Sandi says in Tips and Notes:
You Tube has the Show Time full Premiere episode of “Years of Living Dangerously” documentary.
(about an hour 59:08)
Also see the Years of Living Dangerously website:
http://yearsoflivingdangerously.com/
The first 10 minutes was about all I could watch for now, but really, I think all this will do is polarize the public more.
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Also, if portions had been filmed through the HUD, we’d have a better idea of what they really did.
Re: dumping Weather Underground. Their basic function of providing weather services is fine. You don’t have to read the WeatherUnderground blog.
I was fascinated by their fixation on palm oil. It is my recollection that the primary driver for the explosion in palm oil demand had to do with “sustainable” fuels. Isn’t our military actually required to use those products? Aren’t we required to use “sustainable” fuels in civilian life? Maybe they should start naming names of the despicable individuals and organizations that are responsible for the push to put that requirement into effect. Maybe also work to vote out the pandering politicians and fire the bureaucrats that went along with it.
Some victims of global warming
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-26969266
$20M was spent on this documentary in an effort to influence the political process. Koch brothers better up their game.
Darnit, I thought this was a sequal to “Sharknado”. Both have similar scientific merit. /sarc
I am not suprised to see such outright disimformation broadcast as fact. Just look at what the current administration does on a daily basis in the US. We have already had nearly 6 years of living dangerously with spin, half truths, and outright lies by our government. Why would hollywood not capitalize on that precedent?
If you like your science, you can keep it. (insert disclaimer here)
Donald: Palm oil is the current panacea for everything from vitamin A deficiency to Alzheimer’s. I couldn’t make it past the first 3 minutes of the film, but did they mention lemons? As a California lemon grower, I was recently pleased to learn that fresh lemon demand has gone through the roof in Asia; it seems that they too are a key to immortality.
Funny, just trying to be helpful, this observer pointed out in a “letter to the (local) editor” that the scare tactics were back-firing. They ignored it and kept on saying “Boo!” Same with the infamous “d-word” – it is patently counter-productive. They just keep on digging that hole!
THE SCARIEST SCIENCE FICTION YOU WILL EVER SEE!!
Brought to you by the Sci Fi masters: James Cameron and Arnold Schwarzenegger
SHOWTIME PRESENTS: THE SKY IS FALLING SERIES.
Warning: Some content may not be appropriate for viewers with IQ over 85.
“Re: dumping Weather Underground. Their basic function of providing weather services is fine. You don’t have to read the WeatherUnderground blog.”
Actually in my zip code, WUs tolerance for daily low temperatures is +/- 10 degrees or greater. Even their forecasting sucks.
Gilbert K. Arnold says:
April 10, 2014 at 10:38 am
Re: dumping Weather Underground. Their basic function of providing weather services is fine. You don’t have to read the WeatherUnderground blog.
Gilbert – there are MUCH better sites out there (e.g. Accuweather). Moreover, every time you access Jeff Master’s site, you are enriching him so that he can continue to put out alarmist propaganda.
DUMP Weather Underground! Period.
Same catagory as Wells “War of the Worlds”. It really is just “Hollywood” fictional entertainment. But some gullible people actually believe it and are ready to jump off of tall buildings to save themselves from the imaginary doom and gloom
I like this better. http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=D5L3C7vxGHY
http://www.weatherstreet.com/
How does the science compare with Sharknado?
ralfellis says:
April 10, 2014 at 9:15 am
“and if Barak Hussain Obama had therefore backed the Sunni terrorists, this would have resulted in:”
No need to speak in the conjunctive.
http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-07-22/world/40728996_1_obama-administration-syria-civil-war
“Congressional panels approve arms aid to Syrian opposition
By Karen DeYoung,July 22, 2013
The House and Senate intelligence committees have approved CIA weapons shipments to opposition fighters in Syria, allowing the Obama administration to move ahead on the stalled program, senior congressional and administration officials said Monday.”
[ralfellis:]
“Four million Alawite Shias being eliminated and exiled from Syria.
Four million Armenian and Syriac Christians being eliminated and exiled from Syria.”
Loads of them are already arriving here in Germany. Give it time.
This just in, an update from the censors re Years of Living dangerously
The original warning for people with IQs over 85 was the censors’ concern that people with any critical intelligence watching this stuff should be ready for an unpleasant experience. But it is also true that the series is aimed at the clueless, and so there will be a separate warning to protect those with IQs under 85.
well, it is on showBIZtime!
10 April: Variety: TV Review: Brian Lowry: ‘Years of Living Dangerously’
The celebrity power fueling “Years of Living Dangerously,” Showtime’s multipart, James Cameron-Arnold Schwarzenegger-Jerry Weintraub-produced documentary devoted to sounding alarms about climate change, is inevitably a double-edged sword. Big-name stars obviously call attention to a project that otherwise might be lost in the shuffle, but they also make it easy for deniers to dismiss the message because of the messengers (oh those silly tree-hugging Hollywood dilettantes — though Schwarzenegger has right-wing street cred as a recent Republican governor). Nevertheless, this is a serious look at an important issue, and the fact its talking heads could just as easily be working on “Ocean’s 14” or “The Expendables 3” shouldn’t be held against it…
“Is there a way to discuss climate change,” Don Cheadle asks, as he ventures deep into the God-fearin’, science-hatin’ heart of Texas, “without politics or religion getting in the way?”…
“A thermometer is not Republican,” Cheadle quips at one point, and it should be noted Weintraub, too, is a Republican, so party affiliation isn’t the sole determinant in this conversation.
“Years of Living Dangerously” has been assembled with all the glitz of a major Hollywood production. It’s just that unlike most movies associated with the time of year when temperatures are supposed to rise, nobody knows in this one what the ending will be.
http://variety.com/2014/tv/reviews/tv-review-years-of-living-dangerously-1201153623/#
Bob Tisdale –
surely showtime should have to run your letter in full, with a narration, prior to broadcasting each episode!
Conservative projections from the world’s leading scientists. 10 min. Fargo same July temps as Phoenix in 2100. Sure. Who’ll be around to check that prediction?
for Bob Tisdaele –
9 April: Mother Nature Network: Inside ‘Years of Living Dangerously’: A Q&A with producer Daniel Abbasi
MNN got the story behind the new, ambitious global warming series from the producer — and climate change expert — himself
MNN: How did you get involved with the project?
Daniel Abbasi: Joel and David already had a lot of the elements in mind. I’d been involved in the climate change issue for a long time. I was working at Mission Point Capital Partners to help people do carbon investing. They’d left “60 Minutes,” and I was thinking about what was next as well. And we talked about how we could raise the money for this…
Q: What experience in the environmental sector do you bring to it?
A: I’m not a climate scientist myself but I spend a lot of time with them. I was at the Environmental Protection Agency, in the policy office. I was appointed because I worked on the Clinton-Gore campaign, and in the course of that work I talked to a lot of scientists. I was the associate dean at the Yale school of forestry and environmental studies and worked on climate issues there. I now serve on the U.S. National Climate Assessment and we help scientists do and review their work. On the series, I weighed in on the science, the politics of the issue, the policy…
Q: What do you think is the most pressing climate change issue?
A: There’s a diversity of manifestations, but they all stem from the burning of fossil fuels, the deforestation, particularly in the tropical belts. Indonesia is the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases, after China and the U.S., where it’s because of industry; in Indonesia it’s because of deforestation. We need to dramatically reduce emissions. We have to have electricity generation that is de-carbonized, like solar and wind…
Q: Some on the political right see global warming as a liberal conspiracy. How did that happen?
A: In the ’90s, during the Clinton/Gore administration, the issue, unfortunately, did become quite politicized between Democrats and Republicans…
Our hope is that this show will be able to transcend that, because what we’re doing is we’re putting a human face on this…
Q: What are the plans for spreading the word?
A: There will be a companion website that will provide supplemental information about the stories, solutions and ways for people to act on them. One of our funders is Paul Allen and his production company is involved in developing social change initiatives and partnerships around this with the website that will carry out into the real world…
http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/climate-weather/stories/inside-years-of-living-dangerously-a-q-a-with-producer-daniel
10 April: Bloomberg: Eric Roston: Titanic Climate Documentary Makes Reporters out of Hollywood Elite
That makes him (James Cameron) the ideal target for this question: ‘Rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic’ is a common cliche about how international climate talks never seem to go anywhere. Given your work on climate change and the Titanic, that sound right to you?
CAMERON: “A more apt metaphor is that the entire crew of the Titanic before it hit the iceberg had been replaced by a bunch of monkeys,” said Cameron, a National Geographic Explorer, who has visited the Titanic wreck a dozen times in submersible vessels. “There’s a period of time when the iceberg’s in sight, and you have to turn, but you’re not turning. That’s the period we’re in” with climate change.
Our pre-wreck period is chronicled with precision and unprecedented production values in The Years of Living Dangerously…
Cameron explained his standards for accuracy in documentary work (using a different part of his brain from the science-fiction generator, he said). “You have to look at the provenance of any statistic,” he said. “Where did it come from? How many people have signed off on that? Is it in peer-reviewed research? Are there dissenting voices? And are the dissenting voices minor enough that they don’t need to be credited at this point?”
It’s easy (for anyone predisposed to such a thing) to have science-envy of Cameron’s documentary work. This is, after all, a person who developed his own vehicle so that he could strap himself in and drop to the deepest part of the ocean.
Journalism too rarely draws on the methods of science. To counter the trend, this blog post was prepared as a controlled experiment, sort of. Right after interviewing James Cameron by phone, I bumped into a different James Cameron — the chairman of Climate Change Capital, a pioneer in international climate law, and a member of the advisory board of General Electric’s Ecoimagination…
The two Camerons have never met, although the lawyer and entrepreneur Cameron was confused for the Avatar and Titanic director by several inattentive people at the World Economic Forum in Davos, in 2010, when the director appeared, too…
“I’m absolutely ready to share space with creative people so that we can visualize how life could get better having solved this problem,” said Cameron, the GE advisor. “It might well be the less we talk about [climate] as a problem that might end humanity, we might solve it — without declaring as such that we’re solving it. That’s a visual challenge as much as it is a technical one.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-09/titanic-climate-documentary-makes-reporters-out-of-hollywood-elite.html
10 April: Reuters: Piya Sinha-Roy: Hollywood heavyweights put climate change manifesto on TV
As temperatures continue to rise and habitats come under threat, a group of Hollywood heavyweights is seeking to bring the spotlight back on climate change with a new documentary…
Cameron believes that progress can only come from legislative change.
“I think the U.S. is trailing the pack. I think the U.S., instead of showing the kind of moral leadership that it should, is being shamed by almost every other country in the world that’s actually taking action,” the director said…
Bringing Hollywood voices to the issue has its advantages…
“If people are watching people whom they associate with escapist fiction, laying bare some sobering facts, it may lend a resonance they wouldn’t otherwise have,” said (Michael C.) Hall, who traveled to Bangladesh, a nation threatened by the rising sea levels…
With “Avatar” sequels planned in 2016 and 2017, Cameron said the films will be “about our connection to nature and our connection to each other.”
Joining the documentary’s celebrities are the scientists, a group of nine advisors who aid the stars in making the scientific case about climate change.
But the documentary also acknowledges the climate change skeptics, from the Texans who believe droughts are brought on by the hand of God, to the scientists who believe global warming is part of the planet’s natural process…
But Cameron makes clear he is skeptical of the skeptics.
“I think it’s important to analyze each of the skeptics’ arguments very carefully and when you analyze them, they fall apart; they fall apart in the light of science.”
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/10/us-climatechange-idUSBREA390UM20140410
10 April: MissoulaNews: We are the new polar bear
Scientist M. Sanjayan talks about his upcoming television series “Years of Living Dangerously”
Q: What do you think of the recent and dire report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that basically says no one will come out unscathed?
MS: If you look at the first IPCC report you would almost want to put the polar bear on the front of it … The good thing about this recent IPCC report is that it squarely puts the focus on humans. When you read this report you’re like, ‘Oh I get it. We are the polar bear.”…
Q: How did you become interested in climate change?
MS: I’ve always felt like a bit of a fraud talking about climate change. Some years ago, Steve Running [University of Montana climatologist] and I were lucky enough to meet David Letterman out in Eastern Montana where he has a home. After that meeting, Letterman invited me on his show. He preceded to really pummel me with questions about climate change—not in a mean way, he was charming as can be. But it was clear that this was an issue that deeply mattered to him and that I, as a lead scientist for a big environmental organization, The Nature Conservancy, should have answers. I was repeating things I’d learned in books and papers. I was intellectualizing it and ducking and weaving so that I wouldn’t get caught basically with my pants down not really having an answer on late-night TV.
It was kind of funny and it worked for television; I don’t come off looking bad, but it scared me inside. I realized that if I was to get out there and tell the story about climate change I had to do it with a lot more conviction. I had to feel it in my bones…
http://missoulanews.bigskypress.com/missoula/we-are-the-new-polar-bear/Content?oid=1953710