Got Love Al gore

[Seahawks]

Al Gore unabashedly announced in Congress this week that he’s coming for our wallets.

 

In his over-the-top testimony about global warming being a “planetary emergency” and “the greatest crisis we’ve ever faced,” Gore testified on behalf of energy taxes and other policies that would result in more expensive energy — including a total ban on the incandescent light bulb.

 

For attentive listeners, Gore also contradicted his own prior statements and debunked his alarmism.

 

Testifying before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce and the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works on Wednesday, Gore drew mostly praise and softball — if not sycophantic — questions from congressional Democrats and even many Republicans.

 

Those few Republicans like Texas Rep. Joe Barton and Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe who tried to grill Gore operated at quite a disadvantage given that they were no longer the chairmen of their committees and had little control over the hearing process.

 

Al Gore’s Congressional Lovefest Must-See Global Warming TV Al Gore's Inconvenient Electric BillThe Mega-Vitamin Mega-MythSaving Starving Children Should Trump Global Warming ConcernsFull-page Junk Science Archive

In the Senate, Committee Chair Barbara Boxer ran interference for Gore by disrupting Inhofe’s questioning, and then added insult to injury by mocking the senator — to audience applause — for no longer heading up the committee.

 

Ultimately, Gore’s exposure to tough questioning was extremely limited while the committee chairs allowed ample time for meaningless pleasantries and redundant fawning. Given what’s at stake in the global warming debate, the hearings were an embarrassing abdication of congressional responsibility.

 

Nevertheless, there were several noteworthy instances reflecting poorly on Gore’s credibility, concern for the public’s welfare and scientific argument.

 

With respect to his credibility, Gore denied to the House committee that he ever said global warming would cause “more” hurricanes.

 

But all you need to do is look at the front matter of his own book, “An Inconvenient Truth,” where he writes, “The voluminous evidence now strongly suggests that unless we act boldly and quickly to deal with the underlying causes of global warming, our world will undergo a string of terrible catastrophes, including more and stronger storms like Hurricane Katrina, in both the Atlantic and the Pacific.”

 

Gore’s testimony wasn’t given under oath, however.

 

On the Senate side, Inhofe confronted Gore with the hypocrisy of his preaching to the rest of us about the need to use less energy — by taking colder showers, hanging laundry outside to dry and keeping our homes colder in the winter and warmer in the summer, among other things — while his own personal electric bill for his Nashville mansion is 20 times the national average.

 

Gore responded that he purchases so-called “green energy” — electricity produced by wind turbines, solar panels or methane gas — for his mansion.

 

What he failed to mention, however, is that he just began buying green energy in 2007, even though for years he’s been telling anyone who will listen that they need to green up their energy use.

 

Moreover, the green energy he buys in Nashville is not entirely “green.” The power produced with methane needs to be co-fired with coal, which produces carbon dioxide. Sure, less coal is used, but Gore testified in Congress that he purchases green energy that produces no carbon dioxide and that we should essentially have zero tolerance for electricity produced with coal.

 

Inhofe asked Gore to take a “personal energy ethics pledge” to consume no more energy than the average American household. Gore ignored the request.

 

Missouri Sen. Kit Bond showed Gore a picture of a young girl who, because her family can’t afford to heat their home, has one coat to wear inside and another to wear outside.

 

Asked how higher energy prices that would result from global warming regulations would affect the little girl, Gore ducked the question and only uttered support for the federal low-income energy program known as LIHEAP — the very plan that works so well, the little girl needs to wear a coat indoors.

 

And at the very end of the Senate hearing, Gore inadvertently debunked global warming alarmism.

 

Sen. Craig Thomas asked Gore the pivotal question of whether atmospheric carbon dioxide increases have historically preceded or followed increases in global temperature.

 

If temperature increases come before carbon dioxide increases, the notion that manmade greenhouse gas emissions are changing global temperatures would have the cause-and-effect relationship exactly backward.

 

Gore responded by describing how, depending on the Earth’s tilt and wobble as it revolves around the sun, sometimes carbon dioxide increases precede temperature increases and other times temperature increases precede carbon dioxide increases.

 

That led attentive listeners to wonder, well, why worry about manmade global warming if it’s the Earth’s tilt and wobble that define the carbon dioxide-temperature relationship?

 

Apparently realizing his self-defeating statement, Gore then tried to backtrack by saying that currently, carbon dioxide increases are preceding temperature increases. It was a desperate and revealing effort to get back on message.

 

Fortunately for Gore, Thomas failed to pick up on the sleight of hand, his time for questioning ran out and the frustrating hearing essentially ended at that point.

 

Based on how the Democrats managed the hearings, Gore’s warning that we have about 10 years to address global warming before “it’s too late,” his call for an immediate freeze on greenhouse gas emissions and Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s announced desire to have legislation drawn up by July 4, you might think a global warming bill is imminent.

 

But Inhofe intimated to a group of bloggers this week that Boxer doesn’t want legislation this year, preferring instead to have global warming as a campaign issue in 2008.

 

Gore has repeatedly said — including at the hearings this week — that global warming is a “moral issue,” not a political one. If so, he apparently has yet to convince Boxer.

 

[foraker]

citations please:

http://tracking-the-rogue-yam.blogspot.com/

[Seahawks]

citations please:

http://tracking-the-rogue-yam.blogspot.com/

 

Interesting web site. I found the same article on CNN, buried.

Thats why I have hard time believing all the Global warming crap. Hard to sort out what truth and whats for for political agenda.

[Dechristo]

Steven Milloy publishes JunkScience.com and CSRWatch.com. He is a junk science expert, an advocate of free enterprise and an adjunct scholar at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

 

I believe, if Al Gore accepts the challenge to debate with Lord Monckton, he'll have his hat handed to him. http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=prnw.20070319.DCM015&show_article=1

Interesting that the venue chosen is the same where natural scientist T. H. Huxley and Bishop "Soapy Sam" Wilberforce held their debate on the theory of evolution, following the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species.

Lord Monckton says he chose this historic venue "not only because the magnificent, Gothic architecture will be a visually-stunning setting for the debate but also because I hope that in this lofty atmosphere the caution and scepticism of true science will once again prevail, this time over the shibboleths and nostrums of the false, new religion of climate alarmism."

 

children losing sleep over global warming - http://news.scotsman.com/uk.cfm?id=289422007

[JayB]

"Unctuous, Oleaginous, Saponacious"

[cj001f]

"Steven Milloy publishes JunkScience.com and CSRWatch.com. He is a junk science expert"

 

He's full of shit so he can recognize others who are full of shit?

[Seahawks]

"Steven Milloy publishes JunkScience.com and CSRWatch.com. He is a junk science expert"

 

He's full of shit so he can recognize others who are full of shit?

 

Why do you say he is full of shit?? Just curious. Anything concrete to back that up? I found the web sites interesting at least to hear the other side of the debate.

[Dechristo]

"Unctuous, Oleaginous, Saponacious"

 

T. H. Huxley

Letters and Diary 1860

 

September 9, 1860 [HP 15.117]

 

[To Frederick Dyster]

 

Has the rumour of the Oxford row reached Tenby? It was great fun. I had said that I could not see what difference it would make to my moral responsibility if I had had an ape for a grandfather, and saponacious Samuel thought it was a fine opportunity for chaffing a savan. However he performed the operation vulgarly and I determined to punish him – partly on that account and partly because he talked pretentious nonsense. So when I got up I spoke pretty much to the effect–that I had listened with great attention to the Lord Bishop's speech but had been unable to discover either a new fact or a new argument in it–except indeed the question raised as to my personal predilections in the matter of ancestry–that it would not have occurred to me to bring forward such a topic as that for discussion myself, but that I was quite ready to meet the Right Rev. prelate even on that ground. If then, said I, the question is put to me would I rather have a miserable ape for a grandfather or a man highly endowed by nature and possessed of great means and influence and yet who employs these faculties and that influence for the mere purpose of introducing ridicule into a grave scientific discussion–I unhesitatingly affirm my preference for the ape.

 

Whereupon there was unextinguishable laughter among the people, and they listened to the rest of my argument with the greatest attention. Lubbock and Hooker spoke after me with great force and among us we shut up the bishop and his laity.

 

I happened to be in very good condition and said my say with perfect good temper and politeness–I assure you of this because all sorts of reports [have] been spread about, e.g. that I had said I would rather be an ape than a bishop, etc.

 

All the Oxford Dons were there and several hundred people in the room–so that I think Samuel will think twice before he tries a fall with men of science again.

 

If he had dealt with the subject fairly and moderately, I would not have treated him in this way–But the round-mouth, oily, special pleading of a man who is ignorant of the subject, presumed on his position and his lawyer faculty gave me a most unmitigated contempt for him. You can't think how pleased all his confrères were. I believe I was the most popular man in Oxford for full four and twenty hours afterwards.

 

I maintain, in the proposed debate, Monckton shall be Huxley, and Gore the "oily" bishop.

[Dechristo]

"Steven Milloy publishes JunkScience.com and CSRWatch.com. He is a junk science expert"

 

He's full of shit so he can recognize others who are full of shit?

 

I posted this so you may know the source and his leanings

[foraker]

Thats why I have hard time believing all the Global warming crap. Hard to sort out what truth and whats for for political agenda.

 

It sounds to me like you've already made your decision based upon your political leanings and that you aren't terribly interested in 'sorting out the truth'.

 

While Gore has overplayed the hurricane issue, he's largely gotten the science right. To say this clouds the entire issue for you is akin to ignoring 99 solid facts and focusing on one statement where Gore uses the word 'will' instead of 'probably' and saying this bit of hyperbole throws the entire issue into doubt. I'll admit, wading into the sea of data surrounding climate change (a better term than global warming) is daunting. However, if you're going to challenge the conventional wisdom apropos climate change, you ought to do so based from an educated stand point, not simply from one where you distrust what Al Gore is saying simply because he's Al Gore and carries with him some difficult political baggage that some find difficult to ignore. That said, what we should do about anthropogenic climate change, how much, and when, or even if at all are all valid policy issues to debate.

Some will tend towards not accepting that a problem exists and not doing anything. Some will tend towards the opposite end of the spectrum though I've yet to hear anyone advocate we all give up cars and live in yurts (except, sarcastically and derisively, by the most fervent skeptics). Hopefully, most will tend towards recognizing the data says what is says and will look for effective solutions (in cost and in actuality).

 

In the end, Gore is a politician and sometimes uses the language that he deems necessary to get people to realize that a problem exists and to spur often lethargic governments to action. FWIW, he's accomplished getting people's attention, which is the most important thing in any issue. If you're still confused about 'the science', there are plenty of sources available that lay it out (unless, of course, you 'believe' that all climate scientists are in on a vast global conspiracy to continue living the high life on the government dole, drinking martinis, chaining Spanish supermodels in the basement, and driving Ferraris). One source, perhaps a bit technical, is RealClimate.

[joblo7]

citations please:

http://tracking-the-rogue-yam.blogspot.com/

 

Interesting web site. I found the same article on CNN, buried.

Thats why I have hard time believing all the Global warming crap. Hard to sort out what truth and whats for for political agenda.

 

moronic , clueless twit !!!! i'm sorry,man you just sound, act, reply like a 12 year old uninformed abused child.

[Dechristo]

you can't lay it down to love him, eh?

[Dechristo]

...and, seahawks, it's considered bad form (and, in many instances, illegal) to quote/post someone else's text without acknowledging the source.

[AlpineK]

I think you're going to have to do some serious research to fight the science behind climate change.

better get a phd first.

 

On the other hand if you want to give your view on how the country responds to the problem then that falls into the realm of politics and it's fair game for lots of viewpoints.

[joblo7]

...and, seahawks, it's considered bad form (and, in many instances, illegal) to quote/post someone else's text without acknowledging the source.

the boy, trips while fucking up, then poses, then postures.and now will attack with a noodle..... wtf . is this humanly possible? i give the fuck up.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

...and, seahawks, it's considered bad form (and, in many instances, illegal) to quote/post someone else's text without acknowledging the source.

the boy, trips while fucking up, then poses, then postures.and now will attack with a noodle..... wtf . is this humanly possible? i give the fuck up.

 

you give the fuck up? try shutting the fuck up

[joblo7]

please SAY something.....sir.

[joblo7]

he has a great heart,he who defends the clueless twit....

or could he be below him...?

he has great courage ,he who protects the clueless twit.....

or is he ,..behind him....?

[jaee]

Here's the official Seecocks STFU mascot, SAM (Seecocks am a moron)

 

 

Sam will appear wherever blowhard rightwingers post "fair & balanced" news.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

please SAY something.....sir.

 

You first. Gibberish doesn't count.

[Stonehead]

I think you're going to have to do some serious research to fight the science behind climate change.

better get a phd first.

 

On the other hand if you want to give your view on how the country responds to the problem then that falls into the realm of politics and it's fair game for lots of viewpoints.

 

Heretics, gadflies, contrarians, radicals…yeah, it’s a freak show but they’re damned fascinating. It’s their ideas that animate these characters, not that they’re right but that they often hold ideas at odds with the mainstream, the orthodox, and occasionally history proves these oddballs possessed a bit of truth.

 

Also, who is not fascinated by the phenomenon of paradigm shift, the evolution of explanatory theories? Kuhn called it a revolution. And if not a revolution, we see a refinement of theory, things such as Eldridge and Gould’s Punctuated Equilibrium. Distracters argued that Eldridge and Gould’s ideas cast doubt on evolution as a whole but they were misunderstanding that this refinement fit squarely with the neo-Darwinian synthesis. The explanatory power of evolutionary theory was strengthened with a better fit to the data.

 

I recently saw two science articles that show that our picture of reality is so incomplete. Granted we have a hell of a lot of knowledge but there are many more surprises pending.

 

Is It a Particle, a Wave Or Both? Science Team Revisits Nature of Light

Physicists challenge notion of electric nerve impulses; say sound more likely

 

[strumpett]

Thats why I have hard time believing all the Global warming crap.

 

 

You have got to be kidding? Sounds to me like you do not climb on snow. If you have been climbing snow and ice for a time, you would believe it is true.

[pink]

foraker, i think you said it best. gore is a polititian and if he uses the language half A time he is still a polititian. thank god that one party doesn't rule the roost. things take time. what exactly has al gore done other that point out a negligent truth.

 

it's kind of funny because i not only suck at writing but most people already have their minds made up. good luck foraker , seahawks, etc. your political decisions and disagreements are all legitimate but al gore making a movie and pointing fingers with D fucking CRAPRIo doesn't really do anything for me. fuck the middle east, lets just put olive oil and hummus in our gas tanks.

 

fuck the free word, we are just a bunch of brats.

[pink]

Thats why I have hard time believing all the Global warming crap.

 

 

You have got to be kidding? Sounds to me like you do not climb on snow. If you have been climbing snow and ice for a time, you would believe it is true.

 

global warming is not what i experienced in colorado this winter, anyway global warming is not a political issue it is a global issue. al gore and shit for brains have little to with it. ya got more shit going that your feeble brain and led fooot could ever comprehend.

 

 

peace love & angst

[jaee]

Colorado, is, after all, world reknown for its glaciers.

 

5 years ago I climbed in slots 50' deep on Mt. Hood that are barely a ripple today. We've had good snow years and bad snow years since then. But that doesn't account for 35' of ice.

 

The corporations have you brainwashed to question anything that might impede their progress. They just dig the carte blanche of "self-policing" pollution and contamination.

 

Seecocks would have you think Gore is taking your money to tilt at windmills. Too late, because Bush has already spent it on putting more troops in harms way and lining Haliburton's offshore kingdom with more American gold.

 

The question should be what are we doing that could have a negative impact on our children, our planet, our food? How can we change that?

 

Paper or plastic? No thanks, I brought my own.