Gore goes off the deep end, calls to ‘Punish Climate-Change Deniers’

From EcoWatch:

gore-groundhog-day-McKeeFor the third time in the last few years, Al Gore, founder and chairman of the Climate Reality Project, spoke at the festival on Friday. Naturally, his interactive discussion focused on addressing the climate crisis. The former vice president focused on the need to “punish climate-change deniers, saying politicians should pay a price for rejecting ‘accepted science,’” said the Chicago Tribune.

Gore said forward-thinking investors are moving away from companies that invest in fossil fuels and towards companies investing in renewable energy. “We need to put a price on carbon to accelerate these market trends,” Gore told the Chicago Tribune, referring to a proposed federal cap-and-trade system that would penalize companies that exceeded their carbon-emission limits. “And in order to do that, we need to put a price on denial in politics.”

He called on the tech-minded SXSW crowd, which is dominated by Millenials, to harness technology to launch a grassroots movement to tackle climate change and call out climate deniers. “We have this denial industry cranked up constantly,” Gore said. “In addition to 99 percent of the scientists and all the professional scientific organizations, now Mother Nature is weighing in.”

Years from now, Gore said the next generation will look back at us and ask: “How did you change?,” according to Macworld. “Part of the answer may well be that a group of people came to South by Southwest in Austin, Texas in 2015 and helped to make a revolution,” Gore said.

Gore wanted these young, tech-savvy attendees to start a grassroots movement using social media like they did when “net neutrality was threatened or when the Stop Online Piracy Act threatened to blacklist websites that offered so-called illegal content,” said Macworld. That means signing petitions to fight climate change, utilizing social media to call out climate deniers in Congress and streaming the Live Earth Road to Paris concert on June 18, an event designed to draw attention to the climate talks in Paris this December.

The former Veep even gave a nod to Pope Francis during his talk, showing a slide of the pontiff and saying “How about this Pope?” Pope Francis celebrated his two-year anniversary as Pope on Friday, riding a wave of popularity “that has reinvigorated the Catholic Church in ways not seen since the days of St. John Paul II,” said the Chicago Tribune. Gore said he was looking forward to the Pope’s highly anticipated encyclical on the environment which is due to be released in June or July. “I’m not a Catholic,” Gore said, “but I could be persuaded to become one.”

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Leon Brozyna
March 16, 2015 1:31 pm

Isn’t America a great country, where lowly purveyors of snake-oil can achieve international fame and wealth … do I really need to tack on a /sarc tag??

Reply to  Leon Brozyna
March 16, 2015 1:37 pm

Hmmm….maybe somebody can stick one on Al’s back? Like the “kick me” tag put on George McFly. I doubt the current Secret Service would notice.

1saveenergy
March 16, 2015 1:33 pm

This is all frighteningly like a replay of 1930s Germany where Gruber & Schirach’s Hitler youth were indoctrinated & instilled with the motivation that would enable its members, to fight faithfully for the cause without question.
We all joke & laugh at Al Gore, but he is Fanatical, dangerous & manipulative, don’t underestimate him, he desperately wants to be a leader & the American public wisely rejected him, but now he’s found a band that will follow him, he’ll do everything in his power (& he has plenty of our money to help him).
We should be calling for his head on a plate before all counter arguments are stifled for good ?? He & his followers are doing immense harm.

March 16, 2015 1:34 pm

Gore said forward-thinking investors are moving away from companies that invest in fossil fuels and towards companies investing in renewable energy. “We need to put a price on carbon to accelerate these market trends,” Gore told the Chicago Tribune, referring to a proposed federal cap-and-trade system that would penalize companies that exceeded their carbon-emission limits. “And in order to do that, we need to put a price on denial in politics.”

Sounds like just bought some cheap “renewable energy” stocks and wants to artificially raise their value…or he’s loosing big on the ones he already owns.

frozenohio
March 16, 2015 1:34 pm

Gore should be in prison.

Ted Clayton
Reply to  frozenohio
March 16, 2015 4:10 pm

You know what they say in Politics.
When the other guy is talking himself into a hole, don’t interrupt.

AB
March 16, 2015 1:37 pm

Gore knows he’s a rapidly fading star. All he has left is inflamatory, extremist rhetoric. He’s nothing more than a bore in a bar vainly appealing to self centred millenials to go on a climate jihad.
The pope gave up on God and wheeled in Gaia. The perfect ally for this clown.

Robert of Ottawa
March 16, 2015 1:42 pm

Enviromentalists [sic] are deranged and deranged people are very dangerous..

Reply to  Robert of Ottawa
March 16, 2015 4:38 pm

even to the plants and animals

March 16, 2015 1:47 pm

Errrr—- ahhhhhhh—- I have a problem. Isn’t science supposed to be about asking questions, and not accepting at face value everything you’re told? So—- aren’t skeptics who actually go out and measure things more apt to be real scientists? If I accept Al Gore’s statement at face value, he should still believe that the Earth is flat, and resting on the backs of elephants standing on a giant tortoise. After all, that was supposedly at least the accepted view, and anybody who challenged it was a heretic fit only for being put to death for challenging that belief. Accepted by 97% of scientists who had never ventured more than 25 miles from the place they had been born.

Margaret Smith
Reply to  mjmsprt40
March 16, 2015 2:07 pm

Gore has upped the 97% of scientists to 99% here.

Reply to  Margaret Smith
March 16, 2015 2:43 pm

and what’s up with that remaining 1% anyway?

Harry Passfield
March 16, 2015 1:48 pm

And so begins the new Gulag ArchipelaGore, Re-education for all who deny him. I can’t help thinking about how many have been saved by so few hanging chads.

spren
Reply to  Harry Passfield
March 16, 2015 6:02 pm

And hanging chads resulted from trying to punch through multiple ballots at the same time. Remember during the aborted recount, the electoral commissioners holding the ballots up to the light and trying to discern the intent of the voter? That was hilarious even though it was a perpetuation of the fraud that created the hanging chads in the first place.

outtheback
March 16, 2015 1:49 pm

So he could be persuaded to become Catholic. Looks like it that they forgot to mention what he is likely to have said next: “if the price is right”.
If he is really serious about what he is preaching he would have been there via video link rather then being present in person using a CO2 emitting transport system of some sort to get there.

George Lawson
March 16, 2015 1:53 pm

There’s no doubt, he is screaming for government action against the fossil fuel industry so that he can claim credit for the current global warming hiatus by saying ” I told you my ideas would work”. There might also be a bit in there for him to raise a million or two extra dollars to keep his bank balance healthy.

roaldjlarsen
March 16, 2015 1:55 pm

That man is just sick (but he doesn’t know it yet)!

Reply to  roaldjlarsen
March 16, 2015 2:06 pm

Tipper knows.

Alan Robertson
March 16, 2015 2:00 pm

bumbling boob in a bubble

n.n
March 16, 2015 2:04 pm

Ah, the modern call to sacrificial rites. Doesn’t that require “planning”?

Joe
March 16, 2015 2:09 pm

What’s the big deal? Gore’s just saying that the people who lie about climate change should have to account for that. Shouldn’t Jim Inhofe have to explain to the voters why he’s so deep in the pocket of energy companies that he feels compelled to deny an overwhelming scientific consensus? If Exxon told him to say the Earth is flat, would we believe him?

DirkH
Reply to  Joe
March 16, 2015 2:22 pm

I am glad to be able to tell you that the World has stopped warming 18 years ago, Joe. Rejoyce. The danger is over (for a while now). Sing and dance in the street, if you like it as cold as it is now. With frozen over Big Lakes and all that.
Me, I would have loved growing some pomegranates here in Germany, but, you can’t have everything.

Reply to  Joe
March 16, 2015 2:28 pm

I agree, shouldn’t Michael Mann have to explain the Hockey Stick fraud or explain why he needed to “hide the decline”. If his government funders told him to say the Earth is flat, you would believe him.

Reply to  Joe
March 16, 2015 2:52 pm

Scientific consensus? Science is not done by consensus. Politics is done by consensus.

Reply to  Joe
March 16, 2015 4:41 pm

I guess free speech isn’t important to someone with nothing to say.

Chris
Reply to  Gary Pearse
March 17, 2015 10:17 am

“I guess free speech isn’t important to someone with nothing to say.”
Except that Gore is not talking about taking away the right to free speech. He is talking about “punishing” politicians who oppose taking action on AGW by voting them out of office. How is this any different than the NRA actively campaigning against politicians who support stricter gun laws?

Ted Clayton
Reply to  Gary Pearse
March 17, 2015 10:55 am

How is ((Gore) talking about “punishing” politicians who oppose taking action on AGW by voting them out of office.) any different than the NRA actively campaigning against politicians who support stricter gun laws?
There are parallels. There are differences.
1. The NRA communicates clearly; Gore baits.
2. Gore has the White House & MSM riffing off his lines; and vice-versa.

Ted Clayton
Reply to  Joe
March 16, 2015 4:47 pm

Shouldn’t Jim Inhofe have to explain to the voters why he’s so deep in the pocket of energy companies that he feels compelled to deny an overwhelming scientific consensus?

Any ol’ Okie can figure that one out.
Consensus is what happens in the Metroplex, watching Cinderella.

Admad
March 16, 2015 2:09 pm

Gore-mless;

March 16, 2015 2:22 pm

This is all a bit rich from the man who has one of the largest carbon footprints on the planet, in addition to being a torturer of science and a third rate horror film producer.

Paul Miller
March 16, 2015 2:23 pm

Hey Putin is hurting for cash right now mabey he would lease Algore some space in the Gulag. Putin might even sell Algore a Black Sea Dasha

March 16, 2015 2:24 pm

Algorian Logic
A reasoning technique that entails reaching a supposition about a subject in which one has no expertise and subsequently creating factoids to support the supposition without using critical thinking skills or research to discern the obvious implausibility of the facts or the conclusion.

Michael J. Dunn
March 16, 2015 2:29 pm

Q: How do you dance to the Climate Change Tango? (Hat tip to Tom Lehrer.)
A: With Al Gore rhythms.

Crispin in Waterloo
Reply to  Michael J. Dunn
March 16, 2015 3:27 pm

My brother used to say, “There’s always a couple of you sickos in the audience.”
Very good, by the way.
Al cuts quite a figure in those britches.
The last time I needed twenty stitches…
Long live TL, Long live!

Annie
Reply to  Michael J. Dunn
March 16, 2015 3:57 pm

Ouch!

Speed
March 16, 2015 2:30 pm

Gore More Years!
Hillary Clinton’s handling of the State Department email scandal is causing Democrats such discomposure that some now suggest dumping her as the presumptive presidential nominee in favor of—wait for it—Al Gore.
Vox.com’s Ezra Klein tries to throw some cold water on the idea. “The problem with a Gore candidacy, to be blunt, is Gore,” Klein observes. He notes that the former vice president is a “wooden,” “aging” candidate with a “challenging” relationship to the press. He has “complicated” finances, though Klein doesn’t tell us exactly what that euphemism means, except to note that Gore “made an insane sum of money by selling his cable network to Al Jazeera.”

http://www.wsj.com/articles/gore-more-years-1426538092

March 16, 2015 2:36 pm

“I’m not a Catholic President,” Gore said, “but I could be persuaded to become one.”
*shudder*

Crispin in Waterloo
March 16, 2015 2:59 pm

How about we put a more positive spin on things:
“…saying politicians should pay a price for rejecting ‘accepted science…’”
Let’s take him at his word.
Accepted science says that there is a long period of time without and change in the temperature of the globe, and the CO2 has risen considerably during this time. That is well-accepted science.
The sun has gone very quiet. That is accepted science.
CO2 has just now paused, as mankind is burning less non-renewable biomass and less fossil fuels, and less maybe-renewable natural oil and natural gas (depending on whether or not the Russians are correct).
The Antarctic land temperature has been dropping for more than 50 years. The Sea ice around that continent has been expanding pretty much offsetting the melting that took place in the Arctic. That is accepted science.
There are no more frequent and no more powerful storms than before, nor tornadoes, nor floods nor droughts than happened historically. That is also accepted science.
CO2 and methane and water vapour are GHG’s. That is accepted science.
And lastly, the IPCC says that the models are not doing a very good job of predicting global temperatures because their computers are not large enough, and/or there are multiple (up to 100) additional things they did not think of that are causing the temperature not to rise as modelled.
So how about every politician who rejects these facts pay a price for doing so? Suits me fine. If politicians can’t even research the basic facts of climate, the fundamental failures of models that have been predicting disaster for 20 years, and models which cannot narrow the range of expected warming from the first guesses made a generation ago, they have to step aside for people who have a clue and are willing to learn enough to do the job properly.

March 16, 2015 3:02 pm

It is remarkable to me that all the “progressives” seem to think that “big oil” is the primary source of corruption on Capitol Hill. I’d like to see the totals once you add up the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, Rockefeller Foundation, Ford Foundation, Greenpeace, PETA, American Friends Service Committee, Environmental Defense Fund and on and on. Another interesting thing to look at is the musical chairs game between the boards and managers in all of those and the bureaucracies and regulatory agencies that set policy on all issues environmental. There is huge corruption on Capitol Hill and I believe if you stacked it all up that Al Gore’s fellow travelers are if fact at the core of the richest, most pervasive, and far reaching corruption there is.

n.n
Reply to  fossilsage
March 16, 2015 3:19 pm

Not all progressives. In fact, there is a conflict between the two main factions about the misuse and misrepresentation of the facts, if perhaps not the resolution. One faction is, ironically, and poignantly “protesting” the other. The other faction calls them deniers… or was it heretics? One step forward. Two steps back.

Reply to  fossilsage
March 16, 2015 3:42 pm

Just today, our President complained about elected officials fronting for the dreaded fossil fuel industry – “in some cases, though, you have elected officials who are shills for the oil companies or the fossil fuel industry, and there’s a lot of money involved. Typically, in Congress, the committees of jurisdiction, like the energy committees, are populated by folks from places that pump a lot of oil and pump a lot of gas.”
And of course he’s right, Tom Steyer, who made his fortune in fossil fuel, promised (and did) back the campaigns of any congressional candidate who would vote against the Keystone pipeline.
Oh wait a minute, those were Democrats – never mind!

n.n
Reply to  George Daddis
March 16, 2015 5:34 pm

Probably a conflict of interest between trains and pipelines, not oil. Similar to so-called “green” technology, carbon credits, and Chinese markets. Similar in the sense of propagation of marketing tropes by special interests and their political representatives. Everything changes in secular cycles.

Myron Mesecke
March 16, 2015 3:06 pm

Well my 22 year old graduated in December with a Master’s in Environmental Engineering. She would love the music at SXSW but she would thumb her nose at Al Gore.

March 16, 2015 3:07 pm

I had no idea that Pharrell was on the team. That now makes me quite “Happy” that the Marvin Gaye family rinsed him for a few million.
http://liveearth.org/