Whooda thunk it? A movie with a plot line that is reminiscent of Dr. James Hansen’s testimony before congress in June 1988.
If any of you have ever been in Washington DC during the summertime, you’ll be able to relate to this. Senator Timothy Wirth made sure that room was “steamy”. This transcript excerpt is from PBS series Frontline which aired a special in April 2007.
TIMOTHY WIRTH: We called the Weather Bureau and found out what historically was the hottest day of the summer. Well, it was June 6th or June 9th or whatever it was. So we scheduled the hearing that day, and bingo, it was the hottest day on record in Washington, or close to it.
DEBORAH AMOS: [on camera] Did you also alter the temperature in the hearing room that day?
TIMOTHY WIRTH: What we did is that we went in the night before and opened all the windows, I will admit, right, so that the air conditioning wasn’t working inside the room. And so when the- when the hearing occurred, there was not only bliss, which is television cameras and double figures, but it was really hot.[Shot of witnesses at hearing]
Watch the Frontline video here.
So what exactly does happen to the mindset and health of a bunch of people when you lock then in a hot, steamy, room under the premise of teaching them about global warming?
From Tim Blair, It’s the greatest global warming movie never seen:
A former professor concocts a brutal experiment in order to get the word out on the effects of global warming. By trapping six people in an urban Turkish bathhouse, he vows to overheat his hostages unless his global-warming hypothesis is published on the front page of his local paper.
Starring Val Kilmer as the professor. Apparently The Chaos Experiment opened in just two cinemas before hitting the “use these as drink coasters” bins at DVD outlets. A small plot flaw, evident even before seeing the film: the deranged academic had to threaten people before his warming theories were published?
Gosh, I wonder if this plot line would work with a closed room with some industrial strength air conditioning and some NYT and Nature editors? 😉
Here is the official movie website.
But apparently it has been released now under a different name aka The Chaos Experiment ?
WOOD-TV writes that it was filmed in Michigan. Your tax dollars at work:
“The Chaos Experiment” is one of 34 films shot in Michigan since tax incentives were put in place to lure filmmakers to Michigan.
I wonder if Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow could feel the volatility of this global warming movie during filming?
By either name, it seems that it doesn’t even appear in Yahoo’s Movie Box Office Ranking for any of the last three weeks. With over 100 films listed, “straight to video” might be too kind.
At the IMDB Movie database one reviewer writes:
I rent DVD’s to pass the time on airplanes. Sadly, staring out at the clouds would have been better entertainment than this.
And probably more instructive as to how the atmosphere works.
h/t to Kate at SDA
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If you can’t get your theory across without such ridiculous theatrics then maybe the theory needs re-examining.
You just know these people flunked “plays well with others” in kindergarten…
I wonder if the writters of this movie locked the producers in a room full of scripts until their movie idea was approved.
Anyway, I am listening to “Its raining men” from the Weather Girls. It gives you funnier and more accurate predictions thatn any of the 23 climate models described on the IPCC AR4.
@ur momisugly Elizabeth (19:45:46) :
“I have been thinking this theme would make a great motion picture.
Maybe they just need better scriptwriting.”
I think you’re right, Elizabeth. Add some car chases, throw in a few aliens with chain saws and hockey masks, blow up a few buildings, and change the plotline to the destruction of Cairo by a glacier. Oh, and some gratuitous brief nudity.
That would fix it right up.
Wade (18:57:59) :
A minor quibble with your statement…
“And it was filmed in Michigan: the only state that saw its population drop without a natural disaster involved.”
North Dakota has experienced a population decline. Population was 681K (rouded) in 1930, and 642K in 2000.
Source: http://www.census.gov/dmd/www/resapport/states/northdakota.pdf
On the subject of fusion energy, we are still decades away from the first commercial reactor. It is hoped that “ignition” could be acheived by the 2020’s, but a commercial reactor sometime in the 2040’s.
However, this is not the main problem. Even if a fusion reaction generator was built tommorow, sufficient tritium does not exist to fuel the world. Tritium is a short lived isotope that is not found in nature and has to be manufactured from nuclear reactors. The goal is that once the first fusion reactor becomes operational, it would generate the tritium for the next generations, and so on, but it would probably take several decades more to achieve the required amounts.
Nice idea though.
UK Sceptic (00:39:44) wrote:
If you can’t get your theory across without such ridiculous theatrics then maybe the theory needs re-examining.
Shades of the pap that they teach at Sunday school.
IanM
I wish people (RACook, Arn Riewe, etc) wouldn’t pollute this blog with their ideological claptrap. Right-wingers have clearly zip-all claim to being more ethical, moral or upholding of the truth than left-wingers. Both are just as guilty of believing what suits their own agenda and reframing the facts that don’t fit.
Oh my, what a surprise that many of these pretend “planet-savers” are hypocrites who are either making money from the scare or think that government has to mandate them to reduce their carbon-high rather than them doing it voluntarily. But many of these snake-oil sales opportunists were/are capitalist opportunists like Enron or Goldman Sachs. And many more are nuclear greenwashers. There’s something for everyone, whether capitalist or anti-capitalist, in this climate hype.
But if we want to get people to read beyond the alarmist headlines and think about the actual facts then it doesn’t help to lower the debate into facile left-versus-right ideologies: You merely give the opposition the impression that you’d spread misinformation just to avoid paying taxes. It’s already quite vomit-inducing enough to see so many on both sides claim to care about poverty in the 3rd world.
Hey, it just appears the Alarmists were smarter back then. This past winter a number of the Alarmist events ended up being snowed out. If you want to have an event that supports the crazy idea that we are all doomed due to hot weather, it makes a lot more sense to schedule in in the summer.
That being said, do you really think you should believe someone who tells you the sky is falling who appears to be this stupid?
This looks like it will be a better movie. “Not evil – just wrong”. I don’t know anything else about it apart from what is here. Someone put it on another thread so I thought I’d put it up here too. It’s a documentary and it gets released in October.
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/1988450
It was a chap called Trevor who pointed this movie out on Tips and Notes. Here’s the website.
http://www.noteviljustwrong.com/
Not Evil Just Wrong is the film Al Gore and Hollywood don’t want you to see. It reveals the true human cost of Global Warming hysteria.
Not Evil Just Wrong shows how Global Warming alarmism and the tax increases that go along with it are going to increase costs for working families during one of the worst recessions in living memory.
Al Gore and his allies want to ban fossil fuels in the developed world. This would devastate the American economy and drive jobs to India and China.
Be part of the resistance. With your help we can bypass the barriers to distribution that Hollywood and the mainstream media put up to stop you from hearing the truth.
Be part of the premiere night by hosting a screening in your home, community center or church. Be part of the cinematic tea party movement and tell Al Gore and the elites that you are fed up with taxes and restrictions that threaten jobs across the country.
THE FIGHTBACK STARTS HERE.
Poor timing. If they re-released the movie as “The Steam Experiment,” they might pick up all us steam-punk dudes. Yo.
.
Vincent (07:01:17) :
On the subject of fusion energy, we are still decades away from the first commercial reactor. It is hoped that “ignition” could be achieved by the 2020’s, but a commercial reactor sometime in the 2040’s.
Two things will happen a thousand years from now –
1. At the satellite era measured rate of 3.2 mm/yr, the sea level will have risen 10 feet (unless the interglacial has ended).
2. It will be hoped that fusion “ignition” could be achieved by the 3020’s, but a commercial reactor sometime in the 3040’s.
This is the reason why I am so giddy about returning to Pendleton to start school again. I get to change my registration from Democrat to Independent, (or maybe the Libertarian party). I still can’t stomach the idea of joining the moral majority big brother to my bedroom and babywomb party. The minute they drop that unscientific claptrap from their party planks will be the day I join the Republican party.
I’ve just found a website by a physicist who makes James Hansen looks like a skeptic. According to his calculations, we have already baked in a 26F temperature rise which we are committed to even if we shut down the entire economy tomorrow because his calculations have shown a 140 year time lag. With business as usual, by 2027 we are committed to a 35F temperature increase. Al Gore will be sick with envy when he reads of 300foot sea level rises. It is amazing that such stupidity exists. However, if you like some comic relief it is worth a read.
http://mb-soft.com/public3/global.html
Today there is 100,000 km*km more ice in the Arctic than there was on this day last year and ony about 6,000 less than there was in 2005.
Looks like the doomsayers were wrong … again.
Thank you to Trevor and Jimmy Haigh (08:49:25) : for bringing this to my attention.
I hope this movie delivers and steers clear of the bias….but it sure looks like a good attempt to FIGHT BACK!
Hey Crosspatch, interesting report on the ice. You mind posting that link?
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
savethesharks (11:55:29) :
See the latest comments in this thread. Coment 252 in particular. That comment was posted after the initial number of -55469 for yesterday’s melt figure was release. It has been since revised downward to -49219 (about 6,000 less) so it looks like 2008 yesterday was pretty much exactly what it was on the same date in 2005.
“so it looks like 2008 yesterday”
Meant 2009, duh!
Crosspatch (13:45:03) -sounds likea job for the Catlin folks to make a Polar visit!
Or Hansen can finish the trip trough the NW passage with the folks that are trying to sail it this year-he might make a good sea cook….
(he seems to be good at cooking things…)
old salt (06:38:04) :
If you don’t consider the weather in North Dakota as a natural disaster you haven’t been there.
I watched most of the Kilmer movie last night. Occasionally I check out a lemon which is so bad that I can’t bear to watch all of it. The “artistic” scenes of people in a steam bath require that you have a FF button to get through them to arrive at the forgettable interrogation scenes of Val Kilmer as the nutty professer.
But as wa all like to predict things here, I hereby predict that the crazy climate scientist will be a “B” movie “type” explored by writers for years to come. If you watch it, just keep your finger poised over the FF button.
Jack Simmons (00:11:16) :
Admittedly, Standard Oil was not the only player. But they and a handful of companies who would profit, dismantled the electric train, electric auto and trolleycar infrastructure, and installed the fossil fuel debacle that we know today. These facts are easy Googling – but ignorance is bliss for those unaware of history.
“After all, mankind has depended on fossil fuels from the first wood fire.”
That’s hardly an apt comparision. Should we huddle around campfires in this era of advanced technology? Some would have us do so until the last drop of fossil fuel has been wrung from the earth, leaving nothing for future generations, before a replacement source of energy has been found.
“And last time I checked, fusion is not ready for prime time energy production.”
Did you visit the LLNL website? https://lasers.llnl.gov/programs/psa/fusion_energy/
The lasers will be running by 2010. Were you expecting fusion energy this week?
Vincent (07:01:17) :
Tritium can be recycled during the fusion process, as detailed here:
http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/0029-5515/40/3Y/311
http://www.science.doe.gov/sbir/awards_abstracts/sttr/cycle5/phase1/abstract/11.htm
And the D-T process is not the only one possible, just the easiest at this point in time:
http://focusfusion.org/index.php/site/article/35/
Here’s more information on producing tritium from lithium, a common element:
http://library.thinkquest.org/17940/texts/fusion_dt/fusion_dt.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tritium
Careful, you might learn something! Thank you for letting me rock your world.
Brandon Dobson,
My point was that we are several decades away from commercial fusion power and probably a century from converting most of the worlds generation in this manner. If you have evidence to the contrary I would be please to see it. However, citing theoretical nuclear reactions doesn’t cut it.
I’m afraid you haven’t rocked my world for me, but please feel free to try again.
It’s always a bit of light relief spotting either deliberate or ‘accidental’ spin on any topic. The AMSR-E graphs have always been a favourite of mine; why do they have the origin at 2msqm?
The effect isn’t quite the same when you drop it to 0…
http://tinyurl.com/o985to
Cheers
Mark
As I do not know the historical facts about the birth of the global warming theory, perhaps some of you could explain how Dr.James Hansen was able to take his theory to the US congress, back in 1988. What did it happen then?.
He must have felt rewarded when, 9 years after, it happened the 97-98 El Nino.
Was reality some way close the chaos experiment shown above? Who take him to be heard by the congress?. It would be interesting to know the whole story, because by knowing it we could, perhaps, to descipher the motivations of such a “creed”.