UPDATE: I missed this in the interview, since it wasn’t in the publicist release, it would be a shame not to highlight it.
Would there be hurricanes and floods and droughts without man-made global warming? Of course. But they’re stronger now. The extreme events are more extreme. The hurricane scale used to be 1-5 and now they’re adding a 6.
People send me stuff. Apparently, WaPo is so proud of this interview, they had their publicist send it out. I don’t think Al realizes that the “raging” he perceives is actually raucous laughter. – Anthony
From The Washington Post publicist:
Washington Post’s Ezra Klein spoke with Al Gore about why he’s so optimistic about stopping global warming. Excerpts are pasted below and the full transcript can be found at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/08/21/al-gore-explains-why-hes-optimistic-about-stopping-global-warming/
EK: Do the policy failures of the last decade put more pressure on technological advances to be the source of the solution?
AG: No, I seem them as intertwined. To some extent, the failure of policy at Copenhagen and before that in Washington has put more emphasis on the hopeful developments in technology, but as the conversation is won on global warming — and it’s not won yet but it’s very nearly won — the possibilities for policy changes once again open up.
EK: What do you think of the Obama administration’s intentions to push regulatory approaches to limiting carbon emissions?
AG: I’m very encouraged. I thought the president’s speech on climate was terrific and it followed the inspiring comments in his inaugural address and his post-election State of the Union. And remember the impact of policy direction on business calculations is forward-looking. When business begins to understand the direction of policy, they have to start adjusting to where the policy is going. When you look at the EPA process, it’s undeniably clear that there will be a price on carbon one way or the other. Then when you look at the movement in other countries and the states and local measures being enacted, the direction is now quite clear and businesses are making plans to adjust to it.
EK: Give me the optimistic scenario on what happens next. If all goes well, what do the next few years look like on this issue?
AG: Well, I think the most important part of it is winning the conversation. I remember as a boy when the conversation on civil rights was won in the South. I remember a time when one of my friends made a racist joke and another said, hey man, we don’t go for that anymore. The same thing happened on apartheid. The same thing happened on the nuclear arms race with the freeze movement. The same thing happened in an earlier era with abolition. A few months ago, I saw an article about two gay men standing in line for pizza and some homophobe made an ugly comment about them holding hands and everyone else in line told them to shut up. We’re winning that conversation.
The conversation on global warming has been stalled because a shrinking group of denialists fly into a rage when it’s mentioned. It’s like a family with an alcoholic father who flies into a rage every time a subject is mentioned and so everybody avoids the elephant in the room to keep the peace. But the political climate is changing. Something like Chris Hayes’s excellent documentary on climate change wouldn’t have made it on TV a few years ago. And as I said, many Republicans who’re still timid on the issue are now openly embarrassed about the extreme deniers. The deniers are being hit politically. They’re being subjected to ridicule, which stings. The polling is going back up in favor of doing something on this issue. The ability of the raging deniers to stop progress is waning every single day.
When that conversation is won, you’ll see more measures at the local and state level and less resistance to what the EPA is doing. And slowly it will become popular to propose steps that go further and politicians that take the bit in their teeth get rewarded. I remember when the tide turned on smoking in public places. People thought the late Frank Lautenburg was crazy for proposing a ban on smoking in airplanes, but he was rewarded politically and then politicians began falling all over themselves to do the same. That’s the optimistic scenario. And it’s not just a scenario! It’s happening now!
Don’t get me wrong. We’ve got a long way to go. We’re still increasing emissions. But we’re approaching this tipping point. Businesses are driving it. Grass roots are driving it. Policies and changes in law in places like india and China and Mexico and California and Ireland will proliferate and increase, and soon we’ll get to the point where national laws will evolve into global cooperation.
—
Molly Gannon
Senior Publicist
The Washington Post
Telling me I’m just like Al Gore Sr. That one leaves a mark!
And of course Al Gore’s claim about the hurricane intensity scale now going to 6 reminds us of this classic:
Al Gore, the Al Sharpton of climate, shows us that it is one thing to be inflammatory. It is quite another to be inflammatory and truly ignorant at the same time.
If Al (and the left) were truly concerned about “global warming,” they should be delighted with and crowing about the apparent absence of warming for the past 16 years. They should be shouting, “See? Our efforts to curb emissions have worked! We are saved!” But, like all politicians and bureaucrats, Al is only concerned with inputs, rather than with results. The inputs in this case are the amount of money spent, the number of windmills erected, etc., and the amount of control government has over us. So, they are threatened by the good news because it undermines their arguments for more spending, more control, etc.
Way back at the top is this update, a quote from Gore:
The hurricane scale used to be 1-5 and now they’re adding a 6.
A much better lead-in to the note about raucous laughter.
Timothy Adams says:
August 22, 2013 at 12:23 am
No, no, no! (See the video.)
This is a good point to remind folks of this Blast from the Past, namely Al Gore calmly explaining about how the skeptics have polluted the word “climate” and society cannot come to an agreement [to see things his way]. Anthony goes to Houston, Al Gore gets to go to Aspen and the Aspen Institute Forum on Communications and Society. Al probably got first class or better airfare, too.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/08/09/gore-did-not-know-as-the-others-did-that-the-conference-was-being-streamed/
People who remember that post will be pleased that the audio still works. NSFW. (Not Suitable For Work.)
You might find this interesting…. I live down the road from Al’s family homestead in Tennessee’s 6th Congressional District. This is the seat held by Al and then his hand-picked successor Bart Gordon for several decades. Yesterday our current Congressman held an energy forum which I was invited to attend. Several attendees were very clearly of the Al Gore alarmist type. They pressed the Congressman to state her views on climate science. She very clearly if politely let them know that she was skeptical of their point of view. She left no doubt about the depth of her skepticism at one point stating that “we are having the coldest summer on record” and “the science has evolved from what scientists thought they knew several years ago”. So Al Gore has a true skeptic as his Congressman but he is “winning” Charlie Sheen style.
We know we’ve “come a long way baby” when Al Gore and Bart Gordon who did so much to fund the corruption of science for so long have a skeptic as their successor. Al is like Jake Lamotta after his last fight with Sugar Ray in “Raging Bull” We’ve beat him senseless but he standing there mumbling at us “you never knocked me down”
What a jerk.
Category 6? Al is “batshit stupid” : http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/04/discovery-news-category-6-hurricanes-batshit-stupid/
Joe Crawford (August 21, 2013 at 2:22 pm) says:
“Can you imagine this yo-yo as President? At least wee were lucky there.”
Apart from their..uh..girth, Joe, is there a meaningful difference?
“The extreme events are more extreme. The hurricane scale used to be 1-5 and now they’re adding a 6.”
I haven’t seen such an idiotic statement since Nigel Tufnel tried to explain why his guitar amplifier “goes to 11.”
Big Bucks Al “Jazeera” Gore is right that we skeptics/climate realists are angry. He gets filthy rich off of the biggest scam in history, all the while claiming our side, the side of actual science, is driven by Big Oils’ $billions. So, where’s our money? We’re obviously being robbed blind here, and it has to stop. I mean, it’s somewhat understandable why climate scientists need to obfuscate and subvert actual science since their livelihoods depend on it. What’s important is that they bring home that paycheck. Their families are depending on them. Think of the children. But with folks like Gore making money hand over fist it’s a different story. It’s just not fair. Again I ask, where’s all our money? Hiding in the deep oceans?
This is just a continuation of;
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/weather/temperatures-off-the-charts-as-australia-turns-deep-purple-20130108-2ce33.html
Retracted later as I recall.
@Yo! says:
“I would laugh at Al if he weren’t so butt rich…”
No problem for me. I laugh at him anyway.
That AGW proponents such as Al Gore prefer to resort to ad-hominem attacks as opposed to reasoned, empirically derived argument has become a virtual hallmark of their “movement”. Moreover, it is a “faith-based” assumption among AGW proponents, that man is basically evil. The anthropo-toxic gas he exhales, the carbon-based fuels he burns to keep warm, even his temerity in tilling the soil to feed himself are worthy fodder, in the eyes of AGW advocates, to be shamed and mercilessly scorned. In the most recent 2.5 billion years of planet Earth’s existence, there have been some 17 times when global extremities of polar conditions have run the gamut from a condition of “no ice whatsoever at the poles” to an “ice-age” scenario in which ice pack is a mile thick over the spot which is as far south from the north pole as Manhattan island. Cyclical variations in solar intensity are believed the culprit. Every 20,000 years the “Sahara” becomes 3 gigantic super-lakes, replete with crinoids and other evidence of marine life. Then it goes back, like clockwork, to being a vast desert again. How is “man” responsible for this? The answer, of course, is that he is not.
Didn’t Al prove CAGW is real in a high school experiment? Didn’t skeptics then jump out and deny it? Al’s right (sarc off)
Once more with the lumping of people together- if you are not with me on every issue, you must be against me on all of the issues, and therefor stupid. My warning to the lumpers, even if you choose the majority position on every issue, you will exclude the majority of your supporters before you exceed a dozen issues.
While most Americans don’t smoke, aren’t Christian, live in cities, believe AGW, watch television 4 hours a day, and eat meat, and went to public school, only a small demographic fits all seven conditions. Since I don’t smoke, must I also be a rural, Christian, home schooled, AGW sceptic who knows nothing about American Idol? Don’t go assuming Shout like that.
KevinM,
I don’t normally take unsigned, partially signed, or posts made under a pseudonym very seriously, for reasons which should be obvious to a smart person such as yourself. While the majority of Americans may not BE, Christians, I can assure you that the majority of Americans do indeed purport to be Christians.
There are nearly 5000 comments at the Washington Post article. Very few support Gore. The level of vitriol surprised me a little.
Bruce Cobb on August 22, 2013 at 6:33 am
Yes, he must be dealt with on his home turf though, if anything should happen.
It is time to charge Algore with crimes against humanity.
Forcing people into poverty is immoral.
Jay Davis says:
August 21, 2013 at 2:16 pm
This from a man who made hundreds of millions on the global warming scam, sold his network to oil barons and has an annual “carbon” footprint larger than half the population of Tennessee. In the dictionary, next to the definition of hypocrite, there is a picture of Al Gore.
———————————————————-
But you don’t understand. Al Gore is spreading an important message that justifies his big house and big carbon footprint. He’s a member of the elite and is so much better and important than you or I. [/sarc]
Al Gore says: “The temperature has increased globally and there’s now 4 percent more water vapor in the Earth’s atmosphere than 30 years ago.”
It is probably not worth asking, given his nearly perfect score in the art of “BS”, but I will anyway:
What is the trend water vapor and who collects this data today? (And how the hell was it collected 30 years ago to make any viable comparisons)?
(and of course some of that increase, if any, is in the form of sun-blocking clouds)
[ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwDi-Y1dPQM ]
REPLY: LOL! A collection of sensationalist news stories presented as “factual”. – Anthony
What does Al Gore know about climate skeptics? Does his rant remind you of an old-fashioned racist rant? I saw him speak once, so I can claim to know him better than he knows skeptics. The best one word description of him is ‘patriarchal’. He grew up in a feudal system. His ego comes from being born a man and in the master class. He didn’t do anything to earn his position, he inherited it. He is one of the 1%. He thinks he deserves motorcades and people grovelling at his feet. He speaks well, as long as he doesn’t go out of his memorized depth and the audience is adoring. He does not take questions unless they are screened in advance. He cannot debate because he does not know anything. If he wasn’t so dangerous, people would feel sympathy for him for being so pathetic.
I’m curious, why is there no ‘reply’ option on this board?
“REPLY: LOL! A collection of sensationalist news stories presented as “factual”. – Anthony”
That was exactly how I felt about Limbaugh, Jones and the rest of the deniers comments included in the piece – Hope
Also, it seems deniers are quick to dish out ridicule – in my video you hear Jones state that climate scientists who agree on the main points of AGW and their followers are related to the Nazi movement. I doubt anyone here has a fit about that – Delingpole can write “watermelons”, no problem. But if you feel ridiculed in anyway, you take massive offense. Does that not seem juvenile to you?
Look up the Murdoch tactic “monstering” and see if it does not apply to denier assessments of Al Gore.
REPLY: Since you brought up the subject….
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/times_gore-nazi-headline.jpg
-Anthony
I see a member of the Koolaid Klub has stopped by to “educate” us. How Quaint. Maybe his monikker should be Hope Forabrain.
I don’t care which side you’re on or if you’re in the middle, hanging your hat on a frat boy megalomaniac, nepotism politician with mineral royalties is not a good idea for pursuing science truth and good public policy. The other problem here is that in this lost decade or two for household incomes the tolerance for another Federal money waste adventure is going to be lower than Yucca Mtn, V-22 Osprey, B-2 bomber, Iraq war, stimulus part 4, shovel-ready bait and switch, etc. etc.