We've been discussing this for a bit in the US Politics thread, but at this point I think it deserves its own thread.

Firstly, honors go to Tycho, who actually bought, with his own money, a copy of the book the Inconvenient Truth, and had it mailed to my house!!  I have never known a person to buy a random internet person something like that, so hats off to him.  When Tycho says he's going to do something, I guess we better take him seriously!  Not only that, he bought it from a library fund-raiser, so double points to him.

The book arrived yesterday morning (and so was my first birthday present of the day, funny enough).  The book is about 325 pages, published in 2006 (good, so if I draw on any studies, I don't have to worry too much about my having access to information he didn't).  It's a nice sized book.

Before I continue, I should probably touch on myself and my goals, so people can identify my bias.

I'm generally pretty conservative.  I do believe we've seen global temperatures rising compared to recorded historical temperatures.  I do NOT believe that this is necessarily due primarily to human causes (or more specifically, I don't think that's a given).  Nor have I been convinced that this is a world-ending problem.  In my current line of thought, I'm more worried about a shortage of clean drinking water or even the social security/medicare problems ending our country as we know it than I am about global warming.  My background is in Computer Science and I work in an agricultural field (not that I know much about it specifically, but that's my background).  As I approach this book, I hope to approach it as a critic and a scientist.  Tycho is already convinced it's right, so I'm not really fighting for him.  Rather, I'm hoping that the book presents a strong enough case to convince a skeptic.  I want to ask the questions Heath or Rogue would ask and see if the book addresses them.  I want to look at the studies he draws on and see if I come to the same conclusions as he did.  I want to nitpick and tear the book apart, because if I try and I fail, I have no reason not to believe the book, and no reason not to push Heath and other people to believe it as well.  By putting up the highest standards of questioning, if Gore's book passes, I will give it the highest regard.

As a secondary point, my personal concerns with Gore and his book are not about his message.  I certainly support his going out and doing this.  I believe that conflict is necessary for growth, and Gore serving as an agitator, even if time ultimately proves his concerns were unwarranted, is doing good work because it makes sure we give the issue the attention it deserves.  My concern is with whether or not his work is a work of science, or of propaganda.  Whether I agree with the science or not, I can support it.  I do not support the idea of driving people to believe something out of emotional and not logical pleas, however.

Alright, so finally opening the book...  I was rather surprised by it really.  The book is generally made similar to, well, a slide show presentation.  Each pair of pages are meant to be read together and enjoyed as a single image.  As the first note, I will oftentimes refer to single page numbers when, more properly, it should refer to two page numbers because of this layout.  If you have the book, you'll still be able to follow along just fine.

A few of these 'pages' (referring to two page sections) are just plain, size 10 text.  Very few.  So far I've counted about six single pages of text.  The vast majority are full page pictures with six 14 or 16 font beside it.  Very colorful, but a lot less information than I anticipated.  To give you a general sense for this, I read the four introduction pages yesterday when I got the book.  Since then I have read approximately 130 pages in the forty minutes I was riding the train to work.  I anticipate finishing the entire book by tomorrow morning, all 325 pages, with time to spare to go on to my National Geographic (which I will probably spend 3 days reading).

Gore has a very personal writing style.  He writes a lot about his family, his work, education, background and lessons.  It makes for an enjoyable (albeit, not especially scientific) read.  Unfortunately, he also does not generally use references.  Both my wife and I were rather perturbed by this practice.  Charts will have a single line indicating what it is and who the data is from, but he doesn't give information such as the name of the study, its specific authors, or the date it was published.  I looked in the back and I didn't see anything there either.  This will make fact checking a little more difficult, and there are some details I just won't go into as much detail about because of that.  Still, I'll at least try to summarize what Gore said, summarize my complaints and questions, with sources if appropriate, and in those cases where I was too brief, I encourage people to say something so we can expand upon that point for a proper discussion.

Introduction:
I'm not expecting full references or anything here, so I won't be especially mean.  Gore starts by talking about something happening to his son which changed Gore's life, making him decide to put his family and the environment first.  He does not say what precisely happened, which makes me wonder if his son suffered some sort of personal heating crisis.

Goes on to talk about himself, his political history and so on.  Since I disagree with a lot of Gore's non-environmental stances, I tried to zoom through to avoid more bias :P  An interesting point that Gore talks about more later is that he was very inspired by Rachel Carson's Silent Spring.  Why this is interesting is because Carson was later shown to have falsified some of her data in the writing of her book.  A situation where an author changed or ignored facts to put forward a critical message about the environment which ultimately had positive impacts?  An interesting parallel.  There is no other book Gore mentions up until page 132, so this seems to be the single tome he pulls in.  He goes on a bit more, but it's not science, so I'm not going to bother bringing it up here.

Next pages he shows pictures of the earth, talking about the history of photos of earth from space.  He says the last picture taken by a human from space was December 1972 (Apollo 17).  I find that questionable, but really, not relevant.  Beautiful picture though.  Goes on with some maps, talking about the shape of the earth, a quote from Mark Twain.  P. 22 he talks about how the Earth's atmosphere is very thin (which is true, relative to the size of the Earth itself.  (In case you're wondering, the Earth's atmosphere is 100km thick, with the majority of stuff of interest being within the lowest 17km.  The Earth itself has a 6,370km radius.)  Ergo, the atmosphere is more vulnerable to change because it's more small.  (Of course, this is ignoring that we really only use the top 10 meters or so of the Earth for most purposes, so we shouldn't assume the atmosphere is especially more vulnerable than the bits of the Earth we use to actually grow stuff.  But it's certainly less vulnerable than other parts like say, the core.)

He goes on to give a two paragraph description of how the greenhouse effect works.  I assume everyone here already knows about that, so I won't go into detail.  One thing he does mention though is that compared to our neighbors, Venus and Mars, Earth is special because if has just the right amount of greenhouse gases.  Mars is too cold because the greenhouse gases are "almost non-existent".  While Mars has 1% of the surface pressure (from the atmosphere) of Earth (in part because Mars is smaller than the Earth), that atmosphere is 95% carbon dioxide - a greenhouse gas.  On the flip side, Venus, also has an atmosphere including lots of carbon dioxide (and other gases as well), but its atmosphere is 92 times that of Earth.  Since both of these planets have about the same about of CO2, it would suggest to me the difference have more to do with how much atmosphere there is (which is pretty steady for Earth) than what its composition is - just going off the two examples Gore provided.

Gore talks about what greenhouse gases are and human sources of them.  He says CO2 makes up about 80% of human-made greenhouse gases, so that's why it's the focus of his work.  Not a lot more on how much CO2 is from human sources compared to natural sources (on this page).

Next we go to Dr. Roger Revelle.  This is the first time we've seen him mentioned, but apparently he made a major impact on Gore, who took a class with the good doctor.  Revelle has been measuring CO2 levels in the Pacific Ocean since 1958.  Levels have been going up.  What's interesting his the levels also go DOWN each year.  Apparently since most of the land mass is on the northern hemisphere, when we have summer and plants are blooming, that decreases CO2 levels.  During winter, they continue to grow.  A question I had, that Gore did not address, is if global warming is making more land (for instance, most of Greenland) available for growing plants, won't global changes in the environment result in the CO2 levels naturally balancing out on their own?  Probably a silly question, but I was curious.  Anyway, according to this single study, CO2 levels in Hawai'i have gone from 280ppm to 381ppm.

Goes on to talk about Revelle and his study that CO2 levels are going up.  Mentions CO2 levels make the ocean more acidic.  What is interesting is Gore says Revelle "knew" things like how the Earth is heading towards trouble, but never actually quotes Revelle.  Anyway, talks about how Revelle was a big inspiration.

Now we seem to have a jump.  Gore provides (beautiful) pictures of glaciers, comparing photos from 1901, 1930, 1970 etc. to 2006 photos, showing how the glaciers are receding.  He does NOT try to show causation.  There is simply no transition.  Page 40 he talks about Revelle's work studying CO2 levels, page 42 he has pictures of Tanzania saying 'the world is changing'.  He has about 10 pages of pictures.  He never directly states that global warming is causing this.  He references (but does not quote or provide references to other documents) what friend scientists have said to him.  He provides 5 examples of glaciers and says glaciers are receding globally, but never provides any evidence in this section that the problem is in fact global and not a series of independent events.  He does point out that a lot of Asia gets their water supply from glaciers in the Himalayas, and that their recession could cause a lack of clean water for "40%" of the world's population.  Again, no references to determine how much of this is speculation and how much is real cause for concern.  Frustrating.

At this point I'm at page 60.  I'm going to take a little break to get some work done.  However, reading through, disregarding the introduction (which I did actually disregard, if you remember.  Maybe I should go through it again more thoroughly), we've seen one study mentioned (although not by name, just by author).  He's gone over what greenhouse gases were, the results (in brief) of that study and has gathered evidence of particular glaciers receding (without explicitly drawing a connection).  As a skeptic, I'm having trouble finding any meat to criticize!

I'll continue again on 62 where we get to ice core samples once I've wrapped some other stuff up.  Feel free to comment in the meantime.

Glad to hear the book made it there, Katisara!  And glad to hear you've dove into it already!  Happy birthday, by the way!

Just want to clarify a few things from my perspective.  First, I don't think everything Al Gore says is correct, but I do think he's overall message (ie, CO2 levels are rising, they're rising because of us, this will cause global warming, and we should be doing something about it) is good.  I also think that the places where he has made errors are not deliberate falsifications, but rather cases where he's accepted one person's view, where I might not have.

My main motivation for sending the book was so that we could start talking more about what Gore says, rather than what is being said about Gore.  My guess/hope is that katisara will actually find Gore's message much less controversial and inflamatory than the media might have lead him to expect.

I will say I'm disappointed to hear that Gore isn't using better citation in his book.  I haven't read it myself, having only seen his movie, and had assumed that the book would include references at the back that a movie can't as easily include.  So, one demerit for Gore on that point.

So far, katisara's description sounds like what I would expect from the book given what I saw in the movie.  I can related to katisara's desire for "more meat," as the movie did bounce around quite a bit, and not go into a great amount of detail about most points.

Lastly, I get the impression that katisara thinks there are two possibilities for Gore's message: science, or propaganda.  I'm not comfortable calling it either of those.  It's definitely a rigorous scientific publication, nor was it intended to be.  It's not attempting to present a scientific case that Gore came up with, certainly.  It mentions the findings of others, and suggests a certain action.  That call for action is outside the realm of science, I would say, and into the realm of politics.  However, I feel it is possible to call for actions without being propaganda.  This may be a difference in what we define as propaganda.  Was MLK's "I have a dream" speech propaganda?  I would argue that it wasn't, though I'm sure there are definitions of propaganda that would fit it.  In my eyes, there is room for political advocacy.  It's not dishonest to encourage people to take certain actions, even if you appeal to their emotions when you do so.  I also don't feel that fear was the main emotion that Gore was playing to in the movie (and presumably in the book).  There was definitely a message of "this is a problem we can deal with," which is one of hope, and also a message of "this is something we're morally obligated to fix," which I guess is one of guilt.  Overall, though, I didn't feel like he was trying to terrify me, but rather motivate me to help fix the problem.

I would agree that MLK's speech wouldn't be propaganda.  Propaganda for me would include taking something that isn't science and marketing it as science.  What's interesting to me is Gore says in his introductions he hopes the movie would "not sacrifice the central role of science for entertainment's sake."  Later on in the book he talks about all scientists or most scientists agree with this or that.  But if he doesn't provide references, his word ceases to be science.  It becomes an emotional plea, and if he tries to market it as science, then it's propaganda.

I guess that's our point of disagreement, then.  I don't really think the movie is marketed as science, per se.  True, it's sold as being based on science, but that's different from being marketed as science.  At least to me.  I always assumed it would be an advocacy film, in large part because it was being done by a politician, not a scientist.  The name of the film also sounded very much like an advocacy project, and nothing like a scientific topic.  I agree that the movie is an emotional plea.  I guess I'm less convinced that it tried to present itself as not being one, though.  Again, I think it is an advocacy film, it intended to be an advocacy film, and I don't feel it tried to hide or obfuscate those facts at any point.

I'm continuing to read the book and take notes about things, but I'll stop posting them all up here, since I'm getting the sense no one is saying his science is off.  I'll still comment on things that rub me wrong when I hit them (his section on ethanol and biodiesels is more than a little wacky.  When National Geographic is basically saying corn ethanol is a losing deal while Gore is telling me it's the way of the future, there's clearly a disconnect.)  There are a few pages about scientists who agree with global warming (if someone wants to get a jump on this, he references University of California at San Diego scientist Dr. Naomi Oreskes, published in Science magazine, a study of every peer-reviewed science journal article on global warming from the previous 10 years, to determine how many acknowledge or deny global warming).

I also just have to say, the other thing that keeps getting me is the feeling of how hypocritical he is.  He is always writing about traveling EVERYWHERE.  By jet, helicopter, big car and so on, and not just on his official fact-finding missions.  This guy owns at least two houses, some very big cars, a private jet!  How can he berate me, a conservative who has questions about global warming, but who does not contribute to it a third as much as he does, when he is such a huge polluter?  That is very upsetting.  It's interesting to note that one of the stories he shares (and I'm telling it backwards, so you see my point), his father was a tobacco farmer, and continued to grow and sell tobacco even as his daughter was put in the hospital for lung cancer due to smoking.  He only stopped growing tobacco AFTER his daughter died.  So basically, this guy (Gore) is regularly the last horse off the starting block.  Kind of makes me wonder if he's even going in the right direction.

Alright, I feel better...

Since the original point of contention was whether or not it is propaganda (fighting words, I know), why doesn't someone go ahead and define what propaganda is.  If we have an accepted standard, we can determine whether it is appropriately applied or not.

Taking a page out of TitL's book, I went to the dictionary.  Here's what the first entry of dictionary.com says about propaganda:


(there's also a definition about part of the catholic church devoted to spreading the gospel to places where they have no formal setup for doing so, but that's clearly not the definition we're looking at, so I've left definitions relating to it out.

By the definitions above, I'd agree that Gore's message is propaganda.  But I'd also be forced to admit that MLK's speech was also propaganda.  I was actually a bit surprised to find that none of the definitions for "propaganda" had an explicit negative connotation, nor anything indicating that there was anything intentionally misleading.  To me, both of those are part of what I think of when I hear the word, and (I'm assuming) part of what is meant when Gore's movie is accused of being propaganda.

So, if we go by the strict, dictionary definition, I can agree the movie is propaganda, though, in that case I think those accusing it of such would have to answer, "so what?" since I don't think there's anything necessarily wrong with spreading information to help a movement.  The other option is to agree what we mean by propaganda, even if what we mean doesn't match the dictionary definition.  In that case, I'd say that, to me, it implies a deliberate attempt at misinformation.  I need not contain lies, per se, but it intentionally attempts to lead people to a belief that the author/film maker/whatever, knows is inaccurate.  Usually the goal is to bolster a point they really do believe, but they use arguments that they know aren't actually valid.

I would differentiate this from using simplified arguments that capture the main point, but avoid certain technical details, so long as a more detailed argument could be made to back up the conclusion of the simplified argument.  For example, a chemist might realize that the bohr model of the atom isn't actually correct, but could use it to explain a concept without being guilty of using propaganda, so long as a more accurate argument based on more complex models of the atom would lead to the same conclusion.

As for the other points:  I agree with you on biodiesel from corn.  Bad idea overall, I think, as it takes more energy than it brings in.  Other sources (such as sugar cane) look like they might provide a net gain, but I think the jury is still out on the process as a whole.

As for his level of pollution, that's something that gets mentioned quite a bit.  While it may or may not be true (he says he pays extra so that his homes are powered by renewables, which could mean he doesn't have quite as large a foot print as it might first appear), it doesn't change the truth or falsehood of his message.  He might be a hypocrit, but that doesn't necessarily mean he's wrong.  Plenty of doctors tell their patients to stop eating big macs, and then go out and eat a big mac themselves.  Doesn't mean the patient shouldn't listen to the doc.  It just means the doc should take his own advice, which is probably also true for Gore.  By dwelling on Gore personally, I think we run the risk of missing the much more important point of his message (which is one reason I didn't care for all the "personal" stuff he put into the movie, though I realize that adding it did make the movie appealing to a much wider audience).