From EcoWatch:
For the third time in the last few years, Al Gore, founder and chairman of the Climate Reality Project, spoke at the festival on Friday. Naturally, his interactive discussion focused on addressing the climate crisis. The former vice president focused on the need to “punish climate-change deniers, saying politicians should pay a price for rejecting ‘accepted science,’” said the Chicago Tribune.
Gore said forward-thinking investors are moving away from companies that invest in fossil fuels and towards companies investing in renewable energy. “We need to put a price on carbon to accelerate these market trends,” Gore told the Chicago Tribune, referring to a proposed federal cap-and-trade system that would penalize companies that exceeded their carbon-emission limits. “And in order to do that, we need to put a price on denial in politics.”
He called on the tech-minded SXSW crowd, which is dominated by Millenials, to harness technology to launch a grassroots movement to tackle climate change and call out climate deniers. “We have this denial industry cranked up constantly,” Gore said. “In addition to 99 percent of the scientists and all the professional scientific organizations, now Mother Nature is weighing in.”
Years from now, Gore said the next generation will look back at us and ask: “How did you change?,” according to Macworld. “Part of the answer may well be that a group of people came to South by Southwest in Austin, Texas in 2015 and helped to make a revolution,” Gore said.
Gore wanted these young, tech-savvy attendees to start a grassroots movement using social media like they did when “net neutrality was threatened or when the Stop Online Piracy Act threatened to blacklist websites that offered so-called illegal content,” said Macworld. That means signing petitions to fight climate change, utilizing social media to call out climate deniers in Congress and streaming the Live Earth Road to Paris concert on June 18, an event designed to draw attention to the climate talks in Paris this December.
The former Veep even gave a nod to Pope Francis during his talk, showing a slide of the pontiff and saying “How about this Pope?” Pope Francis celebrated his two-year anniversary as Pope on Friday, riding a wave of popularity “that has reinvigorated the Catholic Church in ways not seen since the days of St. John Paul II,” said the Chicago Tribune. Gore said he was looking forward to the Pope’s highly anticipated encyclical on the environment which is due to be released in June or July. “I’m not a Catholic,” Gore said, “but I could be persuaded to become one.”
So is this saying that it’s okay to trample on the right to free speech of Americans?
Yes, it is precisely what he said…the big fat jackass that he is.
Hey, hey, Gore only wants you to spy on your family, friends, and neighbors. Then, if you suspect they don’t follow his doctrine, you are to give their names to a lynch mob he is putting together.
Al Gore is such a hard hitter.
Al Gore “should pay a price” for ignoring the science and selling his TV station to oil funded Al Jazeera. He should be punished for having rejected the science on lung cancer and having grown and sold tobacco in the past. He even took tobacco funding six years after his sister died from lung cancer.
His family should be punished for having got rich off petroleum produced by Occidental – and keeping the profits – and so on on punishment for Gore.
That’s why he divested from green stocks in 2012. Maybe he’s hoping that all these proposed carbon caps etc will make Generation Investment Management’s life easier and make him even more money.
In this book he attacks consumerism and materialism. Then he forgot what he attacked and purchased a SECOND New LARGE VILLA $8.875 Million Montecito Villa with a pool and six fireplaces.
Luxury villa against consumerism during our planetary emergency. This is the real Al Gore, a man never to be trusted. Al Gore is an eco-hypocrite.
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/apr/28/home/la-hm-hotprop-gore-20100428
There is so much more I want to add but my blood is beginning to boil. Good night.
Copy that, Jimbo…
Oh Jimbo, You are cruel..
At least the villa isn’t less than 4 feet above sea level cos he knows the sea level rise will inundate it otherwise.
He’s not THAT hipocritical…
Al Gore’s partner in Generation Investment had a last name of Blood. How funny, Blood and Gore. And perhaps off topic, but in conjunction with your comment, tobacco company political contributions went overwhelming to Democrats until the 90s when the south started turning Republican. Then, once their money started flowing primarily to Republicans, tobacco became the evil that it now remains. That is why in his 1988 campaign for the Democrat nomination he was still inclined to claim credit for how hard he worked in that industry. But with the swing of the funding to Republicans, all at once the second-hand smoke became the devil and the EPA went on the warpath against it. Gore pandered in the 80s about tobacco, now he panders about the climate. He changes his focus and who he is trying to influence, but he is a unrepentant panderer.
Isn’t this is the same kind of thinking that demanded Galileo pay a price for rejecting ‘accepted science’?
Just a single query. What exactly is the “accepted science”?
Not to mention the royalties from zinc mining on the Gore lands.
I can see Al as the Grand Inquisitor. No, sir, you will not take my rights to question away just so you can fly in the family Gulfstream or live to excess where I am barely getting by..
You , Mr. Gore, are a Braying Jackass…
Well, Jimbo, just as the warmist science rhetoric doesn’t correlate with actual observations, the demands of some of their loudest proponents are not reflected in their personal lifestyles.
I would like the media to show a bit of logic and call for formal debates. If the CAGW opponents are merely ‘ignorant deniers’ then a debate should be duck soup for a real ‘climate scientist’. (But I think they have other reasons to avoid debate. BTW, looking forward to the results of Dr. Tim Ball’s debate.)
Louis says: March 16, 2015 at 5:46 pm
Isn’t this is the same kind of thinking that demanded Galileo pay a price for rejecting ‘accepted science’?
No, Galileo was an idiot. The accepted science at the time was based on good data, showing that the earth was round, and approximatly the correct size. Galileo rejected that, saying that it was much smaller, and that he could sail to India on a sailing ship. Everyone know that was rediculous, but he managed to conn the Spanish crown. Turns out he was lucky, and NA happend to be within reach. It was only through blind luck that he and his crew didn’t die.
Now who is the idiot, I see I mixed up Columbus and Galilao. Sorry. I take that all back.
“So is this saying that it’s okay to trample on the right to free speech of Americans?”
Probably not. It is tough to tell from what the Tribune says: “punish climate-change deniers, saying politicians should pay a price for rejecting ‘accepted science’.” But it sounds like he is saying to punish politicians by voting them out of office, which is perfectly reasonable. If so, that may be the only reasonable thing he said.
“Punish” also could be construed as a call for violence.
Why did he not say it plainly? Obviously he tries to have things all ways.
A threat of violence?
These are the same guys who invented speech codes at most colleges that ban any speech that offends a leftists sensibilities.
They have never had any interest in protecting any speech that they disagree with.
I don’t agree with much of anything Gore says, but he’s not calling for denial of free speech.
+1
Agreed, but he is rejecting the silly notion of a free exchange of ideas. It would be nice if he defined his terms better, I neither deny that climate changes nor claim the earth is flat, but I suspect he considers me a member of both groups.
He made a political statement. It’s obvious. He has an opinion, and he’s calling for his army of zealots to follow him off the cliff — again. It’s obnoxious as all get out, but not an attack on free speech.
If he is saying that people that think like him should vote people out of office that don’t think like him then that is fine. He is a nitwit and the more people realize it the more likely they are to vote for people who don’t think like him.
I guess Gore must also want to punish all religious people who have beliefs that do not fall into “accepted science”. You believe in immaculate conception? You must pay the “Accepted Science” tax surcharge!”
This has nothing to do whether I or anyone else believes in immaculate conception or not, it is a right to do so. This has nothing with the science, even though it is interesting climate science needs government intervention to establish it’s credibility.
To answer Bohdan’s question, yes this is absolutely about the right to free speech. What else can you call it when he is suggesting using government authority to punish thought?
If that wasn’t enough to make Gore a despicable excuse for a public figure, his motivations behind providing government this kind of abusive power is for growing his wealth. It is completely selfish, as his past financial dealings clearly show he has no affinity for any principle he may espouse.
It was a political statement. He’s calling for non-believers to be punished at the polls. I disagree with Gore and think he’s a fool and a hypocrite, but he didn’t attack freedom of speech.
“He called on the tech-minded SXSW crowd, which is dominated by Millenials…”
If you wondered why AlGore’s hate-filled message of scientific ignorance was aimed at this audience, wonder no more:
“Millennials, the quarter of the U.S. population that was born after 1980, give us a clue into what America will look like in the future. Unfortunately, at least when it comes to education, that future doesn’t look so bright. Millennials are on track to be the most educated generation of Americans ever, but their skills are still not on par with other wealthy countries around the world.
“The U.S. scores dismally when compared with other advanced nations on literacy, numeracy (the ability to work with numbers) and problem solving…”
http://knowmore.washingtonpost.com/2015/03/12/millennials-in-america-are-atrocious-at-math-and-not-great-at-reading/
I sure hope the movie “Idiocracy” doesn’t prove to be more accurate than the climate models!
I still worry than “Atlas Shrugged” seems to be more realistic than it was 10 years ago.
spetzer86, reading that book was eerily prophetic
The comment of ” Millennials are on track to be the most educated generation of Americans ever” is amusing in light of the following statement of “The U.S. scores dismally when compared with other advanced nations on literacy, numeracy (the ability to work with numbers) and problem solving…” Just goes to show you that have a piece of paper that says “I are a greduit from Kollege” doesn’t hold a whole helluva lot of water when the college hasn’t taught you shit.
would you like fries with that degree?
Tom O March 16, 2015 at 1:25 pm
“Just goes to show you that have a piece of paper that says “I are a greduit from Kollege” doesn’t hold a whole helluva lot of water when the college hasn’t taught you shit.”
Just goes to show you that have a piece of paper that says “I are a greduit from Kollege” doesn’t hold a whole helluva lot of water when the college hasn’t taught you one fourteenth part of the cube root of shit.
There, as another says – sorted for you.
Auto
Tom,
Yeah, quite poor choice of words by the reporter there.
A better formulation would have been:
”Millennials are on track to be the most CREDENTIALED generation of Americans ever..”
Credentials do not an education make.
But Millennials have never experienced global warming!
“Millennials …”
===================
More like ‘millenarianals’:
‘Millenarianism, a religious, social, or political group or movement in a coming major transformation of society, after which all things will be changed’ (Wiki).
They have been educated alright but what were they taught? If they were Australian students they would know about our “shocking” treatment of Aboriginals but not of our pioneer’s successes in creating the nation that gives them their high standard of living. They would know about global warming but nothing about the sun, clouds and cycles and they would not know that the world hasn’t warmed for nearly two decades. Our kids can’t do mental arithmetic, can barely read and certainly can’t write but they all know the Green mantra. They have been denied the ability to think for themselves.
http://knowmore.washingtonpost.com/2015/03/12/millennials-in-america-are-atrocious-at-math-and-not-great-at-reading/
Lawrie,
Take a look at Australia’s standings in the chart above.
Your MIllenials are at or above average in both literacy and numeracy.
American Millenials are well below average in literacy, and are the very worst in the OECD in numeracy.
If you think Aussie Millenials are in trouble, then please save a prayer for your American cousins–we are about gone.
Very interesting chart Kent.
Did you notice that every country that has accepted and implemented CAGW are low education countries. Brittain, Italy, Spain. Germany also did, but have since found it to be folly.
“The U.S. scores dismally when compared with other advanced nations on literacy, numeracy (the ability to work with numbers) and problem solving…”
Brilliant!!
[And just in case you are a Millenial, and hence don’t get it : everyone else knows what numeracy is].
The now “retired” Bill McKibben formed his 360.org traveling minstrel show around dozens of millennials before they were even called Millennials. What an embarrassing side show they produced.
This man is a danger to society & should be put down for his own safety.
Tit for Tat is not the way forward.
That way the whole world will be blind and toothless.
These greens are very dangerous, they either want to replace capitalism with communism and/or remove 6+ billion people from the population. Tit for tat is a very effective way of dealing with them.
Lets avoid this type of death-wish commentary please.
+1
+1
I agree, Michael!
Two wrongs don’t make a right, stop this sort of nonsensical death wishing.
Secondly, never stop a man while he is making a Mistake. Let’s keep Gore front and center as long as possible. He is easily shown to be a horrible hypocrite, and he tarnishes everyone he’s with by association. He’s a sterling example of a corrupt, political actor being given center stage because he gives the cause lip service. Gore has done as much for the skeptical movement as the Viscount.
+1 Brings meaning to “you are your own worst enemy”.
Indeed…”actor”… There is that Academy Award thingie. Don’t they give those out for big-time pretending?
Gore is a complete nitwit. I attended an informal showing of “An Inconvenient Truth” and was twiddling my thumbs right up to the point where he presented a mosaic of species that had become untimely extinct. Clearly evident among the lot was a picture of a coelacanth! For those unfamiliar with the subject, the coelacanth is a famous survival from the Late Cretaceous epoch, 70 million years ago, still living today. So, in an audience awed into silence by the solemnity of such extinctions, I could not restrain a bark of laughter. I would say he has the I.Q. of seaweed, but that might be an exaggeration…
You insult the seaweed.
He’s been known to mess around with other kinds of weeds.
Michael J
That is frigging unbelievable. Coelacanths have survived multiple extinction events and are still swimming (vertically) off the SE coast of Africa. Does he have a speech writer who is secretly trying to make him look foolish?
Coelacanth denialism
Al gore is anything but a nitwit. He knows what he’s doing and what he’s “selling.” He doesn’t have a conscience, any sign of morality or ethics, but he’s not a nitwit. Useless human baggage, but everything he does is to put long green in his accounts, and he’s doing a wonderful job of that. It doesn’t matter if poor people and the elderly die because of what he pushes, because he doesn’t know them, wouldn’t associate with them if he did, and intends to be part of the elite that will survive anything – including the nuclear war they are pushing for since we aren’t willing to freeze and starve to death for him.
Underestimating the opponent is for people who are ready to lose one that was theirs to lose.
I doubt Gore knows much about saltwater fish.
I think you are right… but what Gore does know is how to lie, how to make people trust him, how to steal money from people by use of fraudulent stories. Remember! When Gore says that “climate deniers need to pay a price!” Those words are coming from a talented deceiver and a man who can convince others to do what he tells them.
He is dangerous!
The coelacanth , in its various genera, goes back 400 million years . For some of those eons the ocean temperatures were so high that , according to the palaeoclimatologists Crowley and Berner , the ocean depths reached 15C.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/292/5518/870
What threatens the species is indiscriminate fishing and the desire of every museum and collector to have a (dead) specimen.
I’ll bet some of those youngsters were put off by Gore’s unctuos nature and his polished politicitian glibness. His carnival barker smile and sweat would make his message less appealing too.
The SXSW crowd seems to have more important issues on their plate:
“Protesters stage anti-robot rally at SXSW”
http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2015/03/14/sxsw-robot-ai-protest-artificial-intelligence/24777871/
😉
Maybe their own ‘intelligence’ is threatened.
No, that was the Anti-Pond-Life Rally.
They probably mistook Al Gore for one.
From the link:
“Phil Libin, CEO of software firm Evernote, frames the protest and movement as the latest iteration of the man vs. machine debate. “People worry about robots taking over the world, but I assure you there are much more dangerous things (income inequality and global warming) in front of the line,” he said.”
Priorities, priorities!
And its a bird-brain robot at that. Rather, bird-legged.
The dog and the mule were scary, but the problem is ‘reading’ rough ground. (The best was where they jump-kicked the running mule, on ice!
DARPA thinks they need a biped machine that walks like a person … but of course, birds don’t.
They can protest all they want, but the die has already been cast. As the $15 minimum wage issue grows for people who don’t produce enough value to be paid it, the process is already underway to replace them with the robots. And there are not many who will be immune to this process. Even managers claiming that their jobs involve discretionary decision-making that can’t be done with a black box are in for a rude of awakening. The 80% of their job that can be systematized and the 20% that is discretionary will be rolled up into one manager out of five that retains their job. Too funny that the techies that have made this evolution of computer technology possible, now protest against the very things they put into motion.
Where did the Pope get his CliSci degree?
His Holiness would do well to remember Cardinal Baronius’ comment during the Galileo dust-up:”The bible teaches us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go”.
In engineering, the principle is “Don’t practice outside the area of your expertise”.
Our very own Lysenkoist/Stalinist.
Carbon dioxide COOLS the earth.It does NOT cause warming.See http://scientificqa.blogspot.co.uk The cause of the temperature change gradient is gravity not radiation.
CO2 is beautiful. Without it, we’d all be dead.
we would never have been here in the first place
Yes. How can it be people don’t get this? By emitting CO2 we can accidentally start an ice age, right?
It is mostly distractions to derail us from attacking the science behind their objective?
Two bad things: One, Gore isn’t an idiot. He is just encouraging really bad ideas and isn’t worried about the truth. Two, the people listening to Gore are just like those who listened to Hitler. They aren’t questioning the message.
They’re most like the people during the LIA who believed it when they were told bad weather was caused by witchcraft.
the people listening to Gore are just like those who listened to Hitler
Exaggerate much, Godwin?
Yeah, Hitler actually raised the standard of living for average Germans in the Thirties. No one could accuse Al Gore of doing the same for average Americans.
Not really, Jake. If you’d care to read something like The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, you’ll see strong parallels between the two.
We know the whole story about Hitler; what we don’t know is the future with Al Gore.
Perhaps Gore could organize massage parlors to refuse service to non-warmists. He seems to have a lot of contacts in that business.
Gore is a ‘has-been’, he has been ridiculed, proven on this site to be a fake and now just tries to bring himself into the headlines at every chance he gets.
What Bohdan Burban says above is worth making the message that Gore and his followers are trying to stifle free speech, freedom of expression and trying to manipulate government.
They can’t even stifle assault rifles used in mass-murder of the most innocent.
But they would be happy to see us swatting at a hornet in the car, and drive into oncoming traffic.
He’s talking Ballot Box, not Free Speech. He may act goofy, but he’s not so confused as to threaten the Press.
I remember voting against him when he almost won the election, it was very close. If he had been elected he would have been the worst President of the US ever. It is very, very hard to imagine anyone being as bad or worse than Obama, but Gore might have been close or just as bad.
As asking that “deniers be punished” strikes me as a hate crime and suppression of free speech. But then the radical leftists are NEVER even charged with such things, much less convicted. But let a rational and conservative patriot say something like that and he might indeed wind up in jail, or a big fine, and be ostracized the rest of his life and in the history books he would be vilified.
I’m borrowing this shamelessly from Allan MacRae on another thread:
“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.”
– Albert Einstein
Seems appropriate to the topic of this thread. Works both for Gore himself and his idea.
I’m no supporter of Al Gore these days, but if the links provided in the article don’t contain the quotes provided it looks bad for WUWT.
Which quotes seemed to be missing, and where did you look?
Well he is nothing if not entertaining, perhaps dangerously so. In the Middle East this would be called a Jihad: a holy war founded on beliefs that is waged against those who think wrong thoughts.
Fanaticism takes many forms.
This is one of them.
Fanatical speakers influence mobs.
Mobs run amok.
Fanaticism is not good for children and other living things.
This is more proof, as if we needed it.
Mobs don’t run amok. It’s the individuals that make up the mob that do the amok running.
There is nothing more dangerous than misguided zeal
Mobs get violent. Individuals run amok, and they do it all by themselves. Check out the description of the phenomenon we know as “going postal.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Running_amok
Gore increasingly directs away from the actual evidence to the alleged opinions of the expert scientists. It is akin to the criminal courts dispensing with the forensic evidence and taking an opinion poll of police officers.
I don’t like Gores cap and trade idea. It makes more sense to use a carbon tax. But the tax needs to be imposed on all greenhouse gases, including cattle, rice paddies, garbage dumps, and cement plants. The tax should be offset with a reduction in income taxes.
Hey buddy, read my lips… NO NEW TAXES! 😉
Art Laffer, Reagan’s supply side guru, has also called for a carbon tax but only if all other taxes were eliminated and it would be revenue neutral. It would essentially serve as the consumption tax or national sales tax that many have called for. I’m not sure if I agree, but it is an interesting concept to consider as it would be levied on production, but paid by those who consume the production.
Fernando,
I expect it is a general problem, to use taxes for what amounts to social engineering. Taxation is provided for specific purposes in the Constitution, and getting too ‘creative’ with the tool will come to a bad end.
Carbon schemes also amount to ‘price controls’, and even ‘centralize control’ of the economy, both of which have bad reputations.
The Constitution provides and Congress exercises the power to Regulate, and we should go with straight-forward rules & regulations, to effect changes in the use of fuels. What we’re flirting with in using taxes to suppress Lawful activity, is a systemic legal liability.
If we think something should be done about certain Lawful activities, then we should address it through the Constitutional provision to Regulate, not the provision to Tax.
Taxation is spelled out as a revenue-mechanism, and if we get too innovative with how we use the tax-tool, the Court will firmly assert their provenance over the matter. Indeed, we saw a ‘shot across the bow’ in this regard, when the challenge to Obama’s Health Care ‘funding mechanism’ was resolved by SCOTUS officially declaring it a Tax – and legal as such. To everyone’s surprise.
Deployment of Taxation can’t stray too far from being about revenue. Taxation isn’t ‘whatever we want it to be’, and real stakeholders who are vested in such Powers (ie, eg, The Courts) will allow distortion of it to go only so far.
Ted
Lower-income folks pay geometrically-declining income tax. They would fork over higher prices for everything, and then reducing their income tax (which they already get back) does little or nothing to offset the hit.
Most of the voting pool could not be compensated in such a fashion, and will oppose this scheme at the ballot box.
Ted, you are probably right. A carbon tax doesn’t go over very well. But it’s a lot more reasonable than cap and trade. The key is to make it revenue neutral. As far as I’m concerned they can just send us a check on a quarterly basis with the full amount they collect. Those of us who want to spend the money eating rice and usng cement can do keep on doing it. I suspect some of us will cut down on rice and beef and use less cement if their price increases.
Did the ‘hanging chads’ in 2000 save us from this messiah, or doom the planet to CAGW? Is CO2 the catalyst or an indicator of warming?
Harvey, it’s been 15 years since this guy was nearly elected President of the United States. I still don’t know if the fact that I haven’t had a nervous breakdown as a result of this incredible close call is a sign that my mental health is good or if it indicates that I cling to a deep seated denial of the dangers that can arise from the stupidity of voters.
I still don’t know if the fact that I haven’t had a nervous breakdown as a result of this incredible close call is a sign that my mental health is good or if it indicates that I cling to a deep seated denial of the dangers that can arise from the stupidity of voters.
Or possibly a subconscious defense mechanism that refuses to accept the ignorance of some of those voters.
We need to put a price on the lies that Gore and all the other Climate Liars tell. They have caused humanity immense harm.
I’m afraid the ‘price’ will be our fiscal well-being as common folk, if the general population doesn’t wake up to the fine print that goes with “sustainability”.
I wonder if I had anything to do with this? http://m4gw.com/our-videos/
😎
Al certainly deserves a rap!
Still a lot of snow fall this winter in Boston, and maybe even in Washington.
http://vortex.accuweather.com/adc2010/images/radar/610×480-overlay.gif
Remember that in politically-correct speech, unusually warm events are Global Warming, and unusually cold events are just weather.
Ninety two white rabbits in a snowstorm?
How does it you count !
[??? .mod]
http://vortex.accuweather.com/adc2004/pub/includes/columns/newsstory/2015/650x366_03161515_hd30.jpg
Crispin:
He didn’t discuss the various extinct species, but pretty much created the implication that CO2 was somehow to blame, in spirit if not in fact. Among the extinct was also the Dodo. Make of that what you will. It is clear he didn’t employ any fact-checkers.
“but I could be persuaded to become one.”
Depends on the paycheck.
Kinda makes me want to invest more into fossil fuel based stocks. The Millennials might realize their folly when warming turns into cooling, and the SHTF.
Or even better when The Millennials finally realise that fossil fuel companies also produce the base products that make up 99.99% of the plastic and synthetics that go into their Tech Toys!