You go, Gore!

It must be nice, to have that kind of money.

Gore is a lunatic and plans to line his own pockets in the name of "global warming". His claim of inventing the internet showed his true intellect. Thank God he wasn't elected President.

It used to be called "Global Warming", a typical scare tactic to generate funds for research, and line more than a few pockets. Since that school of thought has been debunked, Gore and his cronies created "Climate Change" because, guess what, THE CLIMATE CHANGES and nobody in their right mind would attempt to dispute a natural fact. It all boils down to another attempt to get more money from the taxpayers, and he'll succeed for awhile, but eventually the people will wake up (I hope) and see this fraud for who he is.

Former President Al Gore is getting 300mil. for a campaign to increase public awareness of climate change (Global Warming). Well Mr. Gore I have many young girls in Camden, NJ that I would like to start a campaign to jump start their lives. They come from many broken homes and single parents. Can you possiblily shares some of your funds to help me create a better life for these children that need it so bad. Having the funds would help me to help them in encouraging them that they aren't life behind, and as much as Global warming is important they are too. STEP IT UP!

How ridiculous. Gore is riding a wave of leftist-induced hysteria, promoting his name and his brand of group-think in the name of "Climate Change". Just this weekend on NPR I heard a wine "expert" lamenting Thomas Jefferson's failed attempts at producing a good wine due to frost damage because, well, "they didn't have global warming back then." Holy cow - are the masses really this ignorant, to accept hook, line, and sinker ANYTHING that is viewed as anti-establishment (and anti-Bush)? Better that these funds go to spur development in Africa, than promoting the name of Gore and his trumped-up exaggerations. Our coffeepot's THATAWAY.

Do you people actually believe this is a scam to make money? Wake up people. It is quite obvious the climate is changing and it is not a natural event you idiots. I guess you also believe that we will never run out of oil and there is no need for an alternative fuel source. Everything is always a scam. The fact of the matter is that Gore doesn't need to line his own pockets. The man is already richer than most of you rednecks could even comprehend. I am not surprised. After all you elected Bush twice.

Gore and other liberal fascists desperately need a crisis to justify depriving the rest of us of our liberties. This is only the latest in a long line of similar "Wars" (on poverty, homelessness and etc.) and "Crises." Conning the Girl Scouts out of their time and money to promote a completely bogus crisis is shameful in the extreme.

Perhaps that money could have gone to some practical environmental use, such as a wind farm or solar power plant. Either one could help bring down the power bills from his mansion.

Diddo. We need our government to focus more on people in need. Let our scientists do the science. The 11th hour was a better movie. We got to actually see the scientists and hear the evidence. I did not see any mistakes in Gore's movie. The facts are all available in the scientific literature. I have read many reviews on this subject and am convinced that global warming is real.

Yeah maybe we should use the money to start another pointless war?

Spud is wrong. Gore never claimed to have invented the internet. He claimed to have sponsored the legislation that created the internet, which he did.

I am thankful that Mr. Gore has the courage and resources to step up and work so hard to keep our planet habitable. We must make changes in our lives if we want to keep our supplies of water, air, oil and food.
He is keeping the message positive because great change is brought by positive steps rather than fighting. It's much easier to prevent further climate changes than to try and repair the damage after the fact.
Anyone who still doubts global warming could benefit greatly from watching An Inconvenient Truth, or National Geographic's Six Degrees.
This is so important and we can all make a difference.

1) Gore is funding this with all his profits from "An Inconvenient Truth" as well as his Nobel Prize award. On top of that, he is matching the Nobel money with his own. It's a pretty large leap to say he is doing this for money.

2) The earth is warming. It is irrefutable looking any data at all from temperature station readings, sea surface readings, or even satellite data. The greenhouse effect and how each greenhouse gas effects climate is well known quantity. When taking into account natural carbon sinks, man is producing far more greenhouse gas than occurs naturally. Now without a doubt, we are in a natural warming trend. We are still coming out of an ice age... However, man is pushing this trend well past what would occur naturally and accelerating the climate shift in a manner not seen in the natural world.

I guess if you want to discount the bevy of scientific evidence from groups like NASA, the National Academy of Science, the NOAA, the Royal Academy of UK, the Hadley Center/Met Office, the science acadamies of Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Russia, the IPCC, the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, The US National Research Council, The American Meteorological Society, the UK Meteorological Society, the World Meteorological Society, The American Institute for Physics, etc etc etc, and instead listen to tiny cherry picked arguments by a very small group of people, many of whom have ties to corporations with a vested interest against global warming, then I suppose that says more about you than the climate.

Typical Gore tactics. Give the illusion of doing something, while doing nothing at all. Just like the "Earth Hour" lights out day. People said it was to raise awareness of so called "climate change." Like we are not aware. We are inundated by it through television, and the media as a whole.
I find it very telling that Gore has primary interest in the main Carbon Credit business. I also find it very telling that Gore lives in a mansion, has a fleet of SUV's and a private jet for him to zip around the world, spreading his crusade.
It's a farce. The science isn't there. Gore saw an oppurtunity to make a lot of money, and jumped on it.

Global warming is the biggest croq since ozone depletion due to CFCs and other contributory substances in Earth's stratosphere since the late 1970s.

I'd love to know how much Al Gore is personally profitting on this while he tours the world in his private jets and limos and produces more carbon emissions than 100 of us and goes on the lecture circuit and tells us how we need to take bicycles to work and how terrible the automobile is. He then justifies this by purchasing "carbon credits" from a company that he owns a piece of to "offset" his carbon usage. What a scam! He has been unable to prove with real facts that man has caused an signifigant impact on the warming of the planet. Science has shown that the earth always goes through periods of warming and cooling.

300 Million is a small amount in comparison to the amount that continues to be sunk into the invation of Iraq. If money is the main complaint, then ask the government to remove the self-righteous attempt at forcing Iraq and the Arab states to adopt American democracy. Perhaps we should allow them to form their own political structure and become a positive influence in the area rather than fueling hatred against America and our allies. It is a great deal less expensive in cost and human life. Keep the money home and providing value locally.
As for Global Climate Changes, even if it were not true, any reduction in our poisoning the environment is a benefit.

Thank you Al Gore. We need your help to reverse the ridiculous policies of the Bush administration. Your service to America is appreciated.

Go Al!

After watching billions of dollars being spent by corporations to convince us that we can't possibly have better health care, that our food sources are perfectly safe and inspections really aren't needed, smoking doesn't cause cancer, etc. It's a breath of fresh air to see someone with deep pockets spend some real dough trying to influence our culture to make a positive change.

Let's face it, the planet is heating up and cheap energy is dwindling - this is the sort of nudge our society really needs.

Climate change is a real issue. Our children will see all of the Arctic sea, all of the Arctic's sea ice will melt in the summer and we will have a northwest passage. Canada and Russia's tundra will become arable land, it will grow winter wheat and other hearty crops. Do we all accept that? Are we even aware of its inevitability? Gore's going in the right direction.

We have had about one degree of warming since the end of the Little Ice Age in the late 1800's. The temperature of the earth is governed by the activity on the sun. The number of sunspots affect how much energy reaches the earth. Recently, the sunspot count has been very small and at zero at times. Thus accounting for the winter we are just coming out of.
The trend of the sunspot cycle is for fewer sunspots in the future. We may have some Global Cooling. Al Gore will switch to panic about the coming Ice Age.

Oh great! More propaganda from Al Gore! There are over 19,000 scientists who signed a petition against this junk science. Hey Gore! If you really want to save the planet, quit blowing hot air!

After reading these comments, I now understand why Bush was elected twice. How anyone with any knowledge of science can refute global warming is impossible to understand. How can these people be so short-sighted? Even if you don't appreciate science, acknowledge the increase in CO2 and the way CO2 levels effect temperature. Wow...basic stuff..... How long can we let these greedy individuals continue to talk non-sense in their own self-serving interest? How many people must die before we take action?

Well mr Gore, GOD and only GOD has the control of the weather. Global warming is for idiots like you to line your pockets with millions, while we poor people struggle to make it through one day at a timw

Aware:it is a scam. The winter of 2008 was the coldest on record since 2001. So now instead of calling it "Global Warming" Gore and his cronies are calling his scam "Climate Change." Of course there is climate change; it is cyclical and has been so since time began. Remember studying ths ice age in school? Was that man made? Or the warming period that followed the ice age? Was that man made? Climate change can be proven / disproven dependent upon the models and time frames that are looked at.

Your name should be UNaware because you're buying into Gore's hypocritical BS. Gore's mansion is so large that the utility bills are twenty times that of the average American home. Oh, lest I forget, he flies around in a private jet! but yet he wants the rest of us to conserve. What a JOKE! And you believe this man has credibility???

Aware you are the stereotypical dopy idiot that follows Gore.

Only God can control the weather? I wish God would stop polluting the atmosphere with CO2 so we don't all die. But then again, maybe that's God's will too....... You are right, let's take no responsibility for our actions. That's what Bush has done for his entire term.

I don't follow Gore. I would support anyone that had the balls to tackle this problem. It just happens to be Gore. If Bush who I absolutely can't stand was to be the one behind it I would even support him for once. Gore has nothing to do with the problems the world is facing. So why don't you sit back down on your couch and stuff your fat face with Doritos and watch the world die you idiot. People like you make me sick. I can't wait to see what happens to you when we have a black president. HA!

Al Gore and a few others received the Nobel Peace Prize for his research, reports and work on raising awareness about the global warming issue.

It is serious, not a scam. It has been running full tilt toward a crisis, for years. Others have tried, without much success to raise the awareness because of general denial of people like others that commented in this BLOG.

It is good for the world to move toward resources that produce less harmful waste byproducts. It is good to find renewable sources for energy - newer ways of producing things that we feel we need.

Each generation, we appear to find new ways to produce more garbage, and produce it faster than our parents, their parents etc back 4-5 generations. We find new ways to waste and pollute our resources and environment, to a point where, within a few generations, the earth won't be able to sustain life, as we've come to know it.

Somethings have to change. Al Gore is one of many who are working toward making at least a little positive change to fix this course, before it is not able to be reversed.

This mind-set doesn't simply stop at that type of attitiude, but also toward our neighbors, our families, and others in the world. The Me-first, and you-never, or you maybe, [if I feel like it's a huge disaster] needs to change, also.

It took incremental, but revolutionary changes to get us to where we are. It will take equal or greater revolutionary changes to change from the wasteful, disposable mind-set back to a reusable, helpful view of the world-at large.

We need to shoulder the responsibility - change begins with me - what can I do, how can I help? We need to stop saying it's not my responsibility, when we're all incrementally responsible, even when we don't see it, because we are so deeply close to the problem.

Let's start looking at possibilities, for how each of us can make a difference, in our little corner of the world. A few places to start ...

Pick up some trash - on your way into the store, drop it in the can. Look for ways to reduce your trash - eat at places that don't produce as much. Turn of lights when you're not using them. Ride with someone instead of everyone taking separate vehicles. Ride public transportation instead of driving, when possible. Use more blankets, wear more clothes, instead of turning up the thermostat, when it's cold.

Encourage the use of alternative reusable energy resources, support electric vehicle production, using solar power in addition to other sources to recharge the batteries. Encourage the generation of power from wind, water, sun, the earth, etc.

Use less plastic, paper - buy products that you really need, and encourage the manufacturers to use less packaging, less paper, plastic & foam. Recycle, things when possible - and encourage restaurants, businesses, to provide receptacles for separating and recycling.

Don't buy more than you need, don't throw away things that others can use - after you are done with them. Find ways to share, especially large bulky items, used once in a while. Remember to give them back in as good or better condition than you received them.

Just a few things that together, we can make a difference. Even when we don't know that others are helping, doing the same thing. Encourage others to do the right thing, and do it yourself. In the end, the world will be a better place for all of us (every living creature deserves it.)

Aware: people like me make you sick? You really are the typical hypocritical liberal; you can't take it when presented with a viewpoint that differs from your own. You have to lash out with comments like "fat face", Doritos etc.

What, no response concerning the mansion, or private jet? No response concerning climate temperature variations being cyclical? Why am I not surprised. Your last post exposed you for who you really are: a person who cannot be objective & rational and examine both sides of an issue. I've looked at the science coming from both sides...have you? You will believe what you want to believe, even when presented with evidence to the contrary.

PS - I not care if the next president is pink, black, or purple as long as he or she can do the job. What a surpise; you're wrong again...

The debate continues around these three points:
1. That there is global warming.
2. That we are affecting global warming.
3. That global warming is a bad thing.
BUT . . . just because global warming is is the hysteria du jour DOESN'T mean we SHOULDN'T control the way we use our resources - it's just common sense to recycle and reduce emissions. But - we should do it for the right reasons, not because the unthinking masses are easily led by a charismatic power-seeker. Isn't that how we got into Iraq? Think for yourselves, people.

This money is to be used to help wake up the American people to what the consequences of a warming climate mean to our society. I hope it is more solutions focused than many of the previous messages I've seen.

I think it is pretty obvious by the responses to this article posted here and other places that industry and business lobbyists have done a very good job of destorting the climate change science and in misleading the American people. To consider that this whole thing is just a scam to take our money or reduce our liberties takes an amazing ability to self-delude in the face of such overwhelming evidence.

Educate yourselves. Those of us who have followed the reputable science instead of the paid industry pseudoscience, have known for over a decade that we, and our children are in for a very difficult challenge if we cannot rapidly reduce our CO2 emissions.

Many of us also know that instead of draining our national treasure like a Saudi prince, the new science and engineering necessary to address this issue will mean good jobs for Americans and a cleaner environment for our future. Of course Americans can face this challenge! We just need to learn the real facts, stop the denial, and get to work.

It seems that both sides are saying the same thing: 'think for yourselves'. Well, prove to me that there is global warming. An estimated 3/10th of a degree rise in average temperature Celsius over the past 100 years does NOT global warming make. I wouldn't be surprised if we ARE in a (natural) global warming period - but just prove it to me. Other than the Boston study's famous 3/10th of a degree rise, all I have heard is opinion and gushing, 'it feels right' stories. The NY Times constantly reports on (conveniently funded) scientists who state categorically that there is global warming, but fail to prove it. NPR loves to interview Indonesian fishermen who swear that it's warmer than in their grandfather's day. And for those brimming with factoids of CO2 emissions and ice-shelf disintegration: you will be surprised to see approximately how much energy it takes to affect the global temperature by the teeniest amount.

My guess is that one would dig deep enough, you'd find some money links to India and China!$300M is a pretty large piece of change.

The number politicians, religious leaders and celebrities has no credibility with regard to climate change. Humans need to consume energy to maintain and environment they have altered in order to survive. What Al Gore and the rest of political and celebrity world is asking is to reduce that amount of energy or face a penalty (taxes!!!!!). Florescent lights and inflated tires won�t impact energy consumption. How many of the politicians, including the presidential candidates have a transition plan? (CO2 caps are not a transition plan). How many of them are advocating a new source of energy program, a Manhattan Project for energy? None! How many are advocating a change in behavior toward mass transportation along with a plan to build the infrastructure? None! All they can see is a more taxes coming in because people can't meet the carbon caps by 2050. This advocacy is setting us up for another round of tobacco trials or another Y2K state of fear. Only the government, the lawyers, (and Big Al) will benefit through a perpetual welfare tax that has NO measure of effectiveness. As Chirac said it is the first step in global governance, why else would it be advocated by politicians?

It is really up to the people of the world to affect change, not to legislate it. However, it takes a wake up call - like the price of gasoline to rise to a critical point, to make them want to change - in that tiny little area.

Sweeping change needs to take place, in a big way to swing things back in the right direction and keep it that way. With the right impetus, it can happen. With the wrong one, it may be temporary, then slip back to the old ways, or worse - because now it can be cast aside as not real - for many people.

Awareness is only a step, to realize there is a problem, but solutions, even small ones, are needed to change behavior. Positive reinforcement works better than punishment for incorrect behavior. Teach and provide incentives to do the right thing, to start things in the right direction. The incentives aren't needed as much, later on, as the good habits form that we need to keep the change rolling.

Once things start rolling, the focus needs to change on additional things, or doing things on a bigger scale to keep the incentives. Eventually, we need to help each other, not compete with each other. The same might also be done for job (re)training, Welfare and other social programs, including SSI. ;-)

I see a lot of scientific activity, a lot of spinmeister activity, many of my friends are getting rather screechy on the subject. It's hard to get a date if you're skeptical about mankind's critical role in this round of global warming, if it is even true.

However, I don't see that these people are actually serious. They are just jumping onto the latest anti-bush bandwagon (look at all the comments tying our failure to end global warming in its tracks to the President!!). The Dems won't even junket to France to inspect one of their 40+ nuclear energy plants, which provide well over half of their total energy. For pete's sake what kind of politicians are they?!-

If the Dems ever get serious about global warming being tied to man-made CO2 emissions, we'll see them junketing to France and considering the only energy source that can actually make us reduce our CO2 emissions. And that isn't going to happen.

So Al, blow it out your jet vapor trail. I'm not listening until you post from France.

I sympathize with the naysayers because this issue is so big it can be hard to get one's head around it - particularly when your orientation includes God's Plan being a mystery. It appears that on some level there is something unwholesome about people trying to take responsibility for, much less control of, things that are better left as acts of God. And when it's people that don't agree with this view taking the control it's the short route to damnation. I get it.

The problem is that the prospect of catastrophic sea level change is not a theory - we're measuring it and every time we check, it's worse than was predicted. There are two landed ice sheets on Greenland and West Antarctica now coming apart faster than anyone thought possible four years ago with a serious possibility of a breakout event at any time. If half of these ice packs come apart and slide into the sea, the sea level will rise 20 feet. The floating ice that's been holding the landed ice back is now completely gone in many places.

It'd be hard to make the case that the unthinkable losses involved should not be prevented if they can be - the only question is about the accuracy of the science that identifies the radiative forcing property of greenhouse gasses as the culprit. And if it is, how far must we cut emissions and how long we have to do it?

Newt Gingrich's approach works for me - he thinks that acting is the prudent thing to do because, there being some chance that the science is right, the risk of not acting far outweighs the consequences of acting and finding out that the science was wrong.

It's like there might not be WMD is was no bar to invading Iraq (except that the evidence at the time, unlike the accelerating rate of sea level rise that we're that we're measuring now, indicated that there probably were no WMD).

Well there's something. I wonder if the naysayers think that somehow doctrine based (as opposed to evidence based) policies like W's are the way things are and it's only a question of who's doing it to whom. As if this is what is important they think that acting on global warming, somehow, involves us doing it to them - when what we ought to be paying attention to is the TWENTY FEET! Help

Jeff Sutter:

Sea Level: "we're measuring it and every time we check, it's worse than was predicted"
-- I haven't seen where this is reported. Can you provide a link?

Ice Sheets I: "two landed ice sheets on Greenland and West Antarctica now coming apart faster than anyone thought possible four years ago . . ."
-- back in 1920, a huge sheet broke off during a similar warming trend.

Ice Sheets II: "If half of these ice packs come apart and slide into the sea, the sea level will rise 20 feet"
-- not sure where this comes from, but have you any idea how much of Antartica would have to melt to raise the sea level 20 ft? Waterworld was just a movie.

Controlling greenhouse gasses and efficiently managing our waste is absolutely the correct thing to do - but it has a LOCAL affect, not global. Tying these actions to a hysterical reaction to political events helps no-one (except Al Gore, apparently).

Great article...the best thing Gore could do for the environment and the country is to show some leadership and endorse Barack Obama.

Effectively managing our waste is local until we push it into our streams, into caverns, caves and mines, into the oceans, etc.

When we dump in the rivers, they carry it downstream to our neighbors, which quickly becomes regional. It may contaminate food supplies, or surrounding ecosystems. This food & wildlife, which are frequently shipped or migrate out of the area, turning it national or international.

When we dump in the oceans, which carry the waste half-way (or more) around the world, with the currents and tides, we can affect the ecology of the world. The problem starts local, but doesn't always stay that way. Even if it's local, it still may have lasting longer term effects.

We need to be better stewards with what we've been given, or it won't be worth having, for future generations to come.

Russ Moore

Since you ask:

1) A reference to the "worse than was predicted":

Darn it, I though I read that in the IPCC 2007 Report, but it's not there - I've got to dig to find the analysis. What I read is that the 2003 IPCC Report included predictions for future sea level rise with a range of possibilities. The 2006 measurements exceeded the high end of the range.

To be fair, it's not so simple as that because there is a "decadal" variation to be taken into account and the scientists aren't confident that they have attributed the measurements correctly.

What's clear is that the subject ice sheets are melting - the water runoff volume is being measured directly. Here is the information about the volume of the two ice sheets and their potential affect on sea level:

2) The Wiki for the volume of the Iceland sheet is:

"If the entire 2.85 million km? of ice were to melt, it would lead to a global sea level rise of 7.2 m (23.6 ft.)"

The West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) Wiki reads:

"It is estimated that the volume of the Antarctic ice sheet is about 25.4 million km3, and the WAIS contains just under 10% of this, or 2.2 million km3."

That is 18.2 ft. for WAIS and 41.8 ft. total between them. The 20 foot rise is very close to the actual 20.9 feet calculated here as one half of both.

Jeff Sutter:
1. No problem - when you find it, I'd like to read it (I know some of these conclusions do take an awful lot of digging!). But measurements over a single decade are not enough to convince me that the earth is undergoing a significant warming trend. Google "ice sheet" and "1920" together for some good links to a 1920s ice sheet incident (some of which are slanted IMO to support the global warming hysteria).
2. Good Wiki citation, thanks. But my point is the WHOLE Antartic sheet would have to melt to cause this, and that's not going to happen this side of Mercury.

To me, the evidence is simply not there that the earth is warming (much less that humans are causing it and that it's inherently a bad thing).

Well "aware",
Stop falling for the fearmongering from the establishment and check out the facts... that is according to the ice-core samples the CO2 levels rise AFTER the warming trends occur... These levels are a result of warming and not a cause. The whole global warming hysteria is a business and a way to now tax the air we breathe. In the '70s it was the coming ice-age. Then it started getting warmer...
Uh-oh! Better change the B.S. fearmonger story! This isn't going to work! Now it seems they're having a similar problem today. Since 1998 global temperature levels have been decreasing because of a decrease in solar activity.
What? The sun effects temperatures! Wow! Who ever would have thought that!
And since you mention the "running out of oil conspiracy"... Scientists have just made the discovery of a whole lot of oil on one of Saturns moons. My question is when in the hell were there dinosaurs on Saturns moon to create this oil. After all oil IS a fossil fuel meaning there is only a limited supply of it... right? Just another B.S. story from the same folks that gave you the global warming myth.