Posted on 02/21/2007 1:39:15 PM PST by Caleb1411
Al Gore may not have won the presidency (thank God), but over the last two years, hes been given an enormous consolation prize by his friends on the left. Hes been designated as the Savior of the Planet.
First came the warm wave of supportive publicity surrounding his slide-show documentary An Inconvenient Truth. Katie Couric and Harry Smith and Oprah Winfrey all touted Gore as so warm, so vulnerable and self-effacing, and his predictions so impossibly scary. Last May, Gore and Couric sat together on a sunny day in Central Park and unspooled the doom. Manhattan would be under deep water soon if we dont take drastic measures, they warned.
Now comes another warm wave of media smooches and applause with the news of his plan for an international set of Live Earth concerts to promote massive government action to curb humanitys excessive reliance on energy. Impending global doom has become such a hip cause its now pushed by Cameron Diaz, Jon Bon Jovi, and a flock of other Hollywood astrophysicists, the homelessness issue having become passe.
Ever since the whole planet-panic kicked in around Earth Day 1970, there have been repeated predictions of impending doom, which didnt exactly work out. When will someone in the media ever admit this?
Go back to 1989 and 1990. Instead of NBCs Katie Couric handing the microphone over to Al Gore to lament how Manhattans about to go underwater, the same NBC network handed its microphone and camera crew directly to left-wing Population Bomb author Paul Ehrlich, awarding him large chunks of air time to imagine America losing the nations capital and the entire state of Florida.
In May of 1989, Ehrlich claimed, global warming was going to melt the polar ice caps, causing a flood in which "we could expect to lose all of Florida, Washington D.C., and the Los Angeles basin...we'll be in rising waters with no ark in sight." Ehrlich didnt give a time frame, but his panicked report clearly suggested doom around the corner.
The panic was necessary to sell an extremely harsh solution of enormous, rapid change. Ehrlich commanded that to forestall doom, the world needed to cut its energy use in half over 20 years. Industrialization needed to be dragged to a screeching halt, not only in America, but especially in the Third World. Ehrlich felt the next generation of Americans should be denied the Earth-strangling prosperity of their parents, saying the worlds ecosystems cannot support the spread of the American lifestyle to the Third World or even to the next generation of Americans."
Ehrlich was back on NBC in January 1990 to sell his inconvenient truth line again. This time, he gave a more concrete timeline. Antarcticas ice sheets were slipping, and then we'll be facing a sea-level rise not of one to three feet in a century, but of 10 or 20 feet in a much shorter time. The Supreme Court would be flooded. You could tie your boat to the Washington Monument. Storm surges would make the Capitol unusable.
Its been almost twenty years, we never cut our energy use in half, and Florida is still above water, not to mention D.C. and Los Angeles. We have yet to tie our boats to the Washington Monument. But the media are still handing over their microphones and their accolades to panicky predictions, with no apparent expectation that anyone will ever question their accuracy in a decade or two. How many decades do we wait to question these predictions?
Despite this, too many media outlets approach global warming with a surprising arrogance, insisting that all the facts are in and that anyone who seeks to confuse the public with dissent is too harmful to be heard. CBS reporter Scott Pelley scoffed It would be irresponsible of us to go find some scientist somewhere to cast doubt on the doomsayers. He went on to suggest any scientist who disagreed was probably paid off by fossil fuel interests.
Skeptics of global warming are even being compared to Holocaust deniers. It seems that climate science isnt the only thing leftists monstrously exaggerate.
Dont expect that in 2027, NBC will challenge Al Gore to explain why his climate crisis talk of Manhattan under water never occurred, it being assumed that NBC will still be broadcasting out of New York. By then, the torch of panic will be passed on to a new generation, which will no doubt also ignore the collapsed predictions of yesteryear as they pat themselves on the back as the vanguard of planetary compassion.
I wish I could be as wrong as Paul Ehrlich is all of the time and syill manage to keep my job.
Big assumption. By 2027 I expect broadcasts will come directly from Mecca. ;-)
I was thinking today. Gore wants to have a concert in Antartica in early July. Rush mentioned a while back "Oh yeah, how convenient that he's choosing the hottest month of the year for that".
But today I realised, in Antartica, that would be the coldest time of the year for that region. Hmmm... I wonder if Al Gore is stupid enough to have forgotten that.
Maybe it will be fun to watch LOL
Click graphic for full GW rundown
Ping me if you find one I've missed.
Everyone please go to and send your friends, especially if any are "skeptics". to junkscience.com
Who would come and watch, penguins?
You generally tour Antarctica on a ship out of Argentina. You get to Argentina, of course, via plane. Travel options are just plain awful. Assuming you're going out of LAX, a cut-rate $1,867 per person (tourist class) and a pleasantly brief 23 hours and 39 minutes on a plane will get you to Ushuaia, Argentina (USH). First class travel is not available on this route, so be prepared for outright misery if you can't borrow a friend's Gulfstream V.
You take a 400 mile cruise, 2-3 days out of Ushuaia, and wind up in the South Shetland Islands and the Antarctic penninsula. so out of your 10 days on the cruise, you're only spending 6-7 of them (depending on conditions) in Antarctica itself. Congratulations!
All of this costs a measley $3,360 for 10 days, plus the airfare I've already quoted.
http://www.iexplore.com/expmap/Antarctica/52203
Now, I can't help but think that Steve Jobs will probably let Gore borrow his Gulfstream V jet and so transportation might not be much of a problem for him (or Steve if Steve wants to go).
But after reviewing those facts, it seems like utter madness to even attempt any kind of concert in Antarctica. That's what I thought before i looked it up and, well, I still think that now :-).
Perhaps he will charter a cruise ship and have the concert there? It would be an awfully expensive and uncomfortable junket. I just don't see it being economic as anything but a publicity stunt.
D
Caleb, be sure to check out my previous post if you want to know details about travel to Antarctica.
I wanted to mention one more thing, which is that the $3,360 is for the lousiest accomodation on the ship and does not include a "local payment" of $300.
More typical accomodations are in the $6,000 per person range, but it's only money, right?
Right?
I'm sorry, guys, but I think I'll stick to the tropics for my vacations. Not only is it cheaper, it's, well, warmer. i'm all for global warming if it can only make my life more comfortable, personally ... maybe if it gets warm enough down there I'll want to visit someday.
D
PS This is the cheap tour. The most expensive one on a fancier ship cost $6,000 to a mind-boggling $13,000 per person! However, you get cheaper airfare on that trip, from $910 (Tourist) to $4,400 (first class).
I've always been concerned that global warming would cause penguins to stampede through my yard. Good thing the alligators migrating from Florida will keep them in check.
Apparently the University of Minnesota is going to award Gore an honary doctorate degree so we will now have to call him Dr. Gore, appropriate huh.
My first thought, when I heard this, was to wonder if the moron didn't even know that July was a Winter month in the Southern Hemisphere.
It helps if you are a darling of the leftwing crackpot and a tenured college perfesser. They don't care about accuracy, or even facts--only the Cause.
Also check out the book "Ecoscience" written by Erlich in the 70's. It's full of nonsense that was fashionable then.
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