an inconvenient tooth
Sep. 22nd, 2010 04:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pauraque_bkHaha! You see, because I just went to the dentist for a toothache, so the joke is... moving on.
I did actually see the movie An Inconvenient Truth yesterday. (Yes, I'm a little behind.) I didn't dislike it exactly, but from the glowing reviews I expected more. Or maybe I just expected something different. I found myself wondering who the movie was for.
If it's for people who pretty much already believe in global warming but aren't too worried and aren't sure it's such a big deal, then it's probably pretty effective. I learned some things about the potential consequences that I didn't know, especially the connection to nasty weather events like Hurricane Katrina. I knew hurricanes form over warm water, but it hadn't occured to me that rising temps = warmer water = worse hurricanes.
If it's for people who are worried but think the situation is hopeless, it works for that too. A good point is made that ozone layer depletion was also thought to be hopeless, but has actually gotten better since governments have done things about it. I liked this line: "Some people go straight from denial to despair, without the intermediate step of actually doing something." Works for a lot of things.
However, I got the impression that the movie really wanted to convince people who didn't already think global warming was real. And for that, I don't know if it works. Certain things are successfully debunked, like the idea that the rise in temperature is a natural cycle. But by that point in the movie, there have already been a couple of jokes about the Bush administration and sarcastic comments about the skeptics. That's fine if you're preaching to the choir, but did no one think this might be off-putting to the people they were trying to persuade? If you want people to take your side, don't insult their beliefs and intelligence. If you want us to believe it's an apolitical issue, don't make it political!
I was also hoping they'd speak in detail to the idea that there's a dichotomy between economic benefit and environmental benefit. The movie baldly asserts that the dichotomy is false and that environmentally sound policies create jobs, but doesn't support it with ANY examples at all (except one extremely brief and little-explained suggestion that foreign car companies are doing better because they stick to cleaner emissions standards). They talk about other countries that have taken these steps, so SHOW us what happened to them economically.
I was really surprised that they barely even touched on the financial motivations for discrediting global warming. They seemed to portray it as mostly an issue of denial and human inability to recognize gradual changes, but IMO that's such a minor part of it. They tell this story about how Al Gore Sr. stopped farming tobacco after his daughter died of lung cancer, which is certainly very sad, but it doesn't answer the obvious question: how did he handle the financial loss? How will the people who make their living from polluting industries handle their losses? Specifically, how?
I also sighed at the time spent proving that there is a scientific consensus that anthropogenic climate change is real. It is informative to know that a consensus exists, I guess, and I agree the popular media portrayal suggests there isn't a consensus. But it seems blindingly obvious that mainstream scientific consensus does not mean it's actually true and does not mean that the mainstream scientific consensus won't change, which is the clear counter-argument there.
So I guess if I had started out disbelieving in anthropogenic climate change, the movie might have given me food for thought, but probably wouldn't have convinced me. I would have thought there were holes in the argument and that they didn't have a counter-argument for the concern that changing emissions standards would hurt us economically. I think they could have done better.
eta: Oh, I forgot the best part. I listened to some of the director commentary, and at one point he said "I was thinking about how to make these charts more exciting and dynamic..." Exciting and Dynamic is the name of my WoW guild. I lol'd irl.
I did actually see the movie An Inconvenient Truth yesterday. (Yes, I'm a little behind.) I didn't dislike it exactly, but from the glowing reviews I expected more. Or maybe I just expected something different. I found myself wondering who the movie was for.
If it's for people who pretty much already believe in global warming but aren't too worried and aren't sure it's such a big deal, then it's probably pretty effective. I learned some things about the potential consequences that I didn't know, especially the connection to nasty weather events like Hurricane Katrina. I knew hurricanes form over warm water, but it hadn't occured to me that rising temps = warmer water = worse hurricanes.
If it's for people who are worried but think the situation is hopeless, it works for that too. A good point is made that ozone layer depletion was also thought to be hopeless, but has actually gotten better since governments have done things about it. I liked this line: "Some people go straight from denial to despair, without the intermediate step of actually doing something." Works for a lot of things.
However, I got the impression that the movie really wanted to convince people who didn't already think global warming was real. And for that, I don't know if it works. Certain things are successfully debunked, like the idea that the rise in temperature is a natural cycle. But by that point in the movie, there have already been a couple of jokes about the Bush administration and sarcastic comments about the skeptics. That's fine if you're preaching to the choir, but did no one think this might be off-putting to the people they were trying to persuade? If you want people to take your side, don't insult their beliefs and intelligence. If you want us to believe it's an apolitical issue, don't make it political!
I was also hoping they'd speak in detail to the idea that there's a dichotomy between economic benefit and environmental benefit. The movie baldly asserts that the dichotomy is false and that environmentally sound policies create jobs, but doesn't support it with ANY examples at all (except one extremely brief and little-explained suggestion that foreign car companies are doing better because they stick to cleaner emissions standards). They talk about other countries that have taken these steps, so SHOW us what happened to them economically.
I was really surprised that they barely even touched on the financial motivations for discrediting global warming. They seemed to portray it as mostly an issue of denial and human inability to recognize gradual changes, but IMO that's such a minor part of it. They tell this story about how Al Gore Sr. stopped farming tobacco after his daughter died of lung cancer, which is certainly very sad, but it doesn't answer the obvious question: how did he handle the financial loss? How will the people who make their living from polluting industries handle their losses? Specifically, how?
I also sighed at the time spent proving that there is a scientific consensus that anthropogenic climate change is real. It is informative to know that a consensus exists, I guess, and I agree the popular media portrayal suggests there isn't a consensus. But it seems blindingly obvious that mainstream scientific consensus does not mean it's actually true and does not mean that the mainstream scientific consensus won't change, which is the clear counter-argument there.
So I guess if I had started out disbelieving in anthropogenic climate change, the movie might have given me food for thought, but probably wouldn't have convinced me. I would have thought there were holes in the argument and that they didn't have a counter-argument for the concern that changing emissions standards would hurt us economically. I think they could have done better.
eta: Oh, I forgot the best part. I listened to some of the director commentary, and at one point he said "I was thinking about how to make these charts more exciting and dynamic..." Exciting and Dynamic is the name of my WoW guild. I lol'd irl.
