Al Gore...

Al Gore versus Al Gore

by Don Surber

The 45th vice president of the United States (certainly the most controversial one since Aaron Burr) is having a great debate between what he says and what he does. This time, it is not about his overuse of electricity — at a rate 12 times that of a normal person — but rather his finances.

From the Hill on Friday: “Al Gore on Friday bashed the notion that climate scientists are manipulating data for financial gain, a charge levied by global warming skeptics, including GOP White House hopeful Rick Perry.”

From the Telegraph on November 3, 2009: “Al Gore, the former US vice president, could become the world’s first carbon billionaire after investing heavily in green energy companies. Last year Mr Gore’s venture capital firm loaned a small California firm $75m to develop energy-saving technology. The company, Silver Spring Networks, produces hardware and software to make the electricity grid more efficient. The deal appeared to pay off in a big way last week, when the Energy Department announced $3.4 billion in smart grid grants, the New York Times reports. Of the total, more than $560 million went to utilities with which Silver Spring has contracts.”

From Al Gore on Friday: “This is an organized effort to attack the reputation of the scientific community as a whole, to attack their integrity, and to slander them with the lie that they are making up the science in order to make money. These scientists don’t make a lot of money. They are comfortable, as they should be, but they don’t make a lot of money. That is not their motivation for doing what they do.”

Ah yes, Al “Truistic” Gore Jr.

He compared the skeptics of global warming to tobacco companies. His sister died of lung cancer. His family grew tobacco. After her death, he reminded tobacco farmers that he was one of them. On Friday he said: “Millions of people died unnecessarily. They were able to delay action — not by refuting the surgeon general, but by injecting enough doubt so that people would feel ‘maybe this isn’t settled yet.’ Now the coal and oil companies are doing exactly the same thing.”

Gore’s family also had an oil well (and a zinc mine) on their property.

More Gore hypocrisy, via Politico on Friday: “Al Gore wants society to ditch meat-heavy diets and go organic to combat global warming.”

From Canada Free Press on April 2, 2008: “PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) may have got former Vice President Al Gore in the doghouse with his main Global Warming sidekick Maurice Strong by pointing out his addiction to red meat.”

And finally this from Politico:

The former vice president also criticized climate change skeptics, urging those who support curbs to greenhouse gases to “win the conversation” when it comes to global warming. He compared the struggle against climate skeptics to the fight against racism during the civil rights movement.

When racist comments would come up in the course of conversations, “There came a time when people said, ‘Hey man, why do you talk that way? That’s wrong, I don’t go for that, so don’t talk that way around me. I just don’t believe that’.”

That happened in millions of conversations, and slowly the conversation was won,” he said. “And we still have racism, God knows, but it’s so different now and so much better. And we have to win the conversation on climate.”

His father was one of the Dixiecrats who voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act.