Open question to WUWT readers: Will one member of the mainstream media — that was so quick to give page-space to Bill McKibben’s ludicrous assertions about Irene — even bring up these comments by Gore? Will Revkin or Bryan Walsh or ThinkProgress disassociate themselves and their orgs or simply assent through their silence?
Update: end of 08/29 Zero mainstream media outlets (except Fox News) covered Al Gore’s “racist” connections. The silence was not unexpected. Andrew Revkin was more interested (again) in interjecting his opinions on “acceptable” candidates for the GOP primary, a constituency that does not “fit” his worldview. Must be fun to coordinate your messaging with Paul Krugman.
By Caroline May in the Daily Caller
One day climate change skeptics will be seen in the same negative light as racists, at least so says former Vice President Al Gore.
In an interview with former advertising executive and Climate Reality Project collaborator Alex Bogusky broadcasted on UStream on Friday, Gore explained that in order for climate change alarmists to succeed, they must “win the conversation” against those who deny there is a crisis.
(RELATED: Bill McKibben: Global warming to blame for Hurricane Irene)
“I remember, again going back to my early years in the South, when the Civil Rights revolution was unfolding, there were two things that really made an impression on me,” Gore said. “My generation watched Bull Connor turning the hose on civil rights demonstrators and we went, ‘Whoa! How gross and evil is that?’ My generation asked old people, ‘Explain to me again why it is okay to discriminate against people because their skin color is different?’ And when they couldn’t really answer that question with integrity, the change really started.”
The former vice president recalled how society succeeded in marginalizing racists and said climate change skeptics must be defeated in the same manner.
“Secondly, back to this phrase ‘win the conversation,’” he continued. “There came a time when friends or people you work with or people you were in clubs with — you’re much younger than me so you didn’t have to go through this personally — but there came a time when racist comments would come up in the course of the conversation and in years past they were just natural. Then there came a time when people would say, ‘Hey, man why do you talk that way, I mean that is wrong. I don’t go for that so don’t talk that way around me. I just don’t believe that.’ That happened in millions of conversations and slowly the conversation was won.”
“We have to win the conversation on climate,” Gore added.
When Bogusky questioned the analogy, asking if the scientific reasoning behind climate change skeptics might throw a wrench into the good and evil comparison with racism, Gore did not back down.
“I think it’s the same where the moral component is concerned and where the facts are concerned I think it is important to get that out there, absolutely,” Gore said.
Gore also took shots at Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who has lambasted climate change alarmists on the presidential campaign trail, and other politicians who dare to question the veracity of global warming science.
“This is an organized effort to attack the reputation of the scientific community as a whole, to attack their integrity, and to slander them with the lie that they are making up the science in order to make money,” Gore said.
Ironically, back during Perry’s days as a Democrat, the Texas governor supported Gore in his 1988 presidential bid. Perry became a Republican in 1989.
People, people!
Gore’s analogy of the AGW debate to the civil rights debate is very useful if explored, for example:
By analogy Al Gore is a civil rights supporting, yet slave-owning, plantation owner, in his use of private jets, multiple residences, and opulent life-style. To offset his ownership of slaves (carbon footprint) he purchases slave offsets from civil rights NGO’s working to free other slaves, but not his own. Sometimes he even purchases offsets from himself. Maybe he buys a slave from himself and through accounting demonstrates that there are now less slaves than previously, as now they are labeled indentured servants.
It is this hypocrisy which continues to pull the moral rug out of any statement by Gore, and most other AGW supporters. Go with this. Use this if the racist meme takes hold. Anyone who gets on a plane is just like a old southern slave-owner. I’ve challenged McKibben on his air travel and he mumbles crap about sacrifices for the greater good, but unless these people can lead by example, they can be ridiculed incessantly.
observa says August 28 2011 at 10.28 pm. A good observation but the fact is there is reputable data around that agrees that people who live in lands that experienced the midnight sun and have no sunlight for some months do not get enough Vit D. If they become depleted they will have symptoms of depression etc. People in parts of Canada, the Hebrides a Scottish Island, Norway. And Alaska. Plus Lapland. Then they also get 22 hours of sunlight, that I would think would upset one’s metabolic functioning like Jet Lag. Now what these academics and also self professed climatologists are corrupting the data to suit the hypothesis. It goes on all the time, particularly with people like Mann, Hansen, Flannery, Jones. And then they can wiggle out of it by saying this is one scenario. It’s when they cook the books they can be generally found out.
Is the same Al Gore that made his money selling tobacco, who’s sister died from smoking, who’s wife divorced him for adultery?
The same Al Gore that told us he invented the Internet, that the oceans were going to flood the shorelines, who panicked people into selling, and who then turned around and bought waterfront property?
Is this the same AL Gore that promoted a global carbon trading scheme so that he could benefit from his partnership in CCX? The same Al Gore that tried to panic congress years ago over global warming by helping to stage a phoney “warming” during Hansen’s senate testimony?
Because if it is it sure sounds like the kettle calling the pot black.
Rod MacLauchlin at 10.29 pm. That’s wrong. Lord Monckton compared protesters that burst into a Heartland debate during the Copenhagen 2009 conference and disrupted it to Hitler Youth who performed the same type of tactics. He did compare that idiot Ross Garnaut and fascist ideology. He apologized but it made people think ‘You Vill Do As Vee say’ and have no rebuttal or you are likely to get gassed or branded as heretics. Don’t try to pass the buck. Well said Jeez.
Gore has used practically everybody else as his favorite climate change whipping boy but now everybody recognizes that Gore is no longer royalty of that realm–he’s just as fallible as any mere mortal, perhaps more so. And everybody that’s taken the brunt from this pompous jerk is voicing their opinion that Gore is a has-been, worthless troll looking only after his vested interests. As a consequence, he’s turned out to be a bitter, lying, vile old man, nothing more.
Already happened.
Let me break this down for everybody.
Everybody knows global warming is destroying the planet and/or going to destroy the planet. Everybody knows CO2 is a greenhouse gas and greenhouse gases trap heat. Everybody know western civilization burns fossil fuels, therefore we are responsible for the increase on greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and therefore we are causing global warming. Everybody knows rich people consume more than their fair share, therefore everybody knows rich people are to blame for causing global warming. Everybody knows the poor suffer the most and will suffer even more when climate catastrophes occur. Everybody knows these catastrophes will get worse as climate change continues. Everybody knows most rich people are white and most poor people (think globally!) are not. Therefore, if you oppose the global warming agenda, you are racist. There is no other reason to oppose Kyoto, or Cap-and-Trade, or carbon taxes, except selfishness. Selfishness is just another form of hate. Racism is hate. Therefore, opposing the climate change agenda is hate. And racist.
“advertising executive and Climate Reality Project collaborator”
Well, they do kind of go together, don’t they?
The Lemmings just aren’t aligning they way they should under Big Al’s Benevolent Girth. Time to lash out in the way only a Rich Nobel Prize Winning Liberal Politician can.
Andrew
Of course, a Philistine could compare the Goracle to a Jim Jones or a David Koresh leading his flock of blind fools to an apocalyptic end. But that would be over the top, sort of like describing the Gentle Readers here as racist bigots and calling for war crimes trials for us.
Just sayin’
And Anthony, to answer your question: No. Nobody in the so called “main stream media” or any of the others will call the Goracle on this. (There may be an exception to the rule, but they would be cast out for their heresy!) They too have drunk the Kool-Aid and the Goreacle is their Prophet.
Regards,
Steamboat Jack (Jon Jewett’s evil twin)
Well who would you believe to be more trustworthy?
a) A group of domestic and international politicians, industries, and scientists that have a big stake in the game in form of research grants, complete government control of the power generation sector, huge potential for new fees (tax revenues) for global redistribution of the US wealth, and huge gain from investments in green energy areas pushed by their co conspirators.
b) A group of brave scientists that are defending the integrity of science with the cost of getting smeared by the book (rules for radicals) and cut off from getting research funding and from publishing anything that contradicts the above group’s goals and objectives.
So where is the incentive for group b) to disagree with group a) that has much more personal gain?
Fortunately, in my circles this is happening; somebody brings up global warming and they are laughed out of the conversation. The AGW alarmist scaremongers are losing this conversation so badly they don’t realize they are laughing stock for the rest of us. They don’t even get much of a shake on campus anymore.
I don’t know that this is true on the East Coast where leftist intellectuals still reign, but in the Midwest they’ve learned not to espouse that view, lest it’s shortcomings get pointed out to them and their credibility questioned.
Farmers have little time for Ivy League scientists telling them about how things are, climate wise. The children of those farmers are not so easily persuaded in a classroom.
I’m the one who has to quote this?
Here are the first words out of Goracles mouth when that video starts:
It’s a religion, every word out of his mouth supports that notion.
They just don’t seem to understand that they can’t “win the conversation” because the science is proving them wrong.
Al Gore’s hysteria is not fueled by “moral” outrage but by unbridled greed. His UK-based Generation Investment Management fund in recent years bought up millions of dollars in carbon credit units from around the world and helped create a U.S. carbon trading exchange–the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX). Shortly after Gore and his partner sold their stake in the Exchange last year it went out of business. The world value of carbon credit paper has collapsed following the reluctance of Congress to enact crippling regulations–for which Gore lobbied–on U.S. industry during the recession. Gore is not a crusader or even a politician. He is the prime lobbyist for a global cabal of banks, industries and investors who have staked billions on the public acceptance of a new “green” totalitarianism. Since launching his “crusade” Gore has personally amassed upward of $200 million. He lobbies for then profits from taxpayer subsidies channeled to corporations where he holds shares. One example is “stimulus” dollars going to a “smart grid” firm Gore helped create as he lobbied in California for a smart grid mandate and a regional cap-and-trade compact.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/03/business/energy-environment/03gore.html
DJ says:
August 28, 2011 at 11:10 am
I’m lumped in with holocaust deniers. I’m lumped in with racists.
How long before I’m lumped in with pedophiles and terrorists?
I agree, however, naming calling and labeling does not change scientific facts. Ironically, name calling and labeling is a significant component of racism. Calling those who question the scientific foundation of the extreme AGW movement and the IPCC proposed carbon control policies “racists or deniers” is morally reprehensible.
Shame on Al Gore, you are embarrassment to the American people. You and your cohorts are promoting policies that would result in trillions of tax dollars being spent on purposeless schemes to monitor and control carbon emissions, on green boondoggles such as bio fuels and wind farms, and on third world projects that have nothing to do with aid and every to do with lining the pockets of corrupt third world governments and the UN bureaucracy leaches.
There will be a very strong back lash against irrational and wasteful “green” policies, the green movement’s obvious propaganda, the distortion of science, and the blocking of skeptic papers in scientific journals when observational evidence indicates the planet is cooling.
Lindzen and Choi’s analysis of data from two independent satellites shows that clouds in the tropical region increase to resist warming (negative feedback). Lindzen and Choi calculate a doubling of atmospheric CO2 will result in the planet warming roughly 0.7C.
http://www-eaps.mit.edu/faculty/lindzen/236-Lindzen-Choi-2011.pdf
“Here the statistical confidence intervals of the sensitivity estimate at 90%, 95%, and 99% levels are also calculated by the standard error of the feedback factor fTotal. This interval should prevent any problems arising from limited sampling. As a result, the climate sensitivity for a doubling of CO2 is estimated to be 0.7K (with the confidence interval 0.5K -1.3K at 99% levels). This observational result shows that model sensitivities indicated by the IPCC AR4 are likely greater than the possibilities estimated from the observations.”
The IPCC 3.5C predicted warming due to a doubling of atmospheric CO2 is predicated on the assumption that tropical region amplifies the CO2 warming.
As the planet has warmed 0.5C in the last 10 years a significant portion of that warming was due to something other than the CO2 greenhouse effect. The cause of the late 20th century warming was the sun.
The solar magnetic cycle was at its highest level in 8000 years during the last 20 years of the twentieth century. Svensmark estimated roughly ¾ of the late 20th century warming was caused by changes to the solar magnetic cycle.
So he fights real science with feelings, emotion, conviction, morals, and beliefs. Not one mention of any science. It’s clear why he refuses to debate the science, since his position is devoid of science. He gives facts a slight nod as we have to have facts, but then he says to be stubborn and stick by your convections regardless of the facts. Indeed, it is hard to fight real world facts and real science with faith.
Stand on a railroad track in front of an oncoming train and pray, and die. Only you can remove yourself from the tracks. Of course, after the fact you can make up the fable that God inspired you to save yourself, but the real world calls it a survival instinct.
ManBearPig has devolved to a huckster peddling a crappy, poorly constructed cult.
You can have your own opinion (or faith) but you cannot have your own facts.
Nuke says:
August 29, 2011 at 5:45 am
“Everybody knows global warming is destroying the planet and/or going to destroy the planet. Everybody knows CO2 is a greenhouse gas and greenhouse gases trap heat. ”
Wrong and wrong, totally. We are cooling and never were even close to as warm as the 1930s. And CO2 does not trap heat. Thermodynamically it cannot do what they say. Even is it did, it would only ramp up convectional heat transfer to altitude (totally ignored by the IPCC) and cool us more efficiently. It’s maximum effect with doubling is close to 0.01 deg C and water vapor is a powerful negative factor due to the convectional heat engine mentioned above. Also, rising CO2 decreases absolute water vapor such that the two have an almost constant effect or less because not only is CO2 replacing the more effective water vapor but it also interferes with water vapor’s effectiveness.
CO2 is plant food and cold is the enemy. All civilizations have thrived during warm periods. There is good reason that the dark ages were cold. We are cooling and have several decades of cool ahead. We need all of the CO2 we can get to maximize plant growth (plants use less water and nutrients and tolerate cold better with more CO2)—burn, baby, burn!
The whole global warming scam has nothing to do with the science and has nothing to do with saving the planet, the biosphere, or the people. It’s a political agenda aimed at a Draconian takeover of the world’s energy, intimate control of all individuals’ activities, habits, and spending, massive, crippling of the developed economies by forced wealth redistribution, conversion of third world countries into nanny states, population reduction through poverty, and formation of a one–world government which would have to be totalitarian and socialist. This is basically communism or socialism run by a gang. Why do you think they want the Small Arms Treaty in the UN with the eventual goal of disarming the US and the world? They cannot succeed if the people are armed and resist them.
The Copenhagen Climate Change Conference was supposed to be the final step in the formation of a world government; the agreement being pushed included its formation. The UN only pulled out of the push when they found out that they were being left out of the government. It was to be set up with an unspecified, unelected group of individuals running the world, in the style of the EU and we all know how well that is working.
Nope, humans are not ruining the planet. We have to be careful, but we are learning quite nicely. The third world countries need to be allowed to develop themselves out of poverty by developing their resources and economies such that they have the time and wealth to clean up their past pollution and avoid future mistakes. A rising tide floats all boats. Even the poorest are raised up as economies and societies grow and mature.
In general I have to say I share Algore’s dim view of “climate change deniers” but only because our view of who those people are is completely opposite. To my mind the only folks who can legitimately be characterized as deniers of climate change are Al and all of his cohorts from the IPCC. The very core of their hypothesis is the argument by exclusion i.e. our models can’t match the modern temperature rise without the influence of increased CO2 from anthropogenic sources, so what else could it be? The obvious implication of that assertion is that, absent human interference, the climate would never change. Skeptics, on the other hand, have argued continually that the climate is, and always has been, subject to myriad variabilities to the point that, to paraphrase the old hippie nostrum, you can’t walk in the same climate twice.
So, if Al wants to get all medieval on “climate change deniers”, I say “You go girl!”, but just recognize that you’re talking about the man in the mirror.
KnR says:
August 28, 2011 at 2:04 pm
You have to wonder if its [sic] really about the science, why the need for the use of insults and dehumanization attempts as a standard technique of rhetoric to support AGW?
Well, duh.
Do not let little men like Al annoy you. He wants the debate more emotional, more vicious, because he does not want a rational debate. He knows he can’t win on the subject using logic and reason.
This just shows how desperate he and his side has become post climategate.
I’m also a bit younger than Al Gore, so I had to look up this Bull Connor character …
Bull Connor was the Commissioner of Public Safety for the city of Birmingham, Alabama who turned fire hoses on civil rights protesters in 1963.
Like Alabama Governor George Wallace and Senator Al Gore Sr., Bull Connor was a democrat. (During the 1948 Democratic National Convention, Connor led the Alabama delegation in a walkout when the DNC suggested supporting civil rights.) Connor opposed civil rights, as did Al Gore Sr., who voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Acts. (The Act passed both House and Senate despite his opposition.)
I have no doubt Al Gore Jr. suffered angst over his father’s position. And he may well have argued with his elders about it. But he can hardly take much credit for bringing Civil Rights to fruition. He couldn’t even convince his own dad to vote in favor!
Civil Rights legislation in the US succeeded thanks to the efforts of others, acting independently — and in spite of — some key Democrats of the day.
So it seems Al Gore Jr. has this story twisted up in his mind — maybe to overcome a feeling of shame for his party’s own voting record. The Bull Connor story has little to do with global warming, but it sure gives some insight into Al Gore’s infantile rage.
Did I need to put a /sarc at the end of that post?
“” . . . . And underneath it all runs the mantra chanted in unison by all the trolls—terror, terror, terror. The troll establishment spins us like windup dolls and laughs all the way to the bank. What idiots, they think. And every election cycle we prove them right. “”. . . .
The Election March of the Trolls
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_election_march_of_the_trolls_20110829/
I noticed this was posted under “Al Gore is an Idiot.”
When that starts taking too long to load, start posting it under “Al Gore is STILL an Idiot.”
Memo to Al: Stop digging.