"Too Hot"
By Dr. Robert C. Balling Jr. : BIO| 21 Apr 2006
Discuss This Story! (59) Email | Print | Bookmark | Save
The latest triumph of the global warming crusade is a one hour HBO special entitled "Too Hot Not Too Handle" that is premiering in several cities this month. The screening in Albuquerque was well-advertised; it was free, and hosted by Albuquerque Mayor Martin Chavez. At the screening they offered free wine, free cheese and crackers, free fruit, and best of all, free "Stop Global Warming" bracelets. The state's attorney general showed up, but despite the advertising, free stuff and the close proximity to the University of New Mexico and Sandia Labs, the relatively small auditorium at the National Hispanic Cultural Center was half full. Advertise free food and drinks in your typical college town, and most places would fill up to watch me play the spoons!
Mayor Chavez kicked off the event claiming that Albuquerque was playing a role in fighting global warming and that along with 200 other cities as Albuquerque is now a "signatory" to the Kyoto Protocol. This all quickly devolved into an attack on President Bush for not signing the Protocol and a commitment to help Al Gore win his battle on global warming. The challenge of climate change was curiously equated to the challenge of World War II -- where global warming was proclaimed to be the challenge of our generation.
The film opened with images of worldwide eco-pain, and if nothing else, "Too Hot" will win the award for most dramatic music used in a global warming documentary. A troop of well-known global warming scientists appeared over the next hour to explain one horror after another. Deaths from heat waves started the parade followed by overall increases in extreme weather events. Snowpack melt was followed by wildfires and massive extinctions. The scientists acknowledged that plants will benefit from elevated concentrations of carbon dioxide, but quickly turned to hyper-production of pollen from ragweed and disease worldwide.
Just as the march of pain started to take on a stale flavor, the documentary took some bizarre twists. We learned that the horrible United States is largely responsible for all this global chaos, but the future is in our hands. Hybrid cars are featured and in a sad twist of fate, race driver Paul Dana explains the value of ethanol. In case the name seems hauntingly familiar to you, Paul Dana was killed a month ago while driving in an Indy Racing League event in Florida (in a car getting a few miles to the gallon of high-performance racing fuel). Next up was none other than Willie Nelson touting the use of bio-fuels to run our fleet of trucks from coast to coast.
The film ends with an acknowledgment that China and India and other countries must become part of the solution, but most importantly, Washington cannot continue to be the final holdout in the push to solve the global warming crisis. Wind turbines, solar panels, and nuclear power hit the screen toward to end, and a burning earth is seen as the film ends.
If we adopted every suggestion in the film, concentration of carbon dioxide will still double this century. The reality avoided in the film is that China is currently building over 500 coal-fired power plants; they intend to build one new coal fired plant every week for decades to come, and no matter what we do in the US, emissions from throughout the world will drive atmospheric carbon dioxide levels steadily upward.
Dr. Robert Balling, Jr. is Director of the Office of Climatology at Arizona State University.
Click here for more TCS Daily special coverage of this issue
URL:http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=042106D |
