Al Gore is dreaming if he thinks that global warming will spark a sustained mass protest movement here in the USA. From the story:
Former Vice President Gore is calling for major rallies to protest congressional inaction on climate change. In a post on his personal blog headlined “The Movement We Need,” Gore linked to and quoted from an Australian wire service report that “tens of thousands of protesters … have taken to the streets across Australia to urge the major political parties to take action on climate change.” “Across the world, when politicians fail to take action to solve the climate crisis, people are taking action,” Gore wrote. He added after excerpting the news report: “It is my hope we see activism like this here in the United States.”
Well, that’s pretty pathetic. One reason former Australian PM Kevin Rudd lost his job and popularity was his attempt to impose a carbon tax. Indeed, when I was Down Under recently, his successor, Julia Gillard, explicitly calibrated her election campaign to not seem radical about climate change. (See Secondhand Smokette’s SF Chronicle blog post about a very clever Green political ad skewering Gillard’s equivocating. Be sure to watch. It cracked us both up when we first saw it on Aussie TV.) So these protests Gore is excited about mean next to nothing.
Back here in the USA, I don’t doubt that lefties could put together a protest–with drummers and big puppets too! That’s what they do, after all. But a sustained mass movement of the kind likely to move policy, as during Vietnam, predicated upon imposing a carbon tax and other economy-killing measures? In a bad recession? Not. A. Chance.
Former Vice President Gore is calling for major rallies to protest congressional inaction on climate change.
In a post on his personal blog headlined “The Movement We Need,” Gore linked to and quoted from an Australian wire service report that “tens of thousands of protesters … have taken to the streets across Australia to urge the major political parties to take action on climate change.”
“Across the world, when politicians fail to take action to solve the climate crisis, people are taking action,” Gore wrote.
He added after excerpting the news report: “It is my hope we see activism like this here in the United States.”
August 17th, 2010 | 11:38 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Vince Humphreys, Wesley J. Smith. Wesley J. Smith said: Gore Calls for Demonstrations: What If They Held a Protest and Nobody Came? » Secondhand Smoke | A First Things Blog http://t.co/lRL2pLd [...]
August 18th, 2010 | 12:43 am
I agree.
[Immature and irrelevant attack on the Catholic Church deleted. I should just not post the comment. Next time I won't, David.]
Point: inaction and adherence to old ways are common
Just because there is no protest movement, does not disprove the fact that man is the main cause of present global warming.
The Vietnam analogy is fitting. Boomers have always shown an affinity for mobalizing to save their own skin and pockets. The great me-first generation surely earned such a title. Now they can get back to the chanting, meditating, pension plundering, eating, smoking, evangelizing, and other useless things they excel at.
August 18th, 2010 | 10:07 am
[...] Things' Wesley J. Smith calls the Gore appeal "pretty [...]
August 18th, 2010 | 12:54 pm
It wouldn’t be a movement to call just for a carbon tax, and you don’t seem to understand what a carbon tax is or how it could actually work as a carbon dividend for consumers. This is about having a social movement that defines what we are a species. This is about working to preserve this planet for future generations because as it stands now we are failing miserably on that score. This is about calling on politicians of all parties to do what is morally right. This is about us standing up with our collective conscience to a threat to our survival. And this is exactly what we need during a recession because jobs related to our transition from fosil fuels which will have to come eventually will be positive for our economy. And recession or not, do you not have a conscience? Do you truly think it pathetic to stand up for your only home, or only because Al Gore said it?
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
August 18th, 2010 at 2:05 pm
Good luck with that, Jan. But the radical nature of contemporary environmentalism won’t jell, and it won’t jell because it would make human beings less prosperous, cause more misery, and turn our freedom over to unelected bureaucrats and members of the scientocracy. Indeed, for some these days, environmentalism has left its venerable conservationist roots to become a neo earth religion. Thanks for commenting, though.
August 19th, 2010 | 3:02 pm
Inspired by Mr. Gore, I sit in front of my computer in protest of other people’s inaction on global warming.
I urge everyone to give up flying in private jets to global warming conferences in locations that are served perfectly well by regularly scheduled commercial airlines.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
August 19th, 2010 at 4:35 pm
You ask TOO MUCH, John. One can’t save the world from coach.
August 19th, 2010 | 10:49 pm
Jan:
You believe the meme that CO2 is “pollution?” Go back to your basic science book. The atmosphere consists of 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen and then trace gases, one of which is CO2–a naturally occurring element.
Right now CO2 occupies 0.038% of the atmosphere. Greenhouse operators actually burn natural gas to raise the background level to 0.1%–over 2.5 times the level found in the atmosphere. Why? Because plants thrive on the extra CO2.
The CO2 hypothesis is absent any empirical evidence.
I imagine you see yourself as an environmentalist. If so, I recommend a book by a committed environmentalist, Peter Taylor, called “Chill.”
August 20th, 2010 | 8:12 am
Karl: Glad you brought up the point about greenhouse operators raising the CO2 content. I guess you forgot to mention that greenhouses are enclosed spaces, so that what’s going on inside doesn’t mess with the earth’s atmosphere. However, if you’ve ever stood inside an operating greenhouse for any length of time (say, as long as you could stand the heat and humidity) you might get some idea of the “greenhouse effect” of excess CO2 in the earth’s atmosphere. It’s also referred to as “global warming.”
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