Patricians Of A Feather
By Mitch Berg
Whenever a smug, sanctimonious, unctuous liberal demigogue anywhere is under attack, you can count on someone in the Strib front office to stand up and be counted.
And with Algore’s hypocritical, power-guzzling ways (and, moreover, his lame “carbon-credit” defense) being heckled off the stage of public opinion, it makes sense that that someone is Nick Coleman. A fellow child of political power, a fellow patrician grown accustomed to lecturing the hopeless hoi-polloi, both with hours of, um, fascinating stories to relate the sixties to today, Coleman is the Algore’s perfect defender.
It’s all so – unfair, says Coleman:
After his film about global warming won an Oscar on Sunday, Al Gore basked in the adulation of Hollywood.
You knew he’d get paid back.
No, Nick. We knew he’d give us plenty of material. You do understand the difference, right?
The right-wing wood-chippers have been chewing Gore into little pieces ever since.
COLEMAN BS ALERT: Actually, the story came out in The Chattanoogan – not exactly part of the Right Wing Noise Machine.
They didn’t enjoy the joke when Gore reached into his tux and pulled out a phony presidential campaign announcement before the Oscar orchestra drummed him off stage.
Truth be told, I actually did get a laugh out of that. Whatever his faults, Algore – like the President, actually – can occasionally poke fun at himself. I’ll give him that much.
Strike two, Nick.
The very sight of Gore offends people who think the Supreme Court ruled he should never again be seen in public. Those folks can’t forgive Gore for continuing to draw breath.
(Closed circuit to Nick Coleman’s nonexistent editor: Isn’t that not only a little hyperbolic, but kind of clubfisted and inarticulate? And, by the way, as we saw with Vice President Cheney’s brush with the Taliban this past week, it’s not the right that goes about wishing death on people…)
But what really got the phlegm flying on talk radio was the “gotcha” from a conservative group that outed the former vice president as a Limousine Electricity user. Zap.
Last year, Gore’s mansion used almost 20 times as much electricity as the average American home. Take that, you Hollywood types.
Everyone loves a juicy bit of hypocrisy, and I am prepared to believe a politician might say one thing in public and act another way in private. But the Gore electricity kerfuffle offers an opportunity for Americans to point a finger.
At ourselves.
Before Nick begins the real purpose of this column – a rote transcription of talking points – let’s set a few things straight.
I’m far from above conserving. Of course, in my case it’s not a matter of buying into a fabian socialist scare story; it’s because I’m half Norwegian, and I like to squeeze twelve cents out of a dime, and I’m all for sending less of my take-home pay to Excel Energy. Or to the House of Saud, for that matter. It’s a market prerogative, and I’m doing my best to vote with my feet and my wallet.
I mentioned “fabian socialist talking points”:
The science on global warming is convincing [Hah!], and so is the need to throttle back on our polluting energy ways.
“The best response to Al Gore’s energy usage is for us to think about our own,” says Michael Noble, executive director of Fresh Energy, a St. Paul-based nonprofit group.
The group is working to develop a “clean, efficient and fair” energy system (www.fresh-energy.org). “We all ought to be looking at the automobile we drive, how we heat our house, whether it’s insulated, whether we have efficient appliances, and how to reduce our fossil fuel use.”
When non-profits start talking about making things “fair”, it’s time to keep one hand on your wallet and the other on your Constitution.
No, we don’t have to live in cold, dark caves, Noble says. The issue is about taking responsibility for our energy use, while supporting efforts to “change the entire energy system, top to bottom, to substitute energy-efficient and carbon-free energy for fossil fuels which lead to warming.”
Of course, the market will do that, on its own. It got a major boost this past two years, as gas prices jumped over $3 a gallon; SUV sales plummeted, people took a serious look at hybrids (and found them largely wanting), alternative energy started to show at least fringe-y signs of being viable someday, and even environmentalists started reconsidering their generation-old hysteria against nuclear power.
Gore, by the way, offsets his fossil-fuel use by paying extra for renewable energy credits.
This was ignored by the talk-radio goobers, but the idea is simple: For a small extra charge, pennies per kilowatt hour, you can “buy” renewable energy credits from your energy company, which uses the money (it is carefully audited) to buy that amount of nonpolluting power (such as wind energy) for its system rather than building more power plants.
Oh, it hasn’t been “ignored” at all. We’ll be talking about the “Carbon-neutral” flimflam this weekend on the NARN, most likely.
“The scientific evidence is rock-solid,” says Noble. “The only solution to global warming is to reduce our total carbon emissions by 80 percent. Al Gore has helped get that message across.”
Even if Tipper leaves the laundry room lights on.
The evidence is far from “rock-solid”, and Coleman’s attempt at spin control ignores the real point: Algore, the carbon scold, is an energy-guzzling hypocrite; this past week, his motto – “conservation for me, but not for thee”, became clear.
And we’re making sure the world knows it.
March 2nd, 2007 at 9:50 am
“I’m half Norwegian, and I like to squeeze twelve cents out of a dime”
I’m 3/4 and a mutual friend takes great satisfation in deriding this tendency in me.
March 2nd, 2007 at 1:49 pm
I sent an “American Thinker” article re Gore’s hypocrisy to my brother-in-law….a former Minnesota Pollution Control employee (so you can imagine-he’s now Director of Environmental Services or something in Stearns County). We received back the following reply:
“There really are a couple of tragedies here, the first being that much of what Al Gore says about global warming or global climate change, is true as best as I can figure. The bigger tragedy is that the ones that are the most outspoken on the issue (with a few exceptions) are some of the biggest personal contributors to the problem. Hypocrites do not make very positive examples.”
Oh good God. And to think we are going to spend next weekend with them in Minneapolis (going to Gaelic Storm at the Fine Line). I’m thinking this whole subject better NOT come up….especially if we’ve been to the Local for a pint or two beforehand! It’s great that he sees the hypocrisy, but it doesn’t take much to do that, so no points awarded. He thinks that what Al Gore says is true?! Oy.
March 2nd, 2007 at 5:13 pm
Mitch said,
“Actually, the story came out in The Chattanoogan – not exactly part of the Right Wing Noise Machine.”
Actually, the story came out as an opinion piece IN The Chattanoogan. An opinion piece offered by The Tennessee Center for Policy Research which IS directly associated with organizations that feed the Right Wing Noise Machine.
One glance at their links page will give you a pretty clear idea of where they are positioned in the political spectrum and it is far from non-partisan.
As for Gore’s energy consumption, Yup, he has greater than average energy bills but scrutinizing the bottomline invoice without consideration of the functionality and use of the property is deceptive.
My family probably has higher energy bills too but like the Gore’s, my wife and I both have an office in the home. That requires a larger home. We also have production equipment and four workstations – three of which are usually running at any given moment during the day so our electricity use is higher than our neighbors who use their homes only as a home.
The point shouldn’t be what the Gore’s spend on energy. It should be what they do to control, contain or reduce their use of it – that and how they invest in the production of renewable forms.
I think the Gores have demonstrated that they have made significant efforts to control and reduce their use of energy by making their home more energy efficient and by switching to more energy efficient things in their home.
I’d like to see a cost per square for example to really see a fair comparison with the national average.
As for the whole offsets issue, it’s nothing but a red herring and it’s unfortunate that the bigger picture of conservation and increased efficiencies is getting completely lost.
March 2nd, 2007 at 8:18 pm
“My family probably has higher energy bills too but like the Gore’s, my wife and I both have an office in the home. That requires a larger home. We also have production equipment and four workstations – three of which are usually running at any given moment during the day so our electricity use is higher than our neighbors who use their homes only as a home.”
When you divvy up a scarce and desirable resource everybody claims a special circumstance.
March 3rd, 2007 at 10:11 am
I do not think that Mr. Gore’s hypocrisy, or lack thereof, is going to solve “the problem of global warming.” If we want to do that, I believe we should consult the Bible. In this case that is the IPCC report itself. It very clearly states that the expected sea level rise is only about 5% of what Mr. Gore claims it will be, so that he isn’t a hypocrite, he’s a liar. But worse than that, the IPCC report says that if we follow Mr. Gore’s prescription and drastically reduce our carbon output today (never mind how many people will suffer or die), we will still have global warming for another hundred years! The logical question to be asking Mr. Gore is (not that he would have a clue), why should we bother? Or the even better question, if we can’t stop it, how can you claim we started it?
March 3rd, 2007 at 11:21 am
Terry said,
“When you divvy up a scarce and desirable resource everybody claims a special circumstance.”
It’s not a special circumstance Terry. Although I despise the term “carbon footprint”, I’ll use it for illustrative purposes.
If my wife worked a job outside of the home, she would have travel energy usage as well as her “share” of energy consumption at her place of employment. That would contribute to her “footprint”.
It just makes economic and environmental sense for us to work from home when possible. We’ve been fortunate enough to be able to do that. If commuting for work wasn’t a reality for me I would be working from home more as well but since I have clients to see from Cambridge down to Rochester, I can’t avoid it.
J. Ewing said,
“Or the even better question, if we can’t stop it, how can you claim we started it?”
Let’s say there is a 100 ton round boulder at the top of a steep hill. Ten guys with levers, shovels and pulleys move the boulder enough that is starts to roll down hill. The guys run down ahead of the boulder and attempt to stop it but are crushed to death in the attempt. They couldn’t stop it. Did they start it J. Ewing?
March 3rd, 2007 at 11:55 am
Doug-
That brings up the question: how do you measure a carbon footprint? Gore probably tells himself that because he is responsible for so many others taking up the cause of conservation his ‘real’ carbon footprint is much smaller than his estate’s use of electricity would imply.
However all of the information I could find online in a fifteen minute search only considered personal use of things like air travel, auto commuting, and home electricity and propane use when calculating carbon footprint. Economic output (what I suppose you could call ‘carbon efficiency’) was not factored into the equation. The market economy measures that to a certain extent anyhow.
Hence poor folks will almost always have a smaller carbon footprint than wealthier folks. The poor may have fewer dollars & consumer goods but they are rich in carbon offsets, which reinforces my belief that the whole idea of carbon offsets is to implement a meta economy over the market economy because its proponents really don’t like the way the market economy distributes wealth.
March 3rd, 2007 at 8:36 pm
Doug- the problem with Gore is not that he is using energy. It’s that he is using energy and telling everyone else not to. He’s a hypocrit.
And just to get facts out, Gore buys Carbon Credits from a company he sits on the board of.
Hmmmm… I think I will start to sell Carbon Credits. Sound like a great growth business.
March 3rd, 2007 at 10:07 pm
predator said,
“It’s that he is using energy and telling everyone else not to.”
No he’s not. He’s telling people that they should reduce their energy use like he and his wife are doing. With regard to carbon credits, the point for an individual buying credits is to essentially force businesses that are over their quota to reduce their emissions.
March 4th, 2007 at 1:34 pm
Doug, if you and the Left are serious about carbon offsets as a way to balance out emissions, then as a regular commenter at Protein Wisdom noted, we should push them as national energy policy. I posted about this in another thread; perhaps you missed it. I quote at length to show he actually ran the numbers. Also, at the original post, he linked all his sources for these figures.
Here’s how the numbers work out:
According to wikipedia, Kyoto would like us to be 7% below 1990 levels by 2010.
And according to Pew, in 1990 we had 6109 Million Metric Tons (MMT) or 10^12 grams and in 2004 we had 7075. To meet Kyoto [protocols] this year, we would have to be at 5681.
To make the difference up we need, as a country, to buy 1394 MMT of offsets.
According to TerraPass, we can buy 450,000 lbs of offsets for $1500.
Converting to metric, that means 204.1165665 Metric Tons. Assuming no more bulk discount, we would have to buy (1,394,000,000 / 204) = 6833333.333 of those passes.
Times $1500, that comes out to $10,250,000,000 or just over $10 billion.
And according to Greg Mankiw’s reading of the CBO report, (Page 345, Option 48), we can raise $49.3B a year by boosting the gas tax 50 cents.
So if that math holds, we add 15 cents to the federal gas tax, and use that $15B to buy “Carbon Offsets” each year, and bam, we’re the only Kyoto Protocol compliant nation, and with minimal tax burden.
How much do you think Gore, Pandagon, Kos or the Sierra Club will support that policy?
So how about it, Doug? Think it’s a good idea?
You also said: Let’s say there is a 100 ton round boulder at the top of a steep hill.
Strawman. We know who started the boulder rolling. We don’t know who started Global warming or even if it is really happening. I posted a comment on this too, which I will repost for your convenience:
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Shabadoo said:
However logically speaking, hypocrisy in action should not be taken as refutation of Mr. Gores points on global warming.
No, it should not. But The GoracleTM should not ignore or distort the scientific method to make them–along with everyone else who joins The ConsensusTM.
Why, you ask? To avoid politicizing the debate:
Recognizing that personal and cultural beliefs influence both our perceptions and our interpretations of natural phenomena, we aim through the use of standard procedures and criteria to minimize those influences when developing a theory. As a famous scientist once said, “Smart people (like smart lawyers) can come up with very good explanations for mistaken points of view.” In summary, the scientific method attempts to minimize the influence of bias or prejudice in the experimenter when testing an hypothesis or a theory.
Under the heading “Common Mistakes in Applying the Scientific Method,” is the iceburg in the sea of reality the scientific method is employed to avoid–but the global warming enviromentalist extremists slam into like a ship out of control:
…the scientific method attempts to minimize the influence of the scientist’s bias on the outcome of an experiment. That is, when testing an hypothesis or a theory, the scientist may have a preference for one outcome or another, and it is important that this preference not bias the results or their interpretation.
The most fundamental error is to mistake the hypothesis for an explanation of a phenomenon, without performing experimental tests. Sometimes “common sense” and “logic” tempt us into believing that no test is needed. There are numerous examples of this, dating from the Greek philosophers to the present day.
Another common mistake is to ignore or rule out data which do not support the hypothesis. Ideally, the experimenter is open to the possibility that the hypothesis is correct or incorrect.
Sometimes, however, a scientist may have a strong belief that the hypothesis is true (or false), or feels internal or external pressure to get a specific result.
In that case, there may be a psychological tendency to find “something wrong”, such as systematic effects, with data which do not support the scientist’s expectations, while data which do agree with those expectations may not be checked as carefully.
The lesson is that all data must be handled in the same way.
Ya think?
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As for the charge that Gore is a hypocrite, even this guy, who thinks that burning fossil fuels is stupid, agrees:
As co-founder and chairman of the firm Gore presumably draws an income or will make money as its investments prosper. In other words, he “buys” his “carbon offsets” from himself, through a transaction designed to boost his own investments and return a profit to himself. To be blunt, Gore doesn’t buy “carbon offsets” through Generation Investment Management – he buys stocks.
And it is not clear at all that Gore’s stock purchases – excuse me, “carbon offsets” purchases – actually help reduce the use of carbon-based energy at all, while the gas lanterns and other carbon-based energy burners at his house continue to burn carbon-based fuels and pump carbon emissions – a/k/a/ “greenhouse gases” – into the atmosphere.
As the news media swarmed around the story of Gore’s gargantuan energy consumption yesterday, Gore’s people touted his purchase of “carbon offsets” as evidence that he lives a “carbon-neutral” lifestyle, but the truth is Gore’s home uses electricity that is, for the most part, derived from the burning of carbon fuels. His house gets its electricity from Nashville Electric Service, which gets its from the Tennessee Valley Authority, which produces most of its power from coal-burning power plants. Which means most of the power being consumed at the Gore mansion comes from carbon-emitting power sources.
But do Gore’s “carbon offsets” payments really compensate for his big non-green power usage?
Wikipedia again:
The intended goal of carbon offsets is to combat global warming. The appeal of becoming “carbon neutral” has contributed to the growth of voluntary offsets, which often are a more cost-effective alternative to reducing one’s own fossil-fuel consumption. However, the actual amount of carbon reduction (if any) from an offset project is difficult to measure, largely unregulated, and vulnerable to misrepresentation.
Did you get that? Carbon offsets are an “alternative to reducing one’s own fossil-fuel consumption” and yet “the actual amount of carbon reduction (if any) from an offset project is difficult to measure, largely unregulated, and vulnerable to misrepresentation.”
One way to misrepresent things: Tell a newspaper your stock purchases are really purchases of “carbon offsets.”
How about that, Doug?
March 4th, 2007 at 3:49 pm
He’s telling people that they should reduce their energy use like he and his wife are doing.
Yeah – all the way down to 10 times the national average (with the aid of solar panels and “Green” construction), from Earth-Only-Knows what it’d be otherwise. Good job, Algore and Tips!
(Figures don’t count the fuel used in Algore’s Gulfstream IV or fleet of SUVs, of course).
March 4th, 2007 at 10:41 pm
Paul,
I’m not sure if you just miss this or selectively ignore it. Gore is taking action to reduce his use of energy. In addition to those actions, he buys credits. If he were buying these credits WITHOUT conserving, you would have a legitimate point but that’s not what’s happening here.
“We don’t know who started Global warming or even if it is really happening.”
Paul. We do know it’s happening and please, can we throw out the Global Warming vernacular? Let’s stick with “climate change” because idiots like Jason Lewis can’t seem to grasp the concept that “Global Warming” might actually be indicated by periods of colder than normal weather. The debate isn’t whether or not we “caused” it. The debate is what is causing the trending upwards in temperatures and whether or not we are contributing to it.
Since we have seen an increase in carbons emissions and densities in the atmosphere which coincide with the rise in temperatures, it’s logical to assume that the two might be related. The only way to “prove” it, is to build theoretical models or to alter the CO2 levels and see what happens to the temperatures.
I would be the first to admit that the whole academy awards gift basket that included energy credits is stupid but it at least is the start of a dialogue about the issue. I look at it similarly to how the whole recycling movement took place. The few people who started talking about recycling were just as nutty as the “climate change” fringe. Today, I think most people generally are aware of recycling programs and I would hope that most people actually participate to some degree.
Also Paul, in the last 5 years there have been significant increases in the efficiency and power output of wind, solar and other renewables. Who’s to say what may be developed in the next 20 years? Also, keep in mind that the only truly significant development in the internal combustion engine over the last 30 years was the fuel injector. Other than that, it’s essentially the same as the engine that propelled cars 110 years ago.
Personally, I believe that to sit back and deny that there is anything happening with the climate is either naive or selectively uninformed. There is literally hundreds of documents and studies demonstrating that human activity is contributing to climate change, You’ve got a handful of scientists and climatologists countering those claims. As a side note Paul, I think is just dandy that you want absolute, unquestionable proof but seriously, where the hell were you guys in 2003 when we liberals and foreign press outlets were the handful of people saying slow down.
My beliefs aside, what’s wrong with thinking that there might be better, smarter, safer, cleaner and more efficient ways to do things?