An Inconvenient Irony

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Q5echo
asymetrical scepticism

Registered: Feb 2004
Location: Dallas

quote:
Inconvenient Truths for Al Gore
Remember Kyoto?

By Samuel Thernstrom

With Al Gore’s new movie opening this week, there are some inconvenient truths its maker should consider: Gore himself has done incalculable harm to the cause of combating global warming. His efforts to call attention to the dangers of climate change may prove prescient but his policy prescriptions have been nothing short of disastrous.

Consider the facts: The Kyoto Protocol, which Gore personally negotiated for the United States, was a colossal mistake—a fundamentally flawed approach that has taken nearly a decade (and counting) to recover from. If ever a treaty was dead on arrival, it was Kyoto, given that the Senate had voted 95-0 against two of its essential elements before it was negotiated. (That vote rejected any treaty that would seriously harm our economy while exempting the developing world from any obligation to reduce its emissions—a sensible litmus test.) That didn’t stop Gore from agreeing to its terms, knowing full well that it would never be ratified—a remarkably cynical political move.

What’s wrong with signing an impractical treaty? A lot, actually. Kyoto stopped us from pursuing more realistic alternatives. Even now, Kyoto’s misconceptions haunt us: Having already agreed that the developing world need not reduce its (rapidly increasing) emissions of greenhouse gases, it will be hard to persuade those countries to reconsider. Yet without their participation, no limits on global emissions can be effective.

Before Kyoto, the world was seriously engaged in thinking through the challenge of climate change. That started in earnest after the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, which committed the world to working together to avoid dangerous interference with the global climate. It left open the more difficult question of precisely what to do but it set the right goal, and for five years scientists, economists, engineers, and government officials struggled with that question. After Kyoto, that process largely ground to a halt.

Of course President Clinton never even tried to get the Senate to approve the treaty, and for seven years the rest of the industrialized world wrestled with ratification. A year ago, the Protocol finally came into effect—at least on paper. We have next to nothing to show for it. Canada is the latest country to admit (just this week) that it cannot meet its Kyoto targets; it wants to pursue voluntary measures when the Protocol expires in 2012. The rest of the participants aren’t doing much better: No country has actually made substantial reductions in its greenhouse gas emissions because of Kyoto, and many European countries will miss their targets by double digits. Moreover, those limits are only a small fraction of what many scientists think is needed to stabilize the climate.

The problem with meeting these targets is simple: the necessary technologies don’t exist. At best, Kyoto would mean spending a lot of money to accomplish very little. Kyoto-style targets may promote modest reductions in emissions today but they aren’t going to produce the research needed for fundamental technological breakthroughs that could slash overall global emissions. Short-term, modest targets aren’t incentives for ambitious long-term research.

After wasting almost a decade pursuing Al Gore’s answer to climate change, Kyoto’s failure is clear. The much-celebrated “trading” mechanism that was expected to cut the cost of compliance is barely functioning. Trading emissions credits works well when the technologies exist, such as smokestack “scrubbers” to remove sulfur dioxide. But greenhouse gases are another matter: There are so many sources of carbon dioxide, and so few affordable ways to get rid of it. Establishing an effective market for trading these credits is much more complicated than advocates ever imagined.

So, if not Kyoto, what? Environmentalists should thank President Bush for breathing new—albeit indignant—life into the stagnant climate-change debate when he announced in 2001 that he wouldn’t pursue ratification of Kyoto. New policy opportunities opened up and people went back to the creative drawing boards. We’re taking small steps in the right direction, but activists are more enamored with their politics—which dictate that anything that Bush supports must be wrong—than with spurring these nascent efforts on. Clinton and Gore continue to mislead Americans by telling us that the solutions are simple and cheap—all we need is political will to implement them. Nothing could be further from the truth: the answers to climate change are expensive and elusive; they will be found in the Los Alamos labs, not the halls of Congress.

The only way to make meaningful reductions in global greenhouse-gas emissions is to develop new clean energy and transportation technologies—and not just hybrid cars and windmills. Doing politically correct things like building solar panels would shave a few points off our total emissions, but only breakthrough technologies like hydrogen fuel cells will make real cuts possible. And their cost is the key: We can build fuel-cell cars now—for $1 million. When we figure out how to sell them for $30,000, we won’t need an international treaty to get people to buy them. Almost every major car company in the world is frantically trying to unlock that puzzle and—are you sitting down?—George W. Bush, the ex-oil man who once mocked Al Gore’s fascination with green cars, is pouring billions of federal dollars into the effort.

Bush has also spearheaded other efforts to develop clean energy technologies, such as the Asia-Pacific Partnership, which includes key developing countries such as China and India. Activists scorn these initiatives because they don’t require emissions reductions today, but in the long run they are our only hope. The real question is how to best advance this research—government labs, private sector R&D, or some combination? What’s the right level of funding, and the best way of organizing the research?

In the meantime there is one technology that could dramatically reduce America’s greenhouse-gas emissions—and yet environmentalists are fervently opposed to it. Al Gore doubts it has much potential. But the only cost-effective way we know right now to produce thousands of megawatts of zero-emissions electricity is nuclear power. America, of course, hasn’t built a new nuclear plant since Three Mile Island, but that’s going to change. Just how many plants are built, and how quickly, will depend in part on how fierce the environmental opposition is. Will Al Gore lead the way?

—Samuel Thernstrom is director of the W.H. Brady Program on Freedom and Culture at the American Enterprise Institute and managing editor of the AEI Press. He served as communications director for the White House Council on Environmental Quality in 2001–02.

well, after reading this article i'm almost convinced that his attempt being "carbon nuetral" is most likely irony mixed with self-absorbtion and a smattering of guilt.

believe me, this has nothing to do with the way i feel about him as a politician or a person prior to all of this. anybody else i'd feel the same way.

May-26-2006 00:42 United States

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Spacey Orange
still loves trance.

Registered: Jul 2004
Location: California

Re: An Inconvenient Irony

quote:
Originally posted by Shakka
Why the hell isn't he out on a segway or a vegetable oil powered car pushing his agenda? Oh, right--it's because he's above that. If you're gonna talk the talk, you'd better be prepared to walk the walk.

off topic but i was behind one of those vegatable-powered thing-a-ma-jigs and it smelled like french fries.

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May-26-2006 01:29 United States

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Q5echo
asymetrical scepticism

Registered: Feb 2004
Location: Dallas

Re: Re: An Inconvenient Irony

quote:
Originally posted by Spacey Orange
off topic but i was behind one of those vegatable-powered thing-a-ma-jigs and it smelled like french fries.

exactly. who wants to live in a world that smells like french fries all the time?

May-26-2006 01:40 United States

Shakka
Supreme tranceaddict

Registered: Feb 2003
Location:

Re: Re: An Inconvenient Irony

quote:
Originally posted by Spacey Orange
off topic but i was behind one of those vegatable-powered thing-a-ma-jigs and it smelled like french fries.

The dumpster-diver movement lives on!

May-26-2006 03:12 United States

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occrider
Traveladdict

Registered: Oct 2000
Location: New York

quote:
Originally posted by Q5echo
right, i get it, but what is his point then if the movie's premise is for all of us to reduce our lifestyle for the sake of a CO2 footprint and neglect the fact that he himself can prove that it is possible as filthy a polluter he has been to be CO2 nuetral? which is it?...or is it a ploy?

i honestly don't know, and my personal opinion of Gore aside, it sounds duplicitous.

Oh ... ok so you're saying that despite that America acknowledges the fact that Saddam Huessein's Iraq is bad, and pretty much was ALWAYS bad that the fact that we provided them weapons in the 80's destroys all our credibility? That it was a ploy? Duplicitous even??? Please, much like geopolitics, the realities of life require the injection of a few brain cells to generate that thing we call common sense. Should we get rid of all environmental scientists because they produce more carbon than the "average" american? Hey get this, I'm willing to bet that EVERY fiscal conservative republican (if they even exist nowadays) spends more tax paying dollars than the "average" american!! Duplicitous? Now unless you can substantiate hypocrisy with reckless endangerment of the environment of which there is a greater negative impact than positive, I don't really see where this argument is headed. As a matter of fact, I can only see an endless supply of "hypocrises" in any number of issues if this argument can be substantiated in any meaningful way.

As for trading in the carbon market that you referenced, I don't know about you, but I regard free markets as the most efficient driver for efficiency. I don't know about the author to your paper but I definitely remember a few good articles from the economist that speak rather well about the issue. It's down now but once it comes back up I'll go find them.

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May-26-2006 05:19 United States

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Arbiter
Naked Power Organ

Registered: May 2002
Location:

Fallacies aimed to distract attention away from the issue at hand are not a good way to build credibility. I guess some of you missed the memo.

May-26-2006 05:53

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Q5echo
asymetrical scepticism

Registered: Feb 2004
Location: Dallas

quote:
Originally posted by occrider
Oh ... ok so you're saying that despite that America acknowledges the fact that Saddam Huessein's Iraq is bad, and pretty much was ALWAYS bad that the fact that we provided them weapons in the 80's destroys all our credibility? That it was a ploy? Duplicitous even??? Please, much like geopolitics, the realities of life require the injection of a few brain cells to generate that thing we call common sense. Should we get rid of all environmental scientists because they produce more carbon than the "average" american? Hey get this, I'm willing to bet that EVERY fiscal conservative republican (if they even exist nowadays) spends more tax paying dollars than the "average" american!! Duplicitous? Now unless you can substantiate hypocrisy with reckless endangerment of the environment of which there is a greater negative impact than positive, I don't really see where this argument is headed. As a matter of fact, I can only see an endless supply of "hypocrises" in any number of issues if this argument can be substantiated in any meaningful way.

damn dude, your way out in left field double fisting red herrings disguised as tax dollars and weapons you can't prove existed.

first off he's not an "environmental scientist". he's a promoter. a walking billboard. a face man if you will. like shakka said, he could set a much better example despite his vanity but that's beside my point. i honestly don't care if real environmental scientist log millions of miles in pursuit of research. i understand what may be at stake (read; common sense).

second, my point being that the movie says one thing (though i haven't seen it. i read a couple of things about it) that i understand to be absolute in it's rationale that as humans we need to reduce our lifestyles or we die basically. again, i haven't seen the flick but i haven't read anything about the movie supporting Al Gore's current globetrotting rationale that we can somehow "nuetralize" our own individual CO2 footprint by giving back something or whatever thus justifying a twisted and polluted zero-sum lifestyle. and maybe duplicitous was a harsh term. it's definition though fits to me.

i'm not a publicist and i do understand that you gotta promote movies. but this mutherf**ker better start planting an entire rainforest once he's done.

Last edited by Q5echo on May-26-2006 at 09:19

May-26-2006 09:13 United States

Shakka
Supreme tranceaddict

Registered: Feb 2003
Location:

Occ,

You mentioned in your rebuttal that context counts, and I absolutely agree. However, the flip side of that argument is that since the context of Gore's "carbon footprint" is that it's necessary to his agenda, therefore, in the same breath nobody anywhere is in a position to criticize eachother's use of fossil fuels and what not, as everyone has their own unique situation/point-of-view/context that determines how they live. If we can criticize Suzie-Soccer-Mom for driving an SUV around town all day (due to the fact that she needs to run here little shit machines around town all day, to and from soccer practice, school, karate lessons, etc. carting groceries from point A to point B), then why can't we criticize a guy like Gore who is as adamant about the environment (at least on the surface. I think he's got a larger agenda in mind, but that's just me), yet who is just as bad of an environmental abuser as anyone but who gets a free pass because he's pushing a film or buying pollution credits. Furthermore, there's still no reason why he can't use more environmentally friendly modes of transportation and whatnot to further enhance his position. I'm afraid the sword cuts both ways on this one.

It's like John Kerry preaching about the same thing, yet the guy owns multiple gas guzzling SUVs and a gulfstream jet. When it comes down to it, these guys simply think they are above the rest of us and are beyond reproach, but the reality is that they are simply elitist assholes who's greater mission is to garner votes so they can get power.

It kind of reminds me of that episode of South Park with Starvin' Marvin when the kids go to Africa to see Sally Struthers only to find her hiding out in the food tent scarfing down a mountain of twinkies and cheesy poofs.

May-26-2006 14:24 United States

occrider
Traveladdict

Registered: Oct 2000
Location: New York

quote:
Originally posted by Q5echo
damn dude, your way out in left field double fisting red herrings disguised as tax dollars and weapons you can't prove existed.

A red herring is a topic change that fails to address the original nature of the argument. I introduced several "examples" to repudiate what I percieved to be a flawed argument through analogy. Now if you sincerely believe that I fallaciously presented a false argument than what about it is a red herring? Be very specific so to avoid further confusion.

quote:

first off he's not an "environmental scientist". he's a promoter. a walking billboard. a face man if you will. like shakka said, he could set a much better example despite his vanity but that's beside my point. i honestly don't care if real environmental scientist log millions of miles in pursuit of research. i understand what may be at stake (read; common sense).

Yes he's a promoter. And until you can tell me how a promoter can promote without doing a lot of travelling I don't understand your argument. Since you didn't outline the flaws of my analogy I'll ask you again, can a fiscal conservative advocate still be a fiscal conservative despite the fact that they spend more tax paying dollars than the "average" person?

quote:

second, my point being that the movie says one thing (though i haven't seen it. i read a couple of things about it) that i understand to be absolute in it's rationale that as humans we need to reduce our lifestyles or we die basically. again, i haven't seen the flick but i haven't read anything about the movie supporting Al Gore's current globetrotting rationale that we can somehow "nuetralize" our own individual CO2 footprint by giving back something or whatever thus justifying a twisted and polluted zero-sum lifestyle. and maybe duplicitous was a harsh term. it's definition though fits to me.

Allow me to ask you a frank question ... every other day or so I see marine 2 flying around dc on "decoy" missions. Obviously this is expending a significant quantity of fuel, pollutants and tax payer dollars. Now even if I thought Bush had a very environmentally friendly policy, am I justified for criticizing him for this "hyprocrisy" despite the fact that this is simply part of his lifestyle?

quote:

i'm not a publicist and i do understand that you gotta promote movies. but this mutherf**ker better start planting an entire rainforest once he's done.

And as somebody referenced early does he not give some money back to the environment? Is this a legitimate argument or is this like attacking Bush's service record for the national guard? (Now THAT could be a red herring!)

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Last edited by occrider on May-30-2006 at 06:16

May-30-2006 06:03 United States

occrider
Traveladdict

Registered: Oct 2000
Location: New York

quote:
Originally posted by Shakka
Occ,

You mentioned in your rebuttal that context counts, and I absolutely agree. However, the flip side of that argument is that since the context of Gore's "carbon footprint" is that it's necessary to his agenda, therefore, in the same breath nobody anywhere is in a position to criticize eachother's use of fossil fuels and what not, as everyone has their own unique situation/point-of-view/context that determines how they live. If we can criticize Suzie-Soccer-Mom for driving an SUV around town all day (due to the fact that she needs to run here little shit machines around town all day, to and from soccer practice, school, karate lessons, etc. carting groceries from point A to point B), then why can't we criticize a guy like Gore who is as adamant about the environment (at least on the surface. I think he's got a larger agenda in mind, but that's just me), yet who is just as bad of an environmental abuser as anyone but who gets a free pass because he's pushing a film or buying pollution credits. Furthermore, there's still no reason why he can't use more environmentally friendly modes of transportation and whatnot to further enhance his position. I'm afraid the sword cuts both ways on this one.

Shakka, if Al Gore is being Suzie Soccer Mom, owns several gas guzzling SUVs and is wasteful with a gulfstream jet I will agree with you ... however is he environmentaly negligent in the manner you describe? Or are these standards implicit for a man of his position?

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May-30-2006 06:09 United States

Q5echo
asymetrical scepticism

Registered: Feb 2004
Location: Dallas

quote:
Originally posted by occrider
A red herring is a topic change that fails to address the original nature of the argument. I introduced several "examples" to repudiate what I percieved to be a flawed argument through analogy. Now if you sincerely believe that I fallaciously presented a false argument than what about it is a red herring? Be very specific so to avoid further confusion.
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.

quote:
Since you didn't outline the flaws of my analogy I'll ask you again, can a fiscal conservative advocate still be a fiscal conservative despite the fact that they spend more tax paying dollars than the "average" person?
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!

quote:
Allow me to ask you a frank question ... every other day or so I see marine 2 flying around dc on "decoy" missions. Obviously this is expending a significant quantity of fuel, pollutants and tax payer dollars. Now even if I thought Bush had a very environmentally friendly policy, am I justified for criticizing him for this "hyprocrisy" despite the fact that this is simply part of his lifestyle?
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