Now I’m not the only one who thought Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth was meretricious dreck, let alone Oscar-worthy. Of course my objections were largely aesthetic while his are… er… meteorological. Even the British courts are getting the picture. Will my colleagues in the Academy wake up too? [Not a chance. -ed. You cynic, you.]
UPDATE: To be clear, as fatuous and self-promotional as Gore may be, that doesn’t make him wrong any more than it makes him right about global warming. For reasons of prudence, common sense and geopolitics, energy conservation plus encouraging new technologies are a definite “yes” from my perspective
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23 Comments
1. David Thomson:I am convinced that much of this global warming rhetoric is all about pure and unadulterated greed. The money available to the environmental extremists is mind boggling. It literally totals in the billions of dollars. Thousands of jobs depend on scaring the hell out of the general public. Al Gore was a man of modest means only a few years ago. Today, he is a millionaire many times over. Numerous investors are eagerly hoping that the Democrats and their country club Republican allies gain control in Washington, DC. Many of their “global warming technology” stocks will minimally double in value.
Oct 5, 2007 - 6:35 am 2. LarryD:The big payoff for some of the GW crowd is massive, centralized control of other people’s lives though.
Which is why only statist “solutions” are acceptable.
Oct 5, 2007 - 6:48 am 3. David Thomson:“The big payoff for some of the GW crowd is massive, centralized control of other people’s lives though.”
That is indeed part of their motivation. Still, I am convinced that the big bucks is the main reason why so many have recently converted to the cause. They are blinded by pure greed. It is simply shocking how much money is available to those who jump aboard the global warming hysteria bandwagon. Dissenters are lucky to get a few pennies.
Oct 5, 2007 - 7:34 am 4. Buddy Larsen:Why, sure –if you were a wino selling pencils, and you could get a law passed that on your streetcorner every passerby had to buy a pencil, well, you’d be ‘for’ that law, right?
Oct 5, 2007 - 7:44 am 5. Carl Spackler:“Like the Saturday Night Live character Chico Escuela who said: “Baseball been berry, berry good to me.”, global warming has been berry good to Al. It has made him rich, and people listen. Remember, he did flunk out of a divinity school.
Most over schooled Boomers and Yuppies that are non-observant have channeled their feelings into the green church of the Environment. Reverend Al, like other lefty reverends before him of drugs, or sex, or Mao hats, has just gotten in front of his narcissistic peer group.
I hate to say this, but I cannot wait until these people die off. They are insufferable. Everything comes down to ‘me’ with them. Worse, they insist it isn’t so, that while they are getting rich and fighting for Vanity Fair covers, they are sacrificing. Exuma Environmentalists. Gulfstream V Global Warmers. Frauds and hucksters.
Oct 5, 2007 - 8:15 am 6. photoncourier.blogspot.com:Bear in mind that the things that reduce our dependence on imported oil, and the things that reduce CO2 emissions, are *not* always the same. For example, coal-to-liquids technology is excellent for the former but not for the latter.
Concerns about global warming may actually be inhibiting progress toward a higher level of energy independence.
Oct 5, 2007 - 10:13 am 7. Buddy Larsen:exactly –and re Roger’s update, Gore’s pulsating fraudulousness bleeds over onto the topic and no doubt actually hurts progress towards common-sense evolutionary solutions.
Oct 5, 2007 - 10:41 am 8. heather:as a boomer, I have to agree, big chunks of my cohort are losers. In our lifetime, we have gotten nothing but richer (compare the size of 1950s houses to those of today; and everyone over 16 in a family has a car), healthier (care of teeth and eyes); with nary a night bothered by bombs. Yes, the US had Vietnam, Iraq, Iran,etc., but none of this has bothered peace in the Mall.
ON THE OTHER HAND (and here is a little schadenfreude for Carl: this boomer generation has had few children. And unlike children, old frail and helpless seniors are not cute. Who will look after the Old?
One of my relatives is depending on Filipino nurses to be the kindly caretakers of his own old age….
Oct 5, 2007 - 11:12 am 9. dclydew:The problem, as has been discussed here before, appears to be that most of our information on GW isn’t from scientists, its from political hacks that have an agenda (that counts both pro and anti by the way).
The science of the issue indicates that we are seeing climate changes, the climate changes have increased over the past 30 years and, if they continue there will be some severe changes in life on some parts of this planet. Many scientists point to human contributions as a likely cause or at least a likely catalyst. That’s all the science we have.
However, instead of sensibly listening to the scientists, discussing the issues and acting like intelligent people… we have simply fallen right into the same hellish idiocracy that has caused such a problem for the past 7+ years.
“An Inconvenient Truth” makes several good points, however its so tarnished by a political agenda that anyone who isn’t a fan of the agenda will simply dismiss it. Opponents of anthropomorphic global warming also have some decent points (mostly about the fact that our models still aren’t working right), but because they too have political ties to an agenda, their political opponents simply dismiss the useful with the trash.
We have Blue Americans believing every word from their politically friendly scientists and the Red Americans believing every word from their politically friendly scientists. Science, usually works best with the free exchange of ideas through challenging and improving theories. The fact that politics has entered the issue should be setting of warning bells everywhere. The most likely truth (based on the trends in scientific discovery) is somewhere between both positions. I read one paper which posited that Co2 emissions may have triggered a natural self-cleaning cycle. If this theory is correct, then nothing we would do now would be guaranteed to change anything. Our best bet would be to figure out the likely impacts and start preparing for those changes now (moving people out of low lying coastal areas etc).
Instead, it seems that we’re likely to spend far too long arguing over what happened… and we won’t be ready for what’s going to happen.
Politics in this country have gone from laughable (SNL style) to deplorable. Not because Bush has wiped his feet on the constitution (I think he’s done more than he should, but he’s no Hitler), but because we Americans have become Democrats or Republicans first and Americans somewhere down the line. Global Warming is not a political issue…. If it exists (which there’s a general consensus on) then it doesn’t matter so much how it got here (which there’s less consensus on), it matter how we’re going to deal with it (which there’s very little consensus on).
Either people will need to swallow their bullshit pesudo-politics and deal with being an American, or we’ll go right down the tubes with all the other failed world powers, not because of gays or flag burning or terrorists or pot smoking hippies… but because a house divided against itself cannot stand.
Our house is on fire and we’re fighting over which political party can best measure the temperature of the flames.
Oct 5, 2007 - 12:29 pm 10. Buddy Larsen:….but he’s no Hitler
(*Whew!*)
Oct 5, 2007 - 12:47 pm 11. David Thomson:“…but because they too have political ties to an agenda, their political opponents simply dismiss the useful with the trash.”
What is the political agenda of the global warming opponents (or sometimes minimizers)? What is in it for them? It most certainly isn’t financial. The vast majority of the money goes to the fanatics. Why would there ever be a per se right-wing position on global warming?
Oct 5, 2007 - 12:48 pm 12. Buddy Larsen:David, it exists in the breach –as in, there IS a left-wing position on the topic; ergo, you’re either “in” or you’re “right-wing”.
Oct 5, 2007 - 1:00 pm 13. Carl Spackler:GIGO.
Garbage in, gospel out.
Pretty much sums up my notion of Global Warming(L.L.C, all right reserved, exclusive property of Green Peace, the Sierra Club and Al Gore, Inc., and the world wide consortium of taxpayer paid tenured professors)
Oct 5, 2007 - 1:17 pm 14. Buddy Larsen:the dead giveaway
Oct 5, 2007 - 1:22 pm 15. dclydew:What is the political agenda of the global warming opponents (or sometimes minimizers)? What is in it for them? It most certainly isn’t financial. The vast majority of the money goes to the fanatics. Why would there ever be a per se right-wing position on global warming?
A number of scientists on the “No Global Warming” side are employed by corporations that are involved in the production and sale of carbon based fuel. Others by political think tanks that see global warming as a threat of bigger government and more controls over private industry.
You can, generally speaking, separate many of the pro and anti groups by their employers. If you have examples where this isn’t the case, I’d be interested to see them. So far, most of my research has led me to this conclusion.
Oct 5, 2007 - 1:38 pm 16. John Moreschi:I don’t think global warming is catastrophic, but I would love to get off of imported oil. My hope is that we move to a H2 economy. H2 can be made from H20 by electrolosis, but it takes more energy to liberate the H2 from H20 than you gain by recombining it back to H20 when you use it as a fuel source.
How about low cost energy, say ocean waves or nuclear, to do the electrolosis that produces H2; and using the H2 to produce expensive energy, say in a car or power plant. Then, even though you lose energy in the conversion process, you still make money in the economic process?
And the jihadists have to go find jobs rather than blow up infidels.
Oct 5, 2007 - 1:58 pm 17. Buddy Larsen:dclydew, why not go deeper than anecdotes & urban legends about funding and ask why anyone would want a damn good reason (such as a real “A” in AGW that is fixable by such as Kyoto) before they’d welcome a great expansion of government control over the economy?
From my ‘dead giveaway’ link above, re the pro-AGW fixation on the “who is arguing” issue:
The issue is a bit more complicated than that. What Bast wants is for Gore to debate one of three authorities who dispute the former vice president’s assertion that global warming is a crisis that requires an immediate, hugely expensive response potentially damaging to the U.S. and world economies.
Yes, let’s remember that them ole economies is whut is feeding all us little fellers the world over.
If history is any guide, it doesn’t seem to bother totalitarians much at all, if all us little fellers are spending our excess time & energy in bread lines, so that we can use the ration stamps that our government gives us if it likes our behavior.
Oh, I know –what a ridiculous scenario –except that it’s a large part of the story of modernism.
And the Beast is smart. It’s not repeating the mistakes of the 20th century, it’s going slower and softer this time.
Oct 5, 2007 - 2:07 pm 18. dryfuss:CASTING BOLDERS AT THE GENERATORS OF GLOBAL WARMING. &
Oct 5, 2007 - 2:25 pm 19. Buddy Larsen:WE ALL KNOW WHO THEY ARE, WILL NOT STOP THE “MACHINE” FROM RUNNING. IT ONLY CAUSES MASS INFLATION AND ECONOMIC FINANCIAL GROWTH FOR THOSE WHOM OWN THE MACHINES, THE
POLITICAL PARTIES ON ALL SIDES ARE INVOLVED, NOT JUST THE TWO SO CLEARLY OUT IN FRONT, RIGHT & LEFT.
NATURE HAS IT’S OWN AGENDA AND WHAT IS HAPPENING IN THE ARTIC & ANARTIC IS PART & PARCEL, NOT THAT WE HAVEN’T IN SOME WAY CONTRIBUTED TO EARTHS DEMISE. WE LET OUR CITIES DETERIATE AND DESTROY OTHER OF NATURES AREA’S WITH MASSIVE NEW BUILDING RATHER THAT REBUILDING IN THE SAME AREAS. HILLSIDES ARE CUT DOWN, PLANT & ANIMAL LIFE
DESTROYED ALL FOR SELF FINANCIAL GREED, DOES IT REALLY MATTER WHO WE BLAME, BUT RATHER WHO WE CAN TRUST TO HELP SOLVE THESE PROBLEMS?
Anyway, if one wants to speak of gullible fatuousness, it’s hard to come up with a better example than that the oil companies have fabricated the evidence for the 1500 year global temperature cycle that, like it or not, and despite all we may want to do or not do about it, we will continue to “endure” –until the next asteroid reshuffles our deck for us.
Oct 5, 2007 - 2:27 pm 20. Carl Spackler:We could be thirty years along in Nuclear Power generation technology, with equivalent progress that we have seen in cancer treatments, carbon fiber aircraft, and personal computers. But, the left cried no.
Ditto oil drilling in and off America. Lefties decided it was better to off shore the risk to third worlders. Thank God they hire Halliburton so that oil can come back as snowboards and laptop cases.
We could of lived in gentrified cities. Perfect for mass transit, post industrial information economy. But the left said no to common sense crime control, and people grabbed their families and fled to the ‘burbs. It’s too bad about the working stiffs left to fend for themselves with criminals on one side, race hustling thieving politicians on the other and a good dose of lay about union workers and five to a room illegal immigrants. Sad really, pass the brie.
Kids could grow up under one roof, but there was a notion that have two separate roofs was better. I suppose some of those kids are in now in Iraq fighting. Little did they know. But, what the heck, many of the troopies were from urban abandoned schools anyways, where PhD’s could run sociological experiments for generations. Where they all supposed to go to grad school? Nice.
It is odd that today‚Äôs left which laughed at mom and dad’s old boat Chrysler, now each have a car, plus the vacation house, or the lust for one, and way more material stuff than their ancient parents. Somehow I don’t think today‚Äôs Sierra Cluber uses less energy although they preach more about it. What‚Äôs that word?
And now that the song is the same but the words are barely different, I’m supposed to believe the spiel? A spiel with a good dollop of state power and topped off with a bit of financial good for themselves? I am supposed to trust these people?
Oct 5, 2007 - 2:31 pm 21. Tinker:Carl Spackler,
“GIGO
Garbage in, Gospel out”
LOL!!! I will never forget (or fail to use) that phrase!
Oct 5, 2007 - 3:21 pm 22. Andy Freeman:> How about low cost energy, say ocean waves or nuclear, to do the electrolosis that produces H2; and using the H2 to produce expensive energy, say in a car or power plant.
How about getting the energy from coal, something that the US has a lot of. Or tar sands (Canada has more than the US, but both have a lot.)
Oct 5, 2007 - 3:48 pm 23. John Moreschi:Andy Freeman,
Clean burning, liquid CO2 sequestration underground, coal – works for me.
Oct 5, 2007 - 4:01 pm