Gore isn't quite as green as he's led the world to believe

[GameMaster]

KING: What do you drive?

GORE: I drive a hybrid. Tipper and I got a Lexus hybrid. And we have a couple of Priuses in the family with our children. And I encourage people to make environmentally conscious choices because we all have to solve this climate crisis.

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIP...13/lkl.01.html

[Xantar]

And the purpose of this little piece of political trolling would be...?

[Blackmane]

Originally Posted by Xantar

And the purpose of this little piece of political trolling would be...?

To get a rise out of Gore lovers?

I think he is a misguided nitwit with good intentions.

[Typhoid]

Originally Posted by Blackmane

To get a rise out of Gore lovers?

Is that some sort of Oxymoron?

[Bond]

Originally Posted by Xantar

And the purpose of this little piece of political trolling would be...?

To generate forum activity... your highness?

[Professor S]

I don't care about whether or not Gore drives a hybrid of subscribes to green energy. All of that has little effect on the environment and doesn;t really paint Gore as a hippocrit.

The zinc mine? Um, thats a bit damning... also is the fact that global warming is STILL an unproven theory with many highly intelligent and independent detractors.

My biggest problem with Gore is how he has attempted to just squash debate by proclaiming that any scientists that disagree with him are either in the pocket of "Big Oil" (who he apprently owns a bit of) or are just wackos. This does nothing to further the debate and makes him look like an idiot when legitimate scholars and and researchers debunk his fact as theory.

I'm not saying that global warming doesn't exist or isn't happening, I don't know. I also don't know if our exitence on this planet even has that much of an effect on GW if it is happening. To just assume so is both arrogant and willfully ignorant. I do know that there is a lot of evidence to its contrary and even evience that the earth is beginning a COOLING period (I'll try and find the links later during my lunch break) that is just as worthy of examination.

In the end, my biggest problem si that Gore states theory as fact and then expects us to completely change out way of life according to his misleading statements.

EDIT: For a really detailed, if somewhat obtuse, debunking of An Inconvenient Truth, click here: http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/

They pretty much re-state what I summarized but with an insane amount of data and hard science.

[Xantar]

If we wanted to play the hypocrite game, I could start shouting at George W. Bush for sending people into war without ever having seen a day of combat in his life. But I don't hold that against him, and neither should anybody start slamming Al Gore for having two large residences. He's had those houses long before he got into global warming, and although I suppose it would be nice if he had bulldozed his own houses and installed solar panels in their place, we can't expect him to be a saint. Besides, I'll bet that whenever he's not in his house, he turns the power off. This is why I questioned the point of even bringing up this kind of ad hominem attack. Even if Al Gore is the worst kind of hypocrite imaginable, that means nothing with regard to the question of global warming just like George Bush's National Guard service has nothing to do with whether it was right to go into Iraq.

Anyway, everything I've read on the matter indicates that there is now a consensus among climatologists that global warming is real and is caused by humans. As recently as two years ago I would say that such a consensus didn't exist, but it now does as much as any consensus can exist in the scientific community. Yes, there are intelligent and reasonable detractors, and their opinions should be taken into account. But every survey and panel since 2004 has said global warming is occurring in the long term and its causes are at least partly human. The survey by Science magazine is probably the one Gore is citing when he says that there is a general consensus on the issue. The question now is simply to what degree humans are responsible and what percentage of global warming is a natural process.

Scientists are not unanimous, but they never are. However, the fact that the people who oppose the consensus view on global warming are all individuals whereas the ones in support of it are all large professional scientific organizations (Source) suggests to me that we have the closest thing we're ever going to get to a general consensus. Strangler's JunkScience article is a great read, and I definitely recommend it for everyone. However, that article is also guilty of stating claims as fact from time to time. It contends, for example, that Urban Heat Islands may be a significant factor in the temperature increase we are measuring. And while some studies have claimed to compensate for the UHI effect, JunkScience dismisses those claims as, "not entirely convincing" without really providing data or sources to support their position. I'm not saying that UHI's have nothing to do with how we measure the global temperature, but JunkScience seems to take the position that since UHI's exist and since we don't know how much or whether it affects our measurements, all such measurements are suspect. In my view, that's not a justifiable position.

One good thing JunkScience points out, though, is that it's not all about carbon. There is evidence that even changing the color of the land (for example, cutting down trees and replacing them with wheat fields, effectively changing the land from green to yellow) can affect local temperatures. There are still way too many factors to deal with, and it doesn't help that climatologists can't exactly conduct controlled double-blind experiments. But when we have this much consensus on the issue, I think that we can no longer afford to ignore it. It used to be that a large percentage of scientists said that the earth's temperature isn't even rising, but now there isn't a single respectable one who says that. It used to be that a large percentage of scientists didn't think that global warming was caused in any way by humans. Those ranks have now been reduced to a few dozen individuals while the overwhelming majority of their colleagues now think that global warming is caused at least a little bit by humans. The detractors may still be right, but what if they're not?

[KillerGremlin]

Eh, whatever. Earth is like a rock that takes care of itself. If we are somehow to cause for temperature problems, the temperature will eventually fight back, and we all will die. Problem solved.

[Professor S]

I'm all for using "greener" energy sources for many reasons, both environmental and political. I love nature and have lived in rural areas all my life. But what I am wholeheartedly against is the use of environmental politics to control our lives "for the greater good." In this argument, the left is guilty of the same offences that they claim the right is with the war on terror. "An Inconvenient Truth" follows the poor example of Michael Moore: it takes a considerable topic with valid points and then exagerrates them to the point that it alienates those that are reasonable ignore your argument all-together. Remember the vision of New York under 20 feet of water? Yeah, try at most 2-3 feet if that. Gore even admitted to the exagerration.

This isn't about saving the world. Its about Al Gore screaming and banging on the door try to get out of his cage of obscurity (ooooh, I like that!). He's been doing this same presentation, which used to be a literal slide show, for 20 years. Its about the government dictating to us what cars we can drive, what fuel we use to heat our house and most importantly its about telling us all how bad everything is and is going to be unless THEY run things. Just like the far right does with terrorism, and we actually have real tangible evidence for that at least.

Most importantly, this is a veiled attack on capitalism. Why? What do you think is going to happen if those like Al Gore get their way? They are going to regulate fuel and energy until only those that are "green" (translated to "chosen by them") will be allowed to sell to the public. Like all regulated industry, it will fall into corruption filled with kick-backs and sweetheart deals. Its an attempt to convert us to a semi-socialist state, and socialism is NOT a destination... it is a toll booth.

Right now we are already seeing change, and it has nothing to do with Al Gore or government regulation. The powers of capitalism are already giving us the ends that Gore wishes for. High oil prices are pushing industry to greener fuel alternatives and the hybrid cars and industry. Increased regulation would most likely only increase the conversion process and limit our choices.

I'll leave you with a quote from Richard S. Lindzen, Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Science at MIT:

“So what, then, is one to make of this alleged debate? I would suggest at least three points.

“First, nonscientists generally do not want to bother with understanding the science. Claims of consensus relieve policy types, environmental advocates and politicians of any need to do so. Such claims also serve to intimidate the public and even scientists--especially those outside the area of climate dynamics. Secondly, given that the question of human attribution largely cannot be resolved, its use in promoting visions of disaster constitutes nothing so much as a bait-and-switch scam. That is an inauspicious beginning to what Mr. Gore claims is not a political issue but a ‘moral’ crusade.

“Lastly, there is a clear attempt to establish truth not by scientific methods but by perpetual repetition. An earlier attempt at this was accompanied by tragedy. Perhaps Marx was right. This time around we may have farce--if we're lucky.”