People send me stuff.
Readers may recall this story: Al Gore denied film footage rights by an Australian filmmaker where Mr. Gore sought the broadcast rights to a “fire tornado” footage shot during a wildfire near Alice Springs Australia for use in his upcoming “dirty weather report” aka 24 hours of Tabloid Climatology™.
The Australian wrote about how the filmmaker said ‘no’ then:
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Al Gore denied firestorm footage | The Australian
A WEATHER expert has backed the stance of an Alice Springs filmmaker who refused to sell footage of a firestorm to former US vice-president Al Gore — to use in Mr Gore’s climate presentations — because the event was unrelated to climate change.
In an email exchange with Mr Gore’s office, Tangey said using the footage in a climate-change framework would be ‘deliberately deceptive’
“I am aware that you may have missed the reporting on the very localised nature of this firestorm,” Tangey wrote. “However, in any case, I am confused as to why you would offer to buy a licence to use it at all unless you had conducted even elementary research which might indicate that this Mt Conner event had direct linkage to global warming/climate change.”
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Here below is a sample of the video shot by Tangey that Gore wants to use. One could safely bet that it would be used in the unsupportable context of “wildfires and tornadoes are getting worse due to climate change” and what could be more terrifying that tornadoes of fire to people that don’t know about the mechanisms of their formation and how they aren’t like the tornadoes from cumulonimbus supercell storms or that they’ve been around since time immemorial in wildfires?
After seeing it, I can understand why Gore wanted it, and why the filmmaker denied him the right to use it.
Now unbelievably, after being told in no uncertain terms that the use of this video in the context of Gore’s “dirty weather report“, won’t be licensed to his effort, Gore’s production team is trying again to get this broadcast rights to this video in a “back door” sort of way. Here’s the most recent email exchange:
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On 07/11/2012, at 1:04 PM, Andrea Smith wrote:
Hi Chris!
Wasn’t sure if this is the same Chris who shot the fire tornado? But I was curious if Alice Springs Television still controlled the rights to the footage?
I’m a producer working on some documentary pieces for a nonprofit organization doing an internet broadcast, and was wondering how much it would
be to license some of the footage?
Thank you so much for your help and time!
Best wishes,
Andrea L. Smith
Producer/The Climate Reality Project
[email redacted]
[telephone numbers redacted]
+++++++++++++++++++
On Wed, Nov 7, 2012 at 4:28 AM, chris tangey [email redacted] wrote:
Andrea,
I mean no disrespect, but I have to say that at best your organisation has some serious internal communication problems.
At worst, Mr. Gore is now requesting these images “through the back door”, and I note in your email that you completely omit mentioning Mr. Gore or the specific intentions you have for its usage.
As I’m sure you are aware I have previously refused a request for this footage from your Founder and Chairman on the grounds that there is no evidence to support your proposed usage.
That is, that this intense, but incredibly localised, event has any relationship whatsoever to climate change/global warming. In fact from the expert advice I have received, I believe the evidence is to the contrary.
I am happy to be proved wrong, but that appears highly unlikely.
In any case, even if “the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing” in Mr. Gore’s organisation, I again have to ask the question; Why would you request this footage
if you do not have firm evidence to prove that this particular event was caused by, or was in any way attributable to, global or even regional climate change?
If a project is bold enough to call itself “Climate Reality, ” then I would reasonably expect a great deal of fact and reality attached to it.
I believe viewers all over the world would expect the same. If I tune into your special event “24 hours of reality” on November 14 and 15, how will I know which event you present is really factual and directly attributable, and which is not?
Dare I say, what will be truth and what won’t be? How will anyone watching know? Especially, how will the 4,000 activists around the world your project has trained to “educate and inspire others” know?
Are all your requests for visual material to support climate change presentations made without any prior requirement for supporting evidence?
I must say that this continuing episode has adversely affected my view of those promoting anthropological climate change , and I now view any programs about it with a more sceptical eye.
So, yet again, I cannot in all conscience accept your offer, for any amount.
Sincerely
Chris Tangey
++++++++++++++
On 08/11/2012, at 4:05 AM, Andrea Smith wrote:
Chris,
First of all, I in no way meant to disrespect or offend you. I am an independent, freelance producer, and I don’t think anyone is trying to acquire the footage through “the back door.” I can assure you that the Climate Reality people have been very very tough on us as far as what stories we are able to cover. For instance, I have produced a piece on climate change and coffee in Colombia with scientists from CIAT, so it is very grounded in science, and both fascinating and terrifying as to what is happening all over this planet.
The program this year is to discuss “Dirty Weather” and “Extremes” of weather. It’s an open point for discussion for the scientists and panelists that will be participating. It’s to invite conversation and discussion. As a freelance producer I had no idea when I started this project that the US is the only country in the world that has an active Climate Denier movement – every other country in the world has accepted this as a fact and is moving forward to do something about it. From what I understand, Australia has implemented a very innovative carbon tax and has a number of other programs in place in many of their cities. I’m somewhat embarrassed I live in a country where we so greedily use up so much of the earth’s resources and seem immune to it.
Anyway, it’s an incredible piece of footage and fantastic you captured it. I have been lucky enough to have the opportunity to visit your country twice for extended periods of time, including Alice Springs. I can easily say Australia is one of my favorite places in the world. Again, no offense meant, and none taken. I hope you do have the opportunity to watch part of the programming and that you find merit in it.
Very best wishes,
Andrea L. Smith
+++++++++++++++++++
Begin forwarded message:
From: chris tangey
Date: 8 November 2012 11:25:39 AM ACST
To: Andrea Smith
Subject: Re: Firenado footage
Andrea,
Thanks for your response, I’m sure from your comments below that you are personally committed to the cause of anthropological climate change, but as copyright owner my primary concern is that any usage of this material should be scientifically valid and in context. I find that your response hasn’t addressed my specific questions on whether it would be scientifically appropriate to use it in an extreme weather context .
As has been widely reported, it was such a highly localised event it was most likely caused by the fire itself, let alone any external “weather” and certainly not anything on a climatic scale.
The cattle station owners (who have been on that property for 55 years) have indicated that is their firm belief, and that in fact its heat and severity was caused by the fact that they have deliberately protected that patch of resin-filled spinifex grass for over half a century, allowing that resin to build up over time. Spinifex (Triodia) is highly flammable and creates intense heat in any case.
Joel Lisonbee, Manager of the Northern Territory Climate Services Centre, was quoted as saying he also saw no connection between this event and climate change/global warming.
“This event was better described as a dust devil within a fire. Most of us have seen dust devils and know they are not uncommon,” Mr Lisonbee said:
“You need hot, dry conditions but you get those in desert-like conditions everywhere, regardless of global warming.”
I know that we could just “agree to disagree” but I feel I must raise some real concerns to your response. Firstly your title indicates your are employed at the highest level of the Climate Reality Project, a Producer, freelancer or not, so I am confused as to why you refer to “the Climate Reality people” in the third person. Assuming for a moment that these people are separate to yourself you go on to say that they “have been very very tough on us as far as what stories we are able to cover”. So clearly this indicates they must have approved not just your enquiry about the footage, but the next stage of actually offering to buy it.
Since Mr. Gore’s office first contacted me to buy the rights, which indicated Mr. Gore himself had made the request to purchase, I have had cause to conduct considerable research on climate change.
In the course of this research I have discovered a lot of non-scientific, apparently agenda-driven name-calling going on, including your below “Climate Denier” tag.
Apparently “climate deniers” are people with a different viewpoint to yours, so are fair game to be labelled , put in a box and publicly pilloried. I would have though the correct scientific response would be to simply convince them of your argument. I think few people have doubt that the climate is changing, the questions are to what extent and whether it is human-induced. I am happy to be convinced, but by simply labelling questioners who need more information “climate deniers” might be colorful politics, but would seem a doomed approach to science education.
Now, the doubts that I mention don’t appear from thin air, but have actually been introduced by your own “team” so to speak , so it would appear a bit rich to be blaming others, let alone calling them childish names for them now having doubts:
Much more relevant to me is that my research has shown that your own Founder and Chairman has had his own share of controversy:
http://www.metro.co.uk/news/69679-judge-al-gores-nine-incovenient-truths
I have even found a quote from Mr. Gore saying that “the science is settled”. As far as I know true operational science is never settled, it is always open to additional data that may later arrive at a new conclusion.
You say the context of using my footage on this global media event would merely be as “an open point for discussion for the scientists and panelists that will be participating” and to “invite conversation and discussion.”
If there is going to be an “open discussion”, then I presume there will be Scientists with opposing opinions, if not, how will it be “open”?
I’m sorry, but this seems to me both disingenuous and illogical and echoes Mr. Gore’s original request to simply use it in “presentations” on “environmental topics”. In barely the space of a month 2 major Al Gore organisations, Climate Reality Project and Carthage Group have asked to buy this footage. Given the very reason for the existence of these organisations is to promote anthropological climate change,
I am to believe that the purpose is actually NOT to sell viewers on climate change? Then sorry… why do you wish to buy it?
For your information I am no stranger to either science or extreme, wind-related weather events. For instance, I was Associate Producer, Head of Research and Co-Writer on the 1 hour long, 2001 National Geographic Channel (U.S.) documentary “Red Storm” which dealt with dust storms and the relevant science globally.
It seems to me I am the type of person you are making this program for, those of us yet to be convinced, but after the experience of the last month or so I’m afraid I am left less convinced than ever.
Cheers
Chris
===============================================================
Mr. Gore’s team is apparently trying to make a common phenomenon known as a fire whirl look like it is somehow. Wikipedia has this to say about it (sans any mention of climate change or global warming):
…
A fire whirl, colloquially fire devil or fire tornado, is a phenomenon—rarely captured on camera—in which a fire, under certain conditions (depending on air temperature and currents), acquires a vertical vorticity and forms a whirl, or a tornado-like vertically oriented rotating column of air. Fire whirls may be whirlwinds separated from the flames, either within the burn area or outside it, or a vortex of flame, itself.
An extreme example is the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake in Japan which ignited a large city-sized firestorm and produced a gigantic fire whirl that killed 38,000 in fifteen minutes in the Hifukusho-Ato region of Tokyo.[1] Another example is the numerous large fire whirls (some tornadic) that developed after lightning struck an oil storage facility near San Luis Obispo, California on April 7, 1926, several of which produced significant structural damage well away from the fire, killing two. Thousands of whirlwinds were produced by the four-day-long firestorm coincident with conditions that produced severe thunderstorms, in which the larger fire whirls carried debris 5 kilometers away.[2]
Most of the largest fire tornados are spawned from wildfires. They form when a warm updraft and convergence from the wildfire are present.[3] They are usually 10-50 meters tall, a few meters wide, and last only a few minutes. However, some can be more than a kilometer tall, contain winds over 160 km/h, and persist for more than 20 minutes.[4]
Fire whirls can uproot trees up to 15 metres (49 ft) tall.[5] These can also aid the ‘spotting’ ability of wildfires to propagate and start new fires.
Visually impressive fire whirls may be encountered during dry wind gusts at the annual Burning Man festival in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert, late on Saturday or Sunday evening during the burning of The Man or Temple, respectively.
…
Maybe Gore’s team will use footage from “burning man” to tell us all how fire tornadoes are more common now due to Tabloid Climatology™
Those who seek to link ‘extreme weather’ to climate should heed this strong editorial for the world’s largest and most prestigious scientific journal, Nature:
Nature editorial dashes alarmist hopes of linking extreme weather events to global warming
From Nature: Extreme weather
Better models are needed before exceptional events can be reliably linked to global warming.
=========================================
PROGRAMMING NOTE:
Be sure to see the debut of WUWT-TV countering Gore’s 24 hours of Tabloid Climatology starting at 8PM EST (5PMPST) on November 14th. Details here:
Announcement: WUWT-TV to counter Al Gore’s ’24 Hours of Climate Reality’ with live webcast
john robertson, have we not also been told that a warming planet will be a wetter atmosphere? Would that not have a tendency to suppress fire ignition? As I recall, the warmista argument to all of the record snow was that the atmosphere is now holding more water (more humid, wetter). And I would like someone to explain to me how suddenly fires can ignite at less than 450C (for paper), or even 246C for Gasoline. I believe we still have a little way to go until Carbon disulfide spontaneously ignites at even 90C. I am just shocked that forests are now able to ignite at only 30C-40C .. amazing!
I think if our planet does indeed warm to the point that forests begin to ignite, we will have had far worse problems to contend with. I am sure at that point nobody would be around to experience it.
“As a freelance producer I had no idea when I started this project that the US is the only country in the world that has an active Climate Denier movement”
What an absolute box of rocks. A clueless, blind follower of the do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do, I’ve-made-millions-lying-to-people-about-CAGW, Windbag-in-Chief Al Gore.
Here’s a clue Andrea – you are not promoting discussion or anything of the sort. You are engaged in the same, no holds barred jihad of your fearless leader Al Gore. He has no morals nor scruple – and has been shown to completely disregard the facts or the truth to push forward his self-serving propaganda.
At least you admitted you were clueless – when you made the comment about “Climate Deniers” – as this site – WUWT – shows there is a large and growing group around the world who question the manufactured hysteria of those like you boos regarding climate change. And this group of “Climate Deniers” as you arrogantly (and falsely) call them, size and reach is larger than your project and of Al Gore himself:
http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/wattsupwiththat.com
http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/climaterealityproject.org
http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/www.algore.com
Your continued attempt to obtain this ‘fire devil’ footage, despite knowing it has zero relevance to your show, or the science behind CAGW – for the sole purpose of showing as inflammatory an image as possible – shows you and your boss for the unethical, win at any costs even if it means knowingly lying, people you are.
The only thing “Dirty” behind your weather propaganda show, is the unethical people behind it.
Aborigines have been burning the Australian bush every summer for thousands of years ,in the Australian summer lightning strikes start thousands of wild fires right across the continent .I have 50 years service in the rual fire service and have seen this type of fire behavour many times . ask the old timers thay will tell you it happens at most fires . they call them willy willys you will see them fires or no fires http://www.lrm.nt.gov.au/bushfires/aboriginal
I notice a lot of people are condemning the process of looking at global warming to the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events. However, as an open minded skeptic, I would have thought this is exactly the sort of examination that should be made to see what adaptions we should be planning for.
_Jim says:
Maybe one can explain to you how humid night air contributes to _less_ over-night cooling in an area vs a ‘dry’ air mass over that same area …
(WV is a gas, no?)
Well, sort of but not always. It is the changing state of H20 in the atmosphere, and that it tends to exist as small droplets rather than as simple molecules (which would be a gas).
It is this changing state that gives water a large specific heat and latent energy capacity thus slowing the heat transfer by convection. Think of being stuck behind a series of large trucks up a hill. They carry a lot more, but move slowly. And when they reach the top all that energy is dissipated, often quickly.
“I’m somewhat embarrassed I live in a country where we so greedily use up so much of the earth’s resources and seem immune to it.”
Calamity Climate is embarrassed that “we” greedily use so much resources while she flies all around the world. She doesn’t seem so embarrassed.
Where has all this stuff we’ve been talking about for years coming from?
Here’s a snapshot;
“II. Human interaction with the Earth
8. The entire history of our species has taken place in the geological period
traditionally called the Holocene, a relatively brief interval in the history of the
planet, stretching back 10,000 years. During that time, humankind has influenced
every aspect of the Earth’s environment on a massive scale. Almost all of the
planet’s ecosystems bear the marks of our presence.
9. There are many well-known aspects of humanity’s influence on the
environment, and among the most prominent is climate change. The deforestation of
vast tracts of land, in some cases nearly entire continents, means that great
quantities of soil are being eroded and swept away; rich grasslands are turning to
deserts; ancient ice formations are melting away; and species are being pushed
towards extinction. Nutrients from fertilizers wash off fields and down rivers,
creating stretches of sea where nothing grows except vast algal blooms.
Atmospheric carbon dioxide may be at its highest level in 15 million years.
10. A growing number of scientists have advanced the concept that we have
entered a new geological epoch that needs a new name, the Anthropocene. The
Anthropocene is a term that has been widely used, particularly since the publication
of an article by Paul Crutzen and Eugene Stoermer in 20002 to denote the present
epoch, in which many geologically significant conditions and processes are being
profoundly altered by human activity, including:
(a) The erosion and the shifting of sediments associated with a variety of
anthropogenic processes, including colonization, agriculture, urbanization and
global warming;
(b) The changing chemical composition of the atmosphere, oceans and soils,
including significant man-made changes in the distribution of elements such as
carbon, nitrogen, phosphorous and various metals;”
http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/67/317&Lang=E
http://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/index.html
Here is a perfect example of exactly who Al Gore is:
http://pjmedia.com/blog/gore-hits-the-waves-with-a-massive-new-houseboat/
As a freelance producer I had no idea when I started this project that the US is the only country in the world that has an active Climate Denier movement – every other country in the world has accepted this as a fact and is moving forward to do something about it
What planet are these people on?
I think that by now Al should have got the message, having been told to Foxtrot Oscar at length, and in detail. Chris Tangney has a fine turn of phrase!
Did they really think that an ill-informed, syrupy email from this not-too-bright bimbo would change his mind?
“As usual, in your eagerness to post unsupported trollop”
time for tea and strumpets as soon as i clean my screen…
Bravo, Mr Tanger! You’re winning with style and making them pay!
Question – as opposed to all the times in the last 400 years or so when we haven’t changed our ways?
…and you include a link in your name to a blog that no longer exists? WUWT?
Here is a facilitator they use. There is a 28 image slide show that will make your head spin.
Dhiman Chowdhury description of slide show;
“Balancing continued economic progress and conservation of our biosphere is the challenge of our time. It’s a dilemma of the anthropocene epoch. Without corporation to the mix, our endeavor is fruitless. Increasingly, corporations have adopted prescriptive, piecemeal and mechanistic environmental management techniques as a response to sustainability discourse. However, in light of the complexity, uncertainty, ambiguity and dynamic nature inherent in the sustainability challenge, at some bifurcation point in the organizational change process, these prescriptive and piecemeal solutions may not adequately account for the emerging multiple levels of environmental, social and financial conflict. A paradigm shift is thus essential: a behavioral change is thus called for. This presentation provides an explanation to the issue and a formulation to tackle challenge head-on: a behavioral competence that builds viable, equitable and responsible corporation resolving issues of sustainable business and sustainable world.
Our Common Future
http://www.slideshare.net/dchowdhu/our-common-future
@michaelwiseguy,
That is the crux of the primary discussions here. Prove to me that what you are citing is true. I have see absolutely no evidence to support this claim.
Can you specify exactly which content you are referring to?
Burning Man Bear Pig – when regular Man Bear Pig isn’t scary enough.
Andrea Smith perfectly fits the profile of the Left/Green activist.
She is disingenuous (pretending to be independent from Gore), immature (running away from any answer to Tangey’s key point), rude (throwing in the ‘denier’ slur), and clueless (recycling alarmist garbage without question).
Agenda 21? well, in australia the pollies are ramping up the smart meters are coming to help you save money spiel. UK pumping billions into them too:
10 Nov: UK Telegraph: Christopher Booker: David Cameron backs the EU’s grand design for energy
Another story last week – with the headline “We need wind farms to power electric cars, says Cameron” – may make us wonder. On the face of it, nothing could seem dottier than putting these two huge blunders together: the fanciful belief that we can somehow provide a third of our electricity from unreliable windmills; and the quixotic enthusiasm for electric cars whipinch, despite hefty subsidies, remain so unpopular that their UK sales have fallen this year to just 749.
***Mr Cameron’s faith in these vehicles is just as absurd as his plan, confirmed again last week by an energy minister, Baroness Verma, that every home and business in Britain must be fitted with “smart meters” within seven years, at a cost of £11 billion…
The point about smart meters is that they do not only enable us consumers to keep tabs on our electricity use: they also (though our Government does not like to spell this out) enable suppliers to exercise remote control over how much electricity we use. The EU knows that the windmills it wants to see covering Europe are unpredictably intermittent, and cannot guarantee sufficient power when it is needed. The answer the EU’s technocrats dream of, as we see from the Bornholm pilot project for a “European supergrid”, is that they can use smart meters to micro-manage the power we receive, right down to their ability to switch off whole categories of electricity use in our homes when there is insufficient power in the grid (what they call “ ‘intelligent’ control of household appliances” , such as dishwashers or televisions)…
BBC allowed to keep its dirty little secret
A remarkable legal drama has been unfolding recently in London’s Camden Town, pitting a lone pensioner from Wales against all the might of the BBC, represented by an array of highly-paid lawyers. It has been a battle fought to determine the BBC’s right, under the Freedom of Information Act, to keep secret how it arrived at a major policy decision which, for six years, has allowed it to operate in breach of its legal obligations under its Charter…ETC ON TONY NEWBERY CASE…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/9668782/David-Cameron-backs-the-EUs-grand-design-for-energy.html
squid2112@4pm, did I need sarc on/off?
Andrea clearly need to learn how to use web search engines to find those who don’t believe in imminent climate catastrophe.
Of course, she could be of the sort who never stay around to talk or listen about climate. Pierre Gosselin reports from Germany: Professor Vahrenholt: Climate Science “A Real Effrontery”… “Scientists Leave The Room When They See Me”
One long-standing and strong science advocacy organization in the German-speaking sphere has been EIKE. There’s also the NIPCC.
There has long been a significant presence of cAGW infidels and heretics in the blogsphere in probably all languages, AFAICT. EcoTretas lists just a few of the non-english heretic sites.
pat says:
November 11, 2012 at 6:01 pm
“Agenda 21? well, in australia the pollies are ramping up the smart meters are coming to help you save money spiel. UK pumping billions into them too:”
If you ask me, every component of Agenda 21 and in every intricate detail in all 40 chapters of it, is a blueprint for global human enslavement in a scientific and technocratic control grid. Doesn’t sound too pleasant to me. The people trying to pull this off are evil incarnate.
Jimbo says:
“Furthermore, Gore has to strip out human caused fires like arson and camp fires. I want to see the fires caused by co2 and a ‘warming’ planet.”
Since long-nosed Al said that the interior of the Earth is millions of degrees F, the only proof you need is to watch it spontaneously combust!
OOPS.
Correct links: EIKE and the NIPCC.
Apologies for any inconvenience.
I hope there aren’t any green zealots out there now starting fires deliberately, video camera at the ready, in the hope of causing one of these ‘firenados’. And maybe thinking: “Al Gore will pay me a few bucks if I manage to get one of these puppies on film”.
Andrea was too dumb to understand what Chris was saying very clearly in his first reply. So this is the calibre of the intellect behind the Climate Reality Project.
The property owner deliberately nurtured a highly flammable plant because it is a hardy native that prevents soil erosion.
Just like the forest service deliberately leaves rotting stumps and needles on the forest floor.
So yes, the prediction may come true that there will be an increase of wildfires, but it will be due to an increase of fuel. The fires will be larger and more destructive because the new tactic is to contain them, not extinguish them.
Wildfire should be regarded as a normal and sometimes necessary step in plant regeneration, not as a scary retribution for man’s crimes. If Al Gore were really passionate about his environment, he would know that.