Hi BrianE, JoeFj, , , Environet Listservers,
I just saw this movie today. It is currently in limited release before a
larger release very soon. (July I think) Just before the USA's mid term
election season.
Before I went to the movie my wife and I read a few reviews in the Boston
Globe and some of them were critical concerning the surrounding material
put in by the Director/Producer. This material was added beyond the actual
presentation Al Gore gives to an audience. Anyway, I tend to agree with the
critics that some of this added material detracted from the technical; as
well as, the human (human=Gore) elements of the presentation. Again some
human (Gore) stuff was OK, yet some was far too political and seemed sour
grapes. I do not agree with one critic that says he is using this film to
be drafted to run for President.
USA Politics
-------------
What I didn't want to see was a Clinton Democratic (Donkey) vs a
Bush/Cheney Republican (Elephant) slant on things. Sad to say this was too
obvious.
I do agree that the GOP starting with Regean, and compounded by Bush-I
(George II), more heavily compounded by Bush-2 (George III) are the biggest
villians in our current USA/Global situation. What was missing is the
lesser, yet still important Democratic villians / "do nothings". The GOP
first and foremost is leading the people and the media away from truth
towards the war on the perpetual "boggie" man, yet the Democrats aren't
doing much better. Gore does note this bi-partisan failure in the movie,
and presentation, yet doesn't name Democratic names as I believe he should
to make this QW issue a-political, or mutually political.
Without a question NOW the GOP is to blame, mainly because they hold all
the USA political cards and support George III, whether his gang of thugies
is right or dead awful wrong. 2500 USA dead, 6025+ Iraq's in Baghdad in the
Morque since Jan2006, and much greater quantities as a whole due to the GOP.
If leadership was changed, I presently don't believe that the Democrats
would do much better than the GOP. The Donkeys, at present, have a social
chaos agenda they would help prosper way before attacking anything on
Global Warming. Remember the Donkey's were fully responsible for Vietnam
when I was a lad.
USA Jobs Issue / Koyoto
-----------------------
The GOP is made to look really bad on this one, (The Planet vs Gold) yet
from what I have read and watched elsewhere (that I have written about
here) the GOP might have been right to oppose a carte blanche signing onto
Koyoto. If USA Industries are faced with producing goods in the USA versus
China and India that have exemptions(??) the USA or even the EU RICH would
move jobs even faster to these countries and the Global problem would get
worse. It is my belief that the current GOP understands that they can only
drain wages from USA citizens at a slow rate. I mean they still have to be
re-elected by the common voters who are losing medium wages year upon year.
Al showing all the sign-on countries to Koyoto, as if it was the Vietnam
War Memorial didn't do a thing for me. He didn't even stop for me to read
the names. I think I saw the Phillipines.
If Gore had shown the complexity that faces the GOP I would have better
liked his criticim of the GOP.
USA Manufacturing vs USA Retail
-------------------------------
Al G. spent some time berating USA Manufacturing like the Auto Industry. It
seemed to me that he was telling us that all we had to do was go after USA
based manufacturing industries and all would be better.
I do agree with some of his criticisms of the Auto Industry and their
battle with California, yet he is missing the Auto Industry; as well as,
their workers fight for economic profit/wage survival.
When at places like Walmarts and Target, and ?? we in the USA are buying
goods from other CO2 increasing manufacturing countries the issues and
solutions involved are much bigger and difficult than USA based industries.
Al missed this point.
EU / China / India / etc
-------------------------
Al didn't really cover them and their growing threat. My wife says he can't
do everything in the time alloted YET I still fault him for this Huge
error. I mean it is GREAT to criticize yourself, as you should, yet you
better open your eyes and have wide peripheal vision so you and those
beyond you understand the complete picture.
Scaling / Human Emotions/Sensory Sensitivity
--------------------------------------------
One of Al's graphs had a Y axis with a range of only 1 degree.
Globally on average we are talking about small changes or .1 degrees to 1.
As my wife and I walked from outside which was quite warm to inside which
was at least a 10 to 15F degree drop I noted that this was one concept that
needed to be better communicated. I.E. How we as humans perceive with our
senses and memory temperature and it's seasonal or local change over 10, 20
or longer years could have been put in perspective with things like our
body temperature of 98.6 and our waking, sleep, fever temperatures so we
might better understand the balance that is our Earth, Tera.
Lack of References / Furthur Reading
------------------------------------
As I wrote back to CA-JoeFj, on this list back awhile ago, this was one of
my biggest concerns, particularly for engineers or scientists not as
accomplished as Brian. Al failed miserably in this regard to give and
promote references and furthur readings.
At the end of the movie I wanted to see first
1)Where is the data, the information, the continual education
2) Action Items
1) Where is the data, the information, the continual education
-^ This was a weakness throughout his presentation
-^ He named buddies, people who have added to his presentation.
-^ Yet he didn't give references for private reading.
-^ Al didn't even really show all their photos.
-^ Thus his information becomes linked to his, Gore's, integrity.
(Since I remember Al not speaking out strongly against Billy
(Clinton I, for one, question his balanced view of integrity)
2) Action Items
Al presumed this was all we needed to fight the battle
^ So we go lots of Action Items.
Good Stuff to Make us see: As if on the Moon
--------------------------------------------
Sometimes you need to back away from a problem and see things from a very
high vantage point. As engineers we like to crawl inside a problem and
solve the details, or complain about how they are, or not, being solved.
This is great, yet sometimes we have to stand a long distance away and just
make an observation.
Al did good showing many parts of our world that in terms of ice, snow,
drought or drastic weather have changed dramatically. Iceland, Antartica,
Canada, New Orleans, Japan, Africa, India, China.
Conclusion
----------
Everything that wishes to add value to our planet, and our planets' people
adds value in one way or another. So even though I wished Al did a better
job to give us ammunition to feed our Global or USA politicans he did good.
Hopefully AlG can give us Version 2.0
i.e. not 1.6
Yours in Engineering, Dave
YiEngr, MA/NY DDave
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