Al Gore is a politician and politicians deceive the public all the time. They lie to get elected, it is a way of life for them. That might be the way it works for voting adults, but not with impressionable kids. Gore wore the mantle of a politician for nearly three decades. It seems that it is a hard cloak for him to abandon, because he has brought politics into science. When politics gets involved in science, the lies, opinions, and deceit, that are a politician's everyday fare, destroys scientific discipline. Gore did this trying to indoctrinate young children, a “new generation,” with his horrific pictures and misleading words.
Gore made a speech to New York University Law School on September 18, 2006. His sponsors were two NGOs, the World Resources Institute and Set America Free. A few statements from his speech are presented here to demonstrate Mr. Gore's approach to the problem of global warming.
“My purpose is not to present a comprehensive and detailed blueprint— for that is a task for our democracy as a whole—but rather to try to shine some light on a pathway through this terra incognita that lies between where we are and where we need to go. Because, if we acknowledge candidly that what we need to do is beyond the limits of our current political capacities, that really is just another way of saying that we have to urgently expand the limits of what is politically possible.”
Though Mr. Gore denies having a plan for the future he has made suggestions. In his book, An Inconvenient Truth, he put forth a number of things everyday people can do to save the planet. While some of the suggestions are sensible, others are laughable. These include a simplistic admonition to “use a tote bag when shopping” to the fatuous “buy things that last.” Gore doesn't present a detailed plan because, despite claims to have invented the Internet, he knows little about science or technology.
Gore's film, An Inconvenient Truth, devoted a long segment to the imminent meltdown of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice-sheets. The film predicted a global sea level increase of 20 feet (6 m) that would flood Manhattan, Shanghai, Bangladesh, and other coastal settlements. As proof of this impending disaster, Gore quoted Oreskes' essay as proving that all credible climate scientists were in agreement regarding this supposed threat. He did not point out that Oreskes' definition of climate change “consensus” did not encompass his alarmist notions.
What is more revealing is his call to urgently expand the limits of governmental power. A lifelong member of America's political left, Mr. Gore has always embraced the expansion of government control. It comes as no surprise that he sees the solution to global warming crisis, indeed all environmental problems, as a need for expanding government regulation and oversight. He truly believes that humanity's future is in jeopardy.
“Many Americans are now seeing a bright light shining from the far side of this no-man's land that illuminates not sacrifice and danger, but instead a vision of a bright future that is better for our country in every way ... Our children have a right to hold us to a higher standard when their future—indeed the future of all human civilization—is hanging in the balance.”
Presumably, the bright light is the one Mr. Gore is shining on the path to the future. Casting aside the overblown, campaign stump speech language, Gore thinks that mankind is in peril and the future looks bleak, unless bold political leadership asserts itself. Being unable to formulate an actual plan for reducing GHG emissions, or solving the world's future energy needs, he falls back on the need for moral leadership.
“Developing countries like China and India have gained their own understanding of how threatening the climate crisis is to them, but they will never find the political will to make the necessary changes in their growing economies unless and until the United States leads the way. Our natural role is to be the pace car in the race to stop global warming.”
Only a politician could think that the world is waiting for America to “lead the way” before they “find the political will” to tackle the dual problems of rising pollution rates and falling energy supplies. China, India or any other developing country will not slow their industrial growth to please the US They cannot. Their people would rise up and topple their governments if told the future had to be put on hold.
China is building one new coal-fired power plant every week with India following close behind. China and India will stop building power plants when they think they have enough of them, or a better alternative arises. A foreshadowing of this can be seen in Westinghouse's recent deal to build four new nuclear power plants in China.
Even the greener-than-thou nations of Europe have discovered they have little appetite for such economic sacrifice. To date, six EU nations have petitioned for relief from their GHG reduction goals. The natural role for the United States and the other technologically advanced nations is not to lead the way to national impoverishment through limiting growth, self denial, and industrial suicide, but rather to develop new technology that is both environmentally sound and economically competitive.
Illustration 136: Lord Monckton throws down the gauntlet.
The most interesting codicil to Mr. Gore's saga as prophet of ecological doom is that, after winning an OscarTM and publishing a best selling picture book, Gore steadfastly refuses to meet his critics head to head. A sizable and growing list of “contrarian” scientists have offered to debate the former politician in public. This list includes Bjørn Lomborg, author of The Skeptical Environmentalist, Dennis Avery, coauthor of the best-selling book, Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years, and Lord Monckton of Brenchley, a former adviser to Margaret Thatcher during her years as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Quoting from Lord Monckton's open challenge:
“The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley presents his compliments to Vice-President Albert Gore and by these presents challenges the said former Vice-President to a head-to-head, internationally-televised debate upon the question “That our effect on climate is not dangerous,” to be held in the Library of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History at a date of the Vice-President’s choosing.
Forasmuch as it is His Lordship who now flings down the gauntlet to the Vice-President, it shall be the Vice-President's prerogative and right to choose his weapons by specifying the form of the Great Debate. May the Truth win! Magna est veritas, et praevalet. God Bless America! God Save the Queen!”471
Lord Monckton and Mr. Gore have clashed in the media before. Monckton has stated publicly, “A careful study of the substantial corpus of peer-reviewed science reveals that Mr. Gore's film, An Inconvenient Truth, is a foofaraw of pseudo-science, exaggerations, and errors, now being peddled to innocent schoolchildren worldwide.”
It is understandable that Gore would not wish to debate a real scientist, but Lord Monckton is a fellow politician who has also been involved in the global warming policy debate. To date, Mr. Gore has demurred.
Masters of Deception
While politicians need no underlying agenda as an excuse for distorting the global warming crisis—the desire to be in control is enough for them—what motivates others is not always so clear. The following are a few examples of global warming related claims that are not what they appear to be on the surface.
The Pacific island nation of Tuvalu stands just 13 feet about the sea level at its highest point. In 2002, the government announced they might sue the United States and Australia because they have rejected the Kyoto protocol on global warming. Enele Sopoaga, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Tuvalu to the United Nations, has stated that his nation is still considering bringing a suit “drawing in the rights of the people to exist and the injury that climate change has caused on the existence of people of Tuvalu.” He continued, “It's unfortunate because, you know, a country such as the US that has—that's contributing about 25% of the CO2 greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere, not to participate in this global effort, it does create some concerns.”472
This is simply not the truth. UN reports have clearly stated that Asia far exceeds North America in GHG emissions with India alone surpassi
ng the US.473 The “brown clouds” of Asia may be contributing half of the global temperature increase attributed to CO2, yet both India and China were exempted from Kyoto reductions. Add to this the claims by climate experts, that even full compliance with Kyoto will have no appreciable affect on global warming. The question becomes why is Tuvalu thinking of suing Australia and the US for not signing the Kyoto Protocol? Why doesn't Tuvalu sue China and India?
Could it be that China and India would tell them to sod off? Or that the US and Australia are rich countries against whom Tuvalu could play David vs. Goliath in the World Court? Perhaps the true reason for Tuvalu's environmental problems are poor water management and over pumping from the island's fresh water wells. This mismanagement is causing the island to sink and promoting salt water encroachment that is ruining the natives' gardens. The residents have applied for relocation money, but the government says it lacks the cash, hence the law suit. This is simply the victim culture mentality applied on an international scale.
We have already commented on reports that domestic animals may contribute more to GHG emissions than human transportation. The United Nations published a report on livestock and the environment concluding: “The livestock sector emerges as one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global.” Others are now pursuing this story for different purposes. ABC News, picked up the story in an article titled Meat-Eaters Aiding Global Warming? New Research Suggests What You Eat as Important as What You Drive. In it they reported that you should become a vegetarian if you want to help lower greenhouse gas emissions. They quoted researchers who liken eating red meat to driving an SUV.474 This position would certainly be supported by PETA, the group running the GoVeg.com web site.
Illustration 137: Ad from GoVeg.com
In the US, there have been claims that the large number of domestic cattle, estimated by the Department of Agriculture at 100,000,000 head, are a major contributor to methane emissions. While this may be so, prior to the arrival of men with fire arms, as many as 80,000,000 bison roamed the American prairie. Since the DOA considers cattle and bison as equal in terms of emissions, there has not been an appreciable increase in such emissions in North America since prehistoric times. Furthermore, unless those cattle are eating coal or drinking oil, their emissions are as carbon neutral as biodiesel and ethanol. Vegetarians and animal rights activists are simply seizing on global warming to promote their own beliefs. As one blogger put it, “Vegetarian is the New Prius.”
Artistic luminaries have a long tradition of decrying man's wasteful behavior. No save-the-earth rally is complete without a cadre of rock stars and Hollywood actors. Like Al Gore, the great Japanese novelist Junichiro Tanizaki (1886-1965) was also something of an ecological prophet. Tanizaki's 1933 essay, “In Praise of Shadows,” is a meditation on the aesthetics of shadows in Japanese culture. In it, he railed against electric lighting, the construction of highways, and women using makeup. In an on-line article on Tanizaki, Joshua Sowin captures the essence of the artistic class's opposition to human technological progress:
“Tanizaki was too astute and realistic to be an optimist. And his fears were accurate—what he denounces has become progressively worse. Technology is not ushering us into some kind of techno-utopia like so many seem to believe. Our progress has caused immeasurable social and ecological destruction along with its many advantages. Yes, we live longer, richer, and with more gadgets. But if life is robbed of rewarding and meaningful work, community, stability, silence, health, and wilderness, can our progress really be considered progress?”475
Optimism is foolish and unrealistic? Living longer, richer, and with more gadgets is not progress? Seek out those who live shorter, poorer, and with nothing—ask them their opinion. The mindset of idle intellectuals, avaricious politicians, and society's spoiled, pampered celebrities becomes clear—our science-based, technological civilization is inherently evil. It is easy for those who have an excess of everything to criticize the masses for wanting a portion of the good life. But there are those who take these opinions to their final, inescapable conclusion.
Illustration 138: VHMET's logo: sign up and die out.
There is an organization called VHEMT that is dedicated to the goal of voluntary human extinction. Their motto is “may we live long and die out.” Describing human population growth as an “inexorable horror,” Voluntary Human Extinction Movement head and founder Les Knight has said “as long as there's one breeding pair of homo sapiens on the planet, there's too great a threat to the biosphere.”476 Knight believes that man has done more harm to nature than good, and most environmentalists would agree. But VHEMT takes environmental extremism to its limits by saying mankind's primary concern should not be its own survival. Claiming to be non-violent, they suggest people simply stop having children and allow our species to die out. It would be easy to dismiss Knight and his compatriots as part of the lunatic fringe, people who simply hate mankind, but they are not alone.
David Suzuki, Canadian broadcaster and population control activist, hosted American ant expert Edward O. Wilson on his 1999 television series, From Naked Ape to Super Species. Wilson, a fellow population control extremist, proclaimed: “if all humanity disappeared the rest of life would benefit enormously ... If the ants were all to disappear, the results would be close to catastrophic.” Wilson added that if humans disappeared, “the forests would grow back, the whole Earth would green up, the ocean would teem, and so on.”477 To some environmentalists, ants are preferable to people.
So far, humanity has shown little interest in volunteering for extinction, prompting suggestions of other, less radical courses of action from ecological activists. A suggestion that surfaces frequently is for mankind to turn its back on high technology living and return to a simpler, more natural lifestyle.
The notion that life was better for human beings at some time in the past has surfaced before. This type of thinking goes back to Rousseau478 and the myth of the noble savage. Primitivism, an 18th century response to the stress of “modern” living, idealized savage man as uncorrupted by the influences of civilization. Rousseau thought that people in a state of nature did not know good and evil, and that “as every advance made by the human species removes it still farther from its primitive state, the more discoveries we make, the more we deprive ourselves of the means of making the most important of all.”479 Natural equality disappeared “from the moment one man began to stand in need of another.”
In the 1930s, George Orwell railed against “cranks” in his book, The Road to Wigan Pier. English advocates of the simple life in the 1930s, like Edward Carpenter and Leslie Paul, can be regarded as forerunners of modern ecological anti-capitalism. Quoting from an article in Cabinet Magazine, “In the spirit of The Road to Wigan Pier, today's anti-capitalism could be said to draw towards it with magnetic force every tree-hugger, organic fruitarian, solar-powered scooter rider, water-birth enthusiast, Tantric-sex practitioner, world-music listener, teepee-dweller, hemp-trouser wearer, and Ayurvedic massage addict.”480 Crank culture is alive and well in the 21st century.
In 2001, the International Forum on Globalization's Teach-In on Technology and Globalization, held at New York's Hunter College, was attended by some 1,400 activists. According to one report, “The speakers included an all-star cast of technophobes and other rebels against the future, featuring proud self-declared Luddites such as Kirkpatrick Sale, Jeremy Rifkin, Jerry Mander, Andrew Kimbrell, Paul Hawken, Pat Roy Mooney, Mae-Wan Ho, and Vandana Shiva.”481 During the conference, speakers called for civil justice, environmental justice, and green peace. They urged civil society groups to join together to create “an action program to control or halt progress in the development of technology.”
They call themselves “progressives” but the last thing they desire is progress. Rich Hayes demanded “an immediate global ban on human reproductive cloning, an immediate global ban on manipulating genes that
we pass on to our children, and accountable and effective regulation of all other human genetic technologies.” Jeremy Rifkin called for “a strict global moratorium, no release of GMOs (genetically modified organisms) into the environment.” Stephanie Mills advocated the “precautionary principle,” the idea that before any new development in science and technology can be used, it must be shown to have no negative impact. “New technologies should be presumed guilty until proven innocent,” Mills declared.
It is not just science and technology these activists loathe, dismantling the global economy is also high on their agenda. For these later-day Luddites, free trade is anathema and shopping online causes excess consumption by being “too easy.” Jerry Mander, head of the IFG and organizer of the conference, recommended that countries return to the import substitution model of economic development, which was abandoned after it bankrupted most of Africa and Latin America in the 1960s and 1970s. These people find nothing good in human technological civilization and long for a simpler, pre-technological world. To quote again from the article by Reason magazine's Ronald Bailey:
“Whether willfully or out of sheer ignorance, the congregants in Manhattan this past weekend dismiss any and all evidence that the human race has progressed over the past 100 years, much less the past 1,000; the longer life expectancies, higher standards of living, and cleaner environments that are everywhere becoming the rule and not the exception for the masses have seemingly made no impression (nor have the economic forces that make such things possible). The hopeful future of humanity freed from disease, disability, hunger, ignorance, poverty, and inequity depends on beating back the forces of know-nothing reaction such as those assembled at this weekend's Teach-In. The struggle for the future begins now.”
The Resilient Earth: Science, Global Warming and the Fate of Humanity Page 32
