An Inconvenient Question?

Question

Is global warming really happening? Did the Al Gore movie lie about the facts? Give me your opinion.

Answer 1

I dont think he lied about any thing... even tho i agree with him on most of it i still think it is over exagerated.. but as a polition im sure he can mis lead you with out "lieing" more ... bending the truth.. twisting words... ultering meanings.... but it doesnt matter because if he did lie it is for a good reason because climate change/global warming is a problem

Answer 2

Plain and simple from what ive seen personally and experienced, yes!!! If you have been to LA and see the smog that hovers over the city, or seen Tokyo, you know what im talking about. In my lifetime I have seen really bad winters when I was younger, and nothing in comparrison to today. The effects of global warming has spawned on tornadoes to happen where they never really had a history of it before much either, like London having theirs. When you see that the effects of the ocean warming up is killing off marine life and, whole villages in Alaska are having to be relocated their truly is not much of any other explanation for it. Just like a smoke filled bar has its effects, pollution eventually has no place to go but, effect us. As the population of the earth increases so does the pollution produced. You cant really dismiss the fact of how huge our world is but, at the same time you also have to figure that we also do not have an infinate ammout of space before pollution takes it over either. When you darken the skys with pollution you increase the ammount of heat just the same as if you wear a dark colored shirt on a hot summer day for yourself. Why would allot of people dismiss this fact, or are they stupid enough to be wearing all black clothes on the hottest day of the year too??? Our earth is more fragile than what they want to admit, and they dont wanna give up the luxuries they have to make a difference, or to save themself money. And if you dont believe that global warming is real, then atleast do something to conserve energy, and save money!!! For all that pay high gas prices now, and complain and say that global warming is a myth, will still be complaining if higher gas and food prices in the future you can bet. As intelligent of a people as human beings that we are supposed to be it's only are own stupidity, and ignorance that keeps us from evolving to a better life for all!!!! But, we are talking about a society of people that believe in allot of stupid things that make allot less sense. Consider the source of the people that constantly deny that global warming is a myth!! People can deny the facts but, sadly its so hard to cure stupid!!!

Answer 3

Yes, he lied.  In Britain, the courts have ruled that there are enough lies in the movie, that it can't be shown in schools without providing an opposing view.

Algore has invested in carbon offset companies and stands to make millions (maybe billions).  Did he skew the facts to scare people and drive up business for his carbon offset companies?  Probably.

Answer 4

I won’t say he *lied* - but he certainly misrepresented the facts and left out any disconfirming evidence. I attribute it to his poor science skills. Also, bear in mind that his ambitions are primarily political.

Answer 5

Of course he did! We are talking about a guy who said he invented the internet. He just wants attention. Don't give it too him.

Answer 6

There are many basic scientific facts which can only be explained if the current global warming is being caused by an increased greenhouse effect due to carbon dioxide accumulating in the atmosphere from humans burning fossil fuels.

For example, the planet is warming as much or more during the night than day.  If the warming were due to the Sun, the planet should warm a lot more during the day when the Sun has influence.  Greenhouse gases trap heat all the time, so they warm the planet regardless of time of day.  Another example is that the upper atmosphere is cooling because the greenhouse gases trap the heat in the lower atmosphere.  If warming were due to the Sun, it would be warming all layers of the atmosphere.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;...

We know it's warming, and we've measured how much:

http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/science...

Scientists have a good idea how the Sun and the Earth's natural cycles and volcanoes and all those natural effects change the global climate, so they've gone back and checked to see if they could be responsible for the current global warming.  What they found is:

Over the past 30 years, all solar effects on the global climate have been in the direction of (slight) cooling, not warming.  This is during a very rapid period of global warming.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/62902...

http://www.pubs.royalsoc.ac.uk/media/pro...

A recent study concluded:

“the range of  [Northern Hemisphere]-temperature reconstructions and natural forcing histories…constrain the natural contribution to 20th century warming to be <0.2°C [less than one-third of the total warming].  Anthropogenic forcing must account for the difference between a small natural temperature signal and the observed warming in the late 20th century.”

http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/104...

You can see this in the third graph here, where the dotted lines are just from natural causes, and the full lines are natural + human causes:

http://www.pnas.org/content/vol104/issue...

If that’s not enough to convince you the Sun isn’t responsible, consider the fact that no scientific study has ever attributed more than one-third of the warming over the past 30 years to the Sun, and most attribute just 0-10% to the Sun.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;...

So the Sun certainly isn't a large factor in the current warming.  They've also looked at natural cycles, and found that we should be in the middle of a cooling period right now.

"An often-cited 1980 study by Imbrie and Imbrie determined that 'Ignoring anthropogenic and other possible sources of variation acting at frequencies higher than one cycle per 19,000 years, this model predicts that the long-term cooling trend which began some 6,000 years ago will continue for the next 23,000 years.'"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitc...

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/ab...

So it's definitely not the Earth's natural cycles.  They looked at volcanoes, and found that

a) volcanoes cause more global cooling than warming, because the particles they emit block sunlight

b) humans emit over 150 times more CO2 than volcanoes annually

http://volcano.und.edu/vwdocs/Gases/man....

So it's certainly not due to volcanoes.  Then they looked at human greenhouse gas emissions.  We know how much atmospheric CO2 concentrations have increased over the past 50 years:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Mauna...

And we know from isotope ratios that this increase is due entirely to human emissions from burning fossil fuels.  We know how much of a greenhouse effect these gases like carbon dioxide have, and the increase we've seen is enough to have caused almost all of the warming we've seen over the past 30 years (about 80-90%).  You can see a model of the various factors over the past century here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Clima...

This is enough evidence to convince almost all climate scientists that humans are the primary cause of the current global warming.

Answer 7

Is global warming happening? Most assuredly. And it's very likely being driven by human emissions of greenhouse gases.

Did Al Gore lie? No. There were a few minor inaccuracies in the film, but overall it's a fairly good representation of mainstream scientific opinion on the subject.

Answer 8

Global warming is really happening.  Al Gore's movie is mostly correct, but is not a substitute for the real science, just a useful introduction for people who know little.  He's correct about the basic facts, does not lie, but some of the details in the movie are outdated or unproven.

Answer 9

wow master of science answered a lot... woah...

Answer 10

Al Gore is a politician, which means he is a liar.  Everything Al Gore says is a lie.

Answer 11

All the global warming loons say is well maybe inaccuracies, maybe he distorted some facts, maybe he wasn't completely sure about ALL of the facts.

I say YES he lied all the way through that retarded movie that made him millions. Wait I guess he was truthful in part, his name is Al Gore.