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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
I applaud you for tackling this difficult environmental issue and writing about it so eloquently. Had you been elected... oh, wait, you were, and I voted for you... I feel confident we'd be heading in a much better direction. It is rather discouraging to me that my governor drives a fleet of Hummers and that I share the roads every day with a large number of oversized SUV's. It seems like very few people take global warming seriously. The challenge, and perhaps the key, is to reach these people. The non-believers. Our political leaders should not only set guidelines, they should lead by example. Can you picture Mr. Bush or Mr. Schwarzenegger driving a Toyota Prius? Me neither. A stretch Hummer limo (if such an atrocity exists)? Sadly, yes.
Lee Raymond and the rest of the gasoline cartel have every right to make record profits at the expense of humanity and the planet. I'm pretty sure that was amended into our Constitution at some point (wasn't it the 14th amendment?). Anyone who says otherwise is a communist or a responsible human being, both of which are deplorable things to be. What's next? Are you going to suggest that polluters pay taxes in order clean up the toxic messes they make? That's not the American way, we leave our waste where we please. Thank you very much.
Al Gore may have an outward concern for the environment, but unfortunately he blew it when he had FOUR children with his wife, Tipper. Most of the earth's environmental problems can be traced to overpopulation, and Mr. Gore demonstrated his lack of understanding of this basic fact with his oversized, selfishly resource-intensive breeding.
Global Warming is the new Population Bomb. It is so much blah blah blah that adds up to nothing. Scientific facts intended to distract and alarm, taken alone, might be true about carbon dioxide concentrations, cow farts or ice caps. But just like pure white noise, they are not additive and do not predict impending doom. We didn't run out of food in 1985 and we are not going to be cooked alive in 2100, either.
I think what galls me the most about the right's refusal to adknowledge the threat of climate change is the manner in which they have been able to frame the debate as a fight over frivilous environmental nostalgia -- as if the only reason to demand agressive environmental regulation is out of some fetishistic love of snowy owls. Of course, we should all be in awe of nature's magnificance, but we should also understand that good environmental policy is good economic policy. Preventing global warming is not about saving animals, it's about saving people.
If there is one thing we should understand its that ecological disaster is only a "disaster" from a human perspective. Nature is patient and will adapt to anything that humans can do to it. Even in the worst case scenario, ecosystems will reform around new climates and slowly, eventually, inevitably balance will be restored to the system.
Of course, whether or not our small and ephemeral culture would survive -- that's the cause worth fighting for.
I believe that are a lot of difficult choices we have to make to save our planet from environmental catastrophe. And I agree with Al Gore that "an attitude that says it's OK to ignore scientific evidence" is a threat to our future existence.
But I'm not ready to listen to Al Gore tell me this, because I remember when he thought it was OK to ignore scientific evidence himself. Back in 2000, he told the public numerous times on the campaign trail that that a panel of doctors brought together by the government concluded there was "absolutely no evidence" for medical marijuana. In fact, the panel of doctors was a committee from the Institute of Medicine commissioned by the Clinton administration to study the science behind medical marijuana, and they found a wealth of scientific evidence for the medicinal properties of marijuana claimed by physicians over the last five thousands years of human history, and they recommended clinical trials be conducted on the basis of this scientific evidence.
Why would Al Gore misrepresent this report? Because he needed the support of antidrug groups during his campaign, and he couldn't get their support and tell the truth about the scientific evidence for medical marijuana at the same time. So he made a choice, and the choice was that it was OK to ignore science.
I will trust a lot of people to warn me of the environmental problems this planet is suffering, but because of this nasty episode in Al Gore's past, Al Gore won't be one of them, sorry. He has shown by example that he cannot be trusted around facts or science when his own political interests are at stake.
People who like Gore are going to hate me for saying this, but too bad. If we have a country where politicians can get away with misleading the public about science, we aren't going to last very much longer on this planet. And this warning has to apply to the left just as strongly as it applies to the right, otherwise it doesn't mean anything.
I just can't believe Al Gore isn't our president. Well, he IS our president, just not in the way I would like. I am convinced that the world would be a very different place had Bush Jr. and that fucking evil Cheney murderer not stolen office.
It's amazing -- and sad -- to realize that the man who won the presidency can write so thoroughly and eloquently, and yet the man who gets to sit in the Oval Office can't even read what the real president has written.
Gore makes good points but his solipsistic letter writers undermine many of his points.
You forget that the biggest beneficiary of the Oil industry profits is actually the government, who taxes every gallon. Also, the NIMBYs and eniron-mental patients have prevented the upgrading of refinery facilities and development of new ones that would probably be more efficient and thus reduce gas prices. You don't see Ted Kennedy complaining about that.
Calling Cheney a murderer is like calling Clinton a murderer for not lifting a finger in Africa (a couple of genocides he did nothing about). So no tit for tat necessary.
Yes. Gore won the popular vote, but are you still bitching about "President" Tilden? Get over it.
You want to point fingers, then blame these people:
* John D. Rockefeller and his heirs, including the Senator from West Virginia.
* Robert Moses
* Henry Ford
* The inventor of the Humvee
Wanna talk about hurricanes? Look at Galveston, Diana, and Gloria.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
