Al Gore’s book, An Inconvenient Truth used to be one of the hottest items (no pun intended…umm, well maybe) but now, not so much. While it is still being sold on Amazon.com for as much as ten dollars, it seems there is now a burgeoning discount market for AIT.
Have a look at this seen at a major bookseller’s discount table (h/t to Ward D. Lyon on Twitter)
And, it gets worse, some Amazon used book sellers are unloading it for a penny!
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It would probably hold its price better if they moved it to the comedy section.
…or at least the Junk Science pile.
I’d like to agree. But it’s no laughing matter that many people believed in this science fiction novel enough to riot in the streets, vote for carbon taxes, lie to other that PV solar and windmills are job creators, and so on. This book has been a destructive force for most, and helped make a few very wealthy off the anguish of others.
Can I use carbon credits instead of cash?
Maybe if you promise to sequester this carbon and not burn it.
If it ends up in my septic tank, does that count as sequestration?
Gary: Speaking of carbon credits (and comedy), go to:
http://greentremayne.com/Blog.html
and scroll down to the bottom and click on “How Carbon Credits Work.”
I just laughed.
You are aware, I preume, that that is a spoof site?
This is an amusing website which, at first, appears to be a ‘green’ site but is actually just an advert for a book called ‘Biodiesel’. Go to the bottom of the homepage and read the extremely small print.
That’s great, thanks for the laugh! Reminded me of this one from Protein Wisdom awhile ago:
“Scenes from Al Gore’s ENVIRONMENTAL BATTLEFIELD USA,
me: “So let me get this straight: I pay you five dollars, and in return, you promise not to eat an ounce of roughage for, say, three days. Meanwhile, I can eat as much in the way of beans and cabbage as I want—and in the end, we’re both absolved from any responsibility for personal methane production…?”
poor Mexican migrant worker: ”Si.”
me: “Interesting.
me: “—So. Does this mean you have to follow me around and take the blame if I let one rip in a crowded elevator? Or is that, like, extra…?”
http://proteinwisdom.com/?p=8527
Amazon.com rankings:
Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” #196,056.
My own modest “The Law of Self Defense” #74,907
Suck it, Al. 🙂
–Andrew, @LawSelfDefense
I am reading your book but I got it thru Amazon Unlimited for a price of $1 less than Al Gore’s
Amazon Unlimited is the “borrow” thing they’ve set up, right? Glad to hear of it. Mostly just want to keep law-abiding people from ending up in jail because they were unfortunate enough to be chosen as prey and fortunate enough to have won the contest.
I tried hard to work a “CAGW is BS” thread into the book, but my editor was ruthless. 🙂
–Andrew, @LawSelfDefense
I should have said Kindle Unlimited
hey get your butt back to legalinsurrection sir 🙂
lot of good info on this site if you have not visited often.
At those prices I’m tempted to buy a copy – with the rising price of heating fuel, thanks to the brutal cold weather which seems to be occurring lately, it could come in useful.
A copy?
Heck, I’m wondering if you can buy in bulk.
Will buy all available at $0.01 just to keep the fire stoked this winter if I get free delivery! 😉
Even with 5 bucks shipping?
Wayne, you beat me to it. Up here in the great white north, 1 penny per copy could keep the cabin warm very cost effectively. I wonder how much CO2 would be generated per copy?
Good point! At that rate, it’d be cheaper than a cord of wood, AND it would double in a pinch as toilet paper…!
Don’t use it as TP! You’ll get a terrible burning sensation that’ll ruin your day.
Oh, don’t use it as toilet paper – you will get a heat rash, ebola, constipation and/or diarrhea, hairy butt, hemorrhoids, intestinal worms, cranial-rectal syndrome and worse – these being things caused or exacerbated by CAGW. Besides, the book’s pages are so full of fecal matter, it is difficult to tell if you have gotten your self clean or made things worse. (Sorry for the bathroom humor, but some of us boys never grow up and cannot resist.)
Unfortunately, you’re right for once. The important thing about propaganda is not its accuracy or price; it’s how many people’s minds are corrupted by it beyond repair at any price.
Peter writes “This is a risky game to play.”
Tagged as humour, I dont think so. If a warmist site made a humerous jab at skeptic book sales figures then that would be ok too. Its when people like Cook or Lewendowsky start analysing book sales and reading into it people’s beliefs in global warming it becomes a game and goes too far.
Good points.
Who’s got more at risk ?
You’re absolutely right.
The fact is that a book that’s about ten years old is still well enough known that humour can be made from it.
So it has been influential.
(And everyone who would ant a copy probably already has one).
“Attempting to score points off this inevitable publication cycle is silly particularly when it concerns science and public policy.”
Inevitable? Check for “The Origin of Species” on Amazon. It was originally published in 1859, and is still going strong and well worth reading.
“Unfair comparison”
Perhaps. But most (all?) scientific disciplines have a number of works that never really grow obsolete or redundant. Just check the books any working scientist keeps handy.
I’m STILL waiting for your answer to my question regarding the HotWhoppers debate, Peter, which was whether you agreed with her position or not.
Obviously, you just cherry pick topics and aren’t man enough to answer a simple Yes/No question.
You are just a self-serving shill when it comes to the scientific debate, sir.
And I’m STILL waiting for an answer.
Save, a tree. Burn an Inconvenient Truth.
Only if it doesn’t work as toilet paper..
Koch Bros, The target of the green movement sells Angel Soft TP by Georgia Pacific. Retail over one dollar. Koch has a better handle on consumer demand.
An Inconvenient Discount.
The worst part of it all is that they have moved it to “fiction” aisle….where it might become a bestseller once again along with “Climatyville Horror.”
Good one, Tom.
Fiction usually has some basis in truth, fantasy would be more appropriate.
GGGRRRROOOOOAAAAAANNNNNNN
Tom wins today’s groaner award for the driest humour with “Climatyville Horror”.
Made me groan out loud.
Anthony, I really love seeing that pic of the $1.00 sale! On Amazon, though, all of the $.01 ones have a $3.99 shipping charge (in the fine print – check out your link and you will see.)
Just keeping things honest. 🙂
I wouldn’t pay the lint in my belly button for that POS.
I didn’t read the book, but I actually watched the whole film recently. I was hoping this article would list his predictions 1 by 1 and see what has really happened since the book was published. I guess I would have to buy the book for $1 and list the predictions I mentioned. I’m sure the book must make predictions/forecasts.
Does it, I haven’t read it?
Not sure, although the 35 errors are well documented:
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton/goreerrors.html
Thanks Olaf, for link. Good reference…
“I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous it is, as a predicate for opening up the audience to listen to what the solutions are”… Al Gore in Grist, 09 May 2006
Over representing facts (knowingly lying) to get people to listen (buy your book, watch your movie) is only necessary when you know the real facts won’t make any one care, and they won’t buy your book, and they won’t watch your movie.
At that price it might be an economically viable replacement for Lewpaper.
For a much more useful book at the almost-as-low price of $5, download a PDF copy of Bob Tisdale’s Who Turned Up the Heat?. The background on the ENSO process is critical to understanding his many excellent posts here.
Click Here to purchase.
Since WTUtH? is an E-book, you can’t burn it to keep warm; use AIT for that purpose, although good old fashioned coal will give you a lot more heat for the same price, and has the added benefit of making Bill McKibben weep.
Thanks, Alan Watt, Climate Denialist Level 7.
They should sell it next to the Charmin!
Hmm… a thought exercise.
AIT weight per book (including jacket) approximately 1 pound 11oz.
5000 of them at a cost of $50.00.
Run them in an incinerator.
Equating the burnt books to the average BTU value of wood = 20 million Btu’s per cord,
where a cord averages about 2800 pounds per cord.
Hence 5000 pounds of AIT equates to 5000*(1+11/16)/2800 = 3 cords = 60 million Btu’s
Since coal averages about 20 million BTU’s per short ton that yields
5000 AIT incinerated = 3 short tons of coal = $150 (at $50.00 per ton for coal)
If we can get Mr. Gore to continue to sell books at .01 per book we could convert to
burning AIT books at 1/3 the cost of coal.
There you go again with those equation thingees.
And how does the resulting CO2 emission compare? I imagine that AIT emits much less CO2 as well, coming from Mr Gore after all (because of the low-carbon footprint example that he continues to set for us to follow).
do I really need the sarc tag?
Bruce
I found this reference which claims 6,500 BTU / lb of “waste paper” (a description I’m sure we can agree on), which is actually slightly lower than 7,500 BTU / lb for “dung” (another apt description). If I use the 6,500 BTU/lb value and your estimate of 1.69 lb for each book I get 54.8 million BTU rather than your 60 million for 5,000 copies, but close enough.
So if you can get enough copies of AIT for the cash and carry price of $0.03 each or less, you will beat or break even with the cost of coal for heating. You will also be transporting roughly 8,430 lbs of AIT to your incinerator rather than 6,000 lbs of coal.
If you assume the hauling capacity of a typical pickup truck (Dodge Ram 1500) is about 1,400 lbs, you will make 5 trips to transport the 3 short tons of coal and 6 trips for the 5,000 copies of AIT.
Or you could burn 8,000 lbs of “dung” instead, which means you won’t have to shovel as much s**t to stay warm.
Many copies available for around $3 shipped in the US
http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?an=Al+Gore&sts=t&tn=An+Inconvenient+Truth
get yours before they it becomes scarce and rare.
Archaeologists in some future millennia would get a laugh.. or feel sick.
It could be used as a dart board in paperback form – apologies to dart boards everywhere..
Still over priced.
And it belongs in the fiction section. No wonder people are having a hard time finding it online. 🙂
Best delivered prices for An Inconvenient Truth at BookFinder $3.14
31 sources for < $3.50 delivered!
I’m almost totally against book burning of any type, but in this case, at 1¢ each, I’m tempted…
Now if it was printed on softer 3-ply tissue I may have an excellent use for it !!!!
Andi
With 100 of them you can have a 10X10; call it “Andy Warhol Meets Franz Kafka & Salvadore Dali”
Hmm. That’s costing somebody some money somewhere.
Somehow, I doubt that Al’s contract with his publisher contained a clause putting him on the hook for unsold units.
It sure would be funny if it did, though…
We need a study to determine if burning “An Inconvenient Truth” is more cost effective than wood pellets.
That has to be an “Oh The Pain” nominee! 😉
These prices have got to be less than cost – less even than the royalty Al Gore receives for each copy sold. Booksellers just should not be selling at these prices. It ought to be more profitable for them to shred the books than sell them at this price. So why are they on sale at all? Somebody must be subsidising the sale of this book. Whoever that somebody is, I really hope no public money is involved.
It may be that publishers are clearing the deck for a revised edition.
Sometime back over 20 years ago the tax laws were changed regarding how publishers could treat the production costs of a book. Previously they could claim all the production costs as an expense in the year they were paid. After the change publishers had to ammortize the costs of the run over the sales life of the entire production run. As a result, publishers do not keep unsold books, but dump them at any price once it is clear they are no longer selling.
My wife encountered this when working for a major university library. It used to be when a circulation book became too damaged to use they simply called the publisher and ordered a new copy. After the tax change they had to start calling used bookstores and other resellers.