A Hoax to Raise Our Consciousness
Emmerich's The Day After Tomorrow has generated a lot of publicity and a lot of "dialogue" by positing a doomsday scenario that is only slightly more realistic than the alien invasion scenario that was the centerpiece of Independence Day (or the giant nuclear lizard that wreaked havoc in Emmerich's update of Godzilla). [Full Article]
Comments (25)
I don't wish to comment on fictional movies that I haven't seen, but as a professional meteorologist I cannot agree with Mr Carden's comments that global warming is "minor" and one of the "ultra-low probability (and ultra-overrated) disasters". The link between fossil fuel burning, the increase in atmospheric CO2 and the consquent global temperature rise is scientifically proven. It will lead, this century, to the destruction of much of the environment upon which mankind depends. "As people get richer, they demand cleaner natural environments", he writes. On what planet does he live? One where all of the people get all they demand because they are always getting richer? That's not the world I know. But I do agree with him on one thing. Kyoto is expensive and insufficient. But it would be a start. And if we don't implement it, it will look cheap with hindsight.
Published: June 15, 2004 1:18 PM
Mr. Taylor: Could you provide links to this proof of the link between CO2 and global warming that you refer to? All I have seen in regards to this "proof" thus far is empirical pseudo-science.
This movie is nothing but interventionist propaganda. Beyond earning profits, the makers of this film intend to scare the public into seeking more government intervention and more destruction of free markets.
The truth of the matter is that the free market has a vested interest in the environment. No company that I know of wants to be seen as a destructor of ecology, this would surely be a fast route to loss of sales & profits. Furthermore, technology has enabled companies to vastly improve the cleanliness of their operations. There simply is no incentive for the free market to not employ these technologies, for the reason mentioned above.
Published: June 15, 2004 2:02 PM
I too would love to see some "proof". But all I have witnessed from "political scientists" on this subject is a lot of hot air. ;-)
Temperatures have been rising and falling for thousands of years. Real scientists have documented temperature ranges far in excess of anything that has been recorded since the industrial age began. To claim that a 1 degree rise in temperature during the 20th century is the result of human activity is high comedy, and truly gives a whole new meaning to the term political science.
We may well be headed for a dramatic increase in global temperature. In fact, if the geologic record is any indicator, it is quite certain that we are, since we have in the past, and there is simply no reason to assume that these cycles won't continue. It is also just as certain that we are headed for another ice age, at some time in the future. Whether the ice age or the much higher temperatures come first, and when the significant change will happen, is anyone's guess, and there are several plausible theories predicting one or the other.
The only thing that is certain, is that the climate will change, quite dramatically, eventually. What's very unlikely, is that anyone alive now will ever see it. And the assertion that human activity has definitely influenced the climate in any way is simply absurd. I'm not saying that human influence on climate isn't possible, just that the assertion that it has been proven is laughable.
Published: June 15, 2004 5:01 PM
There are two links here which firstly show that CO2 has negligible effect on the Greenhouse effect http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/ccc/ce120799.html
and secondly historic CO2 levels have been severely downplayed or plain omitted oe lied about http://www.warwickhughes.com/icecore/
Jaworowski's submission to the US Senate hearings is pointed and accurate.
I add that CO2 levels currently are 0.038% by volume of the atmosphere, and that human contribution to date is 0.0012% vol. As Hoyle and Wickramasinghe showed in 1999 - it is water vapour which is the dominant greenhouse gas - not CO2 and certainly not methane (CH4).
www.henrythornton.com has various comments on this in its SMERSH section and we often link to the Mises site too.
Published: June 15, 2004 6:00 PM
The Kyoto protocols have nothing to do with saving the environment. It's just a tool for the government to control all of our energy resources and seemingly create an endless stream of crises, like what has happened in California.
I know several geology/earth and planetary science majors through my undergraduate years, and they all said global warming is pure B.S. The earth may be warming, but to blame it solely on humanity or even humanity's contribution alone is complete garbage. The earth was much warmer than it is now at several points throughout history (remember the dinosaurs?). We don't know why climate change occurs, why we go through ice ages, etc. Is it the earth's position to the sun and its orbit that changes? Is it geological and volcanic activity that causes the changes? No one has a definitive answer, period, and the evidence suggests that no matter what humans do, we can't control how the globe's climate changes, even if we set up 1000 factories that did nothing but pumped freon into the earth's atmosphere 24/7. Making conclusions based on 50-100 years of CO2 data is BAD SCIENCE, especially when climate changes take so long to occur. It would be like me measuring sampling points in nanoseconds for the time it takes a snail to crawl a mile.
Published: June 15, 2004 8:41 PM
What he is pointing out is the law of diminishing marginal utility. If you have alot of something, you value any subsequent unit less.
Hence, when people get more material goods and such, the value of the environment relative to convenience and wealth increases.
Published: June 15, 2004 9:19 PM
Marxism may be dead, but the kind of people that followed it are still around. The Marxists of old were replaced by the "population boom" theorists and now by the "global warming" theorists. They grasp each subject as well as Marxists grasped economics...
Published: June 15, 2004 10:25 PM
Someone asked for a link to scientific proof of global warming. Here is a credible scientific article by Henrik Svensmark.
http://www.dsri.dk/~hsv/new_sven0606.pdf
I give this link since it provides an alternative (and more credible?) explanation of global warming. However, the major causal effect is identified as variations in cloud cover. Clouds form as a result of cosmic rays bombarding the upper atmosphere. (This appears to be the same effect used by Wilson Cloud chamber to detect cosmic rays in the laboratory.) The number of cosmic rays entering the atmosphere in turn depends heavily on sunspot activity – sunspot are magnetic storms that deflect the charged cosmic rays so that the do not hit the Earth. Results are correlated with experimental data over thousands of years.
There are other theories that predict why Arctic and Antarctic snow packs are melting – this is simply due to underwater volcanic activity.
If you want the mother of all natural disaster theories, some scientists are looking at the Lake Toba volcanic eruption that occurred 75,000 years ago – it is theorized that this massive eruption threw enough lava, CO2 and SO2 into the atmosphere to kill all but 10,000 of the human race. Recent mitochondrial DNA studies appear to support this hypothesis. The current caldera of concern is in Yellowstone National Park and it is active. When this eventually erupts, it is predicted that 2500 cubic KILOMETERS of ash will be thrown into the air. This will devastate everything in a 300 km radius. Here is a link to the BBC Horizon show.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/1999/supervolcanoes.shtml
On the topic of the original post, did anyone else notice that the plot was a rip-off from Austin Powers “Goldmember�. Dr Evil developed a tractor beam, called Preparation H that will cause a meteor to crash into the polar ice caps and cause global flooding? Unless, of course, the US pays him one hundred billion, trillion, gazillion, bipitty-boppity boo dollars. (Or spend a similar sum implementing the Kyoto Treaty Protocol!)
Published: June 15, 2004 11:33 PM
That remark about genetically engineered foods is the only problem I have with this article. Those foods are dangerous on at least four grounds:
1. No one knows the long term effects of eating the foods, so the entire population of the US is being unknowingly subjected to a giant experiment.
2. A company in Tx named Protogen was fined 150 million dollars after putting some disease agents in corn which was in turn feed into the general public's food supply. I believe a fast food outlet that serves Tacos had customers that experienced negative side effects from this simple act. Although I cannot find the article on that incident, this link http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/07/09/1057430279267.html?oneclick=true provides a concise listing of the arguments against GMO foods (some of which I have duplicated below)
3. It monopoloizes agriculture by concentrating seed production within a few giant food producers. No longer can the farmer grow his own seed, he must purchase it anew each year. What happens if the seed producers can't make seed available one year?
4. It turns an agricultural process into a manufacturing process and turns what should be entrepernuel farmers into workers for the big food growers/producers.
For more advanced discussion on this topic go to acresusa.com
Published: June 16, 2004 1:31 AM
I am only going to make one comment on "global warming" and its relationship to human activity - it isn't proven, nor is it likely to be proven, in our lifetimes.
To the more general point about pollution, I have several comments. First, anyone who believes that Western Civilization is causing increasingly rapid environmental degradation is a nut not worthy of an argument. I have worked in the environmental field for 15 years, and I can tell you that not only have environmental regulations stopped most kinds of toxic pollution dead in their tracks, but the subsequent devolving regulatory power to the states regarding existing messes, and allowing application of property-rights concepts such as voluntary agreements and "brownfields" have significantly increased the efficiency of cleanup efforts. Finally, the governments of the United States and the countries of the former Soviet Union are the absolute worst environmental offenders. What does this say about the ability of national governments to craft effective environmental solutions?
Published: June 16, 2004 8:45 AM
"Diarrhea—easily preventable, easily treatable—kills more children than any other disease on earth. Official injunctions against DDT brought about a resurgence of malaria in poor countries and are responsible for millions of deaths."
Art, eliminating diarrhea or malaria would save people, but that is not the environmentalist's goal. People, after all, are the problem. They are a blight on the cherished beauty of Earth. Kyoto is not about saving people, but saving the Earth from people.
Published: June 16, 2004 1:39 PM
One theory of global warming has to do with the location of the earth's solar system in the Milky Way (suggested by 2-science professors, one from Carleton University and a collegue from University of Ottawa). Water vapour is more of a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.
On the subject of hoaxes aimed at raising conciousness, there were undertakings aimed at ending world hunger and world poverty, by raising conciousness through mental telepathy. The basis this hoax was the story entitled THE 100th MONKEY, which was based on flawed science. It suggested that macaques living on different islands off Japan had acquired a new behaviour as a result of mental telepathy. It was believed that macaques did not swim between islands. The particular behaviour began with one monkey on one island. Its troop mates quickly mimicked that behaviour. The myth of monkey mental telepathy was exposed when later investigations revealed that a small number of the macaques actually did swim between the islands off Japan.
Despite the 100th monkey hoax having been exposed many years ago, the hoax that conciousness can be raised through mental telepathy to solve social problems, still persists up to the present day. The movie THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW is as big a hoax as the 100th monkey story. However, both these hoaxes will persist as a means of raising both conciousness as well as funds for dubious projects.
Harry Valentine
Published: June 16, 2004 1:58 PM
Editor:
Mr Carden's thoughtful article on Mr Emmerich's new movie deserve the widest possible audience. He hits the nail on the head quite a number of times.
And yet I cannot help but think that, given all that, he might not have bothered to write the article. Modern movies generally are hopelessly bad, made as they are by people who are barely literate and who certainly have not the slightest acquaintance with history, science or art. Mr Emmerich is hardly an exception. His ineptitudes cause laughter from knowledgeable film fans, even though his nonsenical works sometimes find an audience (a truly depressing thought). However, I still think it unlikely that such amateurish propaganda will do much damage, even allowing for the low level of intelligence of the audiences his films are normally aimed at.
I realize I may be overly optimistic, and I certainly applaud Mr Craden's fine article, but he probably shouldn't worry too much. Todays movies are getting so obviously worse as the years go on that I doubt even the most obtuse of us could fail to notice.
Cordially,
Dan Guenzel
Published: June 16, 2004 2:32 PM
That's a whole lot of points to answer, but I'll do my best to respond to specific points.
First of all, climatic science has not just sampled the atmosphere's carbon dioxide over the last hundred years or so. The proportion of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has been ascertained from various sources, for example by direct measurement in air bubbles contained in samples of polar ice frozen up to millions of years ago. In the last two or three centuries CO2 levels have risen from 270 parts per million (ppm) to 370 ppm. The Arctic ice cap is already perilously thin. By the time it reaches 550 ppm the global ice caps will have melted. Sir David King, the UK government's Chief Scientist, speaking to the House of Lords on 9th March this year, stated that CO2 levels are probably the highest since the dinosaurs became extinct 65 million years ago. He said that era saw a "massive reduction" in life on earth and added: "The Antarctic was the best place to be at that time. The rest of the world was virtually uninhabitable." Of course that was caused by a natural event, which we are re-creating at our peril. To avoid that threat, he said, the level needed to be stabilised at 450 parts per million.
I agree that natural events beyond our control happen occasionally. For example Walt D referred in the Blog to the Lake Toba super-volcano in Sumarta, Indonesia, which, it may well be true, spewed enough CO2, SO2 and rock into the atmosphere to eliminate all but 10,000 of the human race. (Incidentally I spent a wonderful holiday at Lake Toba in 1971. It is a beautiful sight with its huge mountainous island which I visited by speedboat. I also sampled curried Lake Toba goldfish, the sweetest fish I have ever tasted - but I digress!) Yellowstone National Park may be the next super-volcano, but that may erupt next year or in 10,000 years' time, and we can do nothing about it. I am more concerned with the problems of the 21st century, which we can address.
Likewise Louis Hissink raises the red herring that water vapour, not CO2, is the main greenhouse gas. That is technically true, but the availability of water vapour from the oceans is virtually unlimited. The amount the atmosphere can hold increases with temperature, but more water vapour leads to generally more cloudiness and greater rainfall, so the effect is self-limiting. Atmospheric warming caused by additional CO2 is not self-limiting. Incidentally, methane (CH4) is a much more potent greenhouse gas, but fortunately it decomposes with time and by interaction with ozone in the upper atmosphere.
Finally, I appeal to your common sense. Fossil fuels such as coal, oil tar and peat were laid down in the earth gradually over many millions of years, storing vast amounts of carbon where they could have no effect on the atmosphere. Along comes the industrial revolution - the coal age, and then the oil age - and within a period of 200 or 300 years a large proportion of that store is suddenly released back into the atmosphere. Do you seriously argue that this is an event of no consequence?
Published: June 16, 2004 6:00 PM
I argue that your contention is highly speculative. You state, "The Arctic ice cap is already perilously thin. By the time it (CO2) reaches 550 ppm the global ice caps will have melted." How do you know this? How can you state this as fact? And if the ice caps do melt, how do you know that the melting was caused by CO2 levels and that those levels are the result of human activity? You simply make these statements and expect others to believe them.
You further state, "I agree that natural events beyond our control happen occasionally." Occasionally? Ice ages have happened many times in the past, followed by greenhouse ages, and unless certain religious believers are correct and "the end of the world is at hand", there is no reason to believe that they will not continue to happen for the next hundred billion years or so, give or take.
"I am more concerned with the problems of the 21st century, which we can address." Really? Please explain how you intend to reduce the conversion of carbon into carbon dioxide to levels at which you believe will result in no increase in CO2 in the atmosphere, and not end up with the deaths of 90% to 95% of the earth's human population? There are over 6 billion of us, and we all have to eat. We all can't have gardens in our back yards. Food has to be transported. It has to be refrigerated lest it go bad. Without the division of labor which modern societies would not exist without, humans simply cannot produce enough food and shelter for 6 billion individuals to exist. And the high division of labor that we have requires massive amounts of energy to move people back and forth from where they can live to where they can produce. Since nobody has yet come up with a way to produce that energy without converting carbon to carbon dioxide, at least at anywhere near the current price, and in the quantities required, you can't reduce CO2 creation without drastic reductions in the human population. Now, you can do that with war, which will certainly happen if you try to force such reductions and people resist, or you can destroy the infrastructure for creating that energy, and simply watch people die, by the billions.
Of course, since the only reason (I would hope) to be concerned about the environment is presumably to keep the earth suitable for human habitation, isn't your cure just as bad as the disease you believe exists?
And since your cure is quite certain to result in the deaths of billions of people, and your theory is at best speculative, why should we not ask you a variant of the question you ask us, "Do you seriously argue that CO2 reduction is an event of no consequence?"
Published: June 16, 2004 9:00 PM
It is said that the energy the sun has been steadily increasing by 0.05% every decade. So what would the environmentalists at the Sierra Club have us do, build giant structures to block the light of the sun that might be potentially responsible for all this 'global warming' nonsense? I still think it is a myth, since even science or 'scientific evidence' can be made to accomodate ideological bias.
Published: June 16, 2004 10:47 PM
Hollywood is good at making stories that sell - that is their business. We should not confuse storytelling with reality. Reality are starving families in Asia, Africa, South America - not knowing whether or not they will have the next meal. Why? Government. Government socialist policies designed to keep the poor in poverty, maintain control and deny individuals private property. What individuals of the world need for a better environment and a better standard of living are property rights not more interventionist policies.
Published: June 17, 2004 2:13 AM
If I thought for one second that human beings could bring on an ice age which would devestate Los Angeles, New York City, and most importantly Washington D.C. (as per The Day After Tomorrow), two leftist strongholds, via pollution, I would endeavor to burn, spray, and produce whatever was necessary to bring about such a climate change.
Published: June 17, 2004 6:43 AM
Michael,
All that's needed is for one of the islands of the Atlantic to have a landslide into the sea. This happens all the time, geologically speaking. I saw a web site with underwater maps of the landslides around Hawaii, for instance, which caused really spectacular damage to areas of the Pacific rim.
The resultant tidal wave will do wonderful things to Washington and New York, etc.
Human effect on the environment is mostly caused by human arrogance, the belief that humans have any effect at all. Every time a volcano goes off, it dumps far more CO2 &etc into the atmosphere than all human endevour has been able to accomplish.
Maybe wide spread and ongoing use of hydrogen bombs might have a detectable effect, but we'd be dead of radiation before the climate killed us.
So the abolition of the single organization that has been stupid enough to utilize nuclear weapons should be the goal of every environmentalist. As has been said in this thread before, governments create the biggest problems, more government just causes more big problems.
Curt-
Published: June 17, 2004 9:25 AM
Peter White's comments bring to mind a prayer which I once heard: "Lord, help us to change what we can change, and to accept what we cannot change" (implying change for the better). We can do little if anything about the ill-effects of large scale natural environmental changes, but we can avoid making them worse. Presently 26% of energy is consumed by 4% of the world's population. Is he really suggesting that this must continue in order to prevent the deaths of 90-95% of people? I would argue the converse. They are more likely to continue to subsist, as at present, if we reduce that 26% gradually - but less likely if we continue to pollute their environment. I do not wish to force anyone to do anything against his or her will, least of all by military force, merely to try to persuade. And to answer Peter White's last question, ("Do you seriously argue that CO2 reduction is an event of no consequence?"), I merely wish to slow down the increase in atmospheric CO2 before more serious damage is done. The possibility of actual CO2 reductions are not in my time scale.
Followers of Austrian school of economics ought to like the idea of traded emissions, under which those who wish to use more than their equal share of energy could buy extra pollution rights from the rest. If adopted globally the third world could afford all the clean water, food and medicines they want. But I don't think Art would agree to pay the price. I call his bluff.
I have been told that the sun is 93 million miles from the earth. You would be hard pressed to prove it to me on-line. Nevertheless I believe it. You are at liberty not to believe what you read in "Nature" and other scientific publications about global warming. And I am at liberty to liken you to ostriches.
Published: June 17, 2004 10:35 AM
Mr. Taylor,
The study of logic enables non experts like myself to analyze the statements of others. If your assertions were internally consistent, I would have to take them more seriously. But you and others who claim human interference in the earth's climate make no internally consistent arguments to back up your claims. Unless a premise you begin with is true, your conclusions are not necessarily correct. And your premise is far from proven, and on its face, seems a bit silly, given what is known about earth's climatic past.
It may appear to you as though my head is in the sand. In fact, I'm living my life as I think is best. If you can make a coherent argument for your case, I'm happy to consider it.
It's interesting to me that history is full of examples of people proclaiming that the end of the world is at hand; that the earth cannot sustain higher human population; that we're running out of natural resources, etc. I'm sure that there is some limit to human population. I don't claim to know what that limit is. And I'm mildly amused by proclamations from those who claim to know.
Environmentalists are much like some religionists. Some religionists claim that God will smite the earth because of the sins of humans. Environmentalists say essentially the same thing, only substituting Mother Earth for God. People have gathered on mountain tops and fields expecting to be taken up to heaven before the rest of humanity suffers from God's wrath. In the 1970s, environmentalists declared that by the 1990s, the whole world would be in famine, due to an ice age caused by industrial pollution blocking out sunlight. Well, here we are decades later, with billions more people now living and polluting, lots of people sinning, and neither the Earth Mother nor God has seen fit to put an end to it all. You would think that believers in these things would reconsider their theories, and get on with their lives. Some have, but some simply adjusted their theory and kept on proclaiming "The End of the World is Near!"
Published: June 17, 2004 11:15 AM
I am currently writing an article on “Neuroethics and Human Action�. To summarize briefly, it attempts to explain human action, one of the key tenet of the Austrian School, using the research of Dr. Joshua Greene, who has studied how humans arrive at moral and ethical decisions by using MRI scans to identify which parts of the brain are triggered when the decision is made. Using the knowledge of what parts of the brain control rational thought, various emotions and autonomic behavior, he was able to explain various ethical paradoxes. In particular, he refutes Kant’s assertion that pure reason alone is responsible for the determination of right and wrong.
This line of research gives us the potential to actually try and understand why humans make certain economic decisions. For instance:
Why do most people hate paying taxes?
Why do the majority of people in the US support the repeal of the Estate Tax even though most of them are exempt?
So, in relation to this blog, my question is “Why do people not react to future threats, even in the case of strong scientific evidence?�
I will not comment specifically on the global warming controversy. My contention is that even if human-caused CO2 emissions are causing a preventable environmental catastrophe, nothing would be done until it is too late.
Consider the following examples of human behavior:
How many people in California do not have basic earthquake supplies and have not made simple and inexpensive steps to help reduce earthquake damage to their houses?
How many people in California trim their trees away from their houses as a fire precaution?
How many people at risk of heart disease do not take any proactive measures?
What steps, if any, have been taken to divert asteroids on a collision course for Earth?
How many people live in New Orleans, ignoring the hurricane threat?
I would conjecture that all of these examples could, potentially, be explained by what parts of the brain are responsible for making the decision. In the case of imminent danger, the autonomic system (limbic system) kicks in and acts before the higher centers of the brain have even had a chance to process the information? However, for non-immediate threats, particularly those with no fixed time attached, the limbic system is not involved. The higher centers of the brain conclude that there is no immediate threat and the decision to do nothing is made. Or alternatively, the need to take action is acknowledged, but deferred. Or the decision is made to take a chance.
In principle, all of these conjectures could be confirmed or refuted using MRI and PET research technologies.
Greene’s research does not just apply to humans – monkeys have an inherent sense of “fairness�.
I would also refer to the “boiled frog� experiment – if a frog is placed in a pot of hot water it will jump out. If on the other hand it is placed in a pot of cold water under a low heat it will do nothing and we end up with a boiled frog!
Here is a link to one of Joshua Greene’s articles:
http://www.carlzimmer.com/articles/2004/articles_2004_Morality.html
Published: June 17, 2004 3:13 PM
Mr White,
The logic of my argument is very simple science, which was well known before anyone considered whether man's activities are influencing the climate:
Burning fossil fuels produces carbon dioxide. The energy which the earth receives from the sun is mainly short wave radiation, which passes through the carbon dioxide to reach the earth, because carbon dioxide is transparent to short wave radiation. Although some of this radiation is reflected back to space by clouds and oceans, a significant proportion heats the earth, which in turn heats the atmosphere by conduction and convection. The earth (because it is cooler than the sun) emits much longer wavelength radiation, which carbon dioxide absorbs because it is opaque to long wave radiation. Through absorbing radiation, the carbon dioxide molecules heat up, and transfer heat to the other components of the atmosphere.
That is the scientific logic. It is internally consistent, and it fits the known fact of accelerating global tropospheric temperatures, particularly in the last 20-30 years. At some time in the future the effect might be swamped by occurrences such as volcanoes and variations in solar activity. We can do little about these events, even if we could predict them. It is also possible to argue that mankind will never change its ways, so that I am wasting my time trying.
Published: June 18, 2004 5:21 AM
It's funny. I'm sure the majority of greenhouse
gasses in the US can be traced to our dependence on
the automobile. The automobile is a creature
of socialism: public highways, armies to fight
oil wars, etc... Before the federal government
took over the transportation sector, we had
private passenger rail service that ran at a profit
or was shut down. In defending the automobile-
based "American way of life," you are defending
big government: the Oil-Auto-Asphalt complex.
Published: June 18, 2004 3:17 PM
CO2 level is rising and this is probably due mostly to human activity(Link); however, higher CO2 levels mean higher plant growth rate and there is no consensus over whether higher CO2 levels lead to global warming or precipitate an ice age by changing the flow pattern of the Earth's oceans. So it is hard to say whether burning "fossil fuels" is good or bad.
Published: June 18, 2004 5:40 PM