TranceAddict Forums (www.tranceaddict.com/forums)
- Political Discussion / Debate
-- An Inconvenient Irony
Pages (2): « 1 [2]

quote:

Originally posted by Q5echo oh so you're saying that Saddam was the environment and we were the polluters and Al was...? an arms dealer with a guilty conscience? and rich republican tax revenue represented the four horseman of the apocalypse. yeah, i don't know. you might be on to something. you said something about us selling Saddam weapons was analagous to me criicizing Al's telling us we're all gonna die in a movie if we don't change drastically while he proves in real life that that doesn't have to be the case, at least for a rich guy, is not even remotely in common other than the two may have been described as a double standard but one could have been helped by one persons word/actions. i get it now. again. reaching but i get it.

No I'm saying that America said that Iraq was bad, yet America helped Iraq, yet America is still correct in saying that Iraq is bad despite the blatant hypocrisy. Did it serve a GREATER GOOD to help Iraq despite it being bad (at least to America)? YES. Does it make sense that America helped Iraq in the 80's despite the fact that most of our criticisms of Huessein's Iraq occurred in the 80's? Right around the time period we were helping him? Now if we analyze the situation like we're two year olds it's a steaming pile of shit that doesn't make any sense whatsoever. However, if we're seasoned verterans of geopolitical policy (or in other words, users of common sense) it's not so hypocritical. Reaching still?

quote:

look man i don't disagree with the motives of research scientists or any environmentalist means of getting people's attention (to a point of course) so long as it is consistent with their actions. in Al's case he's making two cases. i think one is being proven wrong by the other, and he's the one doing the validation!

Wait, so most climatologists AREN'T advocates of reducing global warming?? Isn't that inconsistent with their actions of expending vast quantitites of carbon dioxide to carry out their research?


has Bush made a movie telling everyone that if people don't stop flying helicopters we're all gonna die? that question was rhetorical more of a joke really.

are you justified for criticizing? it depends on if Bush thinks that flying helicopters was an absolute in the destruction of the world. if Bush or you thinks that it is not an absolute, that iif it is possible to be "carbon nuetral" despite countless and wreckless sorties regardless of the shame of irresponsibility [/QUOTE]

quote:

Originally posted by Marc Summers Stop using that. You are only telling about 1/8 of the facts. You forgot to talk about all the other countries that supplied Iraq. France, Brazil, Russia, and the United States supplied both the Iraqis and the Iranians during the Iran-Iraq war. Sad, but true. It's like giving two children knives and egging them on to fight. Don't start typing things that aren't the full truth.

What? Perhaps if you understood what I was saying your argument would make more sense. As it stands you're simply taking what I said out of any kind of context. Here, to help, why don't you outline high level point I was making, and tell us how your statement addressed that overall point.

quote:

Originally posted by occrider No I'm saying that America said that Iraq was bad, yet America helped Iraq, yet America is still correct in saying that Iraq is bad despite the blatant hypocrisy.

the analogy must consider that without hindsight, say 20 yrs. of it, Iraq was as good as Iran was bad. aside from that therein, i think, lies the commonality. however, no climatologist underestimates global warming's danger like America underestimated Iraq. nor does Al demonstrate to the degree in which he preaches his philosophy on how lifestyle choices will eventually lead to the destruction of the Earth (or mankind, whatever). where as America was just using Iraq to get at Iran, Al is using his celebrity to affect the global conscience (albeit misleadingly)

quote:

Wait, so most climatologists AREN'T advocates of reducing global warming??

sure, but how do they suggest we do that? do they even agree what causes it? and even if they did, and their research contributed to it, what is the research's net gain other than just a basic understanding of what not to do? how does that equate with Al's reckless attention getting? by attention getting i mean promoting the movie which is not an indictment on him personally.

quote:

Originally posted by Q5echo the analogy must consider that without hindsight, say 20 yrs. of it, Iraq was as good as Iran was bad. aside from that therein, i think, lies the commonality. however, no climatologist underestimates global warming's danger like America underestimated Iraq. nor does Al demonstrate to the degree in which he preaches his philosophy on how lifestyle choices will eventually lead to the destruction of the Earth (or mankind, whatever). where as America was just using Iraq to get at Iran, Al is using his celebrity to affect the global conscience (albeit misleadingly)

So there's the problem. How can Al Gore influence the masses using his celebrity without appearing to be hypocritical? The fact is he can't unless there's an airplane that runs on vegetable oil. How can America not use realpolitik in order to acheive the "greater good"? IMO it can't. The complexities of real life result in seemingly hypocritical clashes ... on the face of things much of what occurs appears to be hypocritical but with applied context it really is not the case or is a necessary evil so to speak. Certainly there's room for critcism if the means don't actually accomplish the ends or if the means are particularly despicable, however, I don't believe what Al Gore is doing is a cause for concern with respect to either scenario.

quote:

sure, but how do they suggest we do that? do they even agree what causes it? and even if they did, and their research contributed to it, what is the research's net gain other than just a basic understanding of what not to do? how does that equate with Al's reckless attention getting? by attention getting i mean promoting the movie which is not an indictment on him personally.

I think most would say that humans are affecting the environment with carbon dioxide buildup. I think most would suggest that reducing this CO2 buildup would help eliminate the problem. Their "carbon footprint" is spent building up the facts behind their case. Al Gore's "carbon footprint" is spent publicizing the facts that the climatologists have come up with. In either case I don't really see any hypocrtical behaviour unless the ends are so henious that they do not justify the means or the means are so woefully inadequate to accomplish any semblance of accomplishing the ends.

I think the real kicker is what type of car does he drive?

A "carbon footprint" from flying around does not mean too much since the plane would be flying around even if he wasn't on it. However if he flies his own private plane around then maybe you can question his dedication to what he preaches.

This still leaves what car he drives. To me, if he drives a SUV without a convincing reason he is quite the hypocrite. If you are going to preach and make movies around reducing your "carbon footprint" you should drive a hybrid or at least a car that gets good gas mileage.

Some posters seemed to suggest, or it just seemed that way to me, that he drives an SUV. Is it true?

quote:

Originally posted by NebulousQ I think the real kicker is what type of car does he drive?

according to the New Yorker, Al drives a 2004 Cadillac and '65 Mustang given to him by Tipper....oh! did i mention they are insane?...yes, yes, they're insane...batshit crazy!

lol.

I know nothing about the gas mileage and emissions of those cars, however it seems to me that someone who went to the length of making and promoting a movie about saving the environment should ride a bike around or at least drive a hybrid.

quote:

Originally posted by Q5echo according to the New Yorker, Al drives a 2004 Cadillac and '65 Mustang given to him by Tipper....oh! did i mention they are insane?...yes, yes, they're insane...batshit crazy!

Any link to that? I've read news stories that have said that they've recently purchased a hybrid.

okay, >HERE< is the article from the Sep '04 issue but i'm warning you it's a real snoozer.

quote:

Gore also installed an anti-bug system that sprays a fine mist of ground chrysanthemums from various discreet sources: a tree trunk, a patio wall. �The mosquitoes just hate it,� he said. Other features of the house are less environmentally correct. A 2004 black Cadillac, which Gore drives, was parked in the driveway. A �65 Mustang�a Valentine�s Day gift from Al to Tipper�was parked in the garage.

oh shit i read it wrong. he drives the Caddy, Tipper drives the man's car...figures

yeah i don't know if he drives a hybrid or what. that aspect of his life is prolly protected by the secret service it's so sensitive.

i drove a hybrid around the block today. it was a Lexus RX400h. fairly sweet. kind of a chick car but it was aaaiight

i just saw the movie today, it was great. i highly recommend it.. really opens your eyes to what's going on, and makes you hate the bush administration and oil companies for being such greedy bastards. we're goners if we don't shape up

quote:

Originally posted by Q5echo

Woah! That is nuts, thank for this chart!

quote:

Originally posted by Haunted and makes you hate the bush administration and oil companies for being such greedy bastards.

did it mention the times not so long ago when oil prices fell through the floor and big oil companies could barely afford to pump the oil out of the ground and had to merge like crazy and lay off thousands in order to stay afloat?

that has nothing to do with the fact that gas is an inefficient form of energy and bad for the environment.

same as cigarretes, companies know its bad but can still get profits so continue selling, but the problem is, oil companies have sucha tight hold over our government that options are not given. what happened to the electric car?

quote:

Originally posted by Haunted that has nothing to do with the fact that gas is an inefficient form of energy and bad for the environment.

right, but it has everything to do with a movie "that makes oil companies look like greedy bastards".

quote:

same as cigarretes, companies know its bad but can still get profits so continue selling

same for Boeing. thousands of their jumbo jets strafe the atmosphere daily sans any emmisions control whatsoever burning millions of tons of jet fuel thats hardly different from kerosene.

quote:

, but the problem is, oil companies have sucha tight hold over our government that options are not given. what happened to the electric car?

oil companies are among the most heavily regulated industries from the Federal level all the way down to the district next to teh nuclear industry, medical industry. the "options" you speak of ultimately belong to a free market. now, i'd be stupid to tell you that that free market doesn't get influenced by anything or anyone willing to sell their goods on that market. thats the way it is.

quote:

what happened to the electric car?

i don't know. what electric car?

I'll admit that I haven't read most of this thread, so I apologize if I'm coming out of left field here. I read this article this morning and I found it interesting. I guess you could say it's another view or even a rebuttal to Gore's film. It's a long read, but I recommend it.

http://www.canadafreepress.com/2006/harris061206.htm

quote:

Scientists respond to Gore's warnings of climate catastrophe "The Inconvenient Truth" is indeed inconvenient to alarmists By Tom Harris Monday, June 12, 2006 "Scientists have an independent obligation to respect and present the truth as they see it," Al Gore sensibly asserts in his film "An Inconvenient Truth", showing at Cumberland 4 Cinemas in Toronto since Jun 2. With that outlook in mind, what do world climate experts actually think about the science of his movie? Professor Bob Carter of the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at James Cook University, in Australia gives what, for many Canadians, is a surprising assessment: "Gore's circumstantial arguments are so weak that they are pathetic. It is simply incredible that they, and his film, are commanding public attention." But surely Carter is merely part of what most people regard as a tiny cadre of "climate change skeptics" who disagree with the "vast majority of scientists" Gore cites? No; Carter is one of hundreds of highly qualified non-governmental, non-industry, non-lobby group climate experts who contest the hypothesis that human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are causing significant global climate change. "Climate experts" is the operative term here. Why? Because what Gore's "majority of scientists" think is immaterial when only a very small fraction of them actually work in the climate field. Even among that fraction, many focus their studies on the impacts of climate change; biologists, for example, who study everything from insects to polar bears to poison ivy. "While many are highly skilled researchers, they generally do not have special knowledge about the causes of global climate change," explains former University of Winnipeg climatology professor Dr. Tim Ball. "They usually can tell us only about the effects of changes in the local environment where they conduct their studies." This is highly valuable knowledge, but doesn't make them climate change cause experts, only climate impact experts. So we have a smaller fraction. But it becomes smaller still. Among experts who actually examine the causes of change on a global scale, many concentrate their research on designing and enhancing computer models of hypothetical futures. "These models have been consistently wrong in all their scenarios," asserts Ball. "Since modelers concede computer outputs are not "predictions" but are in fact merely scenarios, they are negligent in letting policy-makers and the public think they are actually making forecasts." We should listen most to scientists who use real data to try to understand what nature is actually telling us about the causes and extent of global climate change. In this relatively small community, there is no consensus, despite what Gore and others would suggest. Here is a small sample of the side of the debate we almost never hear: Appearing before the Commons Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development last year, Carleton University paleoclimatologist Professor Tim Patterson testified, "There is no meaningful correlation between CO2 levels and Earth's temperature over this [geologic] time frame. In fact, when CO2 levels were over ten times higher than they are now, about 450 million years ago, the planet was in the depths of the absolute coldest period in the last half billion years." Patterson asked the committee, "On the basis of this evidence, how could anyone still believe that the recent relatively small increase in CO2 levels would be the major cause of the past century's modest warming?" Patterson concluded his testimony by explaining what his research and "hundreds of other studies" reveal: on all time scales, there is very good correlation between Earth's temperature and natural celestial phenomena such changes in the brightness of the Sun. Dr. Boris Winterhalter, former marine researcher at the Geological Survey of Finland and professor in marine geology, University of Helsinki, takes apart Gore's dramatic display of Antarctic glaciers collapsing into the sea. "The breaking glacier wall is a normally occurring phenomenon which is due to the normal advance of a glacier," says Winterhalter. "In Antarctica the temperature is low enough to prohibit melting of the ice front, so if the ice is grounded, it has to break off in beautiful ice cascades. If the water is deep enough icebergs will form." Dr. Wibj�rn Karl�n, emeritus professor, Dept. of Physical Geography and Quaternary Geology, Stockholm University, Sweden, admits, "Some small areas in the Antarctic Peninsula have broken up recently, just like it has done back in time. The temperature in this part of Antarctica has increased recently, probably because of a small change in the position of the low pressure systems." But Karl�n clarifies that the 'mass balance' of Antarctica is positive - more snow is accumulating than melting off. As a result, Ball explains, there is an increase in the 'calving' of icebergs as the ice dome of Antarctica is growing and flowing to the oceans. When Greenland and Antarctica are assessed together, "their mass balance is considered to possibly increase the sea level by 0.03 mm/year - not much of an effect," Karl�n concludes. The Antarctica has survived warm and cold events over millions of years. A meltdown is simply not a realistic scenario in the foreseeable future. Gore tells us in the film, "Starting in 1970, there was a precipitous drop-off in the amount and extent and thickness of the Arctic ice cap." This is misleading, according to Ball: "The survey that Gore cites was a single transect across one part of the Arctic basin in the month of October during the 1960s when we were in the middle of the cooling period. The 1990 runs were done in the warmer month of September, using a wholly different technology." Karl�n explains that a paper published in 2003 by University of Alaska professor Igor Polyakov shows that, the region of the Arctic where rising temperature is supposedly endangering polar bears showed fluctuations since 1940 but no overall temperature rise. "For several published records it is a decrease for the last 50 years," says Karl�n Dr. Dick Morgan, former advisor to the World Meteorological Organization and climatology researcher at University of Exeter, U.K. gives the details, "There has been some decrease in ice thickness in the Canadian Arctic over the past 30 years but no melt down. The Canadian Ice Service records show that from 1971-1981 there was average, to above average, ice thickness. From 1981-1982 there was a sharp decrease of 15% but there was a quick recovery to average, to slightly above average, values from 1983-1995. A sharp drop of 30% occurred again 1996-1998 and since then there has been a steady increase to reach near normal conditions since 2001." Concerning Gore's beliefs about worldwide warming, Morgan points out that, in addition to the cooling in the NW Atlantic, massive areas of cooling are found in the North and South Pacific Ocean; the whole of the Amazon Valley; the north coast of South America and the Caribbean; the eastern Mediterranean, Black Sea, Caucasus and Red Sea; New Zealand and even the Ganges Valley in India. Morgan explains, "Had the IPCC used the standard parameter for climate change (the 30 year average) and used an equal area projection, instead of the Mercator (which doubled the area of warming in Alaska, Siberia and the Antarctic Ocean) warming and cooling would have been almost in balance." Gore's point that 200 cities and towns in the American West set all time high temperature records is also misleading according to Dr. Roy Spencer, Principal Research Scientist at The University of Alabama in Huntsville. "It is not unusual for some locations, out of the thousands of cities and towns in the U.S., to set all-time records," he says. "The actual data shows that overall, recent temperatures in the U.S. were not unusual." Carter does not pull his punches about Gore's activism, "The man is an embarrassment to US science and its many fine practitioners, a lot of whom know (but feel unable to state publicly) that his propaganda crusade is mostly based on junk science." In April sixty of the world's leading experts in the field asked Prime Minister Harper to order a thorough public review of the science of climate change, something that has never happened in Canada. Considering what's at stake - either the end of civilization, if you believe Gore, or a waste of billions of dollars, if you believe his opponents - it seems like a reasonable request. Tom Harris is mechanical engineer and Ottawa Director of High Park Group, a public affairs and public policy company.

quote:

Originally posted by NeoPhono I'll admit that I haven't read most of this thread, so I apologize if I'm coming out of left field here. I read this article this morning and I found it interesting. I guess you could say it's another view or even a rebuttal to Gore's film. It's a long read, but I recommend it. http://www.canadafreepress.com/2006/harris061206.htm

Unfortunately, as it is becoming immensely more and more obvious, this global warming debate is closely resembling that of the evolution/creation debate, and I'll let you decide who's side resembles whom. A quick search on some of my bookmarked science blogs revealed the following on this article posted by Neo. I'll be the first to admit that climate science is not one of my strengths, so I'll allow others to do the talking. Links throughout the article are posted:

quote:

An embarrassment to Australian science Category: Global Warming � bobcarter Posted on: June 15, 2006 3:00 PM, by Tim Lambert Matt Drudge recently linked to a web site claiming that climate experts disagreed with Al Gore about global warming. Hundreds of blogs uncritically swallowed the claim. On of the few skeptics was Bruce Perens who wrote quote: We ran a pointer to a global-warming-doubter story this morning. Here's the link. I decided to pull the story after reviewing the author attribution (he's from a paid political PR agency), and the venue's other coverage on this issue. Sorry. Hey, I've got my doubts about global warming too. But it does seem that the "con" side of the argument often comes from people who are paid to have those opinions. Is Perens correct about the author? It seems so. The author of the article, Tom Harris, works for the High Park Group, a consulting firm that "focuses largely on energy issues" is "retained by the Canadian Electricity Association". The Canadian Electricity Association appears to oppose Kyoto and has help fund a Canadian anti-Kyoto astroturf group. Of course, this doesn't prove that Harris is wrong, but unless you have the time to go through and carefully check his claims, it would be unwise to believe him. I've examined Harris' claims and he's wrong. The genuine experts in the field say that Gore, basically, got it right (http://salon.com/news/feature/2006/06/10/truths/) Harris writes: quote: Professor Bob Carter of the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at James Cook University, in Australia gives what, for many Canadians, is a surprising assessment: "Gore's circumstantial arguments are so weak that they are pathetic. It is simply incredible that they, and his film, are commanding public attention." But surely Carter is merely part of what most people regard as a tiny cadre of "climate change skeptics" who disagree with the "vast majority of scientists" Gore cites? No; Carter is one of hundreds of highly qualified non-governmental, non-industry, non-lobby group climate experts who contest the hypothesis that human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are causing significant global climate change. "Climate experts" is the operative term here. Why? Because what Gore's "majority of scientists" think is immaterial when only a very small fraction of them actually work in the climate field. Hundreds? Really? Earlier they could only come up with sixty scientists who denied that global warming was a problem. And most of them were not actual climate scientists. Harris hasn't found anyone new, either. All the scientists he quotes happened to be on that list of deniers. He is right about one thing -- what is really important is the opinion of the experts who actually work in the field. If you want to find out what they think, I recommend the IPCC Third Assessment Report. Harris doesn't seem to have talked to any of these experts. And the people he did talk to got the science wrong. For example: quote: Concerning Gore's beliefs about worldwide warming, Morgan points out that, in addition to the cooling in the NW Atlantic, massive areas of cooling are found in the North and South Pacific Ocean; the whole of the Amazon Valley; the north coast of South America and the Caribbean; the eastern Mediterranean, Black Sea, Caucasus and Red Sea; New Zealand and even the Ganges Valley in India. Morgan explains, "Had the IPCC used the standard parameter for climate change (the 30 year average) and used an equal area projection, instead of the Mercator (which doubled the area of warming in Alaska, Siberia and the Antarctic Ocean) warming and cooling would have been almost in balance." Look at the picture. Firstly it's not a Mercator projection, but a Plate carr�e projection. And pretty obviously there are not massive areas of cooling and the dominance of warming (in red) is not because of the map projection. Or this: quote: Carleton University paleoclimatologist Professor Tim Patterson testified, "There is no meaningful correlation between CO2 levels and Earth's temperature over this [geologic] time frame. In fact, when CO2 levels were over ten times higher than they are now, about 450 million years ago, the planet was in the depths of the absolute coldest period in the last half billion years." Patterson asked the committee, "On the basis of this evidence, how could anyone still believe that the recent relatively small increase in CO2 levels would be the major cause of the past century's modest warming?" Well yes, over hundreds of millions of years, things like continental drift and long term changes in the sun are more important to climate than CO2. I'd keep that in mind if I was try to predict what the climate would be like in 100 million years. Is there a correlation over the last 400,000 years? Study the graph below. Harris winds up with: quote: Carter does not pull his punches about Gore's activism, "The man is an embarrassment to US science and its many fine practitioners, a lot of whom know (but feel unable to state publicly) that his propaganda crusade is mostly based on junk science." Yeah, they'd speak out but George Deutsch is stopping them. Oh no, that's right, he was censoring scientific results that supported global warming. And Bob Carter is an embarrassment to Australian science: his propaganda campaign is based on blatant cherry picking and getting scientific "facts" from Fox News. http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/200..._australian.php

And it is interesting to note that Bob Carter and a number of others cited by Harris in this article just happen to be members of Tech Central Science Foundation, or Tech Central Station (TCS):

http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/or...heet.php?id=112

And also note that ExxonMobile gave that foundation $95,000 in 2003.

Strange that.

Here's some other fun debunking pieces of those noted mystifying climatologists in that article:

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/200...e_quote_min.php

http://timlambert.org/category/science/bobcarter/

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/200..._a_thousand.php

http://timlambert.org/2005/06/bobcarter2/

I cannot comment specifically on Gore's movie since I have not seen it yet, but I will state that the supposed "debunkers" of global warming science are closely resembling creationists in both their scientific cherry-picking and quote mining, not to mention their outside payoff interests.

quote:

Originally posted by NebulousQ I think the real kicker is what type of car does he drive? A "carbon footprint" from flying around does not mean too much since the plane would be flying around even if he wasn't on it. However if he flies his own private plane around then maybe you can question his dedication to what he preaches. This still leaves what car he drives. To me, if he drives a SUV without a convincing reason he is quite the hypocrite. If you are going to preach and make movies around reducing your "carbon footprint" you should drive a hybrid or at least a car that gets good gas mileage. Some posters seemed to suggest, or it just seemed that way to me, that he drives an SUV. Is it true?

Not only that but is he flying in private jets or commercial?

As for promoting the film, why does he have to go to every opening?
And the 1000 speeches, like someone said should have done over video conference. For someone who claims to be so aware and worry about this he should be making all these cutback as well as his co2 credits.


As for the comment above about Exxon funding whoever, the same can said for the scientist preeching this greenhouse doomsday, they are awarded funds from lobbiest pushing their "green agenda", it works both ways.

quote:

Originally posted by juzfugen As for the comment above about Exxon funding whoever, the same can said for the scientist preeching this greenhouse doomsday, they are awarded funds from lobbiest pushing their "green agenda", it works both ways.

That's not entirely accurate, though I would like to see any figures on your claim just to make sure. The vast majority of climatologists and earth scientists merely report the evidence presented to them because that is exactly what and where their research leads them, and not as a result of any direct lobbyist interests, so it most certainly does not cut "both ways".

As far as scientists are concerned, there is no "green agenda". That is left up to the politicians, unfortunately. To the scientists, however, it is merely the data from the research itself.

after reading the article and the part where the 'scientist' says that when co2 levels were 10 times higher... i decided to stop reading.

you need to go watch the movie, there is proof in the movie that co2 levels are so high right now, higher than they have ever been. and there is proof that we are causing this co2 increase since co2 levels were much lower when humans didn't even exist.

i don't get why people are so ignorant.. wasn't the Ozone crisis a wake up call? it should've been. WE DO IMPACT THIS WORLD. we are not insignificant.

My call has not been to say we don't impact the environment, but rather to point out what a useless hypocrite Al Gore is. USA Today has a good article today (not that they have many).

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinio...ore-green_x.htm

quote:

By Peter Schweizer Al Gore has spoken: The world must embrace a "carbon-neutral lifestyle." To do otherwise, he says, will result in a cataclysmic catastrophe. "Humanity is sitting on a ticking time bomb," warns the website for his film, An Inconvenient Truth. "We have just 10 years to avert a major catastrophe that could send our entire planet into a tailspin." Graciously, Gore tells consumers how to change their lives to curb their carbon-gobbling ways: Switch to compact fluorescent light bulbs, use a clothesline, drive a hybrid, use renewable energy, dramatically cut back on consumption. Better still, responsible global citizens can follow Gore's example, because, as he readily points out in his speeches, he lives a "carbon-neutral lifestyle." But if Al Gore is the world's role model for ecology, the planet is doomed. For someone who says the sky is falling, he does very little. He says he recycles and drives a hybrid. And he claims he uses renewable energy credits to offset the pollution he produces when using a private jet to promote his film. (In reality, Paramount Classics, the film's distributor, pays this.) Public records reveal that as Gore lectures Americans on excessive consumption, he and his wife Tipper live in two properties: a 10,000-square-foot, 20-room, eight-bathroom home in Nashville, and a 4,000-square-foot home in Arlington, Va. (He also has a third home in Carthage, Tenn.) For someone rallying the planet to pursue a path of extreme personal sacrifice, Gore requires little from himself. Then there is the troubling matter of his energy use. In the Washington, D.C., area, utility companies offer wind energy as an alternative to traditional energy. In Nashville, similar programs exist. Utility customers must simply pay a few extra pennies per kilowatt hour, and they can continue living their carbon-neutral lifestyles knowing that they are supporting wind energy. Plenty of businesses and institutions have signed up. Even the Bush administration is using green energy for some federal office buildings, as are thousands of area residents. But according to public records, there is no evidence that Gore has signed up to use green energy in either of his large residences. When contacted Wednesday, Gore's office confirmed as much but said the Gores were looking into making the switch at both homes. Talk about inconvenient truths. Gore is not alone. Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean has said, "Global warming is happening, and it threatens our very existence." The DNC website applauds the fact that Gore has "tried to move people to act." Yet, astoundingly, Gore's persuasive powers have failed to convince his own party: The DNC has not signed up to pay an additional two pennies a kilowatt hour to go green. For that matter, neither has the Republican National Committee. Maybe our very existence isn't threatened. Gore has held these apocalyptic views about the environment for some time. So why, then, didn't Gore dump his family's large stock holdings in Occidental (Oxy) Petroleum? As executor of his family's trust, over the years Gore has controlled hundreds of thousands of dollars in Oxy stock. Oxy has been mired in controversy over oil drilling in ecologically sensitive areas. Living carbon-neutral apparently doesn't mean living oil-stock free. Nor does it necessarily mean giving up a mining royalty either. Humanity might be "sitting on a ticking time bomb," but Gore's home in Carthage is sitting on a zinc mine. Gore receives $20,000 a year in royalties from Pasminco Zinc, which operates a zinc concession on his property. Tennessee has cited the company for adding large quantities of barium, iron and zinc to the nearby Caney Fork River. The issue here is not simply Gore's hypocrisy; it's a question of credibility. If he genuinely believes the apocalyptic vision he has put forth and calls for radical changes in the way other people live, why hasn't he made any radical change in his life? Giving up the zinc mine or one of his homes is not asking much, given that he wants the rest of us to radically change our lives. Peter Schweizer is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and author of Do As I Say (Not As I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy.

Powered by: vBulletin
Copyright © 2000-2021, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.