Al Gore was brimming with enthusiasm as Live Earth concerts were performed in 130 countries on seven continents to promote his vision of saving the planet from global warming. He unfortunately has not been enthusiastic enough to fulfill the seven-point pledge that he read at one of the concerts.
As point four, the former vice president and presidential candidate asked the tens of thousands attending these events “to work for a dramatic increase in energy efficiency of my home, workplace, school and transportation,” even though he himself has a house that is said to use more electricity each month than the typical American home does in 12.
Oh well, that’s a mere hypocrisy problem, as was the vast consumption of energy at the concerts themselves or the report that performer Madonna, though quick with a banality or two on behalf of the cause, owns nine houses, a private jet and a bunch of autos, all of which is unconvincing evidence of her own energy austerity.
Far worse than the hypocrisy is the prattle Gore has been conveying in the name of scientific gospel. As diligent think tank experts have been documenting, his movie, “An Inconvenient Truth,” gets just about everything wrong: why a glacier is shrinking and snow on a mountaintop is disappearing, the connection between global warming and tornadoes, the impact of warming on hurricanedangers, the extent of rising sea levels and so much more as to make the whole venture laughable.
The message beneath the hokum is that doom is on the way unless we turn to other pledge items, such as cutting “global warming pollution by 90 percent in developed countries and by more than half worldwide for the next generation.” There is a scientific consensus about the danger, it is said, but no, there is not; we come as close to widespread expert agreement on the question of what a Kyoto-like treaty would achieve — almost nothing — and what it would cost: enduring and increased poverty in the poorest countries, along with recession-like devastation in developed countries.
None of this is to say that no possible good can come from these concerts at which thousands of fun-loving young people whooped it up. If they went home determined to further investigate the warming issue and the consequences of various possible policies, that would be cheering news. But let’s keep in mind that mass movements that started out with high emotion and the best of intentions have often ended in mass tragedy, and that whatever the virtues of rock-music extravaganzas, the instilling of intellectual precision has never been listed as one of them.
Well-informed debates would have attracted far fewer attendees, but at least those present would have heard that global warming science is far from settled. While conservation can be constructive, they would have learned, we need far more inquiry into the perplexities of climate along with a search for possible additional technological answers — on top of nuclear energy, for instance — if it turns out we must reduce carbon dioxide emissions significantly.
They might have discovered that the United States has done more to reduce carbon dioxide emissions than many European signatories of Kyoto, is pouring billions into climate change research and has given technical advice to burgeoning China on emissions controls.
They might even have learned that President Bush, demonized as an enemy of the Earth, has a home far different from Gore’s. His Texas house is an environmental wonder that takes it easy on electricity.
It is not like the whiff of booze on the breath of someone giving a temperance speech.
Examiner columnist Jay Ambrose is a former Washington opinion writer and editor of two dailies. He may be reached at [email protected]
