Opera tribute not too inconvenient for Gore

[aphar]

http://music.guardian.co.uk/classical/story/0,,2283007,00.html

The legendary La Scala opera house in Milan has commissioned a full-length work to be based on [Gore's] book, An Inconvenient Truth, and the Oscar-winning documentary of the same title. ... La Scala's artistic director, Stephane Lissner, told a press conference the new opera had been commissioned from an Italian composer, Giorgio Battistelli. He said it would be staged in 2011.

Some people never learn. In 3 years, chances are the main issue will be global cooling, not global warming, so the opera would have to be rewritten...

Comments

[aphar.livejournal.com]

because science is driven by ... human vanity
yes, and what can be more satisfying in this respect than testifying before a Senate panel!

It's like with Darwin's theory of evolution - the vast majority of serious scientists in the relevant field agree that the evidence is overwhelming.
Biologists do not receive funding just for supporting Darwin.
Climatologists do.

at any rate, as I said before, the right way to select priorities is by considering ROI, probability, and discounted consequences.
global warming does not fair well on all 3.
(it is probably slightly more important than asteroid collision, but not by much).
overpopulation is a much bigger problem.

[allka.livejournal.com]

Ne, Semka, an article in "Nature" or "Science" beats the hell out of testifying before the Senate, zub dayu. :)

ROI is crucial in figuring out what to do, I agree completely.
Probability - comparable to the probability of asteroid collision?? Man, I hope you are right, but I fear it's more like the probability of colliding with an asteroid that's 20 feet away.
Discounted consequences - don't know the term. But overpopulation is a huge problem that directly feeds into global warming (if we agree that it exists), no?

[aphar.livejournal.com]

Discounted consequences
losing $100 in 10 years is the same as losing $100*exp(-10r) today, where r is the annual risk-free interest rate.

overpopulation is a problem which feeds into everything - war, poverty, hunger, thirst.
it is caused by irresponsibility on an astronomical scale - people who cannot feed their existing children are having more children.

[uzheletta.livejournal.com]

Sema, you may find this link useful/interesting:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming_controversy

actually, I think that I know nothing about either climatology nor this debate, so I'll stay away from this discussion.