Comments on: Rating Al Gore's tech cred

Pol who invented the Internet and scares the world about global warming wants to be taken seriously? Why not, says CNET News.com's Charles Cooper.

[J.G.]

Ignorance happens

The source who said people in denial about global warming are
outliers is correct. The experts have reached the conclusion that
industrial human activity is the major cause of climate change.
Thoughtful people accept the evidence. Thd downfall of
intelligent discussion has been an effect of the success of the
Internet. That is why one sees so much ignorant commentary on
this and other forums.

[Dr_Zinj]

Gore isn't all lily-white

The accurate statement would have been, "Al Gore supported and sponsored legislation that led to the development of the Internet." Unfortuantely for Al, the media, having only an average of a 3rd grade reading and writing level, and being reported by severely retarded reporters, condensed and transformed that into "Gore Invented the Internet." Similar things took place with the Love Story story.

However, as far as I'm concerned, the damning peice for Mr Gore was his association and support of the Clinton Administration. It publicly showed that he was more interested in the power and position than he was in doing and supporting the right thing. Maybe he was fighting the Vince Foster, Travelgate, Whitewater, Lewinski situations behind the scenes; but nobody has ever shown that. That's the best reason why he didn't deserve the presidency.

And Mr Gore lost the election due to the long established, and party-accepted, legal election process. Until we do away with the electoral college, that's the way it is.

[J.G.]

Racist and clueless

None of the things you have mentioned have anything to do with
policy making, Al Gore's role as vice-president. The suicide of
Vince Foster and so-called Travelgate are little more than Right
Wing propaganda. You reach even lower by claiming Gore is
responsible for President Bill Clinton having an affair. I suspect
you are a chronic loser resentful of those two very successful
men and that motivates you to say such foolish things.

Your racist belief that people should be "lily-white" reveals that
you truly are alive in the wrong century.

Enough said.

[swift2--2008]

Amazing

You have read the accounts since then by reputable journalists
that excuse Mr. Gore for the supposed wrongs that he (didn't)
commit. The proof is convincing. However, what you haven't
done is read a realistic account of all those "scandals" of the
Clinton administration. None of them are anything but
manufactured scandal. Vince Foster? The guilty Clintons had a
friend who committed suicide. How many investigations do you
want? Travelgate wasn't a scandal. The Clintons had every right
to fire whoever they wanted in that office. They made the
mistake of firing people who had a very cozy relationship with
the press. Whitewater? What exactly were the Clintons supposed
to have done wrong? They lost $45,000, and a number of
allegations made by a judge who was running an illegal
insurance scheme out of the courthouse and was facing state
charges all were untrue.

In fact, Gore's fault was that he shunned Clinton, who was
broadly popular all the way through his presidency, and was and
is a hell of a speaker.

[CanadianGeezer]

There is no hope

My father of blessed memory used to tell me as a lad that America was the worlds "Last Best Hope" as he quoted a man from another time ... Sadly I can see from many of the posters who have responded to this story that he was wrong.

The species is doomed by our own ignorance carried into an age and time when foolishness and evil have far greater impact than in past centuries ...

To deny our crowding and cumulative endemic pollution of the small orb called earth is tantamount to repeating the words of those who postulated ... "This Ship Is Unsinkable" or "The World Is Not Round"

These are grievously serious times unlike any other in the long evolution of the species ... those of us who have had the mixed blessing of having been raised on farms or in rural settings witnessed first hand what the excess crowding and excretions of any large group of animals produces ,,, Disease and death are the natural outcomes ...

The uneducated of the web who have damned themselves by some of the posts they make have obviously never taken stock of the smallness of the orb either by travel, experience or even by the simple process of looking via 'Google Earth' at how small and crowded the litter box has become ...

We are doomed by our own failure to educate ourselves and our fellow **** sapiens as to what can and will happen ... this species is doomed ...

Not in my lifetime perhaps ... but as sure as the planet revolves IT WILL HAPPEN

[charles kohm,jr.]

Excess crowding/ demise of humankind

Canadian Geezer,

Your Dad was right. America 'was' the worlds "LAST BEST HOPE". It has been undermined by a determined group of autocrats and a huge bureaucracy of self-serving politicians who serve a very few rich people. We're not done yet! There are many of us who will die to keep this 'hope' alive. My Grandma moved here from Spring Lake, Alberta to make her dream come true. I won't let it die yet!

[swift2--2008]

Global cooling?

I'd say that, in the era before sophisticated climate models and
lengthy and meticulous research, people didn't understand the
climate anywhere near as well as they do now. You blame the
transistor for not being a modern-day Intel chip with millions of
transistors on board?

[swift2--2008]

If Gandhi was for a cutback in carbon emissions

Would you be for him then? I think no. I think the rumors about
global warming would then be that it's kooky and impractical,
only believed by the eccentrics and anti-Western voices. Gore is
trying to bring the message to this society, and that means
speaking engagements, rock concerts and so on. This
complaint, like the amount of energy that his family home
consumes, is really just a convenient attack. (By the way, the
Gores had to fight the local zoning regulations, but they've
finally gotten solar panels installed.)

[swift2--2008]

The carbon credits thing

Did you know that there is no commonly-accepted standard for
carbon credits? There isn't. And why would that be? Because the
GOVERNMENT has not come forward with such definitions. The
private groups that have some standards may not be right, exactly,
and the industry isn't working by accepted standards because the
Bush EPA doesn't believe in global warming, see? It's awfully hard to
blame Gore for that.

[swift2--2008]

Time will tell

Sure, it will. And it seems that "time" is not on our side. Once
you're proven wrong, it will be too late to do anything. Blub, blub.

[swift2--2008]

Hmm, Larry Elder

Where's his degree in global climatology?

If you read about Bush's behavior in college, it's clear that he was
an evil little frat boy then. Same as now.

[swift2--2008]

So boringly unhip

You believe every bit of political spin that emerged 7 years ago,
on the War on Gore. He didn't say he "invented" the internet, he
didn't hire Naomi Wolf to tell him what color clothes to wear, he
was talking with Karen Tumulty of TIME for several hours about
many subjects when she brought up a recent article in the
Nashville paper that made that claim. He laughed about it. The
author later said that Gore was the model for Oliver in Love
Story, but that the girl was an amalgam. So? It should make you
cautious that so much of what you believe about Gore was
constructed by political spinners, the same who were telling us
that Bush didn't want to get into "nation-building."

[swift2--2008]

Can you say, "projection"?

"Why didn't Gore win the Nobel Prize for SCIENCE?"

Because he's a popularizer of science. By the way, the great
majority of world scientists agree with HIM, not YOU.

"What does global warming have to do with PEACE?"
I don't know, could it be that it shows that without world
cooperation on some level, we're headed into some very hard
times?

"Is that because the global warming diatribe is all based on junk
science?"
Actually, no. Most of the response is.

"Yes, you liberals are really something. "Don't bother me with
the facts! My mind is made up!"

If you go to a psychiatrist, have him explain the concept of
"projection." YOUR unresolved anger and fear is getting
projected on others.

[garryking]

A little honesty about being partisan.

Here are MORE scientists that do not agree with Mr Gore's theories than those who do. I am in their camp,and very partisan. Now, if you would only identify yourself as a partisan most of the people you complain about would be kinder to you. In order for the debate to be "over" there must first be a debate - one that you and Mr Gore would not like to allow.

[limbofrog]

the real motivation for the study... agenda

As you (the editor) pointed to the website of the group that did this "STUDY" on the environment and global warming. On the site it says:

"The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been established by WMO and UNEP to assess scientific, technical and socio- economic information relevant for the understanding of climate change, its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation."

WMO and UNEP... who are they??? Let's see.

The WMO is the World Meteorological Organization is basically part of the United Nations. The WMO are currently being investigated by the Swiss government for Muhammad Hassan buying votes or trying to influence the voting. He is Sudanese, not that it?s a conflict of interest given much of the current conflict or considering the gross human right violations going on in Sudan. The WMO is also represented by almost 200 different nations. I am sure none of those nations have agendas regarding increasing their own power, money, an influence in the world. Some may even be willing to attempt to drag down the Kings of the hill to accomplish such endeavors.


The UNEP is the United Nations Environment Program. It was created to give the UN the ability to help or even ?control? or have sway over what other developing nations do in regard to energy supply and to maintain good environmental practices. The Director of the UNEP, Achim Steiner was nominated by Kofi Anna and later voted in to be director of UNEP.

The United Nations is a joke - Seriously. The members and representatives, including Kofi Anna?s son of the UN have been involved in and accused of numerous scandals and obvious negligence to perform the duties the UN was created to perform.

The oil-for-food program for example? Top leaders of the UN and associated countries and organizations were found to have funneled money from oil sales intended for food but instead went to the Iraqi military illegally. Food was meant for the Iraqi people many of which were starving.

Not to mention that the UN for the most part is very slow and unresponsive to the very atrocities it was created to stop. The conflicts and mass murder in Darfur, Rwanda, the list goes on and on.

These rich, power organizations, comities, individuals, and even countries are so totally jaded and filled with agendas and lies. There is a lot of money out there boys and girls? a lot. This whole thing is a huge money and power grab by probably most of the groups involved. Nothing is absolute of course, you hate to blame groups when it was only a few individuals and you hate to blame innocent individuals when it was only most of the group doing wrong. All of that does not matter. The bottom line is these groups are far from credible.

The editor does not seem to mind sighting ?scientific? ?reports? written by these very groups. Some of the science might be good and some of the information might be total propaganda. I would argue easily that we are far from a scientific consensus on much of anything. Al Gore is heavily invested in the whole carbon credit thing. He stands to get very rich if laws are passed to make it mandatory for all these rich industries to pay for his services to help get clean and buy their way into Al Gore heaven where Gore is the pope. Money, money, money every time. Follow the money.


Personally I think the earth does go through warming and cooling cycles, and opinion based off plenty of graphs and scientific data and reading. Even if we were living ?clean? like apes in the forests, the earth will warm and Carbon would increase naturally until it sends the planet into yet another ice age. Maybe this is triggered when the poles flip. No one really agrees, but it?s been happening since way before we were ever here. Maybe we are having a mild effect on it or maybe we are not but make no mistake. This whole Global warming thing is not about saving the environment. It?s about a few manipulative people or groups getting rich and powerful. If you want to know who? just look at all the folks at the top that are pushing so hard for environmental reform.

Of yeah, and never mind that the Chinese are building coal plants by the hand full every month. Way to fight for the environment China. They only have 1/6 of the world population. Just wait until India and China go totally Industrial? holy crap it?s gonna make Europe and the US look insignificant unless we get our collective acts together and start having more sex and less environmental restrictions. Guess I am just dreaming though.

Let?s say we do bend over backwards to conserve, take cold shorter shower, drive lead acid battery cars, spend millions running our selves into the ground trying to collect the whole set of Al Gore?s Carbon Credit cabbage patch cards while he gets rich and moves somewhere where he can burn all the energy he wants? wait he already burns probably 10 to 100 times more energy than most Americans with his giant house(es?) and private jet fuel and limo convoys. So let?s say we do that and cut our usage by half (that?s near impossible with totally stunting any and all growth in the US). What about China and India and all the other developing countries? Are they going to do the same? I bet they would be laughing at us while they get rich. Maybe the ice age will only hit them and God will save the US and Europe because we sacrificed so much by turning our A/C units up to 90 in the summer and to only 55 in the winter. I think God would be laughing at us too.

Come on guys, don?t be fooled by the political propaganda. Let?s kick most of these morons out of office and get some people in there that actually care about our country. Let?s cut back on government in general. I don?t need those guys telling me how to live my life? I am just fine with fewer rules. I don?t like being told how to live my life and what I can eat and how I can sleep and how much I can flush or how long a shower I can take. Enough is enough? and please don?t give Al Gore any more credit than he scammed some folks and won a pointless award for media sake. I do praise him for being crafty enough to know how to abuse and change the system to benefit himself, but that?s as far as it goes.

[charlie cooper]

Dude, you HAVE to be kidding!

You don't convince. Instead of dealing with the immense body of research out there, you've chosen to rely upon ad hominem attacks and character assassination.

[fuzzyCWD]

Lost in the mushroom cloud

i have noticed alot of people grab onto ONE or two statements and leave the important things, like the BODY, alone when it disagrees with their view of reality. Yes, the highcourt said there were inaccuracy, but also, that the video was pretty much right on the ball. If people would bother with the WHOLE TRUTH, and forget the small stuff, this world MIGHT be in better shape.
But they did it to Gore before, and they will do it to the next one that sticks his head too far above the "accepted norm".

[sniperdoc]

Al Gore - not a hack!

I really don't understand most of the comments bashing Al Gore?

First and foremost, when people reference his statement about creating THE Internet, people are misinterpreting what exactly he's trying to say. I don't know if most kiddies nowadays realize that The Internet was not just something that became available to the public right from the get-go.

The Internet was create back in the 70s by the Military to create a network of communication between different military bases. This concept was furthered to provide channels to facilities at UCLA, UCSB, Eglin AFB, etc.

Al Gore at the time, was a PROPONENT of providing this service to the public, and hence major schools received the capability to use that service, and from the it migrated to public access. It's not because he INVENTED it... he just proposed (along with other Congressmen) to provide this "network" to the public sector.

To claim that he said he INVENTED it or to say that he originated the Internet is an ignorant effort to put words in someone's mouth and anyone that goes along with that statement is equally ignorant.

Furthermore, I'm not understanding why we have all kinds of ecology and environmental experts on this column all of the sudden. Of course he did research on Global Warming and the Greenhouse Effect. The man found sources, cited those sources, and presented an argument in a concise and understandable fashion. Sure, there are probably some errors in the research, there always are errors, but he didn't get the Nobel "PEACE" prize because of the Global Warming Conferences he presents around the world. He received the award because of his concern about the people on this planet and it's environment. Mind you, this is not the Nobel prize given to people for a major find in Engineering or Physics, for all the research done some theory. It's the Nobel PEACE prize and this is an award not just handed out by the United States. The research, for who this award will go to, is done by multiple nations and organizations, so to say that he is not deserving of it is ludicrous. I'm sure everyone on this page is on the Nobel Committee and has evaluated other candidates for the Nobel Peace prize.

I think everyone needs to quit being an armchair ecology and environmental science PhD, re-evaluate their expertise in deciding who should get the Nobel Peace prize, and go back to writing in some blog about how emo this is making them.

[limbofrog]

but your an expert?

You criticize others in the forum for not being experts and therefore they have no right to counter what Gore presents. Are you an expert? What does that mean really? And hey, what?s a few errors in a "documentary"? No biggie right? It's just meant to be fact. I would say all of the errors conveniently swayed in a Pro Global War panic direction.

What gore did is not science. It was an argumentative piece attempting to sway people to his way of thinking. Fine, people do that all the time right. But he lied when he said science has pretty come to a universal agreement that global warming was real and we were all causing it. That's a straight lie. All you have to do is look and there are plenty of creditable real scientist that will tell you there is no agreement on what is actually going on with our environment, what is causing it, or what possibility there is of changing this alleged problem.

Gore is proposing we spend crazy amounts of money and tie our hands industrially. This will hurt only the countries that do it, and if humans are damaging the environment all of the countries that don?t conform will still do their damage. It?s a pointless way to destroy the economy of the U.S. because we are gullible enough to tie our own hands while others don?t in the vein attempt to change the inevitable.

Bottom line, if you like you?re A/C and your lights and driving, and computers run by power, you will need power. You can get power from maybe 3 places: the sun, burning stuff like oil, wood, or coal (chemical), or nuclear fission/fusion (nuclear). Might be able to say there is a 4th, that?s harnessing mechanical power like hydro power or wind. Solar, hydo, and wind power cost way way more than fossil fuels. If you don?t mind you bill going by by a factor of 10 or more, lets do it man! Can you afford that? I can?t.

If you want cheap power, use fossil fuels like everyone else and just deal with it. Even if it is destroying the environment? what?s your alternative? Are you going to start living like a mountain man to save power? Is everyone else? Don?t forget, even if we had fuel cells, you need electricity (made in coal and fuel power plants) to separate the hydrogen and oxygen? the process is less efficient than if you just burned the fuel straight up with combustion engine.

I purpose tacking all this money and effort to save the environment and using it for Studying Nuclear Fusion until it?s we are able to build a viable power plant. Build it and just try to keep it away from as many people as possible and make it as safe as possible. It is a viable option and would probably be cheaper and more abundant than coal or gas. I am fairly sure. If any experts want to put some numbers out here, that would be great.

I am not an expert in lots of this stuff. I am a well educated Mechanical Engineer with a degree. We can?t all be experts in everything. I think the only thing Gore is good at is getting people to give him their money and getting it passed into law.

Greg

[kenzrw]

Extreme weather has occurred in the past

As a meteorologist for 32 years, I can assure you that severe and extreme weather (i.e., flooding, droughts, heat waves) have occurred many times in the past (just look at official NWS records), long before carbon emissions were as high as today. As a point, the 1900 Galveston Hurricane was a Category 4 when it hit land, whereas Katrina was only a Cat 3 Hurricane when it hit New Orleans (the reason so much damage occurred at New Orleans was because the levees failed). So far, nobody I know is saying Global Warming caused the 1900 Galveston storm! There are many other examples of extreme weather in the past 100 years and I personally don't see any increase in extreme weather today compared to then - it's just that the news media now has 24-hour instant coverage of even the lightest rain shower or smallest tornado, which would not have been known about 100 years ago. Just look at the weather history and records and not just today's weather headlines.

[Maisycq]

Comment pollution

I did a quick "back of envelope" calculation and determined that each word in each comment to this column is using enough computer server power to contribute .0005875672488790 pounds of CO2 into the atmosphere, assuming that 75 percent of the readers of this column get their electricity from fossil fuels, which approximates the national average for electricity supply.

Thanks to me, a piece of the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica just calved off into the ocean.

My advice for those of you who don't believe in global warming: stop reading these rabble-rousing communists like Charlie Cooper, put your money where your mouths are and buy a mainframe. That'll show us!

For those of you who do believe: Start powering your computers with hemp-fueled generators.

[spage3]

Gore IS a fat hack

If Gore's leadership led to the Internet in 1991, why then was I involved in the Internet's predecessor ARPANET in the early '70's and the actual internet while back in school in the late '80s.

Moreover, while some global climate change is without doubt happening, as it is always, why is it the warmest avg world temp this century actually occurred in 1936 and the second highest was in 1998. Does it not make sense that, if global warming is such an "indisputable" fact, we would have seen a higher avg world temp in the last ten years.

As far as Gore's Noebel "Peace" prize, I give you another "winner" Arafat to substantiate that the prize is given by a bunch of Norwegians with a liberal political agenda.

Speaking of agenda's, I don't know about others, but I don't read CNet newsletters to get Coop's or anyone else's liberal political agenda. If I wanted to read about politics I'll go to Druge or Limbaugh.

spage

[mightygack]

Bravo for common sense

I agree that politicians in general need to be taken with many grains of salt, but it is good to see someone as reasonable and engaged as Al Gore be defended by someone in the ever-cynical world of IT.

[sirideain]

BEGGING THE QUESTION

You quoted a spokeswoman for GE, "We're past the point of debating the science." In logic or debate this is known as "begging the question" or circular reasoning. " I think, therfore I am" being the most famous of such absurd statements!

[Jyn13]

I think we're looking in the wrong direction

I find it incredibly arrogant and irresponsible for mankind to start considering ways to change the climate to what we want it to be rather than find ways to adapt to what it's becoming.
I don't object to lowering carbon emissions, moving to green technology, etc... What I object to personally are the hairbrained ideas about seeding the atmosphere to cool it to a point we want it to be at and other similar tacts.
Basically, yah we need to be MUCH more environmentally responsible, but we also need to not get so arrogant as to think just because we like things the way they are right now we have to take dangerous steps to keep them that way. We're likely to do more damage trying to 'fix' what we've done than just stopping doing it and learning to live with the consequences.
Either extreme has it wrong, we can't use and abuse to our heart's content, and we can't remove ourselves from it entirely either. The climate and planet are a very complicated ever changing system that we are a PART OF, not an observer of. Taking us out of the equation is just as silly as saying it's all there for us to do with as we please.

[Quemannn]

I am exactly of the same opinion

I really appreciate your idea.It seems to me that manhandling the climatic events is not a holistic approach toward climate change. I am not against reducing greenhouse gasses, though.

One study finds the Holocene Optimum warm event showeed 4 degrees Celsius in the North Pole about 10,000 years ago.