When we were in NYC, we went to see Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" and found it to be generally convincing and disturbing. Andrew Sullivan pretty much thought the same but had some criticism for Gore that I think was well-deserved:
I finally saw the Gore movie yesterday. It's thoroughly persuasive about the reality of global warming and the contribution of carbon dioxide emissions to it. I'd recommend it strongly to anyone. Its blindspots were, however, obvious. No mention is made anywhere of the fact that Al Gore was a very powerful vice-president for eight years in a critical period for this issue. His fulminations against others' indifference would have been a little more credible if he'd at least addressed and explained his own failure to do anything when he was able to. It's also striking that Gore could have used the movie to argue for a serious increase in the gas tax - and he didn't. The movie's final recommendations - recycle! write your congressman! ride a bike! reset your thermostat! - were truly lame after the alarm of the rest of the movie. I think a serious gas tax and a tough increase in mandatory fuel economy standards in the U.S. are essential to prompting the technological breakthroughs that alone can ameliorate this. And yet Gore balked. Just like he did when he was in power.
An MIT professor's more substantial criticism is here. In the end, I would acknowledge that much more has to be learned before what is commonly believed by scientists about humanity's role in global warming can be proven. However, it's also clear that most scientists believe, despite the lack of complete proof, that humans are affecting our environment for the worse, and I tend to believe that it's better to be safe than sorry in cases like this.
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re: Inconvenient Rebuttals
Please explain to me how a higher gas tax would stop global warming. China and other countries contribute way more to carbon monoxide emissions than the US does because of the environmental polices we have in place. Why is it always our fault for everything?
re: Inconvenient Rebuttals
Though I certainly don't get excited about increasing gas taxes, these are some of the reasons a gas tax increase is advocated by some:
It wouldn't solve global warming, but it would help (while also creating other hardships that would have to be balanced).Carbon dioxide is the main greenhouse gas. I looked up carbon dioxide emission statistics (from the U.S. government) for the U.S. and China, made some plots.The data show that the U.S. is (at least as of 2004) and always has been the world's biggest emitter of CO2. Thus, it is our fault, more than anyone else's. That's why it's so disturbing to the rest of the world that we didn't go along with the Kyoto protocol.China certainly is a concern as its emissions skyrocket. Even more reason for us to address the problem now.You're right that policies related to emissions of other pollutants to water, air, etc. are much better in the U.S. than China...resulting in huge pollution problems in China. For example, see an article from The Economist here.