“There must be something I can do … to help our children, to help my grandchildren…. I thought it [global warming] was bullshit … and that is because I listened, I believed Bill O’Reilly … and I saw this movie and now I will apologize to anyone I ever talked into not believing in global warming.”
A NOTE from me – @justin_kanew – the guy who shot it:
People have been asking me if this video is set up. I promise it isn’t. I was at the theater helping with the release of the movie all weekend, mostly managing the guest list. Many people came out of the movie emotional, but none as emotional as this lady. She started talking to me in a very real way, with tears in her eyes, essentially apologizing to me for her previous position on the subject and letting me know she was a Fox/O’Reilly watcher who just had her mind changed by the movie. It occurred to me that that was a pretty powerful moment, and one you don’t see every day, so i asked her if she would mind telling me that on video. She said she wouldn’t, so I pulled out my camera, and what you see here happened.
I’m a supporter of the project, and the subject, but I would not call myself a climate change activist… however I do know a powerful moment when I see one, and this was that. There’s no editing here, and this woman is not an actress. I would swear to it on the Bible, the constitution, or anything else you put in front of me.
Privately, a quite prominent climate activist — who has written excellent books and gotten himself arrested and … — sent a group of us a note that I am certain he wouldn’t mind my sharing:
Last night, at the E Street Theater in DC, I finally got the chance to see the much-talked about, very beautiful, very terrifying, deeply moving film called Chasing Ice. It’s the story of photographer James Balog’s effort to capture the astonishing retreat of the world’s great glaciers due to rapid global warming. Finally, someone has managed to put into images the greatest crisis modern humans have ever faced. You absolutely must see this film.
I’m regret that I haven’t seen it yet … but clearly I need to change that.
People ask what President Obama can do about climate change in the face of a House run by extreme cases of Anti-Science Syndrome Haters Of a Livable Environmental System. Many have proposed using the Bully Pulpit. And, within that Pulpit, include invitations to the White House (remembering that even Bachman went to the White House to have a photo with the President).
How about inviting members of Congress for popcorn and a film … Chasing Ice.
Transcript:
Moviegoer: I’m just — let me, just let me say what I have to say: that I watch Bill O’Reilly every day. I love Bill O’Reilly, I’m proud to be an American, but I saw this movie Chasing Ice today, and it hasn’t just changed me about global warming, it has changed me as a person.And, there is something, I don’t know what I can do, I’m sixty years old, but there must be something I can do, to help, to help our children, to help my grandkids.
But I’m gonna change it. Because this movie was fantastic. Every human being in this world should watch this movie. Everyone.
Offscreen: And you didn’t believe in global warming?
Moviegoer: I did not believe in global warming. I am going to be sixty on December twenty-one, and every time someone mentioned global warming to me, I told them, if they wanted to remain in my home, they needed to step out. Because I said it was bullshit. I didn’t believe it. Excuse my language.
And that is because, I listened — this is the truth — I believed Bill O’Reilly.
Offscreen: And now you saw this movie…
Moviegoer: And I saw this movie, and I apologize to anyone I ever talked into not — into believing there was no global warming. I have talked every friend, every person I know, into believing there was no global warming.
And now I have to undo my damage. And I will. From the moment I go to my car, go to home, go to my computer — it has changed my life.
Offscreen: Wow, that’s great, that’s really — .
Moviegoer: Thank you. Thank you for giving me this moment. It was a great movie.
Offscreen: Ok, thank you.
Moviegoer: ‘K.
Offscreen: Bye.
And here’s a trailer for the movie that rocked this devoted denier’s world to the ground: Chasing Ice.
3 responses so far ↓
1 Russell Cook (@questionAGW) // Dec 11, 2012 at 1:34 pm
Uhhh…. Houston, we have a problem. The woman in the video looks more like she misspoke and meant to say the name Sean Hannity three times. So instead of looking like a person who is a genuine convert, it ends up looking more like someone who was shilling for the movie and didn’t really have a good handle on which Fox personality she was supposed to be talking about:
JunkScience.Com: “Bizarre ‘Fox Lies’ video: Alleged “Climate-Denying O’Reilly Fan” Now Believes Global Warming is Real”
2 Russell Cook (@questionAGW) // Dec 18, 2012 at 3:50 pm
Replying first to your #2 point at the top: No ‘false editing’ or insinuation that the video shooter had a thing to do with what we see is implied. The lady clearly makes claims about Bill O’Reilly leading her to have an opinion that global warming was something to ignore, so much so that she tossed people out of her house when they brought up concerns over the matter. The evidence that you or I can quite easily find is that Bill O’Reilly does not hold any such opinion to prompt her opinion. Thus, obvious questions must be asked as to why the woman would make such a claim when it is literally unsupportable.
As for your #3 point at the top, why do you suddenly compare apples to oranges? “No global warming” vs “no global warming in the last 16 years” are two unmistakably different situations.
Regarding your 1 thru 4 ‘denial’ points, I know all about those, I believe they actually originate with Steve Running’s 2007 “The 5 Stages of Climate Grief” blog piece, but you’ve left of point #5 about Acceptance. Yawn.
Funny that you bring up the “Gish Gallop” (typo on your part there)[Thank you … corrected.], since the way it turns the tables on you is how that tactic is not actually employed by skeptics, but apparently instead by AGW promoters who’ve just been hit in the face with points that utterly undermine their narrative. It’s essentially what Creation Science believers do when confronted with evidence of fossilized animals in stone, they start improvising on the spot or dancing around the question. Sorta like the shell game thing you’ve done up above with the woman in the video. Overall, the denialism that’s been happening over the last 20 or so years is the existence of valid criticism of AGW.
You haven’t noticed this? That so much effort is made to say skeptics ‘manufacture doubt’ about the science when it becomes ever more obvious from their incredibly detailed assessments which cite peer-reviewed science journal-published papers that the doubt was pre-existing? Don’t you wonder yourself why you need to rely on people like Naomi Oreskes for the central accusation about guilt of ‘fossil fuel industry-corrupted skeptics’, but you’ve never checked if the accusation stands up to courtroom-style standards for evidentiary hearings? Have you never wondered why Orekes, Gore, Monbiot, Hoggan/Littlemore, Romm, Piltz, ExxonSecrets, Hertsgaard, Dunlap & McCright, Borenstein, Goodell and so many others all rely on a single source – an old coal industry PR campaign “memo” – to say skeptics are on the payroll of ‘big coal & oil’, but they never show the thing in its entire context?
The entire idea of AGW being above reproach hinges on the claim that skeptics are corrupt.
When more people start to wonder why this accusation relies on unquestioned guilt-by-association accusations having no physical proof of money specifically exchanged for demonstrably false, fabricated science papers, reports or viewpoints, and whether this is all more of an indication that a small bunch enviro-activists have been manufacturing doubt about the guilt of skeptic climate scientists, they’ll start saying the whole issue has been Gish Galloped from the beginning as a means of distracting everyone from noticing what a rough time the IPCC assessments have about standing on their own merits.
Are you in denial of this potentially fatal problem for the issue?
But I digress. The question here is whether you are able to refute the appearance of something being really fishy with what the lady claimed in the video? Or will you Gish Gallop around this?
3 Russell Cook (@questionAGW) // Jan 14, 2013 at 1:29 pm
Sorry for the delayed response.
Nice GIF of the deceptive stairstep graph. In case you missed it, a long description questioning it is seen here: “Blog Memo to Hockenberry Regarding PBS Frontline Report Climate of Doubt“: Which side is right here? I can’t tell you myself, but it does at the very least show people there are disputes on how such data is interpreted. That is not helpful when the oft-repeated talking points are about ‘settled science’ and a lack of legitimate science-based opposition.
” … there are many who assert ‘no global warming’ exists … ” Among skeptic climate scientists, regarding the span of time from now going back to the beginnings of the industrial revolution? Name one, please, with a web link to the statement in its full context.
” …. Huh. One memo? The funding of multiple institutions? Etc … ”
Is that the best you can do? Don’t feel bad, whenever I ask about it, nobody refutes my assertion or points to anybody who independently corroborates the accusation.
And once again, I never assert that the video was falsely edited, but I most certainly did point out evidence that the lady’s claims about Bill O’Reilly’s global warming position do not jive with his actual position. What part of that do you not understand, and why do you seemingly avoid it?