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Former Vice President and current global personality Al Gore headlined the Society of Environmental Journalists conference last Friday at the Concourse Hotel in Madison. Utilizing his monotonous verbal skills and mundane demeanor, Gore offered words regarding the supreme issue of climate change. As usual, the main piece of evidence Gore used was his own opinion.
Gore used his presence and speech in an attempt to reassure the audience that sooner or later significant progress would be made in addressing the climate issue. “I believe that we are very close to that political tipping point,” Gore said.
This has surely eased the public outcry and angst with regards to the inadequate response by world leaders. Gore’s utterance of a few tedious words should be all any rational person needs to soothe the qualms of environmental catastrophe.
Gore went on to state that “One way or another, the reductions in emissions are about to accelerate.” This comment relates to the current governmental cap-and-trade regulation that sets limits on emissions by allowing companies to emit only up to a certain amount. This complex control mechanism may be more about money than harmony since countries with low emissions can sell their ‘carbon credits’ to more industrial ones.
What Gore didn’t mention in his talk was he stands to make millions — if not billions — of dollars through his investment in a software company that creates carbon-level monitoring for the cap-and-trade regulation. This company, Hara Software, could capitalize on the cap-and-trade stealth tax that would multiply its market value 10 times over.
Gore justifies his actions by stating all of the profits he garners will go to the nonprofit organization Alliance for Climate Protection. He left out the fact he is the founder and chairman of this nonprofit group.
All the talk about reduction of energy and resource usage by Gore might lead one to question why the former vice president’s Nashville mansion consumes significantly more energy than the average American household. While Gore advocates conserving energy by minimizing household consumption, the fact he is leaving a giant carbon footprint of his own cannot be ignored.
Regarding the possibility of the world doing something to stop climate change, Gore also stated, “I choose to be very optimistic about the prospects.” This blunt declaration may energize his fanatic followers, but perhaps more concrete evidence should be used especially if Gore is attempting to gain more widespread support.
One method of motivation that might convince skeptics would be to provide research and evidence from highly qualified non-industry, non-governmental, non-lobby-group climate scientists. But by listening to experts who actually use experiential data to understand what nature is actually telling us about climate change, we would realize that there is not a consensus as Gore has suggested.
To his credit, Gore has done a lot to call attention to the scientific warnings of the potential repercussions of the supposed climate change. But merely restating the same types of claims over and over again with more emphasis on theory than empirical data might not bode well for his ideas.
After speaking for almost an hour about the general world issue of climate change, Gore mentioned a noteworthy former University of Wisconsin-Madison professor. This was part of Gore’s attempt to make the event more relative and appealing given the location of the conference. Henry Hart, a longtime political science professor and law school friend of Gore’s mother, was cited as an inspiration to Gore.
This reference to a local figure as an important influence in his storied career was a very nice gesture by Gore. It would have been even nicer if he had stated Mr. Hart’s age correctly. Perhaps Gore should have checked the facts.
Aaron Linskens ([email protected]) is a sophomore majoring in journalism and English.
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Temeratures have been getting colder for 11 years. How long will it take for the glbal warming idiots to wake up?
Global warming might be a problem but global cooling would kill billions and end civilization.
PS. Isn’t it a bit early for snow in Madison?
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That’s just flat out wrong. It’s also worth noting that weather does not equal climate. Please educate yourself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:InstrumentalTemperatureRecord.png
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Didn’t your teachers ever tell you Wikipedia is NOT a credible source?? You might as well put something from Fox News.
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The high temperature on October 12 last year was 82 degrees, fyi. It seems like Algore’s presence is enough to induce global cooling.
Seriously, though, we’re in a pretty severe low sunspot cycle right now. I’m not sure whether natural variations in climate or man-made changes are affecting global temperatures, and I don’t trust anyone who says that they know. We just don’t have enough data to make an informed guess as to the causes.
Using one day’s temperatures to make your point (in either direction) is intellectually disgusting.
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All that man has done cannot be undone. All that man has done has not been discovered.
The question remains: What have we done to our Earth?
The science pours in daily.
It doesn’t look like much of what we have done has been sustainable.
Selling bison hides eliminated 100 million bison in a short decade or two. Seving steak and potatoes to every Chinaman will eliminate all forests and require the use of all worldwide tillable land for cattle feed corn.
The resulting deadzones in the delta regions of all oceans therefore will continue to grow exponentially until the ocean food chain collapses from the bottom up.
And then we’re next.
It’s a hard thing to admit to yourself that as a carnivore, your pallet defined your reign as the dominant preditor on a ball of molten nickle orbiting some irrelevant little contained fusion explosion some 90 million miles away.
I wonder what science could tell us about how a predator’s diet could determine it’s long term survival?
Or what happens when a predator begins to combust noxious gases every time it moves its body. And that the technology required to move that steak-eating human weighs a cool 2 tons. Imagine if every ant could build an Ant SUV so it could drive places for no reason at all.
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It’s also interesting to note that when Phelim McAleer asked Gore to address nine errors in his film identified by a British court in 2007, his microphone was cut off by the moderators. Apparently there is a reason why Gore has refused to publicly debate his position since the release of his 2006 documentary.
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Environmentalists like Al Gore do not care about science.
When asked about his over-the-top (and abundant) errors in his film he simply replied that the court ruled that it was suitable to be shown in schools. In other words, the accuracy and credibility of what comes out of his mouth is unimportant to him. All that matters is whether his policies get the green light.
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It is unfortunate that a hypocrite like Al Gore is the voice of global warming. The IPCC is also very bad at promoting itself.
A large number of scientists have done great work to warn people of global warming decades before it becomes a serious issue. The clock continues to tick.
As for it getting colder in the last 11 years…not true at all.
I would like to see the flat-earthers dispute the actual science behind global warming. They like to use obscure observations to point out small variations in the weather, while ignoring the other 99% of the evidence the other way (and the 97% of scientists who consider global warming a major issue).
The bottom line is that global warming is not a “belief” like a religion. It is whether or not you accept the scientific theory behind it. I used to doubt global warming, but when actually educating myself with the facts instead of those conspiracy theory websites, I changed my mind. In fact, I was quite stupid to doubt it.