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There will be a story featuring Al Gore and his climate views on CBS 60 minutes this weekend. Normally I don’t pay much heed to this program, but Gore is publicly calling those who question the science “…almost like the ones who still believe that the moon landing was staged in a movie lot in Arizona and those who believe the world is flat…”.
To me, a person who has at one time been fully engaged in the belief that CO2 was indeed the root cause of the global warming problem, I find Gore’s statements insulting. In 1990 after hearing what James Hansen and others had to say, I helped to arrange a national education campaign for TV meteorologists nationwide (ironically with CBS’s help) on the value of planting trees to combat the CO2 issue. I later changed my thinking when I learned more about the science involved and found it to be lacking.
I’ve never made a call to action on media reporting before on this blog, but this cannot go unchallenged.
The press release from CBS on the upcoming story on Gore is below. You can visit the CBS website here and post comments:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/03/27/60minutes/main3974389.shtml
See the video clip here
But let’s also let the producer, Richard Bonin, know (via their communications contact) what you think about it, as I did when Scott Pelley aired a whole hour long special telling us Antarctica was melting. They did no follow up.
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The Noble Laurite would never commit to a forum where his view could be challenged. After all, those who believe the climate is affected by natural forces, are “fringe elements, flat earth believers, moon landing conspiracists, holocaust deniers”. I don’t expect 60 minutes to be at all subjective by letting any opposing view point be heard.
Where did The Alliance for Climate Protection get $300 million to throw away on ads? That’s a mind boggling number.
You will notice that she did not ask him how much profit his carbon credits business is expected to make. I am trying to get that business compared to Enron’s rise and fall.
If my wife can’t get me to watch the Adams programs (it is thought that I am a decendant, I am very interested in that history) what hope is there y’all will bet me to watch 60 minutes.
Not going to happen.
There is no chance that anything useful will be aired without fatal flaws.
This is the same network that reported the “forged but accurate” memos from Bush’s days at the air national guard.
Even worse, CBS cancelled Jericho – twice!
So don’t expect much.
In response to Frank Ravizza: I DO expect CBS to be SUBJECTIVE, not objective- I made it a point to never watch any CBS “news” stories back in the 1980s, after they did that scurrilous hit piece on General Westmoreland- A. McIntire
It’s too bad the show will not be on tomorrow. We’re getting 8 inches of snow tonight and another snowday from school so I would have time to watch it.
This is pathetic. Al Gore has refused every offer to debate the evidence, and yet feels entitled to insult those who disagree with him.
As an aside, it only just occurred to me that a large proportion of the people going into environmental science are already going to be favorably disposed to the notion of man as destroyer of nature, and so favorably disposed towards the man made global warming nonsense, even before they look at the evidence (if they even bother)
When the IPCC and friends figure out the role of clouds in climate and understand how to model it for the coming century, then and only then will I become a believer in their prognostications. In the meantime, they are hacks, and true believers, but still hacks.
I’m sorry to see CBS and others in the TV media giving only one side to this multifaceted question.
John Andrews, Knoxville, Tennessee
A $300 million ad campaign? Sorry but I’m calling shenanigans. That is allot of money.
I would love to do the auditting on that.
No, no not “carbon credits”. Indulgences. Wipe away your carbon sins for a few florins.
He’d burn the heretics at the stake but, your know, CO2…
More apt, BarryW, would be to focus sunlight through giant lenses on the heretics.
=========================
I would like to know if the financial books for The Alliance for Climate Protection are open for public record. If they are closed (as I suspect they are), then him giving it money is realy just a tax shelter. Anyone know if the answer to this one?
This CBS froofraw and the $300m ad campaign are just more fuel for the fire. Let the boobs and flatheads caterwaul. They will, in due course, get gobsmacked by the facts on the ground. (It’s beginning to happen already.)
All this nonsense is a repeat of panic cycles from the recent past (Population, Pollution, Cold War, Resources). They faded away fairly quietly. But then, none of them really got the same the publicity this GW shindig is receiving. As a result, it will not be so easy to cause the elephant to tippytoe away quietly stage-left.
But in order for society-at-large to learn the lesson properly, it is necessary that the hooting and hollering be long and loud. What Gore is doing is going to result in a grand intellectual self-imollation. I advise that we stand well back and enjoy the bonfire–while carefully staking out our position on the blogosphere and elsewhere.
We will sit back and grin as we archive the juicier quotes for future use. We are not going to meekly turn the page when the wheels come flying off this jalopy. Not this time! We are going to strike a blow for empiricism, interdisciplinarianism, and traditional scientific method and against the “new scientism” that is going to echo for decades.
This object lesson alone may prove worth all the $trillions that these chickenheaded chuckleheads blow on this foolishness. Fortunately (for the lives of millions), India, China, and Africa (so far) are more or less ignoring the claptrap.
In the meantime, sticking a few pins in CBS is well advised. We have to make them aware of our objections beforehand, so they won’t be able to accuse us of being Johnny-come-latelies. We must deploy ourselves in proparation for a devastating “told you so” stern-rake.
But be of good cheer, Rev. This is going to be fun. One of those “bigger they are the harder they fall” deals. Think “elephant off the Empire State building”. And (like it or lump it) your role in the New Enlightenment–mankind’s Restoration of Reason–is not going to be forgotten!
Unlike Anthony I have never bought into the belief that CO2 was the root cause of global warming, nor have I bought into the belief it is any more a problem than the climate of 1998, 1987, 1978, 1856, 1432, etc. However, like Anthony, I consider myself a dedicated environmentalist. I too am offended and insulted by the statements Mr. Gore makes regarding those who disagree with his AGW views.
I want to see money spent solving a real problem, not a rallying cry. Right now I see Mr. Gore and the media engaging more and more in a form of doublethink. Perhaps we call it doublescience. With apologies to Orwell, doublescience is:
To tell deliberately create data while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact or datum that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies — all this is indispensably necessary.
I truly fear that focusing on the “global warming” rallying cry is going to end up discrediting environmentalist causes when the incredibly alarmist and dire predictions don’t pan out.
KB: Har! Har!
No, no not “carbon credits”. Indulgences. Wipe away your carbon sins for a few florins.
“Further sins require further expense.”
kim (18:55:00): I’m with ya. Burning heretics at the stake is so 20th century.
Come to think of it, I don’t suppose it would be that hard to fit spits around the concentrator tubes on the new solar thermal plants that are beginning to spring up like weeds in the southwest desert. Metaphorically speaking, it could lead to a beef jerky Renaissance. In fact I have a whole Bubba Gump menu working out in my head. How about this: Nattering Nabob Kabobs. Jamaican jerked deniers. Honey baked heretics. Blackened rednecks. Grilled Inhofe, tomato, and cheese melt (with or without jalapenos, of course).
Is it just me or is Al looking older and angrier? Perhaps because not even scientists at the IPCC believe his claims?
Eagles up!
Document how much this has cost you personally and what Albert Gore claims as his achievements.
I smell a personal lawsuit in the future…
A very sad day for Television News Journalism.
I agree with John G. this may cause great damage to environmental concerns and it will certainly make laughingstock of many institutions that have jumped on the band wagon for monetary reasons. The great concern is will the fall out against “real climate scientists” include those that were truly telling the truth and will it overpower other scientific disiplines.
History shows that times of global cooling are generally times of loss of knowledge as the priorities change to more survival mode. In this case it appears that there are some “scientists” that are causing this distrust almost intentionally while chasing the glory and the treasure.
It amazes me that these folks ignore any data less than 8 years old. while telling us that the decision must be made now using the best data available. I think that we are in trouble because we are being led down a warm path to the deep freeze.
John the only differences is that there may be dire consequences but they will be from lack of fuel and food.
I pray that I am wrong but I am convinced that we are headed for hard times.
Bill Derryberry
Wow – there’s an amazing amount of activity on the 60 Minutes/CBS discussion forum, there’s no way good comments are going to get noticed by anyone at CBS. I think Email is the way to go, but I imagine the piece is in the can already. I’m going to send my “Science, Method, Climatology, and Forgetting the Basics” essay via USPS mail to Stahl, and anyone else who needs to Learn the Basics. Except Gore, he’s a lost cause.
Then maybe follow it up with the March 2008 global temperature average assuming things stay cool.
Imagine the witch hunt this guy would carry out on people like our host Mr Watts and similar sites such as Climate Audit etc, as well as those of us that support them, if he got the presidential nomination. I’m sure Macarthyism was worse, but it would be ugly, what with their total and utter intolerance and zealotry.
Re: Alan D. McIntire
Sorry, I mistyped. I believe I mis-spelled noble ‘laureate’ if you really want to be objective. I don’t typically watch 60 minutes. It’s bad for my blood pressure.
“In 1990 after hearing what James Hansen and others had to say, I helped to arrange a national education campaign for TV meteorologists nationwide (ironically with CBS’s help) on the value of planting trees to combat the CO2 issue.” Say it ain’t so! Ah, that’s okay, we all have skeletons in our closets. I once attended a Greenpeace rally in an attempt to impress an activist female. It didn’t work.
I think Al is getting a little desperate as the AGW scare just isn’t catching on. From a recent poll released on 3/20/2008:
“Forty-eight percent of Americans are unwilling to spend even a penny more in gasoline taxes to help reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, according to a new nationwide survey released today by the National Center for Public Policy Research. ”
http://www.nationalcenter.org/PR-Global_Warming_Gas_Tax_Poll_0308.html
Think about it. A crisis of epic proportions that may end life as we know it and half of all Americans won’t even pony up a penny a gallon. You have to love the common sense of the common man.
Perfect timing! There are more than a few voices who are calling on the ssssuper-delegates to anoint Gore the Democratic nominee.