Al Gore is Elmer Gantry. Expert at posing as the Puritan, he preaches hell and brimstone and calls on us to be saved by saving the planet. And he’s gotten very rich doing it. He won (ludicrously) the Nobel Peace Prize. He’s become a rock star of the Left.
But walk the walk as if the world really is in danger? Not on your life. He’s special. The low carbon footprint rules don’t apply to him.
It seems that Gore was in Sweden to sow his usual hysteria and bask in the love. And as usual, he acted in precisely the opposite manner that we mere shlubs are harangued to do. From the story in Climate Depot:
This time, he turned up in Gothenburg (Sweden) for the usual alarmist talk. In advance, all distinguished guests were politely advised to – if possible – use any form of public transportation to go to the event, in order to minimize CO2 emissions. Intriguingly, the Master of World Climate himself arrived in a rental car (with or without driver is unclear), from the airport, and subsequently left the engine running for the entire lecture. That is to say, about one hour. Incidentally, local legislation prohibits – for very good environmental reasons, i e pollution – any car engine running on empty for more than 60 seconds. Fines are severe. As far as I know, he was not fined.
It starts to form a pattern. After the ceremony in the Norwegian capital Oslo, it is customary that the laureate is invited to the Swedish capital Stockholm, for a cordial visit. The train ride, supposedly the environmental choice according to Mr. Gore, is approximately four hours. However, he opted for the cosier ride with one of the Swedish government aircrafts. As these can, according to the rules, only be used when a cabinet member is on board – and as the Swedish government after a short ceremonial visit – offered to fly him to Frankfurt (Germany) for his flight to the US, you can calculate both the manpower and the fuel used for this grand tour against man’s destruction of the planet.
Admittedly this report comes from skeptics. But there is no reason to think it is false. Indeed, given Gore’s hypocritical history, it almost surely is true.
Gore Gantry preaches abstinence and fidelity as he plows a swath through the choir. If the planet is really going to fry, you have to lead by example–even in small things like idling cars and taking trains. Otherwise people are going to think it is just an ego trip and a power scam.
October 28th, 2010 | 11:27 am
Although former VP Gore is irrelevant to the science of global warming, you continue to smear him. (I know, I know, it’s not a smear if true).
Is the story true? Your source is Marc Morano, former Limbaugh lackey, former Inhofe hatchet man, former Swiftboater… and committed global warming science denier. His source is Einar du Rietz of CFACT.EU, another global warming denialist. What was Mr. du Rietz’s source. He doesn’t say.
Neither you or I know if the report is true, but you’re quite willing to accept the tale sourced by a proven liar. I am more skeptical about this terribly unimportant tale.
Do you or Mr. Morano have any evidence disproving the overwhelming data supporting the theory of man-made global warming? I didn’t think so. But you do have that Al Gore may have taken an airplane when a train was available. BFD
The Earth continues to warm because humans have caused nearly a 40% increase in atmospheric CO2. By 2100, CO2 is expected to reach nearly 900 ppm (from “normal” 280 ppm). The current 1.5F increase in global mean temperature is already causing significant climate effects. What will a 10F increase by 2100 do to our great-great-grandchildren’s Earth?
Pathetically, you’re concerned about smearing Al Gore.
October 28th, 2010 | 11:30 am
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Vince Humphreys and Stand In The Gap, Heath Lackey. Heath Lackey said: Global Warming Hysteria: Al–Elmer Gantry–Gore: The low carbon footprint rules don't apply to him. It seems that Go… http://bit.ly/digJAL [...]
October 28th, 2010 | 1:16 pm
[...] First Things (blog) [...]
October 28th, 2010 | 1:42 pm
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October 28th, 2010 | 5:57 pm
Fascinating how commenter Jeffery and other AGW believers like him claim Al Gore is irrelevant to the issue, considering Gore has had probably the most publicity in getting the issue into the minds of the general public. Also interesting how such commenters always resort to the same line Gore does, when it comes to critics: “don’t listen to Morano, Limbaugh, or skeptic scientist X, Y, or Z” Never mind the more effective tactic of actually proving such individuals wrong, smear them with a guilt-by-association accusations instead.
As for the question “Do you or Mr. Morano have any evidence disproving the overwhelming data supporting the theory of man-made global warming?”, I’d suggest commenter Jeffery try reading “Climate Change Reconsidered: The 2009 Report of the NONgovernmental International Panel on Climate Change” (NIPCC), an assessment of a huge collection of peer-reviewed science journal-published papers that collectively contradict the IPCC ( http://www.nipccreport.org/reports/2009/2009report.html ), but I can guess his response would only be that we should ignore it because it’s a hack piece published by a right-wing think tank and written by a small cadre of scientists who’ve been paid to “reposition global warming as theory rather than fact”. It’s a tiresome response, one that only consistently undermines the AGW believers, since they are unable to produce a scintilla of evidence proving the scientists fabricated such reports under direction from any corrupted source. Most embarrassing of all, the “reposition global warming” accusation they place SO much faith in as a smoking gun indictment of skeptic scientists is based on an industry memo that cannot be found in its complete context anywhere on the internet, or in any books or magazine articles. The question we all need to ask is, why does that memo remain hidden?
October 28th, 2010 | 7:13 pm
Roald A: The issue is “To what extent is human activity affecting global climate and what ought we to do about it?”
How precisely are allegations about Al Gore’s lifestyle relevant to this?
Over 95% of actively publishing climatologists agree that AGW is real. The basic scientific principles involved are universally accepted. The evidence is clear, freely available and is yet to be refuted. Professional scientific bodies from countries as far flung as Russia, Japan, India, China, Sweden, Ghana and South Africa (and the list goes on) have all issued statements supporting the consensus. Are they all in on the conspiracy? Even societies such as the American Geophysics Union and and the European Federation of Geologists whose members certainly have no financial incentive to encourage a shift away from fossil fuels support the consensus.
Posts on Al Gore’s travel arrangements or James Cameron’s houses might light up the denialist blogosphere but these smears have absolutely nothing to do the with the scientific issues under consideration or with the attempt to work out economically and politically viable solution to a common problem.
October 28th, 2010 | 7:36 pm
Roald,
Actually, what I said was that Morano and du Rietz did not cite any sources for their accusations against Gore. That doesn’t mean their charges are untrue, just unsourced.
In the NIPCC report, Singer, Idso and the Heartland Institute do often contradict the IPCC. Your claims that they represent a right-wing think tank and a small cadre of scientists, while true, should not invalidate their critiques. The fact remains that almost all climate scientists do not find that these analyses “refudiate” (h/t to S. Palin) the theory of man-made global warming.
The sources of funding for Singer, Idso and the Heartland Institute are about as relevant as Al Gore’s personal transportation strategy. What is relevant is evidence and data, almost all of which support man-made global warming.
Finally, you find tiresome an argument that was only made by you.
October 29th, 2010 | 12:36 pm
Fascinating how commenters Raven Chukwu, Jeffery and other AGW believers like them try so hard to divert discussions away from Al Gore, when Gore is one of the main promoters of the idea that skeptic scientists shouldn’t be listened to. It’s almost as if they are playing a quick shell game, trying to trick the readers into not noticing the fundamental faults of their arguments.
For commenter Chukwu, the relevancy of Gore’s lifestyle is that he claims our excessive overuse of fossil fuels is exactly what is causing our so-called global warming crisis, and that we ALL are going to have to sacrifice in order to stop it. Certainly Chukwu and others are disappointed that Gore is not going to greater lengths to cut his emissions, such as setting a leadership standard for tele-conferencing as opposed to in-person visits.
For commenter Jeffery, what he said is no less than what I literally quoted, a verbatim question straight out of his first comment here.
Both employ another tiresome fallback defense: that there is an overwhelming consensus. Many AGW believers regurgitate Naomi Oreskes’ infamous “928-0″ study, including Gore in his move, a study that has been brought under severe question for its methodology (seen here http://www.staff.livjm.ac.uk/spsbpeis/Oreskes-abstracts.htm ), and which is contradicted elsewhere, as in this study: http://www.dailytech.com/Survey/article8641.htm
A consensus of engineers declared the space shuttle Challenger’s solid rocket O-rings would be fine under the conditions, over the dissent of a minority. In the end, existence of a consensus proved NOTHING. For problems with academies or societies of scientists that supposedly agree with a ‘consensus’ we need only look at the rising dissent of scientists within those bodies who say their governing boards make statements the members have no control over – as in the American Chemical Society, and the American Physical Society ( http://tinyurl.com/nmehw9 ), inconveniently detailed by someone we’re advised not to listen to, Marc Morano.
The overall point is that the AGW believers claim this is a settled issue, and that we must now fix the problem we created. But when red flags pop up, they tell us, “Nothing to see here, move along, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain”. One major reason for declining public concern about global warming that the mainstream media will not report about is more and more people are seeing the faults in the AGW mantra and saying, “Wait a minute – what about that problem there, and why is there a contradiction over there, how do you explain this other problem…..”
October 29th, 2010 | 3:02 pm
Roald A: A scientific claim ought to be refuted by scientific arguments and not by references to the lifestyles of politicians. Nothing Al Gore says or does either proves or disproves researchers’ claims about the effects of human activity on the planet or the measures we need to take to control this.
We all agree that a “consensus” is not an absolute guarantee of truth – but it represents what we may justifiably assert at a given time based on the information at our disposal. Our limitations are such that absolute certainty will always be beyond our grasp – but we would be foolish to let this preclude us from acting. If 97% of oncologists consulted by a worried patient tell him his lesion is cancerous, he would be well advised to act accordingly. Even if subsequently it were proved that their expert opinion was in fact wrong (these things, after all, have been known to happen) it wouldn’t change the fact that acting on the recommendation at the time it was given would have been the rational thing to do.
There exists a scientific consensus that the Human Immunodeficiency Virus causes AIDS. There also exists a historical census that the Holocaust actually took place. These claims are denied to this day by comparatively small groups of skeptics but all rational people understand that when it comes to taking action we ought to go with the majority of the experts and the preponderance of the evidence and not spend all our time delaying action until each dissenting voice crying out in the wilderness falls silent.
Is there, in fact, a consensus when it comes to AGW? Clearly. As you probably know, a study published in 2010 (by Anderegg et al) showed that 97-98% of actively publishing climatologists (ie people who actually know what they are talking about) support the claim that human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-scientific-consensus-intermediate.htm
(the site also contains a discussion of the study which supposedly “refutes” Oreskes’ 2004 paper).
Many scientists have, as you point out, publicly stated that the statements released by their professional bodies do not represent their personal views (a while ago, Wesley posted a story about an 87 year old physicist who quit the APS claiming that global warming was “the biggest fraud in scientific history”). This is to be expected. The APS has over 14,000 members – it would be surprising if there didn’t happen to be a few who held views which, for whatever reason, markedly differed from those held by their colleagues (I had, in university, an eminent professor of otorhinolaryngology who believed that the Spirit of the Lord was carried around the human body in erythrocytes and had published a book about this. Needless to say, none of his colleagues agreed with him and we went with the consensus.)
I’m rambling again so I’ll bring this to a halt. I do not believe in stifling scientific debate – but as Oreskes herself puts it during the course of this lecture (“The American Denial of Global Warming”), if you have 6,500 physicists supporting a program and 3 opposing it, what kind of balance would there be if you gave equal time to the 3?
October 29th, 2010 | 7:07 pm
Roald,
Read and re-read Raven Chukwu’s latest post. It is spot on, wise and balanced.
Al Gore is irrelevant to the science of global warming. He has been very relevant to alerting the public to the dangers of global warming. My guess is that the intent of those smearing him is to reduce his influence on the lay public, but please understand this a political tactic, not a scientific one.
The Earth is warming, almost certainly because of human activities, especially the generation of greenhouse gases (GHG) from the burning of fossil fuels for energy. Again, almost certainly, without intervention on our part the Earth will continue to warm, seriously impacting human culture. The required intervention is to reduce our burning of fossil fuels. This is not trivial but will not destroy economies as some claim, although the shift to non-GHG emitting energy could harm the economies of ExxonMobil, Peabody Energy, BP etc., while rewarding corporations that produce energy from renewable sources (+nuclear) or that develop technology for capturing GHG emissions and storing in a stable form .
October 30th, 2010 | 2:01 pm
Global warming e-mails……….nuf said!
November 2nd, 2010 | 11:49 am
In 1953 Time magazine and Popular Mechanics were running articles on the work of a physicist named Gilbert Plass.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,890597,00.html
Physicist Gilbert N. Plass had just completed some calculations on the atmospheric warming effect of carbon dioxide. He certainly wasn’t the first person to make such calculations, but he was the first to make use of computers to perform the calculations in much greater detail. He drew attention to the point that man-made CO2 emissions would have a significant warming effect on the Earth’s temperature. Popular Mechanics reported the results under the headline “Growing Blanket of Carbon Dioxide Raises Earth’s Temperature”.
http://climateprogress.org/2008/11/16/1953-popular-mechanics-growing-blanket-of-carbon-dioxide-raises-earth%E2%80%99s-temperature/
The important point to note here is that in 1953, Al Gore was 5 years old.
Furthermore, there has always been a consensus predicting that global average temperature would rise, even way back.
Climatologist Thomas C. Peterson of the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C., and his colleagues put together a team to survey all major journal papers published between 1965 and 1979 and found that out of a total of 71 major journal articles, only 7 articles predicted that global average temperature would continue to cool. During the same period, 44 journal papers indicated that the average temperature would rise and 20 were neutral or made no climate predictions. The report was in the September Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.
If you care at all about what the smartest people on the planet think:
Read: Talent and Taste
http://harryhammer.wordpress.com/2010/09/19/talent-and-taste/
Read: Opinions that Matter
http://harryhammer.wordpress.com/2010/03/16/opinions-that-matter/
Read: The Highest IQ in the World
http://harryhammer.wordpress.com/2010/08/21/the-highest-iq-in-the-world/
November 4th, 2010 | 1:57 pm
[...] of what the people actually think. And of course, he was notoriously (and typically, see Al Gore, James Cameron, etc.) hypocritical opposing a wind farm that would be visible from the [...]
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