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
inversesquare – “The science is now a non issue…..Al Gore, Jo Romm etc have successfully hijacked science and turned it into pure propaganda.”
Totally agree.
We are engaged in an information war. Any strategy is constrained by what resources are at hand. The resources we have are our own expertises and the freedom of the internet to disseminate information. By using these intelligently and imaginatively, the blogosphere have blown the foundations from beneath the following propositions in the IPCC 2007 report.
1. The world’s temperature is rising inexorably.
2. Glaciers are melting at an alarming rate.
3. The Amazon forest is disappearing.
4. Sea levels are rising and rising.
5. Polar bears are heading for extinction!
These are the high points but there are many others. Demolish the “science”. This was the first phase. What has been achieved tactically?
1. Pachurai under siege and investigation.
2. Mann under siege and investigation
3. Jones under siege and investigation (double dose)
4. IPCC reputation in tatters.
5. Met Office reputation in tatters.
6. US climate Offices (NOAA etc) reputations in tatters.
7. With possibly one exception, all the rigged investigations are expected to deliver whitewashes. This will be the best result for us since it’s precisely what an increasingly sceptical public is expecting.
8. EPA under litigation siege in America.
9. Complete failure at Copenhagen.
What has it achieved strategically?
1.The “settled” science is no longer settled. In terms of perceived credibility, it’s toast.
2.Because of 1, elements of the MSM now feel free to question the whole idea of AGW and are doing so with gusto. We’ve achieved MSM breakthrough in Europe and the States are close behind.
3.The segments of the MSM who tried to ignore Climategate since November, are being forced to mention it simply because their competitors are now running with the story and it’s playing with the public.
4. Elements of the body politic (notably in Australia and Canada) are beginning to recognize that an anti-AGW stance will win votes, which is the only thing that matters to a politician.
Whither now?
The strategic objective has to be political breakthrough. How is this to be achieved?
1. Don’t get bogged down debating the “science” with the warmists. They’re moving from Denial to Anger stage, as can be seen from their increasingly hysterical posts in the blogosphere. We’ve won that phase. Let’s move on.
2. Spread the message into the political arena by emailing your local Congressmen/ Representatives/ MPs/ MEPs/ Councilmen and posting on sites whose focus is on politics. Don’t bother arguing the science. E.g. In the light of the serious reservations now raised about “climate science”, how can we consider spending such vast amounts of money, de-industrializing ourselves, ramping up unemployment etc etc in the face of the worst economic recession in living memory? If you want my vote etc etc. Adapt as suitable for your location but DO IT NOW AND FROM NOW ON!
3. Keep on blogging. This site, like a number of influential ones, is read by a lot more people than actually contribute to it and good contributions are copied to other blogs.
Pointman
Everything to beef up Gore’s credibility.
IMO it’s bad for the credibility of the University involved and bad for the credibility
of science.
The effect however will be counterproductive.
It will only underline his reputation as a cheat, a scare monger and a profiteer.
It’s pathetic.
given to or characterized by fanciful, not presently workable, or unpractical ideas, views, or schemes: a visionary enthusiast.
2. given to or concerned with seeing visions.
3. belonging to or seen in a vision.
4. unreal; imaginary: visionary evils.
5. purely idealistic or speculative; impractical; unrealizable: a visionary scheme.
Definition of visionary:
I’d say they nailed it.
Mods-feel free to combine my last two comments.
If you endow a Chair, it is pretty much mandatory that the university concerned gives you an honorary doctorate. In such a way, status is bought.
I earned mine with bacteria and bunsen burners.
I’m stuck on trying to figure out what a chair on hunger does? Do they go hungry? Create hunger? Is it academic speak for a cafeteria supervisor?
In any event, UT should get an award for being uninformed and politically tone-deaf.
UT, the board of trustees and cynical publicity stunt and Al Gore, go figure.
He’s a politician.
He saw a bandwagon and jumped on.
No surprises there & its only what Blair and Brown did too.
He just did it better.
Mind you, they saw the guilt tax opportunities first.
I still blame the scientists who allowed awg to become a religion without calling time out.
Dave Wendt (23:39:25)
“…a BS degree…would be something I could get behind.”
What’s up with a Batchelor of Science degree? My Aberdeen (Scotland) 1991qualification is a source of personal pride; not all Ph.D graduates necessarily require BS (or BSc) pre-qualifications. Make me a phrase involving the words ‘high’, ‘snobbery’, ‘intellectual’ and ‘horse’.
I can’t think of a man currently living that has done more than Al Gore to destroy the lives of millions and lower the standard of living on this planet. And his unfounded predictions and solutions for his folly elevate his status to chief criminal against humanity. The chair they give him should be plugged into an electrical circuit.
Nothing more needs to be said.
Paul Clements (23:43:46)
“This is reported here in Australia
http://www.news.com.au/business/hurricane-katrina-victims-to-sue-greenhouse-gas-emitters-afp/story-e6frfm1i-1225837005620
VICTIMS of Hurricane Katrina from Mississippi are seeking to sue carbon gas-emitting multinationals for helping fuel global warming and boosting the devastating 2005 storm, legal documents showed.
The class action suit brought by residents from southern Mississippi, which was ravaged by hurricane-force winds and driving rains, was first filed just weeks after the August 2005 storm hit.
“The plaintiffs allege that defendants’ operation of energy, fossil fuels, and chemical industries in the United States caused the emission of greenhouse gasses that contributed to global warming,” say the documents, seen by AFP.”
Whilst feeling sympathy for the unfortunate people who suffered due to Hurricane Katrina surely this is an opportunity to prove or disprove AGW in a court of law? At last an opportunity to put the “science” of AGW under the severest scrutiny, in the public domain, for the first time? A test case in the making?
“Prizes are the badges of mediocrity.” So said the American composer Charles Ives when he received the Pulitzer prize for his 3rd symphony.
To that I would add “and sometimes incompetence.”
These must be the fastest dissappaearing links ever…. ll to protect Gore?
Congratulations Al!
because you would never reach a scientific doctor degree!
(the world is better doe to Al Gore, ojeaah, and Osama Bin too?
BS in GoreBull Warming, co-sponsored by University of East Anglia.
As of my vote, 95% NO, 3% YES. Isn’t that also the same ratio of people who now believe in Global Warming? Coincidence? I think not.
Clue an Aussie in. That Davy Crockett accent of Gore’s: just how real is it?
LMAO! The real education of Al Gore,
Al Gore, B.A. in Government, Divinity and Law School Dropout (no science degree)
The Education of Al Gore (The Washington Times)
“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. At Harvard and Vanderbilt, Mr. Gore continued bumbling along.
As a Harvard sophomore, scholar Al “earned” a D in Natural Sciences 6 in a course presciently named “Man’s Place in Nature.” That was the year he evidently spent more time smoking cannabis than studying its place among other plants within the ecosystem. His senior year, Mr. Gore received a C+ in Natural Sciences 118.
At Vanderbilt divinity school, Mr. Gore took a course in theology and natural science. The assigned readings included the apocalyptic, and widely discredited “Limits to Growth,” which formed much of the foundation for “Earth in the Balance.” It is said that Mr. Gore failed to hand in his book report on time. Thus, his incomplete grade turned into an F, one of five Fs Mr. Gore received at divinity school, which may well be a worldwide record.”
They should give him what he deserves: an honorary degree in propaganda.
The Doctorate will look good on his mantle next to his Nobel and his Oscar.
Many of our readers may not be familiar with the strong athletic program at the U of T. Unfortunately, there was a fire at the student library in the athletic complex.
They lost all 5 books, and 3 had not yet been “colored in”.
(sorry, old joke but couldn’t resist)
I eagerly await his acceptance speech. Oh the entertainment value.
It probably won’t snow there on graduation day, but I’ll settle for a cold rain.
OT, but it was at the web site, http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2010/mar/03/37-quake-rumbles-west-memphis/?partner=popular says in part:
That was in the New Madrid Fault Zone, which worries me more that the California faults. The California crust is shattered, New Madrid isn’t and quake energy travels a remarkable distance – a 3.7 quake felt 150 miles (250 Km) away! Big quakes in the 1800s rang church bells in Boston.
Mike Lorrey (00:20:08) :
GAH!!! Gore spent a grand total of ONE MONTH in Vietnam, with 2-3 bodyguards protecting his silver spoon behind at all times.
Nup — he served *five* months.
As an “information specialist” — IOW, a reporter. For the Army Engineering Command’s official newspaper.
He actually spent one entire night in a foxhole, though, but no one will confirm whether or not he was given any ammo for the M-16 he had his picture taken with (he wasn’t issued one, because “information specialists” were only armed with cameras) — although he became the in-country poster child for how *not* to adjust the sling on your weapon…
And to think the fragrant Ms Parton has to share this apparently very rare honour from UT with HIM!
(I wonder what HER honorary degree was in?)
crosspatch (22:59:11) :
Dr. of Scatology, PhD
With special degree in human tanatology, population control and malthusian principles applied to stubborn conservative individuals.