An Inconvenient Truth

Waiting for Superman: How We Can Save America's Failing Public Schools
by Participant Media and Karl Weber
Published 14 Jun 2010

He always said that people are interested in people, and when they go to a movie, no matter how interesting and how important the topic of your movie is, they stay and watch because they’re invested in the stories of people you’ve captured on film. The biggest mistake most documentaries make is to forget this simple truth. For An Inconvenient Truth, we had to figure out a new way of introducing that quality of personal narrative into a scientific slide show—and in the process, we discovered an approach that ultimately shaped Waiting for “Superman.” The project that became An Inconvenient Truth originated when Laurie David and Lawrence Bender came to me and said, “We have this idea for a movie based on a slide show about global warming that Al Gore gives.” My first reaction was that this was a terrible idea—in fact, I spent two hours trying to talk them out of it.

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It’s interesting—many people who had been following the issue of global warming for years could have responded to An Inconvenient Truth with a big yawn, saying, “I’ve seen all this information before.” But they’d never seen it the way Al Gore presented it, and they’d certainly never seen it in the framework of one man’s personal quest to get people to understand what was inside his head. Three years later, I was celebrating having my new movie “greenlit” by Participant Media, the same company that had financed An Inconvenient Truth. Jim Berk, the new CEO of Participant, had been a public school principal. He was passionate about public education and was hoping I could create another big success with this film.

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(Davis and I had formed a documentary company after An Inconvenient Truth, the first documentary I produced, which told two stories: former vice president Al Gore’s lifelong crusade against global warming, as well as a comprehensive breakdown of exactly what global warming was.) It seemed almost impossible. My Learning Curve Not having studied the issues surrounding education before developing Waiting for “Superman,” I wasn’t sure of the best way to get a crash course in this complicated, multilayered subject. Previously, when I produced An Inconvenient Truth, I had a head start, having been worried about our impact as humans on the environment since third grade, when I’d sent away for my conservation sticker kit.

Break Through: Why We Can't Leave Saving the Planet to Environmentalists
by Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus
Published 10 Mar 2009

Nantucket Sound Could Be Next,” Cape Cod Times, November 6, 2005. [back] 5. The Pollution Paradigm 1. Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth (Emmaus, PA: Rodale, 2006), 12. [back] 2. Ibid., 109. [back] 3. Internet Movie Database, www.imdb.com/title/tt0497116/taglines. [back] 4. “Be Worried. Be Very Worried.” Time, March 26, 2006. [back] 5. Katherine Ellison, “Turned Off by Global Warming,” New York Times, May 20, 2006. [back] 6. Gore, Inconvenient, 286. [back] 7. Emphasis ours. From the film version of An Inconvenient Truth. Also quoted in David Neff, “Al Gore, Preacher Man,” Christianity Today, May 31, 2006. [back] 8.

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The political environment for action on energy independence and global warming has undergone a dramatic shift since 2004. Motivated by their anger with government inaction and the Bush administration’s outright interference, climate scientists increasingly started speaking out about the need for bold action. In the summer of 2006, Al Gore wrote a best-selling book and starred in a widely seen movie, An Inconvenient Truth, that were compelling—and terrifying—presentations about global warming. In lieu of action by Congress, progress on climate has come from other quarters. California enacted historic legislation reducing the state’s greenhouse gases to 1990 levels by 2020, and other states are likely to follow.

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These are not simply analytical categories but moral ones as well. Nature has been unjustly violated by mankind. These stories are hardly marginal; they can be found in the most mainstream environmentalist discourses, from Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring to Jared Diamond’s Collapse to Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth. Environmentalists are constantly telling nostalgic narratives about how things were better in the past, when humans lived in greater balance with nature. These stories depict humans not as beings as natural as any other but as essentially separate from the world. And while these narratives are easy to recognize, they are difficult to exorcise.

How PowerPoint Makes You Stupid
by Franck Frommer
Published 6 Oct 2010

See illustration The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint (Tufte), xiii–xiv, 201 on graphs, 89–90 on lists, 60, 64 Commodore, 9 communication normalized, 224 and screen, 79 societal foundation, 225 and work, 33–34 Compaq, 9 competencies, 210–14 employment, 213–14 school, 211 work, 212 computer home ownership, 220 use in higher education, 199, 220 See also microcomputer computer science, 134 consultants, 130–35, 141–51, 181–82, 188 Anglo versus European, 146–48 company slides, 145–46 computer science, 134 formalization, 132 Minto pyramid principle, 145 models, 131–33 Taylor & Fayol, 131 reductionism, 132, 135 content versus form, 42–43 form dominates, 126, 222 control education, 221 and PowerPoint, 46–48 Conway, Melvin, 63 Craig, Russell, 201 critical thinking, 165, 228 cryptography, 19 Cuban missile crisis, 155–56 Darcos, Xavier, 181, 218, 220 Debord, Guy, 223, 226 Del Rey, Angélique, 211 Deming, William Edwards, 136 Deming’s wheel, 136 diagrams and graphs, 86–92, 135–41 BCG matrix, 137 Deming’s wheel, 136 flow chart, 140 Porter matrix, 137–38 SWOT matrix, 139 See also illustration Diffie, Whitfield, 19–20 digital natives, 214, 224 digital workplace, 217–21 Duarte, Nancy, 86 DuPont and graphic presentations, 2–3 econometrics, 133 economization, 168–75, 181–82 education, 199–209 business, 192, 211–12 competencies, 210–14 computer use, 199, 220 digitalization, 216–22 digital workplace, 217–21 divisions by discipline, 200, 208–9 employment, 206–7, 213–14 expenditures for training, 192–93 France versus Anglo-Saxon, 208, 216 humanities and social sciences, 205–7 employability, 206–7 images and animation, 203 note taking abandoned, 204 outcomes, 201, 220 PowerPoint, 214–15 versus learning, 197–99, 201–2, 227–28 versus teaching, 204–5 privatization, 219 sell yourself, 222 whiteboards, 215–17 See also readability employee adaptability, 32, 41 autonomous, 8–9, 12, 28, 48 and employer relations, 212 See also Taylorism; workplace English, 53, 208 See also language Enjeux–Les Échos, 224 Eurotunnel, 70–71 Facebook, 65 Fallows, James, 159, 161 Farkas, David, 51, 200 Fayol, Henri, 131 Fiasco (Ricks), 163–64 Le Figaro, 205 flow chart, 140 Forethought, 21 France economization, 168–75, 181–82 education, 209 versus Anglo-Saxon, 208, 216 France Telecom, 180–89 jobs, 182, 189 slides, 183–89 Franks, Tommy, 163 Friedman, Milton, 191 Gaglio, Gérard, 34, 39, 102, 105 Gallo, Carmine, 117–18 The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs, 117 Gardiner, Sam, 159–60 Gaskins, Robert, 15–25, 39 background, 17–18 Bell Northern to Forethought, 20–21 criticizes PowerPoint, 24–25 first PowerPoint presentation, 15–16 Microsoft acquires PowerPoint, 21–22 Gates, Bill, 21, 115–16 Gaulejac, Vincent de, 223 globalization, 173–74 See also economization Godin, Seth, 86 Goody, Jack, 57–58 Google, 65, 94, 97 Gore, Al, 227 An Inconvenient Truth, 73, 118–24 Apple Macintosh, 120 awards and ticket sales, 119 biographical details, 121 graphic presentation. See illustration; presentation: graphic graphs and diagrams, 86–92 See also diagrams and graphs Grieshaber, Emil, 4 Guggenheim, Davis An Inconvenient Truth, 118–24 hackers, 17–18 Haladjian, Rafi, 59 Hamard, Julien, 107 Harvard Business Review, 61 Hazan, Éric, 70 Hellman, Martin, 19 H1N1, 83, 86–87, 92–94, 97 horizontal format.

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These witticisms—a specialty of showmen, particularly Americans—generally come from a pantheon of personalities (and often Web sites that compile undocumented quotations and organize them according to major themes) like Winston Churchill and Albert Einstein, or comic writers like Woody Allen and Groucho Marx. • The “expressive” quotation. Used so as to be retained, like a song tune. This is a creation of the presenter that can function simultaneously as a poetic image and a slogan; for example, in An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore (see chapter 5) intones, simultaneously with its appearance on the screen, the following sentence: “We are witnessing a collision between our civilization and the Earth.”34 • The paradoxical, provocative quotation. To ridicule the opposing position, the speaker can quote the arguments offered by opponents or comments from the press

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The performance becomes its own subject, the medium mediates itself and is no longer there simply to communicate messages and persuade an audience. Through an excess of charm, the presentation becomes self-creating, self-promoting, and self-absorbed. POLITICAL PERFORMANCE It is therefore hardly surprising that staging itself is staged and that the presentation itself becomes the subject, for example, of a movie script. An Inconvenient Truth, directed by Davis Guggenheim and starring former Vice President Al Gore, was one of the most successful American documentaries in recent years. It is a ninety-four-minute film that relies on a multimedia presentation prepared by the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize winner25 in the context of a campaign to increase awareness of climate change in cities around the world.

Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusions of Energy Independence
by Robert Bryce
Published 16 Mar 2011

Available: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n06/lanc01_.html. 84. Allison Linn, “Market for Carbon Offsets Raises Questions,” May 29, 2007. Available: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18659716. 85. Ed Pilkington, “An Inconvenient Truth: Eco-Warrior Al Gore’s Bloated Gas and Electricity Bills,” The Guardian, February 28, 2007. Available: http://environment .guardian.co.uk/energy/story/0,,2022934,00.html. 86. An Inconvenient Truth, at approximately 1:30. 87. Liveearth.org. Available: http://www.liveearth.org/?p=138. 88. Liveearth.org. Available: http://liveearthpledge.org/answer_the_call.php. 89. Ari Rabl, Joseph V. Spadaro, Veronika A.

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Environmental groups like Greenpeace and Worldwatch Institute continually tout energy independence.4 The idea has long been a main talking point of Amory Lovins, the high priest of the energyefficiency movement and the CEO of the Rocky Mountain Institute.5 One group, the Apollo Alliance, which represents labor unions, environmentalists, and other left-leaning groups, says that one of its primary goals is “to achieve sustainable American energy independence within a decade.”6 Al Gore’s 2006 documentary about global warming, An Inconvenient Truth, implies that America’s dependence on foreign oil is a factor in global warming.7 The film, which won two Academy Awards (for best documentary feature and best original song), contends that foreign oil should be replaced with domestically produced ethanol and that this replacement will reduce greenhouse gases.8 (In October 2007, Gore was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.)

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Instead, it likely means that the developing countries of the world—and the world’s poor—may have to make do with less oil than they would like simply because they cannot afford to use more. CLIMATE CHANGE Of all the anxiety-inducing big picture issues now facing the planet, global warming may be the one causing the most angst. Al Gore’s 2006 documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, brought the climate change debate to mainstream America. And just like peak oil, global warming appears to be an intractable problem that has no easy solutions and no obvious paths to success. It’s not a problem that can easily be observed. Nor is it possible to place the blame for the problem on one specific car, factory, power plant, or airplane.

May Contain Lies: How Stories, Statistics, and Studies Exploit Our Biases—And What We Can Do About It
by Alex Edmans
Published 13 May 2024

The US government’s official report on the disaster concluded ‘there is no such thing as a “bladder effect” that could account for ‘pressures the rig crew was observing’.15 The report’s chief counsel put it more bluntly: ‘Every industry expert the investigative team met with dismissed the so-called bladder effect as a fiction.’16 Blinkered scepticism can apply even if we can’t come up with an alternative explanation: we simply dismiss an inconvenient truth without any justification whatsoever. Silicon Valley Bank was the go-to financial institution for many Californian startups and saw its deposits triple between 2019 and 2021. They piled this spare cash into US Treasury Bonds – safe as houses in normal times, but their internal models predicted serious losses if interest rates rose.

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Actually, it could. And the reasons why apply not only to this video, but also to similar messages given in other forms. At least six high-profile studies were published between 2004 and 2012 highlighting the scientific consensus on global warming;6 the 2006 Academy Award-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth paints a similar picture. Yet public understanding of climate change hasn’t improved. In 2003, a Gallup poll found that 61% of people believed that climate change is man-made rather than natural; by 2013 this had dropped to 57%. Of course, this data isn’t conclusive, because we don’t know the counterfactual – what it would have been without those studies and that movie – but there hasn’t been the epiphany we’d have hoped for.

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The problem with the video ridiculing Cruz is that it made climate change an issue not just of science but of politics, suggesting that liberals believe in it and conservatives don’t. A Republican viewer might think he needs to be a sceptic if he wants to call himself a proper Republican, irrespective of what the science says. An Inconvenient Truth was also loaded with evidence, yet because it was about Al Gore, it politicized the topic. Climate change then becomes less about ‘What do you believe?’ and more about ‘What group do you belong to?’ The cultural cognition hypothesis means that we can’t think about facts, data and evidence in a vacuum.

Fool Me Twice: Fighting the Assault on Science in America
by Shawn Lawrence Otto
Published 10 Oct 2011

Mann’s graph charted average temperatures for the last thousand years, and the sharp increase it shows in the last century makes it resemble a hockey stick. It was used prominently in the 2001 report issued by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).49 It was also used, more famously, by a scissor-lift-riding Al Gore in the documentary film An Inconvenient Truth. Tree scientists have correlated tree-ring density measurements with annual average temperature data. Mann used this correlation to analyze tree rings going back a thousand years and infer unknown temperatures. He then plotted them on a chart using blue and, being a scientist, he added gray bars to represent the statistical probability of error in his estimates, which increased with time.

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The book presents an engaging account of some of the world’s top minds, wizards led by former Microsoft chief technology officer and billionaire Nathan Myhrvold, their “Harry Potter,”125 hunkering down in a converted Harley-Davidson factory, smirking at Al Gore’s histrionic tones and setting out to solve the problem once and for all, like men. When An Inconvenient Truth is mentioned, the table erupts in a sea of groans. The film’s purpose, Myhrvold believes, was “to scare the crap out of people.” Although Al Gore “isn’t technically lying,” he says, some of the nightmare scenarios Gore describes—the state of Florida disappearing under rising seas, for instance—”don’t have any basis in physical reality in any reasonable time frame.

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Unlike questions about evolution, the politics of climate change have been cast in terms of money, freedom, and socialism. These are less about ideology than self-protection, and that is the value that the battle needs to be based on. This is in no small part because the topic wasn’t properly presented to the public in the first place. An Inconvenient Truth told us “nothing is scarier than the truth” and sought to scare people into action. Political strategists could have told the filmmakers that if you want to get people to vote against something, particularly Republicans, you need to get them angry about it, not scared of it, and if you want them to vote for something, you sell them hope and freedom.

The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels
by Alex Epstein
Published 13 Nov 2014

It is disingenuous for climate activists to blame every storm on climate change when there has been so little warming so far and when storm trends are so unremarkable. Remember, climate is always volatile, climate is always dangerous. Or take the issue of sea levels, which we hear are rapidly rising. Al Gore’s movie An Inconvenient Truth terrified many with claims of likely twenty-foot rises in sea levels.27 Given the temperature trends, however, we wouldn’t expect warming to have a dramatic effect on sea levels. And, in fact, it hasn’t. Figure 4.5 shows sea level trends from locations throughout the world. Note how smooth the trends are—and also notice how several of them are downward.

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“The Keeling Curve: A Daily Record of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego,” June 8, 2014, http://keelingcurve.ucsd.edu. 26. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Goddard Institute for Space Studies, “Global Land-Ocean Temperature Index,” GISS Surface Temperature Plots, May 12, 2014, http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/Fig.A2.gif. 27. Davis Guggenheim, director, An Inconvenient Truth (Beverly Hills, CA: Lawrence Bender Production), 2006. 28. Svante Arrhenius, Worlds in the Making: The Evolution of the Universe (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1908), 63. 29. “Global Warming’s Denier Elite,” Rolling Stone Online, September 12, 2013, www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/global-warmings-denier-elite-20130912. 30.

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ability, energy as, 119 abuse-use fallacy, 162–63 agriculture: and biomass, 55–57 calories produced by, 56 and climate, 129 fertilization, 82–83, 116 food prices, 56–57, 57 improvements in, 122–23, 126 mechanization of, 81 resources needed for, 56 air: clean, 19, 142, 149–50 particles emitted into, 7 and smog, 20, 79, 143, 152, 158 see also pollution air-conditioning, 128 alcohol, as fuel, 55 aluminum, 74 American Meteorological Society, 21 Arrhenius, Svante, 108 “artificial” fallacy, 168–69 atmosphere: and climate livability, 93 CO2 in, 114, 121, 138 water vapor creation in, 94, 97, 99 atmospheric conditions, 93 battery technology, 72 Becquerel, Edmond, 47 bias, cause of, 29 big picture: evaluating risks and benefits in, 15, 28–29 in fossil fuel technology, 86–88, 113–14, 138–40 health trends, 174–76, 174 ignoring, 18, 20, 116, 126 integrating knowledge in, 28, 33 biofuels, 55 biomass: energy from, 3, 55–58, 65, 135 and farming, 55–57 and food prices, 56–57, 57 inadequacy as energy source, 56, 57–58, 65, 135 as natural source, 55 niche uses for, 58 renewable, 55, 57–58 storage system of, 55 Bissell, George, 73 blackouts, 50 Bonk, James, 90 Borlaug, Norman, 81, 82, 83 boron, 49 Bosch, Carl, 83 BP oil spill, 159 BP Statistical Review of World Energy, 28 Bradley, Robert Jr., 9–10 Brazil, coal consumption in, 67 Bryce, Robert, 152 Bush, George W., 3 cadmium telluride, 49 calories, 40–42, 56, 77–78 carbon atoms, 66, 68 carbon dioxide emissions, see CO2 emissions carbon footprint, 116 Carson, Johnny, 6 Carter, Jimmy, 16 catastrophe, dire forecasts of, 4, 6–8, 16, 18, 21–25, 33, 106, 108, 109 cause and effect, 165–66 Center for Industrial Progress, 24, 201 charcoal, 66 chemicals, 166–69 China: fossil fuels used in, 13, 14, 15, 67, 137 infant mortality in, 15 smog in, 20, 79, 152 technological progress in, 137, 158 toxic waste in, 155–56 Chipko movement, India, 32–33 cholera, 147–48 Christy, John, 103 civilization: durable, 25 high-energy, 126–27 climate: dangers of, 22–25, 127–29, 142 dependency on, 128–29 human impact on, 29, 31–32, 126 livability in, 92, 93–96, 126–29, 133, 137, 138 mastery of, 132–34, 138, 194 predictions of, 101, 103, 103, 108, 126 and sea level, 106 use of term, 93–94 volatility of, 94–95, 106 climate change: believers vs. deniers, 91–92 computer models of, 100–104, 102, 103, 108, 138 dire forecasts of, 4, 16, 21–25, 100, 106, 108, 109 global, 94 and greenhouse effect, 21–22, 23, 91–93, 96, 99, 106–8 man-made, 94 and political goals, 109, 111 public statements about, 3, 8, 109, 112 use of term, 94 climate dishonesty, 104 equating greenhouse effect with catastrophic climate change, 106–8, 107 misrepresenting extreme weather, 105–6 97 percent fabrication, 109–11 climate ethics, 111–14 climate justice, 136–37 climate-related deaths, 23–25, 24, 120–26, 121–25, 137 climate science, 90 climate sensitivity, 100 climate system, global, 94 Club of Rome, The Limits to Growth, 6 CO2 emissions: atmospheric, 93, 114, 121, 138 in burning coal, 68 and clean energy sources, 54 and climate change, 7, 106, 108 and climate ethics, 113–14 and climate-related deaths, 24, 24, 120–26, 121–25 computer models of, 100–104, 102, 103, 138 and energy effect, 92 and greenhouse effect, 91, 92, 97–101, 99 increasing, 23–24, 53, 89, 103–4 as plant food, 92, 114–17, 115, 208 reduction of, 3, 26, 88 and temperature, 22, 23, 108 coal: availability of, 12, 17, 66, 156, 1 91–92 by-products and risks of, 154–57, 159, 192 consumption of, 11, 44, 44, 67, 68 energy from, 3, 66, 67–69, 157–58, 191–92 export of, 192 nineteenth-century technology, 43 pollution from, 68, 79, 152–53, 153, 156–57, 165 reducing pollution from, 156–59 reliability of, 12, 52 resources required for production of, 49–50, 49 for transportation fuel, 68 coal miners, 139, 159–60 common good, 160 computer models, 100–104, 102, 103, 108, 138 speculative, 164–65 concentrated solar power (CSP), 47–48 conservation, use of term, 12 Cook, John, 110 copper indium gallium selenide, 49 corn, energy from, 56 Crookes, William, 82 dams, 59–60, 131 death sentence, early, 43, 88, 126 decisions, evaluating risks and benefits in, 26, 28–29, 134 Deepwater Horizon, 159 Desrochers, Pierre, 172–73 development: improvement via, 170, 192 reversal of, 179 use of term, 142 diesel engines, 71, 82 diluteness, 48–50, 49, 65 disasters, statistics about, 120–26, 121–25 diseases: carried by insects, 128, 142, 145–46, 173 eradicating, 145–47, 146, 175 medication for, 166–67 Drake, Edwin, 73 droughts, deaths from, 23, 121, 122–23, 122, 126 dung, energy from, 55 earthquakes, 142, 167 economic system, computer models of, 102 Edison, Thomas, 157 Ehrlich, Paul: and climate ethics, 113 dire predictions of, 6, 7, 8, 16, 80, 196 Global Ecology, 179 influence of, 7, 8, 9–10, 194 The Population Bomb, 80–81 electric grid, 69 electricity: base-load power, 69 battery-powered vehicles, 72 blackouts, 50, 53 from coal, 157–58 excess, 53 inadequate, 38–39, 42–43 lack of, 126, 139 opponents of (1970s), 9 peak load, 69 reliability of, 52–53 resource intensity of, 49, 49 storage of, 53 emissions targets, 206–7 energy: as ability, 119 and accidents, 159–60 availability in U.S., 41–42 from burning fossil fuels, 2–3, 97, 114 by-products of, 47 cheap, plentiful, reliable, 15–25, 33, 42–45, 58–59, 60, 137, 139, 177, 194, 198 conservation of, 12 definition of, 40 future resources of, 73–76, 178 growth needed in, 57 from hazelnuts, 45–47, 55, 56 and life, 37–39 as life and death issue, 54 and machine calories, 40–42 as master industry, 84 and power, 41 production of, 12, 43, 46–47, 57–58, 68, 139 progressive, 76 rationing of, 9 reliability of, 50, 52–53 from renewable sources, 3, 12, 55, 57–58 supply and demand, 12 and technology, 129 uses of, 86 what we all must do, 206–9 workable source of, 46–47 world use of, 11–13, 11, 44, 44 energy effect, 92, 119, 133–34, 138 energy revolution, 201 England, coal pollution in, 79 environment: human-centered view of, 169–71, 183 human nonimpact on, 31–32, 197 improving quality of, 4, 86, 141–45, 175–76, 198 pollution of, 6, 19, 153 quality of, 13, 21, 194–95 transformation of, 32, 85, 200–202 as wilderness, 170 Environmental Defense Fund, 136 ethanol, 12, 56, 68 experts: as advisers, not authorities, 26–28, 92, 135 combined knowledge of, 28 dire forecasts of, 4, 6–8, 33 focus on negative outcomes, 15, 18, 25 in real-estate bubble, 27 what they don’t know, 27, 93, 113–14 extinction, 173–74 Fallon, Jimmy, 45 false-attribution fallacy, 163–66 famine, 80 farming, see agriculture Fenton, John, 162 fertilization, 82–83, 116 fertilizer effect, 92, 114–17, 115, 138 fleas, 146 flood control, 130–31 floods, deaths from, 23, 121, 124, 124 food prices, 56–57, 57 food production, 81–82, 126 fossil fuel industry: author’s recommendations to, 202–6 Green movement vs., 191, 194–200 in jeopardy, 190–91 as moral industry, 201, 205, 206 prejudice against, 135–36, 193–94, 198–200 thanks to, 140 fossil fuels, 65–88 addiction to, 3, 5–6 alternatives to, 12, 46, 58 benefits of use, 4–5, 16–25, 92, 100, 137, 143, 181, 193 bias against, 29 complex interdisciplinary questions about, 27–28 from dead plants, 65–66, 114, 151 energy from burning of, 2–3, 97, 114 and the environment, 85–86, 175–76, 198 extraction of, 18, 66, 139 future uses of, 182–86, 207–8 hidden and trapped, 66, 73 and human progress, 77–78, 77, 119–20, 137 as hydrocarbons, 67, 68 and life expectancy, 13, 14, 15, 30, 77–78, 77, 119–20 as moral choice, 13, 30, 33–35 and more resources, 16–19 as necessary for life, 88 as nonrenewable, 6, 8 pollution from, see pollution reliability of, 12 restricting use of, 3–4, 8, 9, 10, 26, 30, 58 risks and side effects of, 15, 26, 28–29, 92, 134, 151–54, 156–59 in underdeveloped nations, 136–37 use of term, 66 worldwide use of, 10, 11–13, 11 Fox, Josh, Gasland, 162–63 fracking, 26, 70, 161 and abuse-use fallacy, 162–63 and “artificial” fallacy, 168–69 and false-attribution fallacy, 163–64 and no-threshold fallacy, 167–68 freighters, 82 Friedman, David, 110 Friedman, Milton, 42 Fukushima nuclear accident, 62 G7 countries, climate-related deaths in, 124–25, 125 Gambia, The, 38–39, 40, 50, 78, 197 gas: fertilization, 82 natural, see natural gas supply issues of, 69 gasoline, burning, 66, 159 gasoline engines, 71 GDP, 77, 78 genetic science, 81 Germany: air quality in, 165 solar and wind in, 50–55, 51, 52 global cooling, 21 global greening, 114–17 global warming: beneficial, 138 clarifying the questions of, 91–92 focus on, 21–23, 23, 89–91 and greenhouse effect, 99 97 percent fabrication, 109–11 overpredictions of, 102 Goklany, Indur, 23 Gore, Al, 132, 194 An Inconvenient Truth, 106 Graber, David M., 30–31, 197 Great Recession, 102 greenhouse effect, 7, 90, 96–104 and climate change, 21–22, 23, 91–93, 96, 99, 106–8, 107 computer models of, 100–104, 102, 103, 138 diminishing effect of, 98–99, 98 discoverers of, 108 fear of, 96 logarithmic, 108 positive feedback loop of, 99 use of term, 92 what it is, 97–98 Green movement, 191, 194–200 green revolution, 82, 83 guano, 82 Haber, Fritz, 83 Hansen, James E.: on the evils of fossil fuel companies, 135–36 failed models of, 102, 102 on greenhouse effect, 7, 22, 96 happiness, pursuit of, 84–85, 133 hazelnuts, as energy source, 45–47, 55, 56 health trends, 174–76, 174 heavy metals, 154, 168 Holdren, John, 8, 9, 179, 194 Holocene era, 127 Hull, Gary, 189 human beings: adaptability of, 127, 132, 171 calories needed by, 40 impact of, 94, 126 ingenuity of, 18–19, 41, 170, 181 perspective of, 85 weakness of, 40 human life: environmental nonimpact of, 31–32, 197 flourishing, 13, 85, 87, 119–20, 175 protecting, 25 as standard of value, 30, 60, 84, 85, 88, 92, 114, 136, 173, 197, 201 hunger, 80–81 hurricanes, 24, 25, 106, 125 hydraulic fracturing, see fracking hydrocarbons, 67, 68 hydroelectric power: limitations of, 59–60 opponents of, 54, 60, 135 reliability of, 12, 59 as supplement, 44 hydrofluoric acid, 154 hydrogen atoms, 66, 196 Ice Age, return to, 21 ideas: in history, 184 track records of, 5 Idso, Craig, 111, 114 Idso, Sherwood, 114 income: and fossil fuel use, 13, 14, 15 as leading indicator of human flourishing, 119–20 India: Chipko movement in, 32–33 fossil fuels used in, 13, 14, 15, 67, 137 infant mortality in, 15 technological progress in, 137 transportation to, 82 Indonesia, prosperity in, 100, 127 industrialization, 125, 131, 137 industrial progress, 200–202 Industrial Revolution, 78, 152 infant mortality, 15, 67, 128, 174–75, 174 infrared absorbers, 97 insects, disease-carrying, 128, 142, 145–46, 173 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 3, 26, 130, 147 intermittency, 48, 50–53, 65 internal combustion engine, 68, 132 Internationl Energy Agency, 28 irrigation, 83, 123, 126, 128 Jackson, Lisa, 164 Japan: Fukushima accident in, 62 tsunami in, 130 jet engines, 71 Jevons, William Stanley, The Coal Question, 78–79 Kennedy, Robert F.

Still Broke: Walmart's Remarkable Transformation and the Limits of Socially Conscious Capitalism
by Rick Wartzman
Published 15 Nov 2022

Once things got rolling, though, it couldn’t have gone better from Wake Up Walmart’s point of view. Thousands of people across the country turned out to listen to a litany of Walmart’s sins through a presentation called “A Costly Truth,” an echo of Al Gore’s recently released film about global warming, An Inconvenient Truth. Democratic politicians, hoping to score points with their base, showed up to stoke the crowd. Among those who took part were Senators Joe Biden and Harry Reid, as well as Governors Tom Vilsack and Bill Richardson. At a plaza in Bridgeport, Connecticut, both Senator Joseph Lieberman and his primary challenger, Ned Lamont, made their way to the Wake Up Walmart rally in Smiley’s shadow.

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As the years went on, Hollender became ever more confident that Walmart was “putting increasing distance between what it once was and what it’s becoming.” One of Seventh Generation’s “own corporate responsibility experts, someone who knows a poseur when he sees one, even suggests that Walmart has become a legitimate sustainability leader,” he noted. In the summer of 2006, Walmart landed its most prized convert: Al Gore. After An Inconvenient Truth was shown to about 800 Walmart employees at the Home Office, the former vice president and his wife, Tipper, sprang onto the stage to a standing ovation. “The message from Walmart today to the rest of the business community is, there need not be any conflict between the environment and the economy,” Gore said.

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Thinking back to the early 2000s, when he was the head of Conservation International’s Center for Environmental Leadership in Business, Glenn Prickett would realize that he was right at ground zero when corporate America began to look at environmental sustainability as integral to its own long-term profitability. No longer would it be seen merely as a compliance headache. In hindsight, Prickett would attribute this aha moment to three seminal developments: Hurricane Katrina, which prompted people to start focusing on the nexus between extreme weather and climate change; An Inconvenient Truth; and the greening of the biggest company in America. This awakening for business “traces directly back to the Walmart initiative,” said Prickett, who participated in some of the first conversations with the retailer at Conservation International and would later become president of another nonprofit, the World Environment Center.

One Less Car: Bicycling and the Politics of Automobility
by Zack Furness and Zachary Mooradian Furness
Published 28 Mar 2010

Ernest istook, “Frittering away road Money,” Washington Times, September 30, 2007. See al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth: The Crisis of Global Warming, rev. ed. (new york: viking, 2007); Kenneth S. Deffeyes, Hubbert’s Peak: The Impending World Oil Shortage (princeton, nJ: princeton University press, 2001); Kenneth S. Deffeyes, Beyond Oil: The View from Hubbert’s Peak, 1st ed. (new york: Hill and Wang, 2005). Deffeyes, Hubbert’s Peak, 11. For a critique of al Gore’s film An Inconvenient Truth, see Zack Furness, “an inconvenient Truth,” Bad Subjects (2006), available at http://bad.eserver.org/reviews/2006/gore.html.

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Cycleicious Blog, May 19, 2008. available at http://www.cyclelicio.us/2008/05/dkny-orange-bicycles-in-london. html. Furness, Zack. “Biketivism and Technology: Historical reflections and appropriations.” Social Epistemology 19, no. 4 (2005): 401–417. ———. “Blackout.” Bad Subjects 64 (2003). ———. “Critical Mass, Urban Space and vélomobility.” Mobilities 2, no. 2 (2007): 299–319. ———. “an inconvenient Truth.” Bad Subjects, 2006. available at http://bad.eserver.org/ reviews/2006/gore.html. ———. “Microcosm publishing.” Punk Planet (January–February 2005): 46–47. ———. “‘put the Fun between your legs!’: The politics and Counterculture of the Bicycle.” ph.D. diss., University of pittsburgh, 2005.

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Or, Zen on Wheels.” Nonduality Salon Magazine 1 (September 2000). available at http://www.nonduality.com/900gg.htm. Goodridge, Steven. “re: The Other Smart Growth.” Chainguard (Yahoo Group), May 24, 2002. available at http://sports.groups.yahoo.com/group/chainguard/message/12542. Gore, albert. An Inconvenient Truth: The Crisis of Global Warming. rev. ed. new york: viking, 2007. Gorz, andré. “The Social ideology of the Motorcar.” Le Sauvage (September– October 1973). available at http://www.worldcarfree.net/resources/freesources/ TheSocialideology.rtf. Gosling, Tim. “‘not for Sale’: The Underground network of anarcho-punk.” in Music Scenes: Local, Translocal and Virtual, edited by andy Bennett and richard a. peterson, 168–186. nashville: vanderbilt University press, 2004.

Philanthrocapitalism
by Matthew Bishop , Michael Green and Bill Clinton
Published 29 Sep 2008

In 2004, he created Participant Media to make for-profit movies with a social message; the firm’s slogan is “changing the world, one story at a time.” Participant Media achieved instant success with movies such as Syriana, about the oil industry; Good Night and Good Luck, about McCarthyism; Fast Food Nation, about obesity; and above all, Al Gore’s Oscar-winning documentary about the threat of global warming, An Inconvenient Truth. Later successes include two movies about Afghanistan, The Kite Runner and Charlie Wilson’s War. SILICON CHIPPING IN Pierre Omidyar and Jeff Skoll are following in the footsteps of many of Silicon Valley’s earlier winners. The grandfathers of tech-industry philanthropy were Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard, founders of the eponymous computer maker.

…

Recall that Soros provided start-up capital for One, Bono’s campaigning organization, with software tycoon Ed Scott and the Gates Foundation—which as well as funding new initiatives in the public education system also joined with Eli Broad to put education reform on the presidential election agenda through the campaign Ed in ’08. Richard Branson, Jeff Skoll, and others are directly funding a gaggle of (technically former, but still hugely influential) world leaders through the Elders. Having financed Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, among other movies with a message, Skoll is now looking to further increase the impact of his philanthropy on policy, particularly towards climate change. Marion and Herbert Sandler, who made their fortune from banking, are trying to influence the battle of ideas by improving the quality of journalism (see “Up to a Point, Mr. and Mrs.

…

Among the guests today are several of his fellow philanthrocapitalists, each of them, like Gates, now a member of the Elders group launched by Branson and Nelson Mandela all those years ago. They had last met at the United Nations special session to learn lessons from their greatest triumph; it was called “Darfur and the Elders: how the genocide was ended.” Across the room, Gates sees Jeff Skoll, fresh from collecting an Oscar for his latest movie, An Inconvenient Truth 7, which caused quite a stir by denouncing the professional eco-warriors who continue to spread fear of climate change long after that threat has been tamed. He is chatting to two of the most successful Skoll Foundation social entrepreneurs. One, an Indian woman in her forties, has played a big part in beating climate change through her business selling solar-power systems to villages across the developing world.

Slide:ology: the art and science of creating great presentations
by Nancy Duarte
Published 15 Nov 2008

Egyptian Murals The 2,000 images found in the caves at Lascaux, France narrate stories through character, sequence, and motion. The oldest evidence the world has of visual storytelling, the paintings demonstrate early reliance on using images to convey meaning. Brief History of Visual Aids 1845 ce Overhead Projector ce An Inconvenient Truth 2003 Al Gore raises environmental consciousness, wins an Academy Award, and receives the Nobel Peace Prize for telling a compelling story about climate change with little more than a slide show. ce Edward Tufte authors “The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint.” In it, he suggests that PowerPoint impaired the quality of the engineers' investigative analysis on the Columbia Space Shuttle when it was gravely impacted by debris. 1992 Cognitive Style of PowerPoint ce PCs sit on every desktop in the workplace and high-stakes business communications evolve from printed documents to digital presentations.

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This man had a mission. He was alive, charismatic, fluid, candid, and animated. Without exception, his audience left feeling informed and inspired. You could sense the momentum building. 86 slide:ology Mr. Gore elevated his visual strategy and staging choreography to a whole new level. Now that the film An Inconvenient Truth has reached a mass audience, many people across the country and around the world have changed their perceptions of him as well. He has achieved a significant brand makeover. The July 2007 issue of Fast Company reported: “In one of the most remarkable personal turnarounds of all time, Mr. Gore reinvented the way people respond to him.

SuperFreakonomics
by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
Published 19 Oct 2009

To citizens of the developed world in particular, this would mean consuming less, using less, driving less—and, though it’s uncouth to say it aloud, learning to live with a gradual depopulation of the earth. If the modern conservation movement has a patron saint, it is surely Al Gore, the former vice president and recent Nobel laureate. His documentary film An Inconvenient Truth hammered home for millions the dangers of overconsumption. He has since founded the Alliance for Climate Protection, which describes itself as “an unprecedented mass persuasion exercise.” Its centerpiece is a $300 million public-service campaign called “We,” which urges Americans to change their profligate ways.

…

But they also agree that the standard global-warming rhetoric in the media and political circles is oversimplified and exaggerated. Too many accounts, Myhrvold says, suffer from “people who get on their high horse and say that that our species will be exterminated.” Does he believe this? “Probably not.” When An Inconvenient Truth is mentioned, the table erupts in a sea of groans. The film’s purpose, Myhrvold believes, was “to scare the crap out of people.” Although Al Gore “isn’t technically lying,” he says, some of the nightmare scenarios Gore describes—the state of Florida disappearing under rising seas, for instance—“don’t have any basis in physical reality in any reasonable time frame.

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Aab, Albert, 59 Abbott, Karen, 24 abortion, 4–5 accidental randomization, 79 Adams, John, 83 adverse selection, 53 Afghanistan, 65, 87 Africa, HIV and AIDS in, 208–9 Agricultural Revolution, 141–42 agriculture, and climate change, 166 air travel, and terrorism, 65–66 air bags, for automobiles, 150 Al-Ahd (The Oath) newsletter, 62 al Qaeda, 63 Allgemeine Krankenhaus (General Hospital), Vienna, 134–38, 203–4 Alliance for Climate Protection, 170 Allie (prostitute), xvi-xvii, 49–56 Almond, Douglas, 57, 58–59 altruism and anonymity, 109, 118 and charitable giving, 106–7 and climate externalities, 173 and economics, 105,106–23 effect of media coverage on, 107 experiments about, 106–23 games about, 108–11,113,115,117, 118–20 and Genovese murder, 97–100, 104–5,106,110,125–31 impure, 124–25 and incentives, 125, 131 List’s experiments about, 113–20, 121, 123, 125 and manipulation, 125 and monkey-monetary exchange experiment, 215 and people as innately altruistic, 110–11, 113 and taxes, 124 warm-glow, 124–25 Amalga program, 73–74 Ambrose, Stanley, 189 American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), 101 Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 139 ammonium nitrate, 142, 160 An Inconvenient Truth (documentary), 170, 181 The Andy Griffith Show (TV), 104 aneurysms, repair of, 179–80 animals, emissions of, 166, 167–68 annuities, 82 antimicrobial shield, 207 apathy, and Genovese murder, 99–100, 125–31 Apni Beti, Apna Dhan (“My Daughter, My Pride”) project, 5–6 Arbogast, Jessie, 14, 15 Archimedes, 193 Army Air Forces, U.S., 147 Athabasca Oil Sands (Alberta, Canada), 195 athletes birthdays of, 59–60 women as, 22 automobiles air bags for, 150 and cheap and simple fixes, 146–58 children in, 150–58 crash-test data for, 153–55 as replacement for horse, 10–11 seat belts for, 148,149–58 stolen, 173–75 autopsies, 137–38,140, 203 Auvert, Bertran, 208 Azyxxi program, 73 baby boom, and crime, 102 banks, and terrorism, 90–96 Barres, Ben (aka Barbara Barres), 47–48 baseball, drug testing in, 92 baseball cards, experiment about, 115–17, 121 Baseball Hall of Fame, and life span, 82 Bastiat, Frédéric, 31 Bateson, Melissa, 122 Becker, Gary, 12–13, 105, 106, 113, 124 behavior Becker’s views about, 12 collective, 203 data for describing, 13–14 difficulty of changing, 148–49, 173, 203–9 of doctors, 203–8 influence of films on, 15 irrational, 214 predicting, 17 rational, 122–23, 213–14 for self-welfare, 208–9 typical, 13–14, 15–16 behavioral economics, 12–13, 113–23.

Windfall: The Booming Business of Global Warming
by Mckenzie Funk
Published 22 Jan 2014

Water became the go-to idea.” For the climate investor, water was the obvious thing. Carbon emissions are invisible. Temperatures are an abstraction. But melting ice, empty reservoirs, lapping waves, and torrential rainstorms are physical, tangible—the face of climate change. Water is what makes it real. After An Inconvenient Truth, during 2007’s record melt in the Arctic Ocean, at least fifteen water mutual funds had launched globally, more than doubling the number in existence. In two years, the amount of money under management ballooned tenfold to $13 billion. Credit Suisse, UBS, and Goldman Sachs hired dedicated water analysts, the latter calling water “the petroleum of the next century” and referring to “major multi-year droughts” in Israel, Australia, and the American West.

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—only this time there was real money behind it. In his office, Dickerson, in his late sixties, sat in a leather chair next to a window and an old PC, and I sat across his desk from him. The walls had photographs of Alaskan glaciers and Utahan deserts—Dickerson took them himself—and a bookshelf had three copies of An Inconvenient Truth and two of Cadillac Desert, the seminal 1986 book on water and political power in the American West. Its author, the environmental icon Marc Reisner, was a Summit board member before his death in 2000. “There are all these Zen-like things about water,” Dickerson told me. “It’s the most necessary of all commodities.

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Aamodt, Jim, 102 abiotic stress tolerance, 246–47 Acciona, 167 acid rain, 271 activation energy, 63 Acuña, René, 129 adaptation, 10, 111–12, 210–12, 222–23, 229–32, 267 Aedes aegypti mosquito, 235–36, 237 breeding places, 238, 239 genetically modified OX513A, 236, 239–40, 242, 247, 250–53 producing sterility in, 241–44 spraying, 239–40 Aedes albopictus mosquito, 236, 244, 250 Affordable H2Ousing, 227 Africa: deportations to, 174 refugees from, 172–75, 180–84, 191 African Agricultural Technology Foundation, 245 Agcapita, 153 agriculture: increased growing days, 21, 64, 152, 153 land for, 137, 139–59 and salinity, 195, 198 and water, 87, 90, 148, 205 Agrifirma, 153 Aguas de Barcelona, 21–22 AIG (American International Group), 98, 99, 103–5, 109, 110, 113, 115 alarm fatigue, 52 Alaska: and Arctic claims, 32, 36 endangered villages in, 19, 65 and lease sale, 49, 53, 55–57, 286–87 and oil, 46, 48–49 water contracts in, 122 Alaska Gas Pipeline Project, 46 albedo, 21, 262, 266 Al-Faisal, Prince Mohamed, 122 Algodones Dunes, 126, 128 All-American Canal, 125–29, 130, 167, 264 All-Assam Students Union (AASU), 190, 191, 206 Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), 215–16, 226 Al Maktoum, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, 227 Alphey, Luke, 241–44, 250–53 Alps, melting glaciers in, 65–66, 79–83, 86 American Enterprise Institute (AEI), 267, 276, 279 American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), 232 American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, 243 Andermatt, Switzerland, 80 Anderson, Terry, 132–33 Angus and Ross, 73 Anopheles gambiae mosquito, 247 Anthropocene epoch, 5, 252 Aquaterra, 222 aqueducts, 125 Aqueous, 124 aquifers, 205 Arad, Elisha, 89–91 Arcadis, 229, 230–31, 233–34 Arctic: development plans for, 45–46, 47 melting sea ice in, 21, 32, 35, 45, 47, 48, 56, 64–66, 77–78, 118, 194, 203, 284, 287–88 national claims on, 32, 35–37, 38 new shipping lanes in, 16–18, 25–26, 31–32, 54, 284 and petroleum, 16, 31, 32–33, 47, 286 Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, 46 Arctic Council, 194 Arctic Frontiers conference, 45–47 Arctic Ocean, and Law of the Sea, 36 Argentina, land deals in, 153 ARIS (Automatic Rice Imaging System), 248–49 Aristotle, 66 Arrhenius, Svante, 5 Ashkelon, Israel, 88–91 Assam, 189–92, 205–6 Assam Movement, 206 Athabasca tar sands, 21, 52, 58, 263–64 Atkin, Carl, 152, 154 Atmocean, 273 Aurora Flight Sciences, 269 Australia: drought in, 88, 92, 101, 119, 132, 133, 135, 144, 152, 203, 221, 261 Number 1 Rabbit-Proof Fence, 177 water markets in, 132, 133–37 Austria, melting glaciers in, 79–81 Ayles Ice Shelf, 19–20 Baffin Bay, 63 Bahama Islands, 64, 220 Ballou, Rip, 245 Bangladesh, 189–213 border fence, 190–92, 206–9, 212–13 borders of, 191 crops grown in, 195 cyclones in, 196 and flooding, 64, 192, 196–97, 199, 203, 233, 280 foreign aid to, 212 and India, 167, 190–92, 197, 204–9, 210, 212 population growth in, 204, 209 poverty of, 191 refugees from, 191, 204, 206–12 and war games, 203–4 water salinity in, 195, 198 Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI), 198–99 Bar, Etan, 92–93, 119 Barbon, Nicholas, 112–14 Barents Sea, 37, 53 BASF, 246–47, 249–50 Bashir, Omar, 147, 149 Bay of Bengal, 191, 195, 196 Beatrix, queen of Netherlands, 229 Beaufort Sea, 36, 48, 49 Beckett, Margaret, 20 Ben-Gurion, David, 84, 87 Bentham, Jeremy, 50–51, 52, 58–59 Bidwells, 152 Bikini Atoll, 216 biofuels, 52, 59 biotechnology, 249–50 Blaauw, Robert Jan, 45, 47–49 Black, George, 210 Black Angel fjord, 73, 74, 77–78 Black Earth Farming, 153 BlackRock, 153 Blue Sky Water Partners, 134 Boeing, 269 Borlaug, Norman, 249 BP, 43, 104, 230 BRAC, 210 Brahmaputra River, 189–90, 193, 195, 196, 199 Brazil: and land deals, 140, 144, 153 and mosquitoes, 243 Brock, Stan, 103 Buffett, Warren, 263 Buiter, Willem, 118, 121 Buoyant Foundation Project, 231 Buriganga River, 197–98 Burma, border of, 191 Bush, George W., 29, 55 Busuttil, Simon, 171–74 Byers, Michael, 24, 25, 26–27, 128 Cain, James P., 71 Caldeira, Ken, 265, 266, 268, 272, 273, 275 Cal Fire, 102 California: drought in, 100 fires in, 97–107 insurance in, 108–9 water for, 125, 127–28, 130 Cambodia, and land deals, 144 Cameroon, and land deals, 144 Campbell-Purdie, Wendy, 163, 177 Canada: and Arctic claims, 32 and Arctic traffic control, 25 First Nations tribes, 153 increased growing days in, 21, 152, 153 Inuit in, 67–68 and Kyoto Protocol, 21 and Law of the Sea, 36 and natural gas, 22 and Northwest Passage, 15–19, 25–27, 32 sovereignty of, 15–19, 27, 67 tar sands in, 21, 52, 58, 263–64 and U.S. cooperation, 26 water in, 24–25 Canary Islands, 164, 165, 168, 172 Cancún Climate Change Conference (2010), 10 Cantwell, Maria, 255–59 cap-and-trade system, 44, 45, 59 Cape York Peninsula, 136 carbon dioxide emissions: and CCS, 49–51, 53, 58, 59 cutting, 7, 10, 217 and lawsuits, 110 levels of, 5, 32, 52, 92, 199, 210 and melting sea ice, 45 and plant growth, 21 sources of, 52, 191, 204–5 trading scheme, 151–52, 212 Carteret Islands, 64, 65 Cassar, Joseph, 181 Cato Institute, 133 Causeway Water Fund, 134 Cayman Islands, 243–44 CCS (carbon capture and storage), 49–51, 53, 58, 59 Center for a New American Security, 203–4 Center for Naval Analysis, 30 Centra Technology, 204 CH2M Hill, 123 Chacaltaya glacier, 80 Chaffey, George, 125 Chernobyl, 260 Cherrapunji, 213 Chevron, 63, 65 Chilingarov, Artur, 35, 36, 37 China: cloud seeding in, 87–88, 260 energy demands of, 47, 50 floods in, 119 Great Wall of, 176–77 and Greenland, 72 and land deals, 144 megadams in, 195 and Northwest Passage, 31 rivers diverted in, 87 water shortages in, 144, 152 Chowdhury, Atiqul Islam (Atique), 197–202, 205, 209 Chubb insurance, 103 Chukchi Sea, 36, 48, 285–87 Lease Sale 193: 49, 55–57, 286–87 Church, John, 194 CIA, 72, 268 Citigroup, 118, 121 Climatic Consequences: Investment Implications of a Changing Climate, 21 Citizens Property Insurance Corporation, 238 Clean Air Act, 271 Climate Change Vulnerability Index, 205, 222 Climate Corporation, 109 climate lawsuits, 65, 110, 218, 263 climate refugee law, 219 climate remediation, 266–69 cloud seeding: and hurricane modification, 110, 260 and rainmaking, 87–88, 92, 259–61 and rain prevention, 260 and snowmaking, 261 and solar radiation management, 266 Club of Rome, Limits to Growth, 3 coal, sources of, 32, 46, 52 COAST, 197, 210 Colbert Report, The, 203 Coles, Terry, 108 Colorado River, 86, 117–18, 121, 125–26, 131 Colorado River Compact (1922), 125 Columbia Law School, island nations conference, 215–21 ConocoPhillips, 45, 46, 57, 65 continental shelf, 32, 36 Copenhagen Climate Change Conference (2009), 10, 68, 110, 217, 226, 266, 274 Corrections Corporation of America, 174 Credit Suisse, 118, 120 CropDesign, 249–50 Cyclone Aila, 196, 201 Cyclone Sidr, 196, 200, 201–3 Cypress Mountain, Canada, 85 Daffern, Tim, 74–75 Davidge, Ric, 124 Dead Sea, 90 Deepwater Horizon, 55 Delta Works, 221 dengue fever, 217, 235–43, 244, 250 Dengue Vaccine Initiative, 245 Denmark: and Arctic claims, 32 and Greenland, 36, 61, 67–68, 70–71, 73 and Law of the Sea, 36 desalination, 58, 83, 84, 85, 88–91, 122, 167, 221 desertification, 131, 146, 162–63, 167, 233 Deutsche Bank, 5 “The Investment Climate Is Changing” event, 1–3 investment funds of, 2, 3, 88, 153, 245 Devon Island, 17, 23, 27–29, 33–35, 39–40 Dickerson, John, 118, 119–21, 129–33 DiGiovanna, Chief Sam, 97–107, 110–11, 114, 115–16 Dircke, Piet, 229, 231, 232, 233 directional drilling, 48 Disney, Walt, 259 Doyle, Michael, 238–41 drought, 118, 144, 203 and cloud seeding, 261 and desalination, 88, 221 and desertification, 131, 167 engineering solutions for, 86, 92–93 and fires, 100, 101–2 and food crisis, 133 and food prices, 152 and sale of water rights, 131–36 and volcanoes, 279–80 Dubai, coastline of, 227 Dubner, Stephen, 275 Duncan, Sara, 247 Duoyuan Global Water, 3 Dutch Docklands, 225–28 DynCorp International, 102 Ecofin fund, 134 Egede, Hans, 67 Egypt: famine in, 280 farmland in, 147–48 Ellesmere Island, 19, 32, 36 Emergent Asset Management, 153–54 Emma Maersk, 233 Endangered Species Act, 46 energy independence, 52 energy sources, 47–48, 50–52, 58 Enewetak Atoll, 220 Enlightenment, 86 Enoksen, Hans, 71 Eqecat, 108 Ethiopia: Blue Nile in, 148 food aid to, 148 and land deals, 140, 144, 148 European Border Surveillance System, 167 Exercise Frozen Beaver, 17 extinction, 208, 252 ExxonMobil, 45, 63, 65, 104, 267 Exxon Valdez, 123, 278 F&C Global Climate Opportunities Fund, 4, 108 Farakka Barrage, India, 195 Farmers Insurance, 103, 104–6, 115 Feinstein, Dianne, 127 FEMA, 238 fire, 99–102 Great Fire of London, 112, 114 and insurance, 98, 102–10, 114 Firebreak Spray Systems, 102–4, 105, 109, 275 firefighting, public vs. for-profit, 97-107, 111–12, 114–15 FireIce gel, 103 Fireman’s Fund, 103 Fireprotec, 103 fishing: in Greenland, 63–64, 68 in Senegal, 165–66 and small island states, 218–19 Fleming, James, Fixing the Sky, 260 Floating Proverb, 227 FloodBreak, 233 food crisis, 133, 140, 144, 146, 201, 210 food prices, 52, 58, 144, 152, 161, 201 forests: deforestation, 58 and parasitic larvae, 101 and wildfire, 101–2 fossil fuels, 47, 52 fracking, 131–32 Francis, Pope, 172 Franco, Francisco, 167 Franklin, Benjamin, 266, 280 Friends of the Earth, 66, 240 Friis, Janus, 109 Frontex, 167, 171, 173–74 Fulton, Mark, 2–3 Fund for Innovative Climate and Energy Research (FICER), 268, 269 futurism, 43, 58–59 G4S, 174 Gabriel, Peter, 43 Gadet, Peter, 150–51, 157, 159 Gadhafi, Moammar, 171, 173, 183 Galahad Gold, 153 gambusia (fish), 238 Ganges (Padma) River, 195, 196, 199 Gates, Bill, 244–45, 256, 263, 268, 269, 275 Gates Foundation, 244–45, 247, 256, 257 GelTech fire retardant, 103 genetic modification (GM): abiotic stress tolerance, 246–47 crops, 3, 199, 210, 243, 246–50, 252 mosquitoes, 236–45, 247, 250–53 opponents of, 246 patents on, 246 production facilities, 248–53 reengineering humans, 252 RIDL, 242–44 suicide genes, 236 genomics, 247 geoengineering, 30, 258–59, 262–81 Gerrard, Michael, 215, 217 Gershonowitz, Yitzhak, 92, 93 GEUS, 69–71, 73, 74 Ghoramara Island, 19 Gingrich, Newt, 267 glacier melt, 65–66, 79–83, 86, 87, 205 GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), 245 Gobi Desert, 176–77 Golden Valley Fire Suppression, 103 Goldman Sachs, 118, 145, 234 Goodell, Jeff, How to Cool the Planet, 268 Gore, Al, 2, 146 An Inconvenient Truth, 5, 21, 118, 119 Grayback Forestry (GFP Enterprises), 102 Great Green Wall, 162–64, 167–71, 175–79, 184–86 Greece, 101, 173 Greenberg, Maurice “Hank,” 113, 143 greenhouse gases: accounting for, 20, 44 and CCS, 49–51, 53, 58, 59 Kyoto Protocol on, 21, 44 threat of, 32, 45, 47, 51 Greenland, 61–78 and climate change profitability, 62, 74, 76 and Denmark, 36, 61, 67–68, 70–71, 73 fish in, 63–64, 68 land rising in, 66, 77–78 melting ice cap of, 64–66, 77, 194, 284 Niaqornat meeting, 75–77 petroleum and minerals in, 63, 72–75, 76, 154 and self-governance, 62–64, 66–67, 68, 71–72, 77, 78, 122, 154, 216 Thule Air Base in, 72 Greenlandic language, 63 Greenland Minerals and Energy, 73 Greenland Sustainable Mineral and Petroleum Development Conference, 72–73 Greenpeace, 57 Green Revolution, 249 Greenstar, 228 Gurdjieff, Georges, 41 Hadley cell, 131, 194 Hall, Nick, 73 Hammerfest, Norway, 53–55 Hammond, Aleqa, 71 Hansen, James, 5 Hans Island, 17, 22, 24, 34, 36, 217 Hanson, Ann Meekitjuk, 23 Harman, Willis, 43 Harper, Stephen, 17, 21, 58 Heffernan, Bill, 136–37 Heilberg, Phil, 139–51, 152, 154–59 Himalayas, glacier melt in, 86 Holland America Line, 229, 230 Hollis, Leo, 112 Homestead Acts, 129–30 Hoover Institution, 258 Hoque, Enamul, 189–91, 200, 205–9, 212 Horner, Jack, 270 Horsfall, Sophie, 4 Howard, John, 136 Hudson Institute, 42 Hudson Resources, 73 Human Rights Watch, 149, 192 hurricanes: Hurricane Andrew, 108 Hurricane Ivan, 239 Hurricane Katrina, 108, 222, 238 Hurricane King, 260 Hurricane Sandy, 215, 219, 232, 233–34, 284, 287 and insurance, 4, 98, 108, 110, 238 and ocean temperatures, 196 research into, 110 suppression of, 260, 273–75 and windborne debris, 231 hydrogen energy, 58 hydropower, 64, 86 hyperbolic discounting, 7 IBM, 230 ice albedo feedback effect, 21 Iceberg Transport International Ltd., 122 Iceland: volcanic eruptions in, 280 water from, 122 IDE (Israel Desalination Enterprises), 82–85, 88–89 All Weather Snowmaker, 81–82, 85 creation of, 84 IID (Imperial Irrigation District), 126 India: and Bangladesh, 167, 190–92, 197, 204–9, 210, 212 Border Security Force (BSF), 192–93, 207–9 carbon emissions of, 191, 204–5 drought in, 280 energy demands of, 47, 50 and land deals, 144, 162 and melting glaciers, 66, 205 and refugees, 191, 204, 206–10 Indian Ocean, rising waters of, 194 Indonesia, and land deals, 144 Inherent Land Quality Assessment, 152 insurance: and climate change, 4, 98, 99, 107–10 FEMA/flood, 238 and fire, 98, 102–10, 114 and hurricanes, 4, 98, 108, 110, 238 policies dropped, 108, 238 rate hikes, 108 reinsurance, 108–10 windstorm, 238 Intellectual Ventures (IV), 256–57, 260, 261–65, 266, 268, 270–74, 278–79, 280 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 2, 20, 66, 194, 266, 267, 276 International Food Policy Research Institute, 146 International Organization for Migration (IOM), 210, 219 Inuit: Canadian and U.S. treatment of, 67–68 and climate change, 23–24 lawsuit of, 110 and Northwest Passage, 17, 23, 33–34 Inupiat Eskimos, 55, 56, 285 investment opportunities, 2–4, 21–22, 88, 118–21, 151–54, 263–64, 269 island nations, disappearing, 64–65, 215–21, 226 islands, artificial, 217, 225–28 Israel: cloud seeding in, 92 desalination in, 84, 88–91, 221 and IDE, 82, 84, 88–89 and immigrants, 167 water technology in, 91–93 Italy: borders of, 66, 85 immigrants to, 173–74 Jacob, Klaus, 219 Jarch Capital, 143, 148–49, 150 JASONs, 268–69 Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS), 180 John Deere, 22 Jordan River, 87, 90 Joseph, Doctor, 156–57 Kahn, Herman, 42 Karimov, Islam, 143 Kazakhstan, and land deals, 144, 152 Kennedy, Don, 65 Kenya: drought in, 149 and land deals, 144 Keynes, John Maynard, 6 Key West, 236–38, 240–41, 243, 250 Khosla, Vinod, 109 Kiewit Corporation, 264 Kiir, Salva, 140–41, 154 Kiribati (Gilbert Islands), 64, 65, 220, 226 Kissinger, Henry A., 25 Kitzbühel, Austria, 80 Kleist, Mininnguaq (Minik), 62–64, 66–69, 71, 75–78, 194, 216 Knights of Malta, 179 Koch brothers, 104, 133 Koonin, Steve, 268–69 Korea, and land deals, 144 Kulluk, 48, 216, 286–87 Kuwait, and land deals, 144 Kyl, Jon, 127 Kyoto Protocol (1997), 21, 44, 50, 53, 54, 212, 267 Lake Havasu, 117 Landkom, 153 Langmuir, Irving, 259 Latham, John, 266, 269, 275 Law of the Sea treaty, 31–32 Article 76 submissions under, 36–37 and island states, 217, 218, 220 Levitt, Steven, 275 Liao, S.

Investing to Save the Planet: How Your Money Can Make a Difference
by Alice Ross
Published 19 Nov 2020

Blood joined forces with Al Gore, the former vice president of the United States, who in 2000 had narrowly lost the presidency to George W. Bush. Gore was fast becoming a leading figure in the climate change debate. In 2006, he released a critically acclaimed and widely watched documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, which warned about the dangers of climate change. The following year, he won the Nobel Peace Prize for helping to raise awareness of global warming.fn2 The rest of the world – consumers and, importantly, investors – was waking up to climate change, both to the risks it posed, and then to the opportunities.

…

AB InBev 176 active funds 30, 31, 41, 83, 96, 97, 98, 125 activist investors 69–77, 84–90, 100–101 advertising 77, 79, 80, 151, 202 AGMs (Annual General Meetings) 70–73, 84, 87, 104 agriculture 85, 120, 145–62; alternative food 22, 145–56; farming 22, 156–9; food waste 149, 159–61; greenhouse gas emissions 148–9, 150, 156–8, 159, 160; high-risk investors 162; low-risk investors 161; medium-risk investors 161–2; vegan diet/alternative meat 146, 149–56, 162 air conditioning 18, 38–9, 164, 170–71, 179, 194 alternative investment market (AIM), London 25, 31–2, 142 Amazon (online retailer) 19, 73–4, 157, 197 American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy 165 ammonia, green 142–3 Amundi IS Equity Europe Low Carbon fund 63 Angel Academe 155 angel investing 37–9, 43, 155, 156, 160, 162 An Inconvenient Truth (film) 2 Anterra Capital 157, 160 apartheid, South Africa 3, 48, 51–2 Apple 33, 38–9, 91–2, 127 Applied Materials 167 Arctic, energy exploration in 66, 82 As You Sow 83, 104 asset classes see individual asset class name asset managers 11, 12, 58, 74, 88, 89, 90, 95, 119, 168 aviation 18, 22, 99, 129, 140–42, 167, 194, 199 AXA Investment Managers 77, 88, 95 Balk, Josh 146, 153–4 Ballard Power 138 Bank of America Merrill Lynch 6, 84 Bank of England 193 Barclays Bank 48, 73, 75, 182–3, 200 Barry, Michael 45, 46, 51, 55–6, 59, 60 batteries 15, 22, 113, 115–16, 128, 172; battery infrastructure 128; battery swapping 128, 139; charging 22, 113, 128, 130, 139–40, 203; green hydrogen 138; lithium-ion 115–16, 136, 137; role of 136–8 ‘best in class’ companies 7, 10, 92, 100, 134, 161–2, 176 Beyond Carbon 16 Beyond Meat 7, 15, 35, 36, 135, 150, 152–3, 154, 155, 162 Bezos Earth Fund 19 Biffa 174 billionaires, ‘green’ 14–17, 18, 19, 120, 124, 126 biofuels 22, 113, 140–43 biomass 110, 112 Bioy, Hortense 85, 197–8 Birol, Fatih 112, 202–3 BlackRock 14, 25, 26, 88, 89–90, 97, 199 Blood, David 1–2, 54, 135 Bloomberg 15, 104, 133 Bloomberg, Michael 16, 17, 19 Bloomberg New Energy Finance 136, 139 BMO European Equity (BMO Sustainable Opportunities) 11 BMO Responsible Global Equity fund 91–2 BMW 15, 129, 134, 137, 140, 143, 144 BNP Paribas 134, 161, 180, 181 BNY Mellon 177 Bollag, Benjamina 155–6 bonds 20, 26, 31, 32–4, 41, 44, 65, 66, 67; divestment and 65, 66, 67; green bonds 33, 42, 67, 83, 93–6, 195; transition bonds 67 Bond, Simon 67, 94 BP 4, 5, 9, 53, 76, 83, 99–100, 101, 102, 104, 108, 111, 114, 140, 188; net zero emissions by 2050 commitment 76, 79–80, 116, 186, 199; ‘Possibilities Everywhere’ ad campaign 79 Breakthrough Energy Ventures (BEV) 19, 52, 120, 121–2, 123, 124, 135, 137 Brin, Sergey 18 British American Tobacco (BAT) 54, 54n Brown Advisory Sustainable Growth Fund 197 Bruun, Michael 107, 108, 137 ‘Build Back Better’ slogan x, 201 Burger King 151–2, 153–4 Cambridge University 56–7, 65–7, 74–5; Institute for Sustainability Leadership 56–7 Canada Pension Plan Investment Board 137, 140 Candriam SRI Equity Climate Action fund 95, 165–6, 67 Capital Group 88 capital recycling 66, 67 Carbon Brief 198 carbon dioxide emissions 2, 7, 14, 16, 21, 22, 32, 33, 47, 53, 67, 83, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 95, 99, 102, 108–9, 168, 169, 180, 184, 191, 194, 202, 203; agriculture and 148–9, 150, 156–8, 159–60; carbon capture, use and storage (CCUS) 5, 117; carbon-offsets 5, 28, 63, 79, 150, 203; carbon price 187–90; coronavirus lockdown and 71, 109–10, 198, 199; disclosing 98, 103; divestment and 50–52; energy efficiency and 164, 165, 168–9, 172, 173, 175, 176, 177, 178; ‘net zero’ targets 5, 63, 71, 74, 76, 78, 79–80, 116, 126, 169, 176–8, 183, 186, 203; Paris Agreement (2015) and 4–5, 10, 42, 73, 74–5, 76, 78, 109–10, 111, 117, 132, 165, 188, 193; peak in 5, 111–12; scope 1 185–6; scope 2 185–6; scope 3 81, 175, 176, 185–7; transport and 129–34, 140–41, 142, 143 Carbon Tracker 53, 66, 180 Carney, Mark 190, 193–4 Cartier 11–12 CDP (formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project) 80–81, 86, 91, 153, 177, 178, 203 cell-based meat 155–6 Chargemaster 140 charging, battery 22, 113, 128, 130, 139–40, 203 charitable giving/philanthropy 5, 13, 14, 16, 19, 43, 123, 124 Chevron 116–17, 140 China 15, 61, 76, 114, 128–9, 131, 132, 164, 166, 170, 175 Church of England 74 circular economy 22, 163–79 cleantech crash (2007–8) 113–14, 171 Clearwater Fine Foods 142 ClientEarth 79 Climate Action 100+ initiative 76, 78, 83, 86, 105 Climate Bonds Initiative 94 Climate Group 86 Climate Leadership Council 188–9 climate solutions funds 6, 42, 125–6 coal 16, 21, 45, 46, 49, 52, 53, 67, 82, 87, 90, 109, 110–11, 112, 125, 183, 184, 187, 198 Columbia Threadneedle 67, 94 coronavirus pandemic ix–x, 22, 55, 64, 71, 90, 109–10, 112, 131, 132, 137, 138, 141, 151, 158, 168, 174, 175, 189, 196–8, 199–200, 201, 202, 203, 204 corporate bonds 32–3, 94 Cramer, Jim 61 Crop One Holdings 158–9 crowdfunding 43, 118, 119 CSM Energy 82–3 Curtis, Richard 40–41, 201 Deloitte 9, 191 Delta Airlines 79 Devon Energy Corp 194 diesel 183–4, 191 Dimensional Global Sustainable Core Equity 63 Dimon, Jamie 188 disruptive companies 52, 146, 153–4, 157, 171 dividends 31, 54, 54n, 55, 61, 68, 70, 80, 126, 144, 197 divestment 20–21, 22, 32, 45–68, 72, 82, 84, 85, 86, 92, 98, 104, 117, 185; capital recycling 66; economic case for 52–9; emissions reductions and 50–52; growth of movement 45–7; history of movement 47–50; how to invest after you divest 62–5; moral grounds 62; outside of equities 65–8; performance grounds 62; public shaming and 60–61 DNV GL 131, 136 Doerr, John 114 Dong Energy 107–8, 137 Draper Esprit 140 Drax 112 DS Smith 175 DWS 11, 77, 168 DyeCoo 173 early-stage investors 18, 38, 64, 121, 135, 140, 142, 148, 155, 179 EDF Energy 140 Edwards, Jenny 69–72, 73, 77, 84 electricity supply 112, 118, 120, 121, 125, 159, 169–70, 172, 185, 187, 194 electrification of transport 7, 10, 15, 29, 64, 73–4, 76, 113, 120, 127–44, 157, 163, 164, 194, 203; cars 7, 10, 15, 29, 64, 76, 103, 119, 129–30, 132–3, 134, 136, 157, 163, 164; mopeds 22, 127, 128 electrofuels 141 Ellen MacArthur Foundation 172 Emirates Flight Catering, Dubai 158 Energy Action Coalition 118 energy, investing in 11, 16, 35, 42, 80, 107–26, 138, 143, 157, 166, 167–8, 202–3; carbon dioxide emissions and 108–10; clean energy solutions 120–24; cleantech, new dawn for 115–20; cleantech crash (2007–8) 113–14, 171; entrepreneurs/Mosaic 118–20; high-risk investors 126; how to invest in clean energy 124–6; low-risk investors 126; medium-risk investors 126; primary energy consumption 111–12; renewable energy investment, history of 113–14; transitioning away from oil and gas/energy transition 19, 21, 39, 76, 84, 110–13, 123, 140, 194 energy efficiency, investing in 22, 33, 110, 161, 163–79, 183, 203; building and construction sectors 168–70; circular economy and 171–6; high-risk investors 178–9; low-risk investors 178; medium-risk investors 178; next-gen investors 170–71; semiconductor companies 143, 166–7, 178; weight reduction, investing in 167–8; zero emission pledges 176–8 engagement/effecting change 69–106; activist shareholders 69–74, 84–90; disclosure, improving 80–84; fund managers 73–4, 77–80; green bonds 93–6; greenwashing 77–80; passive investing 96–104; pension manager, putting pressure on your 90–93; professional fund managers and 75–7; retail investors/small investors 69–74, 84–90 ENI 117, 191 Environmental Recycling Technologies (ERT) 24–5 environmental score, ESG investing and 9, 10–11 see also ESG (environmental, social and governance) investing EO 139–40 equities 20, 26, 30–32, 33–4, 41, 44, 53, 64, 66, 68, 95, 195 ESG (environmental, social and governance) investing 61, 62, 66, 90, 95, 132–3, 147, 181, 182, 183, 184, 190, 191, 195; coronavirus and/future of 196–200; defined 8–12, 29–30, 44, 190, 195; ETFs 97; passive investor 99–104; pension funds and 92, 93; score and debt 82, 98 ETFs (exchange-traded funds) 30, 96–7, 100–1, 102, 124–5 European Investment Bank 94 European Union 103, 129, 130, 141, 169, 176, 183, 186, 191 ex-fossil fuel funds 42, 62, 63, 68, 85, 106 Extinction Rebellion 13 ExxonMobil 53, 61, 89, 116, 117, 188 family offices 18–19, 122–3, 142, 156, 182 Farmobile 157 fashion 28, 62, 175–6 Fidelity 103 financial advisers 12, 27, 29, 43, 44, 49, 95, 105, 182, 184 Financial Conduct Authority 192 financial crisis (2008) 1, 3–4, 17, 29, 114 Financial Stability Board 58 Fink, Larry 14, 90 Fluor 89 food see agriculture Food Freshness Technology 160 Ford Motors 177 fracking 79 FTSE 100 30, 31, 54, 55, 56, 103, 112, 175; Environmental Opportunities All Share index 56; Global All Cap index 56; TPI Climate Transition Index 74 fuel: aerodynamic systems and 39; alternative/biofuels 22, 53, 111, 113, 140–43; cells 10, 138, 142, 144, 154, 166; aviation and see aviation; fossil see individual fuel type fund managers 10, 11, 12, 43, 49, 60–61, 66–7, 89, 95, 97, 98, 105, 108, 143, 181; activist 13, 14, 30, 73–6, 83, 85, 86, 89, 91; energy efficiency and 166, 167, 168, 172; greenwashing and 10–12, 41, 77–81; passive funds and 96, 97, 98; pensions and 39–40; ‘star’ 96; varying definitions of ESG 102, 103, 104 Gates, Bill 17, 18, 19, 52, 120, 126, 137 Generac 195 Generation Investment Management 2, 135 Georgetown University, Washington DC 45, 46, 51, 55–6, 60 Global Commission on the Economy and Climate 63 Global Reporting Initiative 190 Gogoro 128, 139 Goldman Sachs 1, 1n, 54, 77, 82, 107–8, 119, 137, 181, 189 Gore, Al 2, 135, 202 governance, good 8, 9, 40, 56, 61, 73, 88, 92, 98, 99, 103, 184, 195–6, 197 Government Pension Investment Fund of Japan 74, 93, 98, 180 green economy 33, 56, 203 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions 109, 129, 141, 143, 148, 149, 150, 157–8, 160, 173, 187, 199 see also carbon emissions greenwashing 10, 12, 14, 20, 41, 77, 78, 88, 89, 90, 91, 96, 101, 104, 191, 192–3 Growing Underground 158–9 Hampshire College 46 Hampton Creek 146–7 H&M 62, 175 Harari, Yuval Noah 204 Harvard University 51–2, 67 hedge funds 4, 13, 14, 75–6, 80, 89 Hepburn, Cameron 72, 203 Hermes 83 high-voltage direct current (HVDC) 120–21 Higher Steaks 155–6 Hohn, Christopher 13–14, 80, 89 Howard, Andy 189–90 Howarth, Catherine 192–3 HSBC 88, 174, 175, 176 Hy2gen AG 138 hydrogen 113; aviation solutions 18, 142; batteries 138; blue 138; fuel cells 10, 138, 144, 154, 166; trucks/cars 15, 143 hydropower 131, 137 Hyundai 143 IKEA 160, 173 impact investment 43, 123 Impax Asset Management 77, 90, 157, 166, 176, 195 Impax Environmental Markets fund 90, 166, 172, 173, 175 Impossible Foods 15, 150, 152–3 Indigo 157 Ineos 78–9 ING 82 Ingka Group 160 InstaVolt 139–40 institutional investors 7, 9, 13, 18, 21, 31, 34, 67, 75, 76–7, 87–8, 94, 119, 122, 168, 191, 203 Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC) 76–7, 168, 203 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2, 5, 149, 160 internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles 64, 130, 131, 182, 183–4 International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) 143 International Energy Agency (IEA) 111–12, 113, 115, 117, 129, 130, 164, 165, 168, 169, 170, 202 International Maritime Organization, The 143 International Monetary Fund (IMF) 56, 58, 187 Invesco Solar ETF 125 Ireland 46–7, 94, 125 Irena 110, 130, 132 iShares Global Clean Energy ETF 124–5 J.

The Great Race: The Global Quest for the Car of the Future
by Levi Tillemann
Published 20 Jan 2015

Many people felt that in the eyes of METI, Nissan really was too big to fail. 11 I’ll Be Back California Returns ONCE AGAIN Japan was winning both the race for technology and for public opinion. Over the early 2000s, oil prices shot through the roof, and more and more Americans started worrying about climate change—their angst fueled by hot weather and later Al Gore’s global warming documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. At the same time, batteries were getting cheaper, safer, more potent, and more powerful. Nissan, Mitsubishi, and Subaru were surging ahead, but California’s establishment was having a difficult time getting back in the game. At every step, they were blocked by Detroit and Washington. The state government in Sacramento, which had previously been the maker of technology markets for the automotive sector, suddenly found itself stymied.

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In Lutz’s 2011 book, Car Guys vs. Bean Counters, his antiscience screed on global warming caught many by surprise. Nowhere has my faith in media integrity been destroyed more thoroughly than in the so-called “global warming” discussion. Resolutely parroting the now-discredited prophecies of Al Gore and his absurd movie, An Inconvenient Truth, hardly any of the so-called mainstream media ever gave fair coverage to the large and growing army of CO2-caused AGW (anthropogenic, or human-caused, global warming) skeptics. Every network (Fox excepted) and every major newspaper gives endless coverage to disappearing glaciers (they’ve been melting for almost four hundred years), polar bears on ice floes (hello—they can swim!

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See Hummer/Humvee Hino, 198 Hinode Motors, 44–45 Hirose, Katsuhiko, 83, 84 Hobbes, Thomas, 254 Honda Motor Company Air Pollution Research Group at, 61 batteries for, 198 BYD and, 232 CARB and, 74, 85–87, 117, 128, 244 and cars in the future, 256 competitors of, 6, 66, 68, 140 computer technology and, 60–61 CVCC system of, 62–64 emissions research at, 59, 61, 62–64, 62n, 66, 86–87, 118, 210 engine technology at, 125, 130 engineering challenges at, 81 Ford Motor and, 68 fuel efficiency at, 118 and global auto industry in the future, 273 GM and, 68 goals of, 58, 62 history of, 57–67 and history of the global auto industry, 26 and internal combustion engine, 62–64, 62n, 81, 117, 256 and Japanese economy, 186 Japanese environmental regulations and, 66 and Japanese industrial policy, 103 “leapfrogging” by, 210 motorcycles and, 57, 58, 60 Nissan and, 66, 140 and nuclear power, 120 and prelude to the Great Race, 44, 56–67 press conference of, 62–63 quality at, 117 racing team of, 60–61 role in Japanese auto industry of, 56, 57–58, 60 sales at, 186 technology and, 117 and TEPCO/Anegawa program, 124, 131 and Tesla Roadster, 147 Toyota and, 66 See also Honda Motor Company—cars of Honda Motor Company—cars of Accord, 232 Civic, 86 EV Plus, 94 EVs, 85–86, 90, 94 hybrids, 117, 118, 124, 126, 127 Insight, 26, 117 1300 sedan, 60 ZEVs, 86–87 Honda, Soichiro, 57–58, 59, 60, 61, 62–63, 66, 67, 87 HSBC, 221 Hu Jintao, 212 Huang Yonghe, 211, 250, 251, 252 Hughes Aircraft, 68–69, 71, 82 Hummer/Humvee (HMMWV), 29–30, 92, 96, 109, 110, 143–44, 151, 250 hybrid vehicles Anegawa’s views about, 119 as automated vehicles, 267–68 “bolt-on,” 205–6 Bush administration and, 110, 111 and CARB mandate, 124 and cars in the future, 256 and Chinese auto industry, 197, 205, 207, 209, 222, 223, 232, 235, 251 expansion of sales of, 116 and history of the global auto industry, 25–26 and Japanese auto industry, 202 Obama’s support for, 170 plug-in, 170, 209, 232, 257 See also specific vehicle or manufacturer hydrocarbons, 39 hydrogen vehicles, 255–57 Hyundai, 244 “i” (Mitsubishi), 135, 201 i3 (BMW), 257 i8 (BMW), 257 Ichimada, Hisato, 51 Ieyasu, Tokugawa, 125 iMiev (Mitsubishi), 131, 134, 139 An Inconvenient Truth (documentary), 141, 150 industrial policy in China, 102–3, 113 environmental issues and, 59 in Japan, 7, 44, 103, 238 of Obama administration, 170, 181 in United States, 7–9, 102–3 Industrial Technology Agency, Japan, 50 infrastructure CARB mandate and, 108 for chargers, 115, 213, 215, 220–24, 225, 226, 262, 263 and Chinese auto industry, 213, 215, 220–24 government role in building, 7 for hydrogen vehicles, 255–56 industrial policy and, 8 and Japan’s EV program, 249n Institute for Transportation Studies, UC Davis, 245 Institute of Energy Economics, Japan, 193 insurance: for automated vehicles, 270 intellectual property: Chinese and, 234–35, 253 internal combustion engine aging of, 75 Bush administration and, 111 and California’s prelude to the Great Race, 24, 33 CARB mandate and, 86, 87, 108 and cars in the future, 256, 258 and changes in Great Race, 6 Chinese auto industry and, 101, 115, 213 elimination of, 24 emissions from, 24 and Ford’s road map for the future, 4–5 fuel cells compared with, 256 GM and, 164–65, 245 and history of the global auto industry, 21, 22, 24, 26 Honda and, 62–64, 62n, 81, 117 Japanese auto industry and, 126 Mitsubishi and, 128, 131 Tillemann’s work on, 3–4 Toyota hybrids and, 83 International Monetary Fund, 208 Interstate Highway System, 7 investors, equity, 6, 173–76, 177, 178, 211–12, 218, 220, 221 IRIS Engines Inc., 4, 5 IRIS (Internally Radiating Impulse Structure) Engine, 3–4 Isle of Man TT, 58 Israel: investors from, 221 Issa, Darrel, 143 Isuzu Motor Company, 48, 50, 51, 128 itai-itai disease, 65–66 Italy: auto production in, 23 Izawa, Ikuo, 189 J1772 battery, 262 Jackson, Lisa P., 172 Japan Abe’s leadership in, 249n ban on foreign autos in, 47–48, 52, 55, 103, 249n batteries/battery swapping in, 202, 221–22, 248, 262 California/CARB relations with, 1, 38, 39–40, 41, 53, 56, 59, 67, 80–81, 107, 118, 128, 153 cars as luxury items in, 50–51 “cash for clunkers” program in, 209 and China’s prelude to the Great Race, 20 Chinese relations with, 197–201, 212, 235 competition and, 6, 47–49, 56, 60, 197–201, 212 and cost/price of cars, 41, 55 Deming’s influence in, 53 designated manufacturers in, 48 domestic auto sales in, 196 earthquakes in, 42, 186–88, 190, 194–95 economy of, 43, 49, 55, 59–60, 65, 158, 186, 247 environmental issues in, 56, 59–60, 64–67, 81, 118, 119, 230, 238, 258 and EV readiness ranking, 201–2 EVs and, 20, 118, 119, 122–24, 125–30, 131–35, 152, 153, 186, 201–3, 212, 238, 246–47, 248, 249n exports to U.S. by, 55, 59, 81 Ford Motor and, 44 and global auto industry in the future, 273 GM and, 44 history of auto industry in, 41–55, 56–67 and history of global auto industry, 23, 26 Honda’s role in, 56, 57–58, 60 image of, 212 industrial policy in, 7, 103, 238 “just in time” method in, 49 Korean War and, 51, 52, 126 labor in, 59, 81 leadership in, 254 mass production/Fordism and, 49, 54 military in, 43, 47, 48–50 and Mizuki incident, 198–99 nuclear power in, 119–22, 123, 126, 127, 193–94, 195–96, 247–48 politics and, 49, 134 post-World War II years in, 7, 49–52, 126 prelude to the Great Race in, 16, 20, 21, 23, 26, 39–40, 41–55, 56–67 protectionism in, 66–67 and quality of cars, 41, 53, 54–55, 98, 117 role in Great Race of, 237–38 state-corporate collaboration in, 238 subsidies in, 43–44, 47, 118, 132, 133, 134, 135, 195, 196, 197, 238 success of auto industry in, 238 technology and, 41, 103, 115–16, 117, 238, 248 Tesla exports to, 243 as threat to U.S. auto industry, 41, 78, 170 and Tillemann’s research about auto industry, 5 U.S. auto exports to, 42–43, 45 and U.S. dominance in auto industry, 2 U.S. imports from, 41 U.S. occupation of, 7, 50–52, 126 U.S. relations with, 2, 44, 47–49 and Wan Gang’s goal, 16 and winning the Great Race, 252, 254 in World War II, 48–49 See also specific person, ministry, manufacturer, or topic Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association, 66 Japan Automobile Research Institute, 127 Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation (JOGMEC), 200–201 Japanese Environmental Agency, 64 Japanese Statistical Society, 53 Jeep, 23, 96, 250 Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA, 72, 234 Jobs, Steve, 242 “just in time” method, 49, 137–38 Kaieda, Banri, 194 Kaishinsha Motors, 43, 46–47.

Don't Burn This Book: Thinking for Yourself in an Age of Unreason
by Dave Rubin
Published 27 Apr 2020

Indur Goklany, the author behind the study. “Despite the intense media coverage of storms and climate change’s prominent role in political debates, humanity is coping far better with extreme weather events than it is with other much more important health and safety problems.” Polar Bears If you saw Al Gore’s documentary An Inconvenient Truth, then you’ll be pleased to know that the global polar bear population has actually increased since the 1960s. (Interestingly, Al never mentions how he sold his failed TV network, Current TV, to Al Jazeera, the state-owned Qatari propaganda channel, for $500 million. Oh, and Qatar is one of the biggest oil exporters in the world.

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See also classical liberalism Frémont, John C., 111 Friedman, Milton, 159 Fryer, Roland, 98 Gabriel, Brigitte, 132–33 Gaddafi, Muammar, 70 Gambino, Childish, 147 Gay, Roxanne, 81 gay marriage, 37–39 Christian baker’s refusal to bake cake and, 38 tolerance of opposing viewpoints and, 37–39 gender dysphoria, children may outgrow, 61 General Social Survey (GSS), 97–98 George III, King, 131 Germany, 70 Givhan, Robin, 154 Goklany, Indur, 109 Google, 25, 26, 27 “Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber: How Bias Clouds Our Thinking About Diversity and Inclusion” (Damore), 25 Gore, Al, 110 government debt, 66 government size and spending, 64 Gray, Freddie, 90 Great Fear of 1789, 198 Greenhouse, Bertha, 136 Griffin, Kathy, 127 Guardian, The, 19, 149 gun control, 54–58 in Chicago, 56 decline in homicide rates despite increased gun ownership, 105 defensive gun use, lives saved from, 106 difficulty in obtaining guns, 55–56 facts regarding, 105–6 gun violence problem and, 55 handguns versus assault rifles, in fatal shootings, 106 limited effect of, 56–57 progressives advocating for greater regulation, 56 psychological underpinnings of gun violence, 57–58 Second Amendment and, 54–55 suicides, gun-related, 106 Guthrie, Savannah, 155 Hammill, Mark, 127 handguns, 106 Harkinson, Josh, 77 Harris, Eric, 57–58 Harris, Sam, 6–7, 17–18, 87, 181 hate crimes, 107–8 hate speech laws, 52 hatred of America, Western values and white men, 9, 126–47 American dream, as non-discriminatory, 146–47 Asian Americans, success of, 143 avoidance behavior and, 128–29 capitalism, virtues of, 141–42 Hong Kong protesters envy of U.S. model, 129–30 immigrants and immigration embraced by U.S., 132–35, 136–37, 140 left’s pretense of guilt for living in America, 127–28 other countries compared, 139–41 preceding generation’s values and sacrifices, recognizing and honoring, 135–39 privilege of living in Western society, recognizing and checking, 129, 130 responsibility for your life, taking, 130 taking rights for granted, avoiding, 131–35 virtue signaling and, 127–28 Hazony, Yoram, 40 heroin, 34–35 Heying, Heather, 23, 24 Hitchens, Christopher, 200 Hitler, Adolph, 73 Hoffman, Philip Seymour, 35 Hollande, François, 21 homicides/homicide rates by and against African Americans, 83–84, 90, 99, 100 decline in, versus number of guns owned, 105–6 by and against whites, 99, 100 for women, 101 Hong Kong protests, 129–30 Horkheimer, Max, 67 Houston, Whitney, 35 Huffington Post, The, 9, 21–22 humor, 187–90 identity politics, 14, 31–32, 85–86 “I Have a Dream “ speech (King), 144 immigration, 39–45 borders and, 40–41 conflating nationalism with racism, 45 Democrat’s historical position on, 42–44 Merkel’s policies in Germany, effects of, 41–42 nationalism and, 40 purpose of securing our border, 44 imperialist country, left’s view of U.S. as, 131–35 inauthenticity, 5–6 incarceration rates, 102 Inception (film), 4 An Inconvenient Truth (Gore), 110 independent thinking. See free thinking Indonesia, 141 institutional fake news, 163 Iraq, 70 Iraq War, 131–32 Irving, David, 51 ISIS, 70 Islam terrorism, left’s rationalization of, 21–22 women, oppression of, 134–35 Jackson, Michael, 35 James, Lois, 98–99 James, Stephen M., 98–99 Japan, 70, 140 Jawitz, Joe, 136 Jay-Z, 146 Jefferson, Thomas, 30–31, 144 Johnson, Lyndon, 112 Jussie Smollett news story, 155–57 Kaepernick, Colin, 53–54 Kahneman, Daniel, 96–97 Kapital, Das (Marx), 73 King, Martin Luther, 144 Klein, Melissa and Aaron, 38 Kling, Arnold, 95–97 Klinger, David, 99 Knitzer, Jane, 99 Korea, 132 Kouachi, Chérif, 21 Kouachi, Saïd, 21 Kristof, Nicholas, 105 Ku Klux Klan, 111–12 Lam, Carrie, 129 laughter, 187–90 Lebanon, 132 Ledger, Heath, 35 leftism/progressivism abortion, fetishization of, 46 alienation of middle of the road voters by, 1–2 brute force tactics in implementation of ideas of, 14, 15–27 character assassination practiced by, 16–17 Charlie Hebdo attack, response to, 21–22 collective, jealousy and grievances fostered by championing of, 31–32 comedy, censoring of, 189 conflating nationalism with racism and, 45 free speech, policing of, 52–53 gun control and, 56 identity politics and, 14, 31–32, 85–86 imperialist criticism of America, 131–35 inability to see racism, sexism and discrimination where it actually exists, 83 intolerance of, 1 LGBTQ intolerance, 85 liberalism, distinguished, 13–14 new social order espoused by, 14 political closet, coming out of, 2–3, 6–7 political language of, 96 pretense of guilt for living in America, 127–28 racism accusations used by, 18–19 scientific facts and, 14 silencing of dissent by, 22–24 socialism, promotion of, 14 victimhood culture and, 83, 139, 145 white men, racism and sexism against, 144–45 Legend, John, 198 LGBTQ community, intolerance exhibited by, 85 liberalism, 7 classical (See classical liberalism) leftism, distinguished, 7 libertarians, political language of, 96 Libya, 70 Lieu, Ted, 81 Lincoln, Abraham, 112, 144 living your truth and applying it to the world, 190–94 Locke, John, 30–31 Logan, Lara, 152 Lomborg, Bjørn, 110 longevity, 102 Lord of the Rings (film), 130 Los Angeles Times, The, 149 McDonald’s, 66 McMillon, Doug, 65 Macron, Emmanuel, 141 Maddow, Rachel, 157 Maher, Bill, 18, 19, 20 “Making of a YouTube radical, The” (Roose), 159–62 Malaysia, 101 Maps for Meaning: The Architecture of Belief (Peterson), 172 marijuana, 33 Martin, Dean, 198 Marx, Karl, 73 Maza, Carlos, 159 Media Matters for America, 123 Meechan, Mark, 52 mentor, finding, 10, 166–94 admitting you don’t know something, humility in and learning opportunity engendered by, 172–75 dressing as the person you want to be, 175–79 humor, value of, 187–90 living your truth and applying it to the world, 190–94 parenthood, embracing, 184–87 Peterson, touring with and learning from, 169–94 religious stories, need for, 180–84 Merkel, Angela, 41–42 meth, 34–35 Midler, Bette, 103 Mike Drop Podcast, 152 Mill, John Stuart, 30–31 minimum wage, 62, 65–66 mob, avoiding surrendering to.

Peak Everything: Waking Up to the Century of Declines
by Richard Heinberg and James Howard (frw) Kunstler
Published 1 Sep 2007

Their message implies an appeal to self-preservation, but since they cannot prove that the most horrific climate consequences being predicted (the drowning of coastal cities by rising seas, rapidly expanding deserts, collapsing agricultural production) will occur within the next decade or two, the motive of self-preservation is often downplayed. This emphasis on the moral dimension of climate activism is clear in Al Gore’s documentary film, An Inconvenient Truth. It is probably safe to say that most Peak Oil activists are motivated more by their immediate concerns for preservation of self, family, and community. They see the peak of global oil production as happening soon and the effects accumulating quickly. This concern for self-preservation is prominent in the quasi-survivalist tone of several Peak Oil websites.

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Heather, Peter heavy oil Herman, Judith hippies Hirsch, Robert Holmgren, David Hopkins, Rob horticulture Hubbard, Elbert Hubbert, M. King Huebner, Jonathan human rights Human Scale (Sale) hydrocarbons. see fossil fuels I ideological changes: away from fossil fuels; away from industrialization; from perpetual growth to sustainability; role of language in Illich, Ivan An Inconvenient Truth (Gore) Indian Line Farm industrial design industrialization (see also fossil fuels; techno-collapse): adapted to disasters; and crafts; history of; how it’s changed humans; and industrial revolution; modern criticism of; plan for de-industrialization; as savior; weeding ourselves off inventions Iroquois Irving, Judy J Jackson, Wes Jeavons, John K Kelly, R.

Curbing Traffic: The Human Case for Fewer Cars in Our Lives
by Chris Bruntlett and Melissa Bruntlett
Published 28 Jun 2021

Thus, on many of the streets throughout our neighborhoods, the friction of rubber on asphalt is actually a car’s primary source of noise pollution, an inconvenient truth that won’t be changed by the adoption of electric cars. Modest improvements in technology have reduced propulsion noise over the past three decades, but rolling noise is alarmingly trending in the opposite direction, as the automobile industry continues to push out larger and heavier vehicles, which also require wider tires. At speeds above 55 km/h (35 mph), tire friction on asphalt is a car’s primary source of noise pollution, an inconvenient truth that won’t be changed by electric cars. (Modacity) Sadly, in most societies, noise is seen simply as a by-product of growth; an inevitable outcome of increased globalization, mobility, and consumption.

This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate
by Naomi Klein
Published 15 Sep 2014

Environmentalists often speak about contemporary humanity as the proverbial frog in a pot of boiling water, too accustomed to the gradual increases in heat to jump to safety. But the truth is that humanity has tried to jump quite a few times. In Rio in 1992. In Kyoto in 1997. In 2006 and 2007, when global concern rose yet again after the release of An Inconvenient Truth and with the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In 2009, in the lead up to the United Nations climate summit in Copenhagen. The problem is that the money that perverts the political process acts as a kind of lid, intercepting that survival instinct and keeping us all in the pot.

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But since that economic model is failing the vast majority of the people on the planet on multiple fronts that might not be such a bad thing. Put another way, if there has ever been a moment to advance a plan to heal the planet that also heals our broken economies and our shattered communities, this is it. Al Gore called climate change “an inconvenient truth,” which he defined as an inescapable fact that we would prefer to ignore. Yet the truth about climate change is inconvenient only if we are satisfied with the status quo except for the small matter of warming temperatures. If, however, we see the need for transformation quite apart from those warming temperatures, then the fact that our current road is headed toward a cliff is, in an odd way, convenient—because it tells us that we had better start making that sweeping turn, and fast.

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But between the Heartlanders who recognize that climate change is a profound threat to our economic and social systems and therefore deny its scientific reality, and those who claim climate change requires only minor tweaks to business-as-usual and therefore allow themselves to believe in its reality, it’s not clear who is more deluded. Shopping Our Way Out of It For a few years around the 2006 release of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, it seemed as if climate change was finally going to inspire the transformative movement of our era. Public belief in the problem was high, and the issue seemed to be everywhere. Yet on looking back on that period, what is strange is that all the energy seemed to be coming from the very top tier of society.

The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail-But Some Don't
by Nate Silver
Published 31 Aug 2012

And these doubts are not just expressed anonymously; the scientists are exceptionally careful, in the IPCC reports, to designate exactly which findings they have a great deal of confidence about and which they see as more speculative. 44. Ronarld Bailey, “An Inconvenient Truth: Gore as Climate Exaggerator,” Reason.com, June 16, 2006. http://reason.com/archives/2006/06/16/an-inconvenient-truth. 45. Leslie Kaufman, “Among Weathercasters, Doubt on Warming,” New York Times, March 29, 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/30/science/earth/30warming.html?pagewanted=all. 46. “What’s the Difference Between Weather and Climate?

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They should cut against the notion that scientists are injudiciously applying models to make fantastical predictions about the climate; instead, the scientists have as much doubt about the models as many of their critics.43 However, cinematographic representations of climate change, like Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, have sometimes been less cautious, portraying a polar bear clinging to life in the Arctic, or South Florida and Lower Manhattan flooding over.44 Films like these are not necessarily a good representation of the scientific consensus. The issues that climate scientists actively debate are much more banal: for instance, how do we develop computer code to make a good representation of a cloud?

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A forecaster who says he doesn’t care about the science is like the cook who says he doesn’t care about food. What distinguishes science, and what makes a forecast scientific, is that it is concerned with the objective world. What makes forecasts fail is when our concern only extends as far as the method, maxim, or model. An Inconvenient Truth About the Temperature Record But if Armstrong’s critique is so off the mark, what should we make of his proposed bet with Gore? It has not been a failed forecast at all; on the contrary, it has gone quite successfully. Since Armstrong made the bet in 2007, temperatures have varied considerably from month to month but not in any consistent pattern; 2011 was a slightly cooler year than 2007, for instance.

Too Big to Know: Rethinking Knowledge Now That the Facts Aren't the Facts, Experts Are Everywhere, and the Smartest Person in the Room Is the Room
by David Weinberger
Published 14 Jul 2011

But you no longer need to be standing on top of a wall to make your proclamations. Indeed, because we for the first time have a single medium for information, communication, and sociality, science cannot stay behind its institutional walls. The Nature editorial is evidence of the discomfort this is causing. The old response was embodied in Al Gore’s strategy. An Inconvenient Truth is a masterful argument for Gore’s point that not only is the Earth’s climate warming, the change is mainly due to human behavior. But Gore has with a fair bit of success marginalized “climate change deniers.” They are entitled to their beliefs but cannot claim that those beliefs are scientific, according to those who follow Gore’s strategy.

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Fortune magazine Foucault, Michel Frauenfelder, Mark FuelEconomy.gov Future Shock (Toffler) The Futurist journal Galapagos Islands Galaxy Zoo Galen of Pergamum Garfield, Eugene Gartner Group GBIF.org (Global Biodiversity Information Facility) Geek news General Electric Gentzkow, Matthew Gillmor, Dan Gladwell, Malcolm Glazer, Nathan Global social problems Goals, shared Google abundance of knowledge amateur scientists’ use of books and filtering information physical books and e-books zettabyte Gore, Al Gray, Jim Greece, ancient Green peas Group polarization Groupthink The Guardian newspaper Gulf of Mexico oil spill The Gutenberg Elegies (Birkerts) Habermas, Jürgen Hacker ethic Hague conference Haiti Halberstam, David Hannay, Timo Hard Times (Dickens) Hargittai, Eszter Harrison, John Harvard Library Innovation Lab Haumea (planet) Hawaii Heidegger, Martin Heidegger Circle Henning, Victor Heywood, Stephen Hidary, Jack Hillis, Danny Hilscher, Emily H1N1 virus Holtzblatt, Les Home economics Homophily Howe, Jeff Human Genome Project Humors Hunch.com Hyperlinks linked knowledge providing data links IBM computers Impact factor of scientific journals In vitro fertilization An Inconvenient Truth (film) Information crowd-sourcing data and networking information for fund managers Open Government Initiative reliability of Information Anxiety (Wurman) Information cascades Information overload as filter failure consequences of metadata value of information Infrastructure of knowledge InnoCentive Institutions, Net response to Insularity of Net users Intelligence Internet increasing stupidity providing hooks for Intelligence agencies Intelligent Design International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration Internet abundance of knowledge amateur scientists challenging beliefs crowds and mobs cumulative nature of data sharing diversity of expertise echo chambers forking Hunch.com improving the knowledge environment increasing institutional use indefinite scaling information information filtering interpretations knowledge residing in the network LA Times wikitorial experiment linked knowledge loss of body of knowledge permission-free knowledge public nature of knowledge reliability of information scientific inquiry shaping knowledge shared experiences sub-networks The WELL conversation unresolved knowledge See also Networked knowledge Interpretations, knowledge as iPhone Iraq Jamming Jarvis, Jeff Jellies de Joinville, Jean Journals, scientific Kahn, Herman Kantor, Jodi Kelly, Kevin Kennedy, Ted Kennedy administration Kepler, Johannes Kindle Kitano, Hiroaki Knowledge abundance of as interpretation changing shape of crisis of echo chambers hiding enduring characteristics of environmental niche modeling fact-based and analogy-based human pursuit of hyperlinked context improving the Internet environment Internet challenging beliefs linked permission-free public reason as the path to social elements of stopping points unresolved Knowledge clubs Kuhn, Thomas Kundra, Vivek Kutcher, Ashton Lakhani, Karim Language games Latour, Bruno Leadership Debian network decision-making and Dickover’s social solutions network distribution Lebkowsky, Jon Leibniz, Gottfried Lessig, Lawrence Levy-Shoemaker comet Librarians Library of Congress Library use Lili’uokalani (Hawaiian queen) Linked Data standard Linked knowledge Links filters as See also Hyperlinks Linnean Society Linux Lipson, Hod Literacies Loganathan, G.V.

Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion
by Paul Bloom

It’s not as if empathy—or emotion more generally—is the only game in town. Landy goes on to defend an alternative, which I think is preferable in many regards: The good news is that there are other ways to change people’s minds. We can, for example, use the truth. I know, that’s very old-fashioned. But consider An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore’s documentary about climate change. That film did a huge amount for the environmental movement, all without making up a single lovable character or a single line of witty repartee. Or again, consider Food, Inc., The Omnivore’s Dilemma, and Jonathan Safran Foer’s Eating Animals. There haven’t been too many meat-industry-themed best-selling fictions in the past hundred years.

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To locate a specific entry, please use your e-book reader’s search tools. 1984 (Orwell), 37–38 A&W’s Third Pounder, 213, 229 abductions, 90–91 abortion, 6, 115, 117, 119 accountability, 155 Adams, Henry, 184 Adios, America (Coulter), 192–93 admiration, 16, 159 “affective neuroscience,” 60, 217 affirmative action, 116 Against Fairness (Asma), 159, 161 age restrictions, 230–31 aggression, 42, 45, 83–84, 193–95, 201 AIDS, 68–69 alcohol, and violent crime, 179 Alexander, Scott, 103–4 Alfred (character), 180 Alito, Samuel, 125–26 alternatives to empathy, limitations and biases of, 50–51 altruism, 46–47, 102–6, 167–68. See also effective altruism empathy-altruism hypothesis, 25, 85–86, 168 natural selection and, 168–71, 175 Alzheimer’s disease, 230 American Association of Medical Colleges, 142 amygdala, 47, 61 anger, 16, 188, 208–12 animals, altruism in, 170–71, 175 An Inconvenient Truth (documentary), 49–50 anti-immigrant rhetoric, 192–93 antisocial behavior, and psychopaths, 200–201 anxiety, 79, 135, 144, 147, 151 apologies, 156–58 Appiah, Kwame Anthony, 205 arguments against empathy, 2–3, 15–35, 54–56 consequences of empathy, 26–35 as magic bullet of morality, 19–22 misperceptions about author’s position, 15 morality without empathy, 22–26 use of terms, 16–17, 35–36, 39–41 Aristotle, 213, 216 Asma, Stephen, 159, 160–61 Asperger’s syndrome, 201 Assad, Bashar al-, 193 assessment of empathy, 77–83 Atlantic, The, 11 authority, and conservatives, 119, 120 autism, 20, 81, 82, 201 autonomy, 150, 203 babies empathy in, 171–76 morality in, 6, 165, 171 Bakan, David, 135 Baldwin, Jason, 25, 27 Baron-Cohen, Simon, 201, 206 bad people and empathy, 20–21, 201 decision making and empathy, 110–11, 188–89, 190, 191 empathizer scale, 81–82, 121, 195 high empathy in personal relationships, 132–33, 136 Batkid (Miles Scott), 96–97 Batman (character), 180 Batson, C.

Speed
by Bob Gilliland and Keith Dunnavant

By the end of 1917, the two leading allied powers had lost a staggering five million men and were running out of reinforcements. Public support for the continued carnage was waning. Their only hope was for the United States to tip the scales and save the day, but America was completely unprepared. It had one of the smallest standing armies in the Western World, an inconvenient truth that could only be countered with the sort of massive mobilization not seen since the Civil War. One of the four million men who answered the call to arms was a twenty-seven-year-old lawyer from Memphis. The son of a high-end dry goods merchant who sold items generally referred to as “queenswear,” Frank Marshall Gilliland was intelligent and ambitious.

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Around the time of the first flight of the SR-71, Greenamyer took off from Groom Lake in an A-12 and headed east on a routine mission. Somewhere around the border of Texas and New Mexico, he lost an engine, which required him to make an emergency landing at Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas. The secret plane was carefully shuttled into a distant hangar, amid a large contingent of armed guards, but it was not invisible, an inconvenient truth that sent shock waves throughout the chain of command. When a colonel arrived to handle the matter, he insisted on meeting personally with every enlisted man and officer who saw the Blackbird, to remind them all to keep their mouths shut. When a major told him that “everybody on the base” saw the plane, the colonel knew he had a big problem.

Road to Nowhere: What Silicon Valley Gets Wrong About the Future of Transportation
by Paris Marx
Published 4 Jul 2022

But, once again, concepts by General Motors and the American Motor Company, as well as vehicles that made it into small-scale production such as Enfield Automotive’s two-seater Enfield 8000, failed to catch on. Not until the 1990s did the electric car get serious attention from the major automakers, spurring the slow creation of the modern electric vehicle industry. In 2006, two groundbreaking environmental documentaries were released for popular consumption. The first was An Inconvenient Truth, which took a slideshow that former US vice president Al Gore had been presenting around the world about the urgency of addressing the climate crisis and turned it into a feature-length film. It resonated with the public, was shown in schools around the world, and even won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.

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See Interstate Highway System “frictionless” city vision, 187 Friedman, Thomas, 70–1, 81 gas taxes, 22–3, 30 gated communities, 189–90 Gates, Bill, 52 General Electric (GE), 40 General Motors (GM), 21, 68, 69, 70, 72, 77–8, 80, 118 General Motors’ Futurama exhibition, 1–2, 118, 192 Ghosn, Carlos, 70 Gilder, George, 53 Gilliard, Chris, 195 Gingrich, Newt, 50, 53 Girma, Haben, 174–5 Glencore, 73 Global Business Network, 54 Global North, 76–7, 224, 225–6 Global South, 76–7, 224, 226 gold mining, 80 Google, 6, 46, 72, 109, 114, 121–2, 128, 130, 180–1, 186, 201, 229, 230–1 Google Brain, 126 Google Docs, 54–5 Google Glass, 114 Google Maps, 121 Google X, 116, 120–1 Gordon, Aaron W., 167–8 Gore, Al, 51, 68 Gorz, André, 14, 21, 32–3, 71, 143, 157–8 governance practices, of cities, 199 government spending, 38–9, 45–6 Graeber, David, 47 Grand Challenge, 120–1 graphite, 80 Great Depression, 22–3, 95–6 “green” economy, 77–9 Green New Deal, 225 Greens, 209 Greenwich Village, 26, 27 Greyball, 110 Greyhound, 219 gun deaths, 32 Hackett, Jim, 138 Hall, Peter, 14–5 Harvey, David, 199–200 Hermosillo, Carmen, 56 Herzberg, Elaine, 133–5 Hewlett-Packard, 40 Hidalgo, Anne, 210–1 highway systems. See Interstate Highway System Highway Trust Fund, 25 Hill, Steve, 148 Horan, Hubert, 102, 106, 107 horsedrawn carriages, 15–6 The Horseless Age (magazine), 66 housing prices, 128 Humphreys & Partners, 154–5 Hyperloop, 143, 155, 219, 225 IBM, 50 An Inconvenient Truth (documentary), 68–9 individualized transport, Musk on, 188 Infinite Detail (Maughan), 129 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (2021), 127 Instacart, 111 Instagram, 61–2 Intel, 40 Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (1991), 119 International Energy Agency, 74–5 International Rights Advocates, 72 internet origins of, 50 privatization of infrastructure of, 55–6 “internet of landlords,” 197–8 Interstate Highway System about, 24, 46, 140, 221 controlled access highways (freeways/motorways), 21–2 development of streets, 11–2 double-decker highways, 151 in Los Angeles, 140–1 in Paris, 210–1 reconceptualization of, 23 slowdown of highway construction boom, 26 traffic and, 142–4 Isaac, Mike, 110 Jacobs, Jane, 230, 232 as campaign leader against urban renewal, 26 The Death and Life of Great American Cities, 26–7 Japan, innovation in, 45 Jarvis, Charlie, 193 jaywalkers, 124–7, 215–6 Jennings, Lois, 42 jitneys, 89–91, 92, 108–9 Jobs, Steve, 36–7, 42, 44 Jump, 166–8 Kalanick, Travis, 5, 92–4, 97, 105, 113, 116 Kamoto Copper Company, 73 Kara, Siddharth, 73 Katy Freeway, 140 Kelly, Kevin, 53 Kenney, Martin, 182 Khosrowshahi, Dara, 133–4 Kirsch, David, 65, 66, 71, 86 Krafcik, John, 138 Kroger, 172–3 Labour Party, 209 Labrador, Canada, 80 Laceese, Francis, 80 Latin America bike lanes in, 171 Pacto Ecosocial del Sur, 225 rapid transit systems in, 215 leasing model, for taxi drivers, 101–3 Le Guin, Ursula K.

The Content Trap: A Strategist's Guide to Digital Change
by Bharat Anand
Published 17 Oct 2016

Billions of dollars of value were created within the music industry during the recent decade. It’s just that value has been redistributed—from recording studios to artists, from music retailers to technology manufacturers, from CDs to live concerts. The value shifted from recorded music to its complements. 13 APPLE AND COMPLEMENTS AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH During the past decade Apple enjoyed one of the greatest turnarounds in corporate history. From a beleaguered position in 2002—a $1 share price, meager profits, and a market share of 3 percent in the PC industry—it grew into the world’s most valuable company in 2011. Well documented in the story of its turnaround is Apple’s near-eerie knack for regularly producing high-quality products—“ insanely great” products, as Steve Jobs once called them.

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Less well understood is the role of complements in turning around its fortunes. Ask anyone for the reasons behind Apple’s success and chances are that you’ll hear reasons like “innovation,” “quality,” “ease of use,” and “design.” These are appealing explanations—seemingly self-evident. But they’re not sufficient, owing to an inconvenient truth—exemplified in the following table, which documents Apple’s market success across three product generations. Table 7 makes a simple point: “Insanely great” products have more or less been a feature of Apple’s corporate history ever since it was founded, in 1976. But its performance for its first twenty-five years was not nearly as impressive as what it’s achieved during the most recent period.

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Further, we take a conservative estimate of North American iPod and iPhone sales as accounting for an average of 50 percent of worldwide sales across the years. Thanks to Ben Chowdhury for assistance in data collection. Apple and Complements The analysis in this and the next section has benefited greatly from numerous conversations with Felix Oberholzer-Gee, and David Yoffie, over the years. An Inconvenient Truth The information about Apple in this section and the rest of this book draws in large part on David Yoffie and Mary Kwak, “Apple Computer—1999,” HBS No. 799-108 (Boston: Harvard Business Publishing, rev. May 24, 1999); David Yoffie and Michael Slind, “Apple Computer: 2006,” HBS No. 706-496 (Boston: Harvard Business Publishing, rev.

Nomad Century: How Climate Migration Will Reshape Our World
by Gaia Vince
Published 22 Aug 2022

Extreme conditions will hit the globe with increasing frequency, pushing the sudden exodus of populations. Today, renewables are adding to, not replacing, fossil fuels, thus temperatures are rising. Almost one-third of the carbon emissions ever produced in the entire history of humanity have been since the release of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth in 2006, so I’m not convinced greater awareness of the problem is what’s lacking. By 2050, when more than 1 billion people are on the move, we need to have figured out a way of managing this to the benefit of all of us. * * * We are facing existential threats: almost incomprehensible in scale, and yet real and soon.

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Kung peoples; lack of water resources; low levels of migration to; migration from as relatively low; poor infrastructure and city planning; population rise in; rainfall due to Indian irrigation; remittances from urban migrants; and restoring of planet’s habitability; Transaqua Project of water diversion; transatlantic slave trade; transport infrastructure in; urbanization in African Union agoraphobia AI and drone technology aid, development/foreign air-conditioning/cooling airships or blimps Alaska algae Aliens Act (UK, 1905) Alps, European Amazon region Americas Anatolia Anchorage, Alaska Anderson, Benedict animals/wildlife; global dispersal of; impact of fires on; impact of ice loss on see also livestock farming Antarctica; ice sheet Anthropocene era; four horsemen of Aravena, Alejandro Archaeology architecture/buildings: Aravena’s ‘partial houses’; energy-efficiency retrofits; floating infrastructure; heat- and light-responsive materials; low-carbon concrete; prefabricated and modular housing; in successful migrant cities; wooden skyscrapers; zero-carbon new-builds Arctic region; first ice-free summer expected; opening up of due to climate change Argentina Arrhenius, Svante Asia: cities vulnerable to climate change; drought-hit areas; extreme La Niña events; extreme precipitation in monsoon regions; Ganges and Indus river basins; and heat ‘survivability threshold’; huge populations of South Asia; lack of water resources; rivers fed by glaciers; small hydropower installations; urbanization Aswan High Dam asylum-seekers: Australia’s dismal record on; Britain’s proud history on; dominant hostile narratives about; drownings in English Channel; limbo situation due to delayed claim-processing; misinformation about see also refugees Athens Australia: Black Summer (2019–20); energy-supply economy; impact of climate emergency; indigenous inhabitants; low population density in; migration to; and mineral extraction in Greenland; renewable power in; treatment of asylum-seekers; White Australia Policy aviation Aztecs Babylon bacteria, in food production bamboo Bangkok Bangladesh; ‘Bangla’ communities in London; Burmese Rohingya refugees; impact of climate emergency; migration across Indian border; population density in; relocation strategies; training for rural migrants Bantu people Barber, Benjamin Barcelona Beckett, Samuel Belarus Belgium Bergamo, Italy Bhutan Bijlmermeer (outside Amsterdam) biodiversity loss/ecosystem collapse; coral reefs as probably doomed; crash in insect and bird populations; depletion of fish stocks; due to agriculture; due to farming; four horsemen of the Anthropocene; and human behaviour; Key Biodiversity Areas; links with climate change; and marine heatwaves; and overuse of fertilizers; restoring of; species extinction; and urban adaptation strategies see also environmental sustainability bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) biotech industry birds black soldier flies black-footed ferrets BoKlok (IKEA spinoff) Bolivia Borneo Bosch, Carl Boston, Massachusetts Boulder, Colorado Brazil Brexit Brin, Sergey British Columbia Brown, Pat bureaucracy Burke, Marshall Burma business/private sector Cairo California; forest fires in Cambodia Cameroon Canaan Canada; and charter cities model; Climate Migrants and Refugee Project; economic benefits from global heating; expansion of agriculture in; first carbon-neutral building in; forest fires in; indigenous populations; infrastructure built on permafrost; regional relocation schemes Capa, Robert, capitalism Caplan, Bryan Caprera (Italian warship) carbon capture/storage; BECCS; ‘biochar’ use in soil; carbon capture and storage (CCS); direct capture from the air; by forests; in grasslands; Key Biodiversity Areas; in oceans; by peatlands; by phytoplankton; vegetation as vital carbon pricing/taxing carbon/carbon dioxide: amount in atmosphere now; Arrhenius’ work on; and biomatter decay in soil, ‘carbon quantitative easing’; continued emitting of; decarbonizing measures; effect on crop growth; emissions cut by building from wood; emissions from farming; emissions from human energy systems; emissions from urban buildings; geoengineering to remove; during last ice age; Miocene Era levels; new materials made from; ocean release of; released by wildfires; tree-planting as offsetting method; in tropical rainforests Carcassonne, France Card, David Cardiff Castro, Fidel Çatalhöyük, ancient city of Central African Republic Central America Chad ‘char people’ charcoal (‘biochar’) Chicago children: childcare costs; deaths of while seeking safety; ‘invisible’/living on the margins; left behind by migrant parents; and move to cities; numbers at extreme risk; in refugee camps; and sense of ‘belonging’ Chile China: adaptation for heavy rainfall events; Belt and Road Initiative; cities vulnerable to climate change; demography; desertification of farmland in north; economic domination of far east; emigrants and knowledge-flow; emissions as still rising in; extreme La Niña events; ‘green wall’ tree-planting projects; and heat ‘survivability threshold’; Hong Kong–Shenzhen–Guangzhou mega-region; hukou system; integrated soil-system management; internal migration in; migrant workers in Russia’s east; and mineral extraction; net zero commitment; small hydropower installations; South-to-North Water Diversion Project; ‘special economic zones’; Uyghur Muslim communities in; and water scarcity; ‘zhuan‘ documents Chinatowns Churchill (town in Manitoba) Churchill, Winston cities: adapting to net-zero carbon economy; city state model; coastal cities; as concentrated nodes of connectivity; ‘consumption cities’ in Africa; control of migration by; deadly urban heat; demand for cooling; devolving power to communities; in eighteenth/nineteenth-century Europe; entrenched assets; and extreme flood risk; flood defences; as focal points for trade networks; food production in; genetic impacts of; in high altitude locations; large megacities; merging into mega-regions; as particularly vulnerable to climate change; phased abandonment of; population densities in; private gardens in; relocation of; relocation strategies within; sprawling shanty towns in; strategies against impact of heat; zero-carbon new-builds see also migrant cities; migration, urban citizenship; patriotism of welcomed migrants; ‘UN/international passport’ idea Clemens, Michael climate change, historic: Cretaceous–Palaeogene meteorite impact event; in late-bronze-age Near East; and migration; in Miocene Era; and transition to farming climate change/emergency; 3–5° C as most likely scenario; as affecting all of Earth; cities as particularly vulnerable to; destruction of dam infrastructure; enlisting of military/security institutions against; every tenth of a degree matters; extreme weather events; global climate niches moving north; global water cycle as speeding up; greenhouse gas emissions as still growing; impact of cities; impact on lives as usually gradual; inertia of the Earth’s climate system; lethality by 2100; links with biodiversity loss; near-universal acceptance of as human made; net zero pledges; Paris Agreement (2015); path to 3–4° C-hotter world; situation as not hopeless; slow global response to; as threat multiplier; warming as mostly absorbed by oceans see also biodiversity loss/ecosystem collapse; drought; fires; floods; heat climate models: future emissions scenarios; heating predictions; impact of 4° C-hotter world; IPCC ‘Representative Concentration Pathways’ (RCPs); optimum climate for human productivity; threshold for mass migrations coastal areas: coastal cities; migration from; retreating coastlines; seawater desalination plants cochineal scale insect Colombia colonialism, European Colorado Columbia Concretene construction industry copper coral reefs Cornwall Costa Rica cotton Covid-19 pandemic; cooperation during cross-laminated timber (CLT) Crusaders Cruz, Abel Cuba cultural institutions/practices: cultural losses over time; diversity as improving innovation; migration of; in well-planned migrant cities cyclones Cyprus Czech workers in Germany Dar es Salaam Death Valley Delhi Democratic Republic of Congo demographic changes/information: and decline of nationality viewed in racial terms; depopulation crisis; elderly populations in global north; GenZ; global climate niches moving north; global population patterns; global population rise; ‘household formation’; huge variation in global fertility rates; migrants as percentage of global population; population fall due to urban migration; population-peak projection; post-war baby boom; and transition to farming Denmark Denver, Colorado desert conditions Dhaka Dharavi (slum in Mumbai) diet and nutrition: edible seeds of sea grasses; genetically engineered microbes; global disparities in access to nutrition; and Haber–Bosch process; insects as source of protein and fats; loss of nutrition due to heat stress of crops; move to plant-based diet; vitamin D sources; zinc and protein deficiencies dinosaurs direct air capture (DAC) disease; waterborne Doha Domesday Book (1086) Driscolls (Californian berry grower) drone technology drought; as affecting the most people; in Amazon region; impact on farming; in late-bronze-age Near East; and rivers fed by glaciers; and sulphate cooling Dubai Duluth, Minnesota Dunbar, Robin economies; Chinese domination of far east; economic growth; forced move towards a circular economy; GDP per capita measure; Global Compact for Migration; global productivity losses due to heat; immigrant-founded companies; and influx of low-skilled migrant workers; migration as benefitting; mining opportunities exposed by ice retreat; and nation state model; need to open world’s borders; new mineral deposits in northern latitudes; northern nations benefitting from global heating; ‘special economic zone’ concept; taxing of robots see also employment/labour markets; green economy; political and socioeconomic systems; trade and commerce education: availability to migrants; as key to growth; and remittances from urban migrants; systems improved by migration Egypt; Ancient electricity: current clean generation as not sufficient; decarbonizing of production; electric vehicles; grid systems; hydroelectric plants; and net zero world; renewable production Elwartowski, Chad employment/labour markets: amnesties of ‘illegal’ migrants; and arguments against migration; and automation; controlled by city authorities; and global labour mobility; and the green economy; impact of heat on jobs; indentured positions; and influx of low-skilled migrant workers; jobs in growth industries; jobs restoring diversity; jobs that natives don’t want to do; mechanization/automation slowed down by migrant workers; migrants bring greater diversity to; need for Nansen-style scheme; occupational upgrading of locals due to immigration; refugees barred from working; role of business in migrant integration; rural workers moving to cities; skilled migrants; support/access for migrants; Trump’s work visa restrictions; ‘urban visas’ in USA; workforce shortages in global north energy systems: access to in global south; air-conditioning/cooling demand; and carbon capture; ‘closed-loop’ radiator construction; decarbonizing of; and economic growth; geothermal production; global energy use as increasing; new dam-construction boom in south; nuclear power; oceans as source; poor grid infrastructure in global south; power outages; power sharing as not equitable; reducing growth in demand; replacement of inefficient heating/cooling systems; transmission/transport see also electricity English Channel Environmental Protection Agency, US environmental sustainability: decarbonizing measures; decoupling of GDP from carbon emissions; and economic growth; heat- and light-responsive materials; low-energy plastic recycling methods; and migrant cities; need for open mind in planning for; phytoplankton as hugely important; replacement of inefficient heating/cooling systems; zero-carbon new-builds see also biodiversity loss/ecosystem collapse environmentalists; negative growth advocates; opponents of geoengineering equatorial belt Erdoğan, Recep Tayyip Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia Europe: 2003 heatwave; depopulation crisis; eighteenth/nineteenth-century shanty towns; impact of climate emergency; medieval barriers to movement; Mediterranean climate moving north; migrant indentured labour in; migration of women working in domestic service; small hydropower installations; three mass migrations in Stone and Bronze Ages European Union: free movement within; fund for aid to Africa; Green New Deal; no ‘asylum crisis’ within; nuclear power in; open-border policy for refugees from Ukraine; as popular migrant destination; seeks quota system for refugees; as successful example of regional union; war against migrants Fairbourne (Welsh village) farming: in abandoned areas in south; in Africa; ancient transition to; bad harvests as more frequent; barns/storehouses; benefits of warming in Nordic nations; biodiversity loss due to; cereal crops; closing the yield gap; early nineteenth century expansion of; ever-decreasing, sub-divided plots of land; expanded growing seasons; fertile land exposed by ice retreat; genetic research to produce new crops; genetically modified crop varieties; global disparities in food production; Green Revolution; greenhouse gas emissions from; in Greenland; Haber–Bosch process; heat-tolerant and drought-resistant crops; high-yielding wheat and rice variants; impact of climate emergency; indoor industrial systems; modern improvement in yields; nutrient and drip-irrigation systems; pre-twentieth-century methods; relying on new forms of; Russian dominance; salt-tolerant rice; smallholder; and solar geoengineering; solar-powered closed-cycle; urban vertical farms; use of silicates; and water scarcity; wildflower strips in fields see also livestock farming Fiji Fires fish populations: artisanal fishers; boost of in Arctic region; and decommissioned offshore oilrigs; fish farming; future pricing of fish products; as under huge pressure; insects as farmed-fish feed; land-based fish-farming Five Points slum, New York floods; flash floods; low-lying islands and atolls; sea walls/coastal defences; three main causes; in urban areas; water-management infrastructure Florida food: algal mats; carbon-pricing of meat; impact of soaring global prices; insect farming; kelp forest plantations; lab-grown meats; meat substitutes; for migrant city dwellers; move to plant-based diet; need for bigger sources of in global north; need to cut waste; photosynthesizing marine plants and algae; plant-based dairy products; reduced supplies due to temperature rises; refrigerated storage; replication of Maillard chemical reaction; sourced from the oceans see also diet and nutrition; farming; livestock farming food security Ford, Henry forests: advance north of in Nordic nations; deforestation; impact of climate emergency; ‘negative emissions activity’; replanting of; Siberian taiga forest fossil fuels; carbon capture and storage (CCS); as embedded in human systems France Fraser, Sean freedom of movement French Polynesia Friedman, Patri Gargano, Gabriele gas industry Gates, Bill gender: heat related inequalities; physical/sexual danger for female migrants; women in domestic service in Europe; women rejoining workforce genetic modification genetics, population Genghis Khan geoengineering; artificial sill proposals; cloud-brightening idea; as controversial/taboo; and ideal temperature question; possible unwanted effects; proposals for dealing with ice melt; to reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide; solar radiation reduction tools; sulphate cooling concept; thin-film technology; tools to reflect the sun’s heat away from Earth geology GERD dam, Ethiopia Germany; Syrian refugee resettlement in Ghana Glasgow climate meeting (2021) Global Parliament of Mayors global south; benefit of solar cooling idea; capital costs of deploying new renewables; cutting of food waste in; future repopulation of abandoned regions; global income gap as rising; little suitable landmass for climate-driven migration; migration to higher elevations with water; need for improved infrastructure; need for sustainable economic growth; new dam-construction boom in; new domestic sources of energy; population rise in; remittances from urban migrants; resource extraction by rich countries; and vested interests in the rich world see also Africa; Asia; Latin America and entries for individual nations golf courses Gore, Al, An Inconvenient Truth (2006) Gothenburg Grand Inga hydroelectric dam project (Congo River) Granville, Earl grasslands Great Barrier Reef Great Lakes region, North America Greece; Ancient green economy; and building of fair societies; Green New Deals; migration as vital to; multiple benefits of see also environmental sustainability; renewable power production; restoring our planet’s habitability greenhouse gas emissions; charging land owners for; in cities; emitters trying to avoid/delay decarbonization; from farming; national emissions-reductions pledges; underreporting of; unfair global impact of see also carbon/carbon dioxide Greenland; ice sheet; potato farming in Gulf states Haber, Fritz Hangzhou Hawaii health: climate change as threat multiplier; dementia care; diseases of poor sanitation; healthcare in successful migrant cities; heat related inequalities; lethality of extreme heat; and life in cities; mental illness and migration; migration as benefitting social care systems; pathogens in frozen tundras; rural living as single largest killer today; and smoke pollution heat: 35°C wet bulb threshold crossed; climate model predictions; cloud and water vapour feedbacks; combined with humidity; and demand for cooling; extreme hotspots; global productivity/work hour losses; impact of 4° C-hotter world; impact on farming/food supplies; infrastructure problems due to; lethality by 2100; lethality of extreme temperatures; Paris pledge of below 2°C; solar radiation reduction tools; subtropical climate spreading into higher latitudes; temperatures above 50°C; threshold for mass migrations; ‘threshold of survivability’; urban adaptation strategies; urban heat island effect; ‘wet bulb’ temperature calculations Held, David Hernando, Antonia HIV Höfn, southeastern Iceland Holocene epoch Honduras Hong Kong horses, domestication of housing: Aravena’s ‘partial houses’; controlled by city authorities; equitable access to; floating infrastructure; in flood-affected areas; and heat related inequalities; and migrants; planning and zoning laws; policies to prevent segregation; prefabricated and modular; twentieth-century social programmes see also slum dwellers Hudson Bay Huguenot immigrants human rights, universal Hungary hunter-gatherers hurricanes hydrogen ice age, last ice loss; as accelerating at record rate; in Antarctica; in Arctic region; artificial reflective snow idea; artificial sill proposals; and flash floods; loss of glaciers; permafrost thaw; reflective fleece blankets idea; retreat of ice sheets; rising of land due to glaciers melting; tipping points for ice-free world Iceland ICON, construction company identity: accentuation of small differences; and ancient transition to farming; borders as ‘othering’ structures; language as tool of self-construction; mistrust of outsiders; pan-species; sense of ‘belonging’; social norms of ‘tribe’; social psychology; stories crafting group identity see also national identity immigration policies: bilateral or regional arrangements; deliberately prejudicial policy; development of since later nineteenth-century; and harnessing migrant potential; immigrant inclusion programmes; immigration lottery schemes; move needed from control to managing,; points-based entrance systems; poorly designed; quota systems; responses to terrorist incidents; restrictions as for people not stuff; restrictive border legislation; Spain’s successful policy Impossible Foods India; crop irrigation in; emigrants and knowledge-flow; emissions as still rising in; falling fertility rate in; Ganges Valley; and heat ‘survivability threshold’; impact of climate emergency; internal migration in; lime-washing of roofs in; Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA); National River Linking Project; population density in; young population in indigenous communities Indo-European language Indonesia industrial revolution inequality and poverty: and access to reliable energy; benefit of solar cooling to south; climate change as threat multiplier; climate migration and social justice; and demand for cooling; despair and anger of ‘left behind’ natives; and environmental destruction; and European colonialism; as failure of social/economic policy; and geoengineered cooling; global disparities in access to nutrition; and global food prices; global income gap as rising; heat related; and impact of flooding; increased by ancient transition to farming; as matter of geographical chance; migration as best route out of; and modern farming; and national pride; need for redistributive policies; the poor trapped in vulnerable cities; and post-war institutions; rural living as single largest killer today; slow global response to crisis of; superrich and private jets; tribalism as not inevitable; and vested interests in the rich world insects; collapsing populations; farming of; as human food source insulation insurance, availability of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) International Energy Agency (IEA) International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) International Labour Organization Iquique (Chile) Ireland iron, powdered Islam islands, small/low-lying Israel Italy Ithaca, city of (New York) Jakarta Japan Jobs, Steve Johnson, Boris Jordan kelp Kenya Khan, Sadiq Khoisan Bushmen Kimmel, Mara King, Sir David Kiribati knowledge and skills: better environment for in rich countries; ‘brain drain’ issue; channelled through migrant networks; diversity as improving innovation; global knowledge transfer; Global Skill Partnerships model; impact of European colonialism; migrants returning to origin countries; and Nansen-style schemes; need for rapid transference of; and points-based entrance systems Kodiak Island, Alaska krill Kuba Kingdom, West Africa !

Class Warfare: Inside the Fight to Fix America's Schools
by Steven Brill
Published 15 Aug 2011

School Reform: The Movie January 22, 2010, Sundance, Colorado A week before Weingarten’s Morning Joe appearance, a documentary called Waiting for Superman was previewed in advance of a fall release at the Sundance Film Festival, the annual showcase for independent movies in Park City, Utah, founded by Robert Redford. It was written and directed by Davis Guggenheim and produced by Lesley Chilcott. Guggenheim and Chilcott had made big names for themselves with An Inconvenient Truth, the global-warming manifesto featuring former vice president Al Gore. Guggenheim had also directed pilot episodes of the television series The Unit and Melrose Place, as well as the biographical movie about Barack Obama shown at the Democratic National Convention. Guggenheim and Chilcott had been working on Waiting for Superman since the spring of 2008, when Jeffrey Skoll, the founder of Participant Media, had asked them to think about doing an education reform documentary.

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Skoll, whose mother was a schoolteacher, was the first employee and later president of eBay. In 2004, he dedicated a substantial portion of his haul from eBay stock options to start Participant as a vehicle to fund movies that he believes have an important social purpose and might also make money. Participant had provided seed money for An Inconvenient Truth. Guggenheim had initially been wary of Skoll’s idea because he had done a documentary in 2001 about schoolteachers that few people had watched, in part because it had premiered on public television five days after the September 11 terrorist attacks. However, Guggenheim started to warm to the project as he began to think about the public schools he drove by every day in Los Angeles on his way to dropping his kids off at their private school.

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Index Absent Teacher Reserve, 129, 158, 403 Acceptance Board, 196 –97 Achievement First, 192, 295 achievement standards, 66 ACORN, 112, 161, 208, 271, 284 Adams, Patricia (pseud.), 211 –13 Advisory Board, 116 Aguilar, Miguel, 366 Albert Shanker Institute, 414 Alexander, Lamar, 47 –48 Allen, Woody, 37 Alliance for School Choice, 118 America Competes Act (2007), 242 American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, 238 American Enterprise Institute, 262, 308, 378 American Federation of Teachers (AFT), 7, 40, 48, 49, 50, 65, 70, 176 –77, 199, 233, 238 –39, 240, 251, 261, 265, 266, 278, 287, 321, 330, 331, 344, 368, 380, 385, 402, 414, 420 COPE of, 40 –41, 122 2010 convention of, 246 –49 Anderson, Nick, 264 Andrew, Seth, 383 An Inconvenient Truth (film), 281 Answer Sheet, The (blog), 302 Arizona, 417 Aspen Institute, 137, 250, 309 Aspire, 254 Atlanta Journal-Constitution Online, 308 Atlantic Monthly, 395 Audacity of Hope, The (Obama), 237 Austin, Ben, 406 –7 Axelrod, David, 1, 5 Ball, Harriett, 23 Barber, Michael, 147 –48, 149 Barbic, Chris, 175 Barnes, Melody, 222, 226, 237 Barone, Charles, 219 –20, 223 Barr, Steven, 171 Barth, Richard, 175 Bell, Terrel, 47 Bennet, Michael, 221, 376 –77, 379 Bennett, William, 48, 60, 118 teachers’ unions attacked by, 46 –47 Bernstein, Carl, 279, 280 Bersin, Alan, 89, 93, 106 –7, 157, 221 Bertelsmann AG, 87 Biden, Joseph, 182 Big Short, The (Lewis), 131 Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, see Gates Foundation Black, Cathleen, 397 –99, 401, 410 Blanco, Kathleen, 137, 138, 306 Blitzer, Wolf, 181 –82 Bloomberg, Michael, 15, 87, 93, 102, 108, 119, 120, 122, 142, 156, 174, 185 –86, 209, 294, 296, 328, 329, 340, 375, 380, 397 –99, 403, 404, 411, 412, 417 2005 UFT contract negotiation and, 125 –32, 149 2007 UFT contract negotiation and, 157, 158 –60 Weingarten and, 426 –27 Boies, David, 105 Bonfire of the Vanities, 72 Booker, Cory, 115, 117, 207, 402 “Boxer, The” (Simon), 75 Bredesen, Phil, 307, 317 –18 Bressler, Marvin, 52 Broad, Edythe, 92, 302 Broad, Eli, 92 –93, 96, 101 –2, 158, 171, 172, 184, 185, 200, 201, 203, 209, 219, 221, 222, 226, 302, 392, 396, 405, 411, 436, 437 Broad Foundation, 92 –93, 147, 158 –59, 185, 200, 201, 209, 286, 287, 309, 386 Broad Prize, 185 –86 Brookings Institution, 151, 153 Brooks, David, 353 Brown, Jerry, 404, 406 Brown v.

WEconomy: You Can Find Meaning, Make a Living, and Change the World
by Craig Kielburger , Holly Branson , Marc Kielburger , Sir Richard Branson and Sheryl Sandberg
Published 7 Mar 2018

He's also a self-proclaimed sci-fi geek and a bit of a bookworm, hobbies that prepared him to take strange and daunting subject matter and make it accessible. One of Participant's early films evolved from a slideshow about climate change presented by Al Gore, former Vice President of the United States. It's hard to imagine anything less entertaining or marketable. But An Inconvenient Truth went on to win an Oscar and become one of the top-grossing documentaries of all time. [Click here to watch the official trailer.] Jeff uses the money-making machine that is the film industry to raise awareness of social issues. Participant Media brings production value, heavyweight actors, and mainstream publicity to films that would otherwise be seen only by a niche audience of activists.

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His foundation's initiatives include an investment firm dedicated to ethical money management, as well as TakePart. com, an offshoot of Participant Media that works to convert people's concerns about issues into individual and collective action. His films don't just raise consciousness, they win awards and attract big audiences. An Inconvenient Truth, Spotlight, The Help, Syriana, Lincoln, and Deepwater Horizon are among the films he's produced. He's worked with top talent in Hollywood: Matt Damon, George Clooney, and Emma Stone, among other stars. The Skoll Global Threats Fund looks for strategies to prevent or cope with disasters, including nuclear meltdowns, pandemics, water shortages, climate change, and conflict in the Middle East.

Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out?
by Bill McKibben
Published 15 Apr 2019

They believed more strongly in their particular economic fantasia than they did in physics or chemistry, and so they churned out an endless series of deceptions. Rupert Murdoch, the planet’s dominant communicator, provides a case in point because for a moment he appeared to be an exception to the rule. In 2007, in the wake of popular acclaim for Al Gore’s film An Inconvenient Truth, he actually announced that he’d found climate religion. In a speech that he reprinted in his newspapers, he said, “Climate change poses catastrophic threats” and “[W]e can’t afford the risk of inaction.” He pledged to make NewsCorp carbon neutral, promising everything from electric golf carts on the 21st Century Fox studio lot to “the latest LED lighting technology in the master control rooms at Fox News.”

…

Koch-funded professors at four hundred colleges across America were busy teaching the new gospel. “Only idiocy would conclude that mankind’s capacity to change the climate is more powerful than the forces of nature,” one explained to his charges in Maryland. In Colorado, another produced and starred in the slyly titled film An Inconvenient Truth … or Convenient Fiction? At the University of Kansas, the former chief economist for one of the Kochs’ enterprises took over the new Center for Applied Economics (funded by the Kochs) and went to work trying to repeal the state’s “renewable portfolio standard,” which mandated the construction of at least a little solar and wind power.25 The Kochs’ Kansas network also flew in a climate change–denying scientist who had received $230,000 in grants from the Charles G.

Were You Born on the Wrong Continent?
by Thomas Geoghegan
Published 20 Sep 2011

Even though Germany has been beating out China in shipping global hardware, it wants to hug every tree, stop all the carbon, and be the planetary model of how we all should live. What other country has a Green Party that is such a major player in its politics? And really, the CDU and SPD are just about as Green as the Green Party. Only in Germany would the government buy up enough DVDs of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth to play in every classroom. At this point, it would be easy for me to say “Germany is Green,” and move on to something else. “Now let’s talk about something serious.” I am sure people in the U.S. will nod and say, “That’s nice,” or “Let’s pat Germany on the head.” But I think the world is furious that Germany is Green.

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Army strikes union resorts/ex-spas unionization rates in the manufacturing sector wage-setting and works councils youth membership The Germans (Craig) Gerschenkron, Alexander Ghilarducci, Teresa Gibbon, Edward Gibbons, James Gini coefficient Giscard d’Estaing, Valery Glass-Steagall Act globalization and German capitalism and labor market flexibility “Globalization and Income Inequality” (Harjes) “Glühwein Festival” (Hamburg) Goethe-Institute Goldman Sachs Gordon, Robert Gramm, Phil Grass, Günter Green Party and European social democracies German coalition government and Agenda 2010 German coalition government and wages/unemployment German coalition government and welfare German coalition government and works councils Germany green technology Greenspan, Alan Guardian (UK) gun ownership Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (Diamond) Gutteres, António Habermas, Jürgen Halliburton Hamburg, Germany Harjes, Thomas health care spending Heine, Heinrich Heinz (retired German labor leader) Hemingway, Ernest Herodotus Hesbaugh, Ted Hitler, Adolf Hitler’s Willing Executioners (Goldhagen) Hobsbawm, Eric Holocaust hours worked and GDP leisure time and standard-of-living How to Lie with Statistics (Huff) Huff, Darrell human capital Humboldt University (Berlin) IBZ Guest House (Berlin) IG Metall (German union) and CDU’s 2009 victory over SDP foreign-born members Frankfurt May Day parade (2001) works councils youth membership “Incentive for Working Hard” (Conference Board, May 2001) income equality/inequality An Inconvenient Truth (film) International Labor Organization (ILO) International Monetary Fund Iraq war Jesuits and papal social democracy jobs/employment artists big business employees cross-subsidies European social democracies and German unemployment Germany high-skill jobs and high-end precision goods manufacturing workforce and percent of adults holding an associate degree public employees (public-sector civil service jobs) self-employment skilled-labor shortage small business employees types of jobs available unemployment rates for college graduates U.S.

Living in a Material World: The Commodity Connection
by Kevin Morrison
Published 15 Jul 2008

China’s industrial revolution has followed the pattern of Britain’s industrialization, which started about 250 years ago, in that it is fuelled by coal and has stimulated the renaissance in global demand for the black rock. In China’s case coal is burned in power stations, not the home or factory; it is out of sight and out of mind for most consumers, who rarely make the connection between switching on a light or watching the television and the emission of greenhouse gases. An inconvenient truth much less acknowledged is the role of the always-on internet-connected world in boosting electricity demand from coal-fired stations. Coal’s re-emergence confounds predictions in the second half of the 20th century that coal had a dim future. Coal was used to heat the Victorian-built home in London that I lived in as a child.

…

It’s this freemarket approach which is also increasingly being used to tackle global warming. Green Giants It seems that everyone is an environmentalist these days. Al Gore is now far more popular than the man that defeated him, President Bush. He may have lost the presidency but his film An Inconvenient Truth 130 | LIVING IN A MATERIAL WORLD won him an Oscar and the Nobel Peace Prize for the awareness it generated about global warming. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the former Hollywood star turned senator of California, is also battling other politicians to become the green political warrior, and although he still owns gas-guzzling Hummers, he has been one of the more proactive US politicians addressing the issue.

The new village green: living light, living local, living large
by Stephen Morris
Published 1 Sep 2007

When Hansen gave this warning in December 2005 we had ten years to change course, but soon we’ll have only eight years, and since nothing has happened in the intervening time to suggest that we’re gearing up for an all-out effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the divergence between Hansen and Lovelock may be academic. (Somehow it’s small comfort to be rooting for the guy who says you’ve got a decade.) What’s amazing is that even Al Gore’s fine and frightening film An Inconvenient Truth now lags behind the scientific cutting edge on this issue – the science is moving fast. It’s true that the world is beginning slowly to awaken to the idea that global warming may be a real problem, and legislatures (though not ours) are starting to nibble at it. But very few understand with any real depth that a wave large enough to break civilization is forming, and that the only real question is whether we can do anything at all to weaken its force.

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” — Jeffrey Hollender President & Chief Inspired Protagonist, Seventh Generation “ We can thank Herman Daly for the concept of full cost accounting, Buckminster Fuller for the power and possibility of thinking differently, and E.F. Schumacher as the father of the act locally/think globally movement.” — Jeffrey Hollender 96 chapter 4 : The End of Nature “ I’ve heard lots of criticism of Al Gore’s film, An Inconvenient Truth, from inside the green movement, but we’re already converted. The mainstream media coverage and my conversations with non-movement people have convinced me that it has done so much to bring them on board.” — Nancy Jack Todd Author, A Safe and Sustainable World “ Our rampant and reckless despoiling of nature, which has increased rapidly in the last half-century, has now reached a crisis point where the future of life on the surface of the earth is highly problematic.The power and extent of modern industrial technology is taking our planet to catastrophe and will be averted only by the abolition of capitalism, industrialism, and human domination of the world’s ecosytems

Adapt: Why Success Always Starts With Failure
by Tim Harford
Published 1 Jun 2011

Geoff is a straightforward kind of fellow: twenty-six, single, lives in London, works in an insurance office and until twelve hours ago, had very little interest in climate change. Last night, Geoff agreed to let a crush on his friend’s new flatmate, Jude, influence his judgement. Jude is a tree-hugging environmentalist – albeit a very cute one – and she showed Geoff Al Gore’s documentary An Inconvenient Truth. And this morning – having slept fitfully, amid dreams that he had set up home with Jude but the crumbling Antarctic ice sheet was about to submerge it in a terrifying wall of water – is the first day of the rest of his life: A life as a born-again environmentalist. Geoff starts his day, as he always does, by filling the kettle for a coffee.

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, 165 Bertrand, Marianne, 135 Bhopal disaster, 184 Billing, Noel Pemberton, 87–8 biomass systems, 170–1 bird flu, 97 Björkman, Martina, 142–3 Blair, Tony, 20, 30, 141 Boulton-Paul Defiant aircraft, 85 BP, 216–19, 245 Bradley, James, 106 Branson, Sir Richard, 112, 243 Brazil, 117, 148 breeding, selective, 175–6 Bremer, Paul, 1700000140345 >58 Brin, Sergey, 232 Bromgard, Jimmy Ray, 252 Buiter, Willem, 205 bulldog, British, 175–6 Bulow, Jeremy, 205 Bunting, Madeleine, 130 Burroughs 3500 computer, 69–71 Bush, Laura, 119 Bush, President George W., 20, 59, 64 business world: evolutionary theory and, 14–15, 16, 17, 18–19, 174–5, 233–4; failure in, 8–10, 11–12, 18–19, 36, 148–9, 224, 239–46; see also corporations and companies; economics and finance Cadbury’s dairy milk chocolate, 165 CAFE environmental standards in USA, 172–3, 176 Canon, 241 Capecchi, Mario, 97–101, 102, 114, 140, 152, 223 Carbon Trust, 163–5 Cardano, Gerolamo, 83 Carlsmith, James, 251> Case Foundation, 119 Casey, General George W., 55, 59, 71 catastrophe experts, 184–6, 191, 194–5, 208 Cave-Brown-Cave, Air Commodore Henry, 81, 83, 85, 88, 114 centralised decision making, 70, 74–5, 226, 227, 228; warfare and, 46–7, 67–8, 69, 71, 76, 78–9 centrally planned economies, 11, 21, 23–6, 68–9, 70 Challenger shuttle disaster, 184 Charles, Prince, 154 Chernobyl disaster, 185 Chile, 3, 69–72, 76, 148 China, 11, 94, 131, 143, 147, 150, 152 Christensen, Clayton, 239–40, 242, 245 Chuquicamata mine (Chile), 3 Churchill, Winston, 41–2, 82, 85 Citigroup, 205131 Clay Mathematics Institute, 110 climate change, 4, 20; carbon dioxide emissions and, 132, 156, 159–65, 166–9, 173, 176, 178–80; ‘carbon footprinting’, 159–66; carbon tax/price idea, 167–9, 178–80, 222; environmental regulations and, 169–74, 176, 177; ‘food miles’ and, 159, 160–1, 168; governments/politics and, 157–8, 163, 169–74, 176, 180; greenhouse effect and, 154–6; individual behaviour and, 158–63, 164, 165–6; innovation prizes and, 109, 179; methane and, 155, 156, 157, 159–60, 173, 179, 180; new technologies and, 94–5; simplicity/complexity paradox, 156, 157–8; Thaler-Sunstein nudge, 177–8; uncertainty and, 156 Coca-Cola, 28, 243 Cochrane, Archie, 123–7, 129, 130, 140, 238, 256 cognitive dissonance, 251–2 Cold War, 6, 41, 62–3 Colombia, 117, 147 complexity theory, 3–4, 13, 16, 49, 72103, 237 computer games, 92–3 computer industry, 11–12, 69, 70–1, 239–42 corporations and companies: disruptive technologies and, 239–44, 245–6; environmental issues and, 157–8, 159, 161, 165, 170–1, 172–3; flattening of hierarchies, 75, 224–5, 226–31; fraud and, 208, 210, 212–13, 214; innovation and, 17, 81–2, 87–9, 90, 93–4, 95–7, 108–11, 112, 114, 224–30, 232–4; limited liability, 244; patents and, 95–7, 110, 111, 114; randomised experiments and, 235–9; skunk works model and, 89, 91, 93, 152, 224, 242–3, 245; strategy and, 16, 18, 27–8, 36, 223, 224–34; see also business world; economics and finance cot-death, 120–1 credit-rating agencies, 188, 189, 190 Criner, Roy, 252 Crosby, Sir James, 211, 214, 250, 256 Cuban Missile Crisis, 41, 63 Cudahy Packing, 9 dairy products, 158, 159–60, 164–5, 166 Darwin, Charles, 86 Dayton Hudson, 243 de Montyon, Baron, 107–8 Deal or No Deal (TV game show), 33–5, 253 decentralisation, 73, 74–8, 222, 224–5, 226–31; Iraq war and, 76–8, 79; trial and error and, 31, 174–5, 232, 234 decision making: big picture thinking, 41, 42, 46, 55; consistent standards and, 28–9; diversity of opinions, 31, 44–5, 46, 48–50, 59–63; doctrine of unanimous advice, 30–1, 47–50, 62–3, 64, 78; grandiosity and, 27–8; idealized hierarchy, 40–1, 42, 46–7, 49–50, 55, 78; learning from mistakes, 31–5, 78, 119, 250–1, 256–9, 261–2; local/on the ground, 73, 74, 75, 76–8, 79, 224–5, 226–31; reporting lines/chain of command, 41, 42, 46, 49–50, 55–6, 58, 59–60, 64, 77–8; supportive team with shared vision, 41, 42, 46, 56, 62–3; unsuccessful, 19, 32, 34–5, 41–2; see also centralised decision making Deepwater Horizon disaster (April 2010), 36, 216–19, 220 Democratic Republic of Congo, 139–40 Deng Xiaoping, 1 Denmark, 148 Department for International Development (DFID), 133, 137–8 development aid: charter cities movement, 150–3; community-driven reconstruction (CDR), 137–40; corruption and, 133–5, 142–3; economic ‘big push’ and, 143–5, 148–9; feedback loops, 141–3; fundamentally unidentified questions (FUQs), 132, 133; governments and, 118, 120, 143, 144, 148–9; identification strategies, 132–5; microfinance, 116, 117–18, 120; Millennium Development Villages, 129–30, 131; product space concept, 145–8; randomised trials and, 127–9, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135–6, 137–40, 141; randomistas, 127–9, 132, 133, 135–40, 258; selection principle and, 117, 140–3, 149; SouthWest project in China, 131; success and failure, 116, 118–20, 130–1; Muhammad Yunus and, 116, 117–18 digital photography, 240–1, 242 Dirks, Ray, 211–12, 213 disk-drive industry, 239–40, 242 Djankov, Simeon, 135 domino-toppling displays, 185, 200–1 Don Basin (Russia), 21–2, 24, 27 dot-com bubble, 10, 92 Dubai, 147, 150 Duflo, Esther, 127, 131, 135, 136 Dyck, Alexander, 210, 213 eBay, 95, 230 econometrics, 132–5 economics and finance: banking system as complex and tightly coupled, 185, 186, 187–90, 200, 201, 207–8, 220; bankruptcy contingency plans, 204; Basel III regulations, 195; bond insurance business, 189–90; bridge bank/rump bank approach, 205–6; capital requirements, 203, 204; centrally planned economiepos=0000032004 >11, 21, 23–6, 68–9, 70; CoCos (contingent convertible bonds), 203–4; complexity and, 3–4; decoupling of financial system, 202, 203–8, 215–16, 220; Dodd-Frank reform act (2010), 195; employees as error/fraud spotters, 210, 211, 212, 213, 215; energy crisis (1970s), 179; evolutionary theory and, 14–17, 18–19, 174–5; improvements since 1960s, 215; inter-bank payments systems, 207; latent errors and, 209–10, 215; ‘LMX spiral’, 183–4, 189; narrow banking approach, 206–7, 215; need for systemic heat maps, 195–6; reinsurance markets, 183; zombie banks, 201–2; see also business world; corporations and companies; financial crisis (from 2007) Edison, Thomas, 236, 238 Eliot, T.S., 260 Elizabeth House (Waterloo), 170–1, 172 Endler, John, 221–2, 223, 234, 239 Engineers Without Borders, 119 Enron, 197–8, 200, 208, 210 environmental issues: biofuels, 84, 173, 176; clean energy, 91, 94, 96, 245–6; corporations/companies and, 159, 161, 165, 170–1, 172–3; renewable energy technology, 84, 91, 96, 130, 168, 169–73, 179, 245; see also climate change Equity Funding Corporation, 212 Ernst and Young, 199 errors and mistakes, types of, 208–10; latent errors, 209–10, 215, 218, 220 European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), 188 European Union, 169, 173 Evans, Martin, 100 evolutionary theory, 6, 12–13, 15–17, 174, 258; business world and, 14–17, 174–5, 233–4; Darwin and, 86; digital world and, 13–14, 259–60; economics and, 14–17, 174–5; Endler’s guppy experiments, 221–2, 223, 239; fitness landscapes, 14–15, 259; Leslie Orgel’s law, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 180; problem solving and, 14–15, 16; selective breeding and, 175–6 expertise, limits of, 6–8, 16, 17, 19, 66 extinction events, biological, 18–19 Exxon (formerly Jersey Standard), 9, 12, 188, 245 F-22 stealth fighter, 93 Facebook, 90, 91 failure: in business, 8–10, 11–12, 18–19, 36, 148–9, 224, 239–46; chasing of losses, 32–5, 253–4, 256; in complex and tightly coupled systems, 185–90, 191–2, 200, 201, 207–8, 219, 220; corporate extinctions, 18–19; denial and, 32, 34–5, 250–3, 255–6; disruptive technologies, 239–44, 245–6; of established industries, 8–10; government funding and, 148–9; hedonic editing and, 254; honest advice from others and, 256–7, 258, 259; learning from, 31–5, 78, 119, 250–1, 256–9, 261–2; modern computer industry and, 11–12, 239–42; as natural in market system, 10, 11, 12, 244, 245–6; niche markets and, 240–2; normal accident theory, 219; recognition of, 36, 224; reinterpreted as success, 254–5, 256; shifts in competitive landscape, 239–46; ‘Swiss cheese model’ of safety systems, 186–7, 190, 209, 218; types of error and mistake, 208–10; willingness to fail, 249–50, 261–2; of young industries, 10 Fearon, James, 137, Federal Aviation Administration, 210 Federal Reserve Bank, 193–4 feedback, 25, 26, 42, 178, 240; in bureaucratic hierarchies, 30–1; development and, 141–3; dictatorships’ immunity to, 27; Iraq war and, 43–5, 46, 57–8, 59–62; market system and, 141; praise sandwich, 254; public services and, 141; self-employment and, 258; yes-men and, 30 Feith, Douglas, 44, 45 Ferguson, Chris ‘Jesus’, 32 Fermi nuclear reactor (near Detroit), 187 Festinger, Leon, 251 financial crisis (from 2007), 5, 11, 25; AIG and, 189, 193–5, 215–16, 228; bankers’ bonuses, 198; banking system as complex and tightly coupled, 185, 186, 187–90, 200, 201, 207–8, 220; bond insurance business and, 189–90; collateralised debt obligations (CDOs), 190, 209; credit default swaps (CDSs), 187–9, 190, 194; derivatives deals and, 198, 220; faulty information systems and, 193–5; fees paid to administrators, 197; government bail-outs/guarantees, 202, 214, 223; Lehman Brothers and, 193, 194, 196–200, 204–5, 208, 215–16; ‘LMX spiral’ comparisons, 183–4, 189; Repo 105 accounting trick, 199 Financial Services Authority (FSA), 214 Firefox, 221, 230 Fleming, Alexander, 83 Food Preservation prize, 107, 108 Ford Motor Company, 46–7 fossil record, 18 Fourier, Joseph, 155 fraud, corporate, 208, 210, 212–13, 214 Friedel, Robert, 80 Frost, Robert, 260 A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (musical), 248 Gage, Phineas, 21, 27 Galapagos Islands, 86, 87 Gale (US developer), 152 Galenson, David, 260 Galileo, 187 Galland, Adolf, 81 Gallipoli campaign (1915), 41–2 Galvin, Major General Jack, 62, 256 game theory, 138, 205 Gates, Bill, 110, 115 Gates, Robert, 59, 64, 78 Gates Foundation, 110 Geithner, Tim, 193–5, 196 GenArts, 13 General Electric, 9, 12, 95 Gilbert, Daniel, 255, 256 GlaxoSmithKline, 95 Glewwe, Paul, 127–8 Global Positioning System (GPS), 113 globalisation, 75 Google, 12, 15, 90, 91, 239, 245, 261; corporate strategy, 36, 231–4; Gmail, 233, 234, 241, 242; peer monitoring at, 229–30 Gore, Al, An Inconvenient Truth, 158 Göring, Hermann, 81 government and politics: climate change and, 157–8, 163, 169–74, 176, 180; development aid and, 118, 120, 143, 144, 148–9; financial crisis (from 2007) and, 193–5, 198–9, 202, 214, 215–16, 223; grandiosity and, 27–8; ideal hierarchies and, 46pos=00002pos=0000022558 >7, 49–50, 62–3, 78; innovation funding, 82, 88, 93, 97, 99–101, 102–3, 104, 113; lack of adaptability rewarded, 20; pilot schemes and, 29, 30; rigorous evaluation methods and, 29* Graham, Loren, 26 Grameen Bank, 116, 117 Greece, 147 Green, Donald, 29* greenhouse effect, 154–6 Gulf War, first, 44, 53, 65, 66, 67, 71; Battle of 73 Easting, 72–3, 74, 79 Gutenberg, Johannes, 10 Haldane, Andrew, 195, 258 Halifax (HBOS subsidiary), 211 Halley, Edmund, 105 Halliburton, 217 Hamel, Gary, 221, 226, 233, 234 Hanna, Rema, 135 Hannah, Leslie, 8–10, 18 Hanseatic League, 150 Harrison, John, 106–7, 108, 110, 111 Harvard University, 98–9, 185 Hastings, Reed, 108 Hausmann, Ricardo, 145 Hayek, Friedrich von, 1, 72, 74–5, 227 HBOS, 211, 213, 214 healthcare sector, US, 213–14 Heckler, Margaret, 90–1 Henry the Lion, 149, 150, 151–2, 153 Hewitt, Adrian, 169 Hidalgo, César, 144–7, 148 Higginson, Peter, 230 Hinkley Point B power station, 192–3, 230–1 Hitachi, 11 Hitler, Adolf, 41, 82, 83, 150 HIV-AIDS, 90–1, 96, 111, 113 Holland, John, 16, 103 Hong Kong, 150 Houston, Dame Fanny, 88–9, 114 Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), 101–3, 112 Hughes (computer company), 11 Humphreys, Macartan, 136, 137, 138–40 Hurricane aircraft, 82* IBM, 11, 90, 95–6 In Search of Excellence (Peters and Waterman, 1982), 8, 10 India, 135, 136, 143, 147, 169 individuals: adaptation and, 223–4, 248–62; climate change and, 158–63, 164, 165–6; experimentation and, 260–2; trial and error and, 31–5 Indonesia, 133–4, 142, 143 Innocentive, 109 innovation: corporations and, 17, 81–2, 87–9, 90, 93–4, 95–7, 108–11, 112, 114, 224–30, 232–4; costs/funding of, 90–4, 99–105; failure as price worth paying, 101–3, 104, 184, 215, 236; government funding, 82, 88, 93, 97, 99–101, 102–3, 104, 113; grants and, 108; in health field, 90–1, 96; large teams and specialisation, 91–4; market system and, 17, 95–7, 104; new technologies and, 89–90, 91, 94–5; parallel possibilities and, 86–9, 104; prize methodology, 106–11, 112, 113–14, 179, 222–3; randomistas and, 127–9, 132, 133, 135–40, 258; return on investment and, 83–4; skunk works model, 89, 91, 93, 152, 224, 242–3, 245; slowing down of, 90–5, 97; small steps and, 16, 24, 29, 36, 99, 103, 143, 149, 153, 224, 259–60; space tourism, 112–13, 114; specialisation and, 91–2; speculative leaps and, 16, 36, 91, 99–100, 103–4, 259–60; unpredictability and, 84–5 Intel, 11, 90, 95 International Christelijk Steunfonds (ICS), 127–9, 131 International Harvester, 9 International Rescue Committee (IRC), 137–8, 139 internet, 12, 15, 63, 90, 113, 144, 223, 233, 238, 241; randomised experiments and, 235–6, 237; see also Google Iraq war: al Anbar province, 56–7, 58, 64, 76–7; civil war (2006), 39–40; Commander’s Emergency Response Program (CERP), 77; counterinsurgency strategy, 43, 45, 55–6, 58, 60–1, 63–4, 65; decentralisation and, 76–8, 79; feedback and, 43–5, 46, 57–8, 59–62; FM 3–24 (counter-insurgency manual), 63; Forward Operating Bases (FOBs), 51–3, 57, 65; Haditha killings (19 November 2005), 37–9, 40, 42, 43, 52; new technologies and, 71, 72, 74, 78–9, 196; Samarra bombing (22 February 2006), 39; Tal Afar, 51, 52, 53–5, 61, 64, 74, 77, 79; trial and error and, 64–5, 66–7; US turnaround in, 35, 40, 46, 50–1, 53–6, 57–8, 59–61, 63–5, 78; US/allied incompetence and, 38, 39–40, 42–5, 46, 50, 64, 67, 79, 223; Vietnam parallels, 46 J&P Coats, 9 Jacobs, Jane, 87 James, Jonathan, 30 Jamet, Philippe, 192 Janis, Irving, 62 Japan, 11, 143, 176, 204, 208 Jay-Z, 119 Jo-Ann Fabrics, 235 Jobs, Steve, 19 Joel, Billy, 247–8, 249 Johnson, President Lyndon, 46, 47, 49–50, 60, 62, 64, 78 Jones, Benjamin F., 91–2 Joyce, James, 260 JP Morgan, 188 Kahn, Herman, 93 Kahneman, Daniel, 32, 253 Kantorovich, Leonid, 68–9, 76 Kaplan, Fred, 77 Karlan, Dean, 135 Kauffmann, Stuart, 16, 103 Kay, John, 206–7, 208, 215, 259 Keller, Sharon, 252 Kelly, Terri, 230 Kennedy, President John F., 41, 47, 62–3, 84, 113 Kenya, 127–9, 131 Kerry, John, 20 Keynes, John Maynard, 181 Kilcullen, David, 57, 60–1 Klemperer, Paul, 96, 205 Klinger, Bailey, 145 Kotkin, Stephen, 25 Kremer, Michael, 127–8, 129 Krepinevich, Andy, 45 Lanchester, John, 188 leaders: decision making and, 40–2; failure of feedback and, 30–1, 62; grandiosity and, 27–8; ignoring of failure, 36; mistakes by, 41–2, 56, 67; need to believe in, 5–6; new leader as solution, 59 Leamer, Ed, 132* Leeson, Nick, 184–5, 208 Lehman Brothers, 193, 194, 196–200, 204–5, 208, 215–16 Lenin Dam (Dnieper River), 24 Levine, John, 48–9 Levitt, Steven, 132–3 Liberia, 136–9 light bulbs, 162, 177 Lind, James, 122–3 Lindzen, Richard, 156 Livingstone, Ken, 169 Lloyd’s insurance, 183 Lloyds TSB, 214 Local Motors, 90 Lockheed, Skunk Works division, 89, 93, 224, 242 Lomas, Tony, 196, 197–200, 204, 205, 208, 219 Lomborg, Bjorn, 94 longitude problem, 105–7, 108 Lu Hong, 49 Lübeck, 149–50, 151–2, 153 Luftwaffe, 81–2 MacFarland, Colonel Sean, 56–7, 64, 74, 76–7, 78 Mackay, General Andrew, 67–8, 74 Mackey, John, 227, 234 Madoff, Bernard, 208212–13 Magnitogorsk steel mills, 24–5, 26, 153 Malawi, 119 Mallaby, Sebastian, 150, 151 management gurus, 8, 233 Manhattan Project, 82, 84 Manso, Gustavo, 102 Mao Zedong, 11, 41 market system: competition, 10–11, 17, 19, 75, 95, 170, 239–46; ‘disciplined pluralism’, 259; evolutionary theory and, 17; failure in as natural, 10, 11, 12, 244, 245–6; feedback loops, 141; innovation and, 17, 95–7, 104; patents and, 95–7; trial and error, 20; validation and, 257–8 Markopolos, Harry, 212–13 Marmite, 124 Maskelyne, Nevil, 106 mathematics, 18–19, 83, 146, 247; financial crisis (from 2007) and, 209, 213; prizes, 110, 114 Mayer, Marissa, 232, 234 McDonald’s, 15, 28 McDougal, Michael, 252 McGrath, Michael, 252 McMaster, H.R.

California Burning: The Fall of Pacific Gas and Electric--And What It Means for America's Power Grid
by Katherine Blunt
Published 29 Aug 2022

Legislation passed in 2006 accelerated that mandate by changing the deadline to 2010. The utilities would have to move much faster in order to comply. At the time, the climate change debate was mostly limited to scientists and policymakers awakening to the consequences of burning fossil fuels with abandon. That changed with An Inconvenient Truth, a documentary by former vice president Al Gore that walked through the devastating effects of a warming planet. The film earned two Oscars and became a watercooler topic in corporate offices across the country. Peevey got a feel for the movie’s impact one evening at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco.

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See also specific hedge funds Heffern family, 4 Henderson, Thelton, 157, 180, 189 Hoffman, Hallie, 151, 158–59, 168–70, 198–99 Hoffman, Tom, 178, 179 Hofmann, David, 215–16, 274 Howells, Julius, 24, 28–29, 30, 31, 36, 45 hydroelectric power, 25–28 mechanics of, 25 nation’s first power plant in Appleton, 26–27 hydropower, 25 I An Inconvenient Truth (Gore), 96 Insull, Samuel, 39, 40 International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1245, 92–93 inverse condemnation, 100–101, 188 Investor Summit on Climate Risk, 2008, 98–99 Iranian Revolution, 55 J Johnson, Bill blackouts of 2019 and, 229–31 named CEO of PG&E, 211–12 PG&E guilty plea to homicide for Camp Fire and, 279–80, 283–84 questioned by Abrams at bankruptcy hearing, 2–5 rejects San Francisco’s purchase offer, 235–36 resignation from PG&E of, 6, 286 K Keenan, Jack, 134 KeySpan Corporation, 110–11 Kincade Fire, 231–32 Klarman, Seth, 244 Knighthead Capital Management, 212–13, 244, 280, 281 L Latham & Watkins LLP, 158, 159 Lay, Ken, 71 Liccardo, Sam, 238–39 Lloyd’s Register, 119–20, 121 Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, 101 M Manegold, Bill, 171–75, 269 market clearing price, 66 market power, 41 Martin, John, 32, 33–35, 45 megawatt hours, 65 Middle East oil supplies, 54 Mirant, 63 Mojave Solar, 127–30 Monday Night Football game, blackouts at, 118–19 monopolies, 39–40 Montali, Dennis, 202–3, 245–47 Moody’s, 281 Musk, Elon, 97 N National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), 109–10, 117–18 natural gas, 56 Natural Gas Pipeline Safety Act (1968), 148, 153, 168 natural monopolies, 39–40 Newsom, Gavin, 202, 213–14 appoints Batjer to head CPUC, 228 blackouts of 2019 and, 228, 232–33 state fund for utilities’ future liabilities cost and, 217–18 supports PG&E bankruptcy plan, 240–41 Niagara Falls hydroelectric plant, 27 Nixon, Richard, 55 Noel, Marc Camp Fire investigation of, 14–15, 198, 267–70 Dixie Fire investigation of, 290 request PG&E send evidence to FBI, 19–20 North American Company Great Western Power Company acquired by, 45–46 PG&E and Great Western merger and, 46–47 North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), 117, 137 NRG Energy, 63 NTSB.

How to Talk to a Science Denier: Conversations With Flat Earthers, Climate Deniers, and Others Who Defy Reason
by Lee McIntyre
Published 14 Sep 2021

One result was the creation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which has done so much to raise public awareness about global warming.40 Even as late as 2008, there was still some semblance of bipartisanship: witness a public service announcement on television, where Republican Newt Gingrich and Democrat Nancy Pelosi sat on a couch and promised a unified approach to fight global warming.41 Of course, by then Al Gore was already back in the spotlight with his slide shows, culminating in his 2006 book and film, An Inconvenient Truth. The issue of climate change was already on its way to being politicized, even though it had not yet reached the level of partisan fervor we find today. First, the politicians would have to completely capitulate to corporate interests, who had a vested stake in seeing how this “debate” turned out.42 In her 2016 book, Dark Money, Jane Mayer makes the case that climate denial was initiated by those with fossil fuel investments, such as the Koch brothers and ExxonMobil.43 Indeed, the money coming from Charles and David Koch alone was staggering: “From 2005 to 2008, a single source, the Kochs, poured almost $25 million into dozens of different organizations fighting climate reform.”44 This meant that they outspent ExxonMobil by a factor of three.

…

Think tanks.49 Conferences.50 Lobbyists. Research by industry-friendly scientists. Media coverage. In a word: doubt. In Dark Money Mayer reports that Harvard political scientist Theda Skocpol marks 2007 as a turning point in the fight over climate change. This was just after Al Gore was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and An Inconvenient Truth had come out. Polls showed that the public was beginning to worry more about global warming. At this point, the forces of climate denial began to fight back with increased vigor. Radio, TV, books, and testimony before Congress all contributed to a public relations push for more skepticism about climate change.

Aerotropolis
by John D. Kasarda and Greg Lindsay
Published 2 Jan 2009

They’ve been growing fast because they invest in technology and they make things. They have no intention of letting up in manufacturing in order to evolve into a service economy. They know where the money is and they aim to get there first.” They’d already beaten GE to Detroit. Immelt spoke an inconvenient truth—it may be too late. Detroit may be too far behind, too slow, and too broken for an aerotropolis to make much difference. The worst-case scenario may not be that it doesn’t work—if they build it and no one comes—but that it works in reverse, unintentionally vacuuming talent and opportunities elsewhere.

…

“Had it not been for the discovery of Coal Oil, the race of whales would soon have become extinct,” a California publication noted at the time. “It is estimated that ten years would have used up the whole family.” But the world wasn’t out of the woods. Six years later, the British economist William Stanley Jevons declared another long emergency. The Coal Question, published in 1865, was An Inconvenient Truth for Victorian England—a clear-eyed description of Britain’s looming peak coal reckoning, complete with a sobering analysis of the country’s coal reserves cross-referenced with its ravenous consumption. The country would run out of coal in less than a hundred years, he estimated, and the result would be cataclysmic.

…

The Virgin Group chairman reconciles his split personality with earnest displays of penitence: “If you run a dirty business,” he has said, taking pains to lump himself in with the sinners, “you should pay for the privilege because you are doing damage.” Not long ago he was an apostate, clinging fast to his disbelief until Al Gore paid him a visit. After sitting through a live performance of An Inconvenient Truth, Branson promptly converted, displaying a neophyte’s zeal. Shortly thereafter in 2006, he announced at Bill Clinton’s annual summit he would divert all profits from his transportation businesses— mostly planes and a few trains—to develop sustainable, renewable fuels. “We have to wean ourselves off our dependence on fossil fuels,” he said between bursts of shocked applause.

The Third Industrial Revolution: How Lateral Power Is Transforming Energy, the Economy, and the World
by Jeremy Rifkin
Published 27 Sep 2011

She said she was thrilled with the vision of a Third Industrial Revolution but warned that the British government was taking a U-turn back to the old, centralized power sources of the twentieth century, especially with the reintroduction of nuclear power, which she regarded as dangerous to the future welfare of humanity. She pleaded with me to do a documentary opposing nuclear power that would have widespread visibility like Al Gore’s film, An Inconvenient Truth, did for global warming. She offered her assistance. Seeing that she was visibly shaken and distraught, I asked her name. She said, “Marion Miliband,” the wife of the late Ralph Miliband, for whom the lecture I had just given is named. I said, “I was just with your son a few hours ago, and he appears committed to the idea of bringing back nuclear power.

…

J., 244–5 Acciona Energia, 4, 75, 78 Adams, Sam, 10 ADM, 121 Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture, 4, 102 AeroVironment, 60 Africa-Europe Energy Partnership (AEEP), 172–3 African Union, 163–4, 172–5 Albert II, Prince, 78, 95–7 Alemanno, Gianni, 78, 82–3, 85, 143–4 Almunia, Joaquin, 66 aluminum, 209 American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE), 210 American exceptionalism, 131 Americans for Prosperity, 158 An Inconvenient Truth (Gore), 146 AOL, 20 Apple, 20 Arup, 4 ASEAN Plan of Action for Energy Cooperation (APAEC), 168–9, 178 ASEAN Plus Three (APT), 168 ASEAN Union, 163, 167–73 AT&T, 113, 134 attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), 249, 252–3 Axworthy, Lloyd, 182 Ayres, Robert, 204–5 Baba Moussa, Aboubakari, 174 Bakker, Peter, 162 Baldacci, John, 186 Barfield, Owen, 238–9, 241 Barker, Greg, 147–9 Barroso, Manuel, 4, 50, 63–7, 75 Bartels, Guido, 53–4, 57 Beatley, Timothy, 256 Becerril, Carmen, 75 Benz, Karl, 64 Berlusconi, Silvio, 143–4 Bernanke, Ben, 17 Berry, Thomas, 250 Bicentennial Celebration, American, 11–2 biomimicry, 210 biophilia, 237–41, 250–3, 256 biosphere consciousness, 99, 143, 150, 188, 225, 233, 235–43, 254–7, 270 Birol, Fatih, 16 Blair, Tony, 145–6 Blum, Harold, 199 Boston Oil Party of 1973, 9–13, 31 BP oil spill (2010), 28–9 Bradbury, Kenton, 57 Brazil, 176–7 Breedlove, Ben, 255 Brin, Sergey, 159 Brown, Gordon, 145–8 Bruffee, Kenneth, 245–7 Burgio, Gabriele, 205 Bush, George W., 34, 61, 92, 154 Bush, George H.

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking
by Susan Cain
Published 24 Jan 2012

He tried to tell others what he knew. But he found that people wouldn’t listen. It was as if they couldn’t hear the alarm bells that rang so loudly in his ears. “When I went to Congress in the middle of the 1970s, I helped organize the first hearings on global warming,” he recalls in the Oscar-winning movie An Inconvenient Truth—a film whose most stirring action scenes involve the solitary figure of Gore wheeling his suitcase through a midnight airport. Gore seems genuinely puzzled that no one paid attention: “I actually thought and believed that the story would be compelling enough to cause a real sea change in the way Congress reacted to that issue.

…

These Ralph-like Congressmen can be wonderful people—exuberant, fearless, persuasive—but they’re unlikely to feel alarmed by a photograph of a tiny crack in a distant glacier. They need more intense stimulation to get them to listen. Which is why Gore finally got his message across when he teamed up with whiz-bang Hollywood types who could package his warning into the special-effects-laden show that became An Inconvenient Truth. Gore also drew on his own strengths, using his natural focus and diligence to tirelessly promote the movie. He visited dozens of movie theaters across the country to meet with viewers, and gave innumerable TV and radio interviews. On the subject of global warming, Gore has a clarity of voice that eluded him as a politician.

Business Lessons From a Radical Industrialist
by Ray C. Anderson
Published 28 Mar 2011

And by the way, would I cochair this larger effort with former senator Gary Hart? In considering whether to accept the cochair, I thought, one way or the other, any presidential candidate is going to have to face up to the climate crisis. Al Gore saw to that soon after PCAP convened, when he published and filmed An Inconvenient Truth. I believed that that, coupled with Hurricane Katrina, created a propitious moment and another one of those supersaturated solutions that had precipitated this time into a vast shift of public attitudes. When the people lead, the leaders follow. At the same time, the cause-and-effect connections that join wasteful energy use, the economy, national security, dependence on imported oil, and global warming was being driven home further as oil prices started to spike.

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See companies Covey, Stephen Craigavon, Northern Ireland, Interface facility creation care credit card debt curbside recycling programs customers attracted by environmental claims listening to cycles, nature’s way dams Dartmouth College debt Deering-Milliken deforestation Déjà vu carpet Dell Dell’Orco, Sergio dematerialization desert brine shrimp Diamond, Jared, Collapse dikes, failure of Dillon-Ridgley, Dianne dioxins Disney Corporation Diversity Connect Dodd, Bobby doing well by doing good dominion over the earth (biblical) Dow Chemicals Drake, Edwin Duke Energy DuPont Earth (planet) as Biblical garden danger faced by Eco Dream Team ecology Ecometrics economic logic economics, courses in Ecosense efficiency and fairness, linked and loss of resilience efficiency measures, useful, but limiting effluent pipes cutting emissions from inventory of inventory of emissions from Ehrlich, Paul and Anne, environmental impact equation of Einstein, Albert Eisenhower, Dwight electric transmission system electric utility industry embodied energy emissions, cutting Emory University end-of-pipe solutions Enel Latin America Energia Global energy clean (including solar) cutting back on use of government subsidies to price of renewable world demands engineering schools, sustainability courses in Enron entrepreneurship go/no-go decision point of training for Entropy carpet line entropy law environment, stewardship of environmental education environmental injustice zones environmentalism false claims suspicion of environmental laws and regulations Environmental Protection Agency environmental responsibility, and profit Epson Portland erosion, and floods ethanol fuels ethical sustainability ethics Evangelical Climate Initiative Evergreen Service Agreement evidence, waiting for last scrap of, before taking precautions externalities extracted minerals, must not increase in nature Exxon Valdez oil spill factories called “plants” (strangely) close to markets fairness, economic and efficiency, are linked Fairworks program faith farmers subsidies to Fastforward to 2020 program Fetz, Charles Fiji Water filtration financial industry, innovative instruments for energy saving financial meltdown of 2008 fish, polluted fishing industry Fitzgerald, Patrick Five P’s floods Fonterra food chain, concentration of contaminants in Ford, Henry forests, value of forever wild Forster, Piers fossil fuels counted as waste in Interface’s metrics dependence on end of age of energy from, not sustainable history of use of Framework Convention on Climate Change (UN) Friedman, Milton Frito-Lay division Fritts, Charles fuel economy mandates future embrace it (or be left behind) showing in the headlights future generations needs of their view of our present handling of the three crises Gallup Gandhi, Mahatma garden, Earth as (in Bible) Genentech General Electric (GE) Georgia Tech Institute for Sustainable Technology and Development (ISTD) Institute of Sustainable Systems (ISS) Germany GlasBac GlasBac RE global climate change doing nothing about, evil of skepticism about globalization, absurd supply chains in Global ReLeaf program global warming. See global climate change global-warming effect, net zero glue God’s currency Goethe Gonen, Ron Google Gore, Al An Inconvenient Truth Gorman, Mary government failure of, to solve environmental problems mandates from power of, to effect environmental change Grant, Ulysses S. Great Dane Trailers “greed is good” Green, John C. greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions effect on global warming effect on other planets (such as Venus) measuring of reduction of volume of green investors Greenlist green power, generation of, on-site green products, can’t be made from brown companies Greenspan, Alan greenwash Gretzky, Wayne grid, “off the” grid parity Grosclose, Frank gross domestic product, distortions of Gustashaw, Dave habitat Habitat for Humanity Haft, David Hansen, James Hart, Gary Hart, Stuart Hartzfeld, Jim Hawken, Paul Blessed Unrest The Ecology of Commerce Hawken, Paul, Amory Lovins, and L.

When China Rules the World: The End of the Western World and the Rise of the Middle Kingdom
by Martin Jacques
Published 12 Nov 2009

(Fig. 20); Chicago Council on Global Affairs (Figs 41, 42, Table 7); China Youth Research Centre (Figs 47-52); Dentsu Institute for Human Studies (Figs 4-8, Table 1); Energy Information Administration (Fig. 14); Goldman Sachs (Figs 1, 23, derived from Dominic Wilson and Anna Stupnytska, ‘The N-11: More than an Acronym’, GS Global Economic Papers 153, 2007, p. 11; Fig. 10); HarperCollins (Fig. 9, derived from Nicholas Ostler, Empires of the World, 2005, p. 526); IDC (Fig. 17); Institute for Public Policy Research (Fig. 33, derived from Leni Wild and David Mepham (eds.), The New Sinosphere, 2006, p. 16); Institute of International Education (Fig. 53, derived from Open Doors, 2007); International Herald Tribune (Fig. 19); International Institute for Strategic Studies (Figs 31, 32); International Monetary Fund (Figs 37, 39, 40); S. Jonah (Table 4); Mainland Affairs Council, Taiwan (Fig. 30, derived from Chih-cheng Lo, ‘An Inconvenient Truth: The Rise of Taiwanese Identity and its Impacts’, paper presented at the LSE conference ‘Nationalism, Globalization and Regional Security in Northeast Asia’, 12 May 2007, p. 13); Miniwatts Marketing Group (Figs 44, 45); National Chengchi University Election Studies Centre (Fig. 29, derived from Chih-cheng Lo, ‘An Inconvenient Truth’, p. 5); New York Times (Fig. 15); OECD (Fig. 3, Table 2, derived from Angus Maddison, The World Economy, 2003, pp. 179, 261; Fig. 12, derived from Angus Maddison, Chinese Economic Performance in the Long Run, revised edn, 2007, p. 61; Table 3, derived from A.

…

, YaleGlobal Online, 19 January 2006 Lieven, Anatol, America Right or Wrong: An Anatomy of American Nationalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) Little, Ian, Picking Winners: The East Asian Experience (London: Social Market Foundation, 1996) Lo, Bobo, ‘Russia, China and the Georgia Dimension’, Centre for European Reform Bulletin 62 (October-November 2008) Lo, Chih-cheng, ‘An Inconvenient Truth: The Rise of Taiwanese Identity and Its Impacts’, paper given at conference on ‘Nationalism and Globalisation in North- East Asia’, Asia Research Centre, London School of Economics, 12 May 2007 Lo, Fu-chen, and Yue-man Yeung, eds, Emerging World Cities in Pacific Asia (Tokyo: United Nations University, 1996) Long, Simon, ‘India and China: The Tiger in Front’, survey, The Economist, 5 March 2005 Loper, Kelley, ‘Cultivating a Multicultural Society and Combating Racial Discrimination in Hong Kong’, Civic Exchange, August 2001 Lovell, Julia, The Great Wall: China Against the World 1000 BC- AD 2000 (London: Atlantic Books, 2006) Lu Xun, The True Story of Ah Q, trans.

The Code: Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America
by Margaret O'Mara
Published 8 Jul 2019

“This is not checkers,” Ben Horowitz advised would-be entrepreneurs. “This is motherfuckin’ chess.”15 AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH Among those made very wealthy in this era: Al Gore, who already was living one of the more extraordinary afterlives in American political history. Gore had first turned media mogul, embarking on a cable news venture called Current TV. He then had gained fame as a bearded prophet of climate change after a 2006 documentary in which he starred, An Inconvenient Truth, became an Oscar-winning smash. But it was his next act as a Silicon Valley advisor and venture capitalist that turned him into a multimillionaire.

…

Doerr was ready for a next act, and he was thinking bigger: not just consumer software, but global “grand challenges” that might, under the right conditions, provide huge market opportunity. Alternative energy—green tech—was the biggest challenge and opportunity of them all. Like many others who saw Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, Doerr had become increasingly worried about the consequences of untrammeled consumption of fossil fuels. As he tooled around the Valley in his new Toyota Prius, Doerr realized that rising energy prices and turmoil in the Middle East were going to soon force a policy tipping point. The George W.

The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World
by Niall Ferguson
Published 13 Nov 2007

There is also ‘observational evidence of an increase in intense tropical cyclone activity in the North Atlantic since about 1970’. The rising sea levels forecast by the IPCC would inevitably increase the flood damage caused by storms like Katrina.84 Not all scientists accept the notion that hurricane activity along the US Atlantic coast is on the increase (as claimed by Al Gore in his film An Inconvenient Truth). But it would clearly be a mistake blithely to assume that this is not the case, especially given the continued growth of residential construction in vulnerable states. For governments that are already tottering under the weight of ever-increasing welfare commitments, an increase in the frequency or scale of catastrophes could be fiscally fatal.

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E. 95 Glasgow 234 loan sharks 13 need for credit networks 13 Glassman, James K. 123-4 globalization 4 and conflict 339-40 defined 286 first era of 286-7 opposition to 309 see also sovereign wealth funds global warming see climate change Goebbels, Joseph 80 gold 56 coins 24 conquistadors and 19-20 and Great Depression 162-4 Incas and 19-20 increased production 56 as international reserve currency 305 and Mississippi Bubble 149-50 in Napoleonic Wars 81-4 pension funds and 123 reserves 56 see also gold standard Goldberg, Whoopi 267 golden mean 32 Goldman Sachs 1-2 . gold standard 58 Britain and 55-6 and crisis of 1914 300 inter-war years 161 Keynes on 58 and rentes 100 spread of 294 US abandonment of 307 and Wall Street Crash 161 Gordy, Berry 250 Gore, Al 117 An Inconvenient Truth 224 government bonds 65-72, 100 Government National Mortgage Association see Ginnie Mae government sponsored enterprises (GSEs) 251 graduates 5 grain 27 Grameen (‘Village’) Bank 279-80 Gramm, Senator Phil 170 Graunt, John 188 Gray, Edwin J. 258 Great Depression 9 and home ownership 241-6 see also unemployment Great Fire (1666) 186 Great Inflation see inflation Great Scene of Folly, The 147 Greece 296 Greenspan, Alan: and Black Monday (1987) 166 on bond market 65 and Enron 168-70 on ‘irrational exuberance’ 121 and mortgage crisis 266 successes of 168-9 and technology bubble 167-8 Greenwich, Connecticut 320 Griffin, Kenneth C. 2 Grinspun, Bernardo 111 Gross, William 68 gross domestic product (GDP): financial sectors and 5 international data 210-11 growth (economic) 31 GSEs see government sponsored enterprises Gualpa, Diego 21 Guangzhou (Canton) 289-91 Guatemala 2 Guicciardini, Francesco 46 Habsburg Empire 3 Haghani, Victor 322 ‘haircuts’ 115 Haiti 275 Halley, Edmund 188 Hamburg 186n.

The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart
by Bill Bishop and Robert G. Cushing
Published 6 May 2008

After 6,000 people signed a petition asking for an elective high school course on the Bible, the Odessa, Texas, board of education added the course to the curriculum.39 Meanwhile, students in Philadelphia's public schools are required to take a course in black history.40 In 2007, the Federal Way school district in exurban Seattle banned the showing of Al Gore's global warming documentary, An Inconvenient Truth.41 The Environment. After the Bush administration decided it had no authority to regulate greenhouse gases, blue America sued. A coalition of twelve states—all but one of which voted Democratic in the last two presidential elections—two bright blue cities, and thirteen environmental groups asked the courts to intervene.

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See also Chicago, Ill. Immigration and immigrants, [>], [>], [>] In His Steps What Would Jesus Do? (Sheldon), [>] Income: migration and wages, [>]–[>], [>], [>]–[>], personal income in cities, [>], polarization by, [>]–[>], [>] n, [>]; and political party membership, [>], [>]–[>]. See also Poverty An Inconvenient Truth, [>] Independent voters, [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>] n India, [>], [>]–[>], [>], [>] Indiana, [>] Inflation, [>] Influential people, [>] The Influenhals (Berry and Keller), [>] n Inglehart, Ronald, [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>]–[>] n, [>], [>], [>], [>], [>] Integration, [>], [>], [>], [>] Integrity versus success, [>]–[>], [>] n Intel, [>], [>] International Harvester, [>] Internet, [>], [>], [>], [>], [>] n, [>], [>] Iowa, [>] n, [>] n Iraq War, [>], [>], [>], [>], [>] n, [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>], [>] n, [>] Ireland, [>] Israel, [>], [>] Ivins, Molly, [>] Iyengar, Shanto, [>]–[>] Jackson, Jesse, [>] Jacobs, Jane, [>], [>], [>]–[>], [>] n Jacobson, Gary, [>], [>], [>] n Japan, [>], [>], [>] Jarrell, Randy, [>], [>] Jefferson, Thomas, [>]–[>], [>], [>] Jefferson County, Ore., [>] Jenkins, Jerry B., [>] Jenkinson, Edward B., [>]–[>] Jews, [>], [>] n, [>] n Jobs.

Hot: Living Through the Next Fifty Years on Earth
by Mark Hertsgaard
Published 15 Jan 2011

If we do what it takes to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to safe levels and prepare for the impacts we see are under way, we will transform the economic foundation of modern civilization and ... realize better health, social justice and sustainable economic development throughout the world." By all accounts, "The Future Ain't What It Used to Be" was a great success. "We were planning the conference long before Gore's movie [An Inconvenient Truth] came out, so we thought there might be 100 people there," Sims recalled. " But we had 650 show up. People were ready to hear what they could do." Afterward, Sims and his staff compiled a guidebook so others could learn how to create and manage their own adaptation programs. Written in collaboration with Miles and his colleagues at the CIG, the 186-page manual, Preparing for Climate Change, describes in clear, nontechnical prose why to start adapting now, how to prepare and implement a climate action plan, what pitfalls to avoid ("Expect surprises" reads one item), and other valuable information.

…

"We don't do that here, not because we're not balanced but because we think it's unbalanced to give equal validity to a fringe few with no science behind them." As of April 2010, much of the U.S. media has still not learned this basic lesson of news judgment. U.S. media coverage of global warming had begun to improve in early 2006, when, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and emboldened by the release of Gore's documentary An Inconvenient Truth, many news organizations finally made it clear that an overwhelming majority of scientists believed man-made global warming is real, already under way, and very dangerous. But the improvement turned out to be short-lived. By late 2009, key parts of the media in the United States and internationally had reverted to their long-standing posture of scientific illiteracy and de facto complicity with the deniers' disinformation campaign.

The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World
by Daniel Yergin
Published 14 May 2011

The media image of the hurricanes’ devastation—the desperate people in the Superdome and the refugees fleeing the submerged city—all this provided a grim metaphor for the storms and the ensuing destruction and chaos that could become more common with an increasingly more aggrieved climate. The next year a different kind of media education took place. It was a rather unlikely movie, An Inconvenient Truth—a documentary, more precisely; the setting to film of a slide show that former vice president Al Gore had been showing around since 1990. He had been reluctant to turn his slide show into a film, but the producers were persuasive. The film played to packed theaters, and it had an extraordinary impact on the public dialogue.

…

The film played to packed theaters, and it had an extraordinary impact on the public dialogue. Some of the footage was overpowering, most notably the melting glaciers and the giant sheets of ice falling into the sea—the very kind of imagery that would have riveted John Tyndall and the other nineteenth-century pioneers of climate change research. An Inconvenient Truth became a global cinematic event. The British government had it distributed to secondary schools. And in February 2007 it won an Academy Award—a mighty achievement for a film that started as a slide show. That same month, February 2007, the IPCC began releasing its fourth assessment. Its most sophisticated calculations had been done on the supercomputers of the U.S.

…

MacDonald, Roger Revelle, and Charles Keeling, “The Carbon Dioxide Report,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 35, no. 8 (1979), pp. 56–57. 37 Speth, Red Sky at Morning, pp. 2–9. 38 Jonathan Overpeck, “Arctic Environmental Change of the Last Four Centuries,” Science 278, no. 5341 (1997). 39 Walter Munk, “Tribute to Roger Revelle and His Contributions to Studies of Carbon Dioxide and Climate Change,” Colloquium on Carbon Dioxide and Climate Change, National Academy of Sciences, Irvine, CA, November 13–15, 1995 (“exile”); Revelle Oral History. 40 Roger R. Revelle, Lecture Notes, Mc6 Box 55, Folder “Natural Sciences 118,” Scripps Institution of Oceanography Archives. 41 Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth (New York: Rodale Books, 2006), p. 10; Al Gore, Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit (New York: Rodale Books, 2006), p. 5 (“rest of my life”); Hecht and Tirpak, “Framework Agreement on Climate Change,” p. 381 (“deeply disturbed”). Chapter 23: The Road to Rio 1 Mathew Paterson, Global Warming and Global Politics (London: Routledge, 1996), p. 32; interview with Robert Stavins, New York Times, June 26, 1988 (“For the Midwest”). 2 Interviews with Tim Wirth and David Harwood; Tim Wirth interview, Frontline, PBS. 3 New York Times, June 23, 1988; James Hansen interview, Frontline, PBS; James Hansen, testimony, U.S.

Losing Earth: A Recent History
by Nathaniel Rich
Published 4 Aug 2018

We have had about as much success in treating the cancer of global warming as might any oncologist permitted to deal merely with the symptoms. As Al Gore and Tom Grumbly understood in 1980, the climate crisis, like most human dramas, has heroes, villains, and victims. Gore himself has occupied all three roles, particularly since the 2006 release of An Inconvenient Truth, a tutorial and polemic that owed some of its success, and much of the intense political backlash, to his celebrity. Pope Francis and Bartholomew have acted with heroism, as have the many obscure officials, scientists, and activists who have dedicated their lives to an unpopular cause, particularly those from the ostracized communities that will suffer most from climatic changes.

Power Hungry: The Myths of "Green" Energy and the Real Fuels of the Future
by Robert Bryce
Published 26 Apr 2011

CHAPTER 15 The United States Can Cut CO2 Emissions by 80 Percent by 2050, and Carbon Capture and Sequestration Can Help Achieve That Goal WHEN IT COMES to global warming, there are two camps: the believers and the skeptics. Both sides put forth complex studies that discuss topics such as “albedo,” “forcings,” and “flux” in the effort to prove their claims—for or against—the idea that unrestrained manmade carbon dioxide emissions will lead to global cataclysm. I’ve seen Al Gore’s movie, An Inconvenient Truth, and I’ve read some of the reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. I’ve also listened to and read some of the things published by the climate “skeptics,” including Richard Lindzen, the climate scientist from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I have interviewed climate scientists.1 I regularly read blogs on climate from both camps.

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Well, for one thing, it may mean relocating large swaths of the population away from areas most affected by the symptoms of global warming. For example, those living in coastal cities may have to move further inland, while those in desert cities may have to go to wetter regions. In short, I don’t side with the “climate alarmists” like Al Gore, who famously—and nonsensically—declared in his movie An Inconvenient Truth that “you can even reduce your carbon emissions to zero.”14 Nor do I side with the “climate skeptics” who maintain that nothing is happening. Instead, I consider myself a realist, a pragmatist who has done the math on carbon dioxide emissions and understands that no matter what course of action the United States takes—short of completely shutting down its economy and consigning the vast majority of its citizens to the drudgery of scratching out an existence with something approximating 40 acres and a mule—it cannot, and will not, make a significant difference to concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide.

Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All
by Michael Shellenberger
Published 28 Jun 2020

One of the key antinuclear advocates, Americans for Nuclear Responsibility, was represented by John Geesman, a longtime Brown advisor, the former chairman of the California Energy Commission, and a renewable energy industry advocate. When CPUC chairman Peevey proposed his scheme to shut down SONGS, he specifically asked that Geesman be part of the effort. 83 7. Bigger than the Internet By 2006, when An Inconvenient Truth won Al Gore an Oscar and a Nobel Prize, renewables were becoming big business. That same year, the venture capitalist John Doerr, an early Google and Amazon investor, cried while giving a TED Talk about global warming. “I’m really scared,” Doerr said. “I don’t think we’re going to make it.”

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You only have what you have because of us, the people, both celebrities and the Royals,” Twitter, August 19, 2019, 2:09 p.m., https://twitter.com/Lynette55/status/1163558755583373312. 10. Associated Press, “Gore gets green kudos for home renovation,” NBC News, December 13, 2007, http://www.nbcnews.com. Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It (Emmaus, PA: Rodale, 2006), 286. 11. Malena Ernman, “Malena Ernman on daughter Greta Thunberg: ‘She was slowly disappearing into some kind of darkness,’ ” The Guardian, February 23, 2020, https://www.theguardian.com. 12.

Taming the Sun: Innovations to Harness Solar Energy and Power the Planet
by Varun Sivaram
Published 2 Mar 2018

At the time, silicon solar panels—in addition to their hefty weight, rigid shape, and ugly aesthetics—were expensive, making the cost of their electricity more than twice that from the grid.1 Silicon was a costly commodity, and the process for manufacturing solar cells was adapted from that for producing expensive microchips. Roscheisen, formerly an Internet entrepreneur, planned to apply Silicon Valley’s model of disruptive innovation to upend the lumbering solar industry. It was an exhilarating time to be in solar. Al Gore’s documentary An Inconvenient Truth had captivated the country. Investors were juiced at the prospect of red-hot market growth, running up the stock market valuations of early solar companies. At Nanosolar, the culture was infectiously optimistic. Around team lunches, we would dream about shipping cheap solar coatings to every corner of the developing world and carpeting remote deserts.

…

See International Energy Agency IFC (International Finance Corporation), 111 Import duties, 136 Incentives. See also specific types, e.g.: Subsidies for demonstration projects, 265 for deploying solar power, xvi, 45, 70 for new solar projects, 65 in power markets, 240 tax-based, 266–271 and U.S. solar industry, 35–36 An Inconvenient Truth (film), 27 India. See also specific locations electric power capacity mix in, 13–15, 14f funding for new solar projects in, 64, 65, 113–114 irrigation and blackouts in, 245–247 microgrids in, 130, 132–134, 136 off-grid solar in, 86, 117, 118 PAYG in, 128 projected solar PV deployment in, 51 public sector promotion of, 113–114, 135 renewable energy in, 106 Softbank’s solar investments in, 109 solar farms in, 4–5 technology costs in, 138 YieldCos in, 97 Indian Institute of Technology, 133 Indonesia, 122 Industrial sector fossil fuels in, 60, 171 and future of solar power, 5, 8 Internet-connected equipment in, 214 Inertia, 77, 242, 285g–286g Infrastructure projects in China, 197, 205 institutional investments in, 93 of Donald J.

The Rich and the Rest of Us
by Tavis Smiley
Published 15 Feb 2012

Is this still the land of real opportunity when nearly 14 million Americans are “officially” unemployed, and millions more are underemployed, to say nothing of the countless millions who have completely given up looking for work? The myth of American exceptionalism, of being the best of the best, overshadows an inconvenient truth. We are a nation where poverty of opportunity is dangerously close to becoming a permanent reality. The power of this myth stifles most of our leaders’ abilities to even utter the “P” word in public. For decades, every President has stood before the American people and assured us that the “State of our Union is strong,” despite years of convincing contradictory evidence, especially as it relates to poverty.

Dream Hoarders: How the American Upper Middle Class Is Leaving Everyone Else in the Dust, Why That Is a Problem, and What to Do About It
by Richard V. Reeves
Published 22 May 2017

To say that downward mobility is not popular is an understatement. We would likely be more relaxed if society were more equal, since the fall would not be so great. Likewise, if everyone was getting generally better off, slipping a quintile or two might not seem like the end of the world. But whatever we do, an inconvenient truth will remain. If more kids from lower-income quintiles are to move up, more of those from higher up must fall. So, how about that dinner? INTERGENERATIONAL MOBILITY: AMERICA’S STICKY TOP Social mobility is an area where it really pays to be clear about definitions. My main interest here is in relative intergenerational mobility, which is not to be confused with absolute intergenerational mobility.

Unleashed
by Anne Morriss and Frances Frei
Published 1 Jun 2020

Kalanick’s infamous “toe-stepping” maxim was one of the first values to be publicly retired when Dara Khosrowshahi took the helm as CEO.b As Khosrowshahi explained in a widely read LinkedIn post, “ ‘Toe-stepping’ was meant to encourage employees to share their ideas regardless of their seniority or position in the company, but too often it was used as an excuse for being an asshole.”9 He went on to acknowledge an inconvenient truth: that the shared assumptions and behaviors that got Uber here were not going to carry the company all the way there, to a sustainable, thriving company. This is incredibly common tension that’s not limited to the world of technology startups. Indeed, we believe that some variation on this challenge is at play inside almost every organization.

Playing With FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early): How Far Would You Go for Financial Freedom?
by Scott Rieckens and Mr. Money Mustache
Published 1 Jan 2019

77 PLAYING WITH FIRE 78 I’m guessing Taylor and I would still be struggling over San Diego real estate if I hadn’t gotten the crazy idea to film a documentary about FIRE. It all started in March 2017. I was talking with a client about how documentaries are such a powerful way to spread a big, bold idea, and I listed all the documentaries that had really affected me — Minimalism, 180° South, An Inconvenient Truth — and even the experience of making my own documentary in 2014, Inventing to Nowhere. All of a sudden, a light went on for me. After I hung up, I googled “financial independence documentary” and found a thread on Reddit titled “Documentaries relevant to FIRE.” But the only films mentioned were Minimalism and a short film called Slomo, about a doctor who quits his job to roller-skate.

Presentation Zen
by Garr Reynolds
Published 15 Jan 2012

(The original embedded image of the dry lake bed from iStockphoto.com.) This tongue-in-cheek example shows the actual bento mentioned in Chapter 1 as the genesis for this book. Before-and-after and then-and-now visual comparisons are easy to create and remember. Al Gore used many then-and-now visual comparisons in his presentations and in the movie An Inconvenient Truth to show physical changes over time. Ask yourself this: What information are you representing with the written word on a slide that you could replace with a photograph (or other appropriate image or graphic)? You still need text for labeling and other things. But if you are using text on a slide for describing something, you probably could use an image more effectively.

Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right
by Jane Mayer
Published 19 Jan 2016

The firm had deep ties to the Republican Party and had worked for powerful interests ranging from ExxonMobil and the Teamsters to the military junta in Myanmar. Goodyear was especially versed in corporate lobbying disguised as hidden-hand “Astroturf” campaigns. But the firm had numerous other talents. While working for ExxonMobil, it had mocked Al Gore’s environmental jeremiad, An Inconvenient Truth, by secretly launching a cartoon spoof that went viral called “Al Gore’s Penguin Army.” Only later were DCI’s fingerprints discovered on the fake indie film. Unlike lobbying firms, which have to disclose some information, public relations firms exerting political pressure can hide the money trail.

…

When Barack Obama took office, the fossil fuel industry was not only eager to preserve its perks but also more militant in its opposition to climate change science than ever. Skocpol notes that 2007 had been a turning point in the fight. That year, Al Gore was awarded both a Nobel Peace Prize and featured in an Academy Award–winning documentary film, An Inconvenient Truth. The film featured Mann’s hockey stick graph. Gore’s acclaim and Mann’s simple chart helped raise concern about global warming to a new peak, with 41 percent of the American public saying it worried them “a great deal.” “At this critical juncture—when Americans in general might have been persuaded of the urgency of dealing with global warming,” Skocpol notes, opponents fought back with new vigor.

Fun Inc.
by Tom Chatfield
Published 13 Dec 2011

But she believes firmly that the idea of using video games as force for political and social engagement is one that will come into its own with time – and is extremely proud of what has already been achieved with titles like Darfur is Dying. ‘This is such a new thing, it is only five years old. Like the film An Inconvenient Truth, there is going to be a game that really shows us what they can do, and changes the way people think. It is going to happen. I just hope it happens sooner rather than later.’ Part of the problem is money. Darfur is Dying was funded via a competition, backed by the American television channel mtvU, a division of MTV that broadcasts across the US to college students.

The Cheapskate Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of Americans Living Happily Below Their Means
by Jeff Yeager
Published 8 Jun 2010

What a bunch of shiitake! (You know, as in mushrooms.) See Chapter 6 for ideas on storing foods for maximum life expectancy. Learn to “ladder” your fresh produce for the week. Eat things like bananas and leaf lettuce first—since they can turn quickly—and save the apples and head lettuce for later in the week. An inconvenient truth: As comedian Dennis Miller said, “You’ve got bad eating habits if you use a grocery cart in a 7-Eleven.” When you shop at most convenience stores, you’re also likely to be spending 50 percent or even more than you’ll pay for the same food items on sale at a supermarket. How convenient is that?

The Vanishing Face of Gaia: A Final Warning
by James E. Lovelock
Published 1 Jan 2009

Kump, Dire Predictions: Understanding Global Warming (DK Publishing, Inc., New York, 2008) Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Report (Island Press, Washington, DC, 2005) Sir Crispin Tickell, Climate Change and World Affairs (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1986) 3 Consequences and Survival Sir David Attenborough, Life on Earth (HarperCollins, London, 1979) Richard Dawkins, The Extended Phenotype (W. H. Freeman, Oxford and San Francisco, 1982) Brian Fagan, The Long Summer (Granta, London, 2005) Richard Fortey, The Earth (Harper Collins, London, 2004) Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth (Bloomsbury, London, 2006) Tim Lenton and W. von Bloh, ‘Biotic Feedback Extends Lifespan of Biosphere’, Geophysical Research Letters (2001) James Lovelock, The Revenge of Gaia (Allen Lane/Penguin, London, 2006) Fred Pearce, When the Rivers Run Dry (Transworld, London, 2006) H.‐J.

Minimal: How to Simplify Your Life and Live Sustainably
by Madeleine Olivia
Published 9 Jan 2020

Resources For more information on all the topics discussed in this book find me online: Madeleine Olivia www.madeleineolivia.co.uk @MadeleineOlivia DOCUMENTARIES Before the Flood www.beforetheflood.com Chasing Coral www.chasingcoral.com @chasingcoral Cowspiracy www.cowspiracy.com @cowspiracy Earthlings www.nationearth.com @EarthlingsMovie An Inconvenient Truth www.algore.com @algore Minimalism: A Documentary www.theminimalists.com @TheMinimalists The Need to Grow grow.foodrevolution.org @TheNeedToGrow Our Planet www.ourplanet.com @ourplanet A Plastic Ocean www.aplasticocean.movie The True Cost www.truecostmovie.com @truecostmovie BOOKS Michael Braungart and William McDonough, Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things (Vintage, 2009) Martin Dorey, No.

The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding From You
by Eli Pariser
Published 11 May 2011

Behavioral economists call this present bias—the gap between your preferences for your future self and your preferences in the current moment. The phenomenon explains why there are so many movies in your Netflix queue. When researchers at Harvard and the Analyst Institute looked at people’s movie-rental patterns, they were able to watch as people’s future aspirations played against their current desires. “Should” movies like An Inconvenient Truth or Schindler’s List were often added to the queue, but there they languished while watchers gobbled up “want” movies like Sleepless in Seattle. And when they had to choose three movies to watch instantly, they were less likely to choose “should” movies at all. Apparently there are some movies we’d always rather watch tomorrow.

Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams
by Tom Demarco and Timothy Lister
Published 2 Jan 1987

Each of us has succumbed at one time or another to the short-term tactic of putting people under pressure to get them to work harder. In order to do this, we have to ignore their decreased effectiveness and the resultant turnover, but ignoring bad side effects is easy. What’s not so easy is keeping in mind an inconvenient truth like this one: People under time pressure don’t work better—they just work faster. In order to work faster, they may have to sacrifice the quality of the product and of their own work experience. 4. Quality—If Time Permits Twentieth-century psychological theory holds that man’s character is dominated by a small number of basic instincts: survival, self-esteem, reproduction, territory, and so forth.

Car Guys vs. Bean Counters: The Battle for the Soul of American Business
by Bob Lutz
Published 31 May 2011

This is journalism? This is an institution we are supposed to revere and respect? Nowhere has my faith in media integrity been destroyed more thoroughly than in the so-called “global warming” discussion. Resolutely parroting the now-discredited prophecies of Al Gore and his absurd movie, An Inconvenient Truth, hardly any of the so-called mainstream media ever gave fair coverage to the large and growing army of CO2–caused AGW (anthropogenic, or human-caused, global warming) skeptics. Every network (Fox excepted) and every major newspaper gives endless coverage to disappearing glaciers (they’ve been melting for almost four hundred years), polar bears on ice floes (hello—they can swim!

Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis
by J. D. Vance
Published 27 Jun 2016

Even Papaw—who once promised he’d disown his children if they bought a Japanese car—stopped complaining a few days after they announced the merger. “The truth is,” he told me, “that the Japanese are our friends now. If we end up fighting any of those countries, it’ll be the goddamned Chinese.” The Kawasaki merger represented an inconvenient truth: Manufacturing in America was a tough business in the post-globalization world. If companies like Armco were going to survive, they would have to retool. Kawasaki gave Armco a chance, and Middletown’s flagship company probably would not have survived without it. Growing up, my friends and I had no clue that the world had changed.

The Global Auction: The Broken Promises of Education, Jobs, and Incomes
by Phillip Brown , Hugh Lauder and David Ashton
Published 3 Nov 2010

While many intellectuals and media commentators have debated the relative merits of global free trade, offshoring, and the impact of new technologies on the future global workforce, we have been keen to reserve judgment. It was only after talking to around 200 corporate executives and national policy makers in seven countries that we were led to an “inconvenient truth” that has provided the motivation for writing this book. We believe that everyone has a right to know that the opportunity bargain based on better education, better jobs, and better incomes can no longer deliver the American Dream. How individuals, companies, and nations respond to these changing circumstances, especially following the financial crash in 2008, will inevitably shape the fate of future generations in America and beyond.

Do More Faster: TechStars Lessons to Accelerate Your Startup
by Brad Feld and David Cohen
Published 18 Oct 2010

First, find the real decision maker. Most people in big companies have very little authority to make decisions although they don't like to admit it. For someone to succeed in a big company, conforming is usually more important than achieving results, so big company people will rarely tell you an inconvenient truth and almost never say no. If you are not getting straight answers, you are not talking to a decision maker and the big company is likely telling you “no” in its own language. Next, realize that you cannot create the need. Entrepreneurs are by nature evangelists—they think they can change the world.

The Great Wave: The Era of Radical Disruption and the Rise of the Outsider
by Michiko Kakutani
Published 20 Feb 2024

But if you put the frog in a pot of room temperature water and slowly heat it to boiling, the frog won’t notice and will slowly cook to death. The parable, it turns out, isn’t true about frogs, who, as the water becomes hot, will quickly leap out if they can. But human beings seem a lot more prone to acclimatization—particularly if that means they can remain in denial about an inconvenient truth. In a 2019 Washington Post article, the scholars Nick Obradovich and Frances C. Moore wrote that their research indicated that people rapidly become accustomed to changes in the weather (i.e., rising temperatures): “We estimate that it takes five years for changes in temperature to become completely unremarkable.

Behind the cloud: the untold story of how Salesforce.com went from idea to billion-dollar company--and revolutionized an industry
by Marc Benioff and Carlye Adler
Published 19 Nov 2009

‘‘You have six paid days to figure it out; I’ll support you.’’ I suggested that Sue speak with Suzanne, the foundation’s executive director. Not long after the meeting, Sue came back to me with a plan for saleforce.com to reduce its carbon footprint. These discussions began to take place around the time of the release of An Inconvenient Truth, the eye-opening film that captures Al Gore’s crusade to halt global warming. Many people in our company rallied behind the cause. Although we were energized about the effort, we were hardly experts in this area. We searched for leaders in this field and engaged respected organizations, including Clean Air-Cool Planet, NativeEnergy, and Conservation International, for guidance.

Paper Knowledge: Toward a Media History of Documents
by Lisa Gitelman
Published 26 Mar 2014

Whether glimpsed in titles such as Martha Graham’s American Document (1938) or in the better-­known work of documentary photographers sponsored by the Farm Securities Administration or the guidebooks produced by the Federal Writers’ Project, the 1930s was a decade of intense “documentary expression,” of Americans trying to know and show themselves to themselves.52 Different documentary forms possessed different “aesthetic ideologies,”53 while the project of knowing and showing—­ although scattered and diverse—worked persistently to beg “the question of how [or, indeed, whether] representation can have agency.”54 Could— can—the knowing-­showing of social documentary really make a difference? Will documenting an inconvenient truth for public consumption prompt any real action? Against this backdrop of more familiar documentary forms and impulses, chapter 2, like chapter 1, takes a deflationary tack. Instead of pursuing the documentary representations of dance, cinema, theater, or other arts arising—as Michael Denning explores—along the cultural front, this chapter considers the lowly typescript document.

Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet, and Threatens Our Lives
by Michael Specter
Published 14 Apr 2009

The words “ask your doctor” have become code for “change your prescription.” Often, what people ended up with was no better than the cheaper and more readily available drugs they were taking in the first place. And just as often, the drugs for sale were so new to the market that their safety was hard to gauge. “Americans must face an inconvenient truth about drug safety,” Henry Waxman, the veteran California congressman, said when asked his position on the impact of these advertisements. Waxman is perhaps the most astute congressional observer of American medicine, and since the election of Barack Obama, in his new role as chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, he may also be the most powerful.

The Slow Fix: Solve Problems, Work Smarter, and Live Better in a World Addicted to Speed
by Carl Honore
Published 29 Jan 2013

After all, I travel the world lecturing on how wonderful it is to slow down, take time, do things as well, rather than as fast, as possible. I have even sung the praises of slowness at medical conferences. But though my life has been transformed by deceleration, the virus of hurry still clearly lurks in my bloodstream. With surgical precision, Dr Woo has skewered an inconvenient truth that I have ducked for years: When it comes to healing my back, I remain addicted to the quick fix. My medical history reads like a whistle-stop tour. Over the last two decades my back has been twisted, cracked and stretched by a procession of physiotherapists, masseurs, osteopaths and chiropractors.

The Future of Capitalism: Facing the New Anxieties
by Paul Collier
Published 4 Dec 2018

If the mother has unstable relationships, by the age of nine her child’s telomeres have shortened by 40 per cent.3 To understand the sheer scale of this effect, doubling family income only increases telomere length by 5 per cent. The damage done by a lack of paternal commitment is so large that it cannot be offset. For many this may be ‘an inconvenient truth’, but that does not justify denial. There is nothing intrinsically conservative about encouraging the commitment of both parents to their children; indeed, as a core aspect of our obligations to others it would seem more naturally to be associated with the communitarianism of the left than the individualism of the right.

Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World
by Fareed Zakaria
Published 5 Oct 2020

Apple CEO Tim Cook has said he believes that his company’s “greatest contribution to mankind . . . will be about health”—through the increasingly sophisticated medical use of products like the Apple Watch. Ideally, the pandemic-induced move online will shift the entire focus of medicine away from treating diseases and toward preventing them, which is a far more effective way to keep us all healthy. Unfortunately, the obstacle to that shift lies in an inconvenient truth: there is much less money in prevention than in treatments and cures. As a result, experiments with a new preventive model will probably work best in countries with government-managed health systems. In those where the private sector dominates, as in America, doctors and hospitals have little incentive to embrace this model.

The Harm in Asking: My Clumsy Encounters With the Human Race
by Sara Barron
Published 25 Mar 2014

He’d said, “First off: fuck the Yankees. Second off: your ass just woke me up.” I DO NOT hide what I am from my boyfriends. I do, though, hide all that I am on first dates. It is a challenging task, to be sure. However, after much trial and error I’ve arrived at a solution to accommodate an inconvenient truth: You must not hold in your farts if you are dating. Doing so results only in painful cramps and bloating, and what good does that do in whatever slimming outfit you’ve got on? So. Your only choice is farting. Not loudly and proudly. But sneakily. Craftily. Cleverly. My time in the field has taught me as much, and—as I am pure of heart and generous of spirit—I will list my tactics here: 1.

The Demon in the Machine: How Hidden Webs of Information Are Finally Solving the Mystery of Life
by Paul Davies
Published 31 Jan 2019

The demon thus converts disorganized molecular motion into controlled mechanical motion, creating order out of chaos and opening the way to a type of perpetual motion machine. Meanwhile, apart from the objection ‘show me a demon!’, nothing else seemed terribly wrong with Maxwell’s argument, and for many decades it lay like an inconvenient truth at the core of physics, an ugly paradox that most scientists chose to ignore. With the benefit of hindsight, we can now see that the resolution of the paradox had been lying in plain sight. To operate effectively in sorting the molecules into fast and slow categories, the demon must gather information about their speed and direction.

The Authoritarians
by Robert Altemeyer
Published 2 Jan 2007

It’s actually very hard to define these phrases rigorously, partly because they have been used over the ages to describe such very different people and movements. But we’re all friends here, so let’s pretend I know what I am talking about when I use these words. Back to chapter 36 [3] If you’ve heard of an inconvenient truth, I just laid a convenient untruth on you so we can compare apples with apples. People who answered McWilliams and Keil’s survey answered each RWA scale item on a -3 to +3, seven-point basis; thus scores on the test could go from 20 to 140. The average (mean) was 72.5. When you map that onto the 20 to 180 scale that results from the -4 to +4, nine-point format I use, you get 90.

The 100 Best Vacations to Enrich Your Life
by Pam Grout
Published 14 May 2007

CHURCHILL NORTHERN STUDIES CENTRE become a polar bear expert CHURCHILL, MANITOBA GUY ON A DANCE FLOOR: Er, you don’t happen to know how much polar bears weigh? GIRL ON THE DANCE-FLOOR: No. GUY: Neither do I, but it breaks the ice. —From the movie Love Life 71 | If Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth put the fear of God in you, just think what it’s doing to the polar bears. The Arctic sea-ice pack, which is basically the polar bears’ lunch box and front yard, has shrunk 14 percent in the last 20 years. So far, Canada’s 13 family groupings of polar bears (roughly 15,000 all told) are hanging in there, but, suffice it to say, this is not the vacation you want to procrastinate over.

Writing on the Wall: Social Media - the First 2,000 Years
by Tom Standage
Published 14 Oct 2013

As for long-held misconceptions and errors, Condorcet wrote, “it is now impossible to prevent their discussion, impossible to conceal that they are capable of being examined and rejected, impossible they should withstand the progress of truths which, daily acquiring new light, must conclude at last with displaying all the absurdity of such errors. … In short, is it not the press that has freed the instruction of the people from every political and religious chain?” And trying to stamp out an inconvenient truth was rendered almost impossible, because only one printed copy, in a part of the world equipped with printing presses capable of reproducing it, was needed to ensure its survival. A single corner of the earth free to commit their leaves to the press, would be a sufficient security. How admidst that variety of productions, amidst that multitude of existing copies of the same book, amidst impressions continually renewed, will it be possible to shut so closely all the doors of truth, as to leave no opening, no crack or crevice by which it may enter?

The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine
by Michael Lewis
Published 1 Nov 2009

As he put it to others, "If you're in a business where you can do only one thing and it doesn't work out, it's hard for your bosses to be mad at you." It was now possible to do more than one thing, but if he bet against subprime mortgage bonds and was proven wrong, his bosses would find it easy to be mad at him. In the righteous spirit of a man bearing an inconvenient truth, Greg Lippmann, a copy of "Shorting Subprime Mezzanine Tranches" tucked under his arm, launched himself at the institutional investing public. He may have begun his investigation of the subprime mortgage market in the spirit of a Wall Street salesman, searching less for the truth than for a persuasive-sounding pitch.

The Upside of Irrationality: The Unexpected Benefits of Defying Logic at Work and at Home
by Dan Ariely
Published 31 May 2010

Third, the relatively slow, undramatic changes wrought by global warming make it hard for us to see or feel the problem. Fourth, any negative outcome from climate change is not going to be immediate; it will arrive at most people’s doorsteps in the very distant future (or, as climate-change skeptics think, never). All of these reasons are why Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth relied so heavily on images of drowning polar bears and other vivid imagery; they were his way of tapping into our emotions. Of course, global warming is the poster child for the drop-in-the-bucket effect. We can cut back on driving and change all our lightbulbs to highly efficient ones, but any action taken by any one of us is far too small to have a meaningful influence on the problem—even if we realize that a great number of people making small changes can have a substantial effect.

Please Don't Sit on My Bed in Your Outside Clothes: Essays
by Phoebe Robinson
Published 14 Oct 2021

In fact, Steve Miranda, the managing director of the Center for Advanced Human Resource Studies at the Cornell University ILR School,* concluded that about 80 PERCENT of turnover is because the environment created for the employee is so bad that Al Gore is like, “One sec. Let me get my Samsung so I can film this and release it as the sequel to An Inconvenient Truth.” Get it? Cuz the orig Inconveen Troof—that was ignorant—was about global warming and how we’re ruining the environment? Guys? Guys? ANYWAY! The point is don’t be a nightmare and perhaps you’ll earn the devotion that every single leader craves. After all, as Simon Sinek, bestselling author of Start with Why and Leaders Eat Last, so aptly stated on Twitter, “A boss has a title, a leader has the people.”

No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention
by Reed Hastings and Erin Meyer
Published 7 Sep 2020

Clearly, he was not going to answer that question. “Listen,” he said. “It doesn’t matter what I think. You’re the doc guy, not me. We pay YOU to make these decisions. But ask yourself if it’s THE ONE. Is this going to be a massive hit? Is it going to be an Oscar nominee like Super Size Me or An Inconvenient Truth? If it’s not, that’s too much to pay. But if it’s THE ONE you should pay whatever it’s going to take: $4.5 million, $5 million. If it’s THE ONE, get the movie.” Ten years before, in 2007, Leslie Kilgore had coined a phrase, which is now used across Netflix to describe exactly what Ted was doing as he walked out through the lobby of the hotel: “Lead with context, not control.”

The Unknowers: How Strategic Ignorance Rules the World
by Linsey McGoey
Published 14 Sep 2019

Many Department of Justice staff are outraged at the effort, insisting that it would make ‘it significantly harder to prosecute corporate polluters, producers of tainted food and other white-collar criminals,’ as New York Times reporters Matt Apuzzo and Eric Lipton report. They quote Department of Justice spokeswoman Melanie Newman. ‘Countless defendants who caused harm would escape criminal liability by arguing that they did not know their conduct was illegal,’ Newman said.14 But so far, there’s been little media discussion of an inconvenient truth, and that’s one of the ways that ‘ignorance of the law’ principles are already regularly waived in US courts, in ways that appear to be systematically advantaging America’s wealthy at the expense of the less powerful: men, women and adolescents who are increasingly treated as unequal before the law.

Good to Go: What the Athlete in All of Us Can Learn From the Strange Science of Recovery
by Christie Aschwanden
Published 5 Feb 2019

Again and again as I looked into the science, I found that the research on most recovery modalities is thin and incomplete. Maybe there’s something to them, but it’s hard to say for sure. When these recovery modalities do work, their benefits are usually measured in single digits, and there’s an “inconvenient truth” here, says recovery expert Shona Halson.1 The small performance-enhancing effects of popular aids do not seem to add up to larger effects. Instead, there seems to be a plateau effect where at some point the body hits its capacity to improve. At the elite level of human performance, there seems to be some kind of biological performance ceiling—when you’re near the top, there’s only so much room left for improvement.

Urban Transport Without the Hot Air, Volume 1
by Steve Melia

Three of the greatest threats: urbanisation, road building and climate change, are all linked. Pressure for road building is both a cause and effect of more cars and more driving. Pressure for urbanisation comes from smaller households, people living longer, and particularly in attractive rural areas, inward migration – of people like me. An inconvenient truth gradually dawned on me: if you really love the countryside, three of the best things you can do for it are: move to a town or city, give up the car, and if there are just one or two of you, move to a flat… Now you may be reading this, doubting whether anyone would make such life changes for purely altruistic reasons: surely we had other, more selfish reasons.

Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet
by Mark Lynas
Published 1 Apr 2008

This denial is complex, involving a variety of defensive responses from the familiar ‘climate change is a myth’ to the more understandable (but ultimately no more useful) ‘but I need my car for my job’. It is of course no coincidence that the same people who are deeply wedded to high fossil fuel use-oilmen, for example—are the ones most likely to deny the reality of climate change. As Al Gore reminds his audience during the slideshow for his film An Inconvenient Truth, there is nothing so difficult as trying to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on him not understanding it. This is classic denial: no one wants to hold a mental image of themselves as bad or evil, so immoral acts are necessarily dressed up in a cloak of intellectual self-justification.

Israel: A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth
by Noa Tishby
Published 5 Apr 2021

As you may remember, when my safta Fania landed in Jaffa, she was greeted by both an Arab funeral and a Jewish holiday celebration, so, yes indeed, there were always Jews and Arabs (and Christians and every other religion) living in the land—just not that many, and with not much around to call a state. Through the story of my family and the use of these infamous facts again, I need to express an inconvenient truth, but a truth nonetheless. The Jews did not “take Palestine.” There was no Palestine for the taking. There was no state, no united governance, not much industry, or a healthcare system, or agriculture, economic or education systems. There was certainly no democracy, equality, safety, or prosperity for the people living there.

The Wine-Dark Sea Within: A Turbulent History of Blood
by Dhun Sethna
Published 6 Jun 2022

Human beings were not predictable, and, in a crisis, they reacted mysteriously and unthinkably. He had learned that by watching men on the battlefields of Cromwell’s war and was continually learning by watching others, and himself, in the wake of his discovery. Harvey was quick to appreciate, too, that his new theory, which spoke an inconvenient truth so effectively and formidably, threatened to undo whole libraries of ponderous folios and patrimonies of vested intellectual interests, as well as the very art of the learned coalition that brought the sterile professors their stipends. Moreover, he had to combat crowd psychology. He realized only too well that for the generality of academics to whom the affirmation of the new and the unusual brought sudden and profound trouble, their sense of comfort and security lay within the anonymity of a faceless crowd.

Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress
by Steven Pinker
Published 13 Feb 2018

And if the tax starts low and increases steeply and predictably over time, people can factor the increase into their long-term purchases and investments, and by favoring low-carbon technologies as they evolve, escape most of the tax altogether.75 A second key to deep decarbonization brings up an inconvenient truth for the traditional Green movement: nuclear power is the world’s most abundant and scalable carbon-free energy source.76 Although renewable energy sources, particularly solar and wind, have become drastically cheaper, and their share of the world’s energy has more than tripled in the past five years, that share is still a paltry 1.5 percent, and there are limits on how high it can go.77 The wind is often becalmed, and the sun sets every night and may be clouded over.

…

Experiments have shown that when people hear about a new policy, such as welfare reform, they will like it if it is proposed by their own party and hate it if it is proposed by the other—all the while convinced that they are reacting to it on its objective merits.107 That implies that spokespeople should be chosen carefully. Several climate activists have lamented that by writing and starring in the documentary An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore may have done the movement more harm than good, because as a former Democratic vice-president and presidential nominee he stamped climate change with a left-wing seal. (It’s hard to believe today, but environmentalism was once denounced as a right-wing cause, in which the gentry frivolously worried about habitats for duck-hunting and the views from their country estates rather than serious issues like racism, poverty, and Vietnam.)

The Irrational Economist: Making Decisions in a Dangerous World
by Erwann Michel-Kerjan and Paul Slovic
Published 5 Jan 2010

But as indicated by the above-cited remark he made to the Sierra Club, Nixon saw that the times required environmental action and provided the voting public with what it wanted. On the one hand, the times we’re in today are rather like the 1960s and early 1970s: There is again a widespread intuition that we are doing something potentially disastrous to the environment. There is nobody as eloquent as Rachel Carson in Silent Spring, but Al Gore’s documentary An Inconvenient Truth and his Nobel Prize have had an impact, as have the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the Stern Review, other official bodies emphasizing the changes we are forcing in our most basic environmental systems, and the stream of television documentaries about the threats to forests and marine life.

The Verdict: Did Labour Change Britain?
by Polly Toynbee and David Walker
Published 6 Oct 2011

Urban regeneration in Manchester, Newcastle upon Tyne and elsewhere depended on drink. The government could not reject this inner-city reviver whatever the public health benefits, and Labour MPs demanded to know why the poor should pay more for their pleasures. The party went on. Drink was an example of an inconvenient truth. The NHS was Elastoplast for social and behavioural problems. Hospitals were warehouses. Nearly three-quarters of NHS money and care went on long-term conditions from which patients did not get better. Patients with long-term conditions occupied a third of hospital beds; home, GP and community nursing would have been a better formula for both patient and budget.

The Raging 2020s: Companies, Countries, People - and the Fight for Our Future
by Alec Ross
Published 13 Sep 2021

As people filed for unemployment, food stamps, and other benefits, US government safety net programs became overwhelmed. Some people found themselves waiting months to receive unemployment payments. Workers who received welfare payments found they covered only a small portion of the income they had lost due to the pandemic. The pandemic revealed an inconvenient truth about the industry-driven social contract in the United States: it no longer works. Young people exiting school now seem more likely to have thirty jobs in thirty years than they are to have one job and one employer. Giving the private sector outsized influence over the country’s economic, political, and social health has not led to better outcomes for Americans, and companies would be delighted to not be the principal source of benefits.

Woke, Inc: Inside Corporate America's Social Justice Scam
by Vivek Ramaswamy
Published 16 Aug 2021

That’s what makes capitalist influence over elections so troubling—because when dollars mix with votes, everyone’s vote no longer counts equally. When they pick which politicians to support, they’re just pursuing their self-interest, and it’s no different when they pick which “social goals” to prioritize too. Either Al Gore doesn’t understand that, or else his new business interests as an ESG investor make that an inconvenient truth. The damage to democracy is further-reaching. The heart of our democracy isn’t just about casting a ballot in November. Rather, it’s about preserving democratic norms in everyday life, including free speech and open debate. When companies make political proclamations, employees who personally disagree with the company’s position face a stark choice: speak up freely and risk your career, or keep your job while keeping your head down.

The Key Man: The True Story of How the Global Elite Was Duped by a Capitalist Fairy Tale
by Simon Clark and Will Louch
Published 14 Jul 2021

Skoll believed that a good story well told could change society, and he founded Participant Media to produce inspiring movies about people who he thought had made the world a better place. His films included an Oscar-winning biopic of President Abraham Lincoln and Al Gore’s documentary about climate change, An Inconvenient Truth. In Charlie Wilson’s War, another of his films, Tom Hanks played a congressman who convinced the U.S. government to support Afghans fighting the Soviet invasion in the 1980s. Skoll’s annual Oxford forum brought together a beguiling mix of billionaires and humanitarians. They gathered to discuss how to improve healthcare, provide clean water, and create jobs for the world’s poorest citizens.

Fortunes of Change: The Rise of the Liberal Rich and the Remaking of America
by David Callahan
Published 9 Aug 2010

Activist funders such as the gay rights backers David Bohnett and Tim Gill built successful companies before they were fifty and then cashed out, finding themselves still in the prime of their lives with plenty of time and a mountain of money on their hands. Jeffrey Skoll made a multibillion-dollar fortune at eBay while still in his thirties and then turned to producing liberal films such as An Inconvenient Truth. While oldeconomy wealth is built on hard assets like manufacturing plants or oil refineries that can take many years to build and turn profitable, vast new-economy fortunes can spring up in only a few years. c07.indd 144 5/11/10 6:20:27 AM the billionaire backlash 145 By the time George W.

Beautiful security
by Andy Oram and John Viega
Published 15 Dec 2009

I have arranged this chapter into a few core topics: • “Cloud Computing and Web Services: The Single Machine Is Here” on page 150 • “Connecting People, Process, and Technology: The Potential for Business Process Management” on page 154 • “Social Networking: When People Start Communicating, Big Things Change” on page 158 • “Information Security Economics: Supercrunching and the New Rules of the Grid” on page 162 • “Platforms of the Long-Tail Variety: Why the Future Will Be Different for Us All” on page 165 Before I get into my narrative, let me share a few quick words said by Upton Sinclair and quoted effectively by Al Gore in his awareness campaign for climate change, An Inconvenient Truth, and which I put on a slide to start my public speaking events: It’s difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on him not understanding it. Challenging listeners to question the reason why they are being presented ideas serves as a timely reminder of common, subtle bias for thoughts and ideas presented as fact.

Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto
by Stewart Brand
Published 15 Mar 2009

To convert Socolow’s carbon emissions to carbon dioxide emissions—the more common measure—multiply by 3.67; thus the 7 gigatons of carbon equals 25.7 gigatons of carbon dioxide.) There’s nothing heroic or unusual about that rate of adding nuclear capacity. The Socolow/Pacala paper noted, “The global pace of nuclear power plant construction from 1975 to 1990 would yield a wedge, if it continued for 50 years.” Al Gore’s climate movie, An Inconvenient Truth, featured Socolow’s diagram with only six wedges, leaving out nuclear. • Of all the wedges, energy efficiency and conservation come first, last, and always, as far as I’m concerned. You get the most result with the least cost at the greatest speed. As Amory Lovins has been proving eloquently for decades, saving energy doesn’t cost money; it makes money, and it can be carried out at every level, from individual behavior to global programs.

America, You Sexy Bitch: A Love Letter to Freedom
by Meghan McCain and Michael Black
Published 31 May 2012

Laurie David is the ex-wife of Larry David (the creator of Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm). She is a big, big environmentalist, dedicating pretty much her entire life to the green movement and trying to educate Americans on what they can do to help reduce their carbon footprint. She also produced the Al Gore documentary An Inconvenient Truth and wrote a book for children, The Down-to-Earth Guide to Global Warming. Laurie David also has come under fire because she demolished seventy-five acres of undeveloped wetlands and replaced them with swimming pools during a six-year construction project for her house on Martha’s Vineyard.

The Evolution of Everything: How New Ideas Emerge
by Matt Ridley

Jonah Goldberg points out in his book Liberal Fascism that in the 1930s fascism was widely seen as a progressive movement, and was supported by many on the left: ‘Fascism, properly understood, is not a phenomenon of the right at all. Instead, it is, and always has been, a phenomenon of the left. This fact – an inconvenient truth if there ever was one – is obscured in our time by the equally mistaken belief that fascism and communism are opposites. In reality, they are closely related, historical competitors for the same constituents.’ Father Charles Coughlin, the ‘radio priest’ of the 1930s who came closest to imitating Hitler’s aims and methods in American politics, was very much a man of the left: criticising bankers, demanding the nationalisation of industry and the protection of the rights of labour.

The Economics of Enough: How to Run the Economy as if the Future Matters
by Diane Coyle
Published 21 Feb 2011

The outer boundary of what we currently believe is feasible is still far short of what we actually must do.”3 The same conclusion was reached in a large-scale study commissioned by the UK Government and carried out by economist Nicholas Stern. Lord Stern said, just like Vice President Gore in his film An Inconvenient Truth, that consumers everywhere, but especially in Western countries, need to make big changes in their lifestyles, and thereby big reductions in the carbon emitted in the course of their economic activity. The Stern Review concluded that the fall in output required is about 1 percent of world GDP immediately and permanently—that is equivalent to a reduction of $104 a year in consumption spending by every person on earth, if it were shared equally.

Green Philosophy: How to Think Seriously About the Planet
by Roger Scruton
Published 30 Apr 2014

Jared Diamond has vividly described societies that have depleted their environmental resources and then, not slowly or gently, but suddenly and catastrophically, collapsed.68 Thus the Easter Islanders ignored the progressive deforestation of their island until it was impossible to survive there. Many people fear that we are all about to follow their example. The publicity release for Al Gore’s propaganda film An Inconvenient Truth began thus: ‘Humanity is sitting on a ticking time bomb. If the vast majority of the world’s scientists are right, we have just ten years to avert a major catastrophe that could send our entire planet into a tail-spin of epic destruction involving extreme weather, floods, droughts, epidemics and killer heatwaves beyond anything we have ever experienced.’

The Big Book of Words You Should Know: Over 3,000 Words Every Person Should Be Able to Use (And a Few That You Probably Shouldn't)
by David Olsen , Michelle Bevilacqua and Justin Cord Hayes
Published 28 Jan 2009

Once the sun’s light passes through the glass and hits something, it is converted to longer-waved heat radiation, which cannot pass back out of the greenhouse. On Earth, the burning of fossil fuels has created something akin to the panes of glass on a greenhouse. The sun’s rays can pass into the planet’s atmosphere, but then, once converted to heat radiation, they are trapped inside our atmosphere. Al Gore’s film, An Inconvenient Truth, brought attention to the perils of the GREENHOUSE EFFECT. grimace (GRIM-uss), noun A facial expression showing disgust or discomfort. A grimace is a sharp facial contortion indicating pain, dissatisfaction, or disgust. Billy made a GRIMACE at the thought of eating his vegetables. grisly (GRIZ-lee), adjective Gruesome.

The People vs. Democracy: Why Our Freedom Is in Danger and How to Save It
by Yascha Mounk
Published 15 Feb 2018

See also Alison Smale and Joanna Brendt, “Poland’s Conservative Government Puts Curbs on State TV News,” New York Times, July 3, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/04/world/europe/polands-conservative-government-puts-curbs-on-state-tv-news.html. 57. Henry Foy and Zosia Wasik, “Poland: An Inconvenient Truth,” Financial Times, May 1, 2016, https://www.ft.com/content/4344ca44-0b94-11e6-9cd4-2be898308be3. See also Chapman, “Pluralism Under Attack.” 58. On Jan Gross, see Alex Duval Smith, “Polish Move to Strip Holocaust Expert of Award Sparks Protests,” Guardian, February 13, 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/14/academics-defend-historian-over-polish-jew-killings-claims; on law criminalizing language, see “Poland Approves Bill Outlawing Phrase ‘Polish Death Camps,’” Guardian, August 16, 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/16/poland-approves-bill-outlawing-phrase-polish-death-camps. 59.

The Burning Answer: The Solar Revolution: A Quest for Sustainable Power
by Keith Barnham
Published 7 May 2015

Jan Willem Storm van Leeuwen explained to me the importance of the very strong dependence of the lifetime carbon emissions of nuclear power on the concentration of uranium oxide in the ore. His reports can be found at reference 22. 1. Renewable Energy Association, ‘Renewable Energy: Made in Britain’ (2012), http://www.r-e-a.net/. 2. A1 Gore, An Inconvenient Truth, Bloomsbury (2006). 3. E.F. Schumacher, Small Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics As If People Mattered, Sphere Books (1974). 4. UK Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), ‘UK Renewable Energy Roadmap’, 2011, https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/48128/2167-uk-renewable-energy-roadmap.pdf. 5.

Collision Course: Carlos Ghosn and the Culture Wars That Upended an Auto Empire
by Hans Gremeil and William Sposato
Published 15 Dec 2021

Japan’s powerful Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI), which plays an active role in promoting and protecting the country’s business interests, grudgingly backed Renault’s bailout in 1999 as the only way to save Nissan and its thousands of Japanese jobs. Yet looming over the relationship was an inconvenient truth for those at Nissan or in the Japanese government who longed for an equal seat at the table. Nissan signed away that right in the original Alliance master agreement handing Renault the keys to the company. “Renault could unilaterally import and pick and choose Nissan board members. And Renault could also appoint, depose or anoint a Nissan CEO.

The Powerful and the Damned: Private Diaries in Turbulent Times
by Lionel Barber
Published 5 Nov 2020

He highlights ‘sound’ banks like Barclays, Lloyds, HSBC and Standard Chartered with strong capital buffers and contrasts them with reckless speculative operators such as HBOS and Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS). ‘Some people are OK,’ says Agius, ‘and some people have done their brains in.’ Barclays, he suggests, ‘is a proxy for other good banks.’ Agius was skirting over an inconvenient truth. In the US, Wall Street banks were forced to take public money to recapitalise their balance sheets. In the UK, HSBC successfully argued it had no need for government support, because of its deposits in Asia. Barclays escaped too, turning instead to Qatari investors and assuming life could go on as usual.

The Coke Machine: The Dirty Truth Behind the World's Favorite Soft Drink
by Michael Blanding
Published 14 Jun 2010

When they held challenges in Miami—which sources its water from an underground aqui­ fer before submitting it to a high-quality filtration and treatment system— they got the same results as anywhere else. 1 28 THE COKE MACHINE As awareness of the Tap Water Challenges spread, however, the activists found the issue that resonated most with consumers had less to do with the quality of the water, much less privatization and control of water re­ sources. Instead, they were most concerned with the bottles themselves. In 2006, former Vice President Al Gore had just released the documentary An Inconvenient Truth, warning of the apocalyptic consequences of climate change and spurring consumers to measure their personal carbon foot­ prints and carry canvas bags to the grocery store instead of wasting excess plastic. Likewise, there seemed something especially galling about wasting all of that plastic for a product that could just as easily be had from the tap.

Googled: The End of the World as We Know It
by Ken Auletta
Published 1 Jan 2009

Of the two, Sumner Redstone was the more openly belligerent. In late 2006 and early 2007, he demanded that YouTube immediately remove one hundred thousand clips of Viacom’s copyrighted content. Viacom CEO Philippe Daumann became convinced that Google was “very lackadaisical” about the content that appeared on YouTube. He cited Al Gore’s movie, An Inconvenient Truth, which Paramount released and which appeared on YouTube in its entirety. “We got frustrated. We told them to take our content down.” How come, he asked, YouTube could successfully block spam and pornography and hate speech from appearing, yet said it couldn’t block copyrighted Viacom content from being displayed?

Life Inc.: How the World Became a Corporation and How to Take It Back
by Douglas Rushkoff
Published 1 Jun 2009

He’s conflicted about pushing drugs on TV because he knows full well that these ads encourage patients to pressure doctors to write prescriptions that go against their better judgment. Still, Tom makes up for any compromise of his values at work with a staunch advocacy of good values at home. He recycles paper, glass, and metal, brought his kids to see An Inconvenient Truth, and even uses a compost heap in the backyard for household waste. Last year, though, he finally broke down and bought an SUV. Why? “Everybody else on the highway is driving them,” he explained. “It’s an automotive arms race.” If he stayed in his Civic, he’d be putting them all at risk. “You see the way those people drive?

How Markets Fail: The Logic of Economic Calamities
by John Cassidy
Published 10 Nov 2009

“We further suggest that drowning-related deaths of polar bears may increase in the future if the observed trend of regression of pack ice and/or longer open water periods continues.” The drowned bears made headlines around the world, heightening public worries about global warming. Pressure for an aggressive policy response increased in 2006 with the release of Al Gore’s documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, which included animated footage of a polar bear struggling to pull itself onto a block of ice. “It’s not a political issue,” Gore said of climate change. “It’s a moral issue.” These developments presented a challenge to orthodox economists, particularly in the United States, who for years had been downplaying the need for rapid steps to avert an environmental catastrophe.

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
by Yuval Noah Harari
Published 1 Jan 2011

In AD 48 the emperor Claudius admitted to the Senate several Gallic notables, who, he noted in a speech, through ‘customs, culture, and the ties of marriage have blended with ourselves’. Snobbish senators protested introducing these former enemies into the heart of the Roman political system. Claudius reminded them of an inconvenient truth. Most of their own senatorial families descended from Italian tribes who once fought against Rome, and were later granted Roman citizenship. Indeed, the emperor reminded them, his own family was of Sabine ancestry.5 During the second century AD, Rome was ruled by a line of emperors born in Iberia, in whose veins probably flowed at least a few drops of local Iberian blood.

Like, Comment, Subscribe: Inside YouTube's Chaotic Rise to World Domination
by Mark Bergen
Published 5 Sep 2022

GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT brought Kate Bohner: Bohner and a spokesperson for Schmidt declined to comment. A source close to Schmidt said he brought multiple people into the YouTube office to receive advice. GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT His holdings included assets: Technically, the movie studio behind Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, Paramount Pictures. GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT book on Redstone: Keach Hagey, The King of Content: Sumner Redstone’s Battle for Viacom, CBS, and Everlasting Control of His Media Empire (New York: HarperCollins, 2018). GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT scoped out South Central: Matthew Belloni, “The Man Who Could Kill YouTube,” Esquire, August 15, 2007, https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a3131/youtube0707/.

When McKinsey Comes to Town: The Hidden Influence of the World's Most Powerful Consulting Firm
by Walt Bogdanich and Michael Forsythe
Published 3 Oct 2022

“If a millennium of the dead could speak: There is no betrayal more intimate than being sent to kill or die for nothing, by your own countrymen,” Edstrom wrote in a book about his war experience. While in the army, Edstrom was deeply affected by the former vice president Al Gore’s campaign to raise awareness about man-made climate change, capped by the 2006 Oscar-winning documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. He wanted his professional life to focus on helping to solve this existential problem. At Oxford, Edstrom earned a master’s in environmental change and management, in addition to getting an MBA. Edstrom eventually settled in Melbourne, working first for Boston Consulting Group and then, starting in early 2018, for McKinsey.

Moby-Duck: The True Story of 28,800 Bath Toys Lost at Sea and of the Beachcombers, Oceanographers, Environmentalists, and Fools, Including the Author, Who Went in Search of Them
by Donovan Hohn
Published 1 Jan 2010

Forty years ago, Science published an essay called “The Tragedy of the Commons” in which the ecologist Garrett Hardin challenged what might be called the American Comedy of Progress—the cherished notion that with time, technology, entrepreneurialism, and, if need be, activism, all problems can be solved. In America, even prophets of environmental doom subscribe to the Comedy of Progress. Thus, at the end of An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore follows his alarming forecast with an uplifting recipe for salvation. In a similarly comedic vein, politicians promise to save the planet and revive the economy by investing in “green-collar jobs.” Hardin’s truth is more inconvenient than Gore’s, so inconvenient it amounts to an American heresy.

Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart Into a Visionary Leader
by Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli
Published 24 Mar 2015

Again, reasonable people can disagree about the quality of Apple’s response. But what everyone can agree on is that Steve didn’t help matters with some of his public responses to the crisis, including the moment at a tech conference when he said, “Oh, we’re all over this one.” He sounded glib, in the way of any corporate CEO trying to smooth over an inconvenient truth. Steve had come a long way in moderating some of the behaviors that had made the young man at the Garden of Allah such a volatile, difficult presence. Some of his old foibles hung on with persistence. Others had been tamed. And at the moment when the pressures of his job would have benefited most from his evolution, his illness added to the complexity of his task.

Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole
by Benjamin R. Barber
Published 1 Jan 2007

The studio system tolerates, sometimes even supports, film innovators such as Steven Soderbergh, the Coen brothers, or Paul Weitz (director/writer of the “terrorist” satire American Dreamz) in part because it also uses and exploits their talent for its most commercially rewarding blockbuster offerings (yes, innovator Soderbergh also made Ocean’s Eleven, Twelve, and Thirteen, while Weitz cut his teeth on the charming About a Boy).23 An unlikely screen hit of 2006 was former vice president Al Gore’s screen lament on global warming called An Inconvenient Truth. A cause for modest hope from some unlikely sources. Reel change is also evident in the rather more sordid if commercially predictable setting of video games, a domain dominated by kid-conceived mindless violence and civilizational mayhem drawn from every era of history. Whether in popular games like Grand Theft Auto (notorious recently for secreting sex acts inside its program), in massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) such as World of Warcraft and Ever-Quest involving millions of players across the globe, knockoffs of movies like King Kong or Lord of the Rings, war games set in eras from the Middle Ages down into World War II and the contemporary Middle East and on into the imagined future, video games have become youth-world’s favorite recreational addiction as well as the focus—despite a voluntary rating system—of agonized educators and moralists aghast at the medium’s crassness.

Evil Geniuses: The Unmaking of America: A Recent History
by Kurt Andersen
Published 14 Sep 2020

Luntz recommended as well that Republican politicians use the term climate change rather than global warming, because “global warming has catastrophic communications attached to it,” whereas “climate change sounds [like] a more controllable and less emotional challenge.” Al Gore’s documentary An Inconvenient Truth came out in 2006, won an Oscar, and brought the issue to the full attention of millions of people, including me. Which is probably a reason why, at the same time, the oil and coal billionaires Charles and David Koch, together with ExxonMobil and more than a hundred right-wing foundations, were funneling hundreds of millions a year to organizations working against the mitigation of global warming.

Your Computer Is on Fire
by Thomas S. Mullaney , Benjamin Peters , Mar Hicks and Kavita Philip
Published 9 Mar 2021

Nowadays, tech companies are often hailed as model employers because of the perks they provide, which have evolved from the Ping-Pong tables and free pizza of the 1980s to today’s free cafeterias and company shuttles, nap pods, concierge services to run employee errands, and wellness centers and free massages. But these perks hide an inconvenient truth: tech employees have no say in their companies’ decisions. Indeed, the West Coast tech industry has shunned giving employees a say in company matters through unionization. Intel founder Robert Noyce supposedly said that “remaining non-union is essential for survival for most of our companies.

The War Came to Us: Life and Death in Ukraine
by Christopher Miller
Published 17 Jul 2023

I never heard Ukrainian. But nobody outwardly demonstrated a loathing for Ukrainian or a desire to part with Ukraine and join Russia. If they thought about splitting off or spoke about this, it was only a passing remark. Crimeans did, however, have their complaints, most of which came down to what was an inconvenient truth: Kyiv didn’t think much about folks on the peninsula. The Ukrainian capital did its thing and Crimeans did theirs. Many Crimeans harbored resentment toward Kyiv because of this, and because many believed they paid a lot to the state without getting much in return. Many people on the peninsula certainly viewed Russia favorably and seemed to align more closely with it geopolitically.

The Relentless Revolution: A History of Capitalism
by Joyce Appleby
Published 22 Dec 2009

Capitalism’s voracious appetite for natural resources, especially oil, has led to the unthinkable: human beings making the atmosphere of their planet permanently inhospitable. It’s a problem so profound that it was hard to take it seriously. The moment of truth and celebrity arrived when Albert Gore’s movie An Inconvenient Truth won an Oscar, his book of the same name a Pulitzer, and his personal efforts a Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. Acceptance of the possibly monumental consequences of environmental degradation has been made difficult by the fear that it could not be solved in the usual way with new techniques. Or could it be?

Oil: Money, Politics, and Power in the 21st Century
by Tom Bower
Published 1 Jan 2009

During the summer of 2007, van der Veer questioned whether renewables could provide even 20 percent of global energy by 2050. The public, he believed, had been misled that wind and waves could provide an alternative to fossil fuels. Posturing for publicity purposes was harmless, but relying on the profitability of renewables was foolish. His thoughts coincided with Al Gore’s global-warming documentary An Inconvenient Truth winning an Oscar, the publication in Britain of the Stern Report on the inevitability of climate change, and President Bush abandoning his former skepticism to declare that the US should be “actively involved if not taking the lead” in limiting emissions. Oil traders across the world were thrilled by the convergence of these arguments.

To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technological Solutionism
by Evgeny Morozov
Published 15 Nov 2013

First, Kickstarter might produce many new documentaries, but the odds are that they will be of a very particular kind (this critique also applies to other sites in this field, like indiegogo.com, sponsume.com, crowdfunder.co.uk, and pledgie .com). They are likely to be campaign-and issue-driven films in the tradition of Super Size Me or An Inconvenient Truth. Their directors seek social change and tap into an activist public that shares the documentary’s activist agenda. A documentary exploring the causes of World War I probably stands to receive less online funding—if any—than a documentary exploring the causes of climate change. Second, some films have significant start-up costs (think drama documentaries or history movies) or involve considerable legal risks that may be hard to price and account for.

The Barbell Prescription: Strength Training for Life After 40
by Jonathon Sullivan and Andy Baker
Published 2 Dec 2016

This is not a mere assertion, but a conclusion based on the best evidence we have accumulated over the last twenty or thirty years, and especially since the dawn of the 21st century, when we’ve seen an explosion of research literature on the topic. In this pivotal chapter, we’ll survey some of that evidence. This is as good a time as any to point out an inconvenient truth about published scientific research: Like all other human endeavors, it’s about 90% shit by weight. This has always been true, and if anything it’s even more true now, as research effort is heavily impacted by publication bias, the pressures of academic life, and the corruption of science by industry, which has a decidedly non-scientific axe to grind.2 This sad fact of life does not exempt the biomedical literature,3 whether we’re talking about exercise medicine,4 cancer chemotherapy, diagnostic imaging, or even basic cell bi So I want to be perfectly up front with you: Just as you can easily find studies showing that generally accepted and widely used medical therapies do not actually produce the desired results, so are there contrary findings in the literature on strength training for various disease states and their markers.5 This overview of the literature focuses on the overwhelming preponderance of the evidence, draws heavily on physiological reasoning and experience, and would of necessity involve my own very human biases, whether I admitted it or not.

The Musical Human: A History of Life on Earth
by Michael Spitzer
Published 31 Mar 2021

They have no sense of hierarchy or personal property, sharing all food and items, and the playfulness of their social interactions animates their music, which they believe comes from their ancestors in dreams. This playfulness informs the most famous aspect of Pygmy music, BaYaka included: its polyphony. A Pygmy song comprises several melodies sung simultaneously in counterpoint and in different metres. Pygmy polyphony is an inconvenient truth for music historians who believe that music evolves from the simple to the complex; that is, from simple one-voiced texture to complex counterpoint such as Bach fugues. Because of course there is nothing simple about Pygmy music, just as there is nothing ‘primitive’ about Pygmy society. Anthropologists such as Ingold turn the usual narrative on its head to hold up hunter-gatherer egalitarianism as a model for later ‘civilizations’.36 For Western musicology, the idea that counterpoint originates in Africa – notionally before the ‘out-of-Africa’ dispersal – and that music was originally polyphonic (and thus not melodic) is nothing short of a scandal.

Generations: The Real Differences Between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers, and Silents—and What They Mean for America's Future
by Jean M. Twenge
Published 25 Apr 2023

This was one area where Gen X was willing to set individualism aside for the greater good—or maybe this was concern for their own individual futures. Contrary to popular perceptions, Gen X’s youthful interest in environmental issues has yet to be equaled by subsequent generations of high school students. Millennials’ interest was markedly lower than Gen X’ers, despite former vice president Al Gore’s 2006 hit documentary An Inconvenient Truth bringing more awareness to climate change. Gen Z has brought interest in the environment back—but still not to the levels of the 1990s, when Gen X was young—and their interest actually waned between 2019 and 2021. Many of the environmentally friendly programs we now take for granted got their start in the 1990s.

Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste: How Neoliberalism Survived the Financial Meltdown
by Philip Mirowski
Published 24 Jun 2013

In our present state of degeneration it is through the skin that metaphysics must be made to re-enter our minds.” Artaud probably did not mean to preach actual torture or cruel affrontery in his text; but the neoliberals do. Their dramaturgy is that the castaways should not affront us; rather, we should affront them. Staged acts of everyday sadism do not seek to confront the audience with an inconvenient truth they refuse to recognize; rather, they promote the reign of a double truth by appealing to a convenient rationalization that the audience can feel under its skin: If the losers, the poor, the lost, the derelict, and the dissolute would only exit the stage after their fifteen seconds of notoriety, having abjectly accepted their status, never to be heard from again, the world would seem a much better place, wouldn’t it?

Valley of Genius: The Uncensored History of Silicon Valley (As Told by the Hackers, Founders, and Freaks Who Made It Boom)
by Adam Fisher
Published 9 Jul 2018

Jeff Skoll, an engineer turned Stanford MBA, wrote the business plan for eBay, which famously turned a profit every quarter of its young existence. After steering eBay through its early years, Skoll moved to Los Angeles and reinvented himself as a film producer. His socially conscious films, which include An Inconvenient Truth and Lincoln, have garnered more than fifty Academy Award nominations and eleven wins—including Best Picture, for Spotlight. Mike Slade got to be good friends with Bill Gates working at Microsoft in the pre-Windows days. Then he jumped ship to NeXT and became exceptionally close friends with Steve Jobs.

Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity
by Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson
Published 15 May 2023

Several organizations, most prominently Greenpeace, were campaigning strongly to protect the environment by the 1970s. Greenpeace initiated a program on global warming in the early 1990s, attempting to be a counterweight against the tactics used by big oil companies to hide the environmental damages that fossil fuels were causing. The 2006 documentary film An Inconvenient Truth, focusing on former vice president and presidential candidate Al Gore’s efforts to inform the public about global warming, played a major role. The movie was watched by millions all over the world. Around the same time, new organizations focused on climate change, such as 350.org, were launched.

Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers
by Timothy Ferriss
Published 6 Dec 2016

Robot (TV), Halt and Catch Fire (TV), Silicon Valley (TV) Attia, Peter: Pumping Iron (doc), The Bridge (doc), Bigger, Stronger, Faster (doc) Beck, Glenn: Citizen Kane Betts, Richard: The Breakfast Club, Baraka (doc) Birbiglia, Mike: Tickled (doc), Captain Fantastic, Other People, Terms of Endearment, Broadcast News, Stop Making Sense, No Refunds (Doug Stanhope comedy special) Blumberg, Alex: Man on Wire (doc), Hoop Dreams (doc), Magic and Bird: A Courtship of Rivals (doc) Boone, Amelia: The Goonies Boreta, Justin: Meru (doc), Grizzly Man (doc), Daft Punk Unchained (doc) Brach, Tara: Race: The Power of an Illusion (doc), Breaking Bad (TV) Callen, Bryan: Fed Up (doc), Ken Burns’s Baseball (doc), Ken Burns’s Jazz (doc) Carl, Shay: Captain Fantastic, Transcendent Man (doc), Forks over Knives (doc), big fan of the documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock Cooke, Ed: Withnail and I, The Armando Iannucci Shows (TV), Monty Python’s Flying Circus (TV), Alan Partridge (fictional personality) Costner, Kevin: Coney Island (doc), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Sugarland Express, Minority Report Cummings, Whitney: Buck (doc), Comedian (doc) D’Agostino, Dominic: “An Advantaged Metabolic State: Human Performance, Resilience and Health” (talk by Peter Attia at IHMC) de Botton, Alain: Seven Up! From the Up series (doc) De Sena, Joe: Sugar Coated (doc), Food Inc. (doc), Finding Vivian Maier (doc) Diamandis, Peter: Transcendent Man (doc), Tony Robbins: I Am Not Your Guru (doc), An Inconvenient Truth (doc) DiNunzio, Tracy: The Overnighters (doc), The True Cost (doc), The Fog of War (doc) Dubner, Stephen: Seven Up! From the Up series (doc) Eisen, Jonathan: Shackleton (TV miniseries) Engle, Dan: Racing Extinction (doc), Neurons to Nirvana (doc), Searching for Sugar Man (doc) Fussell, Chris: Restrepo (doc)—should be required viewing for every U.S. citizen.

The Marshall Plan: Dawn of the Cold War
by Benn Steil
Published 13 Feb 2018

Gorbachev, Mikhail. The New Russia. Translated by Arch Tait. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2016. Gordon, Lincoln. “Lessons from the Marshall Plan: Successes and Limits.” In The Marshall Plan: A Retrospective, edited by Stanley Hoffmann and Charles S. Maier. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1984. Gore, Al. An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It. New York: Rodale, 2006. Grieder, Peter. The East German Leadership, 1946–73: Conflict and Crisis. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000. Grob-Fitzgibbon, Benjamin. Continental Divide: Britain and Europe from the End of Empire to the Rise of Euroscepticism.

The Oil Kings: How the U.S., Iran, and Saudi Arabia Changed the Balance of Power in the Middle East
by Andrew Scott Cooper
Published 8 Aug 2011

The Shah was so unsentimental on the subject of energy pricing that he decided the U.S. war fleet off the coast of Oman should turn a profit for the Iranian treasury. Asadollah Alam was tasked with instructing Ambassador Helms that Tehran wanted payment in full for the fuel that kept the task force at sea. The Shah’s crusade for higher prices also hid an inconvenient truth. In the words of the Shah’s own budget planners Iran faced an “explosive deficit in the balance of payments.” There was no doubt that by the end of 1973 spending on arms was draining capital and skilled manpower away from the civilian economy. Kissinger already knew that Iran’s economy was beginning to groan under the strain of the Shah’s military buildup.

My Boring-Ass Life: The Uncomfortably Candid Diary of Kevin Smith
by Kevin Smith
Published 24 Sep 2007

Sorry for the absence of blogging as of late, but I just got home from traveling abroad with Clerks II. We hit Australia for premières in Sydney and Melbourne, as well as the Edinburgh Film Festival in Scotland where our little flick won the Audience Award, beating out fest-circuit faves Little Miss Sunshine and An Inconvenient Truth. Speaking of festivals, who’s up for attending one? The Movies Askew Fest! That’s right — the year-long Movies Askew Contest is wrapping up with a one-day screening of all twelve finalists, and if you’re in or near Los Angeles, you can be a part of the fun! Come chill with us at Cinespace on 6 September, from 6 p.m. to midnight.

Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power
by Steve Coll
Published 30 Apr 2012

In any event, Cohen’s committee crafted a more convoluted plan whose core message sounded something like: We were always right, but we were misunderstood. The political climate in which they considered the dilemma Lee Raymond had bequeathed them was changing even faster than the weather. Early in 2006, An Inconvenient Truth debuted at the Sundance Film Festival. The documentary highlighted Al Gore’s lectures about the dangers of climate change; it would earn a record $50 million at the box office and eventually win an Academy Award. In ExxonMobil’s K Street office, the corporation’s lobbyists screened the film a half dozen times, scribbling notes and fashioning talking points about how to attack Gore’s arguments.

The Irrational Bundle
by Dan Ariely
Published 3 Apr 2013

Third, the relatively slow, undramatic changes wrought by global warming make it hard for us to see or feel the problem. Fourth, any negative outcome from climate change is not going to be immediate; it will arrive at most people’s doorsteps in the very distant future (or, as climate-change skeptics think, never). All of these reasons are why Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth relied so heavily on images of drowning polar bears and other vivid imagery; they were his way of tapping into our emotions. Of course, global warming is the poster child for the drop-in-the-bucket effect. We can cut back on driving and change all our lightbulbs to highly efficient ones, but any action taken by any one of us is far too small to have a meaningful influence on the problem—even if we realize that a great number of people making small changes can have a substantial effect.