There is no reading assignment for Monday's class. I decided to forgo any reading, so you can concentrate on your research outline, which is due on March 4 (Wed.). I expect you to work hard on that outline.
Of course, you are still expected to be on top of the news and to watch "Meet the Press."
Here is your weekly discussion question:
What was the most interesting thing you learned in the film "An Inconvenient Truth" and why?
Your responses are due by midnight on Tuesday, as always.
Have a good weekend, and I will see you on Monday.
24 comments:
the bit about the water currents changing due to the cool fresh water entering the oceans was the most interesting part for me. i didnt know that that even happened with the currents. its sort of a scary thought to know that all of the glaciers are melting there for puting more cool fresh water into the ocean which can effect the weather. it's all a cycle.
What I found most interesting was how long global warming has been a problem and how only recently there has been a focus on it. I also found learning about Al Gore's background interesting because I did not know much about him before.
Now, I'm not a huge Al Gore fan. With that said this movie even when I saw it the first time didn't do much for me. The facts are all there yes and it's all very real and a real danger but the mix of global warming and Al Gore in one feature film is just to much for me to handle. Though i didn't think that the whole thing was terrible. The part I found the most interesting was the very end when Gore shows just how easy it would be to stop this from all happening.
-Corey
For me, the most interesting part was at the end, how easily Al Gore made it seem to fix the problem of our environment.Kind of makes you wonder why we really havent tackled this issue. I personally don't find it a HUGE priorty, but yes going about fixing it now will be beneficial. It was also shocking to see some of those pictures, like of the trees that rooted in the frostbed, that are now wilting, it was pretty increadable. I also personally liked the cartoon about the gang of green house gases.. made me giggle.
I feel like i generally knew all of the information presented regarding global warming (i.e. green house gases, carbon emission/sequestration etc.) so none of that was really new. What I did find interesting was learning how the earth came to be as it is, how the great lakes were formed by melting glaciers and how canyons were formed by runoff and that sort of thing. Neato.
The most interesting thing learned from "An Inconvenient Truth" was probably that not a lot of the information was new too me either, except for the record-setting amount of hurricanes, typhoons, tornadoes, and numbers killed by heat waves. Gore provides a compelling case as to why global warming needs to be confronted before it really gets out of hand. On second thought, the most interesting thing had to be that I found out Al Gore has a sense of humor and used it rather well.
I learned a lot of things about Al Gore and his past that I didn't know. Some parts were a bit much, though. I did enjoy the presentation and the information helped me to understand global warming better.
Even though there were many interesting points that were brought up in the movie, I believe that the fact that Al Gore has been addressing the issue of climate change for far longer that what I initially believe. I thought going into the movie that this was a new campaign of his since he lost the election in 2000. I thought that he jumped on the “bandwagon” to fight global warming, similarly to what he did with the World Wide Web. After the movie I believe Al Gore is a very intelligent human being, with an ability to see the whole picture. He was able to discuss and display with fact how serious global warming has become. So to restate what I found to be the most interesting thing about “The Inconvenient Truth” was how intelligent Al Gore is.
I had previously viewed an inconvenient truth when it first came out. I found his information to be well produced however i found his persuation tactics to be a bit off. He mentions at one point that this was the only audience outside of nasa that has seen this information. Yet later on in the movie he says that he goes town to town giving the same demonstration. Sometimes i find his signals to be mixed. I'm not to fond of al gore. I guess i'm not really fond of his wife Tipper. She was the one who started the PMRC. I digress...
The facts I already knew, but what I enjoy the most from this film is how it portrays a man's fervent crusade to halt global warming's deadly progress in its tracks by exposing the myths and misconceptions that surround it. It's very moving,informative and I have developed the up most respect for Al Gore.
Kirstie Mahon
I knew most of the information presented in the movie; maybe not in the context I should know it though. I think the movie gave me a better understanding of what is really going on with global warming. The most interesting part for me would have to be the ending, when Gore explains how we can help fix the problem, how come we haven’t done this yet? I also didn’t realize how old some of the information was; I thought this whole idea was pretty recent. Oh, and I loved the cartoon about the green house gasses.. how could you not?
I found this movie very interesting, even with seeing it three times before a couple years ago in High School. What I found the most interesting was when Al Gore talked about the Water rising levels and the glaciers melting and if it got to the extent he says it could, that even New York City at some time in the way future could be underwater if Global Warming keeps going the way it does.
I have seen "An Inconvenient Truth"
when it first came out, me being a tree-hugging hippie and all. I am very concerned about the earth and our environment and how people effect it. It is incredible how I picked things up that I didn't before. I found the most interesting, and disturbing, part was when Al Gore spoke about the major weather changes in recent years. If Americans and the Chinese continued to live like we do and not change things, I think a New Ice Age would be close at hand. -Veronica Pacheco
What I found most interesting about "The inconvenient Truth" was the way in which Al Gore presented the concept of global warming, in an animated form. I already knew the basics about global warming and what takes place, but for those people who don't, the funny animated and simplistic version was most likely informative.
"An Inconvenient Truth", sheds light on all of the possibilities for global warming. Gore breaks it down in a way that helped me understand what will happen, and provided the necessary information to back up his points. I knew that global warming did exist, but I did not think it was as serious until having viewed this documentary. I did not realize that, that many lakes and rivers that were once used are now virtually non existing. It's mind blowing to think of all the changes that have occurred in our life time.
The most important thing i learned from Inconvenient Truth is that people arer trying to make Al Gore out to be a liar and out for his own recognition towrads his political campaign. I understood global warming was a serious issue, but I did not realize how dedicated Al Gore was to it, and how he seemed to be sincere and not out for personal gain
Al Gore was super cerial you guys.
For me, it is hard to take him seriously. I feel like he never took into account how the Earth is constantly changing. We used to have a lot more land masses, however, the sea level has risen over time. And during that time, there were humans there to "screw up" the environment. Al Gore made it seem as if certain places will literally be under water in a matter of a few years rather than over hundreds of years.
I also didn't realize that the hole in the ozone layer was fixed as he pointed up. He said we fixed it by companies changing their products, like Hairspray companies for example. I didn't realize that the problem was fixed, so I guess now I can run outside in the sun without any sunscreen on.
Not until the very end did he tell us, and in not very much detail, how we can help this "epidemic." His answer to peoples questions about what we can was either something like, "You know what you can do" or "Just recognize the problem."
To me, the movie seemed like half a biography about his life, and honestly, I don't care. I don't care that you grew up on a farm and grew tobacco. It made it more seem that he had more of a personal agenda, like he was trying to make up for being a loser.
The world is constantly changing and evolving, get over it. Remember when we used to be one continent? What happened? Did we have high CO2 emissions? NOPE, just progress.
I bet he thinks there is a lost city of Atlantis and it's under water due to global warming.
There were many interesting things that were discussed in this documentary. I espicially liked the pieces of humor when Mr. Gore talked about "that teacher being a part of the current administration's enviornmental team." I also liked when he said, "I used to be the next President of the United States."
As far as what I thought was the most interesting thing that I learned: there were two. 1. I was scared by the graphic that he used that demonstrated what would happen if all of the ice caps melted. NYC would be under water as well as a whole bunch of other places in the world. The scene he depicted was sort of like an armageddon of sorts. And I do not think that those pictures were hyperbole. It was not an exageration, it was what will actually happen over time.
2. I thought the graphic that he showed depicting the fact that we can actually fix this problem, or at least minimize the human contribution to it if we enact some simple policy.
To me, the fact that it was Al Gore conveying the message had no significant impact. But for a little bit, it made me think that he would have been a better President than I thought eight years ago. I almost feel bad for him. He should have gotten a shot to sit in the big chair. But I think though this global warming effort, he will get his chance to effect all of man kind in a positive way, if only people listen.
The most intresting thing that I learned from the video was how the weather has changed as far as hurricanes & tornedos being intestified and massive glaicer meltage (if that's a word).
What stuck out in my head about the whole documentary however were the visuals. The before & after images of the mountains, thick ice sheets & glaciers. The cartoon which simplified and made fun what can be known as the boring topic of Global Warming. The whole vibe of Gore was reminiscent of Steve Job's iPhone keynote speech. The graphic & video in the background matched up well with his dialogue. The right balance of humor & fact.
I really enjoyed this film. It's funny how in my last post I stated I wish I saw this documentary & my wish was granted...so let me try some more wishful thinking....I wish I get an A++. LOL
-Blue
The most interesting thing I learned in Al Gores presentation was about the ice caps melting. Though I already knew this was occuring when I was actually shown pictures of the glaciers melting it was kind of disturbing to me. To see the huge chunks of ice just falling into the water below left me with kind of neglectful feeling. I also remember when there was the cartoon of the polar bear drowning because it did not have any glaciers to stand on. I know it was only a cartoon but still it made an impact on me to want to do something. Though Gore gets much critisism for this presentation I am not too sure why people would want to fight a man that seems to just be trying to better our environment. This is actually why I decided to do my research paper on these opossing views because I myself would like to make an educated guess for myself.
There are a few things that caught my attention in this film.
First I was pleasantly suprized how great Al Gore was at giving the presentation. Its one thing know the facts, its another to be able to present them in an organized, interesting manner. Gore has gotten some criticism about being boring and robotic in the past but was far from it in this presentation.
The other part of the presentation I really liked was Gore's use of line graphs. While I cant recall what each graph represented, they all proved that there has been a dramatic increase in each area represented (ice meltings, O zone Layer etc). I had never seen information as stagering as this before.
-Ryan C
I loved the facts that I found out about the icecaps melting. The idea of the world losing a ton of surface area is shocking and also that life owuld be insanely different, as well as life-threatening. I thought the Futurama global warming video as well, Mr Gore has good taste in cartoons.
-Zach Hynes
This film had a serious impact on me and had several very important points. But a few points in particular came together and jumped out at me and left the most lasting impression. In our last blog about global warming I mentioned that I did indeed believe in Gloabal Warming but that I also considdered that it could possibly be just earth running through it's natural cycles. Though I always leaned toward the idea that global warming was of human consequence, after seeing the film, I AM SURE IT IS.
The first thing I saw that really proved to me that this period of global warming was not just part of earth's natural cycle was the hidden history trapped in the world's polar ice caps. When ice core samples were taken, scientists were able to reveal this hidden history. The air bubbles trapped in the ice revealed records of the earth's temperature and CO2 levels in the earth's atmosphere dating back hundreds and thousands of years. During this time span the earth had seen several ice ages and subsequent periods of warming- i.e. the earth's natural climactic cycles. During much of this time there was little to no human influence as we were not around and/or did not have the technology that presumably causes this current period of global warming. In none of these records, dating as far back as they did, did the ice reveal that temprature or CO2 levels in the earth's atmosphere were ever as high as they were in the most recent records. The most recent levels are drastically higher than they ever were in the past and are projected to rise even more drastically in the near future. With no other scientific explanation, this, at least in my mind, proves without a shred of a doubt that human influence is responsible for this sudden and frightening change in our earth's atmosphere.
The frequency of Moulins occuring in the past as compared with the frequency of Moulins occuring in the present also goes a long way in supporting that this phase of global warming is not part of a natural cycle. Although Moulins have occured in the past during natural phases of global warming, they occured much less frequently and had much less devestating effects than they are having now. The frequency of the occurence of Moulins now, and the effects they have on ice caps, are a tangible form of proof backing up what we have learned from the data that the ice records have shown us.
After seeing this, I am no longer left speculating if this phenomenon is simply a part of earth's natural climactic cycle. And if this didn't interest me enough, what interested me more was what the possible consequences could be if human kind does not start heavily regulating their greenhouse gas emissions. The fact that if just half of Greenland and West Antarctica, two of the world's largest ice masses, crumble away and melt into the world's oceans, over 100 million people in the US, Asia, and Europe could be displaced is seriously frightening. I remember how hard it was to deal with the displacemnet of the victims of hurricane Katrina. A displacement on the scale mentioned in the film would have unimaginable consequences for our planet. Once what is done is done, there is no taking it back (As far as I know we do not have the technology to re-freeze the polar ice caps).
One final bit of information that sparked my interest, and my disgust to be frank, is the fact that my confusion about whether or not this phenomenon called global warming was caused by humans or not may have been a deliberate consequence of some of the nation's higher ups; an internal government memo apparently leaked the information that the media should portray global warming's cause as theory rather than fact. So its no surprise that out of 636 articles published in the popular press, 53% of them disagreed with the idea that global warming was caused by humans. Then, it also comes as no surprise that myself ammong many others felt confused about the subject; after all the popular press is what we are most often exposed to. Meenwhile, ZERO out of all 928 articles about gloabl warming published in peer-reviewed journals, which each faced serious scrutiny from the rest of the scientiic community before being published, disagreed with the fact that global warming is being caused by human influence. Had this been the information that we were all exposed to, maybe things would be different. To me, the fact that this information may have been deliberately withheld from the general public for fear of revealing this "inconvenient truth" is seriously frustrating.
Gore's film portrayed a very powerful message and it was hard for me to narrow down only one most interesting thing from the film to comment on, so please excuse the length of this post.
I hope everyone was as influenced by this film as I was so that maybe we can come together to make some changes....
I thought that the video was pretty informing. In my case, I didn't really know the science behind global warming so it was informative for me in that regard. I do think it was unnecessary for Al Gore to talk about his personal life and his campaign. It didn't really have that much to do with the issue. Also, I think he lost a lot of potential supporters of the global warming effort that way. People who don't like Al Gore, already won't like the film because it's endorsed by him. By adding all that personal stuff, I think he loses support from those people who may be concerned about the issue, but just don't like Al Gore. I think there's a huge difference between being concerned about an important issue, but ignoring it or denying it because you don't like or agree with the views of the people who are saying "hey, this is a problem that we need to address." I mean like it or not, our climate is changing, weather patterns over the past decade prove that. Also, islands that have been above the water level since the beginning of civilization are becoming submerged within the past few years. Kudos to Al Gore for being one of the only people so far to stand up and try to get people involved. I may not a agree with everything he has to say but I give him credit for standing up for something that's important to him.
Post a Comment