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Comments and observations on social and political trends and events.

Friday, November 2, 2007

Inconvenient Truth about Al Gore

It has been interesting watching Al Gore doggedly fight his battle over the last 15+ years to convince us about the perils and causes of global warming. His battle has hit its stride with a gathering momentum with accolades such as the Academy Award bestowed upon him for his Inconvenient Truth.

Back in the early 1990’s I recall a Boston Globe interview of Gore. At one point the interviewer asked Gore what he thought about the scientists who did not accept the idea of global warming being caused by human activities. He said, “I wish I could find a way to shut them up.” (!) [I don’t have the article and can’t find it online but the quote is burned into my memory.] Over the years Gore and his allies have managed to create the impression that virtually all reputable atmospheric scientists agree global warming is caused by our release of carbon dioxide. Scientists who disagree are depicted as being on the take from the oil companies. Now that the Gore contingent have created the impression of a scientific consensus, Gore claims that fighting global warming is a moral issue. In other words, if you disagree with him, you’re not only wrong but also immoral! Gore’s campaign to “shut up” dissenting scientists has been almost completely successful.

Robert Bidinotto’s work in Reader’s Digest originally convinced me that global warming was sham but for while I started to have doubts based on the constant media claims that climatologists agreed on the human-driven cause of global warming. I decided to conduct my own research from which a different picture emerged. Recently I read two books which I’ll discuss in a separate blog, both of which I found through www.junkscience.com.

I learned that there is no consensus among scientists and that there are other theories which match the data much better than man-made carbon dioxide. The information in these books is not all that hard to find. So why do Gore and his followers persist in advocating that we are to blame? I think the following quote from the former Canadian Environment Minister Christine Stewart sheds light on their motive.

“No matter if the science is all phony, there are collateral environmental benefits…. Climate change [provides] the greatest chance to bring about justice and equality in the world.” Source: Calgary Herald, 14 December 1998.


It all comes down to a new way to make us (the U.S. in particular and the West in general) feel guilty for our material success in order to soften us for their solutions of taxing emissions, changing our life style and bringing us down to the level of countries that don’t suffer from these “problems,” thanks to their policies of punitive taxation, heavy regulation and government control (or strangling) of their economies.

Most Americans buy into some of the propaganda and react maybe by recycling more or car-pooling. But they still buy their SUV’s and dream to live in a large home and maybe even own a private jet. In other words, to live in a style that Gore enjoys!

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