Pretending To Go Green

Drudge:

'GREEN' GORE GOES GULFSTREAM: VIDEO CATCHES ECO-WARRIOR ON LUXURY PRIVATE JET.

This only adds to the hypocrisy.

H/T Instapundit.

Get Better Interns

I wrote a post this weekend about what Al Gore and John Edwards had in common. The post was aptly titled A Lot In Common, namely that they both own energy guzzling mansions and SUV's while preaching for conservation and sacrifice.

Yesterday, I found that my post was linked on the website Gorehub.com. Gorehub.com's goal is to provide "News & Information Supporting Al Gore for President 2008."

I guess an intern there wasn't paying much attention to the body of my post, or perhaps missed my sarcastic critique. Regardless, it was a bit of a laugh.

A Lot In Common

Question: What does John Edwards have in common with Al Gore?

Answer: A gigantic energy suckling mansion, and hypocritical rhetoric.

Instapundit:

JOHN EDWARDS: SPORTUTES FOR ME, but not for thee. The photo is pretty damning.

Gore Calls For War! 15 Years Ago!

It's that same, tired old inflammatory rhetoric... a vast terrorist threat, the use of chemical weapons, weapons of mass destruction, demanding the overthrow of a ruthless dictator... those craven neo-cons! But wait... no... that's not Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, or George W. Bush.

It's... Al Gore from 1992!

Gore Fearmongering... about Terrorism!

This is so damning... not simply for Gore's about face, but for the way it illustrates his political tactics - hyper-inflating issues when they are politically advantageous.




Courtesy, Hot Air.

Yet more Gore decrying Bush I's inaction when dealing with terrorist states:




Update: ThinkProgress and The Carpetbagger Report "set conservative bloggers straight" (i.e., apologize, explain away for Gore - and they do a poor job of it).

Alternate Universes: Iraq and Global Warming

Earth One and Earth Two.

Some of the greatest comic book story arcs of all time revolved around the divergence or collision of multiple worlds, during which heroes and villains fought each other and the powers of the cosmos to prevent, or in some cases, hasten, total annihilation.

In DC Comics' now classic Crisis on Infinite Earths series from the 1980's, hordes of superheroes from parallel earths came together in a final battle to save the space/time continuum. Ultimately, the many versions of earth collapsed into one another, allowing DC comics to in effect re-invent its superhero universe, and start from scratch. Tabula Raza, if you will.

This plot has been re-hashed many times over the years in the comic book world. Alternate realities, parallel earths, dopplegangers, the end of time, etc.

However, with every re-telling, the tale only gets more stale.

Which, in turn, brings me to the real world, a world in which we are living, (or so it would appear) among two divergent realities.

We have one reality (Let's call it Earth One): an overzealous President, who is perceived to have abused his office and used the pulpit to create an artificial climate of fear. Those who have assailed the President's rhetoric about the war on terror, such as Daily Kos, have described it in terms like Domestic terror 'plots' as disinformation:

On this story, and every other, that's really all a vast majority of Americans want from the media -- "a healthy dose of skepticism -- given this administration's track record with truth."

and others have written pejoratively On "terror":

The war on terror has created a culture of fear in America, he noted, adding that the Bush Administration's elevation of these three words into a national mantra since the horrific events of 9/11 has had a pernicious impact in American democracy, on America's psyche and on US standing in the world.

Another poster on Daily Kos similarly sought to downplay terror fears: The German Terror Plot Media Scare [Translation of German Article Inside]

And now for the alternate reality, or as I'll call it: Earth Two.

The alleged Terror "fear-mongering" of Earth One seems to parallel another highly politicized issue that has also gotten a great deal of media attention of late. Its most outspoken proponent, Al Gore, has not been shy about the dire straits humanity has found itself in:

Former US vice president Al Gore on Friday warned that global warming presented the most severe crisis ever faced by humans but said the planet could be saved if the right steps are taken.

And the response from Daily Kos? Let's not jump to conclusions. Oops, no, my mistake, that was in response to the [fortunately] timely arrest of the 'Fort Dix Six' before they could act out their homicidal terrorist plans. In any case, the writer went on:

The government tells us there's a war on terror, but most of the claims seem to be exaggerated. I don't know what is real news and what is Fox propaganda drivel. So I'm a skeptic, for now, until I hear and read all of the facts. I expect Keith Olbermann to give this story the scrutiny it deserves.

Excellent point, should we apply this logic to Global Warming, Kos?

Global Warming Week: Antarctica's Melting! Mountains of Madness [UPDATED]

Perhaps not. Apparently, the characteristics of 'hyperbole' in Earth One doubles for selfless alarm-bell ringing in Earth Two.

Instead, in Earth Two, celebrities such as Leonardo DiCaprio are promoting a new film about global warming, which "uses a barrage of images and reams of interviews with the world's top environmental scientists to paint a bleak but still optimistic picture of the fate of our planet."

Hype? Hysteria? Of course not! More akin to Merry swearing loyalty to Théoden at Edoras after the lighting of the beacons!

In Earth Two, glamorous self-promotion has become reality. We have students forced to watch An Inconvenient Truth four times a year in public school.

In Earth Two, yet more celebrities, like Rosie O'Donnell, are promoting 9/11 conspiracy theories on national television, and equating American troops with terrorists:

"I'm talking about a word: terrorism, that the administration has used to terrify this country. They're terrorizing Americans by using the word terror and taking away our civil liberties!"

Although in Earth One, the "German government warns Australians to stay away. New “Al Qaeda In The Lands Of The Villains” cell expected to strike soon."

And although in Earth One, experts such as Victor Davis Hanson have said that "stateless terrorists can be more dangerous than past conventional threats."

And although in Earth One, Christian civilians in [democratic?] Turkey, (for example), have been tortured to death for not being Muslim...

...Earth Two persists in believing that this threat is overblown, overhyped, and politicized. Terrorists are a minor nuisance at best, they argue.

...

With a glance around my flank, they fall upon a George Perez drawing of Superman, a heavily inked battle epic landscape of super heroes littered across a double splash page, oozing color and kinetic energy.

It's a great picture. But I live in the real world. Given that immutable fact, I can only take stock of the rampant hypocrisy among limousine liberals and opportunist politicians to elevate and promote a questionable cause, of which the effects are ethereal and arguable at best, at the expense of an actual threat which has already killed thousands of Americans.

If we lose the war on terror to raving bands of Islamists bent on turning our world upside-down and installing a Caliphate, who will mourn global warming?

Alas this is an opportune time to quote the prescient Al Gore, taken out of context, of course:

"Are we going to say to our children that we were too busy to pay attention?"

Are we?

Let's Get Energetic About Energy Legislation

The New York Times had a decent Editorial today titled A Fresh Start on Energy

Particularly, the

...Ten-in-Ten Fuel Economy Act, was approved last week and is mainly the handiwork of Senator Dianne Feinstein of California. It would raise the fuel economy standard for passenger cars from 25 to 35 miles per gallon over the next 10 years, and — for the first time — would require steady improvements in fuel efficiency for medium and heavy-duty trucks. The debate over fuel economy has been deadlocked for three decades, and approval of this bill would represent a major breakthrough.

Weaning ourselves from foreign oil is great, but let's not forget about the Merchants of Fear:

The world's best known hysteric and self promoter on the topic of man's physical and moral responsibility for global warming is Al Gore, a shill for the nuclear industry and the coal barons from the first day he stepped into Congress entrusted with the sacred duty to protect the budgetary and regulatory interests of the Tennessee Valley Authority and the Oakridge National Lab. White House "task forces" on climate change in the Clinton-Gore years were always well freighted by Gore and his adviser John Holdren with nukers like John Papay of Bechtel.

Self-Preservation

These are multi-billion dollar computer model programming bureaucracies as intent on self-preservation and budgetary enhancement as cognate nuclear bureaucracies at Oakridge and Los Alamos. They are as unlikely to develop models confuting the hypothesis of human-induced global warming as is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to say the weather is possibly getting a little bit warmer but that there's no great cause for alarm and indeed some reason for rejoicing, since this warming (whose natural causes I discussed in that recent column) gives us a longer growing season and increased CO2, a potent plant fertiliser. Welcome global greening.

If you can't beat 'em... cheat

As Richard Kerr, Science magazine's man on global warming remarked, "Climate modelers have been 'cheating' for so long it's become almost respectable."

What is Warming the Globe? A lot of hot air...

The ocean?

The United States' leading hurricane forecaster says that global ocean currents, not human-produced carbon dioxide, are responsible for global warming, and the earth may begin to cool on its own in five to 10 years.

The sun?

There is some news making the rounds that Earth is not the only planet experiencing global warming. Mars, for example, possibly appears to be getting a bit warmer, as are Jupiter, Neptune’s moon Triton, and even Pluto.

Could this mean that global warming is caused by the Sun and not man’s pollution?

As Hot Air noted the words of a Hurricane forecaster: It’s “crazy” to blame global warming on humans:

Gray, speaking to a group of Republican state lawmakers, had harsh words for researchers and politicians who say man-made greenhouse gases are responsible for global warming.

“They’re blaming it all on humans, which is crazy,” he said. “We’re not the cause of it.”

In a separate post, Hot Air also detailed Al Gore's apostasy... his attack on the professor who first opened his eyes to Global Warming. It seemed the professor had second thoughts about the causes of global warming, and suggested we not jump to conclusions for at least "10 or 20 years."

And finally, MediaMatters has launched its Global Warming: Misinformation Action Center, a great place to find resources, links and information that will scarcely be found among mainstream media outlets.

Inconvenient Truth or Fiction?

Courtesy Powerline:

An Inconvenient Truth, or Fiction? Steven F. Hayward of the Pacific Research Institute and AEI explores and debates the issues raised in former Vice-President Al Gore's documentary.

How to Photoshop Smog

The website Small Dead Animals has posted a piece exposing an obvious concerted attempt by major news outlet (CBC News) to help fake news, heighten hysteria, and pursue an agenda. You decide.

So, with two dramatically different versions before me, the evidence that one has been altered is clear. Therefore, I think it's fair to ask - who at CBC news made the decision to "dirt enhance" the image that accompanies the item on John Baird's report?

The irony of the whole thing is that there are plenty of real filthy smokestacks to snap pictures of. Or, take a look at China, where 30% of its rivers are so polluted, the water can't even be used for industrial purposes.

After further review, with a special ultraviolet/infrared light, the picture revealed the true source of all the hot air:

Gorezilla!!!

Eeeeeeeeep!

Don't Question Global Warming

Global Martian Warming

As the United Nations issued an assessment on global warming described by the New York Times as Bleakest Climate Report Approved, other recent developments seem to raise more questions than ever:

The LA Times reports that Clue to Mars' warming is seen:

Global warming on Mars?It turns out you don't need belching smokestacks and city-choking traffic to heat up a planet. Changes in surface reflectivity may also do the trick, according to research published Thursday in the journal Nature.

Here's the kicker:

If Mars is getting hotter, that could explain one finding that has puzzled planetary scientists since it was discovered several years ago: the loss of carbon dioxide ice at Mars' south pole.

Mars is warming despite the loss of CO2? I'm not a scientist, however, if a desolate, barren wasteland such as the red planet is can experience global warming, we earthlings may want to apply a greater degree of skepticism with regard to the recent climate hysterics.

Let me be clear - I am all for conservation, green technology, efficiency and lesser dependence on the earth's natural resources to pollute our environment. However, there is a fine line between reasoned scientific protocol and the appropriation of the media for politically motivated personal crusades and/or selfish indulgence (A few hypocritical opportunists, such as Al Gore, come to mind. Real, hardcore environmentalists like Mark Hertsgaard, have written very critically of Gore during his Vice Presidency, not to mention his energy suckling homes).

Environmentalism: It's fashionable and easy!

Limousine Liberal Hypocrisy

Goldman Sachs has been one of the most aggressive firms on Wall Street about taking action on climate change; the company sends its bankers home at night in hybrid limousines. --The New York Times, Feb. 25

Written without a hint of irony--if only your neighborhood dry cleaner sent his employees home by hybrid limousine--this front-page dispatch captured perfectly the eco-pretensions of the rich and the stupefying gullibility with which they are received.

Remember the Leonardo DiCaprio and Al Gore global-warming pitch at the Academy Awards? Before they spoke, the screen at the back of the stage flashed not-so-subliminal messages about how to save the planet. My personal favorite was "Ride mass transit." This to a conclave of Hollywood plutocrats who have not seen the inside of a subway since the moon landing and for whom mass transit means a stretch limo seating no fewer than 10.

Leo and Al then portentously announced that for the first time ever, the Academy Awards ceremony had gone green. What did that mean? Solar panels in the designer gowns? It turns out that the Academy neutralized the evening's "carbon footprint" by buying carbon credits. That means it sent money to a "carbon broker," who promised, after taking his cut, to reduce carbon emissions somewhere on the planet equivalent to what the stars spewed into the atmosphere while flying in on their private planes.

In other words, the rich reduce their carbon output by not one ounce. But drawing on the hundreds of millions of net worth in the Kodak Theatre, they pull out lunch money to buy ecological indulgences. The last time the selling of pardons was prevalent--in a predecessor religion to environmentalism called Christianity--Martin Luther lost his temper and launched the Reformation.

What is wrong with this scam? First, purchasing carbon credits is an incentive to burn even more fossil fuels, since now it is done under the illusion that it's really cost-free to the atmosphere.

Second, it is a way for the rich to export the real costs and sacrifices of pollution control to the poorer segments of humanity in the Third World.

If Gore really wants to save the planet, he can try this: Turn off the lights. Ditch the heated pool. Ride the subway. And spare us the carbon-trading piety.

In other news, theage.com reports on A Climate of fear:

Apocalyptic talk about global warming has stirred the sediment of old fears - the mushroom cloud has returned to haunt us. But, Thornton McCamish writes, the last great fright was a little different from the new one.

At the leading edge of climate pessimism, the prognoses were frankly apocalyptic. "Before this century is over, billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic," predicted James Lovelock, a renowned environmental scientist.

Some don't buy any of this "climate porn", as a UK think tank recently described such talk. Al Gore's movie is "bullshit from beginning to end", according to Ray Evans, a former Western Mining executive and author of the Lavoisier Group's Nine Facts About Climate Change (2006). For Evans and many others, man-made climate change panic is a bugaboo, perhaps even a hoax.

Either way, the debate over climate change is now about fear. How afraid should we be? It's a valid question, because a sensible reaction to any threat begins with fear. Fear can help propel us towards solutions, as it did in the case of ozone-depleting CFCs. But we don't want to respond to a threat with asymmetric alarm.

The last disaster that never came

Unfortunately, allowing the old threat of nuclear war to haunt our anxiety about climate change is not going to help, for the simple reason that the nuclear holocaust never happened. This happy fact tends to foster a blithe optimism about the past: look — nuclear doomsday was a beat-up! This is false logic, of course. The fact that we survived the nuclear threat doesn't mean it was always inevitable that we would. But people believe it, nonetheless, and you can see why they'd want to.

The end is not nigh

The closest to midnight the doomsday clock has ever come was two minutes. That was 1953, when the USSR tested a hydrogen bomb. In hindsight, that was probably a beginner's overreaction to the sheer novelty of mutually assured destruction (MAD). Like everyone else, the clock soon became accustomed to the status quo. Over the next couple of decades, doomsday eased out to nine and even 11 minutes to midnight.

And we now circle back to Hollywood, and as the Daily Mail reports today, Scientists blame Hollywood for increased fears over global warming.

Leading climate change experts have thrown their weight behind two scientists who hit out at the "Hollywoodisation" of global warming.

"There is always a danger of crying wolf. We have to be careful as scientists that we present the facts and don't exaggerate things because it can undermine credibility in the long term."

Professor Hardaker warned against the "Hollywoodisation" of weather and climate seen in films such as the 2004 smash hit film The Day After Tomorrow, which depicts terrifying consequences after the melting of the Arctic ice shelf.

Such films, he said, only work to create confusion in the public mind. "I don't think the way to make people pay attention is to make them afraid about it," he said. "We have to help them understand it and allow them to make choices - because the impact of climate change is going to mean we have got some quite difficult choices to make both in policy and as members of the public.

"Unless we can understand the science behind it, we can't be expected to get our heads around making these difficult choices." Presenting events such as the shutting off of the Gulf Stream, creating a cooling effect, and the rise of temperatures together could be "confusing", he said, unless it is made clear that the former is far less likely than the latter.

He said the scientists should avoid being forced to make wild predictions about the future in response to climate change sceptics such as those seen in Channel 4's recent programme, Global Climate Swindle.

The jury is out on global warming. The best argument right now for conservation is to reduce costs, conserve energy, and stem the importation of foreign energy sources, particularly from the Middle East. Secondary, but also critical positive consequences from reduced environmental degradation and air pollution is greater health, and thus lower health care costs. For these reasons alone, Americans should be - and are - strong proponents of conservation and alternative energy research.

However, these things take time.

Be careful what you wish for...

A gathering storm around Al Gore's personal energy use. Victor Davis Hanson writes of Bipartisan Hypocrisy:

Al Gore has preached to millions about the dangers of climate change caused by profligate carbon emissions. But his mansion and the private jets he has often used burn up far more fossil fuels than what the average citizens whom Gore browbeats to change their wasteful lifestyles consume.

Hot Air delves deeper into what they call "Gore's inconvenient truth":

Former Vice President Al Gore has built a Green money-making machine capable of eventually generating billions of dollars for investors, including himself, but he set it up so that the average Joe can’t afford to play on Gore’s terms. And the US portion is headed up by a former Gore staffer and fund raiser who previously ran afoul of both the FEC and the DOJ, before Janet Reno jumped in and shut down an investigation during the Clinton years.

But perhaps the most damning criticism comes from The Economist:

Cutting carbon

Last night, Al Gore’s global-warming documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, collected an Oscar for best documentary feature, but the Tennessee Center for Policy Research has found that Gore deserves a gold statue for hypocrisy.

Gore’s mansion, located in the posh Belle Meade area of Nashville, consumes more electricity every month than the average American household uses in an entire year, according to the Nashville Electric Service (NES).

The average household in America consumes 10,656 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year, according to the Department of Energy. In 2006, Gore devoured nearly 221,000 kWh—more than 20 times the national average.

Last August alone, Gore burned through 22,619 kWh—guzzling more than twice the electricity in one month than an average American family uses in an entire year. As a result of his energy consumption, Gore’s average monthly electric bill topped $1,359.

Since the release of An Inconvenient Truth, Gore’s energy consumption has increased from an average of 16,200 kWh per month in 2005, to 18,400 kWh per month in 2006.

Gore’s extravagant energy use does not stop at his electric bill. Natural gas bills for Gore’s mansion and guest house averaged $1,080 per month last year.

Responding to Drudge’s attack, Vice President Gore’s office told ThinkProgress:

1) Gore’s family has taken numerous steps to reduce the carbon footprint of their private residence, including signing up for 100 percent green power through Green Power Switch, installing solar panels, and using compact fluorescent bulbs and other energy saving technology.

2) Gore has had a consistent position of purchasing carbon offsets to offset the family’s carbon footprint — a concept the right-wing fails to understand. Gore’s office explains:

What Mr. Gore has asked is that every family calculate their carbon footprint and try to reduce it as much as possible. Once they have done so, he then advocates that they purchase offsets, as the Gore’s do, to bring their footprint down to zero.

Some of this response seems flatly silly. The electricity usage is what Mr Gore consumes after things like solar panels and CFLs are taken into account; it's hardly comforting that he could be emitting even more carbon, since that is true of almost all of us, yet has not stopped Mr Gore from hectoring us to reduce our carbon output still further. Similarly, I find it hard to believe that Mr Gore has actually reduced his carbon output "as much as possible"—and if Mr Gore so believes, I invite him to take a train up to New York, where I will show him what a more carbon efficient lifestyle looks like.

Add to this, some reports that Global Warming: The momentum has shifted to climate skeptics, and the Global Warming debate becomes ever more complicated. Yet, there can be no doubt that the environmental movement now shines favorably upon global warming adherents and those promoting conservation and greater energy efficiency. The CEO of General Electric on Saturday said that "The United States needs to develop a national climate change policy, but also recognize that coal and other fossil fuels will remain an important energy source for decades." Furthermore, the future tends to seem very bright as new and exciting technologies and sources of energy seem to be popping up all the time. The Economist reports on Fire Down Below:

EARTHQUAKES, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions are the price that more than 300m Indonesians and Filipinos must pay for living in the Pacific ocean's “ring of fire”, the world’s most seismically active zone.

But there are benefits, too. One is that the grinding of tectonic plates over the æons has left valuable metal ores near the surface. Another is that, where the earth’s crust is thin or cracked in such regions, huge amounts of electricity can be generated from super-hot rocks lying not far underground.

The principle behind this geothermal energy is simple. Usually, groundwater has trickled down into the rocks over the ages, and has been trapped at high temperature and high pressure.

Drilling a hole into this underground well releases a bountiful source of steam which can drive a turbine. The waste water is pumped back down into the earth, where it can heat up again and produce more steam.

Geothermal electricity is clean, with no emissions of carbon dioxide or other pollutants; and sustainable, since the supply of underground heat would appear to be almost limitless.

Sounds awesome, if we can make it work.

Gore may run for President yet

The New York Observer answers "Why Al Gore Won’t Let the Rumors Die, " therawstory explains "Why Al Gore is keeping his 2008 options open," and the PittsburghTribune-Review has "The case for Gore 2008,"

New York Observer

By delaying, Mr. Gore will also be able to steer clear of any early skirmishes between Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards, instead allowing the three front-runners to drive each other’s negatives up—which will only feed the rank-and-file hankering for Mr. Gore to play the white knight.

therawstory

But there are also reasons Gore might not choose to enter the race. If Obama or Edwards make gains against Clinton, Kornacki writes that he may not want to further crowd the fray. He also must fear "the risk of being branded, for all of history, as a two-time loser." But, Kornacki concludes, Gore has wanted to be president most of his life, and so he wonders "Can he resist?"

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

First, he appeals to the bloggers without being defined by them, at least not in the way that Howard Dean eventually came to be. Second, he was against the war when it was politically risky to be against the war; Democrat activists remember that, and revere him for it. Third, he was part of what Democrats consider to be the most successful Democrat administration in the past 50 years and -- unlike Hillary -- he was an elected part of that administration.

Czech President Vaclav Klaus on Global Warming and Gore

Drudge Report:

President of Czech Republic Calls Man-Made Global Warming a 'Myth' - Questions Gore's Sanity

This is how he finished the interview:

Q: Don't you believe that we're ruining our planet?

A: I will pretend that I haven't heard you. Perhaps only Mr Al Gore may be saying something along these lines: a sane person can't. I don't see any ruining of the planet, I have never seen it, and I don't think that a reasonable and serious person could say such a thing. Look: you represent the economic media so I expect a certain economical erudition from you. My book will answer these questions. For example, we know that there exists a huge correlation between the care we give to the environment on one side and the wealth and technological prowess on the other side. It's clear that the poorer the society is, the more brutally it behaves with respect to Nature, and vice versa. It's also true that there exist social systems that are damaging Nature - by eliminating private ownership and similar things - much more than the freer societies. These tendencies become important in the long run. They unambiguously imply that today, on February 8th, 2007, Nature is protected uncomparably more than on February 8th ten years ago or fifty years ago or one hundred years ago. That's why I ask: how can you pronounce the sentence you said? Perhaps if you're unconscious? Or did you mean it as a provocation only? And maybe I am just too naive and I allowed you to provoke me to give you all these answers, am I not? It is more likely that you actually believe what you say.

I don't know much about the Czech President, and not being a scientist, I cannot comment on global warming either. But there's no doubt that Klaus articulated a punishing, brutal verbal attack on Global Warming advocates, and former Vice President Al Gore.