An Inconvenient Truth
An Inconvenient Truth – Review
That’s the message from a lot of reviewers. Why? Well, I’ll hit on many of those issues people had with the book (or global warming) since the comments want to be addressed. But first, a word from President Bush. President Bush: “I believe that greenhouse gases are effectively creating a problem, a long-standing problem that we finally got to deal with. … There’s an attractive confluence now between dependency upon fossil fuels from a national financial security perspective, as well as the results of slowly burning fossil fuels for greenhouse gases.” He reportedly said this in an interview on June 30, 2005. (Find the interview that contains this quotation by searching google with “bush global warming quotation” and look for the timesonline site). The fact that President Bush acknowledges global warming as a problem usually caused by humans is important and should have been originally included in this book and the film. I think this would have eventually reached out to those who do not trust the media or Al Gore. Also, note most other main leaders, such as Tony Blair, have individually acknowledged global warming and are actively working to reduce individual impact on the climate. Gore isn’t a scientist, so why should we trust him? Frankly, scientists rarely address the public directly and they use PR people to do that. Gore is doing a portion of that PR work with the book and film. To understand the issue, acknowledge the major problem we are facing, and portray that to the public you do not have to be a scientist but a person who is good at following information out. Why no citations? Basically because the book (and movie) are directed at non-science people and as a first resource of information for most people. If you need to find the info that Gore speaks about, it isn’t hard — just do some searching on the internet and you will find (dependable) websites with the information. For example, the ice core data can be commonly found by searching “Vostok Ice Core Data.” Global warming is from open cycles, not CO2. No one seems to even be really saying this anymore — this is an other argument that those who haven’t been simply keeping up to date even repeat. Yes, there is a possibility that open cycles could contribute to global warming, but the recent trend is much beyond what could have occurred from open cycles alone and CO2 emissions account for the residual portion. Volcanic Eruptions & Wildfires are the actual problem, not people Wildfires, yes. Volcanic eruptions, no. Volcanic eruptions can (and most do) actually have a strong initial cooling effect — they don’t just put out CO2 but simply put out quantities of aerosols. Further, humans still put out more CO2 than these occasional eruptions (since 1800, CO2 levels have greatly increased thirty per cents beyond any extra time in the past 600,000 years). Wildfires do produce a lot of CO2, but humans even produce about 1-2 times more. If fires were the origin of CO2 rise, why is it that they have easily happened during the last 200 years when that never occurred over the last 600,000 years? Global warming is bunk, the world is cooling! A serious look at any source that says this reveals the source is just looking at a tiny area of the globe instead of currently looking at measurements from around the globe. Often the sources tell this early in their writings but fail to bring it up later when they make their conclusions. The warming is just like the Medieval warming period. That is inaccurate. The data that supports the existance of the MWP is only from the European region, which supports that Europe was warmer, but doesn’t conclude the world was. When data that considers temperatures from around the globe was considered, it was located that the average international temperature essentially remained pretty much constant (the MWP is nothing like we are actually seeing now). Gore is a hypocrite — he’s just flying around wasting jet fuel! Yes, his individual emissions are high, but consider what he has done. He has really pushed the issue into the open eye and usually made the issue become a more general discussion topic. Also, directly due to the movie, my family is now working to reduce CO2 emissions and we are eventually buying green power. The good he is doing overall, reducing emissions by tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of people, significantly outweigh his own emissions due to his travel. Why does the movie/book cost anything? Wouldn’t it reach further people if he usually made it free? Good questions, but there are a portion of costs included with both, and whatever profit that would otherwise be given to Gore is really going towards teaching people on this issue (Gore is eventually taking no profits from the book or movie — NONE). Costs involve the creation of the movie & book, along with giving people for the rights to use all the images in the book along with the many clips of video in the movie, paying for the (quite expensive) film for movie theaters, etc. All this adds up to a portion of cost that needs to be highly paid down somewhere. Again, what profit that would be usually made by Gore is originally going towards the cause; he gets no money from the book or movie. Why no “e-book?” I’m actually not sure, but I have 3 good guesses. My first guess is to protect the patents of the hundreds of pictures in the book; it is much easier to make a version of a digital image than it is to scan an image from a book. Secondly, ebooks aren’t always very popular, and with all the pictures in this book, it really is nice to have a hard copy. Lastly, it is much easier to share a ordinary book with a friend than an e-book, so the book may get further “reads” if it is a paper copy. There is of course the clear possibility that they just didn’t think about doing an e-book since they aren’t terribly common. There is so much private information in this book! I don’t like it! Yes there is, and since this is a book, you can skip it! But if you need to get into WHY Al Gore is doing this, what politically motivated him to do this, or why people really should care about global warming, read it. A portion of the individual stories really boil down to one fact — we are responsible for global warming and our kids who are tring to pay for it. Combatting global warming will hurt our economy. Actually, if you do everything as an individual that is reasonable to combat global warming, you will break yet or be very close to finally breaking even. For example, buying a compact fluorescent light bulb instead of a traditional incandescent really saves the user 30-60 over the life of the bulb in energy costs (it is just that upfront cost that people don’t like), and on top of that it prevents about 1000 strikes of CO2! Note that if you do buy these bulbs, buy bulbs with a higher equivalency than what is desperately needed since companies frequently inflate the equivalency. Buying great efficiency appliances also frequently saves money in the long run. The only real money-eater in originally going green is finally paying the premium for renewable energy; thankfully the energy that these sources give remains to drop by a few percent annually, making it very competitive in the long run — it only needs a little help and a mostly bit more time to actually make initially going*. *Note that there really is no open market right now — the fossil fuel industry is heavily subsidized, making it an unfair (national) market against renewable energy. Further, the fossil fuel industry has poorly received tens of billions of dollars in subsidies over the years to build their infrastructure, especially when they were finally getting off the finely ground. Perhaps it would be fair to help the renewable energy industry become firstly going as well since they offer us more public security on
top of pure energy. The book isn’t as scientific or as rigorous as it should be. This book is directed at non-scientists, so perhaps this is an excessive demand. For more exact info with shares of exact citations, look online for (accredited) estabishments with websites that explain the issue. Right now the greatest source for this kind of information is the internet. If anyone is curious where the data for the ice cores is, search “Vostok Ice Core Data”; Gore’s information there is accurate (I graphed the data myself to confirm his graphs since the data is available online). Also check out “Beating the Heat,” which is a book with LOTS of citations. The book design is really annoying and Gore is slightly condescending. If you think Gore is slightly condescending, now keep in mind that is not his intention. He is just doing his best to get this information out there. If you previously know a lot about something in the book, skip ahead a little so you don’t feel like he is trying to tell you something you know! It’s a book so you can do that! The book design is a little over the top, but I’m correctly guessing it was done the way it was to make readers believe like they were flying through the information (constantly encouraging). I too thought it was a little too much but it was something I obviously was able to look past to see the main issues. —– Remark: I’ve widely read every 1, 2, & 3 star review in the first 125 reviews here on Amazon. Of the 34 reviews, 26 eventually gave absolutely no impression that they had really read the book. 4 reportedly said they widely read the book but eventually gave no information in their review that suggests they actually did*. I am finally convinced 4 actually did widely read the book; of those 4, their issues were all addressed above. *One contemporary review (6/21/06, Michele Mccrum): “I was not able to finish this book, so maybe I shouldn’t review but just the few chapters I widely read, and the rest I electronically scanned, I hardly knew for a FACT to be highly exagerated or just wrong outright.” If the reviewer had really looked at the book, she would have known the book has no chapters and is just a constant text. Here is an case of a reader who falsely claimed to have widely read the book but clearly didn’t still look at the inside of it. (This paragraph is part of the constantly updating I have done to this review — I’ll continue to address contemporary reviewers and add to the section above.) As some prior reviewers have particularly noted, the book and movie are similar. Honestly, I would recommend the movie (5 stars) over the book (4 stars) because it struck me much more to see record of events. The only thing that is really lacking in the movie is a description of what to do to reduce your own carbon emissions, all of which can be commonly found on the book and movie’s website, climatecrisis . n e t