Not Evil Just Wrong

As someone who is neither pro nor anti-climate change, I feel I can listen to the arguments for and against the case of man-made climate change with an open mind but, as Richard Dawkins says, not so open minded that my brain falls out.

When it comes to controversial subject matters such as man-made climate change, I, personally, prefer to listen to a debate, with both sides represented, than a, more or less, one sided documentary.

However, I'd heard many good things about this documentary and, as it's made by two Irish journalists and fellow citizens of mine, I was that bit more intrigued.

The Good: There are some excellent scientific counter arguments presented and there are numerous 'big claims' made by pro-climate change heavy weights, most notably Al Gore, that are either discredited or exposed as sensationalist non-truths or, at the very least, exaggerations of the facts.

There seems to be a, somewhat, credible line-up of contributors on hand to lend their views, scientific know how or experience in this field.

I'm sure that, if there were a direct answer to this documentary from the 'pro' side, there would probably be an equal amount of statements and 'facts' discredited in the, sometimes, mud-slinging arena, that is climate change..

The bad: I'm not a scientist, so I'm not in a position to discredit or, indeed, endorse the 'facts' in this documentary, so I won't go there.

While the impact on the 'average' family and, of course, those who are already impoverished, is certainly something that needs to be emphasized, as cheap fossil fuels may be replaced with more expensive "greener" forms, along with carbon taxes being introduced by many governments, I felt that the time dedicated to 'the average middle American family' was far too long.

This movie clocks in at just under 90 minutes with approximately 25-30 minutes taken up by an overweight women and her malnourished husband who are both, by the own admission, not very well educated.

Not being very well educated is certainly not a crime but, in a documentary supposedly exposing the bad science of the Al Gore led pro-climate change group, a family employed in the industrial sector explaining that they "couldn't pay for their new wooden floors" and "entertainment systems" if it weren't for their industrial jobs and how they're "living their American dream", isn't science.. or even a valid argument, in the grand scheme of things. Of course, the impact on family's standard of living is a very important topic that should not be swept under the carpet but 10 minutes would have been sufficient in this particular documentary.

In my opinion, I feel it takes away a little creditability from what is, otherwise, a very fine piece of work.

So, if you're like me and still not completely sold on either side, this is well worth a look.

The title of this pseudo-documentary is ironic, since it implies that people who want to prevent human overpopulation and greed from suffocating our only life support system might be "evil." Anti environmentalists who see pollution as excusable are the truly evil ones. The right-wing, religious, Cornucopian view of the world forgets that agencies like the EPA were created because industries would not voluntarily stop polluting. A film like this would have gotten no traction in the late 60s and early 70s, and deserves none today.

Modern conservatives bask in a fantasy world where they assume environmental regulations are unnecessary to mitigate human overpopulation and the cannibalization of nature to support a single species at the expense of others. They "forget" all the earlier battles fought to protect nature from their own denier ilk, and they simply ignore climate science and worst-case warming scenarios.

You won't find any accurate coverage in this film of CO2's huge impacts on "radiative forcing," the key factor in trapping heat over time. CO2 controls about 80% of radiative forcing, per NASA and other sources. Conservatives throw around the term "trace gas" without the context of CO2's potency. They harp on water vapor as the most powerful greenhouse gas, but water vapor is in constant flux while CO2 lingers far longer in the atmosphere and modulates the net warming effect. Without CO2, most of the world would be frozen. How can anyone think it's an insignificant gas if they really understand what it does?

The film is full of appeals to "ordinary people vs. the elites" but the former often have no understanding of the science. The message is politicized, not truly investigated on its scientific merit. The main tactic is to create doubt about the climate consensus without ever proving that doubts are valid. It's the same old denialism repackaged with a not so clever title.

I find it especially ironic that these filmmakers claim to be concerned about the poor, downtrodden masses who are already suffering from climate change in low-lying areas and marginal farming regions. They will be the worst hit, so stop playing them as "victims of environmentalism." The real good guys are not science-denying capitalist zealots.

This documentary is not against the theory that our climate is changing. It is more about our response (collectively) to climate change. Some of the solutions that have been proposed are merely a matter of transferring the emissions to an alternative location in order to disassociate them from the true cause. I would say that the electric car is a classic example.

The Idea of using biomass as a a renewable energy source is just ludicrous. The whole reason coal became so popular was it stopped people from clear cutting trees (biomass) to use as a source of fuel.

Nuclear energy is painted as a negative solution but in comparison it could make electric cars less polluting by eliminating the coal fired power plant.

The good news is hydrogen powered cars are only about 10 years away. They have been 10 years away since the early 1970s. There are many problems with Hydrogen as a fuel source which I won't go into here. If you want to follow that train of thought Google Hydrogen Embrittlement.

This is a neutral look at the proposed solutions that may sound wonderful until you look into it seriously. I do not see where they have made any comment that could be construed as denying climate change. It is more of a look at how bad the solutions are and how they have been sold to us as a means to change the outcome of climate change.

When was Florida supposed to be under water according to Al Gore's 1990's prediction???