The Day After Tomorrow (And The Day After That)
March 4th, 2005 | by Craig |Over the weekend, the Spousal Unit and I sat down and watched “The Day After Tomorrow.”
I’m a sucker for a good end-of-the-world-we’re-all-gonna-die type movie. I liked Deep Impact. I liked Armageddon. I’ve read Lucifer’s Hammer ragged. Apocalyptic fun all around.
So, I was willing to give TDAT a chance, despite what I’d heard about the film.
Let me sum it up for you thusly: I’ve heard homilies that weren’t as preachy as this movie. It could have been a fun movie without that undertone.
I will say this, though, it was surprising to see that Perry King is still around. I remember him in Riptide. I always wondered how those guys could afford to live on a yacht and have that big helicopter. Their rates must have been astronomical. But, I digress.
I remember that the buzz was that the movie would maybe “start a dialog” about global warming; and maybe it could have, provided that it wasn’t based on a book written by Art Bell and Whitley Streiber. Come on. These guys don’t even rate a twitch on the credibility-meter.
While we’re on the topic of global warming, I thought I’d bring another tidbit to your attention. I’m sure we all know about the problems with the ozone layer, right? And how CFC’s were the major cause, right?
Guess who the most egregious offender is: the sun. According to this article, solar flares decreased the amount of Arctic ozone by 60%.
I don’t think signing on to Kyoto could have fixed that problem.
Speaking of Kyoto, if you want to track its progress in terms of cost and temperature change, look no further.
One of the arguments in favor of global warming has been what is known as the “hockey stick” graph, which shows a huge spike in mean temperature over the last century. One problem. It ooks like there is a fundamental flaw in the mathematics of that graph. (This article was written by a professor in that bastion of right-wing thought, Berkeley.) The authors of the article which described the flaw had their paper refereed, but Nature declined to publish it, so they made everything available online.
I find it interesting that McKitrick and McIntyre have chosen to put their work out there, to be critiqued and torn apart, yet Mann (author of the original hockey stick study) will not release his own data. So much for transparent science, huh?
8 Responses to “The Day After Tomorrow (And The Day After That)”
By Wulfgar on Mar 4, 2005 | Reply
What a coincedence; Chris and I watched TDAT last night. We’d seen it before in the theater and enjoyed it immensely. I’ve never let a preachy undertone get in the way of good old disaster and mayhem. And anyone who seriously thought that this movie would spark a meaningful dialogue about global warming also probably expected Airplane! to spur a change in airline safety.
By R. Alex on Mar 4, 2005 | Reply
I was working at a phone bank when that movie came out. One of my favorite coworkers went on and on for days about how the book was based on “real science” to the point that I avoided him for the better part of the week.
By Tony Rosen on Mar 4, 2005 | Reply
I didn’t think it was all that bad … certainly one of the better EOtW movies … that, and it had a Quaid in it, so it had to be worth watching.
By Eutychus Fell on Mar 4, 2005 | Reply
re: Lucifer’s Hammer — yeah, me too.
By Jeff on Mar 4, 2005 | Reply
“Guess who the most egregious offender is: the sun. According to this article, solar flares decreased the amount of Arctic ozone by 60%.”
This was a one off thing, caused by a particularly “intense round of solar storms.” The link says the flares were possibly the highest on record. Also, in that same article:
“The upper-level ozone layer has thinned dramatically in the Southern Hemisphere in recent decades, creating a dangerous hole through which UV rays stream. The decline is due largely to man-made chlorofluorocarbons released into the atmosphere.”
Also, a recent study looking at ocean warming looked at the possibility of solar activity causing global warming:
“Along with his Scripps colleague, David Pierce, Barnett used a combination of computer models and hard, observed evidence to reach their conclusions. They determined that warming measured in the world’s oceans closely matched the results predicted in computer models for warming caused by human activity.
When the models assessed whether the ocean warming could be caused by volcanic or solar activity, Barnett told reporters, the answer was stark: ‘Not a chance.’”
“One of the arguments in favor of global warming has been what is known as the “hockey stick†graph, which shows a huge spike in mean temperature over the last century. One problem. It ooks like there is a fundamental flaw in the mathematics of that graph. (This article was written by a professor in that bastion of right-wing thought, Berkeley.) The authors of the article which described the flaw had their paper refereed, but Nature declined to publish it, so they made everything available online.”
And you can read all about McKitrick’s errors here and here.
“I find it interesting that McKitrick and McIntyre have chosen to put their work out there, to be critiqued and torn apart, yet Mann (author of the original hockey stick study) will not release his own data. So much for transparent science, huh?”
Here’s Mann’s data and here’s his software.
By R. Alex on Mar 4, 2005 | Reply
How odd. This movie came up in a conversation today. Same context as before: How credible and realistic it was.
By Craig on Mar 4, 2005 | Reply
Thanks for the links, Jeff. I’ll have to give them a read.
Meantime, yes, I know the solar flares were — to our knowledge — a one-time event; which is exactly my point.
By starbird on Mar 4, 2005 | Reply
Theres an old classic end of the world movie WHEN WORLDS COLIDE and its about saving a few people putting them on a space ship and sending them to another planet and the movie VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA was about the van allen radiation belt being ignited by a meteor shower and how the world is threatened by a sort of global warmming cuased by a freak of nature and being saved by a nucular submarine and a nucular missle