[aldente]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Peleg', '
')
Dude,
Grow up and understand the big picture!

[Peleg]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('albente', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Peleg', 'D')ude, Grow up and understand the big picture!

[DomusAlbion]

Well said hippiema1.

This is, I believe, what bothers me so much about Gore. He has lived a very privileged and status filled life and talks the talk but doesn't really walk the talk.

Ralph Nader is a crusader as well, but he lives his words.

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('DomusAlbion', '
')This is, I believe, what bothers me so much about Gore. He has lived a very privileged and status filled life and talks the talk but doesn't really walk the talk.

[dohboi]

peleg wrote: "my vocabularly was good enough" (my emphasis)

Maybe your "vocabularly" is good enough, but your spelling could use some work;-)

Really, telling the author of one of the best books on the complexities of the intersection of oil, economics and international relations that he has to "grow up" is beyond puerile. You really just embarrass yourself by such posturing.

[Hagakure_Leofman]

Has anyone considered that a sizable chunk of his home energy usage may indeed be expended in the effort to broadcast his messages to the masses?

When was the last time that you personally, tried to change the direction of industrial civilization away from a future that may involve catastrophic consequences for all life on earth?

That would take an amount of energy.

I'm surprised his usage is only 19 times average! A lot of the work that he does would no doubt be conducted from his own home.

Come on people! If you expect him to use the same as everyone else for the pithy reason of 'fairness', then you should acknowledge the effort he goes to to save your sorry butts, and get off your own asses and contribute to efforts to halt global warming - to an EQUAL degree.

Only when your contribution to reversing climate change has reached his, do you have the right to criticize his energy consumption.

Gore's enemies (i.e. polluting corporate interests) have done a wonderful job of reducing the 'debate' on climate change to something so superficial.

I can't believe that people here can't imagine what it takes to campaign for global change?! Get REAL.

[Aaron]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')hen was the last time that you personally, tried to change the direction of industrial civilization away from a future that may involve catastrophic consequences for all life on earth?

[eric_b]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Petrodollar', '
')
BTW, about that US-based brainwashing. Fact#1: All 47 of the "anti-global warming" front organizations and pseudo-scientists were - and are - funded either directly or indirectly by ExxonMobile. Its amazing what that corporation has been able to acheive with only $18 million in a purposeful, highly structured "marketing"/ propaganda campaign from the late 1980s to the present - designed specifically to create the public impression of "uncertainty" in the scientific community regarding Global Warming.

[dohboi]

HL, I agree that if we are going to use our dwindling resources and sinks for anything, it should be for education and spreading the word. Most of those who go after Gore for his energy use or anything else are just right wing spin-meisters who would go after Gore no matter what he did. Remember how they tried to portray his as a chronic liar during the election--and now we have the ever-truthful Bush; what a sad joke.

My main disappointment with Gore is how little, after writing an excellent book about it, he brought up global warming during the Clinton elections and presidency and during his own run for president. My take is that the system saw him as a deep threat so co-opted him by tempting him with (the illusion of) power and distracting him with relatively unimportant projects. Who said that he'd rather have his enemies inside the fence pissing out than outside pissing in?

Many, including Gore, have written about the bubble you enter when you go into presidential politics. Advisers come to control every thing you say and every move you make. The paranoia about alienating any block of voters or funders makes all you messages into the mush we see the candidates spew.

So the paradoxical tragedy is that he spent so much time in power where he was powerless, crucial time where he should have been on the outside storming the walls and educating the masses. Now the time is lost, and, while we all still need to fight and lower our footprints, by any reasonable measure, it is too late to prevent massive pain and loss.

We have failed fantastically to live within the limits of the world, so we are now losing both the world and ourselves.

[mos6507]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dohboi', '
')So the paradoxical tragedy is that he spent so much time in power where he was powerless, crucial time where he should have been on the outside storming the walls and educating the masses. Now the time is lost, and, while we all still need to fight and lower our footprints, by any reasonable measure, it is too late to prevent massive pain and loss.

[dohboi]

Yeah, that seemed really strange. Good explanation for it. Do you think he might be a vp possibility again, in spite of his protests to the contrary?

[joelcolorado]

Gore is an opportunist who doesnt know his ass from a hole in the ground. Hell, look how much he EATS. Never seen him that large.

It never ceases to amaze me that ppl will follow those guys blindly. Lost sheep gone astray.

[MyOldTDiIsStillGoing]

Ah yes, Al Gore. I lived in Tennessee when we got rid of him as our senator. If the country is stupid enough to make him VP, well let them. Evidence of the direction the country is/ was going.

Living in Nashville, we had the Al Gore warning on the radio alerting us he is coming for the "weekend" to go to his homestead in Carthage (the same homestead that has some issues with the EPA). It would plug up the airport region near BNA while his Air Force II would come in and the slew of security SUV's would burn up to his homestead. I would scramble to cut through the airport region before it shutdown for the environmental parade to take place, usually at 4pm on Saturdays.

As he still around selling "Carbon-Offsets" and getting fat off from it, I hope he will buy from me since I am averaging less than 200kw per month of usages. His mansion in Belle Meade is using alot more than my mansion and I could use the cash. We can trade and it will make him so happy that he then offset his lifestyle of consumption.

FYI, EPA use to do Carbon-Offset for free or just an administration cost, but it changed during the Clinton Administration. I worked in an industry that dealt with it as we established new facilities or attempted to add new processes that would have an environmental impact. We worked with the EPA in getting credits from other business that had less of an impact. Hum, now it is a business. Strange how things change.

[joelcolorado]

Isnt it funny how a person can buy carbon offsets and somehow that makes it okay to use a HUGE amount of energy? I find that appalling.

Its the same class warfare ideology that if you have enough money its okay to do what you want. You can justify it somehow. How about, using LESS and beinga good world citizen.

[MyOldTDiIsStillGoing]

Ah yes, joelcoloraado, it strange about the Mainline Limo Liberals and their consumption. I believe in the conservative way of life, the word conserve is the focus. Tragedy, we have a 2 party system that isn't.

I was raise in a very poor economically home situation that fortunately I had a mother who went though the depression. I am blessed now with a great engineering salary but remember what is was like. As I prepare for the upcoming life we will be encountering, the mortgage is paid off, I can walk to every where, putting place more efficient uses of resources, all in a 1250 sq foot homestead on a 35x 100 plot of land in the city. And there is 4 of us comfortable living here. Remember, it is just Al and Tipper in their "mansion" of xxxx sq feet (or XXX-rated size).

The going "Green" is a current Madison Avenue marketing scam for which I refuse to buy into. I will just live my conservative life being one who conserves. The class warfare is on.

[aldente]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', ' ')But then, why did Gore not enter the 2008 presidential race? It was more important for him to honor Bill by not competing against Hillary? He wouldn't even endorse Obama until after Hillary dropped out, which certainly makes it seem that way.

[Smudger]

I think Al Gore via his book/film has made a great contribution to the climate change debate and should be respected for it. we are all hypocrites (let he cast the first stone and all that) but is he being misleading? no. carbon credits are probably a 20 year bridge to a low carbon world, to make the population change to a low oil consuming co2 producing world - which I think is what we want...! then we have to show you can make a living/money from it - exactly as Gore is trying to show. he has not touched on PO then then if I was him would I? probably not I would focus on climate change and look to someone else for PO otherwise I would just dilute the message.

[Cid_Yama]

Thank you, Smudger. I'm so sick of these neocon denialists attacking him. Does Rush Limbaugh have a Nobel Peace Prize? No.
Glen Beck? No again. G.W. Bush? Don't make me laugh.

The neocons are idiots. Isn't it interesting that neocons tend to test low-average on IQ tests. Most who consider themselves conservatives also tend to have a lower education level than those who refer to themselves as liberal. Perhaps they just don't understand the issues.

[GoghGoner]

I have become so strongly anti-Republican that I am now a Democrat.

I never cared for Al Gore -- too closely tied with the Clintons. I voted Nader in 2000 which was a big mistake since we have this science-denying oil company government. Or maybe the mistake was that Al Gore took 50% of the vote away from Nader.

I now find it slightly humorous when a denialist starts in against climate science since somewhere in the conversation they will mention Al Gore in the most venomous way. Never fails. And then I know they are a right-wing nutcase. Never fails that they will use the word sheeple, too. I am so sick of all the sheep using the word sheep.

[Cashmere]

Yes folks, you read that correctly.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'J')ust as John F. Kennedy set his sights on the moon, Al Gore is challenging the nation to produce every kilowatt of electricity through wind, sun and other Earth-friendly energy sources within 10 years, an audacious goal he hopes the next president will embrace.