Symphony of Science: Climate change

September 20, 2012

We had Looney Tunes, Merrie Melodies, and Silly Symphonies, back in the early days of talkies and animation in Technicolor.

Why not a Symphony of Science now?  This is entertaining, and important — overlook the Autotune issue; it’s better to make Billy Nye sing with Autotune than to change the entire song and orchestration for Rex Harrison, especially if you have a small budget.

Here’s one guaranteed to make climate change denialists sputter — the music and quick image montages sneak through skeptical barriers.  Truth wins in a fair fight, Franklin said.  This is fair, entertaining, and you might draw a little inspiration.

Production information:

A musical investigation into the causes and effects of global climate change and our opportunities to use science to offset it. Featuring Bill Nye, David Attenborough, Richard Alley and Isaac Asimov. “Our Biggest Challenge” is the 16th episode of the Symphony of Science series by melodysheep.

The following materials were used in the creation of this video:

– Are We Changing Planet Earth?
– Bill Nye – Climate
– Eyes of Nye – Climate Change
– Earth: The Operator’s Manual
– An Inconvenient Truth
– Hot Planet
– How Many People Can Live on Planet Earth
– Human Planet

Oooooh.  I see they have one that features our hero Feynman.

Tip of the old scrub brush to P. Z. Myers, who reminded me this one existed after I saw it a while ago.

12 Comments | Climate change, climate_change, CO2, Science | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Annals of Global Warming: It didn’t start with the hockey stick . . .

December 12, 2011

Peter Sinclair comes through with a good explanation of the history of concern about global warming — how the warming trend was discovered.

It wasn’t scientists trying to get government grants.  It was the U.S. Air Force, trying to beat the commies and keep America safe for democracy and, ironically, safe for dissent from such applications of science.


9,996

Real history couldn’t be published as fiction, which is one way we can tell real history from the stuff that gets made up.  In the story told in this video, note carefully the serendipity of figuring out the CO2 issues:  Who could invent a story about warfare leading to the discovery of global warming?  As with the coincidence of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson both dying on the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, no editor of fiction would accept it as believable.

More:

Why we worry, why policy makers are involved:  Carbon Emissions, 2000 – from WorldMapper, with a serendipitous tip of the old scrub brush to Petra Tschakert at Penn State.

Carbon emissions 2000, from worldmapper.org - creative commons license

Carbon Emissions 2000, from worldmapper.org - creative commons license

Carbon Emissions 2000 © Copyright 2006 SASI Group (University of Sheffield) and Mark Newman (University of Michigan). “We welcome use of our maps under the Creative Commons conditions by educational, charitable and other non-profit organisations.”

1 Comment | Climate change, climate_change, CO2, Geography - Physical, Global warming, History, Politics, Science | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell