5 replies to this topic

[Shortpoet-GTD]

I'll admit, I never heard of him until recently. He was on Bill Maher's HBO Real Time show
and he was talking about Carbon Nation.

Some background.
http://filmmakermaga...-carbon-nation/

http://www.carbonnat...bout/filmmakers

http://en.wikipedia....i/Carbon_Nation

In your opinion, is he doing good work or confusing the issues?

[still learning]

Shortpoet-GTD, on 18 April 2013 - 04:23 PM, said:

In your opinion, is he doing good work or confusing the issues?

I haven't heard of the Carbon Nation documentary before now either.  Released in 2010 apparently.    No idea yet how useful it is.
Checked, looks like Netflix has it, so I'll likely see it soon.

My guess is that that it'll be familiar stuff to regulars on this forum.

One bit in the linked Filmmaker interview kind of discourages me.  Byng said: " As soon as the low carbon and no carbon energy sources become cheaper than the carbon energy sources, then you’re going to see a whole new world."
I don't see no-carbon energy getting overall cheaper than fossil fuels any time soon unless there is some kind of carbon tax or restriction.

[F.Tnioli]

In my opinion, he confuses the issues. Most, if not all, of scientific papers which tried to predict how fast carbon emissions could realistically be reduced go with quite very low figures, like 2% a year reduction. And i can see why such a documentary would be, should be, and indeed is made: there are increasingly many people who are a) not the most poor blocks around and are increasingly concerned about climate change, and thus are willing to spend significant sums of money to whatever they think is helpful. Ergo, convincing them that some or other thing is helpful - allows to get hold of part of the money those people are parting with. With the best traditions of open markets, the buyer is convinced that "the product" is good no matter if the product is actually good or not; whatever can be produced (be it services, goods, EV cars, or even simply convincing stories making people to contribute to a particular fund - which is then used to buy some ferraries and yachts) - whichever can be produced cheap enough and advertised well enough - gets sold increasinly well. To facilitate and accelerate this new "bubble", such documentaries are excellent tool for.

The question formulated by the topic's author is exceptionally correct; and indeed, above is just an opinion and nothing more.

[Phil]

Without actually seeing it, it is tough to tell.  I think he is touting technical innovation which is a good thing, he is touting people saving money going green, like the farm, that is a good thing.  He is saying "if only government got involved" which is a bad thing.  

The real issue, as he said, is lowering the cost of green to be competitive with fossils, I've stated that here since I first signed on.  He is correct on that, once it happens you will see an explosion in the field.  Only when it makes economic sense to the individual will it happen on a grand scale.  Not artificially via a carbon tax, but naturally via innovation and mass production.

[still learning]

I viewed the DVD of Carbon Nation that we got from Netflix.

While I disliked the first few minutes of cartoon/animation, after that pretty well done, I thought, but limited in scope.

It's almost entirely about mitigation of climate change, lots of alternative energy, lots on energy conservation.   Mostly familiar to regulars on this forum.

With almost nothing on the causes of climate change, the movie can't be expected to move any sceptics or deniers of global warming.

I my previous post in this thread, I mentioned that I was discouraged by somethong Byck said in the filmmaker interview, " As soon as the low carbon and no carbon energy sources become cheaper than the carbon energy sources, then you’re going to see a whole new world."
In the movie that Byck did, it is clearly stated that a fossil fuel carbon tax or fee is needed to "level the playing field" for renewables, that the practice of continuing to allow fossil fuel carbon dioxide to be emitted into the atmosphere without restriction, without somehow paying for the continuing damage, gives fossil fuels an unfair advantage.

One statement bit in a mostly upbeat presentation is really discouraging though.  Referring to the need for legislation requiring that all electric utilities allow some sort of net metering for home rooftop PV setups, the narrator said that "It'll take couragous lawmakers."

[Shortpoet-GTD]

I became interested in what he is doing from his appearance on Maher's show; but even there he was very
light on details. He just kept saying that if ranchers changed the grains that were fed to cows for slaughter,
carbon could be captured.
I suppose he wanted to pitch his product; but more information would have been nice.