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
Just another gesture inside the Mutual Admiration Society. Who cares?
NickB. (10:45:39) :If his charity actually did anything charitable I’d be much more inclined to agree with you 😉
Perhaps it is a new category of charity? If charity is relief for the poor, this is simply “preventative charity,” which would prevent Dr. Gore (“HLDHL-EEB”) from ever becoming needy or destitute.
We need a new category of science where he is, also. There would be “hard,” “soft,” and “infinitely malleable.”
If he gets it he could join the long list of luminaries currently doing Dr. Pepper commercials, Dr J, Dr Dre, Dr Love……
Trust me, I’m a Dr.
Steve Goddard (09:12:56) :
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
———————
Wasn’t Whitewater was it? Yeah-the guy knows how to make money. Wasn’t there something about a brown bag/cash/Hindu Temple/Gore combination some where in the past.
I have to say,having not read the article or comments that doctoring Gore would be a good idea.we had three colts doctored recently to take their minds off the mares and it has worked wonders!So I would vote yes, doctor Gore now. A slogan perhaps, or a bumper sticker hehe.
As a Texan, I feel gratitude for the efforts of the brave men who fought and died at the Alamo, including David Crockett and others from Tennessee who gave their lives for Texas independence. There are many such accomplished and respected Tennesseans in history. Al Gore is not one of them.
-Dave
Ha! These are the same folks who hired Lane Kiffin as football coach, so what do you expect.
Robert E. Phelan (08:34:15) :
Many climate realists are honest liberals. This is NOT a right-wing, left-wing thing although, again, there are those who would dearly love to portray it that way. When the real liberals discover how their movement has been hijacked by cynical elitests like Gore….
…they’ll react as the honest liberals who post here did.
Hooooo-BOY!
I would *not* care to antagonize Lady Pamela (for one), even for a chance to fly in the Space Shuttle…
“JonesII (09:58:13) :
[…]
, 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.”
I suppose you mean this 2009 press release:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-07/ci-hit072409.php
So the russians were right after all. Very interesting. That will really annoy the peak oil people.
UT is dissing themselves –
I would think they might be a bit more intelligent than this seems to say.
Do they take away your Nobel and your fake Doctorate when you go to prison?
Very strange, this is almost like UT has its collective head buried in the sand.
We all know their will be a reaction at some point to all this fraud – it may come home to UT before they know it.
Dr pasty face please just go away.
DirkH (12:26:45) : There are many at the web…so dig it and burn it happily as there is no such thing as the green-house effect: No one won’t melt lead ever with a “green house effect” device.
http://nov55.com/ntyg.html
AGW Is a ‘effeminate’ front for the various western national Governing bodies concern’s response and planning for peak oil.
No science to back this up yet. But Govts usually like to see into the future and with France’s Chief- TOTAL(?) barking on about peak oil just a few years ago….
….the AGW seems to fit their long range planning like a glove. I would emagine that: Cut birth rate, Highten public transport use, increase MPG of cars, get people to eat local produce, consume less, construct less, not fly in private jets,
switch to alternate energy sources, Etc.
Yes and yes. ha! 🙂
I really hate to make emotional comments on blogs, or anywhere else for that matter.
But, as a former resident of Tennessee, being born and educated there, the act of the University of Tennessee granting Al Gore an honorary degree makes me want to throw up.
Sorry, folks.
Anyone interested in buying carbon shares?, may be Spain or Greece to strengthen their broken green economies….
95% “No” as of 13:00, AK Time. 03 March 2010
Allan M (02:28:29) :
Dr Gore?
A carboxymoron!
A rare triple entendre.
Well done.
Hee Haw!
Not quite. Here are a few interesting quotes from the book, The Stupidest Things Ever Said by Politicians:
On Illegal Fund-Raisers at Buddhist Temples, Al Gore on:
Explanation number 1: It wasn’t a fund-raiser, it was a “community outreach event.”
Explanation number 2: It wasn’t a fund-raiser, it was just “finance-related.”
Explanation number 3: It wasn’t a fund-raiser, it was a “donor-maintenance meeting.”
There’s also this amusing tidbit:
On Historical Knowledge, Vice-Presidential:
“Who are these guys?”
Al Gore, referring to the busts of Jefferson, Washington, Franklin, and Lafayette on a televised tour of Monticello. (p. 109)
And this:
“A zebra cannot change its spots.” (p. 54)
And this:
On Senator’s Sons, Typical Days of:
“[My father] taught me how to clean out hog waste with a shovel and a hose. He taught me how to clear land with an ax. He taught me how to plow a steep hillside with a team of mules. He taught me how to take up hay all day long in the hot sun and then, after a dinner break, go help the neighbors take up hay before the rain came and spoiled it on the ground.”
Vice President Al Gore on the virtues of farm life, not mentioning that, as a rich senator’s son, all this was presumably learned on summer vacation from Harvard. A real farmer’s son, Republican National chairman Jim Nicholson, replied, “Mr. Vice President, with all due respect, you’re shoveling a lot more of it right now than you ever did back then.” (p. 141)
And this:
On Timing is Everything:
“[Due to pollution, cars pose] a mortal threat to the security of every nation.”
Senator Al Gore in his 1992 book, Earth in the Balance.
“Here in Motor City we recognize that cars have done more than fuel our commerce. Cars have freed the American spirit and given us the chance to chase our dreams.”
Vice President Al Gore — while gearing up for his 2000 presidential run — in a 1999 speech to the Economic club of Detroit. (p. 253)
How about, “Doctor OF Evidence”?
The skeptics on https://www.Intrade.com will give you 2 to 1 odds against that assertion. (36 cents wins you a dollar, roughly.) It’s free money, from your POV. Why not show your sincerity and bet against them? It doesn’t look good that you skeptics won’t back up your opinions with cash.
oops_- the last sentence above should have read:
“It doesn’t look good that you
skepticsinsisters won’t back up your opinions with cash.”“Mr. Gore’s high school performance on the college board achievement tests in physics (488 out of 800; “Terrible,” St. Albans retired teacher and assistant headmaster John Davis told The Post) and chemistry (519 out of 800; “He didn’t do too well in chemistry,” Mr. Davis observed) suggests that Mr. Gore would have trouble with science for the rest of his life….”
Those are T scores, so the average is 500 and one sigma = 100. A 488 in physics is just slightly below average; a 519 in chem just slightly above average. These scores are not terrible, just way too low to get into engineering schools. (Except the one where the players exchange high sixes after they score a TD. I name no names.)
Honorary Doctor of Laws and Humane Letters in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology – Will that mean he can now call himself a Scientist ?