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I put the subject line as "An Inconvenient Truth" because "Al Gore's Film" seemed to be adding fuel to the fire. Here goes:

Here in New York, we are not far from The Goddard Institute for Space Studies, where the storied James Hansen crunches his numbers. I could imagine inviting him to an event, and I'm sure the subject of his run-in with the administration would come up. But the IPCC and the underlying science seems to be behind Hansen's interpretations, and I would hope that that would be the message of the day.

I would suggest that, rather than simply show the film, you show excerpts from the film and bring in your own educators to illustrate certain points, and invite scientists to discuss the topic. Turn it into a larger and deeper event. Just don't go the "Fair and Balanced" route and try to get one milquetoast skeptic and one frothing doomsayer on your panel. The presence of thoughtful researchers will help to quiet cries of bias or virulent liberality. Rush Limbaugh and would decry it anyway, but you'll never make that man happy (well, I can think of one way you could, but it involves packing his christmas stocking with... oh, never mind)

Most climate scientists are quite alarmed by what's going on, are very eager to communicate what they have found, but still will admit uncertainties. This has always been the fustration of politicians, who don't like how scientific advisors qualify everything. A politician's job is to make decisions, and don't like all this "on the one hand..". and "or the other hand..." stuff. Thus the joke that they would just once like to meet a one-handed scientist.

There are plenty of discoveries which did not make it into the film. The possible *mechanical* breakup of the Greenland ice sheet, by gravity slide lubricated with rapidly mobile meltwater, is a recent discovery and makes the submergence of Shanghai a closer prospect. The Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation is a complicating factor which I don't think was detailed.

As science centers, we have to approach complex and possibly controversial topics, and not just because it draws visitors with the "forbidden fruit" of touchy subjects. "If not us, who..." But rather than just show the film, do what we are best at -- take people by the hand, bring together the public, educators, and scientists, and get the inner workings of science out into the open.

Oh... and speaking of Apple computers: Gore is on the board of Apple, uses a Mac laptop, and uses Keynote, not Powerpoint. Of course, at this point it's probably like getting people to say "electrostatic facsimile" rather than "Xerox copy." And I say that as someone who wishes I could just skip ALL this silicon hollafaulta and send messages by owl.

Marc Taylor
Coordinator, Andrus Planetarium
Hudson River Museum
511 Warburton Avenue
Yonkers, NY 10701
914 963 4550 x223
Fax 963 8558
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