Al Gore On Sarah Palin And Climate Change
Al Gore has it exactly right. If Republicans can use Sarah Palin as a source, then Al Gore, who has actually studied this issue, deserves a hearing too:
Exactly, Al. Sarah Palin, please explain how a hacked email is going to un-melt the glaciers and sea ice, will undo sea level rise and will un-acidify the ocean. Global warming is not just numbers on a graph, it’s the effects we’re seeing all around us. Do the deniers need to be standing on a boat in what used to be part of Manhattan before they get this? The laws of physics don’t care whether you believe in them or not, they will occur no matter what. All the deniers are doing is making action to combat the problem even harder, but what do they care they’ll mostly be dead and gone when the big effects are kicking in mid-century. Also, I just love how journalists glibly assert that we can’t take action because it will cost money. Why is there an assumption that doing nothing is free?
Anyway, Gore asks the question that a Sarah Palin could never answer logically: Why are the polar ice caps disappearing? The batshit crazy deniers like Palin don’t know the caps exist maybe because she can’t see them from her house…
MITCHELL: Congratulations on the book. You write in your new book, “Our Choice,” “The global warming deniers’ arguments are fraudulent and often nonsensical.” Yet even today, one of the best-known voices in the Republican Party, Sarah Palin, has an op-ed in the Washington Post, and she is escalating a major attack against Copenhagen and against — against the summit. Palin calls it “junk science.” She says, “The agenda-driven policies being pushed in Copenhagen won’t change the weather, but they would change our economy for the worst.”
What’s your response to that?
GORE: Well, you know, the — the global warming deniers persist in this air of unreality. After all, the entire north polar icecap, which has been there for most of the last 3 million years, is disappearing before our eyes. Forty percent is already gone. The rest is expected to go completely within the next decade. What do they think is causing this?
The mountain glaciers in every region of the world are melting, many of them at an accelerated rate, threatening drinking supplies — drinking water supplies and agricultural water supplies. We have these record storms, drought, floods, fires, three deaths (ph) in the American West, climate refugees beginning now, expected to rise to the hundreds of millions unless we take action.
These effects are taking place all over the world exactly as predicted by the scientists, who have warned for years that, if we continue putting 90 million tons of global warming pollution into the atmosphere every day, the accumulation — that’s going to trap lots more heat, raise temperatures, and cause all of these consequences that are already beginning.
MITCHELL: Well, one of the things that she has written recently on Facebook is that this is doomsday scare tactics pushed by an environmental priesthood that makes the public feel like owning an SUV is a sin against the planet.
GORE: Well, the scientific community has worked very intensively for 20 years within this international process, and they now say the evidence is unequivocal. A hundred and fifty years ago this year was the discovery that CO-2 traps heat. That is a — a principle in physics. It’s not a question of debate. It’s like gravity; it exists.
Tags: Al Gore, Climate Change, Copenhagen
“It’s like gravity; it exists.” (except in Palin’s head, where a vacuum exists)
The polar cap is melting because the temperature of the Earth’s core is “several million degrees” C. For those of you who attended Delaware public schools, It’s actually estimated at 5,000 C to 7,000 C, based on an assumption of 25-50 degrees increase per mile from the surface, but Al Gore apparently hasn’t done actual research on this either.
Does he even realize people view him as a side show act.
G, when do you start claiming that the earth is only 10,000 years old? And to think that I thought you were one of the (very few) smart ones. Silly me.
And the icecaps have been there for 3M years and suddenly they are melting from a core earth temp that has been the same for that same 3M years. There’s your sideshow — that apparently GRex and his denialist ilk can’t quite comprehend that there are people who actually can see through the denialist bullshit.
Damn, but y’all can be thick sometimes! Al Gore was on Conan O’Brien last month and said (in the context of harnessing geothermal energy) that the Earth’s core temp is several million degrees Celsius, which would make the Earth a small star. Like every other science fact Mr. Gore cites, he probably heard it at a cocktail party. I guess that story didn’t make it onto Olberman or the Colbert Report, or you would have perceived my keen wit in all its glory.
Actually, cassie, the ice caps and glaciers have expanded and contracted throughout the history of the earth. Remember — the polar ice caps once expanded to such a degree that Delaware was beneath the one in the northern hemisphere. Why not set THAT configuration as the baseline for what the earth should be like? Why set the configuration during the coldest snap in the modern era as what ought to be? Why not use what would have existed during the Medieval Warming, when the coasts of Greenland were ice-free and much of the land area was . . . green rather than white?
We may be (and likely are) in a warming period — but the evidence does not support the thesis that human beings are the cause. You know, since similar temperature increases seem to be happening on Mars — and there is no way that our CO2 is causing that increase.
There is quite a difference between an ice cap and a glacier. And when Delaware was under an ice cap that was called an Ice Age. There is no precedent for the ice caps just melting away in human history and the rate of the melting is accelerating. This means that not only is a source of locked water disseminating, but it also means that one of the sources that helps to regulate the earth’s temperature has gone away.
And if there was any evidence that you understood or even read any of the science involved, perhaps your opinion might mean something. But like GRex here, you are a font of received bullshit from your radio handlers.
I can’t figure out if these guys are pretending to be this stupid or if they really are this stupid. I still kinda think G is pretending in order to fit in with the likes of his pal Corky American (and because he probably gets off on it).
G is all surly and pissed off now on account of the Kenyan Usurper, but he used to be witty back in the day and you can’t be as funny as he was while being as stupid as he is pretending to be.
Actually, cassandra, my information does come from studying the science AND the history — I’ve had an interest in the subject for some thirty years, going all the way back to when many of these same climate scientists whose claims you take as gospel truth were telling us that the next ice age was upon us if we didn’t cut back on our carbon emissions.
But if one ignores the historical data regarding the Medieval Warming and the Little Ice Age, and one limits oneself to temperature data and other evidence over the last couple of centuries, you do get this horrific warming trend that does seem alarming. But when one includes glacier core data from Greenland and AnTarctica and discovers that fluctuations like we have seen now have happened before (including a number of “hockey sticks” like the one used to “prove” global warming is caused by human beings), then one is forced to conclude that the AGW theory is far from certain — and that the failure to engage on such data and tendency to instead throw around terms like “denialist” and “denier” is indicative of something other than logic.
And the sad part is that the fighting over the issue of what is causing the warming is distracting us from the really important issue, which is moving away from the reliance on fossil fuels. There are lots of good reasons to do so, but the tendency to wrap it in the questionable science of AGW is an obstacle. If folks would step away from the crappy, politicized science put forth by Al Gore and his supporters and instead push for that upn which we all agree, we might just be able to accomplish the shared goal of converting to cleaner energy within the next couple of decades.
I can already tell you haven’t studied any history when you said: many of these same climate scientists whose claims you take as gospel truth were telling us that the next ice age was upon us if we didn’t cut back on our carbon emissions.
Scientists published on the aerosol effect, it’s a real effect and for a while it was enough to cover the warming trend. The Montreal Protocol actually worked and that effect was lessened and the ozone hole is closing. The whole “global cooling” thing was actually a media phenomenon.
Don’t blame scientists for the distraction from getting off of our dependence on fossil fuels. It’s the oil companies that are funding the deniers. Sarah Palin is giving the oil company line: “drill baby drill.”
Scientists have been sounding this warning for at least 20 years. Congratulations for realizing that we need to change our ways at least 20 years after those “crappy” science geeks did.
No, UI, you are being disingenuous here — while they did talk about the aerosol effect, there was also plenty of talk about the impact of fossil fuels and greenhouse gasses.
And as for the energy issue, some of us have been talking about that on the basis of reasons other than climate change for decades. You don’t need AGW to see that as necessary. And while I, like Palin, fully support more fossil fuel production in America, it is as a transitional measure until the as-yet-undeveloped alternative technologies can be put in place.
The little ice age and the Medieval warming period are not ignored in the data. That’s just not true at all. I know you’re trying to use the typical denier argument which boils down to climate has changed in the past so therefore humans can’t be doing it. Yes, climate has changed in the past. Ice core samples have shown that these changes have occurred when CO2 levels have changed. So we know CO2 is the culprit. Do you deny that we are putting out massive amounts of CO2? Which part are you denying? That CO2 causes warming? That we’re putting out CO2? That there is a warming trend at all?
as gospel truth were telling us that the next ice age was upon us if we didn’t cut back on our carbon emissions.
This is how you know you haven’t come to grips with any of this — the cooling conjecture was put forth by a few with little to no data or even modeling to show how it would happen. It never got much traction among scientists, but did get plenty of TV play. Which is how the people who want to represent themselves as knowing something about this subject got most of their misinformation. The next ice age was never a serious theory in the scientific community working on this.
And there are plenty of plots of temp data that show the rather alarming change in climate over the last couple of centuries is much much faster and much much warmer than the Medieval warming.
Sorry, cassandra_m, but you’re incorrect. Global cooling – including an ice age – may well be the next stage of global warming. Why? Ocean currents such as the Gulf Stream essentially serve as heat pumps for the planet by moving warm water from the equatorial regions towards the polar regions on the surface of the ocean. As this water cools, it heats the atmosphere and then flows back as cool water towards the equator.
These ocean currents rely on thermal gradients to flow. The melting of the polar ice caps may destroy those gradients, thus causing the ocean currents to change, and leading to a global redistribution of heat – hotter at the equator and much colder toward the poles.
We already know that the planet can sustain an ice age. It can – and probably will – happen again.
In short, we’re doomed.
Why is it that every generation is CONVINCED we are the last ones? Why, decade after decade are we convinced that we will see The End?
It’s pretty arrogant if you ask me… and not very conducive to a mindset that causes us to make the Earth a better place for future generations. We always have to SAVE THE EARTH… WE ARE DOOMED! ARE DEMISE ARE NYE!
yes. we ARE doomed. This planet, like other planets will eventually die. If we dont do it, the tectonic plates will stop moving, ocean currents will stop, our atmosphere will vanish and we will look like Mars… OR the sun will grow old and kill us all. so, yes. the Earth is doomed, but it is not going to happen tomorrow. Unfortunately carbon dioxide is a political issue. It shouldn’t be, but it is, and some jerk-was scientists made a slight superficial political gaffe, but as we ALL know… slight political gaffes RUIN campaigns. I’m afraid global warming due to human actions is, as far as the news cycles and politics that run our lives are concerned, over.
What we should be focusing on instead are pollution levels in urban centers. You can’t disprove that people who live in high density area with power plants, (good by forever Valero you motherfucks)cars, etc.. those people get cancer at a higher rate, are sick more often, are generally less healthy because of pollution.
Striving for alternate energy sources to deal with current conditions and not for something that has become a political football will get things done. Otherwise it will be just like health care. A sad, failed attempt at legislation that has been defeated by right wing nut jobs.
A1, I’m not wrong about the point I was specifically responding to — the point I was responding to was UA’s talking point that scientists were calling for catastrophic global cooling before they settled in on global warming. That narrative is wrong. And it is a recent wingnut narrative meant to discredit the business of science. Global cooling 30 years ago (as a direct result of carbon emissions) was an outlier idea that got no real traction. One of the results of global warming may be a new ice age at some point, but that doesn’t discredit global warming as the trigger of the myriad details of climate change.
OK, cassandra_m, I just wanted to clarify that global cooling is a likely and catastrophic consequence of global warming.
a.price asked, “Why is it that every generation is CONVINCED we are the last ones? Why, decade after decade are we convinced that we will see The End?”
Because most of the previous generations believed that it would come by the acts of a mythical Daddy in the sky. We’re only the second generation actually capable of doing it to ourselves. And that’s exactly what we’re doing. I do believe that it is already too late because any surviving population of humans will not have the ability to contain or control the nuclear contamination that will make the planet uninhabitable.
We’re doomed.
I’ll take a shot at a.price’s question. Two part answer. 1) The human mind is adept at, and has a need to, put things into a cohesive narrative. Therefore every culture has a story about how the world began and how it will end. 2) People also like to think they are special. If you are in “The Last Generation” or “The End Times”, it makes you special. That’s why think people have always thought the world would end very soon.
As far as climate change, no, The World will not end. The Earth is very adaptable to great change and will continue on for billions more years. We, and our society, however, are a lot more susceptable to change. Let’s say the oceans rise a few feet (as they have done, and more, many times before). The Earth will be fine. The untold millions of people who will lose their homes, cities, or whole countries, though, will, to use a technical term, “Be screwed”. Human civilization (and especially modern civilization) has developed under a pretty narrow range of climatic parameters. If they change, even by a fairly small amount, it will cause massive change for many people. Unfortunately, it seems possible that most will only learn that in retrospect.