Hurting The Cause

I mentioned that I suspected Al Gore actually hurt the cause of global warming true believers right after his Oscar win. Roger Simon points to a poll that indicates that a very large number of Americans feel the same way. Only a very small percentage of Americans, less than 25%, think Gore is an expert on the subject at all. The American public is a lot smarter than politicians often give them credit for.

I have long suspected that Al Gore hurt the very cause - anthropogenic global warming - he is famous for espousing. Now I have some evidence of that in a new Rasmussen Poll saying only 24% percent of Americans consider the former veep a global warming expert. Furthermore, "just 36% of Americans say that Gore knows what he is talking about when it comes to the environment and Global Warming. [caps theirs]"

Gore's problem may stem from the attitude inherent in his remark before a Congressional Committee quoted further down in the Rasmussen article: "Global Warming is 'not a partisan issue; it's a moral issue.'" Wrong, Al. It's neither. It's a scientific issue.

And, considering the Rasmussen Poll, most of us apparently know it.

When I first viewed Gore's Oscar-winning movie, it was that very thing that immediately occurred to me: why am I listening to a politician talk about this? Why not a scientist or scientists? You could cut the inauthenticity of the whole enterprise with a knife, starting with pseudo-self-deprecating joke about his near presidential victory to the recitation of facts that seemed to support his cause (but perhaps didn't, we later learned). The documentary form, of course, allows for these kinds of distortions. How many serious scientific arguments can you fit in an eighty minute film? How deep can you go? Not very far. So someone must select. And with selection comes unscientific bias.

Between Gore's quasi-religious televangelism on the subject and his rank hypocrisy in his own gargantuan energy use, people are not buying what he is selling. This is particularly funny in light of the continued fantasies of Gore attempting another run at the Presidency. But by all means, do carry on, Gorezilla. Then maybe after your hysteria is discredited enough, we can start talking about real issues and real solutions. (Which do not include making the likes of Gore rich off phony carbon offset money-from-nothing shell games.)