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
crossopter (03:37:49) :
BS is a short hand for Bull-Snot, but used by Dave as an “in joke”.
This is a TRAVESTY!
Need to make sure that Ol Smokey bites Al during the ceremony, and jimmy cheek as well.
Cheeky bugger indeed.
Do you remember Isaac Asimov “Foundation” trilogy?, HE THINKS HE IS “THE MULE”.!!!
….however…here comes the “Second Foundation” (WUWT)
Honorary Doctor of Law and Humane Letters in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology? Precisely what discipline is that? It seems to be a doctorate in everything. Someone who thinks they or someone else knows everything is someone who’s not really all that smart. So perhaps this is an honorary doctorate for not being all that smart.
It’s all about the money; the degree is meaningless.
They know Gore is loaded from all the money he has made off of his carbon trading schemes.
It’s an honorary doctorate, not an earned degree. Gore doesn’t get the privilege of calling himself “Dr.”, although I will happily refer to him as Dr. Manbearpig, if he so wishes.
I’m not sure if awarding honorary degrees is one of those uniquely American practices. However, not all American Ph.D.-granting universities engage in this type of shameless pandering. Mine doesn’t anyway.
“Bill Tuttle (04:39:18) : ”
In my opinion, he is an insult to anyone who has served time in the forces.
Strange how the University world doesn’t seem to see that Universities are going down the plughole of public opinion and are becoming jokes because of their climate change departments. It is not just science and scientists that are starting to be held in derision, but the institutions as well.
This promotion of Mr Gore at a time like this, by this University, is just staggeringly terribly bad PR for the Uni, as indeed the online poll is apparently showing.
Al Gore – fraud, charlatan, liar, hypocrite, and disgrace to humanity receiving an honorary doctorate? It boggles the mind. I wonder if seniors will raise their fists and walk out in protest, the way they did at Harvard in 1969 when he received his BA?
It’s an outrage.
Ms Dolly Parton has brought only joy and love to our world,
Al Gore has brought hate and lies.
This only diminishes the honorary degree received by Ms Parton.
My US geography is not very good.
Can someone remind me if it is Tennessee or Arkansas where the DNA is supposed to be all the same?
I was under the impression it was Arkansas, but obviously I was misinformed.
I’m a Tennessean and in 2000 we in Tennessee stopped Gore from becoming the president of the United States. If Gore had taken Tennessee in the election, there would not have been the voting fiasco in Florida and the AGW czar would have become our president. Yes, Gore did not take his own state in the election. We in Tennessee know him best and we would love to forget him.
Dr. Parton should be outraged.
Why don’t they sue God?
Hurricane Katrina victims sue oil companies over global warming. Victims of Hurricane Katrina are seeking to sue “carbon gas-emitting” multinationals for helping fuel global warming and boosting the 2005 storm.
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 the AFP news agency.
The increase in global surface air and water temperatures “in turn caused a rise in sea levels and added to the ferocity of Hurricane Katrina, which combined to destroy the plaintiffs’ private property, as well as public property useful to them.” More than 1,200 people died in Hurricane Katrina, which lashed the area, swamping New Orleans in Louisiana when levees gave way under the weight of the waves.
The suit, claiming compensation and punitive damages from multinational companies including Shell, ExxonMobile, BP and Chevron, has already passed several key legal hurdles, after initially being knocked back by the lowest court. Three federal appeals court judges decided in October 2009 that the case could be heard. However, in February the same court decided to re-examine whether it could be heard this time with nine judges.
Other companies named in the suit include Honeywell and American Electric Power, with the residents charging that “the defendants’ greenhouse gas emissions caused saltwater, debris, sediment, hazardous substances, and other materials to enter, remain on, and damage plaintiffs’ property.” They allege that the companies had a duty to “avoid unreasonably endangering the environment, public health, public and private property.”
The district court, which initially rejected the case, ruled that it was “a debate which simply has no place in the court.” The court argued that Congress first had to enact legislation “which sets appropriate standards by which this court can measure conduct.”
Mississippi residents must now wait for the appeals court to fix a new hearing, in principle within the next three months. A decision would then be due by the end of 2010, and both sides could also then take the case to the Supreme Court.
Born in Carthage, TN … the remnants of Carthage in N Africa, nowadays Tunisia??… AG: “You don’t know how expensive it is to look this intelligent…!”
Sorry could NOT just resist…[Hommage a DP]
The Tennessee school song, Rockytop,, obviously refers to the brain content of the regents of that school.
johnnythelowery (18:55:41) :
I’m nOt in favor of smoke, or second hand smoke. I like going into Pubs and what not without it being there. This posting is to do with the ‘environment’ if you ride the subway. But this is really a comentary about Gore and his modus-operandi. HIs S.O.P. Regarding University of Tennessee’s granting of a Honorary Doctorate to Gore (Gore’s got cash. Perhaps he’ll give us an endowment) came this blog entry:
‘……………………….harleyrider1978 writes:
Whats even crazier is al gore still grows tobacco! But hell,so do we.But we dont go around promoting smoking bans and lies about second hand smoke like al gore does………and global warming lies……….its turned out some of the same folks writing the global warming hype are also writing second hand smoke hype.its all psuedo-science and propaganda.
According to independent Public and Health Policy Research group, Littlewood & Fennel of Austin, Tx, on the subject of secondhand smoke……..
They did the figures for what it takes to meet all of OSHA’S minimum PEL’S on shs/ets…….Did it ever set the debate on fire.
They concluded that:
All this is in a small sealed room 9×20 and must occur in ONE HOUR.
For Benzo[a]pyrene, 222,000 cigarettes
“For Acetone, 118,000 cigarettes
“Toluene would require 50,000 packs of simultaneously smoldering cigarettes.
Acetaldehyde or Hydrazine, more than 14,000 smokers would need to light up.
“For Hydroquinone, “only” 1250 cigarettes
For arsenic 2 million 500,000 smokers at one time
The same number of cigarettes required for the other so called chemicals in shs/ets will have the same outcomes.
So,OSHA finally makes a statement on shs/ets :
Field studies of environmental tobacco smoke indicate that under normal conditions, the components in tobacco smoke are diluted below existing Permissible Exposure Levels (PELS.) as referenced in the Air Contaminant Standard (29 CFR 1910.1000)…It would be very rare to find a workplace with so much smoking that any individual PEL would be exceeded.” -Letter From Greg Watchman, Acting Sec’y, OSHA, To Leroy J Pletten, PHD, July 8, 1997
WHAT! DILUTED BELOW PERMISSABLE LEVELS……………’
It’s the same story.
3
03
2010
johnnythelowery (19:04:07) :
…………..Oooops. Anthony. Sorry, I forgot. We are part of the tabacco-big Oil-
-GulfStream Aircraft Company-CLimate Skeptic-Massive House-Fleet of Escalades-earth endangering-Board of director types of a companies using underage children for labor-league of climate deniers!
I truly despair of this man Gore
————————————————————-
I’m not a political science guy. But I see a similarity between the AGW Campaign and the Anti-Smoking campaign:
1. Popular ‘tail wind’ for the idea
2. Difficult science with large financial stakes
3. ‘Science’ (according to blog above) takes back seat to the politcal agenda
4. OSHA / (EPA) used as instrument of power
I post this observation and will see what others think. Good riddance to smoke but it looks like the Anti-Smoking campaign was a dry run for the AGW campaign.
‘Doctor the evidence’
For us Bhoys here: this is a kick below the belt. Truly a knee to the wedding
vegetables!!!
Reply to Greg Cavanagh:
-yeah, I realised that just after I awoke – oopsa. Just goes to prove emails can make a backside of anyone :-))
Bets Dave doesn’t beat me up……?
cheers
A UT honorary degree will have all the prestige of a Nobel Peace Prize
He’s one of the most accomplished and respected Tennesseans? Really? Is that why they all voted for him in 2000? NOT!
Just sent this to Chancellor Cheek at UT-Knoxville:
Dear Chancellor Cheek;
Until yesterday, my math-science magnet-school daughter Hagan and I were seriously considering UT as a prime choice for her undergraduate education in mechanical engineering.
That is…until we heard of the decision by the University’s Board of Trustees to extend an honorary degree to former US Vice President Al Gore through the College of Arts and Sciences.
Regrettably, we feel Mr. Gore’s questionable approach to scientific debate combined with his apparent profiteering from his political connections and associations with companies standing to gain greatly from the manipulation of global climate analysis is hardly an enhancement to his public service and certainly not deserving of an honorary Doctor of Laws and Humane Letters in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology degree, particularly from your highly recognized institution of learning.
As such, we have eliminated UT from our list of candidate universities.
Certainly, there is more to the decision to extend the honorary degree to Mr. Gore than meets the eye — and we hope this works out well for your University. However, we will not be sharing those potential benefits with you.
Sincerely,
E. T. L.
Roswell, GA
I’ve not checked every comment but I’m betting I’m the first to mention the former Vice president of the USA Al Gore without adding a insult….
If this blog is going to be taken seriously as a place of thoughtful, considered scientific enquiry it seems to me it needs to drop posts tagged (insultingly) ‘Al Gore is an idiot’ and the mass of fulminating right wing political claptrap comments they provoke.