Monday, February 29, 2016

DiCaprio, Gore and the Scientists Circular Firing Squad


There is a self defeating gene in scientists that makes them insist on absolute accuracy, even when they are parsing ~97% correct (hmm, Eli did it there again with the ~) statements.  Leonardo DiCaprio in his Oscar acceptance speech said



Starting at ~2 minutes, damn that is a strong ~ GMO in there,
And lastly, I just want to say this, making The Revenant was about man's relationship to the natural world — the world that we collectively felt in 2015 as the hottest year in recorded history. Our production had to move to the southernmost tip of this planet just to be able to find snow. Climate change is real, it is happening right now, it is the most urgent threat facing our entire species, and we need to work collectively together and stop procrastinating.

We need to support leaders around the world who do not speak for the big polluters or the big corporations, but who speak for all of humanity, for the indigenous peoples of the world, for the billions and billions of underprivileged people who will be most affected by this, for our children's children, and for those people out there whose voices have been drowned out by the politics of greed.

I thank you all for this amazing award tonight. Let us not take this planet for granted; I do not take this night for granted.
brought forth the niggle in his acceptance speech when he pointed out that the Revenance crew had to move down to Chile from Alberta to find snow.

Now this is not a new statement from DiCaprio, the usual suspects were chewing on a similar statement DiCaprio had made at the Screen Actors Guild awards ceremony.  The counter is that a strong Chinook wind had blown through, but the fact is that northern hemisphere snow cover is falling faster than even arctic ice and 2015 was unusually warm in Western Canada as Mike Mann tweeted

Yes, there was a chinook, but there was also less snow than usual.  Eli will be back later with updates, but Ms. Rabett calls. 

Later:

A couple of tweets

11 comments:

THE CLIMATE WARS said...

From Alberta to Chile ?
They should have given the Oscar for Best Costume to the penguin in the bear suit.

Larry said...

Plotting the mean temperature for meterological winters in
Calgary, Alberta shows a great deal of variability due
to the Chinooks but there is a clear positive linear trend.

http://i66.tinypic.com/292qv10.jpg

Fernando Leanme said...

I did a Leonardo interview a while back. It's in my blog. I think you will love it.

luminous beauty said...

For his next trick, Fernando will interview an empty chair, asking such insightful questions as; "Are you feeling lucky, punk?" and "Get off my lawn!"

Dano said...

David Roberts, FTW 2016. Just award it now.

Best,

D

notjonathon said...

In a masterpiece of craven video editing, ABC News quoted DiCaprio as follows: "I do not take this night for granted." That was the entirety of their coverage of his acceptance speech.

Bernard J. said...

NotJonathon, I'm not sure if you are referring to the US or the Australian ABC, but you pre-empted my comment that the Australian ABC through both Radio National and the local channels did indeed avoid the substantive part of DiCaprio's speech and report only the last line.

There's involved a pernicious influence of the rabid right-wing radical government - an influence that would elicit howls of outrage if the LNP govnerment ever perceived the Opposition to have this degree of influence in the reporting of the ostensibly-independent national broadcaster.

notjonathon said...

Bernard--that was U.S., and it was utterly unforgivable, since it deliberately omitted Leonardo's message.
(Since I live in Asia, I do get a lot of Australian news, too.)

THE CLIMATE WARS said...

I'm looking forward to Monckton's acceptance speech.

Aaron said...

Leo got up in front of 30 million people and said something about climate change that 25 million people could understand.

That is better than 97% of scientists have done.

Convincing people to act on climate change is not about facts and figures, it is about winning hearts and souls. Winston Churchill did not convince Britons (and the US) to support the war, by reciting facts and figures. No! He stood up in front of people and said things they could understand.

Winston Churchill knew the facts and figures, but his speeches were about blood, sweat, tears, and work. We knew the score, and should have phased out carbon fuels by 1990. But, the industry tugged at heartstrings with words like "jobs" and "economy".

Facts and figures say there are more jobs and a better economy with renewable energy, but they beat us on oratory, while we squabbled over details.

THE CLIMATE WARS said...

" Apocalyptic predictions require, to be taken seriously, higher standards of evidence than do assertions on other matters where the stakes are not as great. . .

And yet... claims that nuclear war might imply a reversion of the human population to prehistoric levels, or even the extinction of the human species, have ... been dismissed as alarmist or, worse, irrelevant. Popular works that stress this theme, such as Nevil Shute's On the Beach, and Jonathan Schell's The Fate of the Earth, have been labeled disreputable."