Let me place the Al Gore quote in context, from a brief interview about his movie at Grist Magazine:
Interviewer: There's a lot of debate right now over the best way to communicate about global warming and get people motivated. Do you scare people or give them hope? What's the right mix?
Gore: I think the answer to that depends on where your audience's head is. In the United States of America, unfortunately we still live in a bubble of unreality. And the Category 5 denial is an enormous obstacle to any discussion of solutions. Nobody is interested in solutions if they don't think there's a problem. Given that starting point, I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous it is, as a predicate for opening up the audience to listen to what the solutions are, and how hopeful it is that we are going to solve this crisis.
Over time that mix will change. As the country comes to more accept the reality of the crisis, there's going to be much more receptivity to a full-blown discussion of the solutions.
How much would you bet that his "solution" would entail government control of the American economy? A "Five-Year Plan," perhaps?
Over 100 readers have complained, on my original post this week, that his statement conveys no dishonest intent. In my book, half-truths and distortions in a documentary intended to inform and influence, if not frighten, is dishonest, cynically manipulative, condescending to the point of contemptuousness and, in the end, self-defeating.
It is self-defeating because you lose your credibility, and become a common crank. People aren't dumb, except when they want to be. The fact is that anyone can cherry pick data on any subject: the economy, the weather, the dangerousness of ladders, the dangerousness of Coca Cola - and create an instant "crisis." But such "discussions" are not in good faith - they are the ordinary tricks of disputation - "lawyerly", in the worst sense.
Are half-truths lies? You decide for yourself. For me, they are.
My opinion after this whole Al Gore storm this week on the blog: This issue is not about science; it's about politics or, as Al Gore puts it, it's a "spiritual issue." Hence the emotion.
For more quotes from the Global Warming Big Lie squad, see continuation page below - these statements will bother you, even if Big Al does not:
These are from here:
"What we've got to do in energy conservation is try to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, to have approached global warming as if it is real means energy conservation, so we will be doing the right thing anyway in terms of economic policy and environmental policy."
-- Timothy Wirth, former U.S. Senator (D-Colorado)
"On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but - which means that we must include all the doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands, and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we'd like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climatic change. To do that we need to get some broadbased support, to capture the public's imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This 'double ethical bind' we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both." (Steven Schneider, Quoted in Discover, pp. 45-48, Oct. 1989; see also (Dixy Lee Ray in 'Trashing the Planet', 1990) and (American Physical Society, APS News August/September 1996).
"Scientists who want to attract attention to themselves, who want to attract great funding to themselves, have to (find a) way to scare the public . . . and this you can achieve only by making things bigger and more dangerous than they really are." (Petr Chylek, Professor of Physics and Atmospheric Science, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, commenting on reports that Greenland's glaciers are melting. Halifax Chronicle-Herald, August 22, 2001)
"We've got to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing"
(Tim Wirth 1990, former US Senator) as quoted in NCPA Brief 213; September 6, 1996
"A global climate treaty must be implemented even if there is no scientific evidence to back the [enhanced] greenhouse effect"
(Richard Benedict, US Conservation Foundation)
"We have wished, we ecofreaks, for a disaster or for a social change to come and bomb us into Stone Age, where we might live like Indians in our valley, with our localism, our appropriate technology, our gardens, our homemade religion -- guilt-free at last!"
-- Stewart Brand (writing in the Whole Earth Catalogue)
"Post-normal science" of climate change. Scientist says: "Self-evidently dangerous climate change will not emerge from a normal scientific process of truth seeking,..." Piece at Mellanie Phillips I'd call it "post-modern&quo
Tracked: Mar 16, 07:04