows because they are ruminant but more manageable for research. Mass spectrometers analyse the air in the polytunnels before the sheep eat and the fug afterwards when they have digested their food.

The key to reducing the methane from livestock is, researchers believe, to make the diet of the cattle and sheep more easily digestible.

Michael Abberton, of the Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research in Aberystwyth, said rye grass with a high sugar content, white clover and bird’s-foot trefoil, a traditional meadow flower also known as “bacon and eggs”, all show promise. “Contrary to popular myth the methane comes mainly from belching rather than from the other end,” he said yesterday. “We know the diet of the animal does have an impact on the methane emissions. There are a range of approaches we can take.

“We are, for example, working on high-sugar rye grasses which are designed to increase the effectiveness of the processes in the animal’s gut.”

Particular effort is being put into investigating how bird’s-foot trefoil can be made to grow more abundantly in pastureland as the tannin it contains is thought to be especially helpful in reducing emissions.

The mechanisms within a ruminant’s stomach that produce methane are not fully understood, but the scientists believe that if they make the food more digestible it will reduce the quantity of methane produced by microbes in the gut.

High-sugar rye grass is already on the market, said Dr Abberton, and has improved milk and meat yield from cattle, but new strains of grass and clover are under development to make them more digestible to reduce the impact of livestock on climate change.

The team of scientists, funded by Defra, believe that farmers will need to be shown additional advantages if they are to be persuaded to go to the expense of introducing new strains.

The £750,000 project, led by the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, will run for three years and will also consider how emissions of nitrogen, another greenhouse gas, can be reduced in livestock. Agriculture accounts for 37 per cent of methane and 67 per cent of nitrous oxide emissions in Britain.

I think the bottom line is don't drive a cow

That Lewis Smith is an unfortunate looking bugger

Or the corrupting left.

yeah thats one of the vegotarian arguments against meat, you hadn't heard before?

Not heard that one before no

Veggies would go to the opening of an envelope if it furthered their arguments

Don't hate on the veggies.

I'm not the biggest fan of PETA, but they also espouse grazing animal emissions as a key element of climate change as well, and apparently there is science to back up the claim. Of course, the total climate effect of grazing animals is not just from biological methane emissions, but rather a culmulative effect when one also considers the energy expended to cut down trees, clear away plant and animal wildlife to make the gazing land, as well as the upkeep of the farm.

And of course as many know, much of the Amazon rainforest has been cleared away to make grazing lands for herd animals. Although, most South American deforestation is actually due to the harvesting of trees that are burnt for charcoal in the process of making steel.

Yeah I saw Waterworld. Dennis Hopper is the villain! :D


To vegetarians being against cows for their emissions- isn't that a good argument for killing cows? And isn't killing cows a good argument for eating cows? I mean, they shouldn't go to waste.

Lastly- what is Global Warming really going to do? There is evidence that warming and cooling is part of the natural climate cycles in the earth. Yes, we are most likely accelerating it- but a super volcano could erupt- kill a bunch of crops, weed out the human population, give us a year or two without summer and start us towards a global cooling trend. Or melting ice caps could alter current flow and cool down the western hemisphere north of the equator significantly.

I think the deforestation of rainforests should be classed as a crime against humanity

What concerns me about the global warming argument is if the scientists dont understand how a cows stomach works how can they really understand something really complicated like an entire planets weather system?

You have a point, but I think the argument is that they shouldn't keep impregnating the cows so they keep producing milk, and then making the cows eat a bunch so they get nice and fat for when they hang them by their feet and slit their throats etc.
Or maybe it's some chemical thing about what they're eating and stuff. I haven't looked into it much, because that's not really the reason I don't eat meat.

I notice that noone is studying how much carbon dioxide the average human breaths out thus contributing to greenhouse gasses

Might be a good reason to not impregnate other humans......

That's because humans are at the top of the food chain and therefore superior to everything.

well cows DO shit a lot and that tends to fuck up the waters, i mean... i havent seen figures about methane though.

oh this is not a discussion im willing or able to have right now (the "office" beckons), but too many cows can fuck up things.

as for global warming-- julian, you tithead, i don't want new york to be underwater.

sure a supervolcano blah blah, but the fact that death is always lurking doesnt make suicide ok. if something wants to kill us, let's fuck it up first, but let's not be so dumb as to kill ourselves.

Eat More Cows!

What they are particularly against is the breeding and raising of herd animals for slaughter in ranch and farm environments.

____________________



I'm not the biggest fan of PETA, but they also espouse grazing animal emissions as a key element of climate change as well, and apparently there is science to back up the claim. Of course, the total climate effect of grazing animals is not just from biological methane emissions, but rather a culmulative effect when one also considers the energy expended to cut down trees, clear away plant and animal wildlife to make the gazing land, as well as the upkeep of the ranch.

And of course as many know, much of the Amazon rainforest has been cleared away to make grazing lands for herd animals. Although, most South American deforestation is actually due to the harvesting of trees that are burnt for charcoal in the process of making steel.

I agree absolutely. It is eco-terrorism plain and simple. And all parties should be required to cease and desist until the issue can be studied further and a solution that makes accomodations for their financial losses can be found. In the end though, I personally couldn't give two shits about their corporate bank accounts on this matter, and this is obviously a measure that should be on the G8 summit priority list. Instead, the G8 are much too busy exploring how they can best continue (in this information age) to politically, economically, and militarily navigate their collaborative plundering of the natural and labor resources of the Third World.


What they've studied through multiple and varied scientific means is the content of the gases in our atmosphere which, in turn, affect the weather, and have noted an unmistakeably increasing percentage of the amounts of the various greenhouse gases radically exponentiating over the last 150 years, thus the cause for global concern. And the science is there. The scientific jury is in, climate change is a reality, and it's not just some eco-scare or, as many politicians with vested interests and the P.R. departments of wealthy multinational corporations would have you believe, some cyclical variant.

http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/sustain...atmosphere.asp

[quote=!@#$%!]well cows DO shit a lot and that tends to fuck up the waters, i mean... i havent seen figures about methane though.

quote]


Well the major problem is not the manure but the other byproducts of digestion. Basically a cow's rumen is a fermenting vat. Wheras our stomachs are acidic (pH of 2-3) in order to denature proteins, sugars, etc to make their absorption possible, ruminants rely solely on bacteria to break down these compounds (with the rumen at a somewhat neutral pH to enable bacterial metabolism). It's similar to what happens when you eat beans, which are made of complex sugars - since they are complex they are not completely broken down, and bacteria in the intestine will break down the remains through fermentation, thus resulting in farts with the release of methane, H2S, etc, some of which are potent greenhouse gases. Then again, this symbiotic relation (ruminant - bacteria) allows them to metabolise cellulose, which we can't.

There must have been some studies done to assess different feed rations to minimize gases - I know that for swines, which are known to release a disproportionate amount of phosphorous in feces in relation to the feed intake, thus leading to water pollution, commercial enzymatic additives are available (known as phytase) to improve its absorption, and lower the P content of slurry/manure. Phosporous being of course one of the major agents of algae blooms, ground water pollution, etc.

[quote=ThePits]I think the deforestation of rainforests should be classed as a crime against humanity
quote]

Deforestation of forests for raising beef will probably increase in the next years thanks to biofuels. Since ethanol has been a hot topic with commitments from at least the US and Canada, grain prices have been increasing a lot (corn first, then the other substitutes in animal feed, which all have an impact on the cost of meat), which makes the beef raised in other regions (e.g. Brazil and Argentina) more attractive and cheaper - production there will thus likely increase and require land, at the expense of the rainforests. I guess that politically there'll be some nice statements but with only a little done in reality to prevent this.

(Edit - the FAO has tons of stuff on deforestation, http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/...385/index.html being an example:

(...)Delegates of the 46 developing countries present at the Rome workshop signalled their readiness to act on deforestation, 80 percent of which is due to increased farmland to feed growing populations. (...))

Pretty much like the worklings of a cows stomach then! With the gasses on the inside

Fruitloop

Thank you for the technical info, I dont have a clue about the subject techy side so it was enlightening. I agree with you that, regretably, more forests will be cleared

We should stop breeding for a while and get a study going on how many humna beings this planet can sustain

Hah.

"He's like the proverbial nut that grew into a giant oak by standing his ground," Patrick Michaels, a scholar with the free market Cato Institute, said in a statement. "We can only hope that he can parlay his prize into a run for the U. S. presidency, where he will be unable to hide from debate on his extreme and one-sided view of global warming."

MSNBC.com

I don't give a shit.

and in doing so you're saving the world!

Saving what world?

It's weird that the Nobel Prize for science is pretty meaningful within the scientific community, and the Nobel Prize for literature at least generally goes to a major author of some sort, while the Nobel Peace Prize is slightly less meaningful than Miss America. Though of course we should be happy that Al wasn't in the swimsuit competition.

Here this guy was the Clinton Administration's salesperson for NAFTA and he's still being touted as Mr. Environmentalist. But then Henry Kissinger won one for losing the Viet Nam War, so it's hard to take this award as anything that should be taken seriously.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_warm_period

Some information on the validity of global cooling and the cyclic nature of global warming. Warning...
Warning...

Might involve reading...

Global Warming needs to be tackled, but I'm worried that too many people are placing too high an emphasis on it and forgetting the issues that are killing people right now: unemployment, poverty, war, healthcare, famine, poor education, crime, urban decline, et al.

It's an easy-out for politicians and business, who get to look good on a global scale through their posturing. Like I said, things need to be done, but a lot of other things need tackling first. Unfortunately, while it's relatively easy to get big business to adopt greener practices, to get the middle-classes to be more responsible with their rubbish disposal, etc. Issues like poverty, crime, healthcare and education call for more difficult, and far less glamorous, solutions.

People will rightly say that if the predictions relating to climate change are right, then we won't have a planet to save from poverty, etc, in the first place. But these are at the end of the day predictions, while deaths are actually occuring now as a result of the other issues.

It's more that in the forseeable future rising sea levels combined with severe drought in many regions and increased storms in others are likely to increase exactly the problems you, er, rail against:

unemployment, poverty, war, healthcare, famine, poor education, crime, urban decline, et al.

Seriously, we count so heavily on crops flourishing in a few places on our planet to then truck them to another, that climate change is likely to have devastating effects in a relatively short term. Which doesn't mean we shouldn't be attacking those problems from both ends.

And of course you don't hear Al Gore, or sadly much of anyone else, talking much about the fundamental root cause of that problem and all of those others: over-population. Hard enough to get Americans, and increasingly China and the rest of the world, to admit that our consumer culture has obvious impacts on the environment - try to get anybody to admit that birth control is a viable solution.

I'm sure that Inconvenient Truth probably makes some valid points about global warming, but it just doesn't take away from the fact that the guy who made it shoved NAFTA down the throat of the American people so that our corporations can go to other countries to skirt what few environmental regulations we have!

If New York goes underwater you can come live in Pittsburgh :cool: