Wednesday, January 09, 2013

So I just watched "The Island President" on iTunes

Some notes:

--(Former) President Nasheed (and other people of the Maldives) are constantly shown using fossil-fueled cars, boats and airplanes.  In the film, he takes round-trip flights to the U.K., the U.S., and Copenhagen.  He never mentions purchasing any carbon offsets and he never talks about trying to cut his own massive carbon dioxide footprint.
--Planet-killing bottled water is shown many times.
--Nasheed's climate advisor, Pie-Throwing Mark Lynas, is shown many times.  How, exactly, did Lynas qualify as the guy that Nasheed trusted to judge the alleged influence of CO2 on bad weather?
--the number "350" is everywhere.  Nasheed is under the impressions that atmospheric CO2 up to 350 ppm is "safe"; anything above that is "dangerous".
--Nasheed refers to trace amounts of atmospheric CO2 as a "poisonous gas".
--Nasheed says he wants to "take down" developed countries.
--Clean-air heroes Nasheed (and Lynas) are shown enjoying nice, relaxing cigarette breaks.
--Nasheed appears to have had a comfortable modern home with a planet-killing big-screen TV.
--Besides smoking, the precautionary-principle poster-child Nasheed appears to ride in a car without bothering to use a seat belt.
--A climate hoax negotiator from India suggests that the U.S. doesn't believe in the whole CO2-induced "end-of-the-world" thing, and he suggests that the people of India aren't buying it either.
--At one point, Lynas suggests that CO2 might cause sea levels to rise 25 meters.
--Nasheed claims that the Maldives will go 100% carbon-neutral in ten years; he and Lynas talk about doing this using windfarms with natural gas backup; Lynas then mentions that the natural-gas backup would need to be switched off at the end of the ten years.
--Nasheed describes the Maldives as "Paradise meets paradise".   This is extremely puzzling to me, because I'm told that average temperature in the Maldives is something like 80 degrees F.   AP's Seth Borenstein informs me that 55.3 degrees F. is "superhot", so how can another 25 degrees of warming result in "paradise"?  Can someone please explain this to me?   Also, can a place without winter snowpack or downhill skiing really qualify as "paradise"?

Interesting credits at the end go to Terry Tamminen, David Fenton, Mary Robinson, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Of course, The New York Times happily swallowed the movie's propaganda, claiming "It is impossible, while watching it, to root against Mr. Nasheed or to believe that he will fail".  I disagree.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

"This is extremely puzzling to me, because I'm told that average temperature in the Maldives is something like 80 degrees F. AP's Seth Borenstein informs me that 55.3 degrees is "superhot", so how can another 25 degrees of warming result in "paradise"? Can someone please explain this to me? "

Did you notice that the units F and C are different?

Tom said...

Did you click the link? It turns out that degrees F. and degrees F. actually aren't different.