You will find my view on the subject at
http://www.cypenv.org/smf/index.php?topic=54.msg210#msg210 as I had
already been asked for my opinion on the film, which I haven't seen!

Brian

MA/NY DDave wrote:
> 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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