An Inconvenient Interview

Apparently, Al Gore backed out of a long-scheduled interview with Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten rather suddenly. The paper had arranged for well known skeptic Bjorn Lomborg to participate in the interview. While Gore's agent was enthusiastic when told of the arrangements, it didn't take long before Gore refused to appear at all, even when the paper agreed to keep Lomborg out of it.

Al Gore is traveling around the world telling us how we must fundamentally change our civilization due to the threat of global warming. Last week he was in Denmark to disseminate this message. But if we are to embark on the costliest political project ever, maybe we should make sure it rests on solid ground. It should be based on the best facts, not just the convenient ones. This was the background for the biggest Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, to set up an investigative interview with Mr. Gore. And for this, the paper thought it would be obvious to team up with Bjorn Lomborg, author of "The Skeptical Environmentalist," who has provided one of the clearest counterpoints to Mr. Gore's tune.

The interview had been scheduled for months. The day before the interview Mr. Gore's agent thought Gore-meets-Lomborg would be great. Yet an hour later, he came back to tell us that Bjorn Lomborg should be excluded from the interview because he's been very critical of Mr. Gore's message about global warming and has questioned Mr. Gore's evenhandedness. According to the agent, Mr. Gore only wanted to have questions about his book and documentary, and only asked by a reporter. These conditions were immediately accepted by Jyllands-Posten. Yet an hour later we received an email from the agent saying that the interview was now cancelled. What happened?

One can only speculate. But if we are to follow Mr. Gore's suggestions of radically changing our way of life, the costs are not trivial. If we slowly change our greenhouse gas emissions over the coming century, the U.N. actually estimates that we will live in a warmer but immensely richer world. However, the U.N. Climate Panel suggests that if we follow Al Gore's path down toward an environmentally obsessed society, it will have big consequences for the world, not least its poor. In the year 2100, Mr. Gore will have left the average person 30% poorer, and thus less able to handle many of the problems we will face, climate change or no climate change.

Do read the whole thing. It poses some inconvenient questions that skewer several of Gore's most sensational claims. The more you read , the more you'll be pretty sure you know why Gore dodged. There are "facts" presented by Gore's movie that don't hold up well at all when light is shined on them. You'll also note how this behavior by Gore very closely resembles the behavior of the execrable Jimmy Carter in refusing to debate Alan Dershowitz. There is a pattern here, isn't there?