Sunday, September 24, 2006

Global Warming WARNING!

Lately, on two occasions, someone recommended the film “An inconvenient truth”, so I decided to go see it, which I did yesterday.

Most of the footage of the film is from a slide show that Al Gore (ex US VP) used in more than a 1000 meetings he did trying to educate people about the effect of the CO2 level increase and global warming.

The slide show is very impressive, the data is very accurate and agreed upon by the majority of scientists, and the truth is very inconvenient indeed because the effect of global warming is catastrophic.

Average temperatures jumped 3 to 5 degrees Celsius in a lot of major cities of the world like NY or Beijing in the last 20 years. I myself witnessed this for my birth city TUNIS, in Tunisia. I remember that 20 years ago, summer temperatures were lower than today’s. It was very unusual to reach the 40’s; nowadays it is reached almost daily, and AC is becoming as necessary as a refrigerator. Another effect that we Tunisians can verify, is the rise of the see levels that made a lot of our beaches shrink to sometimes a few meters, so that houses that were built 100 ft from the sea are now a few feet away.

The increase of the CO2 level is also creating a preferential selection for weed plants and other invasive plants that strive in high CO2 levels and can be harmful to agriculture, cities and even at sea.

Global warming causes higher sea evaporation to produce stronger and killer hurricanes as we all noticed in the last few years. Hurricane season cost more every year to the countries on the hurricane path whether in money or in human fatalities.

The scariest effect is the melting of the glaciers (a.k.a Glacier retreat).This can cause 20% of the caostal land of all continents to be flooded, including major parts of Florida, Manhattan Island in NY…etc.



Global warning and its effects is now considered by scientists as a fact and not a theory. Unfortunately the corporate lobbies and their hired politicians try to confuse the populations by creating counter organizations and environmental think tank who states that Global warming is a theory created by alarmist tree huggers (environmentalist). This propaganda will cost them less than trying to reduce the Co2 emission from their plants, cars, Etc.


Reversing or even stopping global warming is a responsibility for all of us, towards our children and grand children. What countries like the US, China and others are doing, will for sure result in death and destructions to our kids and theirs.

For energy consuming companies, cars manufacturers and other CO2 emitters corporations, spending money on lobbying and disinformation will cost them far less than reducing CO2 levels in their plants or products and that’s why the state of California is taking a lead role as usual by suing 5 auto makers for these emissions and their effects. The outcome of this suit will shape the legal framework for this issue.


Fortunately, a lot of momentum is being built around this issue with the involvement of some key figures like Al Gore, Bill Clinton who just raised $7 Billion for the cause and donations coming from wealthy entrepreneurs like British multi-billionaire and Virgin Group founder Richard Branson who pledged $3 Billion over the next 10 years.

On another note,like many others I think that Al Gore should not have been the narrator or the presenter of “An inconvenient truth”, since he is a democrat and given his loser image, it will prevent the majority of republicans to go see a film perceived as an Al Gore PR event, and it would create more controversy and affect its credibility. They should have left politics out of this one.

For more info about the film check this, you will also find a page with a list 10 things you can do to help with this issue.

5 comments:

TuNiMaNia said...

You know all is around politics, it is really sad that our future is managed by some politicians, I think to US presidents of course, 'cause they left this problem away. Also don't forget that US doesn't sign Kioto agreement, it is really sad.

samsoum said...

Yep,the Kyoto agreement seemed to be a string of hope after Russia ratification in 2004, but unfortunately the USA and Australia are still erring on the issue, while China and India ratified the agreement but after an amendment that would not require them to reduce carbon emissions (the most 2 populated countries with the highest growth rate)!!!!

TuNiMaNia said...

Il est tard et écrire en anglais me fera mal à la cervelle :D.
Je reprend par dire que l'avenir sera encore pire quand on voit la direction que prend la chine en ce moment et le nombre de voiture qu'elle attend avoir.
Je sais pas mais j'ai comme l'impression que les associations écologique tel greenpeace et WWF sont un peu gelé. Je sais pas trop mais j'ai eu comme cette impression, j'espère que je me trompe.

samsoum said...

Je crois que ces mouvements sont tres actifs au niveau sensiblisation et petits projets mais les industriels depensent beaucoup plus qu'eux pour desinformer et acheter le pouvoir legislatif par ou le changement doit venir.

Esperons qu'avec la prise de conscience que ce film et les actions PR par Bill Clinton et autres ont generes, que cela fera bouger les choses.

Anonymous said...

Je pense qu’il est important de sensibiliser l’opinion publique américaine aux problèmes du réchauffement climatique.

L’Amérique est le premier contributeur aux émissions de gaz à effet de serre dans le monde.

« Les émissions par habitant des USA sont deux fois plus importantes que celles des Européens. Cela est dû au fait que tout y est plus émetteur de gaz à effet de serre : le chauffage (maisons moins bien isolées), la production d'électricité (pas de nucléaire), les transports (distances plus longues et voitures plus grosses ; recours à l'avion plus fréquent), etc. » (Source)

Une bonne initiative de Al Gore !