Global Warming been very, very good to me….
Fortune Magazine
Al Gore’s next act: Planet-saving VC
The recovering politician is teaming with a legendary venture capitalist and bigtime moneyman to make over the $6 trillion global energy business.We’re sitting in the giant conference room at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, where the partners hold their weekly meetings. After loading his plate with Chinese food from a buffet, Gore is firing detailed questions at the management team of Ausra, a Kleiner-backed company in Palo Alto whose technology uses mirrors the width of a flatbed truck that focus the sun’s energy to generate electricity.
Big-time democrat fund raiser, billionaire Ron Burkle, estimated in a recent NY Times article that Al Gore was worth $2 billion based on his Current TV network, his seats on the boards of Apple and Google and his global, corporate jet carbon emiting high-paid speaking junkets.
Anyone really think Gore would give all this up for politics? No way. He’s busy “fighting the most serious crisis we have ever faced.”
I am in awe of his sacrifice.
Global Warming, Politics | Kevin | 
November 12, 2007 10:56 am
attack the messenger, because you don’t want to focus on the issue.
gotta keep that eye on that shiny object!
Patriot,
Nice try. Nobody has done more than us in trying to focus on the issue. See our interviews with MIT Professor of Atmospheric Science Dr. Richard Lindzen or Bjorn Lomborg.
http://www.punditreview.com/2007/10/12/whats-the-difference-between-20-feet-and-18-inches/
Of course, you’re free to swallow Gore’s propaganda whole, or you could follow your own advice and actually look into the issue.
Kevin
Then why the jab? Why not just focus on the issue at hand? And even if global warming isn’t the end all of whatever it is, why is it a bad idea to diversify our energy consumption? To stop relaying on crude? To create new markets and new American jobs? To become the one’s who control our own energy production and needs?
I guess thats my point, why bother with a cheap shot red herring when there’s so much else to debate? It’s an old, shameful tactic.
Granted his actions do produce more carbon then a person with less of a spotlight, but his ability to get a message out to a larger number of people, and possibly effect their carbon footprint, is what really matters here.
If he can get 1 million people, who otherwise had no idea, to reduce their carbon footprint by 10 lbs a year, while his footprint at around 1 million lbs of CO2 a year promoting reduction, isn’t the net benefit still what he was trying to accomplish; i.e. reducing carbon by getting people to think about an issue they hadn’t before?
What would you honestly like him to do, run around on a donkey and use a megaphone? Oh wait, donkeys fart, and that be a issue too… (and the jokes would be even worse).
Debate the issue all you want, but please stop with this “he’s a hypocrite because he’s using a jet” stuff coming from the echo chamber of the tubes. We’d all use more fuel efficient modes of transportation and dependence on energy if they we’re available, but unfortunately they’re not here yet in an off the shelf product. Hell some guy in Kansas has been converting H1’s that now get 60 miles to the gallon while doubling the HP. The real kicker is that it’s done with all factory made GE parts. I’d love to sign up with that one, but economy’s of scale makes it a bit pricey right now, one guy working out of his shop and all.
I really don’t see why this is a us vs. them type of issue, as conservation and new small business are inherently issues that reside more with conservative politics, moreso then they ever did with the left.
Either way, all over the place a bit there, but my point is why bother taking these cheap shots, when it’s visible that it’s all it is? You have some very thoughtful and mind provoking posts, but then you put up this kind of filler…
Patriot,
Because sometimes its nice just to have some fun at Al Gore’s expense.
And no, I find nothing honorable about the way Gore conducts himself. He is unwilling to debate the topic, and he tries to silence critics, as he did on the Today show last week, equating them with the flat earth crowd who shouldn’t be given equal time.
His excessive, irresponsible rhetoric is dangerous, because the proposed solutions to his dire warnings include devastating consequences to our economy. Please read Bjorn Lomborg’s book Cool It to see why Gore is so dangerous to the future health of the planet.
Just because the idea of being good stewards of the environment is the correct one, Gore does not get a blank check to cloud the debate and silence his (growing number) of critics.
He is deeply irresponsible, and must be held accountable for it.
Finally, when you claim repeatedly and with a straight face that “global warming is the most serious crisis we have ever faced”, then you are setting your self up for mockery. That statement alone should show you how ridiculous he is, how untrustworthy and over the top he is.
Kevin
I have a fever. I’m sick of Al Gore.
Hey i was about to go through some withdraws from the lack of the podcast. I think you guys should put up as many as you can! I found this podcast through iTunes in May and cant stop listing. Keep up the good work.
Jesse Magruder
The Liberal Seattle, Wa
Thanks for the kind words Jesse.
Kevin