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The "Goracle" (pg. 15)
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| Shakka |
This seems like the most appropriate thread for this article.
| quote: | With five private jets, Travolta still lectures on global warming
30.03.07
His serious aviation habit means he is hardly the best person to lecture others on the environment. But John Travolta went ahead and did it anyway.
The 53-year-old actor, a passionate pilot, encouraged his fans to "do their bit" to tackle global warming.
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John Travolta
Happy landings: John Travolta's plane collection parked at his home in Florida
But although he readily admitted: "I fly jets", he failed to mention he actually owns five, along with his own private runway.
Clocking up at least 30,000 flying miles in the past 12 months means he has produced an estimated 800 tons of carbon emissions – nearly 100 times the average Briton's tally.
Travolta made his comments this week at the British premiere of his movie, Wild Hogs.
He spoke of the importance of helping the environment by using "alternative methods of fuel" – after driving down the red carpet on a Harley Davidson.
travoltapilot
This is your captain: Travolta on tour for Qantas
Enlarge the image
Travolta, a Scientologist, claimed the solution to global warming could be found in outer space and blamed his hefty flying mileage on the nature of the movie business.
But his appointment as a "serving ambassador" for the Australian airline Qantas doesn't seem to have much to do with the movies. Nor does a recent, two-month round-the-world flying trip.
"It [global warming] is a very valid issue," Travolta declared. "I'm wondering if we need to think about other planets and dome cities.
"Everyone can do their bit. But I don't know if it's not too late already. We have to think about alternative methods of fuel.
"I'm probably not the best candidate to ask about global warming because I fly jets.
"I use them as a business tool though, as others do. I think it's part of this industry – otherwise I couldn't be here doing this and I wouldn't be here now."
Travolta's five private planes – a customised £2million Boeing 707, three Gulfstream jets and a Lear jet – are kept at the bottom of his garden in the US next to a private runway.
Indeed, such is his enthusiasm for flying, he persuaded his wife, actress Kelly Preston, to name their son Jett when he was born 14 years ago.
Five years ago he piloted his own Boeing 707 on a 13- city "Spirit of Friendship Tour" for Qantas, taking in Los Angeles, Auckland, Sydney, Singapore, Tokyo, London, Paris and New York and amassing over 35,000 flying miles.
More recently, a gruelling promotional schedule for his two latest projects, Hairspray and Wild Hogs, has seen him fly extensively over the past year.
This includes a country-wide tour of the US and a visit to Canada as well as this week's appearance in Leicester Square.
Such prolific mileage means that, over the past 12 months, he has accumulated around 800 tonnes of carbon emissions.
According to a recent study by the government-funded Carbon Trust, this means he boasts a carbon "footprint" nearly 100 times that of the average Briton, who is responsible for 10.92 tons of Co2, from his flights alone.
One of the world's leading climate change businesses, the Carbon Neutral Company, has written to Travolta, suggesting ways he could reduce these alarming levels.
He has yet to respond to their advice. Environmental groups were quick to criticise Travolta for "discrediting the cause".
John Buckley, managing director-of CarbonFootprint.com, said: "John Travolta has such a high-profile celebrity status, so what he says carries an extraordinary amount of weight.
"So it is such a shame when someone of his standing is so outspoken about green issues, yet fails to practise what he preaches.
"Unfortunately someone of his standing ends up discrediting the cause itself, because he is saying people should protect the environment on one hand, yet travelling on a private plane on the other.
"Green issues are serious and should be treated as such.
"It is vital for celebrities to toe the line when they speak out in support of it." |
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| Magnetonium |
Haha, Shakka, very good one. That just shows the world's hypocrisy - all these big rich fat stars, politicians and other famous people claim to be such hearted global warming advocates, yet they are the ones part of the problem. Thats great, I bet there are many other great ones out there. Like its that big of a deal as well when these fat cats make millions of dollars a year and then contribute a few thousand bucks to charity, thats like me donating 10 dollars to charity from a 400 dollar paycheck - except my percentage of donation vs. income would be greater but noone is making a big fuzz about it.
Its like people want to feel good about themselves by saying yeah they support Al Gore and want to fight global warming, but they dont want to be the ones who want to put sacrifices to make the environment better. Its always has to be someone else's job, probably some poor guy somewhere in Asia who is living a miserable life as it is, and he has to do something about it, and no no, rich western white guys need their luxurious life and all. We all have to do the dirty work and feel bad for not doing enough about global warming, while the Almighty Heavenly Al Gore has done so many good things in his fight against global warming, especially when he was in office as vice president :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:. Seems like all the other fat cats are following suit, jumping on the bandwagon, claiming to be big environment supporters and contributers, f***ing hypocrites. Though I know a few of these rich&famous people are very deserving, for most part others are just greedy selfish bastards who want to appear great.
With the fortune that he has, if I had that much money I would have definitely made a much better movie thats not as much bull as Inconvenient Truth to show the actual problems and issues that need to be faced with the environment. And I wouldn't be using 10 times the national electricity levels thats for sure. |
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| metalgearsolid |
| ^I thought you backed Gore? |
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| Shakka |
| quote: | Originally posted by Magnetonium
With the fortune that he has, if I had that much money I would have definitely made a much better movie thats not as much bull as Inconvenient Truth to show the actual problems and issues that need to be faced with the environment. And I wouldn't be using 10 times the national electricity levels thats for sure. |
I would've just settled for only one plane. |
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| occrider |
| quote: | Originally posted by Magnetonium
Haha, Shakka, very good one. |
Yea not to mention Al Gore sucked in Look Who's Talking. |
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| Magnetonium |
| quote: | Originally posted by metalgearsolid
^I thought you backed Gore? |
At first I did, then I just respected the issue, then I realized all the hypocrisy and lies and dropped even lower. The more I read about Gore, the more I dislike him.
Meh, a few years from now I am sure everyone will think Al Gore was a big idiot when they see droughts, colder weather (end of solar cycle, start of a new cooler one). Expect famines and conflicts to follow. Food prices to go up. And I bet the environmental issues are going to be even less of a concern because of people like Al Gore who are sidestepping the issue and not doing anything about the environment. Environment continues to suffer. Al Gore discredits what environmentalists like me have been talking about for a long time. Al Gore is killing the environment with deception, lies and data manipulation, sadly ... plus his hypocrisy. |
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| Belgian Bonzai |
I watched him today, go at it in the Congress last week. Inspiring dude, so, I started writing; dunno why. So I'll just go ahead and post it here if you don't mind, basically the same you read everywhere, with some self-indulgent crap.
Oh, but if you give me the name of a meteorological station in your neighbourhood, I may be able to provide you with the graph I made for Uccle in Belgium. Maybe that's interesting.
A word on global warming.
It is with great attentiveness and inappropriate pleasure that I have watched global warming shift from being regarded a potential danger to an imminent threat. It is since 2002 that I consider global warming to be a greater threat to mankind than nuclear proliferation. Since then, I have used the internet to gather data, find information resources and most importantly, develop insights that are alarmist at the very least. To the point it has me 'praying' for a cataclysmic volcanic eruption to counter the global warming effect by a short period of global dimming. No such 'luck' so far, so as it stands now, the only structural remedy against the warming is to reduce greenhouse gasses.
Principle
A body at any temperature above absolute zero emits electromagnetic radiation (Planck or 'Black Body' radiation). Although it is fundamentally a volumetric phenomenon, it often manifests itself as a surface effect, because the radiating body itself absorbs its own radiation, except at its surface where the radiation is emitted into the surrounding 'space'. The planet Earth being an intermediate form, since its solid state and fluid surface is surrounded by the gaseous atmosphere. Key here is to be aware of the following relations:
-'Cold' bodies emit radiation with lower intensity (less photons) and lower energy (per photon).
-'Hot' bodies emit radiation with higher intensity (more photons) and higher energy (per photon).
That is why infrared cameras detect body heat sources (32°C skin surface), it is why an object at 600°C starts glowing visible orange, why an object at 1200°C glows bright white and why the sun's surface (T=5500°C) radiates most of its energy under the form of ultraviolet rays.
Quantitatively, if the body is at (absolute) temperature T, it emits energy at a rate of esAT^4, with e being an emissivity factor (between 0 and 1), A its area and s is a constant. This is known as Stefan-Boltzmann's law.
Although overly simplistic, the green house effect can be described as follows.
Incident sunrays originate from the hot sun's surface, under the form of highly energetic ultra violet rays (known to cause sunburn). Thing is, these rays pass through air with relative ease and thus make it to the ground where they are ultimately absorbed and that is how the earth surface is being heated by the sun. To be in equilibrium, the Earth must radiate the exact same amount of energy to outer space. This happens via emission of infrared radiation since, contrary to the surface of the sun, mean Earth surface temperature is only of the order of 15°C. These infrared rays however do not travel through air without undergoing significant absorbsion in the air itself. This means that looking to Earth from outer space with an infrared camera, one does not see the black body spectrum of the earth surface, but that from a layer of air that surrounds it, the photons of which can make it to the camera, not having to make their way through the thick layer of air. The emission of greenhouse gases make the atmosphere essentially thicker, causing the radiation that does make it out of the atmosphere to originate from higher altitudes. Air at high altitude is cooler (this follows from static force equilibrium and the ideal gas law) so less energy is irradiated causing a structural energy imbalance of 0.4 to 1 Watt per m² of net heating (1 Watt = 1 Joule per second; 1 Joule is the energy needed to heat roughly a quarter of a gram of water by 1°C). One can think of (the upper limit of) 1W/m² as a 100 Watt lightbulb of excess energy for every 10 by 10 meter column of air and ground/sea on the Earth. This radiation energy imbalance, for the time being, causes temperatures not so much to be high, but to rise. Notice the derivative - integral relation between energy imbalance and temperature (although it is infinitely more complex). Please realize that miraculously freezing atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations, will not halt the temperature rise, but will only stop it from rising faster and faster. Also note that annual global greenhouse emissions are rising every year, and that the rate at which it is rising is also on the increase.
To the point that the effects are evident, and that point has long passed. Glaciers melting, 20%(!, volumetric) of arctic ice already lost, sea level rise (so far, primarily due to thermal expansion of the sea water) in the order of tens of centimeters. All symptoms of a warming globe. Warmer sea water also accounting for shifts in prevailing winds. Belgium, for example, noting an increase in wind coming from the South-West: Belgium lies on a frontier of Atlantic water at its North-West, land at its South-East. Warmer water causes areas of low pressure to be more dominant over water, with winds around it being forced to rotate counterclockwise by (the very weak) Coriolis force resulting in South-East winds alongside its South-West flank with Belgium in the brunt of it all. Warmest month ever (July 2006), followed by the warmest Autumn ever (calculated to have a statistical return period of 500 years), followed by the warmest Winter ever (this last one holds globally); March too will be high above average. I have a feeling we skipped Winter altogether this time around.
Now on a climatic scale, these recent extremes are quite insignificant, so let's widen the temporal scope. And they say one picture paints a thousand words.
Obviously, regional changes do occur, and even that graph isn't all that significant. So let's widen the spacial scope, and make no mistake, following graph is very, very significant.
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| Shakka |
| quote: | Originally posted by occrider
Yea not to mention Al Gore sucked in Look Who's Talking. |
LOL. All that time I thought it was Kristy Alley! |
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| metalgearsolid |
| quote: | Originally posted by Magnetonium
At first I did, then I just respected the issue, then I realized all the hypocrisy and lies and dropped even lower. The more I read about Gore, the more I dislike him.
Meh, a few years from now I am sure everyone will think Al Gore was a big idiot when they see droughts, colder weather (end of solar cycle, start of a new cooler one). Expect famines and conflicts to follow. Food prices to go up. And I bet the environmental issues are going to be even less of a concern because of people like Al Gore who are sidestepping the issue and not doing anything about the environment. Environment continues to suffer. Al Gore discredits what environmentalists like me have been talking about for a long time. Al Gore is killing the environment with deception, lies and data manipulation, sadly ... plus his hypocrisy. |
Go on you know more of the subject and I want to hear your entire view on this. |
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| Fir3start3r |
| quote: | Originally posted by Belgian Bonzai
Obviously, regional changes do occur, and even that graph isn't all that significant. So let's widen the spacial scope, and make no mistake, following graph is very, very significant.
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While I agree that the graph is signicant for the time period it represents, I'm not so convinced that it explains anything over a 4 billion year time-frame...
We, as a species simply do not have the empirical data to simply extract and 'backdate' what we think to be correct to justify an argument we don't even really know how much we're a part of.  |
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| Magnetonium |
Here's what Al Gore likes you to believe:
Looking at above graph, one will awe and be shocked that there is a pattern, while if you carefully look at it, the pattern doesnt quite fit too well. Still, it has an effect on an uneducated or brainwashed person because statistics can be easily manipulated because that data is manipulated in such a way as to have the desired effect on the viewer.
Here's what it actually looks like over a longer period of time, superimposed CO2-Temperature data to show the patterns over the last 600,000 years and how the two correlate to each other. Notice that as of recently something doesnt make sense - how come the CO2 levels since 1800 went up by 1/3, yet the temperature went up only by about 1 degree Centigrade? Obviously something doesnt match. Al Gore missed something in his movie!
If you've seen the movie the Inconvenient Truth you will notice how Al Gore had some fun in magnifying the recent CO2 increase data on stage and using the crane to show how high it was. Notice that he didnt do the same for temperature because the temperature today is STILL about 2-4 degrees Celcius COOLER than it was even 11,000 years ago! Something doesnt make sense, eh? How come Al Gore ignored that? How come his big fat brain couldn't compute that the reason why the CO2 levels have exploded recently is because we cut down 200,000 acres of forest EVERY DAY. Imagine how much CO2 that releases.
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| Lilith |
Well... now that's a surprising change of tack.
When I suggested this back in, oh not very long ago in January I was dismissed because you where just blasé about it.
Real nice...
| quote: | Originally posted by Magnetonium
Yeah, yeah, I know about the weather records. Yeah we're in for the warming and then substantial cooling will result in ice age bla bla bla. |
Now, it's the bible for you to club other people over the head with?
When it suits you.
Course you're probably still just as dismissive of the El Nino effects as well on extreme weather patterns. |
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