An Inconvenient Lie?

[BrentAllen]

firstpusk,

If you would, please list the names and/or reports of those "skeptical scientists" you have read, who are receiving "oil" money. Once I see those names, maybe I can provide you with some who haven''t received "oil" money. You are interested in hearing both sides, right?

 

That argument always gives me a laugh. By claiming they are taking oil money, are you saying they know we are destroying the planet and they just don''t care? That they would rather take a payoff than tell the truth? That they would rather pocket some money than save the planet for their kids and grandkids? Is that what you are saying? If not, then what exactly are you saying?

 

As for Gore using offsets, isn''t it interesting that he buys them from a company he owns and chairs? It is just a money shell game.

 

How effective are the offsets? Here''s an answer:

At this point its basically symbolic, but the goal is to build a groundswell to get countries to do something about this, says M. Granger Morgan, head of the department of engineering and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pa.

 

Final question - who lives more environmentally friendly - Gore or Bush?

 

Answer:

Whoda thunk it? Former oilman George Bush, scourge of the environment, lives in a house more eco-friendly than Al Gore, a dwelling that would make Hollywood eco-activist Ed Begley, star of HGTV''s ''Living With Ed,'' drool.

 

When Dubya spends time at his Crawford ranch, he''s in a single-story, 4,000-square-foot limestone house that a 2001 article in USA Today described as an ''eco-friendly haven.'' Even David Roberts, staff writer for the online environmental magazine Grist has called the energy efficiency of the president''s home as ''fantastic.''

 

As USA Today described it: ''Wastewater from showers, sinks and toilets goes into purifying tanks underground one tank for water from showers and bathroom sinks, which is called ''gray water,'' and one tank for ''black water'' from the kitchen and toilets.'' The purified water is funneled to the cistern with the rainwater.

 

In addition, ''the Bushes installed a geothermal heating and cooling system, which uses about 25% of the electricity that traditional heating and cooling systems use.'' As Marlo Lewis, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, noted: ''It''s interesting that Bush seems to actually practice conservation, while Gore seems to want to buy his way out of his obligations.''

 

[FScouter]

''''It''''s interesting that Bush seems to actually practice conservation, while Gore seems to want to buy his way out of his obligations.''''

 

I wonder which of the two of them has had a bigger impact on conservation worldwide, net of their personal house, car, and personal habits.

 

[evmori]

Does anyone know how the internet started?

 

[Beavah]

Yah, I''m not expectin'' personal saintliness from Big Al. He''s a politician, after all.

 

Doesn''t mean that because he''s not a saint about his own energy use that his message is wrong.

 

If that were the case, then all of the overweight Scouters who supposedly are promoting "fitness" should be flogged mercilessly, and da BSA should be dismissed as silly. "Look at them - advocating fitness and not living it."

 

Yah, glass houses and stones, eh?

 

Beavah

[eolesen]

Who''d a thunk it... Bush actually living the values of conservation, while Gore is a parlour conservationist...

 

That''s sad, because Gore does have a long history of being concerned with environmental issues and trying to advance them thru Congress. Why can''t he eat his own dogfood?...

 

Gore''s exact quote was that he took the initiative to create the internet.

 

Al didn''t take the initiative. Period. The initiative was already taken by university and defense department computer scientists. The internet as we know it was an outgrowth of ARPANET, which dates back into the 60''s, and continued to evolve thru the 80''s. I was using Gopher back in the mid 80''s to access research data from my PLATO terminal at the University of Illinois, which was while Gore was still a junior Senator.

 

Gore did see it as good and helped get more federal funding to accelerate its expansion and evolution, and that''s something he does deserve credit for.

 

However.... Taking credit for someone elses''s work goes entirely against my view of A Scout Is Trustworthy.

 

 

 

Regardless if Gore won the popular vote at the national level or not, constitutionally, the popular vote doesn''t matter. He didn''t have the electoral votes. Hopefully, those of you teaching Cit in the Nation are well aware of that fact. If not, I''m sure it''s in the book.

[packsaddle]

I applaud dubya''s personal efforts to cut costs. They make a lot of sense, especially the part about water conservation...in Texas. His personal life is one thing. Public policy is quite another.

Here, the two (Bush and Gore) are in agreement. They both acknowledge, indirectly, that it''s all about money. Administration policy tends to promote a free-market approach to the economy and to environmental problems. In this approach, the costs will eventually cause the market to compensate in some way, perhaps in reduced resources or resource use. Gore is actually practicing this in his personal life, with the carbon trading thing. Unless he has broken some law, he is, in fact merely exploiting the economic system that the Administration has put in place. In this sense, he is embracing it on a very personal level. Why would any good Republican find fault in this?

 

My answer is because he is Al Gore. The same Al Gore who got the most votes. The same one who has gotten the limelight for award after award and who promotes an environmental cause. Bush on the other hand offers a stark contrast in failure after dismal, tragic failure.

Criticism of Al Gore, really, is heightened because of this stinging contrast: bad enough for Gore''s good life successes and much worse for the failure of the man who is supposed to be the champion of those same critics. While the critics turn their attention to Gore, he can take pleasure in showing his wealth and accolades. At the same time, those critics are turning their backs to Bush. Even worse, they all (even dubya) know it''s over. There''s no way that those failures are going to go away. They''re going to haunt this nation for generations. They had their chance and they didn''t measure up...and they know it. Gore is smiling. Dubya is waiting, maybe hoping, for the best thing left that can happen...oblivion. That oblivion, if dubya''s smart enough to even sense it at all, is well-deserved. But if he''ll just go back to his drunken habits, he''ll never notice.

[firstpusk]

Brent,

Let me give you one of my experiences. I called into the local Christian talk station to talk with this global warming ''expert'' they were interviewing. I challenged him on the manner in which he misrepresented some snowfall data. I indicated that the researcher had asked that their work not be misrepresented in such a way. Then, I asked him about the source of his funding. He immediately tried to change the subject to yet another study that he also misrepresented. He simply refused to answer about money his group recieved from Exxon and kept trying to change the subject.

 

Since that experience, I look up any global warming denialist I come across. I have yet to find a single one that is not in the pocket of big oil, period. Beyond that, their respect for science seems to be a bit on the questionable side. They generally aren''t doing their own research. Instead, they misrepresent the work of others like the guy I mentioned above. If you have some that are your favorites, I''ll take a look at them. The half dozen or so I have investigated have all been dirty in just these ways.

 

The president''s green house is one of the few things I find commendable. I think his promise to act on global warming during the 2000 campaign would also had been commendable had he not knuckled under to his oil constituency. I agree with the others that point out that Gore''s house and the president''s are small potatoes compared with Bush''s flip-flop. If you want to talk about who is the greater hypocrit, that one is easy. He is the guy with the green house and the low electric bill.

[firstpusk]

eolesen,

 

Arpanet is a long way from what we have now. He was working with the people that were experts and helped provide the resources to make the internet what it is now. That is what he was claiming and that is the reason he has been recognized.

 

"However.... Taking credit for someone elses''''s work goes entirely against my view of A Scout Is Trustworthy."

 

Misrepresenting Gore''s claim is not trustworthy.

 

 

[GernBlansten]

Gore should get another Nobel prize for creating the internet. I''m not kidding, really. I love this series of tubes!

[BrentAllen]

pack,

You really need to get out of that liberal campus environment and take a look around! Your take on Bush is 180 degrees out of phase. Here you have a devout Christian man with a loving wife and two wonderful daughters, and you are hoping he will crawl back in a bottle?? Wow, now there is a Scoutlike attitude!

 

The problem I have with Gore and his offests is they are a joke! Or as Gore would say, "There is no controlling legal authority" to govern these offsets. There is no standard as to what they are supposed to do, nor how they are measured. Try to find out what they are actually doing, instead of just PR soundbites. You can''t.

 

"The shortcomings of current carbon trading systems are clear. As a piece in Newsweek concluded, "So far, the real winners in emissions trading have been polluting factory owners who can sell menial cuts for massive profits and the brokers who pocket fees each time a company buys or sells the right to pollute."

 

Currently, the link between the purchase of carbon offsets and the actual reduction of carbon emissions is highly controversial and almost impossible to verify. The process is easily manipulated. Measurement tools are remarkably primitive. Even the most basic calculations are subject to wide variations. The New Internationalist requested estimates from four reputable carbon trading companies for the number of credits a passenger would need to purchase to offset an around-the-world flight, starting and ending in London. The magazine received four answers: 4.3, 6, 8.68 and 11.63 tons."

 

Theres a lack of standards in the voluntary market, and the offsets that people are purchasing might not be accomplishing what they hope they will, said Deborah Carlson, climate change campaigner with the David Suzuki Foundation, a Canadian environmental advocacy group.

 

When the environmental group Clean Air-Cool Planet commissioned a study on carbon offsets, communications manager Bill Burtis was surprised to find how few groups offered transparent details of their projects or had set up any process of independently verifying their environmental benefits.

 

It was pretty startling, he said.

 

Some offset retailers did not even return the studys questionnaire, and one provider, which Burtis wouldnt identify, actually lobbied against the release of the report.

 

Clean AirCool Planet hired an independent firm to do the study because it has ties to a carbon offset provider called NativeEnergy.

 

The study ultimately awarded only a few companies its highest rankings, including the U.S. firms Climate Trust, Sustainable Travel International and NativeEnergy. Burtis said other providers have made changes since the report came out.

 

Free market? I think not.

 

 

[BrentAllen]

So, firstpusk, you can''t come up with a single name? Only some guy you heard on a radio show? Interesting. For some reason, that is the answer I expected to get.

[firstpusk]

Brent, thanks so much for the dismissive tone. I have had a couple of important appointments this afternoon and another I am leaving for right now. I don''t have time to be at your beck and call today. Maybe we can play tomorrow.

[packsaddle]

Brent, Pollutant trading, as a concept, originated in 1920 and economists have promoted a "cap and trade" mechanism as the way to manage and reduce emissions for many years. But until the SO2 allowance market was created by the 1990 Clean Air Act, the concept had not been market tested. It is far from a mature practice but it clearly engages market economics as a means of managing a wide variety of environmental impacts. I am a little surprised to discover your resistance to it (I''m feeling like our positions have reversed, somehow, you do know this is a "conservative" idea?). The idea is gaining wider application and, yes, there are both successes and failures. The carbon trading idea is just part of the larger concept and those who engage in it form a system in which the free market will work its magic under the unseen hand of economics. This is hardly a "liberal" approach. I hope you see that.

 

Dubya: I don''t hope he crawls back into the bottle, I expect him to. It''s a life-long addiction for him and he was a drunk until he was 39. Then after a conversation one evening with Billy Graham he saw the light. Right!

I almost fell for it. I actually hoped that he could, would, unite the country. I was willing to give up the whole election thing if he would just follow through on his promises. He failed tragically...for all of us.

 

But I admit, for me it is personal.

A drunk nearly killed my family. About the same age. He measured 0.35 BAC and was laced with Xanax. And he entered a last minute not-guilty plea, entering the court with the same smirking swagger that Dubya has. He had no insurance. We paid dearly and he went to Oklahoma to attend flight school. Not even a slap on the wrist.

We allowed a drunk to lead the country and look where he led us. For the sake of my family, I know we did as much as we could to rebuild after our personal tragedy. The country, on the other hand, put this guy at the wheel. We knew the risks. We sent him back again. What arrogance! So now we are paying dearly. Again. For one more failed drunk. Yes, I expect him to crawl back into the bottle. It''s a perfect fit for a life of deception and failure.

 

Al Gore, on the other hand, is smiling with his big house, private jet, comfortable life with all kinds of successes coming his way, and yes, the little statues and the Nobel Peace Prize. He is a celebrity everywhere he goes. He is doing the one thing that burns his detractors more than anything else...he''s living well. Good for him.

[LongHaul]

>>Once I see those names, maybe I can provide you with some who haven''''t received "oil" money.

[Beavah]

Yah, I think BA or somebody listed a bunch of names in a previous thread, eh? They were almost all tainted - people talking way outside their expertise, or heavily "subsidized" by special interest polluter money. A couple were "real", but their comments were "spun" and didn''t actually reflect their full statements.

 

That''s just da way it is, eh? The evidence has piled up so deep that there aren''t many genuine alternative theorists. About the only thing of some interest are the solar scientists speculatin'' on changes in solar flux, and that evidence is really thin (and I believe now financed by special interests).

 

It''s fine to say "I believe we should pollute and change the environment as much as we want if it gets me/us/ours more wealth." At least that''s honest. Chinese and Indians are doing it, which is why Global Warming is probably inevitable. Displacements to our kids and other poorer people be darned!

 

Da Republicans I voted for are putting the costs of everything from war to infrastructure onto our credit cards to be paid off by our children and grandchildren, who also get saddled with keepin'' us in our "lifestyle" until we die. Why should they do anything different with the environment?

 

Give us what we want now, for free! Let our kids pay for it! Da rallying cry of the modern borrow-and-spend "conservative." Ignore deficits, they don''t matter! Ignore environmental risks, they don''t matter! If yeh can''t suppress the data, spin it, or just blow chaff to create fear, uncertainty, and doubt. Let our children pay!

 

I voted for da bum, but GWB goes down as probably the most incompetent president ever. I''m with packsaddle. Three cheers for Gore, who found something he is good at and who pursued it. The American Way. Whether it''s basketball or business or farming or service work - find something you''re good at and pursue it. He did and he''s reaping just recognition. Carter did, too, after his mediocre presidency. He grew into a statesman as an advocate for service and peace.

 

Who knows. Maybe someday GWB will wake up and realize he makes an OK rancher and have some success there that he never achieved as a businessman or a leader.

 

Beavah