From a University of Tennessee press release: Former VP Gore to Receive Honorary Doctorate from UT Knoxville
KNOXVILLE — Former Vice President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore will be honored by the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, with only the third honorary degree granted by the campus. The degree was approved by the UT Board of Trustees at their meeting Feb 26th.
Gore will receive the degree — an Honorary Doctor of Laws and Humane Letters in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology — at the spring commencement exercises of the College of Arts and Sciences on May 14. He will be the featured speaker at the ceremony, addressing graduates and their families along with the gathered faculty.
“Vice President Gore’s career has been marked by visionary leadership, and his work has quite literally changed our planet for the better,” said UT Knoxville Chancellor Jimmy G. Cheek. “He is among the most accomplished and respected Tennesseans in history, and it is fitting that he should be honored by the flagship education institution of his home state.”
Gore, whose career in public service and business has spanned four decades, is currently chairman of Current TV, an Emmy-award-winning, independently owned cable and satellite television nonfiction network for young people based on viewer-created content and citizen journalism. He also serves as chairman of Generation Investment Management, a firm that is focused on a new approach to sustainable investing.
Gore’s appreciation and personal interest in the institution of higher education is apparent as he serves as faculty member/visiting professor at various institutions across the country. A UT Knoxville faculty member holds the Nancy Gore Hunger Chair for Excellence in Environmental Studies, endowed by Gore to honor his late sister. Gore also is a distinguished member of the Howard H. Baker Jr. Center for Public Policy’s board of directors and honorary co-chair of the Tennessee 4-H Club Foundation Inc. with UT Extension.
Gore, a native of Carthage, Tenn., was inaugurated as the 45th vice president of the U.S. on Jan. 20, 1993, and served eight years in that office. During that time, Gore was a central member of President Clinton’s economic team. He served as president of the Senate, a Cabinet member, a member of the National Security Council, and as the leader of a wide range of administration initiatives. Prior to his service as vice president, Gore was twice elected to the U.S. Senate from Tennessee, in 1984 and 1990, and represented Tennessee’s 4th Congressional District — the seat held by his father, Al Gore Sr., before his own service in the Senate — in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1976 to 1982.
He received a degree in government with honors from Harvard University in 1969. After graduation, he volunteered for enlistment in the U.S. Army and served in the Vietnam War. Upon returning from Vietnam, Gore became an investigative reporter with the Tennessean in Nashville, where he also attended Vanderbilt University’s Divinity School and then Law School.
Gore was the co-winner, with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for informing the world of the dangers posed by climate change. He is the author of the best-selling books “Earth in the Balance” and “An Inconvenient Truth” and also is the subject of an Oscar-winning documentary.
In addition to his roles with Current TV and Generation Investment Management, Gore is a member of the board of directors of Apple Inc., a senior adviser to Google Inc., and a partner with the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. He is a visiting professor at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, Tenn., and chairs the Alliance for Climate Protection, a nonprofit organization designed to help solve the climate crisis.
He and his wife, Tipper, live in Nashville. They have four children and three grandchildren.
Gore will join entertainer and philanthropist Dolly Parton and former Sen. Howard H. Baker Jr. as the only recipients of honorary degrees from UT Knoxville.
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Now here’s the interesting thing. The Knoxville News Sentinel ran an op ed saying “Al Gore a fine choice for honorary degree” and at the same time ran a reader poll on their website.
Here’s the results as of 10:30PM PST 3/3/10
As far as I know, there’s been no effort by anyone to flood the poll, I learned about it only as I’m writing this entry. Maybe too many people saw him interview with Conan O’Brien a few weeks back. You can vote if you wish here.
h/t to Leif Svalgaard
“He is among the most accomplished and respected Tennesseans in history, and it is fitting that he should be honored by the flagship education institution of his home state.”
I have sympathy for the people of Tennessee.
R. Gates (07:06:46) :
How does all this warmth fit into the models of those who say the earth is cooling (or at least not warming?)
By now its quite clear that CAGW is obviously nothing but a Post Normal Science or “Progressive” Propaganda Operation. So without starting from the beginning by doing a truely Scientific investigation of climate “modeled” on the Scientific Method, who cares?
But if I had to choose, I’d like it to get warmer, especially compared to cooler.
Pogo (08:01:23) :
I stand corrected: I was writing from memory and had forgotten the role of the various components of tobacco. According to Hecht SS, “Tobacco smoke carcinogens and lung cancer.” J Natl Cancer Inst. 1999 Jul 21;91(14): 1194-210:
“Among the multiple components of tobacco smoke, 20 carcinogens convincingly cause lung tumors in laboratory animals or humans and are, therefore, likely to be involved in lung cancer induction. Of these, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and the tobacco-specific nitrosamine 4-(methylnitrosamino)-1-(3-pyridyl)-1-butanone are likely to play major roles.”
I got the details wrong, but these chemicals are also intrinsic to the tobacco plant, and could not be removed by BAT scientists. The role of nicotine?
“However, nicotine and the increased cholinergic activity it causes have been shown to impede apoptosis, which is one of the methods by which the body destroys unwanted cells (programmed cell death). Since apoptosis helps to remove mutated or damaged cells that may eventually become cancerous, the inhibitory actions of nicotine may create a more favourable environment for cancer to develop, though this also remains to be proven.” http://www.ebasedtreatment.org/drugs/treatment/nicotine/toxicology citing J. A. Campain Nicotine: Potentially a Multifunctional Carcinogen? Toxicological Sciences 79, 1-3 (2004)
As for the respective actions of the tobacco industry, AGW proponents and various PR machines, I stand by my post above, which is not a rant, simply a plea not to link anti-tobacco movements with the AGW catastrophists, thereby in a sense putting meat on the argument that makes parallels between the tactics of climate sceptics and the tobacco industry.
I worked with Al Gore on a key escrow project when he was Vice-President. He is a clever guy, and certainly knows how to make money.
Subject: Please rethink Al Gore’s honorary Doctorate
From: W. Earl Allen
Date: March 4, 2010 9:52:24 AM MST
To: chancellor@utk.edu
Dear Chancellor Cheek,
Rumor has it that you are set to award Albert Gore an honorary doctorate.
If you do so, it will cheapen every degree granted by your institution.
Albert Gore is a fraud, a charlatan, a cheap huckster, and a destroyer of the energy and productivity of the American people. His Oscar-winning science fiction horror movie has been proven a complete fraud, and the “science” it espouses is mere politics, not science. If you doubt me, check out this report: http://bit.ly/kjiKe
If you persist in honoring this man, I will actively dissuade students from attending, and alumni or friends from contributing to, *any* of the University of Tennessee campuses, and most emphatically not UT Knoxville.
Granting Albert Gore an honorary doctorate will make you the laughingstock of the nation, and Tennessee will henceforward appear to be a state filled with gullible country hicks.
Albert Gore was born in Washington, DC, was raised in Washington, DC, and lived most of his life in Washington, DC. To call him even a “resident” of Tennessee is an insult to the otherwise fine people of Tennessee, since he jets around the world purveying his purulent pablum from the privileged perch of a private jet.
Please rescind your offer of this honorary doctorate.
W. Earl Allen, M.A.
The 10 most bizarre (but real) awards:
10. Bad Sex in Fiction Award: Worst Sex Scene in a Book
9. Stella Award: Dumbest Lawsuits
8. Darwin Award: Dumbest Accidental Deaths
7. Shorty Award: Best Twitter Lines
6. The Ernie Awards: Most Sexist Comment
5. Ig Nobel Prize: Nobel Parody for the Dumbest Scientific Achievements
4. Golden Raspberry Award: Oscar Parody for Worst Movie
3. Foot In Mouth Award: Dumbest Comment by a Public Figure
2. Stinky Shoe Award: Worst Odor in a Pair of Sneakers
and finally:
1. UT Knoxville Honorary Doctor of Laws and Humane Letters in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology: Dumbest Spokesperson for Science and Public Policy
” Pascvaks (07:53:35) :
Is he wearing lipstick?
Guys don’t wear lipstick!
GUYS DON’T WEAR LIPSTICK!!”
Either he wears loads of make up or loads of photoshop.
re: the online poll
Maybe if they count the hanging chads………
:-))
I see that the Gore family already provide funding in memory of his sister.
I expect the Chancellor’s nickname is “Tongue In”
The poll shows that what this guy thinks isn’t worth a pinch o’ racoon shit. His motivation is obvious for those who take an even cursory look. It doesn’t matter whether your view is right or left. On the bright side, he has done more harm to his cause than anyone I can think of. Go AL !!
kwik (09:03:35) : We should seriously addressed BIG OIL and ask them at least a few coupons for free gas refill. ☺
Now, if you read
http://www.green-agenda.com/agenda21.html
you’ll see that the facts are quite the contrary and the Global Warming Scam was and it is promoted by Big Oil. Easy: It helped to increase oil prices to the roof while big resources are found (Gulf area, Brazil-Off shore Rio De Janeiro-, and most recently at England’s Falkland islands’ sea), and also while it has been found at labs that oil won’t ever be exausted as it is the product of a reaction between lime+water+iron oxides at high temperature and pressure.
Regardless of his real qualifications in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (which must be soft sciences indeed!), we can certainly all take a lesson in charity from this man:
(Sorry if a repeat of information – haven’t read all comments yet)
Antonio San (08:32:24) :
“University of Calgary in Canada rushed to give Gore a honorary doctorate…” There was no poll taken here in Alberta about Gore’s honorary doctorate, but I am certain that it would reflect the same numbers as the Tennessee poll.
vigilantfish (09:12:17) :
“However, nicotine and the increased cholinergic activity it causes have been shown to impede apoptosis, which is one of the methods by which the body destroys unwanted cells (programmed cell death). Since apoptosis helps to remove mutated or damaged cells that may eventually become cancerous, the inhibitory actions of nicotine may create a more favourable environment for cancer to develop, though this also remains to be proven.”
That is a really good point because apoptosis has been found to increase after the intake of “cat’s claw” (Uncaria tomentosa and Uncaria guianensis)bark, taken as a tea or as pills or in capsules, which you can get everywhere.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12120814
Does anyone know anything about Gore’s inner circle? I don’t believe he can come up with his misinformation on his own. How does his bureau of misinformation work? Who are these people? What kind of people are they? Where is his headquarters? How does his organization work?
The man amazes me and I would like more information.
Now the students at U of Tennessee know which way the wind blows – if they had any doubt before.
Zeke the Sneak (09:58:32) :
Regardless of his real qualifications in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (which must be soft sciences indeed!), we can certainly all take a lesson in charity from this man
If his charity actually did anything charitable I’d be much more inclined to agree with you 😉
Ooooooops,
Did you read his new title? “Honorary Doctor of Laws and Humane Letters in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology”
that’s “HLDHL-EEB”
that’s Dokter Albert Arnold “Al” Gore, Jr, “HLDHL-EEB”
that’s the missing piece of the ancient Eutruscian Global Warning that foretells the rise of the Great Destroyer of Civilization. He who will send humans back to their most primitive roots; to the Caves of Perdition. We are doomed! Shivia is here!
Is he related to the Chicago carbon shares stock exchange ?
Zeke the Sneak (10:13:19) : After such an honor given to such a dubious personage, a graduate’s curriculum from that University will be considered, a kind of criminal record!!☺
Humm! Dr Gore! Why not? Sounds like a science fiction character to me.
Ref – nc (10:12:33) :
“Does anyone know anything about Gore’s inner circle? I don’t believe he can come up with his misinformation on his own. How does his bureau of misinformation work? Who are these people? What kind of people are they? Where is his headquarters? How does his organization work?
“The man amazes me and I would like more information.”
________________________
I know your as serious as a heart attack but I can’t resist:
Soooooo… Leaks out of the Cia and Fbi seem to point toward the same source as Obama’s teleprompter. Signals appear to be emminating from a small trade school in the middle of the Gobi desert for Computer Programming and Western Cultural Studies. Several former Soviet Scientists from Eastern Europe appear to be the primary suspects. They currently use old Apple Macs and Nintendo hardware with recently acquired Google-Plex programs.
Being worried by his own low qualifications, he has unsuccesfully tried to be self-educated on climate change. We should encourage him to daily attend this blog.
JonesII (09:58:13) :
‘……………………Easy: It helped to increase oil prices to the roof while big resources are found (Gulf area, Brazil-Off shore Rio De Janeiro-, and most recently at England’s Falkland islands’ sea), and also while it has been found at labs that oil won’t ever be exausted as it is the product of a reaction between lime+water+iron oxides at high temperature and pressure………….’
—————————————————————
Jones II……You’ve got my attention. Is this old hat or is there a title/thread you can point me to on this here at WUWT that way you don’t have repeat whats been discussed prior. If not…….please expand.
It is just another cynical attempt to give the man legitimacy and gravitas in the eyes of the world, his disciples, and his AGW church.
Who would have thought in this day and age, the 21st century, that charlatans like this could fool so many, so-called intelligent people, with his pseudo-science, mediaeval philosophies, and attitudes – would you believe it! I can’t!