The real problem with Al Gore: Global warming, Japan and hybrid cars
Just as Al Gore is beating the drum on global warming and inciting his treehugging supporters into a frenzy, almost every government in the world is spending less money to fight global warming according to the NYTimes.
For example, U.S. spending into global warming research and development is half what it was just 25 years ago, but it isn't just the U.S.
"Internationally, government energy research trends are little different from those in the United States. Japan is the only economic power that increased research spending in recent decades, with growth focused on efficiency and solar technology, according to the International Energy Agency."
Ironically, many energy experts expect total energy use to increase by some 50 percent in less than 20 years, with most of this increase coming from China and India. If we can't get control of energy consumption now, how are we going to do better in the next 2 decades when issues such as Kyoto don't even include these countries?
This should be cause for serious concern if you believe Gore. If the world is almost past the point of no return, yet energy consumption is still rapidly increasing, isn't Gore's battle already over?
I say Mr. Gore is simply telling the wrong story. Mr. Gore is a politician at heart, rather than an activist, and in the back of his mind, I think, Gore is simply posturing for another run at the Presidency. Global warming, Gore believes, might just be his ticket back to the big white house, and I say he's right, but he's also missing the point and his opportunity.
(Full Story)
For example, U.S. spending into global warming research and development is half what it was just 25 years ago, but it isn't just the U.S.
"Internationally, government energy research trends are little different from those in the United States. Japan is the only economic power that increased research spending in recent decades, with growth focused on efficiency and solar technology, according to the International Energy Agency."
Ironically, many energy experts expect total energy use to increase by some 50 percent in less than 20 years, with most of this increase coming from China and India. If we can't get control of energy consumption now, how are we going to do better in the next 2 decades when issues such as Kyoto don't even include these countries?
This should be cause for serious concern if you believe Gore. If the world is almost past the point of no return, yet energy consumption is still rapidly increasing, isn't Gore's battle already over?
I say Mr. Gore is simply telling the wrong story. Mr. Gore is a politician at heart, rather than an activist, and in the back of his mind, I think, Gore is simply posturing for another run at the Presidency. Global warming, Gore believes, might just be his ticket back to the big white house, and I say he's right, but he's also missing the point and his opportunity.
(Full Story)
Labels: global warming, Hybrid Vehicles, india
posted by Dahcredyns at
10:02 AM
4 Comments:
(Rest of Story)
If R&D spending is declining as Gore wins awards and acclaim around the world for An Inconvenient Truth, what's the problem?
The messenger - Gore - simply isn't delivering the right message.
Mr. Gore, it appears, is trying to use the Republican ploy of using fear to influence voters. It seems Mr. Gore believes that if he can scare people into believing that global warming is going to destroy the world unless we act right now, the people then might look to the leading messenger for the best solution. What better way to do that than to vote for him as the next president?
Well, doom and gloom only goes so far, just ask the Republican party about the political success of their doom and gloom war on terror.
The only solution to global warming, I believe, is to follow the lead being set by Japan.
I'm told that the Japanese word for crisis also means opportunity. A crisis isn't always something to get depressed about, rather it is an opportunity to do something better. Is there any wonder the Japanese have cornered the market for hybrid cars first?
Japan is more efficient by culture - it's become a way of life. The Japanese are driven by efficiency, or the opportunity to do things better. Moreover, they have realized that doing things efficiently is not only cost-effective, but profit driving, especially used with long-term thinking.
For example, whether global warming is real or not, oil demand is almost certainly going to increase as supply runs out. Thus, Japan's focus on efficiency helps prepare them for oil shortages while also fighting global warming. In the long run, fighting global warming isn't just good for the environment, it's also a great capital investment.
Even Walmart, a favorite whipping boy of Democrats, has begun to realize the opportunity that global warming presents. Already, the company has started to send engineers into its chain of suppliers to find ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and profitby doing so (more).
"When Wal-Mart first sent engineers into supply-chain factories, "what we found absolutely staggered us," said Stanway. He said they helped cut electricity bills by 60 percent at the first factory they audited by installing readily available low emissions lighting and technologies".
Wow. You mean you can make money by fighting global warming? Now that's something more people can buy into, money.
While we should acknowledge the doom and gloom possibilities of global warming, we should spend more time crafting a message around opportunity. Yes, global warming is a crisis, but we must turn global warming into an opportunity. We can't scare people into doing the right thing, we must excite them into doing the right thing.
Inevitably those countries that put the most R&D into fighting global warming, will make the most profit from defeating global warming. Those companies will be the economic powers of the future.
American-made Hummers, for example, aren't going to be a very good weapon or profit maker in the future war on global warming. American-made fuel cell hybrid vehicles, however, could be a great weapon. Moreover, such vehicles could also help keep GM and its many 10's of thousands of workers working in the U.S. with high paying jobs for many decades to come.
It is this reason - future economic prosperity that actually benefits human-kind - that should be driving the global warming conversation, not doom and gloom. That message might not sell many movie tickets, but it could probably take the White House if you told the story correctly.
In his new book, The Assault on Reason, Al Gore pleads, "We must stop tolerating the rejection and
distortion of science. We must insist on an end to the cynical use of pseudo-studies known to be false for the purpose of intentionally clouding the public's ability to discern the truth." Gore repeatedly asks that science and reason displace cynical political posturing as the central focus of public discourse. If Gore really means what he writes, he has an opportunity to make a difference by leading by example on the issue of global warming. A cooperative and productive discussion of global warming must be open and honest regarding the science. Global warming threats ought to be studied and mitigated, and they should not be deliberately exaggerated as a means of building support for a desired political position.
Many of the assertions Gore makes in his movie, ''An Inconvenient Truth,'' have been refuted by science, both before and after he made them. Gore can show sincerity in his plea for scientific honesty by publicly acknowledging where science has rebutted his claims.
For example, Gore claims that Himalayan glaciers are shrinking and global warming is to blame. Yet the September 2006 issue of the American Meteorological Society's Journal of Climate reported, "Glaciers are growing in the Himalayan Mountains, confounding global warming alarmists who recently claimed the glaciers were shrinking and that global warming was to blame." Gore claims the snowcap atop Africa's Mt. Kilimanjaro is shrinking and that global warming is to blame. Yet
according to the November 23, 2003, issue of Nature magazine, "Although it's tempting to blame the ice loss
on global warming, researchers think that deforestation of the mountain's foothills is the more likely culprit. Without the forests' humidity, previously moisture-laden winds blew dry. No longer replenished with water,
the ice is evaporating in the strong equatorial sunshine."
Gore claims global warming is causing more tornadoes. Yet the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change stated in February that there has been no scientific link established between global warming and tornadoes.
Gore claims global warming is causing more frequent and severe hurricanes. However, hurricane expert Chris Landsea published a study on May 1 documenting that hurricane activity is no higher now than in decades past. Hurricane expert William Gray reported just a few days earlier, on April 27, that the number of major hurricanes making landfall on the U.S. Atlantic coast has declined in the past 40 years. Hurricane scientists reported in the April 18 Geophysical Research Letters that global warming enhances wind shear,
which will prevent a significant increase in future hurricane activity.
Gore claims global warming is causing an expansion of African deserts. However, the Sept. 16, 2002, issue of New Scientist reports, "Africa's deserts are in 'spectacular' retreat . . . making farming viable again in what were some of the most arid parts of Africa."
Gore argues Greenland is in rapid meltdown, and that this threatens to raise sea levels by 20 feet. But
according to a 2005 study in the Journal of Glaciology, "the Greenland ice sheet is thinning at the margins and growing inland, with a small overall mass gain." In late 2006, researchers at the Danish Meteorological Institute reported that the past two decades were the coldest for Greenland since the 1910s.
Gore claims the Antarctic ice sheet is melting because of global warming. Yet the Jan. 14, 2002, issue of Nature magazine reported Antarctica as a whole has been dramatically cooling for decades. More recently, scientists reported in the September 2006 issue of the British journal Philosophical Transactions of the
Royal Society Series A: Mathematical, Physical, and Engineering Sciences, that satellite measurements of
the Antarctic ice sheet showed significant growth between 1992 and 2003. And the U.N. Climate Change
panel reported in February 2007 that Antarctica is unlikely to lose any ice mass during the remainder of the century.
Each of these cases provides an opportunity for Gore to lead by example in his call for an end to the distortion of science. Will he rise to the occasion? Only time will tell.
James M. Taylor is senior fellow for environment
We need to stop gorebull warnings
I do believe in global warming, it's the man-made contribution that is confusing. I have also read many reports that seem to contradict some of the man-made causes of global warming.
When the planet has been a good bit warmer than today in just the last few hundred thousand years, its hard to believe that man is doing all of today's warming. What caused it in the past, really big campfires? Atlantis?
The planet goes through cycles of hot and cold periods. Obviously, we need to better understand these cycles and our ability - if any - to affect these cycles.
However, we need to make sure we let the science do the talking, not the politicians. Inevitably, it cannot be denied that scientists do not know everything about the climate, about sun spots or solar radiation, etc. Thus, it is all the more important that scientists don't set out to prove that humans are or are not causing global warming. Just set out to find the truth, objectively.
today i did my hir and it looks pretty and i had fun in school
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