Bilbo Baggins9:35AMJul 18th 2008

Al Gore is one of these guys like Sharpton, Jackson and others who have no visible means of earning a living, yet jet around on expensive private jets, wear designer clothes and live in huge estates. All they do is scare and intimidate people to meet their political ends that have no lasting benefit for anyone but them. Why do the zombies that follow them continue to support them. Their methods are old and have grown very tiresome.

RIChris9:38AMJul 18th 2008

GoreHouse Gases; The amount of hot air expended to make more money.

AZrsm11:02AMJul 18th 2008

AL GORE ISN'T AS DUMB AS PRESUMED ... AFTER ALL HE'S RAKING IN THE BUCKS ...GETTING RICHER THAN EVER BY SELLING THE LIBERALS/HOLLYWOOD ELITE. ALWAYS TALK AND NO ACTION WITH THE LEFT ... ANOTHER HYPOCRIT THAT SIMPLY FIGURED OUT HOW TO CASH IN! WHAT A JOKE AND A JERK.

David S.11:23AMJul 18th 2008

I agree with much of your article. I don't always agree with Gore on the energy/global warming issue, as some of it is unrealistic, but I think his larger point is the country desperately needs a viable energy policy. Every administration waits until a crisis hits - gasoline prices now - and then they all scramble like cockroaches trying to rush a fix to the problem. I am not opposed to offshore drilling, but for some conservatives to have a knee jerk reaction and act like that is going to be the savior of us all is beyond ridiculous. A common sense approach to making more fuel efficient vehicles, keep researching electric cars, etc. and folks cutting back on using gasoline is about all that can be done in the short term. Yet both presidential candidates pander on this issue and it is getting obnoxious. God forbid either of them would tell us the cold hard truth: that high gasoline prices are here to stay.

Jim12:50PMJul 18th 2008

Private citizens do not, as your headline claims, set "US goal"

Is it not the case that this environmental "leader" consumed WAY more power than average BEFORE his lead was implemented ib his own house and it went UP (I heard a 10% increase) when he "walked his talk". Guidance like that we do not need.

Didn't Bush have a higher GPR than Gore and then went to beat Gore at his own game (check who lives in the White House) So whos lead should be followed?

BTW: Criteria of the AFSC Nobel Peace Prize Nominating Committee:
1. The candidate’s commitment to nonviolent methods.
2. The quality of the candidate as a person and of her/his sustained contribution to peace.
3. The candidate’s work on issues of peace, justice, human dignity, and the integrity of the environment.
4. The candidate’s possession of a world view and/or global impact as opposed to a parochial concern.

Nothing at all about being right... All else is vanity znd NOT veracity.

Splash1:09PMJul 18th 2008

Global Warming. What a sham. Maybe the world is warming, maybe it isn't. One thing is warming though and that is the desire of those salivating at the mouth over the creation of a whole new way to transfer, create and increase wealth.

Al Gore is a huge polluter, but he makes himself "feel" better by buying carbon credits. What a farce. That's like justifying a murder by having a kid.

Cap and trade companies are getting in gear and lining up much the same way many hotels are already wired for the one armed bandits should their states pass laws allowing casinos.

Cap and trade doesn't help meet any significant goals; we just pay for the right to emit. Pretty soon we would be running a carbon deficit the same as we run a budget deficit. It's the American way.

If you are going to regulate CO2 emissions then you have to regulate Methane and Water Vapor, by far the two greatest and most efficient of the heat trapping gases. Pretty soon we will have a meter on everyone's asses going cha-ching every time they fart.

I was reading what I call the script to Al Gore's Oscar winning documentary. The script goes under a different title: The Complete Idiot's Guide To Global Warming. It contains so much SPECULATION that global warming is man made and so many alternate NATURAL causes for climate change (Nature is a much more likely culprit; since she has warmed and cooled the world before).

Every one of these alternative natural causes hit the editing room floor before An Inconvenient Truth hit the big screen. Libs (and Al is one of the biggest) want mankind (and America, specifically) to be at fault. It gives them something to save us from, another reason to be and more money to steal, um, I'm sorry, redirect (into their pockets).

Here is Al's problem (and the reason for his challenge). He needs us to get this done within a decade because if it takes any longer and the world continues to cool like it has over the last decade then it will be lights out for Al. He will no longer have the scientific backing to support his theory that mankind can either cause or stop Mother Nature's fury by simple drastic change in our habits. Maybe Al will write a sequel: The Inexcusable Lie

The Earth heats, it cools, it heats and it cools and it is extremely arrogant for us to think that our blink of a presence here can overcome or induce anything Mother Earth doesn't permit. If she wants to kill us off as a species, then we might as well start getting our affairs in order.

We would be better off planning to shield ourselves from the impact of the sun with this new artificial cloud than altering our habits in the slightest.

If America shut down tomorrow, didn't turn on so much as another light bulb, start another car, burn one more blip of fossil fuel and stopped passing gas (that was an direct reference to Al & congress) we would not impact in the slightest the actions of the other 5.8 billion people on this planet who will continue to fart whenever they feel like it.

The other 5.8 billion may be too smart to fall for global warming as we saw at the last G-8 summit. Sacrificing the world economy is just not worth acting on, at best, a supposition and, at worst, an intentional fabrication proffered by the noble nobel.

Man, is it hot in here.

Pete1:33PMJul 18th 2008

Mark,

I read the article you linked to regarding the lowering of temperatures, and I think I have figured out why he didn't cite it in his presentation. To help illustrate the point, I'll provide some select quotes from the passage.

"[T]his year's temperatures would still be way above the average - and we would soon exceed the record year of 1998 because of global warming induced by greenhouse gases."

"The WMO points out that the decade from 1998 to 2007 was the warmest on record."

"Since the beginning of the 20th Century, the global average surface temperature has risen by 0.74C."

I clicked on this article hoping to find evidence that Gore (and the vast majority of scientists) is wrong when it comes to global warming, but I found no such thing. Instead, I basically found a treatise on the tangibility of global warming. As supported in the article, and even with the brief cooling trend, temperatures remain higher than they were a decade ago (1997).

The most poignant part of the article came about half way through.

"A minority of scientists question whether this means global warming has peaked and argue the Earth has proved more resilient to greenhouse gases than predicted."

I particularly enjoy the use of language here. Note how this "minority of scientists" still essentially acknowledges that global warming is real and that it is caused by the bolus of greenhouse gasses released in reletavely recent times. What is more poignant is the fact that this passage and particular quote lend no credence at all to global warming being a myth. The only thing to be gleaned from it is an as-of-yet unteted hypothesis that states human caused global warming might not be as bad as models predict.

Overall though, I am left wondering why you cited this article to begin with. I anticipated that it would be for a "gotcha" moment, but that isn't the case here.

Mark Impomeni2:50PMJul 18th 2008

Pete,

I cited that article primarily becuase it is from a trusted news organization. The bias of the article and the language chosen to describe the phenomonon is evident. However, finding a mainstream media organization article that depicts the growing belief that global warming is not all it is cracked up to be is a difficult task.

Be that as it may, the very fact that the global average temperature has not increased in the last ten years should get you to thinking. If temps have declined or even held steady at a time when environmentalists like Al Gore are pleading with the world to cut back on greenhouse gas emissions, what does that say about the underlying theory that man is causing global warming? In my estimation, it shows that man is not the primary cause of the warming, if it is occurring.

Man's activities have not changed considerably since 1998. Greenhouse gases are still emitted, fossil fuels are burned in ever increasing amounts, and environemtalists tell us that the situation is getting worse. But, curiously, the temperature stopped going up in 1998, the year when the last El Nino warming of the southern equatorial Pacific ended. If man was the cause of global warnming, shouldn't global temperatures have continued going upward for the last decade?

Thanks for reading and commenting.

Sincerely,

Mark Impomeni

bgatlake3:18PMJul 18th 2008

When is Gore going to practice what he preaches? ? I have a little house and no money to travel. I'm doing my part. Why does he want me to suffer while he flies high?

Splash3:25PMJul 18th 2008

Pete -

I know you want to believe that Global Warming is caused by mankind.

I know you want to believe that when Mark says "A Minority of scientist ..." that "The only thing to be gleaned from it [Mark's statement] is an as-of-yet is an as-of-yet unte[s]ted hypothesis that states human caused global warming might not be as bad as models predict" when, in reality, man-caused global warming itself is still but a theory accepted as fact with very little substantive evidence other, "Well, it IS warming."

You know, pre-1500, only a very small "minority of scientists" believed that the Earth revolved around the sun and that if you ventured out over the horizon, your vessel fell off the edge of a flat Earth.

How can the climate cool over the last decade and still be hotter than 1997? That just doesn't make any sense.

Mother nature may wipe us out as a species somewhere down the line, but Americans have much more important and immediate things to worry about, like paying the mortgage, the high price of gas (and, thus, everything else), Iranian nukes (now there's your global nightmare) and, of course, voting for their favorite American Idol contestant.

Seriously, America doesn't care. Just look at how few comments get posted to "green" stories like this one vs stories asking about Obama's Muslim background or Jesse Jackson's jealousy or how (in)correct Jimmy Carter was or, even better, remember the story "I Grabbed Chelsea's Ass"? All of these had well over 25 pages of comments within a day. WITHIN A DAY!

This one has been up since yesterday and has 8 (including this long winded waste of 10 minutes).

Pete, so much of what you have written in the past has been right on, but global warming is where you and I part ways. Proof from a core of scientist SUPPORTED and RELIANT on liberal politicians to investigate and provide support for a big part of the liberal agenda is like accepting a study from RJ Reynolds that concludes that nicotine is not addictive and mandating every citizen to start smoking now.

NATURALLY active volcanoes, NATURALLY ignited forest fires and NATURALLY dying plant life and NATURALLY breathing mammals are the NATURAL cause of most warming (and cooling) that a NATURALLY potent Mother Nature allows us NATURAL insignificant blips on the radar screen of time to stand in awe of.

Anything else is just liberal political propaganda intended to scare us into thinking the sky is falling and that we had better fork over trillions of dollars to Gore's Cap and Trade or the failing, fledgling alternative energy industry buddies ... or else.

I'm surprised at you, Pete. You usually can flush out a sham like global warming.

Pete3:43PMJul 18th 2008

Mark,

To disagree, I do not see the miniscule decline of global average temperature to be much more than a blip on the radar. Despite occasional fluctuations and spikes, the overall temperature trend over time continues to show a gradual warming. As I alluded to in my previous post, temperatures spiked in 1998 and have dropped slightly in the previous year, but such a changes are not indicative of any sort of trend.

It is important to stress that, even with the recent drop, global temperatures continue to be at or in excess of current global warming models. In fact, there have been fluctuations throughout the entire warming period, but a warming trend is unmistakable. There are any number of individual years in the past that a person could have called out as evidence of the myth of global warming, but each one of those moments was no more than a momentarily wobble on the upward pointing arrow.

In all honesty, I fail to see how you can equate a spike in temperature in the late 90's with a subsequent return to expected temperature levels in the late 00's to be the Achilles Heel of Global Climate Change science. In fact, I don't know how any credible scientist would take a trend over ten years, pluck it from its context, and hail his findings as irrefutable proof that the current thinking is flawed.

It is here where I would ask where your skeptism of Climate Change Science stems from. Do you disagree with the methodology and consensus of the IPCC findings, which emphatically claim global warming is real and assigne a very high level of certainty that it is caused by human actions? Or is it that you instead dislike how some people, such as Gore, would use the science as a method for instituting social, economic, and political reform?

Pete3:55PMJul 18th 2008

Splash,

I believe the IPCC Working Group Reports are the most comprehensive and reputable take on the current state og climate change science that exists today. This source is what I base my conjecture on. I want to stress that I do not get my scientific information from either Al Gore or a cadre of liberal politicians.

To be honest, I think that to charge the IPCC of being in the pocket of "Big Solar" and "Big Cap-and-Trade" is a bit silly.

Mark Impomeni4:02PMJul 18th 2008

Pete,

Good questions there. Let me take them one by one.

"I do not see the miniscule decline of global average temperature to be much more than a blip on the radar. Despite occasional fluctuations and spikes, the overall temperature trend over time continues to show a gradual warming."

This is not much in doubt. Although I will note that temperature recording devices and locations were vastly different in say the 1700s then they are today. I find it difficult to compare temperature data across such large technological time spans.

But the question is not whether it is getting warmer. I'll conceed that point to a degree. The quesiton is: Is man the cause? This is where the rubber meets the road, because it stands to reason that if man did not cause it, man cannot stop it.

"There are any number of individual years in the past that a person could have called out as evidence of the myth of global warming, but each one of those moments was no more than a momentarily wobble on the upward pointing arrow."

And there are any number of years of warm temperatures from before man evolved that were even hotter than today. Again, focus not on the temperature but what is causing it.

"In fact, I don't know how any credible scientist would take a trend over ten years, pluck it from its context, and hail his findings as irrefutable proof that the current thinking is flawed."

I answer with a question: How is this any different than what global warming activists are doing today?

"Do you disagree with the methodology and consensus of the IPCC findings, which emphatically claim global warming is real and assigne a very high level of certainty that it is caused by human actions? Or is it that you instead dislike how some people, such as Gore, would use the science as a method for instituting social, economic, and political reform?"

Good that you said "consensus" and not conclusions becuase there certainly were no scientific conclusions in that report. I know nothing of the methodology.

Yes I object to the social, political, and economic changes that politicians and activists like Al Gore want to enforce with scant little evidence that any of it will be effective or is even justified. I find it just a little more than coincidental that all of the approved methods of dealing with global warming happen to line up almost exactly with preferred liberal and socialist policy goals that have been sought since before scientists were convinced that a new ice age was coming in the early 70s (remember that?). I also find it curious that all of the reports of the consequences of global warming tell of catastrophies to come. There is no mention of potential benefits, such as expanded growing seasons and greater crop yields. And I question why, if man is causing warming, every single reference to it contains a notation that at some point in the far past it was much warmer without humans being even a twinkle in God's eye.

Thanks for reading and commenting.

Sincerely,

Mark Impomeni

Jake4:08PMJul 18th 2008

There's alot of energy in nuclear power but Uranium is in ever greater demand with shrinking supply. Reliance on nuclear power will just recreate the situation we're in nnow with oil, except that we'd tons of radioactive waste to deal with. Why risk another 3-mile Island or Chernobyl when it's a temporary fix at best?

Peggy4:23PMJul 18th 2008

I don't have the knowledge to know whether or not global warming is fact or fiction. However, it's obvious that Gore believes it is fact. Based on this, it would be nice if he would put his money where his mouth is. He could set a wonderful example for our country and all of mankind if he moved to a small house and used only solar and wind power for energy. Rather than fly around the country, he could drive an electric car, also recharged using solar and wind power. He could use his savings to finance a company that would develop the needed technology to reduce our current energy comsumption in five years or less. He could also finance and chair a committee to develop a way to dispose of nuclear waste safely so we could make better use of existing nuclear power plants. Talk is cheap although Gore has managed to make a lot of money from it. Now it's time for him to take some kind of action to support his theories.

Mike Sanders6:27PMJul 18th 2008

It seems like Al Gore is trying to make HIS mark in history... His arguments are specious, as well as, unrealistic. If he really cared, he'd remove AL GORE from the equation, set a good personal example and come up with feasible answers. I love solar energy! I've invested in ESLR, LDK and other companies, but I am not so simple and naive as to believe that these will totally replace fossil fuels, ever. There will always be a need for legacy systems, even when we DO get solar, wind and geo-t, going strong. What would we fall back on? Consider what occurered in 1980... Mt. St. Helen's erupted and there was a cloud of ash, which reduced the intensity of sunlight, for months. Do we go 100% into anything? Heck NO! Never burn your bridges, especially when it could become a very, very cold and dark winter. Al is a dreamer and that's OK, so long as people realize this... John Lennon was a dreamer, but "imagination" doesn't wash with reality. It's good to have good ideals and work toward better solutions, but it's the realists who will keep your butt warm, so that you can dream in comfort. If you work your way up, through the realistic factors, then I'll respect your dreams, but if they come into conflict with established realities, then I will perhaps, smoke a joint with you and talk, but don't expect me to invest any REAL money in your ideas. Al Gore has not earned the place of respect, in this field. He may beleive that he "invented the Internet" and a whole lot of other things, but what he's really trying to invent is AL GORE. Sorry, but not with my money. I feel sorry for him, but I cannot allow that to direct anything very serious... Like I said, I might discuss this with him, over a joint, but when it's time to work, Al will have to go home.

Splash9:47PMJul 18th 2008

Pete -

I don't think you know what the IPCC does. It does not conduct research and doesn't monitor the climate. It compiles research that is done by others. It decides what research it accepts and what research it rejects.

For example, it clearly rejects claims by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Key Biscayne, Fla. that "storm activity is not necessarily higher than in previous high-activity years. It's just where they are going." while accepting claims by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo that "There is no doubt that climate is changing and humans are partly responsible."

The IPCC is funded primarily by the United Nations, an organization that is widely considered to be corrupt, weak and highly interested in the redistribution of global wealth.

Everything you site is in Al Gore's mockumentary and his script "The Complete Idiot's Guide To Global Warming" because both primarily site the IPCC.

From Wikipedia, "A main activity of the IPCC is publishing special reports on topics relevant to the implementation of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC),[2] an international treaty that acknowledges THE POSSIBILITY of harmful climate change; implementation of the UNFCCC led eventually to the Kyoto Protocol. The IPCC bases its assessment mainly on peer reviewed and published scientific literature."

The UNFCCC was written at the Earth Summit in 1992 where the outcome of the convention was a forgone conclusion, decided long before the dignitaries gathered. It lead to the Kyoto Treaty which has had many problems with execution and inequity between CO2 emitters, whether global warming is man made or not. Those same disagreements recently resulted in a less than encouraging accord (to liberals anyway) by the G8.

Those scientist whose research is accepted by the IPCC, all of it in support of human caused global warming are funded, primarily with liberal monies. Conservatives, as you will admit, are not interested in funding research on this farce. Libs are. If it were not for the libs in congress and jealous countries around the world there would be no IPCC nor would the UN be pushing world politics against Western interests. The sham of man made global warming is now a big part of that push.

The UN, the IPCC and an anti-freedom world looks to take down the West and the freedom it propagates and that starts with America. They know this cannot cannot be done militarily, but by slowly chipping away at capitalism, wealth can be transfered by changing its source and destination - where it comes from and where it goes to.

This is the ultimate goal of a global government where the majority of voting nations are enemies of the West. Al Gore (and the IPCC) are but pieces of their puzzle. Al is a good pawn and that make him the complete idiot to whom the title of his mockumentary's script is referring.

Pete, don't get get sucked into to this global vacuum. You must break free. We need all the intelligent soldiers we can muster to beat these theives back.

Splash10:24PMJul 18th 2008

Mark -

Every answer you gave Pete was right on. However, I have to disagree with your assessment that if we did not cause global warming, we cannot stop it, unless you meant we cannot stop global warming by changing our habits.

Technology is working on several ways to artificially cool the earth should mother nature try to kill us. One of the most promising is the construction of an artificial cloud (window tinting, if you will) constructed in space that can be opened and closed in 2' x 2' sections to shade the Earth from solar activity.

It is no surprise that the global warming community completely opposes this high tech solution. Their reason: unintended consequences of cooling our warming world. So, basically, we should fix it their way or die.

You can't win with these people.

THE AUDACITY OF OBAMA\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\11:00PMJul 18th 2008

THE WASHINGTON POST

“The Audacity of Vanity”
By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, July 18, 2008; A17

Barack Obama wants to speak at the Brandenburg Gate. He figures it would be a nice backdrop. The supporting cast -- a cheering audience and a few fainting frauleins -- would be a picturesque way to bolster his foreign policy credentials.

What Obama does not seem to understand is that the Brandenburg Gate is something you earn. President Ronald Reagan earned the right to speak there because his relentless pressure had brought the Soviet empire to its knees and he was demanding its final "tear down this wall" liquidation. When President John F. Kennedy visited the Brandenburg Gate on the day of his "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech, he was representing a country that was prepared to go to the brink of nuclear war to defend West Berlin.

Who is Obama representing? And what exactly has he done in his lifetime to merit appropriating the Brandenburg Gate as a campaign prop? What was his role in the fight against communism, the liberation of Eastern Europe, the creation of what George Bush the elder -- who presided over the fall of the Berlin Wall but modestly declined to go there for a victory lap -- called "a Europe whole and free"?

Does Obama not see the incongruity? It's as if a German pol took a campaign trip to America and demanded the Statue of Liberty as a venue for a campaign speech. (The Germans have now gently nudged Obama into looking at other venues.)

Americans are beginning to notice Obama's elevated opinion of himself. There's nothing new about narcissism in politics. Every senator looks in the mirror and sees a president. Nonetheless, has there ever been a presidential nominee with a wider gap between his estimation of himself and the sum total of his lifetime achievements?

Obama is a three-year senator without a single important legislative achievement to his name, a former Illinois state senator who voted "present" nearly 130 times. As president of the Harvard Law Review, as law professor and as legislator, has he ever produced a single notable piece of scholarship? Written a single memorable article?

His most memorable work is a biography of his favorite subject: himself.

It is a subject upon which he can dilate effortlessly. In his victory speech upon winning the nomination, Obama declared it a great turning point in history -- "generations from now we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment" -- when, among other wonders, "the rise of the oceans began to slow." As Hudson Institute economist Irwin Stelzer noted in his London Daily Telegraph column, "Moses made the waters recede, but he had help." Obama apparently works alone.

Obama may think he's King Canute, but the good king ordered the tides to halt precisely to refute sycophantic aides who suggested that he had such power. Obama has no such modesty.

After all, in the words of his own slogan, "we are the ones we've been waiting for," which, translating the royal "we," means: " I am the one we've been waiting for." Amazingly, he had a quasi-presidential seal with its own Latin inscription affixed to his lectern, until general ridicule -- it was pointed out that he was not yet president -- induced him to take it down.

He lectures us that instead of worrying about immigrants learning English, "you need to make sure your child can speak Spanish" -- a language Obama does not speak. He further admonishes us on how "embarrassing" it is that Europeans are multilingual but "we go over to Europe, and all we can say is 'merci beaucoup.' " Obama speaks no French.

His fluent English does, however, feature many such admonitions, instructions and improvements. His wife assures us that President Obama will be a stern taskmaster: "Barack Obama will require you to work.

He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism . . . that you come out of your isolation. . . . Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed."

FOR THE FIRST FEW MONTHS OF THE CAMPAIGN, THE QUESTION ABOUT OBAMA WAS: WHO IS HE?
THE QUESTION NOW IS: WHO DOES HE THINK HE IS?

WE ARE GETTING TO KNOW. Redeemer of our uninvolved, uninformed lives. Lord of the seas. And more.

As he said on victory night, his rise marks the moment when "our planet began to heal." As I recall -- I'm no expert on this -- Jesus practiced his healing just on the sick. Obama operates on a larger canvas.

NO OBAMA --- VOTE McCAIN IN NOVEMBER!

ANYBODY-BUT-OBAMA11:23PMJul 18th 2008

THE BIASED MEDIA AND DNC "SELECTED" OBAMA --- HE WAS NOT "ELECTED" BY THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES.

IF HE HAS VISITED "57" STATES --- WILL HE VISIT "8" CONTINENTS? THE MAGAZINE COVER OF OBAMA AND HIS WIFE WAS GREAT! WE ALL NEED T-SHIRTS.

OBAMA REFUSES TO DO TOWN HALL MEETINGS — IN FRONT OF AVERAGE AMERICANS — BUT HE’LL TAKE 300 PEOPLE TO EUROPE!

LAST TIME I CHECKED — EUROPEANS CAN’T VOTE FOR OUR PRESIDENT!

ARE TAXPAYERS PAYING FOR THIS?

BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA WILL DESTROY AMERICA.

I’M VOTING FOR JOHN McCAIN IN NOVEMBER.