Excerpt: "'... When you go and talk to any audience about climate, you hear them washing back at you the same crap over and over and over again,' he continued. 'There's no longer a shared reality on an issue like climate even though the very existence of our civilization is threatened.'"
'The very existence of our civilization is threatened. People have no idea!' said Al Gore. (photo: AP)
Al Gore: 'Media Spin on Climate Is Bullshit'
10 August 11
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l Gore is pissed.
The former vice president dropped in on an Aspen Institute media forum titled "Networks an Citizenship" on Thursday and railed against corporate evildoers who put profit above society.
Gore referenced the book "Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming" by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, which tells of how petroleum, steel, utilities and other industries enlisted lobbyists to cloud the climate debate.
The vice president recalled how not long ago tobacco giants "succeeded in delaying the implementation of the surgeon general's report for 40 years - 40 years! In every one of those 40 years the average number of Americans killed by cigarettes each year exceeded the total number of Americans killed in all of World War II : 450,000 per year. My sister was one of them. ... It was evil, evil, evil."
That same model of media manipulation, Gore said, "was transported whole cloth into the climate debate. And some of the exact same people - I can go down a list of their names - are involved in this. And so what do they do? They pay pseudo scientists to pretend to be scientists to put out the message: 'This climate thing, it's nonsense. Man-made CO2 doesn't trap heat. It may be volcanoes.' Bullshit! 'It may be sun spots.' Bullshit! 'It's not getting warmer.' Bullshit!
"... When you go and talk to any audience about climate, you hear them washing back at you the same crap over and over and over again," he continued. "There's no longer a shared reality on an issue like climate even though the very existence of our civilization is threatened. People have no idea! It's no longer acceptable in mixed company, meaning bipartisan company, to use the goddamn word climate. They have polluted it to the point where we cannot possibly come to an agreement on it."
Gore lamented the diminished role that reason and fact-based analysis play in modern US politics.
During the debt-ceiling debate, American Crossroads, Americans for Prosperity and a collection of smaller groups followed tobacco's blueprint for bombarding the media with their own self-serving messages, he said.
"Unnoticed in Washington and New York as the debt-ceiling debate was going on, the ratio of television advertisements was nine to one on the 'Don't-lift-the-debt-ceiling debate. Spending is the problem.' And now we're going to tip the country back into recession. It's absolutely insane," Gore said. "Mark my words on this we became the greatest country on earth because we made better decisions than any other nation. And we made better decisions because we used shared consciousness-shared reality rule of reason best evidence democratic discourse free debate to figure out what's more likely than not to be the best decision here. It didn't always work but it worked a hell of a lot better. Since we adopted this new system we are making catastrophic decisions that have massive consequences. The Iraq invasion. What just happened with macro-economic policy. It really is extremely difficult."
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John Boanerges pain in the ass Redman
This droning, people and Mother Earth destroying country of ours is exceptional in only one way - our need to maintain greed and total power over all. With both the first prime minister in the U.K., Sir Robert Walpole, and a Dem. Pres., Andrew Jackson, hanging in both my family trees, I, today sadly proclaim:
ASHAMED TO BE AN AMERCAN !!!
I thought Mitt Romney brought Obamacare into the world.
I see ..... so anyone who is not with you is against you ..... seems I've heard that before.
Therefore, Obama is carrying on with an agenda set long ago. He was going to do it regardless and began it all his first day in office. He is definitely liable, but yes, "this crap has been around much longer than he has".
Well, I bet she doesn't know how to get the most out of her iPhone !
Take THAT, 3rd world!
I appreciate the fact that you are joking, of course, and I gotta say I'm not certain that *I'd* take that bet ! A 16-yr-old as brilliant as this one - who has now been living in England for two years ago, not able to "spank" her own i-phone ? I dunno ! ;-))
This young lady is astonishing. She addressed the United Nations a short while back.
Damn ! When I was 16-yrs.-old, I had to struggle to get up and address my High School speech class, and they all spoke my native language. I am likewise certain that I would have "choked" in addressing POTUS at that age
Malala is still years away from being in possession of an adult judgement center (prefrontal cortex engaged) which arrives, for the human female as late as age 22, and for the male, as late as age 24. This is the brain center for higher reasoning.
So given what this incredible person is accomplishing so far - I would just advise the world - Watch Out ! ;-))
I was right behind Jon Stewart when he interviewed Malala on his show and commented " .... I know your Dad is here with you, back in the Green Room ..... but can I adopt you ?"
My only concern for Malala is her choice as a role model, of the beautiful and highly intelligent Benazir Bhutto, former Prime Minister of Pakistan, whose star burned brightly until she herself was assassinated.
Thanks, man.
Of course. That's their purpose. To keep conflict going. That's what sells more weapons and weapons systems.
Seriously, "Satan worshippers"?
I know hyperbole is fun, but just because you're not a Muslim doesn't give you the right to say 1 billion people are "Satan worshippers".
Lying and bearing false witness are both against the Ten Commandments.
Great post, and I'm certain you meant to note that Malala is from Pakistan, rather than India. She speaks Urdu as a native.
Malala is right about education, it is the key to freeing people but Obama will continue to use his drones while the rest of the world watches in growing disgust.
Or Elizabeth Warren's secretary of State
Exactly. And this is the important thing in the article. Once again, the multitude of posts is off-track.
I have seen you advance this canard in the past. This time I have opted against letting it pass unanswered.
First, the commenters have no cause to comment on what was *NOT* in the article, (Obama's response) because the absence of info in the article makes comment on it, *by definition* "off-track".
This is true, even though I know that many of us were also curious about that same question.
Second, the fact that the comment string is *not* custom tailored to *your* specific line of thought is NOT evidence that said posts are all "off-track", a position that you have often maintained in the past.
I hate to be the one to break this to you, but the comment section is really *not* all about you. Sorry if that sounds rude.
Humbug. You're absolutely right that I'm an egomaniac if that makes you feel better. But you should continue to feel disengaged for pouncing on something so small. Of course people can discuss anything they want, any time. But when the main subject is more important, they should stick with it, and if they don't they are SCHMUCKS. Or if I don't make myself clear, then "You are trying to be Nero while Rome burns."
So, by that logic, Miss Yousafzai is a "teabagger", I guess...
I don't accept all the glib cynicism in this although it approaches Orwellian intelligence. George W. Bush and Barack H. Obama simply are and were uninformed men and very stupid on the drone point brought up by Malala.
If either Bush or Obama were students of early World War II, they would know that drones did more than anything to galvanize the British people from Winston Churchill and Mrs. Miniver on down.
Drones are horror movie stuff interspersing silence and characteristic sound with a deadly-- now? when? now?-- boom.
As such, they are fodder for paranoia, but in this as in certain other things, if you aren't paranoid you don't know what's going on.
If Obama hadn't spent so much time studying law while Bush studied the torture of horseflies, either of these guys might have taken a psychology course through which he could have begun to approach the emotional maturity of Malala.
Yes, drones create new terrorists. That may be obvious to educated persons but not to these last two presidents, and neither has proved an enlightened and decisive leader on Malala's huge point despite whatever else redeems them.
Well, let me revise that...to whatever partially redeems Barack Obama. But his redeeming traits don't fully compensate for his decisions on war, torture and drones.