What Happened To "Global Warming"? You Know.

It's been reported that Al Gore and his friends have invested billions of dollars into "green energy" futures. A mere $50 billion or so. Like most eager investors, Al Gore and friends hope to make a renewable and sustainable killing.

Everyone who has visited this site should know that I have long been a global warming skeptic. I am not "anti-science." To the contrary, I am pro-science. I just have balked, as you know, at the non causa pro causa fallacies on which Al Gore's campaign has been based. Mr. Gore, it seems to me, is anti-science and anti-rational. Blind to the irony, Mr. Gore is a part of the very assault on reason he decries in his book, The Assault on Reason.

If you find yourself skeptical of the "science" of global warming, oops, excuse me, climate change, then know that you are in pretty good company. Kimberley A. Strassel spells it all out for you in a very encouraging essay in today's Wall Street Journal. Please read "The Climate Change Climate Change."

What I want to know is this: Where is the outrage?

Once again: THEY ARE LYING TO YOU. It is their wont.

How Unexpected! (This Changes Everything)

There can be no better word to describe Al Gore's (shocking?) endorsement of Barack Obama than 'convenient.' Scratch that. Maybe there is a better word, but I can't publish it here.

The image at left was forwarded to my email by the Obama campaign, undoubtedly intended to inspire me. And it does: Emerging from the great ozone hole in the sky, Al Gore waves to us from the deep blue (no doubt having just witnessed Barack Obama's transfiguration), urging us to follow him in the wake of his great epiphany. Or maybe just follow him in his wake. Either way, it is reassuring to learn, at least it's supposed to be, that Al Gore is 'with' us -- with you and me.

And I am tickled to inspiration by the heady remarks found in Mr. Gore's press release; I can hear Mr. Gore intone even now:

'Over the past 18 months, Barack Obama has united a movement.'

(That's a direct quote; I do not lie. Isn't that the funniest thing you've ever read?)

Mr. Gore may be the infallible prophet warning us of imminent climate change, but he also might be profiting, or at least he hopes to, from the eminent political climate change augured by Mr. Obama's candidacy. Clearly Mr. Gore has found 'change' he can believe in.

Like another God, he, and Barack Obama, are 'with us.'

©Bill Gnade 2008/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

On Politics: When The Man Deceives: A Video For Destruction (Part 1)

A couple of weeks ago, during a conversation I was having with someone I love, I completely caved in: I crumbled under peer pressure. It is not the sort of thing I confess lightly; there is an element of shame to it all. But confess it I must, because I was lying, not only to my interlocutor, but to myself. 

The topic was Mr. Al Gore. I had made the point that Mr. Gore has built something of a mythology around his life's work: he has pointed out dangers that threaten us all, and yet he, blithely and blindly, is part of those very dangers. If Al Gore warns us of global warming, he does so from the Cannes Film Festival, the yacht-littered theater orgy of the world's richest and most indulgent polluters. If he warns us of corporate control of information, he does so without telling us that he sits† on the boards of Google and CurrentTV, both of which "control" more information in an hour than Rupert Murdoch "controls" in a month or perhaps even in a decade. And if he warns us of the great threat that unreason has on our culture, he does so in a manner that can only be described as fallacious. 

In short, Mr. Gore is a dangerous man. 

But it was exactly that assertion which I denied. I had made a fairly decent case about Mr. Gore's hypocrisy without once referring to his negative and harmful influence on the culture at large; but those listening to me construed that I was averring that Mr. Gore was a man capable of doing much harm. Alas, as quickly as a cocksure disciple slinking past an accuser in a Jerusalem street, I denounced my own convictions. 

Surely, there is no pride in such cowardice. 

Mr. Gore, 1992, Waxing Eloquent About Saddam Hussein

Contratimes readers will know that I have spent much time pointing out that the current war in Iraq is not four-and-a-half years old. It is at least 16 years old. There has not been one second since Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait that the United States has not been in political and military strife with Iraq. Moreover, easily forgotten is that it was the Clinton administration that ramped up sanctions and military operations against Saddam Hussein from 1992 through January 2001 (when Messrs. Clinton and Gore left Washington). Lastly, it was during the Clinton administration, and due to Mr. Clinton's perceived abuses of Iraq, that Osama bin Laden issued his infamous 1998 fatwa, the one that led to the 9/11 atrocities. And the media, by and large, are silent about these issues: the media, nearly all of whom are, to some degree, Clinton fans and Gore idolizers, will not permit themselves to see what they helped create.

Now comes an incredible video from YouTube (originally broadcast on C-Span). The time is September 1992. Mr. Gore is the Democratic nominee for vice president; he's on the campaign trail. The video captures him at his pedantic, professorial, condescending best. But what is the topic? That's right: George H. W. Bush, Bush the First, was NOT TAKING SADDAM HUSSEIN SERIOUSLY ENOUGH. Bush the First was capitulating; Bush was weak and duplicitous; Bush was trying to appease a terrorist.

Of course, Al Gore and Bill Clinton would be tough and bold; they would sanction and subdue Saddam Hussein; they would finish the job that should have been completed in the First Gulf War.

In other words, Bill Clinton and Al Gore would stir up a hornet's nest.

I beg you: Watch the video yourself, and then write to me of my cowardly denials. And then write to the world, and tell them that you do not know Al Gore. 

Peace.

†Google is not merely a search engine: Google is also GMAIL, Google News, Blogger and YouTube. Mr. Gore also serves the board of Apple Inc.

©Bill Gnade 2007/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved. 

AnAlogy Gore-alogy: Fun With Al

As a preview to Al Gore's forthcoming book, The Assault On Reason (see my essay here), I thought it would be fun to see how readers complete the following sentence:

Al Gore writing about reason is like _______________.

OR, readers could finish this sentence:

Al Gore lecturing us about the assault on reason is a bit like ________________.

(For a few examples, you can look at the end of my essay posted Saturday, May 19, 2007.)

Invite your friends! Pass the word.

Blessings and blissings!

©Bill Gnade 2007/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

Reason Is Not So Fooled: Al Gore's New Book

I am back, and I am mad as fire ants on skin. Actually, I am merely back.

Let me ask you a few questions. If I write a book entitled Freedom From Hate: Rejecting intolerance, bigotry and prejudice, and the psycho-social constructs that protect them, wouldn't you expect me to be free of hate, intolerance, bigotry, and the psycho-social constructs that protect them? If I write a book called Loosed At Last: Self-delivery from addiction, would it be imprudent of you to ask whether I was the one photographed last week puking with Christopher Hitchens outside Circa Tabac?º What if I pen the best-selling Regular As Sunrise: 10 sure steps to overcoming diarrhea? Would it be proper of you to presume that I did not write that fine book while sitting at a desk in my bathroom?

Just asking.
_______________

If the writer of Ecclesiastes is correct, that there is a season for everything under the sun, then there is a time for scoffing, for sarcasm. A friend of mine once said that she could not embrace Christianity because there was not a single reference in the whole Bible to God laughing. One wonders what she meant: the Bible has several references to God laughing at idols, scoffing at vanities, mocking false and phony gods. In other words, there is a time for scoffing, and the time is now.

You may have already garnered from my many essays about Al Gore that I am incurably Algore-aphobic. I am very discomforted by the over-crowding inside Al Gore's head. But that is the least of my phobias. I am much more phobic that Al Gore is presenting himself to the world as deity.

Surely you have heard that Mr. Gore is about to release a new book called (I am not making this up), The Assault on Reason. No, this is not autobiography, nor is it a confession or tell-all foisted upon the world to generate sympathy for his reckless rhetoric, his own sins of the mind. Those of us paying attention find just a hint of delight, an almost arthritic mirth, in the irony of it all: Al Gore is going to pontificate on the world's flight from reason. We giggle, but with some pain: our joints rattle and grind, joints battered by years if not decades of twists and sprains and hyper-extensions earned while fighting the fallaciousness of mass hysteria, even mass opinion.

Let us recall for the moment that Al Gore's film, An Inconvenient Truth, is from credits-to-Oscar one long fallacy: the film unrelentingly confuses or, if not confuses, conflates correlation and causality in an almost insouciant non causa pro causa polemic. Of course, this is not to suggest that the conclusion is right or wrong; Mr. Gore may be infallibly correct in his conclusion that humans† are killing the planet and that the need for green living is of moral imperative. But his method is utterly irrational. His method is an assault on reason. Even his appeals to "most scientists" or "scientific consensus" are fallacious, as is his appeal to experts; both are fallacies, the former, the fallacy argumentum ad populum (or consensus gentium, the appeal to majorities), the latter, the appeal to authority.

In 1987, I had the pleasure of hanging out with Al Gore at a house party held on the edges of a tiny New Hampshire town. He was just beginning his bid for the White House; the twenty or so folks gathered in the kitchen and living room were remarkably interested in his words. But they were not sufficiently interested to give him the Democratic nomination in 1988, nor were they overly awed by him. My impression then (vague as it is now), was that the only person sufficiently awed by Mr. Gore was Mr. Gore himself.

Alas, I find he has not changed at all over the last 20 years. I also find that his current fans are giving him a pass. But since I am not a fan (nor am I at all current), he does not pass my way without receiving a jeer and a tomato (both the jeer and the tomato, by the way, are certified organic and totally carbon neutral; the jeer is also free-range). My incredulity slips into sarcasm at the idea: Mr. Gore has come to the rescue; he is going to enlighten us all to the true value and blissfulness of reason. He shall demonstrate logical perfection; he will rise above the profanum vulgus and model proper thinking. But one look at his unintentionally hilarious essay on economics from 2006 will give you a sense of Mr. Gore's vast skills in clear thinking. Perhaps my reference to that essay is unfair; perhaps lucidity is not one of reason's predicates. Perhaps muddied and abstruse prose is the crown jewel of reason. Perhaps.

The Gore Advantage

The advantage to writing a book called The Assault on Reason (TAR) is that the author instantly presents himself as the Most Reasonable Human. For surely the man who writes such a book could not be the most assaultive force on reason, could he? No, he could not. He can only be reason's protector, exemplar, purifier. He must be reason's very template.

And this is proven (I use the word the way Mr. Gore uses it) by TAR's description at Amazon. I would be remiss not to demand that you read it. Please! Go check out this most-reasonable description of this important bulwark against anti-rationalism. It is eye-opening: you will be aghast at your own benighted reasoning skills. A light will shine in your darkness, I am sure.

I just pray that the light shining in your darkness is not a bullet coursing through your incredulous head. I hope that, instead of inflicting any injury upon your lovely self, you will turn toward the light through derisive laughter. It is surely where and how I must turn. Laughter, for me, is the only reasonable alternative to suicide.* A high school friend of mine published next to his yearbook picture a veiled dig at the interminable laughter of a girl he thought he loved. He wrote, "Laughter is the air release of all one fears." But my friend was wrong. Laughter is not the release of all one fears. It is the release of all one hates. I either laugh at Al Gore or I kill myself; I either open my mouth and release my hatred or I open my cranium some other way in order to let out what I loathe. And I do loathe "Al Gore"; I hate him.ª But I do not hate Al Gore the man, the gentleman I met in 1987 or the man that holds his wife's heart. I do not hate the Al Gore loved by God. No, I hate Al Gore the commodity, the product. The merchandised. And the only passage to sanity I can find is one that demands -- for a season -- derision, mockery, scoffing, laughter. I laugh at Mr. Gore, at his absurd over-reaching.

(OK. Let me grant that there's nothing more irrational than for me to critique a book I have not yet read. I admit it is hard to read a book that is not yet even in print. But I am not sure it is unreasonable of me to make a wild prediction: In his new book, Mr. Gore is not going to be elucidating his many intellectual mistakes. Nor do I expect his book to consist of one long string of apologies. And I also do not expect Mr. Gore to admit that he is, of all people, quite eminently dis-qualified to write this book. This is a book that is, above all else, committed to promoting Al Gore.)

Al Gore's book is, like so many deeds and screeds of too many today, mere psychological projection. Mr. Gore is going to point out the sins of others not knowing (apparently) that such sins are his own. (I am reminded of what I wrote to Open Ide, a cowardly visitor to this site a few weeks ago.) And the only sins any one of us is truly expert in is the sins that are indeed our own. The Assault on Reason is a child's game of distraction: Look! What's that behind you?! Mr. Gore hopes you will ignore what is in front of your face, just so he can slink away, unchallenged, but nonetheless beloved for his commitment to "dialogue," to "reasoned conversation."

But Al Gore writing to us about reason is a bit like my lecturing Fabio on hair care. Al Gore promoting reason is not unlike Madonna promoting chastity. It's like Bill Maher telling the pope to cool down his opinions. It's a bit like Rosie O'Donnell advising Steven Wright on paradox, or Paula Abdul coaching Melinda Doolittle on how to be more vocally dynamic. It's a bit like George W. Bush giving tips to William Safire on how to pronounce nuclear (which, as we know, is just a variant spelling of unclear), or Eddie Van Halen telling André Segovia to be more subtle, or Anna Nicole Smith appearing at Fatima and urging women to remember her temperance.

In other words, Al Gore's book should be a failure before it even hits the editor's desk. Instead, it will be wildly successful.

Laugh your way to light. It's the season.

Peace and true mirth.

ºI mean this as a joke, of course. I do not know if that was Mr. Hitchens partying with me in Soho. But I do recall smashing rounds with a British atheist.

†Christianity has unflaggingly agreed with Mr. Gore since time immemorial, but with a twist. Humans are not going to destroy the planet. Humans already have destroyed the planet.

*I mean this facetiously, really.

ªMy hate is purely a rhetorical device.

©Bill Gnade 2007/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

Flashpan: Helicopters Fanning The Flames

[Second post today]

I can remember a time in America when the shout could be heard in the streets, in the cafeterias, in the lecture halls. "You can't legislate morality!" was heard everywhere, particularly in the midst of debates about sexuality and abortion. Folks who described themselves as liberal or progressive were quick to yell this into the face of any would-be conservative who dared to advocate for social and cultural change, for moderation; these progressives usually followed such ejaculations with the daring "Get your laws off my body!" or "Keep Congress -- and the religious right -- out of our bedrooms!"

Last week Al Gore took issue with all of that, as you know, and nary a progressive said a word. For Al Gore, who spoke to committees in both the House and the Senate of the US Congress in order to influence legislation, said of global warming, "This is not a political issue, it is a moral issue."

Finally it is agreed upon even by leftists: you can legislate morality. And you must.
_______________What I am about to tell readers is absolutely true.

In 1973, when the gas and oil crunch swept over the United States, there was a family in my town who had a particularly abusive father running the household. Seeing the gas crisis as an opportunity to prepare his children for a bitter and difficult future without gasoline or oil, the father made this loving decision: He would make all of his children walk to school, despite the fact that they lived on a bus route and were the last house at the edge of town. So, everyday the kids would walk, first the three miles to the grade school in the village, and then three miles to the junior high and senior high schools. They would reverse the route in the afternoon. The kids did this routine faithfully -- for years. It was for practice, for preparation.

And in his benevolence their father did what any dad would do to instill proper discipline in his children: when his work did not take him out of town (it often did), he would hop in the family station wagon and FOLLOW HIS CHILDREN TO ENSURE THEY WERE NOT GETTING RIDES TO SCHOOL.

Big Father was good at watching. It was for the good of the kids.

________________
When Al Gore says that your use of carbon fuels is a "moral issue," he might be right. He might be as right as all those who believe that homosexual marriage is a moral issue, or abortion, or embryonic stem cell research. And he might be right to want to impose a sort of moral order on our lives. But the problem is that those who impose moral order on the world from outside often do so as tyrants.

Rather than encourage voluntary moral compliance, Al Gore and his panel of unanimous peers are suggesting a forced compliance. They are suggesting a form of tyranny. It's a "moral issue," after all, and there is "no longer any argument. The debate is over."

So says Big Father.

There is no skill required to divine exactly how this all will take shape, this lordship over the masses. Why? Because Big Father is already at work, and he is working exactly like that father did in my hometown in 1973. For if we can trust RIA Novosti, a noted Russian news agency -- and there is no reason for us not to -- then we can be assured that this story is reliable. Perhaps you've already heard it; maybe you've read about it. If not, then let me get you up to date:

BRUSSELS, April 3 (RIA Novosti) - The government of Belgium's French-speaking region of Wallonia, which has a population of about 4 million, has approved a tax on barbequing, local media reported.

Experts said that between 50 and 100 grams of CO2, a so-called greenhouse gas, is emitted during barbequing. Beginning June 2007, residents of Wallonia will have to pay 20 euros for a grilling session.

The local authorities plan to monitor compliance with the new tax legislation from helicopters, whose thermal sensors will detect burning grills.

Scientists believe CO2 emissions are a major cause of global warming. [emphasis added]

There is no doubt that Big Father has moved from New Hampshire to Belgium. He is about to move over the whole world. And he will follow you in his car; he will hover over your picnic with a helicopter. He wants to watch your barbecues. To make sure YOU don't emit too much carbon. To make you pay if you do. To make you submit (islam).

This is just the beginning of madness. Grab a cup and cover your barbie. You're about to get kicked in the coals.

©Bill Gnade 2007/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

Flashpan Friday: Sparks On Anything 2

Someone might easily find fault with my last two entries, but nobody can accuse me of not trying to keep things interesting. I don't mind looking a little unbalanced, especially in a world that is largely off-kilter.
_______________

Last year, the liberal blogger and politico Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, popularly known as "Kos" and founder of "The Daily Kos", opined (and I paraphrase), "Republicans don't know how to govern and Democrats don't know how to win." Somewhere on this blog I pointed out how strange this statement was, for if Democrats know how to govern, then surely they would know how to win, which is, in truth, part of governance; since they don't know how to win, one is compelled to conclude that they cannot govern. And, conversely, if Republicans know how to win, which takes no small act of governance, then Republicans can indeed govern.

But forsooth, the great Kos received his wish in November of 2006. The Democrats won.

And now they govern like a high-school student council. It is like watching children playing a grown-ups' game. The only thing they seem particularly good at is turning everything into a convenient scandal: "It's hearing time in Washington!" Talk about a quagmire.

That the great posturing party is now in control leaves the attentive wondering whether the Democratic leadership is capable of anything other than shrieking. Well, shrieking and resolving. And more resolving, over and over.

____________

What, do YOU think, is the bottom line to all this pandering, and all these many hearings held in Washington to such fanfare? We have threats of subpoenas in a case where there can be no crime; we have hearings about the imminent end of the world if we belch forth any more carbon-dioxide. We have much bluster about the great liar in the White House; we hear much invective hurled at President Bush's competence and his gross dependence on Der Führer Rove. We hear a priori assertions that the war is lost, or that it is a war with "no cause" (I do not expect you to be able to figure that one out).

But what is the reason for all this foolishness, all these empty words, empty war resolutions, and empty warnings? What is the ultimate end of all this? In short, I believe it is the end of thought, democracy and freedom. The leaders of the Democratic Party want you to believe that the final word has been spoken, and that it is irrefutable, unquestionable, undeniable. One party knows all, thinks all, declares all. The debate is over. Bush lied and people died; the "consensus" is indubitable, and to deny it is to deny the Holocaust; the White House is secretive, cunning, and malicious through and through; the dismissal of US attorneys is proof of treason; the CIA's most beloved spy was viciously outed by a cabal of neo-con tyrants who enjoy torturing innocents "in super-duper secret torture dens at Guantanamo Bay" in a "culture of corruption," the very culture that hates injured soldiers in Building 18. These dogmas are self-evident.

But the big reason is this: Such rhetoric and puffing out of the chest, such wailing and gaveling, is all meant to make people dependent, not on themselves in Emersonian self-reliance or in the deep individualism of Protestantism, not on God or the Spirit of God, but on a group of men and women who have a donkey as their mascot. It is about the end of intellectual and spiritual freedom; it is the end of non-comformity as Americans once knew it. You must depend. You cannot choose, you cannot question. Doubt has been erased, faith is made certain. There is no more clouded glass through which we look; Al Gore and the deliverers have spoken, and all mysteries are made clear. Now, just submit! (Islam!)

Might might not make right, but hearings surely do.

Shhh! Our idols are in session. We await our orders on what to think.

___________

I can't help but refer readers to Ann Coulter's latest column. She may be coarse, she may act far too unlady-like for the fastidious fusspots among us who believe that women should behave a certain prescribed, decorous way. But I find her funny; she's a blonde-haired, long-legged, too-skinny Don Rickles with a formidable pen. She may be wrong on all counts (she isn't), she may be hyperbolic and mean, but she is not a trifle to be dismissed. In her inimitable manner (at least by me), Coulter writes

If this is how global warming devotees defend their scientific theory, it may be a few tweaks short of a scientific theory. Scientific facts are not subject to liberal bullying — which, by the way, is precisely why liberals hate science.

Not bad, Ann. You definitely gave me a good laugh with ¶8.

Peace.

©Bill Gnade 2007/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

The Moral Center Is Green

[He continues to lose.]

I see a man coming toward me, offering salvation, if I only believe, if I just have the courage. Follow me, he says, though not exactly. I have a moral to place on your shoulders; my burden is heavy as coal, as easy as a bag of fluorescent lights. Take up your carbon cross and follow me. For I have a world I want you to make colder, harder. I promise you can do this, for this is no catastrophe. It is an opportunity. The fields are white, ready for harvest. Please, follow me, and I will make you a sort of fleecer of men.

And so I go forth to make the earth cold. It is unarguably my moral duty. I am required by conscience to ensure that winters are harsher, longer; that ice caps grow and arable land is consumed by glacial creep. I fight for shorter, cooler summers; I pray the earth to slumber longer during winter's solstice and yet to speed past the summer solstice with nary a heat wave, irrespective of hemispheric balance. I shall work miracles.

I am an equipped warrior: I have my word of truth -- the holy word of inconvenient truth -- infused with the infallible and inerrant words of science's best minds, minds that have gathered in great councils, dividing truth from all that isn't. I have my switch plate of righteousness that runs directly to my solar panels; the holy wind rushes through my windmills, and tongues of fire no longer lick at my carbon-smeared furnace. I wear the helmet of carbon sequestration. My feet are shod with the good news of hybridism.

Permit me, please, to cite only one passage of my new holy canon, prophetic in its precision:

'The harbinger of change shall come as Prius* -- which means before -- drawn from the legal term, nisi prius (unless before):"unless before the day appointed (nisi prius) the judges shall come ... (which they always do) and there try the cause."† The judges indeed are coming.' (AIT 6:6-9)

I walk with the cool, controlled sun in my face, and the carbon-neutral magisterium at my back. I cannot falter, for I have courage. I look with faith to the hills and see from whence my turbine help comes; I walk through the valley of the shadow of heat-death, and I cast the shadow aside.

(Blessed indeed are the carbon-pure in spirit, for they shall see their god shivering on a carbon-neutral street.)

But these streets are paved with green.

Peace.

©Bill Gnade/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

*The Toyota Prius is a popular hybrid car. Owners consider this a carbon offset; though they do this, of course, without ever asking if Toyota uses MORE carbon fuel to manufacture and deliver the car.

†I happened to find this quote at the Free Dictionary after searching for the definition of "prius." I thought the passage perfectly apt for a satirical look at the religious fervor associated with much, if not most, environmental activism.

What A Different President Thinks

(It is maybe a bad sign that this is my fourth post today. Who knows? But I feel so strongly about what I buried in Post #2 that I cut and pasted it here. It's that important.)

Perhaps you have heard or read what the Czech President Vaclav Klaus has said in the past few days. President Klaus is ringing a different alarm. According to the Prague Daily Monitor, Klaus has written to the US Congress warning that "the biggest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy and prosperity at the beginning of the 21st century is not communism or its various softer forms." The biggest threat is "ambitious environmentalism." Klaus wrote:

"[I am] really concerned about the way the environmental topics have been misused by certain political pressure groups to attack fundamental principles underlying free society. …While discussing climate we are not witnessing a clash of views about the environment but a clash of views about human freedom. …the free and spontaneous evolution of mankind by a sort of central, now global, planning of the whole world."

But I need to quote even more of this fine article for our purposes here:

"[Klaus] noted that this ideology wants to replace 'the free and spontaneous evolution of mankind by a sort of central, now global, planning of the whole world.'

"Its followers, Klaus added, consider 'their ideas and arguments to be an undisputable truth' and use sophisticated methods of media manipulation to exert pressure on politicians to achieve their goals.

"Klaus claimed that the environmentalists' argumentation is based on the spreading of fear and panic, and in this atmosphere they continue pushing politicians to adopt 'illiberal measures, impose arbitrary limits, regulations, prohibitions, and restrictions on everyday human activities and make people subject to omnipotent bureaucratic decision-making.'

"Klaus also said that environmentalists 'neglect the fact that both nature and human society are in a process of permanent change,' that there is and has been no ideal state of the world, and they ignore the future economic and technological progress."

I find all of this philosophically fascinating. I wonder if you do too.

Peace.

©Bill Gnade 2007/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

Important links relevant to this discussion: The Wizard, fkap (interesting story!); The Reference Frame (Klaus transcript!); Randall Sherman (hysterical!) [Nice job all!]

On Politics And Global Warming: What You Might Not Have Read

In preparing for today's entries on the global warming buzz, I happened upon this transcript posted at Rush Limbaugh's website. I did not go to Mr. Limbaugh's site intentionally; a Google search led me there, and I am glad it did.

Perhaps you read that James Hansen, a director at NASA, testified at yesterday's climate change hearings held by the US House Committee on Energy and Commerce. Mr. Hansen has relentlessly reported that the Bush Administration has tried to suppress his scientific voice -- and the voice of other government scientists -- for apparently refusing to conform their work to White House ideology. That Mr. Hansen has been free enough, however, to grant 1,400 or so media interviews in the last few years seems to have slipped his mind.

But if you want to read great political banter, and if you want to see what the major media have concealed from your view, then I urge you to read all of the transcript found at Mr. Limbaugh's website (actually, this is a transcript of Limbaugh's radio broadcast where he plays the audio clips from the hearing).

I am so intrigued by all of this that I feel compelled to paste some of the transcript here, but I will refrain. You must read Congressman Darrell Issa's opening remarks, and how he takes Mr. Hansen to task. Plus, I believe NASA research scientist Roy Spencer's remarks are really quite important. Please, I am pleading. Take the ten minutes to read the text found at the link above.

Also, I thought you might find this article, "Scientists have inconvenient news for Al Gore", published in the Sydney Morning Herald, a thoroughly decent read.

Peace.

©Bill Gnade/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

On Politics And Global Warming: A Vice President And A President Do Battle

I tried to live-blog this morning, to very little effect and perhaps much frustration. The event I was watching included the Dalai Lama of Climate Change, former Vice President Al Gore, who testified today before the US House Committee on Energy and Commerce. I found him earnest but incredibly dulling, though dulling not by being boring, but by over-reaching and over-stating. Mr. Gore's most bold claim is that the scientific community -- the "consensus" -- is unanimous: mankind is the primary source of global warming and climate change.

Mr. Gore spent much of his opening statement arguing that CO2 levels are dangerously high; he sees a "correlation" between CO2 levels and increased temperatures. In fact, at one point in his testimony, Al Gore argued that the planet "has a fever" and that, though we are only talking about a few degrees of increased temperature, everyone would agree that the difference between 98.6 and 103.6 is cause for grave concern. Irrespective of this absurd anthropomorphism of the planet and the fundamental weakness of the analogy, Mr. Gore believes that the evidence proves causality, and that the proof is irrefutable.

As I have noted before, confusing correlation and causality is utterly unscientific. Mr. Gore commits this non causa pro causa fallacy right before our eyes; he says it with emphasis and conviction, and yet, seemingly, too few notice. If I were to argue that my age and CO2 emissions have increased in a directly proportional relationship, I could not be dismissed as unscientific, for CO2 admissions have increased as I have gotten older. But surely everyone would snicker at me if I concluded that my increased age is the cause of CO2 emission increases world-wide or, more pertinently, that CO2 emissions are causing me to get older. A correlation does not a causality make.

This is all, truly, quite alarming, though not because it is such bad logic, but because such bad logic is touted as brilliant and courageous leadership by the sychophants sitting in front of Mr. Gore. But Mr. Gore's presentations are nothing of the sort. He is confusing things to promote an agenda, an agenda which might very well be himself. That he is sitting in such high places is not surprising; what IS surprising is how successful he has been in convincing others that the science is unanimous, infallible and indisputable.

If you are not sure the debate is alarming, perhaps these lines from Pulitzer Prize-winning essayist Ellen Goodman, a columnist at the Boston Globe, will open your eyes:

"I would like to say we're at a point where global warming is impossible to deny. Let's just say that global warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaust deniers, though one denies the past and the other denies the present and future."

Ms. Goodman's hyperbole -- one that borders, I believe, on the immoral -- can be found in her February 9, 2007 column, No Change in Political Climate. Of course, no one in the scientific community that I know is denying, or has denied, that climate data show a noticeable warming trend, so Ms. Goodman might argue that she is safe: people who deny the trend are this era's Holocaust deniers. But we know she is not saying that; she is asserting that anyone who disagrees with Al Gore and his band of unanimous, all-knowing scientists is the child of Holocaust-denying parents, so to speak. That Ms. Goodman's language utterly cheapens the historical and moral value of the Holocaust is undeniable; her remark is a contemptible cheap-shot and she should be soundly chastised for making it.

There is more to all of this, of course. As some of you may know, the recent news-cycle has brought to us the curious counter-arguments to global warming models offered by University of Copenhagen's Bjarne Andersen; the reports can be found all over the web, like here, here, or here. As these links show, the idea of a global temperature, particularly an average one, is fraught with problems; one report says that Mr. Andersen argues that "compiling temperatures from various places and averaging them would be like calculating the average phone number in the phone book." Good for Mr. Andersen. At least his study shows that the scientific community, at least those like Mr. Andersen who study thermodynamics, are not all of one mind.

WHAT DOES IT MATTER?

Perhaps you have heard or read what the Czech President Vaclav Klaus has said in the past few days. President Klaus is ringing a different alarm. According to the Prague Daily Monitor, Klaus has written to the US Congress warning that "the biggest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy and prosperity at the beginning of the 21st century is not communism or its various softer forms." The biggest threat is "ambitious environmentalism." Klaus wrote:

"[I am] really concerned about the way the environmental topics have been misused by certain political pressure groups to attack fundamental principles underlying free society. …While discussing climate we are not witnessing a clash of views about the environment but a clash of views about human freedom. …the free and spontaneous evolution of mankind by a sort of central, now global, planning of the whole world."

But I need to quote even more of this fine article for our purposes here:

"[Klaus] noted that this ideology wants to replace 'the free and spontaneous evolution of mankind by a sort of central, now global, planning of the whole world.'

"Its followers, Klaus added, consider 'their ideas and arguments to be an undisputable truth' and use sophisticated methods of media manipulation to exert pressure on politicians to achieve their goals.

"Klaus claimed that the environmentalists' argumentation is based on the spreading of fear and panic, and in this atmosphere they continue pushing politicians to adopt 'illiberal measures, impose arbitrary limits, regulations, prohibitions, and restrictions on everyday human activities and make people subject to omnipotent bureaucratic decision-making.'

"Klaus also said that environmentalists 'neglect the fact that both nature and human society are in a process of permanent change,' that there is and has been no ideal state of the world, and they ignore the future economic and technological progress."

I find this all philosophically fascinating. I wonder if you do too.

Peace.

©Bill Gnade 2007/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

On Politics And Climate Change: "Peer Reviewed" – Al Gore Returns To The House

(Live blogging with Al Gore)

Announcement: Al Gore invents the ElectroNet!†

I know it is the epitome of nerdism -- or is it geekism? -- for me to sit and watch Al Gore testify before the US House joint subcommittee on climate change. And I can honestly say that I am dumbfounded.

But what does it matter what I think? Mr. Gore is right now making the lamest argument I've ever heard as he defends his thesis that humans are increasingly short-sighted in their vision of the future: apparently we are living too much -- contrary to all we were told by 1960s visionaries -- for today, or so Mr. Gore declares. Instead, we need to be planning for the long-term, for the far-off future. But surely my thoughts on this matter are utterly irrelevant. But may I ask, do you think that "day-trading" is proof that we are short-sighted, that we are even ignorant of the future? Well, Mr. Gore does.

And then Gore makes this strange connection between the Congress and the "300," the Spartan warriors depicted in the recent comic-book film, "300." Gore right now tells Congress that its members are the "535" who are called to fight "the greatest challenge America has ever" had to face: climate change. It is a cute pop reference.

"These are not NORMAL times," avers Mr. Gore. And now he gives us his suggestions to save the planet from ourselves, and restore normalcy:

1) Immediately freeze CO2 emissions in the United States. ... then start the reductions of CO2.
2) "I believe we should start using the tax code to reduce the taxes on income and make up the difference by pollution taxes". ...Carbon pollution is not presently factored into the marketplace. We need a revenue-neutral tax shift.
3) A portion of those revenues should be and must be earmarked for the lower income groups to help them make this shift.
4) We need to be part of a major global treaty ... [one that includes the following major domestic steps], one replete with cap-and-trade initiatives:

a) A moratorium on any construction of any coal-burning power plants that do not comply with certain standards.
b) †ElectroNet: Congress should allow regular folks to sell electricity back to the grid from domestic, household carbon-neutral power plants.
c) Raise CAFE standards.
d) Ban incandescent light bulbs.
e) Form a carbon-neutral mortgage association.
f) The SEC should require disclosures of carbon emissions in corporate financial reports: stockholders should know of the environmental hazards associated with companies' actions.

[I am paraphrasing because I haven't the skill to take strict dictation.]

Truly, I am numbed by all of this. Mr. Gore is so amazingly dulling to my wits that I can conclude that I must not be made of iron; if iron sharpens iron, then I am either made of lesser metal or neither of us is made of iron. But what is really interesting is Gore's sacred pronunciation of "peer-reviewed," as if this not only adds gravitas, it serves as the imprimatur to Mr. Gore's arguments drawn from "recent findings."

"The debate on the science is over with!" exclaimed Mr. Gore at 10:54 AM EDST.

Really, Mr. Gore?

More later, I think.

©Bill Gnade 2007/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

Breaking Great Wind In The Storm's Eye, Part II: Roger Ebert On Al Gore

Trust me when I say that I am not opposed to the idea that the earth is warming. Trust me when I say I believe in climate change. Trust me when I even say that there has never been one instant in history when the earth has not either been getting cooler or getting warmer: Climate change is a constant. I get the big picture. I am about as green as green can be, within my means (only the really, really poor and the rich can be truly green). And trust me when I say that I am not agoraphobic: I am not afraid of crowds. But I might be Algore-aphobic, afraid of the crowds swirling around the low-pressure system which is the used-to-be "former President of the United States." (Ever see a satellite photo of a low-pressure system? It looks a lot like a bunch of spinning 6's. You know what I mean.)

Roger Ebert, the well-known film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times, admits in his recent review of Al Gore's film, An Inconvenient Truth, that he is, as critic, working as advocate. And, in fact, he is doing so as an absolutist, even an infallible one:

Am I acting as an advocate in this review? Yes, I am. I believe that to be "impartial" and "balanced" on global warming means one must take a position like Gore's. There is no other view that can be defended.

It is good to know that infallibility is not the sole claim of the Vatican: Al Gore, Roger Ebert, and the "scientists" are absolutely right. Next thing you know Messrs. Gore and Ebert will be dictating sacred scripture for our edification in the new Church. But I digress. There is more from Mr. Ebert:

In 39 years, I have never written these words in a movie review, but here they are: You owe it to yourself to see this film. If you do not, and you have grandchildren, you should explain to them why you decided not to.

I wish Mr. Ebert would explain, since he is clearly a science whiz, how it is that he and countless others, including Al Gore, have no problem dumping tens, nay, hundreds of thousands of gallons of burned jet fuel at 35,000 feet so they all can get to Cannes, France to watch movies. Perhaps he can also explain those solar-powered yachts at anchor just off-shore of that famed movie mecca. Perhaps Mr. Ebert will, eventually, explain his omissions about such emissions to his grandchildren. And I am absolutely certain that Mr. Ebert will tell his grandchildren that, when it comes to "burning fossil fuels" jet-setting from Cannes to Sundance, "no other view can be defended."

At least there is the one saving caveat to Ebert's review: it represents, in his words, "the truth as I understand it." Of course it does.

As I've said, An Inconvenient Truth is exactly that.

Peace.

©Bill Gnade 2006/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

Technorati tags: Roger Ebert, An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore, Cannes, cannes film festival

Breaking Great Wind In The Storm's Eye: Al Gore And The Democratic Party

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:

Citations

"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.

Now, 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.

(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

A Really Inconvenient Fact

I may not have a B.S. in any scientific discipline, but that has never stopped me from recognizing BS, especially when I step in it. I know, I know: it is dubious at best to come to Contratimes for a science lesson, but once in a while it is OK for us to think like scientists, you know, critically.

My starting point is the rather recent installment of PBS's NOVA called "Dimming the Sun", which I watched a couple of weeks ago (and where I stepped into some serious BS). The point of that rather stimulating science program was that particulate matter released into the atmosphere as a result of human industrial activity, along with myriad contrails produced by airliners, combine to reduce the amount of sunlight that reaches the lower levels of the atmosphere. Studies in the Maldives, for instance, have shown that air pollution may indeed reduce sunlight by as much as 10%. The result, obviously, is that air temperatures in "smoggy" zones are cooler. And cooler air has drastic effects on weather patterns, perhaps even distorting weather and (ocean ?) currents to such a degree that droughts and other sundry calamities occur.

But this is only half of NOVA's story. The other half has to do with reducing air pollutants, especially the particulate matter associated with solar dimming. The idea is that with cleaner air more sunlight reaches the lower atmosphere and ground, thus increasing air temperatures. In other words, the theory is that visible pollutants are masking the invisible catastrophe awaiting us: MASSIVE global warming due to invisible and dangerous levels of greenhouse gases which will "trap" heat should more light penetrate the atmosphere. For a full explanation and a virtual synopsis of the NOVA program, read the Wikipedia article "Global dimming." I urge you to read it not merely because it is interesting, but because of what it never mentions. And you know what? NOVA never mentions "it" either.

But before I tell you what "it" is, I must make one observation about the NOVA program. I might be wrong about this, but I don't think I am: NOVA did not interview a single person with a countervailing opinion regarding dimming, cooling or warming. Not one! Add to that the fact that NOVA only aired the opinions of at best five experts, and one MUST conclude that NOVA might best be taken with something like a grain of salt.

Permit me to back into what is missing in both NOVA's "scientific inquiry" and Wikipedia's article. This passage from Wikipedia is a great starting point. I mean, this is science at its (political?) best:

It is now thought that the effect (global dimming) is probably due to the increased presence of aerosols [sic] particles in the atmosphere. Aerosol particles absorb solar energy and reflect sunlight back to space. The pollutants can also become nuclei for cloud droplets. It is thought that the water droplets in clouds coalesce around the particles, and more aerosol particles result in the clouds consisting of a greater number of smaller droplets, which in turn makes them more reflective: bouncing more sunlight back into space.

Now there is nothing wrong with this virtual rehashing of NOVA's major premise. It is, for our purposes, completely true. But there is something massive, literally, missing from all of this, and one wonders how it could not be mentioned even in passing. I wonder if you have guessed what "it" is. Need a clue? Well, try this one, or this.

Yes, that's right: Volcanoes. What is missing in the global dimming report is the earth itself: that the earth is its own heat engine; and is its own cooler.

Remember in 1991 when Mt. Pinatubo absolutely ripped a hole into our earth's atmosphere, belching material in unimaginable quantities into the earth's very stratosphere? Remember what you were told, that the eruption would affect the entire globe for years? Remember hearing the same when Mt. Saint Helens blew apart in 1980? Remember hearing that such eruptions would cool the earth's atmosphere, even though they hurled millions of tons of gas and heat skyward? Well, if you need a refresher on Pinatubo alone, read this, this and this.

Now let's for a moment return to the Wikipedia quote above, where it is mentioned that global dimming is a result of the presence of aerosols in the upper atmosphere. Alas, there is no mention of volcanic activity. Yet in all three Pinatubo links above we read something like this:

Pinatubo injected about 15 million tons of sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere, where it reacted with water to form a hazy layer of AEROSOL particles composed primarily of sulfuric acid droplets. Over the course of the next two years strong stratospheric winds spread these aerosol particles around the globe.

Unlike the lower atmosphere (or troposphere, which extends from the surface to roughly 10 km), the stratosphere does not have rain clouds as a mechanism to quickly wash out pollutants. Therefore, a heavy influx of aerosol pollutants, like the plume from Mount Pinatubo, will remain in the stratosphere for years until the processes of chemical reactions and atmospheric circulation can filter them out. In the case of Mount Pinatubo, the result was a measurable cooling of the Earth's surface for a period of almost two years.

Because they scatter and absorb incoming sunlight, aerosol particles exert a cooling effect on the Earth's surface. The Pinatubo eruption increased aerosol optical depth in the stratosphere by a factor of 10 to 100 times normal levels measured prior to the eruption.

Oopsy! Just a small detail left out of Wikipedia and NOVA's uh, science. Call it a mere blippish oversight. And to think someone went to the Maldives in the 1990's to run tests to determine whether smog blocks sunlight!

Moreover, what is also not mentioned in either source is the effect the earth's core temperature has on climate; that the earth is not a frozen ice ball (though surface materials are indeed "frozen" in the scientific sense), but a sphere with an incredibly volatile heat source not far below its skin. That source of heat is not only important in maintaining life on this planet, it is important in this discussion of global warming and cooling. But more importantly, that NOVA and Wikipedia never mention either volcanic activity or the earth's radiant heat suggests that real scientific inquiry is not what either is interested in. Finally, neither the TV program nor the online encyclopedia mentions increases or decreases in solar activity, which also wreak havoc on terrestrial atmospherics.

Al Gore has released a new movie called "An Inconvenient Truth," in which he apparently divides for us the facts from fiction regarding global warming. I will venture a guess that the complexities of vulcanism and any one volcano's impact on climate make naught but a small appearance in Gore's film. But that's fine: he is a politician, after all, and he needs science to work for his agenda, which is, in part, to distance himself from "Big Oil," you know, that industry allegedly most responsible for global warming (and the one allegedly associated with Republicans). But that NOVA, an apparently neutral science program, should have neglected not only any countervailing opinions but the facts of Pinatubo––that such an eruption lowered global temperatures as much as .6 degrees C in 15 months––should give us all pause.

There is more that NOVA failed to tell us in "Dimming the Sun," but I will leave that for another time. But let us not in all this permit such "fact-based" programs and resources to have a dimming effect on our much needed minds. We need to think clearly about the complexities before us. I mean, let us beware (unlike Al Gore) of committing non causa pro causa fallacies, you know, mistaking correlation with causality. Gore and NOVA might be right, but we won't ever know if we accept only part of the data.

Peace.

©Bill Gnade 2006/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

For a complete transcript of NOVA's program, go here.

Pinatubo photo courtesy of http://www.geo.mtu.edu/volcanoes/pinatubo/volcano/

Technorati tags: Al Gore, Global Warming, Global dimming, NOVA, Mt. Pinatubo, vulcanism, An Inconvenient Truth, Climate Change

Gored And Jolted By A Powerful Current

Let me admit right away that I do not often sing the American national anthem. Let me admit that I often forget the anthem's lyrics; that the first half of it trips me up most of the time; and that I know the second half perfectly.

Does this make me a bad person? Does this make me a bad American?

Maybe it does make me a bad person, a bad American.

But the fact remains that the national anthem that swells my heart with pride when I participate in a public event is the American national anthem, sung in English: it is the anthem of my fatherland. And that it is in English not only gives it meaning (for those of us who speak that fair language), it unites us: there is nothing exclusionary about it for those of us who have had the fortune of learning English as our native tongue.

This morning, while quickly scanning the TV channels for a weather update, I landed on Current TV. Amazingly, I happened to witness a report on the "Nuestro Himnos", the Spanish "translation" of this country's "Star-Spangled Banner." And how do you think the news on this rather important turn of events was spun? After all, this new anthem is a hot news item, worthy of aggressive reportage. How, pray tell, do you think the TV channel chaired by Al Gore reported the story that has pro-illegal alien activists writing a version of the national anthem in Spanish and then encouraging over 100 Spanish radio stations to broadcast the song at 7:00 pm Friday last? Well, the report was framed rather simplistically: the news was that the "Star-Spangled Banner" was being sung in Spanish, and that some people thought it was a good thing, while others thought it quite bad. There was a brief clip of Jimmy Hendrix bending his guitar strings at Woodstock to America's anthem; there was a clip of comedienne Roseanne Barr desecrating it at a baseball game. But when the reporter rather nonchalantly reported that there was some brouhaha about the new anthem, she merely said that some people have no problem with the song "being sung in Spanish, while some others do" (or something to that effect). And who do you think has a problem with the use of Spanish? You guessed it: Current TV projected a couple of pictures of George W. Bush in one of the most startlingly blatant abuses of truth and putative journalistic balance. The "reporter" even had the temerity to include comments from some observer who opined that it is ironic President Bush should want the anthem sung in English when he himself can barely speak English. Cute.

The repulsive aspect is that at no time did the reporter give the viewer the simple, startling and controversial truth: the Spanish version of the American national anthem is not a direct translation from English to Spanish; it is a rewrite of the English song into a completely unique Spanish language song. That is what is controversial; that is the where the rub is. It is not that people are singing the "Star-Spangled Banner" in Spanish; it is that they are not singing the "Star-Spangled Banner" at all. What is controversial is that this a different song -- a completely different lyric -- married to a familiar tune. In the end, it is an anthem for someone else. It is not an American anthem.

That Google/Current TV does not even hint at this; that it keeps the truth from the viewer, is Orwellian in its omission. This is not news; to call it propaganda is too generous. It is deception. It is wide-eyed lying, all with a dismissive, cavalier regard for the only fact that is germane to the national discussion: The song is not a translation but a revision.

Why would Current TV hide this from its viewers; why would a network intentionally conceal this from viewers when one considers that Current TV claims to represent "all" viewpoints? Is it because Al Gore is the chairman of Current TV? Is it because "all" is meant amphibolously; is meant disingenuously?

Look, the story now is not that the Spanish revision is offensive to many of us. The real story now is that Al Gore's channel does not want us to know the truth.

***

The idea of having one anthem in English is not meant to exclude, but to include. If everyone speaks one language, everyone participates in the thrills of that language. If everyone is required to speak EVERY language, inclusion will be impossible. But if one group rewrites its own version of an anthem; if every group writes its own rallying song, we will have descended into tribalism; exclusion will be the norm. Hence, in America, the French immigrant will not be united in co-participation with the Spanish immigrant, or the Indian or Swiss or Portuguese, if each language group is promoting its own tongue, if each is singing its own anthem. This all doesn't unite. It divides. It is not about diversity, but disunion.

It is heartening to learn that many Spanish-speaking immigrants, legal or illegal, are opposed to this "new" anthem. Of course, Al Gore's Current TV would never tell you about that.

Peace.

©Bill Gnade 2006/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

Tags: Gore, Current TV, nuestro himno, national anthem, star-spangled banner

More Mindblogging Than Ever

[Forgive the delay between posts: there was a disturbance in the Force, so to speak. Since my post of Friday regarding blogging, "disinhibition" and the future of the Internet prompted some good comments (and at least one link), I thought I would continue on this rather interesting and timely subject.]

As I mentioned in There Is No Disinhibition Here: Blogging The Mind, former US vice president Al Gore has been instrumental in creating Current TV, an independently owned and operated news and documentary channel. In fact, Mr. Gore is the chairman of that new network.

I bring to your attention Mr. Gore's October 5, 2005 speech given near the launch date of Current; a speech delivered to the Associated Press. In that fine oration Mr. Gore both laments and lambasts the loss of democracy in much if not most of the media today.

I came here today because I believe that American democracy is in grave danger. It is no longer possible to ignore the strangeness of our public discourse . I know that I am not the only one who feels that something has gone basically and badly wrong in the way America's fabled "marketplace of ideas" now functions. ...

Gore holds up this marketplace of ideas as something wonderful and ancient (he journeys to classical Rome and Athens to bolster his point); he believes that a true democracy must maintain this marketplace by fair means, by the "Rule of Reason." With a quick overview of how that marketplace has been handed down through the generations, primarily through print media, radio and then television, Gore reacts strongly to the consolidation of power in the TV media, calling it a restructuring, even destruction of that democratic marketplace of thought:

And here is my point: it is the destruction of that marketplace of ideas that accounts for the "strangeness" that now continually haunts our efforts to reason together about the choices we must make as a nation.

Whether it is called a Public Forum, or a "Public Sphere", or a marketplace of ideas, the reality of open and free public discussion and debate was considered central to the operation of our democracy in America's earliest decades.

To fully understand Gore's answer to this destruction one must read his piece. Suffice it to say that Gore in a sense has placed a framework over the Internet: He wants opinions to be controlled, not by those who control TV stations and news presses, but through the real market of all-out competition: those deemed most popular will to rise to the top, in an "emergent meritocracy of ideas." This marketplace is the Internet; and the outlet, ultimately, is Current TV.

Those of you who will take the time to be informed by Gore's speech should discern the irony of Al Gore's remarks, even his worldview. For Mr. Gore laments the consolidation of power within media, particularly TV media; and yet his answer to that is to turn to the most consolidating power (perhaps) on the planet, Google. Lest we forget, Current TV is a joint venture between Mr. Gore's TV studio and the world's most powerful and popular search engine.

***

Permit me to comment on my very first encounter with Current TV. It was late last fall or early winter. I tuned into a "Zeitgeist" moment, I believe, a scheduled break in programming in which a Google spokesman was discussing the most popular searches on Google the morning of September 11, 2001. The Google page at this link decribes some of the trends during that desperate, terrifying week (before and after). It is worth studying, though it is not quite as interesting as the young man noted on Current, as he listed searches that were popular right up until the first plane hit the North Tower in lower Manhattan. I find it amazing that by the end of the week of September 11, Nostradamus was the number one search query on Google. Curiously, though Current TV's own FAQ section says it is non-partisan (Al Gore is chairman, after all), the Google spokesperson ended his commentary with this (I paraphrase): It is interesting to note that after September 11 no one was querying for links between Saddam Hussein and the 9/11 attacks. That this statement is factual and yet is offered in an allegedly "non-partisan" way is, to say the least, a distortion of language. But let's forgive it. For now.

What, really, is Google? It is a tool, indeed, for those of us on this side of the keyboard. But what is it on the other side, on the underbelly of the Internet? It also is a tool: it is a tool of incredible power, for it is truly omniscient regarding Internet use, knowing everything each of us queries, enters, posts, deletes. It is watching, shaping not only efficiency protocols to assist us, but marketing protocols to assist those who want to directly market products to each of us. Imagine that not only does Google know our queries, it owns Blogger, and thus is a repository for opinion, analysis, and too-often intensely personal data; and it also owns Gmail, where it reportedly screens every email so as to more finely-tune its marketing strategies (and Gmail deletes nothing, apparently). Some folks, of course, find this all rather creepy. Amazingly, most of us permit such creepiness without a word of complaint (yet we shout loud about President Bush's "domestic" wiretapping, while this [dated] report suggests that Google may be in breach of wiretapping laws.).

My point in belaboring this is simple: Al Gore has found the perfect means of consolidating media power by using the Internet, and our Google behaviors, for shaping opinions, news, and markets. Moreover, with Google owning Blogger, it is evident that Google holds the power to promote some blogs over others, as it in fact does on its "Blogs of Note" sidebar offered to Blogger members. Who, pray tell, really determines a blog of note? Is it notable because it is popular, or is it made popular by being noted? In other words, is it really true that some ideas, or some opinion-makers, are promoted democratically? Who knows?

Please, this is not about me either being paranoid or resentful. It is about asking an intelligent question of Al Gore and his Plan: Is Mr. Gore actually creating a monstrous, powerful tool that is shaped not by events on the ground, like REAL news in REAL time in REAL history, but by the actions of keyboard queries, blog discussions, and any other manner of elusive (and potentially nefarious) digital activity? Is Mr. Gore's enterprise actually just another form of control, though disguised as liberty? Is Mr. Gore really just one or two steps ahead of the rest of us, proclaiming "democracy" when he actually intends to suppress it; to subdue it by silencing, marginalizing or otherwise rendering someone extraneous whose views do not achieve the elevated status his plan gives mere lip-service to? If certain blogs are not of note, are certain truths, certain people, certain lives similarly unnotable?

Do with this as you will. I have offered nothing much. I have (at least) merely pointed out Mr. Gore's glaring contradiction: he has turned to the consolidation of power to wrest from others what he believes is too much power. And what if Gore is wrong? What if it is his venture that portends the death of democracy?

Peace.

©Bill Gnade 2006/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

Technorati tags: Al Gore, Current, Google, Democracy

There Is No Disinhibition Here: Blogging The Mind

Daniel Henninger's Opinion Journal essay is especially noteworthy today. If you are a blogger, or if you are a non-blogger who just can't help but peek in on the blogosphere, you might not only find Henninger's essay engaging, it might even give you pause.

I have already had my identity crisis regarding blogging, and I am now comfortable not only within the medium, I know my rôle: It is indeed performance art and someone has got to do it. (OK. It is more than that. I just wanted to use the word rôle for the sheer fun of using that little doo-dad over the O. Perhaps it is not so much performance art but digital graffiti. Alas, it all makes me rather circumflex. [That's a ridiculous pun.])

Not a few of you might find this prognostication all too prescient. If you have not yet viewed Epic 2014, then I urge you to swig Henninger's piece and chase it with Epic, a short film of considerable impact (it is particularly ominous when listened to with headphones). You can view Epic 2014 (you might need to follow a link or two) rather easily from RobinSloan.com, should my links not work satisfactorily. Then, try Epic 2015 - The Update. My guess is that, after watching these pieces, some of you might even consider to stop blogging altogether. Seriously. I am not suggesting that Epic is accurate. But I am suggesting that it is very interesting.

Earlier this year I asked the writer of the film, via email, why he did not include the new TV network, "Current TV", to his auguries. (In case you do not know, Current is partly the brainchild of Al Gore, and is a marriage between television and Google. It is an amazing thing to watch, particularly when you see how Google uses our Google searches to influence Current's programming and news.) Here is what I asked on January 9, 2006:

Dear Mr. Sloan,

I recently viewed both EPIC Flash pics, and I was impressed. But I am
curious as to why EPIC did not mention Current TV as another part of
the emerging behemoth of information. While it fits under the broader
umbrella of Google, I am surprised the piece did not mention it, as
Current seems to be equally vulnerable to the Orwellian-esque
predictions EPIC offers.

Bill Gnade

And here is the reply:

Hey Bill --

Good question! The real answer is that a) Current didn't exist when we
made the original piece, and b) it's not really big enough to play in
the same arena as Google, Microsoft, Apple, etc.

But you're right -- like any other media company, Current has got to
be smart in the next couple of years...

--
Robin

***

Let me know what you think of both Henninger's piece and Epic. I find it all mind-blogging, so to speak.

Peace.

©Bill Gnade 2006/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

Technorati tags: Disinhibition, Epic 2014, Blogging, Robin Sloan, Daniel Henninger