Becuase Everything Else Sucks

Al Gore Should Battle Hypocrisy

By Manila Ryce
Published Saturday, December 15th, 2007, 1:07 am
Filed under: Environment, World Issues

Thanks to Sam for sending this to me.

Here’s Al Gore speaking at the Bali climate conference:

“I am going to speak an inconvenient truth,” Gore told an audience of several hundred, playing on the name of his Oscar-winning documentary.

And in low tones he added: “My own country the United States is principally responsible for obstructing progress in Bali,” spurring rapturous applause and cheers.

(Based on the accounts I’ve read, immediately after Gore finished speaking his face began glowing with an ethereal light while hosts of cherubim descended from the sky to anoint him as God’s second son.)

There’s just one tiny problem with Gore’s statement: the words “in Bali.” I have a quiz for you: did the following set of headlines come from the global warming talks in The Hague in 2000 or Bali in 2007?

* “US Causes Split at Climate Conference”
* “EU, US in Climate Deal Standoff”
* “US responsible for blocking progress in climate talks”
* “Bitter Divisions Exposed at Climate Talks”

Here’s another set of headlines. Again: 2000 or 2007?

* “U.S. Blamed for Climate Treaty Talks Deadlock”
* “Climate Talks Fail to Close Rift with U.S.”
* “U.S. Blocks Attempts to Cut Global Warming”
* “US Plays Dirty As Planet Chokes”

Can’t figure out which set of headlines came from which year? Here’s a hint: the more egregious ones are from 2000 (in fact I left out some from 2000 that were even worse, to try to make the lists look more balanced). And one more hint: I omitted the attribution “Gore:” from one of the headlines…

…read the full article at The Distant Ocean

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3 Responses to “Al Gore Should Battle Hypocrisy”

  1. Credit Gore with taking advantage of a public issue near and dear to the hearts of many people and using it to his advantage. He’s no different than any other politician in that regard.

    It’s not so much that Clinton/Gore did so much to help the environment back in the day, it’s that the Bush administration has done so very little by means of comparison. And that W’s boys, instead of being lip service to those concerns, have openly and arrogantly dismissed them.

    Comrade Kevin
    12/15/07 at 11:42 am

  2. My feeling has always been that outright Bushian obstructionism on global warming is less detrimental to the ultimate goal of a worldwide response to the issue than the Clinton/Gore tactics of corporate-sponsored mitigation strategies, endless negotiations, watered-down targets, and disingenuous engagement. And John “the Kyoto Protocol is not the answer” Kerry only promised more of the same.

    The purpose in both cases has been the same–to ensure that the United States is not required to take any real steps to address global warming. But with the Bush administration (and Republicans generally) people see that strategy for what it is, whereas with Democrats like Clinton and Gore they’re lulled into a false sense of security by hollow words and empty actions.

    George Monbiot made the same point on Democracy Now!: “Iā€™m afraid to say that the Clinton-Gore administration in some ways did more harm than the Bush administration, because while Bush has gutted the US response to climate change, Gore and Clinton gutted the international response to climate change. They made sure that the Kyoto Protocol was pretty well a dead letter. They destroyed it as an effective instrument. And so, they destroyed it for everyone.”

    John Caruso
    12/15/07 at 12:56 pm

  3. I agree partially with Comrade Kevin above. I do think Al Gore is quite different from all the politicians ‘who would be president’. By deciding not to run in ‘08, he has sacrificed his political ‘dues’ for the 2nd time in his career. And we now have the answer as to WHY Al Gore is not running for president. He doesn’t want to risk his message of inconvenient truth to be diluted by pandering and slandering in our American political arena. Al Gore makes me glad I’m an American, and proud of my country’s ability and promise to resume its role as a world leader in just 14 short months.

    Vigilante
    12/16/07 at 10:16 am

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