Gore's RSA talk updates 'Inconvenient Truth'
(Credit: Robert Vamosi/CNET Networks)SAN FRANCISCO--Global warming is real, and new evidence shows it may be worse than we previously thought, former Vice President Al Gore said during an RSA keynote address on emerging green technologies Friday.
The talk, which ran 45 minutes and closed the conference here, updated the presentation used in his Academy Award-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth.
Friday's talk was similar to one Gore delivered in February at the annual TED conference, but without the slides. During the speech here, the 2007 Nobel Laureate was interrupted by hecklers three times; each was removed by security.
In an arrangement with RSA, Gore specifically requested that members of the press not be allowed inside the talk. And throughout the speech, security guards did their best to keep people from holding up cell phones and other photographic equipment, although no one was asked to leave for taking a picture.
Individual attendees of RSA are allowed to blog their personal experiences, and RSA also allows them to photograph almost anything they want in exchange for being photographed by the conference for future marketing use.
Gore arrived to a standing ovation. He thanked the audience, and said he had respect for the people sitting in the auditorium and for the conference itself. He then opened with a joke about he and wife, Tipper, buying and running a franchise fast-food restaurant.
He drew a quick comparison between computer security and the global threat presented by global warming. He said most computer network threats are silent threats, like carbon dioxide. He said to make CO2 visible, he'd like governments to stop taxing employees and instead tax companies for their carbon footprint.
Gore then launched into new research on global warming. As a senator, he said, he specialized in nuclear warfare and had occasion to talk with military generals. He said he learned that each level of conflict--local, regional, and the rare global--required "a different allocation of resources, a different mix of tactics and strategies, a different way of conceiving the overall problem."
The environmental challenge is roughly the same, he said. Most of us have to deal with local problems such as clean water. Then there are regional problems, such as acid rain. And finally there are global concerns, such as global warming.
Gore then talked about a tale of two planets, Venus and Earth. He said that Venus wasn't 877 degrees Fahrenheit just because it's closer to the sun; he said it's because it's covered in carbon dioxide gas, which absorbs infrared radiation. "It's not complicated; it's physics," he said. In all of human existence, carbon dioxide never went above 300 parts per million. "This year," he said, "it's 385 parts per million."
Gore talked about Antarctica, and the effect of all that new carbon dioxide. He said the north polar icecap is normally the size of the lower 48 states, "give or take an Arizona." He said that in the summer of 2005, we lost the equivalent mass equal to the entire region east of the Mississippi river. Then in 2007, another large chunk broke off, or, as the scientists explained to Gore, "it fell off a cliff." He said that some scientists he's talked to now believe that within the next five years, the north polar ice cap will cease to exist during the summers.
Protesters make their voices heard
After talking for about 20 minutes, the first of three hecklers stood. A young woman started challenging Gore to admit he wanted to depopulate the Earth. She stood, taunting for about a minute before several security guards arrived to escort her out. As she was removed, a young man and a young woman toward the back stood up and began singing loudly. They, too, were removed. Then, after several minutes of silence from the audience, a middle-aged man stood up and started yelling that Gore was lying to the audience. He got the boot, as well.
Focusing on technology's role, Gore said that we have automated the process of converting carbon into CO2. "Most of it is waste." He said the amount of energy we actually use from carbon is a very small amount, "which posses a great challenge and a great opportunity."
Gore cited his friend Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute, a nonprofit energy policy institute, who told him that people often assume that when we change technology there will be a loss.
Gore then recounted a business example. He talked about how a company in Canada was using environmental unfriendly chemicals to clean circuit boards and wanted to phase out the use of these chemicals in its business. The company first asked, "what alternatives are there?" and pursued that line of thinking for a while. Then one day an engineer asked a new question: "How do the circuit boards get dirty in the first place?" That question, and the resulting answer, created a new type of circuit board that has proved immensely profitable to the Canadian company.
Returning to his reason for speaking at RSA, Gore said that "because CO2 is invisible, we need information technology to track it." Specifically, Gore said we need to track the efficiency of technology we already use.
Citing Lovins again, Gore said the Colorado-based scientist had looked at how much energy was useful in a gallon of gasoline. Lovins found that only 1 percent is useful in moving a car from point A to point B. The rest, 99 percent, is waste, according to Lovins, "because the process, which is more than 100 years old, is incredibly inefficient," Gore said.
Learning to ask the right questions
Gore asked the audience, "How can we change old technologies to be more efficient?" The answer, he said, is in learning to ask the right question. "Most of the productive questions are going to be in the second or third order of asking."
Gore said that if we look at the true cost of carbon, we're going to find that new technologies (such as solar energy) "are going to be much more useful to us now than they have been in the past."
He then left the audience with a question: "How will future generations look back on us at the turn of the 21st century?" He said they could ask, "What were they thinking?" But, Gore, being Gore, said he was confident that instead they would ask, "How did they find the moral courage to do what they did?"
Gore left the stage to thundering applause.
- Topics:
-
Security
- Tags:
-
security,
-
RSA 2008,
-
Al Gore,
-
emerging green technology
- Bookmark:
- Digg
- Del.icio.us
Last year when gas hit $3.25 for the first time we traded down our car for a more fuel efficient one, and we made a pact to drive more calmly. Still every day I see Volvos racing into traffic jams, and SUVs with Obama stickers mercilessly tailgating other cars.
Gore is really milking this "let's pretend to care about global warming" thing to market his books and movies, and pad his legacy.
Page 7 of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report Summary discusses declines in glaciers and snow cover, but does not mention the thickening of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet which has been thickening for the past 200 years (based on a study by NASA and the University of California Santa Cruz), the thickening of the interior of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet (based on a study funded by NASA's Cryospheric Processes Program and the National Science Foundation's Antarctic Glaciology Program), or the thickening of the interior of Greenland?s ice sheets (based on a study by Norway's Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center).
The IPCC report mentions that Arctic sea ice has decreased 2.7% per decade since 1978 (page 8), but does not mention that sea ice has increased by 8% in the Southern Ocean.
The Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia found that for the period 1998-2005, the average global temperature did not increase.
Snow cover over North America and much of Siberia, Mongolia and China is greater than at any time since 1966.
Gilles Langis, a senior forecaster with the Canadian Ice Service in Ottawa, says the Arctic winter has been so severe the ice has not only recovered, it is actually 10 to 20 cm thicker in many places than at this time last year.
For those who put their faith in man-made global warming, please examine all of the facts, not those provided to you by those who have a monetary interest in earth warming.
We had one of the coldest and snowiest winters on record in the US and China in 2008. Why?
The Earth has gone through numerous ice ages over the past billion years. Why?
If you Global Alarmist-warmest can explain that phenomenon, then I may listen to you. This Earth is always in some climate flux. It is never static. We are always cooling or heating up.
Yosemite had 3000 feet of ice covering its beautiful valley floor only 30,000 years ago.
How can we be so certain that these changes in the Earth's temperature, a system that has gone from ice ages to massive global warming that melted the ice - are from man made emissions.
This Earth has gone through much more dramatic climate changes in the past. We seemed to be hijacked by certain political people who see this as a means of taking control.
They say, follow my philosophy or the world will end. A pretty strong and dramatic argument.
I just don't buy it. These weather changes could as well be from the precession of the equinox in conjunction with the eccentricity of our orbit around the Sun. These two physical facts could as well explain - not only heating, but cooling, over the ages.
Only politicians like Al Gore, and his rabid following, like the noble men of 17th century Italy, who totally supported Pope Urban 8th, in his denunciation and imprisonment of Galileo, would embrace such data - as it would serve only their politics.
Explain the ice ages and I will lend credence to your support of Global Warming. Otherwise you are as ingnorant of the facts of climate change as anyone else.
Just because you have a liberal, hysterical press supporting you - a press who is always looking for an end of the world story - doesn't make the story true.
The combination of a world wide histrionic press in association with an equally histrionic, washed up politicain - who uses and wastes more energy than 10 families, doesn't make your hysterics true.
This Earth is always heating up or cooling. We were in an ice age 30,000 years ago. Just a second in the life span of this Earth. We have been in many such ice ages and heating periods since, long before man and CO2 emissions from him, ever occurred. Why?
Philly weather had record snowfall this winter, too, and the West is abnormally wet with frequent precipitation when it's normally dry, like in the summer months.
Forest fires have become rare around the world and firefighters are losing their jobs.
Worst of all, polar bears and walruses have moved south, pushed by from overpopulation, and end up eating up Canadians.
Something like that.
man, solar panel companies and the like have proven, using a
new scientific medium called empiricism without research, the
unprovable, global warming. Armed with data accumulated over
the massive span of 80 years, these scientists have proven, not
correlated, that we caused global warming--beating Antarctic
climatologists to the chase, who have data spanning over the
past 1.5 million years. Congratulations to all the believers and
shame on all the skeptics. Global Warming is as real as these scientists tell us it is.
Look, I reduce first, reuse second, then recycle and then trash. My family puts out less trash than anyone I know and most certainly less than anyone on my block. But this is ridiculous, for him to preach and then get on a private jet is a disgrace.
The Global warming discussion is a money making machine and a political engine.
It reminds me of Apple. Great products, but you are only allowed to use them as the company wants it. No wonders that Al Gore sits on Apple's board.
Will we ever going to sign an EULA everytime we want to watch Gore's presentation?
Everyday people are more concerned about financial security, getting their kids' futures and safety, and what they're going to cook for dinner.
--------------------------------------------
I was there today for Gore's speech at RSA. The rule was that you could only take pictures or video for the first 5 minutes. That is exactly how long it took him to provide some comical stories that had nothing to do with global warming. I stopped filming and put my camera away. Others at my table kept filming until the guards came around and told them that they would be asked to leave if they did not stop filming. I watched the guards methodically go through the crowd and stop each and every person that had an obvious LCD lit. After 15 minutes into the meat of his speech, Gore exclaimed that "the Arctic ice cap will be completely melted within 5 years". You could hear some gasps in the crowd. Not sure what others thought, but I thought it was without merit. So now it gets good. About a minute later, a brave young woman in her early twenties near the front row begins to tell Gore that he is wrong. He trys to laugh it off. She stays standing and continues to yell at him. Before her interruption many people began to leave early. I think the 5 year melting of the arctic was too much. So, she continues. The guards close in on her. I decided to follow her out. I could not take it anymore. I wanted to say something to her. I make it to the door right behind her. She is being escorted by three guards. I managed to get close to her and thanked her. She smiled and said your welcome. A cop meets them outside and continues with them up the escalator. I follow behind on the escalator. I hear really loud singing. A group of 10 or more come out of the keynote room singing a funny song. It was something like "Al Gore NotCo2, blah blah blah" The NotCo2 part sounded like Nazi. They followed close behind me on the escalator. There seemed to be more commotion and I witnessed many more people leaving early after I had exited. When we reached the top of the escalator, the cops and guards escorted the woman away. I did not catch where they went. The singers made to the top and then disappeared in an unknown direction. There was quite a bit of confusion going on. My thought is that the speech was cut short by so many leaving and the few causing the disruption. He got what he deserved. Maybe there was some disrespect, but when you bar the press and any recording of an event, you have to wonder. What is the big secret? Must be a thin skin issue.
disproven by science its an idea that encapsulates peoples fears
and hopes with a doomsday scenario built in.
The new secular religion. Gore didn't go to seminary school for
nothing. He knows how to build a religion.
people who oppose the idea of global warming fight against
measures to improve our lives?
What we CAN prove is that there is a lot of pollution in many
major cities, we ARE cutting down trees faster than they can
replenish.
Even IF global warming didn't exist, the measures being
proposed by the climate change supporters to improve efficiency
and reduce pollution HAVE NO ILL EFFECT.
It seems anytime I find a person opposing climate change,
he/she is also totally against the idea of making our lives more
efficient.
People against the idea of climate change also think that
efficiency entitles greater upfront expenses, but all people have
to do is do a bit of learning to find CHEAPER AND CLEANER
alternatives to toxic chemicals we currently use. Even if you
found cleaner alternatives that were slightly more expensive,
would it be all that bad that your sacrificing a little expense to
make you and those around you healthier?
Efficiency is the BEST thing that can happen to society because it
relieves the world and the population of excess strain.
Please, even if you oppose climate change, give me ONE GOOD
reason why the improvements (to move the newer, cleaner fuels,
materials, lifestyles) people such as Al Gore propose is so bad?
Now I am older another politician, Al Gore states that the global climate is warming up.
And, again, scientists 'prove' that.
Politicians = convenient lies.
The truth is that the global climate has changed dramatically over and over again in the past and will continue to do so. With or without humans or politicians.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.365.south.jpg
In fact, will you tell your followers that the only part of the Antarctic that is melting is the part with a volcano under it? Or will you prefer to focus on one small part while ignoring the whole? Or will you just ignore the Antarctic altogether and focus on the Arctic because that is more in line with your thinking?
Can you please explain to me why meteorologists don't believe in climate change? Dr. James Span said as much in one of his blogs. And the founder of the Weather Channel wants to sue you over this issue. So why is it that these scientists are ignored?
Can you explain to me why warmer temperatures means less hurricanes? Can you explain to me why the other planets have become warmer at about the same time as our planet did? Can you explain the Medieval Warm Period? Can you explain why pro-climate change groups receive far more money than anti-climate change groups?
your American ways. So can you tell me what or who this RSA actually is.
Also I believe that Al Gore is a ******** artist.
He has made a vast amount of money from preaching to
the converted, and his life style shows he is of the do as I say not as I do mob.
Many years ago I learned that "Can't believe half the lies your told"
- MARS POLAR CAPS MELTING TO
-
by chickenheadfread
April 13, 2008 9:01 PM PDT
- THE POLAR CAPS ARE MELTING ON EARTH AND MARS DUE TO NIBURI OR AS U CAN CALL IT PLANET X, PLANET X IS DUE TO COME CLOSE TO EARTH IN THE YEAR 2012 THE SUPPOSED END OF THE WORLD, THE PLANETS GRAVITATIONAL FORCES ARE NOW CAUSING THE EARTHS CORE AS IN MARS CORE AND ALL OTHER PLANETS TO HEAT UP. AS THE CORES HEAT SO DOES THE OCEANS, THAT CAUSES THE EXTREME WEATHER OR THE SO CALLED COVER-UP GLOBAL WARMING, BUT THE INCREASE IN EARTQUAKES AND VOLCANIC ACTIVITY AT THE SAME TIME DEBUNKS GLOBAL WARMING. THE EFFECTS WILL CONTINUE TO INCREASE AS PLANET-X OR AS NOSTRADAMUS CALLS IT THE COMET PLANET AND THE Sumerians NIBURU. NIBURU MEANS PASSING PLANET, GOOGLE IT AND BE INFORMED, OR JUST TAKE DISS AS JOKE AND BE HAPPY UNTIL 2012
-
Reply to this comment
-
-
See all 56 Comments >>