An Inconvenient Truth

A few weeks ago, Loyd posted a blog about a movie called "An Inconvenient Truth." I don't think I even read the entire thing, because I have certain biases about environmental issues. Let me just explain:

Al Gore

I didn't vote in the 2000 election, either, because I was on my mission. I didn't know anything about the issues, and the only thing I knew about Gore was that he was the robot that invented the Internet.

The Environment

I'm down with the environment.

Environmentalists

I think they're wackos that are so fanatic about the environment that they fail to see the solution to their own issues. (Just for the record, that's also what I think of most libertarians.)

Global Warming

I haven't been convinced if it is a real thing or not. I realize that they've been doing research on the issue for a lot of years, but even if they'd been doing it for one hundred years (which they haven't been), I don't think that's anywhere near the data that they'd need to make a claim that the Earth's temperature were rising (anymore than it would normally, as part of the Earth's natural cycles), let alone that we as humans have anything to do the rising.

So I went to see this movie on Friday, grudgingly giving in to Kelly's desire to see it. I went into the movie with a lot of skepticism, and I have to say that I was very impressed with how thorough the movie was. I don't really care about how well made it was or about the feel-good elements or anything; I don't care about Gore-propaganda (and I mean that I really don't care, I have no feelings about him, neither positive nor negative); For me the most important part of the movie was the data. It showed a lot of graphs and addressed every counter-argument that I'd ever thought of or heard about.

For me the most impressive piece of evidence was the core samples. At first, Gore just showed the graph of the data that they'd been collecting since the late 50's. I'd seen that before, and I wasn't impressed. It definitely shows that the carbon levels and the temperature are increasing, but so what? That's not sufficient to show that it's not a natural cycle. Then I learned that they have been taking samples of the ice in glaciers and in Antarctica, and that they can see what the temperature and carbon levels were up to 650,000 years ago. Over that time you can see the past seven ice ages, and you can see the Earth's natural temperature (and related carbon) cycle. Then you can see that within the last 100 years we've doubled the carbon levels over what they've been any time in the Earth's history. You can see that the increase is exponential, and doesn't fit into the cycle at all.

I can't detail everything that the movie talked about, but just what impressed me about it. One of the things that I felt after the movie was just that I was sad that I hadn't known about any of this sooner. I don't think this is new evidence, but just that it hasn't been made publicly available. Or at least it hasn't been in front of my face before. I guess if I'd cared about the issue I could have looked into it on my own and probably found some of this out, but realistically, what incentive could I have had to look into it on my own? Why would I research it personally if I hadn't ever been convinced that it was an issue that I should be concerned about it? And how many people are like me, in that they would care about the environment if they were convinced that it were in danger, but simply haven't seen any evidence? And how many of those will continue that way despite this movie? Would I have continued in my ignorance if I hadn't been dating Kelly? Do we choose to stay ignorant because we don't know any better, based on the limited evidence we've seen, or do we do it knowingly? Are we close-minded because of political prejudices, or just because it's scary to think that we've done this and that it'll be hard to fix?

The other thing that I realized, besides simply that global warming is actually occurring, is that it is occurring now. This isn't a problem that our children's children will have to face, it's a problem that is already killing people. I'm sure not everyone thinks about things the same way as I do, but I've certainly noticed the increase in natural disaster that's happened in my lifetime. I've considered it as part of the signs of the times, and fulfillment of revelation. It never occurred to me at all that we were causing these things because we have been altering the climate of our planet. I wonder how many religious people are like me, and recognize the signs without recognizing the causes.

[insert word that won't be read] is new awesome

I guess if you're reading this post then you're not as sick of that title as I am. I don't think I even notice what the new awesome is anymore, I just see a block of repetition on my page taking up space and try not to look at it too hard.

You might be asking yourself, "Well Provo Platinum is Bryant's stupid web site, why doesn't he just take them off if he's sick of it?" Well, I don't have a good answer for that, except that Kim didn't like it when I deleted the self-proclaimed "white-skinned goddess", even though I think we all know that it gets tiring to hear the new cutest thing that the ear doctor did. I mean, I don't think people need to censor themselves, and I know that she's free to post about whatever she wants and I don't have to read it if I don't want to. So, I don't want to.

Maybe the reason that I leave TNA on the site is just because Becca is my friend (at least vicariously), whereas the white girl hates (or hated) my guts. I'm sure both of them are completely indifferent to whether they are on my site or not, and so it's really just for Kim's benefit that they're there at all. Becca's site might actually be interesting if they would get over the name thing. Seriously, it was clever at first and even addicting for a minute, but it's not funny anymore.

I know, this is all my fault and I should just be keeping it to myself, but I'm going to force everyone to read the stupid thoughts in my head. For a long time now I've been meaning to add some features to Provo Platinum that would let people customize the page for themselves, but I haven't gotten around to it. I'd like to say that it's because I'm so busy being productive, but it's really because I'm made of 87% lard and it's hard to type on the keyboard on my squishier days.

Movie Reviews

Yesterday I was looking up the schedule for the new Pirates of the Caribbean and the Yahoo movies web site suggested that X-men 3 might be a movie I would like. I'm pretty sure that Yahoo simply recommends every new movie, and that there's no science to it, but since I really wanted the Internet(s) to know how much I hated that movie, I wrote this big long review about all of the things wrong with it. And then my computer freaked out so I shut down the browser and forgot that I hadn't saved my review. So now it's gone.

Here's a new review. We did watch Pirates last night. I was a little worried about a sequel to such a sweet movie, since producers have a tendency to ruin sequels. At the beginning of the movie when the first supernatural person showed up, I was further worried that the movie was going to be unbelievable or hokey.

Then I remembered: This is the sequel to a movie about undead pirates. Undead. Pirates. The first movie wasn't so great because of it's deep message or moving story, nor because it was realistic. It was great because it was AWESOME. Undead pirates! So while this movie was probably even more ridiculously outrageous than the last movie, that is exactly why it rules.

In conclusion, go see this movie. Don't listen to ninjas. They're just jealous.

Call to Arms

This is my first post (in a while), so sorry I'm not very good at it, anymore. Well, if you haven't read my blog before, my name's Bryant. People call me B. Or Be. Or sometimes Bx (the X is silent). I've been meaning to blog about the origin and variations, but I guess we'll see if this post works first.

So, I'm sure that everyone's noticed that the blogs have been getting pretty scarce lately on Provo Platinum, so my real purpose with this point is just to ask all of the readers to rally together. I know, I've been neglecting the community myself, but even if I start blogging more, I can't do it all on my own. So, if you're reading this, stop what you're doing and write a blog post. It's not hard. It doesn't even have to be good. I know that this one isn't.

Well, while I'm at it, I just want to give a shout out to my blogging guru. That's Loyd, in case everyone didn't really know that. He likes to refer to all of the people that I've gotten started at blogging as his blogging grandchildren. I think there might even be a great grandchild or two on Provo Platinum. At least he's been keeping it real with the blogging, and I'm sure he would continue to have interesting things to freak people out with if the governor weren't trying to get him kicked out of college.

And here's a shout out to Ronnie for reminding me of my blogging duties, and for helping me know how to write a proper first post: Shout.