Former Vice President of the United States, Al Gore, needs the world to melt away.As you know, and as I wrote about a couple of weeks ago, Al Gore, with the help of his friends at Apple Computer, Inc. (where he sits on the board of directors), has recently released a film, An Inconvenient Truth. Ebert & Roeper have given the film Two Thumbs Up. I will skip the science part of the whole debate for today, and I will admit that I have not seen the film, though I intend to. What I want to point out is that Al Gore has done something utterly precarious: He has pinned his whole political life on a swirling, whirling, convecting and advective maelstrom of gas. In short, he has put his career on the line for a bunch of variables, hoping to win our plaudits by the hoped-for triumph of one constant: The planet is getting warmer.
Trust me when I say this: Al Gore is doomed if the planet begins to get cooler. He is doomed if the polar caps are indeed getting deeper in their cores as they are shrinking on their edges (as some have posited). He is doomed if November 2008 is bitterly cold, especially if September and October are cold, too. His career will be so much vapor looking for one constant particle around which to coalesce; yet if the rarefied air he hopes to coalesce in should become utterly clean of any particles, his raindrop will never form, and he shall be lost in the gases he fears.
I am not suggesting that he is wrong for being concerned about global warming, or that humans impact the environment in often grotesque proportions. I am saying that he is wrong for politicizing this whole "crisis", this "planetary emergency", as he calls it.
But what I am really saying is that the Democratic National Party is doomed for the exact same reasons. You see, they have embraced Gore's "science" completely: They have endorsed his view and made it a plank in the Democratic Party's weather observation deck. Gore is The Man right now, and he has got to be relishing the attention. Egads, he was even The Man at the Cannes Film Festival.
Yesterday I received this email titled "Gore-bashing" from Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean. Let me remind you that Democrats repeatedly refer to the Republican leadership as "fearmongers". Here's the email:
Dear Fellow Democrat,
Hurricane season has arrived -- and two fresh studies point to a link between global warming and an increase in the number and power of storms like Hurricane Katrina.
What are Republicans doing about it? They're smearing former Vice President Al Gore.
One right-wing pundit compared Gore to Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propagandist. Another right-winger, who's been on the payroll of corporate special interests, likened Gore's pursuit of solutions to global warming to Adolf Hitler's pursuit of genocide.
I'm sending Al a note this week telling him to keep fighting, to keep standing up for the truth no matter how vicious the attacks. I thought he might like to hear from you, too. …
Facts are facts. Global warming is happening, and it threatens our very existence. But it also presents a historical opportunity to rise above politics and act boldly. Despite right-wing efforts to silence him, Al Gore has articulated one of the great moral challenges of our time and tried to move people to act.
This should not be a political issue. We need a conversation about climate change and its consequences. But special interests in Washington have a tight grip on the Republican leadership, and an entire network of corporate-funded front groups has emerged to deny reality and attack the messenger.
They hope that scorched-earth political tactics will cover up the reality that the scientific debate is one they've already lost.
Vice President Al Gore deserves our thanks for his courage and leadership. …
Did you know the National Academy of Sciences joined academies in the other G8 countries last year by concluding that global warming requires "prompt action"? Or that insurance companies are fleeing coastlines and charging huge premiums to avoid taking more losses from massive hurricanes? How about the fact that climate researchers have a new worry: that we could cross a tipping point that sends sea levels rising by 20 feet by the end of the century?
If you didn't know, that's by design. Corporate special interests are deeply invested in keeping us hooked to the status quo -- high gas prices, inefficiency, and dependence on foreign oil.
That's why last year, in the middle of a record-breaking hurricane season, Republicans in Congress and the White House gave oil companies $6 billion -- even as those companies ran away with the largest corporate profits in American history. And that's why we still have yet to see the Bush administration stand up and do anything to stop global warming.
Enough is enough, and people know it. Al Gore is demonstrating exactly the kind of courage and moral clarity that Democrats will bring when we take back Congress and win elections up and down the ballot this year.
The inconvenient truth is that global warming exists -- and thanks to Al Gore, it's now more likely that America will come together and do something about it.
Sincerely,
Governor Howard Dean, M.D.
And, according Dr. Dean, here are the two offensive quotes regarding Mr. Gore:
CitationsNow, I have no idea who Sterling Burnett (?) or Bill Gray are, but to Dr. Dean, this amounts to an all-out right-wing attack on Al Gore. And if you don't think that Dr. Dean's letter suggests that the Democrats have politicized this issue, then recall with me what happened May 31 when a group of concerned citizens protested outside the headquarters of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Hurricane Center. What was their beef (excuse the references to methane)? That NOAA has been "covering up the growing scientific link between severe hurricanes and global warming." And NOAA is doing this in a gross conspiracy along with the Bush Administration and EXXON! Don't believe me? Then read this statement from the protest's organizers. It is clear that the protesters are not members of the Republican Party.
"You don't go see Joseph Goebbels' films to see the truth about Nazi Germany. You don't go see Al Gore's films to see the truth about global warming."
--Sterling Burnett, DaySide, Fox News, May 23, 2006.
"Gore believed in global warming almost as much as Hitler believed there was something wrong with the Jews."
--Bill Gray, as quoted in The Washington Post Magazine, May 28, 2006.
(Let me point out that real scientists would not say that there is a "growing scientific link" between anything. There is an alleged "climatological, meterological" link or "growing atmospheric-chemical" link. But a "growing scientific link"? That's middle school stuff.)
And lastly, look at this from the Democratic National Committee. It pretty much proves what the Democrats have in mind.
***
Why has Al Gore hitched his wagon to a melting polar ice cap? Simple. It is a perfectly hot topic right now, and it is perfectly ambiguous. It is the sort of scientific "fact" that can be used for glorious political gain, because it is one that has the appearance of certitude and yet is, by all honest accounts, a field of broad uncertainty. Moreover, Al Gore has hitched his wagon to so much gas because he wants to distance himself from "Big Oil", you know, the REAL source of global warming and the impending calamity. And the Democrats have hitched themselves to the very same vapors.
THAT is why they desperately need the planet to get hotter, at least for a couple of more years. They need the calamity in order to save not only all of us, but all of them. They need the planet to melt so badly they can see water already rising in New York. They are so knee deep in it that they might just propose putting life jackets in voting booths.
It is a bit of a joke when we hear Democrats insist that this "crisis" should not be a partisan issue. Of course it should: The Democrats have made it one. They are the real scientists after all, a fact well-established now that they've shown the Republicans to be all about Intelligent Design (which is about the philosophy of science, the very foundations of it, and not about science per se; which is a fact lost on critics of Intelligent Design). And it is the Democrats, long critics of Big Oil, who have laid the blame for most of the global warming on that giant industry.
Of course, there is great irony watching all those liberals, so concerned about global warming, flying over to Cannes to watch Al Gore's film. Gore also scarred the sky in a trans-Atlantic crossing. And now he flies around the globe, telling us all that the atmosphere is fragile and is becoming our enemy.
An Inconvenient Truth is exactly that.
Peace.
©Bill Gnade 2006/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.
Al Gore photograph courtesy of CBS News (via Google photos)
Technorati tags: Al Gore, Global Warming, Climate Change, An Inconvenient Truth, Environment, Democratic Party, Democrats, Howard Dean, DNC, Big Oil
THAT is why they desperately need the planet to get hotter, at least for a couple of more years. They need the calamity in order to save not only all of us, but all of them. They need the planet to melt so badly they can see water already rising in New York. They are so knee deep in it that they might just propose putting life jackets in voting booths.
It is a bit of a joke when we hear Democrats insist that this "crisis" should not be a partisan issue. Of course it should: The Democrats have made it one. They are the real scientists after all, a fact well-established now that they've shown the Republicans to be all about Intelligent Design (which is about the philosophy of science, the very foundations of it, and not about science per se; which is a fact lost on critics of Intelligent Design). And it is the Democrats, long critics of Big Oil, who have laid the blame for most of the global warming on that giant industry.
Of course, there is great irony watching all those liberals, so concerned about global warming, flying over to Cannes to watch Al Gore's film. Gore also scarred the sky in a trans-Atlantic crossing. And now he flies around the globe, telling us all that the atmosphere is fragile and is becoming our enemy.
An Inconvenient Truth is exactly that.
Peace.
©Bill Gnade 2006/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.
Al Gore photograph courtesy of CBS News (via Google photos)
Technorati tags: Al Gore, Global Warming, Climate Change, An Inconvenient Truth, Environment, Democratic Party, Democrats, Howard Dean, DNC, Big Oil
4 comments:
It's ironic that all these environmentalists and politicians turned film makers with a conscience want to mess and interfere with nature. I have some questions: If the earth was cooling what would be the demands? What happens if we superficially succeed in cooling the earth, how do we control the degrees? How do we know for a FACT that we know what CAUSES global warming. All I see are pop culture celebrities backed up by science that may not even be empirically verified. Given this, maybe it's time to ask questions - the other way. Alas, the minute one does they are chastised for doin so. It's not a zero-sum game, Mr. Ebert. I want a TRUE debate on the matter. That means all these actors shuld step aside - that means you too Bono. Let the real scientists and climatologists speak. Ah, wait. They may not have anything interesting to say. Gallileo and Newton must be freaking out.
Hi Bill.
'An Inconvenient Truth' is coming to the Colonial Theater some time in the next month or so. We should go see it together, as we previously viewed 'Fahrenheit 9/11' in tandem. Maybe we can breathe some secondhand smoke together at Kilkenny's afterward.
I'm going to see the film for an amoral (some would say immoral) reason; I want to see the thrilling footage of glaciers falling apart, icebergs melting, immense cliffs of snow falling through the air; all that good stuff.
As W.H. Auden once pointed out, all poets love scenes of diaster, calamity. Even when they shed tears over a plane crash or a hurricane's aftermath, they can't help thinking: "how beautiful it all is!" If New Hampshire becomes, as some have predicted, the site of massive hurricanes in the next few years, my ability to shed tears and simultaneously continue to appreciate that beauty will certainly be tested.
I'll let you know when Gore blows into town. I hope the gust of hot air isn't too underwhelming.
Luke
P.S.--I couldn't find the exact Auden quote I referred to, but I did find a different one that I like very much, which I'll share with you here:
"Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can: all of them make me laugh."--W.H. Auden
Yes, yes, let's go see Gore on the big screen (is there really enough room for him up there?)! But we'll have to steal in through the backdoor: it will be hard for me to contribute cash to Mr. Gore. But, if I MUST pay, I will. Plus, I will have to walk the 22 miles to get to the theater, as I don't want to abuse nature's resources. So I may not even be in the mood to pay to see a film. But I will pay two-fold if the Colonial is going to use renewable energy to power the high-arc xenon bulb in its film projector. And I will pay three-fold if Mr. Gore's movie was delivered to Keene in a hybrid UPS truck and the celluloid film is not a petrochemical product. I think the whole enterprise makes sense if it is solar-powered from head-to-toe.
The second Auden quote is breathtaking. Thank you for sharing it.
It is nice to have you here, dear Luke. How are you faring? I pray that all is well with you, and that grace abounds in Buckhamton.
Peace,
BG
Hi Bill.
I feel good knowing that my pilgrimage to the theater will be less ecologically impactful than yours, since I live less than a half-mile from the Colonial. I will be sure to begin filling you with guilt upon the moment we meet--not with mere words, mind you, but with a beatific countenance that will communicate devastating superiority. In fact, perhaps you should take a seat on the lower floor of the theater, while I pelt you with organically grown peanuts from the safety of the balcony.
Actually, the film reel was delivered to the theater via hang-glider. It was a delicate procedure, wonderfully executed. And instead of conventional film, the movie was imprinted on Saltine crackers, which have to be handled very carefully when being slid across the movie projector. Arguments against some of the Saltine Cracker company's production methods have held up transport in some areas. It's all very exciting.
If we attend the film on a Sunday evening, there's a good chance that a friend of mine who's employed by the theater will let us in for free; otherwise, we may have to stiff-arm the ticket-takers. I'll block for you on the way in; you can block for me on the way out, if there's any trouble.
Happily subsisting on dandelions,
LukeB
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