Comments on: The Great Global Warming Swindle: Hot or Not? http://pod6.com/blog_wp/2007/03/15/the-great-global-warming-swindle-hot-or-not/ Flash-centric application and UI development. Wed, 12 Mar 2008 20:46:21 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Bill http://pod6.com/blog_wp/2007/03/15/the-great-global-warming-swindle-hot-or-not/comment-page-1/#comment-9334 Bill Tue, 20 Mar 2007 07:54:23 +0000 http://pod6.com/blog_wp/2007/03/15/the-great-global-warming-swindle-hot-or-not/#comment-9334 Hmm. The first 10 minutes are pretty frivolous as they try to convince you "these people have something to gain by convincing you there is global warming." That was probably at least 25% of Gore's video as well. At this point, I think it is clear that many people have much to gain by convincing us of their point of view, so whatever. This issue reminds me of going to the doctor when you an ambiguous health problem. Every doctor has an opinion, and it is really up to the buyer to decide which doctor has the most relevant data. You'd *think* that having gone to school for 8 years would help them make better decisions on health than you, but with the advent of the Internet, I've found that I can often be more knowledgeable about my own health than my doctor. It seems the same is true here. But the audience has everything working against them as they try to come to their own conclusion. Both this video and Gore's seem to be showing actual data/graphs for about 1% of their presentation. The graphs for both presentations are often presented in fancy, hard-to-read 3d. And most importantly, almost no time is devoted to discussing the potential biases of the sources that provided that data. I guess that "data," "facts," and "source bias" are not sexy enough for the movies. Hmm. The first 10 minutes are pretty frivolous as they try to convince you “these people have something to gain by convincing you there is global warming.” That was probably at least 25% of Gore’s video as well. At this point, I think it is clear that many people have much to gain by convincing us of their point of view, so whatever.

This issue reminds me of going to the doctor when you an ambiguous health problem. Every doctor has an opinion, and it is really up to the buyer to decide which doctor has the most relevant data. You’d *think* that having gone to school for 8 years would help them make better decisions on health than you, but with the advent of the Internet, I’ve found that I can often be more knowledgeable about my own health than my doctor.

It seems the same is true here. But the audience has everything working against them as they try to come to their own conclusion. Both this video and Gore’s seem to be showing actual data/graphs for about 1% of their presentation. The graphs for both presentations are often presented in fancy, hard-to-read 3d. And most importantly, almost no time is devoted to discussing the potential biases of the sources that provided that data.

I guess that “data,” “facts,” and “source bias” are not sexy enough for the movies.

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