Al Gore Responds Denies Global Warming is His Meal Ticket

[Guest Guest]

Al Gore, who famously claimed to have invented the Internet, now denies –in the face of powerful evidence to the contrary— that he is in a position to make an immense fortune from global warming-mitigation efforts. Ian Wilhelm, a Chronicle of Philanthropy reporter, asked the private equity firm Generation Investment Management LLP (GIM) to respond to my latest post, The Media Ignore Al Gore's Planned Global Warming Profiteering.

 

 

 

In the post, I noted that Gore’s nonprofit Alliance for Climate Protection plans to spend $300 million on an advertising campaign aimed at convincing the American public that they urgently need to embrace (economy-crippling) controls on carbon emissions and press politicians to act. Gore happens to be chairman and founder of GIM, a firm that invests money from institutions and wealthy investors in companies that are becoming environmentally-friendly, to use green parlance.

 

Wilhelm received what certainly seems like a snotty response. On behalf of Chairman Gore, GIM spokesman Richard Campbell said my statements were a “nonsense story.” Campbell said neither Gore nor any other members of GIM’s board will make a buck from the expansion of carbon trading. “To suggest then that they are somehow benefiting from the growth of this industry betrays a complete lack of knowledge of the carbon offset industry,” Campbell said. But why on Earth wouldn’t Gore, as head of an investment firm focused on green products, want to make money from climate change mitigation efforts? It’s his job, and he is already deeply involved in the global warming business. He has enjoyed great success in business and made oodles of money for boldly seizing the initiative in a series of successful business ventures, including green ventures. He now has a net worth greater than $100 million. As Fast Company notes:

 

 

He has made an enormous amount of money and achieved positions of influence from technology to financial services to media. He and Tipper are even setting themselves up as angel investors for a few early-stage tech companies they believe in. In doing one end run after another around the status quo, he has created a new life: a perfect amalgam of environmental activism and a new type of capitalism in which there is more than one bottom line to consider, more than one master to serve.

 

Gore’s partner at GIM, David Blood, told MarketWatch last year that “we really are focused on delivering outstanding customer results for our clients. We’re also clear, avowed advocates on climate change or on sustainability.” The article also states that

 

 

Blood sees climate change creating an entirely new business stratum, he said, similar to that surrounding the so-called Internet economy -- though he'd prefer that it bypass the latter's bubble phase."If you think about the challenges the world faces over the next 25 years," Blood said, "these factors will be integral to how business operates, and by extension how the media thinks about challenges, how civil society thinks about challenges, and how we all operate."

 

The way Blood and Gore are talking, they sure sound like they plan to make a lot of money off global warming. And let’s not forget that Gore now makes $175,000 a speech. Are people paying Gore not to talk about global warming, his policy forte, in his speeches? He sure isn’t making that kind of money for his oratory by enthralling crowds with fascinating tales from his time as Vice President of the United States, an office a previous holder once described as not being worth “a bucket of warm p---.” By comparison, the rhetorical gifts of both Dan Quayle and Walter Mondale go for a more affordable $30,000 (per speech), or less.

 

 

 

Gore, who won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for his global warming Chicken Little routine, is the most famous environmental activist in the world. His (so-called) documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, won two Academy Awards and was one of the highest-grossing documentary movies of all time, earning $49.7 million at the box office. Gore is also America’s most prominent advocate for legislated carbon emissions controls in the form of the so-called cap-and-trade system. In a cap-and-trade system, the government creates by fiat an artificial scarcity in the right to generate carbon emissions. The idea is that there would be a fixed quantity of carbon dioxide (CO2) production allowed and that businesses or industries that wanted to exceed their allowance (in order to do the things that make them money) would have to buy the unused portions of others’ allowances. These carbon credits could be traded on an exchange, as is currently done in Europe.

 

 

 

When a financial instrument is traded in a market, people make money off it, whether directly or indirectly – investors, sellers, brokers, dealers, financial advisors – even investment executives like Al Gore. As for carbon offsets, the U.S. market for such products and its attendant “feel-good hype” could be “as high as $100 million…up from next to nothing just a couple of years ago,” reports Business Week. If you consider that global warming only arrived on the scene as a major political issue relatively recently and that it may remain an issue for years, possibly decades, to come, it appears we are only at the beginning of what may turn out to be a long period of global warming consciousness-raising (to borrow a phrase from the left). If CO2 limits become the law of the land --as John McCain, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama have all promised on the campaign trail-- the market for carbon emissions rights will be huge as soon as the restrictions are signed into law. Of course the market for carbon offsets would probably grow exponentially. There’s the article by Marc Gunther and Adam Lashinsky, “Al Gore’s next act: Planet-saving VC,” [VC stands for venture capitalist] that ran in Fortune on February 12, 2008. The subtitle is “The recovering politician is teaming with a legendary venture capitalist and bigtime moneyman to make over the $6 trillion global energy business.” The authors note that Gore has joined Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. That venture capital firm says right on its website’s homepage that:

 

 

KPCB is actively working with entrepreneurs to solve our climate crisis. To accelerate our solutions, Al Gore has joined KPCB as a Partner, and KPCB has formed an alliance with Gore's Generation Investment Management. The combined network, expertise, vision and global reach of Gore, Generation and KPCB will help our entrepreneurs change the world.

 

So, KPCB has hopped on Gore’s potentially very lucrative global warming bandwagon. Did Gore get involved with KPCB to not make money? The Fortune article implies that GIM has invested in carbon trading companies: GIM “came across a small company engaged in carbon trading that [KPCB] is analyzing, and [KPCB] has shared intelligence about which startups could threaten the established companies in [GIM]’s portfolio.”

 

 

 

Gore has incredibly ambitious plans for the people of Earth. He wants to lead a revolution in how people and industry use energy and, in his own words, is calling for something “bigger than the Industrial Revolution and significantly faster.” Gore proclaims: “What we are going to have to put in place is a combination of the Manhattan Project, the Apollo project, and the Marshall Plan, and scale it globally. It’d be promising too much to say we can do it on our own, but we intend to do our part.”

 

 

 

So, Gore flaunts his prowess as a savvy investor-entrepreneur by appearing in glossy business magazines, but when someone points out the obvious, that his business interests and environmentalist crusade overlap, he gets indignant?

 

 

 

 

[Guest Newsbusters]

If you're going to post crap from "Free"repukes.com - at least have the DELETED to link your source.

 

Worse than "News"busters!

[Guest Guest]

If you're going to post crap from "Free"repukes.com - at least have the DELETED to link your source.

 

Worse than "News"busters!

Here DELETED here is how your lying cohorts try to build their case.

There as simple as you and your DELETED dancing smiley.

 

On Saturday, NewsBusters shared with readers a BBC.com report that astoundingly proclaimed "Global Temperatures 'To Decrease.'"

 

Some time after this was posted, the third paragraph of the original piece was changed in a fashion that radically altered the meaning of the entire article (picture courtesy AP).

 

In fact, what was once a realistic portrayal of new data released by the World Meteorological Organization suddenly became another hysterical report espousing doom and gloom at the hands of manmade global warming.

 

Here was how the piece began before Saturday's edits (emphasis added):

 

Global temperatures will drop slightly this year as a result of the cooling effect of the La Nina current in the Pacific, UN meteorologists have said.

 

The World Meteorological Organization's secretary-general, Michel Jarraud, told the BBC it was likely that La Nina would continue into the summer.

 

This would mean global temperatures have not risen since 1998, prompting some to question climate change theory.

 

For the record, a website called Gribbit's Word cut and pasted those three opening paragraphs exactly the same way on Friday at 12:19 PM.

 

Yet, some time on Saturday after NewsBusters posted its piece at 12:22 PM, the third paragraph was mysteriously changed to this (emphasis added):

 

But this year's temperatures would still be way above the average - and we would soon exceed the record year of 1998 because of global warming induced by greenhouse gases.

 

Some difference, wouldn't you agree? Maybe more fascinating is that the time stamp at the top of the article doesn't reflect that any changes were made since Gribbit or I cut and pasted the version we shared with our readers: "Page last updated at 00:42 GMT, Friday, 4 April 2008 01:42 UK."

 

For those unfamiliar, 00:42 GMT on Friday would be 7:42 PM EST Thursday. So, according to BBC.com, this piece was last updated our Thursday evening.

 

Yet, Gribbit's cut and paste Friday afternoon, and mine on Saturday afternoon, are different than what one now sees if you click on the links we both posted for this piece. And, since mine was posted at 12:22 PM Saturday, it means this third paragraph was changed at least 40 hours after the last "official" update.

 

Why? Was someone at the BBC displeased with the tenor of this piece, but didn't want folks to know it was being altered so long after it had been posted?

 

*****Update: Jennifer Marohasy reports that the headline of this article was changed a couple of times as well --

 

Moving on to the strange happenings surrounding a subsequent 4th April article by the BBC's Roger Harrabin, blogged here, entitled, Global temperatures 'to decrease' , which was later changed to, Global warming 'dips this year, ' and then subsequently changed back to Global temperatures 'to decrease.' The changes in the text, however, did not revert back to the text in the original article.

 

Makes sense. After all, the alarmists certainly couldn't have an article out there titled "Global Warming 'Dips This Year.'"

[Guest Guest]

Here's some news that will have a real effect on your daily lives:

 

http://money.cnn.com/2008/04/06/news/econo...sion=2008040615

 

 

@

[Guest Guest]

Here's some news that will have a real effect on your daily lives:

 

http://money.cnn.com/2008/04/06/news/econo...sion=2008040615

 

 

@

And what you think that this global warming scam won't have a very serious affect on your life???????

You think prices are high now wait till you see what would happen if they try implementing these pie in the sky bone head ideals the greenies think you me and the rest of the world should live by.

 

[Guest Guest]

And what you think that this global warming scam won't have a very serious affect on your life???????

You think prices are high now wait till you see what would happen if they try implementing these pie in the sky bone head ideals the greenies think you me and the rest of the world should live by.

 

no we don't - cuz it aint a scam

 

[Guest Guest]

no we don't - cuz it aint a scam

 

 

Sorry to burst your bubble, junior.......but I, for one, refuse to meekly accept dubious findings based on cooked data, skewed statistics, and inchoate hysteria by charlatans and pseudo-scientists.

[Guest Guest]

Al Gore has one of the biggest "carbon footprints"of anyone. He has said in the past he is erasing that by his purchase of carbon credits. I think I would listen to his story if he didn't so intently do all the things that he tells everyone else is ruining the world.

[Guest Steve]

With McCain being almost in a geriatric ward and the other two in th race, I woulc vote for Gore for Pres,believe me and so would so many others.We have som e bad candidates here. McCain is in this to allow another Bush to take over in 4 years. it is a conspiracy.

[Guest Guest]

AL GORE IS A BUFFONE END OF STORY.

[Guest Guest]

Look folks, we need to surrender and declare ALGORE king of earth. He knows best for all of us. Reduce earths population to 300 million and everything will be fine. ALGORE is god

[Guest Guest]

With McCain being almost in a geriatric ward and the other two in th race, I woulc vote for Gore for Pres,believe me and so would so many others.We have som e bad candidates here. McCain is in this to allow another Bush to take over in 4 years. it is a conspiracy.

 

 

I think this guy needs to be hit with a giant CLUEBAT.

 

 

@

[GALVATRON]

Here DELETED here is how your lying cohorts try to build their case.

There as simple as you and your DELETED dancing smiley.

 

On Saturday, NewsBusters shared with readers a BBC.com report that astoundingly proclaimed "Global Temperatures 'To Decrease.'"

 

Some time after this was posted, the third paragraph of the original piece was changed in a fashion that radically altered the meaning of the entire article (picture courtesy AP).

 

In fact, what was once a realistic portrayal of new data released by the World Meteorological Organization suddenly became another hysterical report espousing doom and gloom at the hands of manmade global warming.

 

Here was how the piece began before Saturday's edits (emphasis added):

 

Global temperatures will drop slightly this year as a result of the cooling effect of the La Nina current in the Pacific, UN meteorologists have said.

 

The World Meteorological Organization's secretary-general, Michel Jarraud, told the BBC it was likely that La Nina would continue into the summer.

 

This would mean global temperatures have not risen since 1998, prompting some to question climate change theory.

 

For the record, a website called Gribbit's Word cut and pasted those three opening paragraphs exactly the same way on Friday at 12:19 PM.

 

Yet, some time on Saturday after NewsBusters posted its piece at 12:22 PM, the third paragraph was mysteriously changed to this (emphasis added):

 

But this year's temperatures would still be way above the average - and we would soon exceed the record year of 1998 because of global warming induced by greenhouse gases.

 

Some difference, wouldn't you agree? Maybe more fascinating is that the time stamp at the top of the article doesn't reflect that any changes were made since Gribbit or I cut and pasted the version we shared with our readers: "Page last updated at 00:42 GMT, Friday, 4 April 2008 01:42 UK."

 

For those unfamiliar, 00:42 GMT on Friday would be 7:42 PM EST Thursday. So, according to BBC.com, this piece was last updated our Thursday evening.

 

Yet, Gribbit's cut and paste Friday afternoon, and mine on Saturday afternoon, are different than what one now sees if you click on the links we both posted for this piece. And, since mine was posted at 12:22 PM Saturday, it means this third paragraph was changed at least 40 hours after the last "official" update.

 

Why? Was someone at the BBC displeased with the tenor of this piece, but didn't want folks to know it was being altered so long after it had been posted?

 

*****Update: Jennifer Marohasy reports that the headline of this article was changed a couple of times as well --

 

Moving on to the strange happenings surrounding a subsequent 4th April article by the BBC's Roger Harrabin, blogged here, entitled, Global temperatures 'to decrease' , which was later changed to, Global warming 'dips this year, ' and then subsequently changed back to Global temperatures 'to decrease.' The changes in the text, however, did not revert back to the text in the original article.

 

Makes sense. After all, the alarmists certainly couldn't have an article out there titled "Global Warming 'Dips This Year.'"

Is this poster joking or what,MPD guy said 95% of scientists agree global warming is real and man made,95%,no proof or link or nothing,if you do not agree with MPD guy you are a Bushbot and a monkey and you think the Earth is flat.MPD guy does not care if this year had record cold temperature or if it snowed the other day in Spring or if MPD guy is a dyslectic idiot who wont sign in so everybody can see just how stupid he and every Democrat really is,on a more serious note this forum is the last place you want to post real facts of the lies and stupidity of Al and the Democrats.If you had all the solid proof in the world these retards would still argue their liberal communist asses off,and then resort to telling you to take your meds and then make fun of Bush(using more liberal lies)as the answer as to why they are wrong....again.And this ladies and gentlemen is the reason why the Democrats rely on the stupid voter to win elections,because they are stupid,just look at N.Y. State it elected Hillary Clinton as a Senator,you can't get much more stupid than that,God help us all.

[Guest Guest]

Sorry to burst your bubble, junior.......but I, for one, refuse to meekly accept dubious findings based on cooked data, skewed statistics, and inchoate hysteria by charlatans and pseudo-scientists.

 

 

I know we have been though this before. You do know that 100% of the scientists believe global warming is happening and that 95% of them directly attribute humans as being one of the reasons - and yet somehow you still believe it is not happening. Do you think that 50,000 scientists are all in some kind of grand conspiracy of mass proportions? I mean even Rush and Hannity now say it is happening and that humans contribute. Good God man - get with the program!

[Guest Guest]

I know we have been though this before. You do know that 100% of the scientists believe global warming is happening and that 95% of them directly attribute humans as being one of the reasons - and yet somehow you still believe it is not happening. Do you think that 50,000 scientists are all in some kind of grand conspiracy of mass proportions? I mean even Rush and Hannity now say it is happening and that humans contribute. Good God man - get with the program!

 

 

Again....you apparently are making this up as you go. But you already know this. Your delusions are NOT reality.

[GALVATRON]

I know we have been though this before. You do know that 100% of the scientists believe global warming is happening and that 95% of them directly attribute humans as being one of the reasons - and yet somehow you still believe it is not happening. Do you think that 50,000 scientists are all in some kind of grand conspiracy of mass proportions? I mean even Rush and Hannity now say it is happening and that humans contribute. Good God man - get with the program!

I know we have been through this before,where are your statistics MPD guy,here is some

Concern over “global warming” is overblown and misdirected. What follows are eight reasons why we should pull the plug on this scam before it destroys billions of dollars of wealth and millions of jobs.

 

1. Most scientists do not believe human activities threaten to disrupt the Earth’s climate. More than 17,000 scientists have signed a petition circulated by the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine saying, in part, “there is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate.” (Go to www.oism.org for the complete petition and names of signers.) Surveys of climatologists show similar skepticism.

 

 

2. Our most reliable sources of temperature data show no global warming trend. Satellite readings of temperatures in the lower troposphere (an area scientists predict would immediately reflect any global warming) show no warming since readings

began 23 years ago. These readings are accurate to within 0.01ºC, and are consistent with data from weather balloons. Only land-based temperature stations show a warming trend, and these stations do not cover the entire globe, are often contaminated by heat generated by nearby urban development, and are subject to human error.

 

3. Global climate computer models are too crude to predict future climate changes. All predictions of global warming are based on computer models, not historical data. In order to get their models to produce predictions that are close to their designers’ expectations, modelers resort to “flux adjustments” that can be 25 times larger than the effect of doubling carbon dioxide concentrations, the supposed trigger for global warming. Richard A. Kerr, a writer for Science, says “climate modelers have been ‘cheating’ for so long it’s almost become respectable.”

 

4. The IPCC did not prove that human activities are causing global warming. Alarmists frequently quote the executive summaries of reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a United Nations organization, to support their predictions. But here is what the IPCC’s latest report, Climate Change 2001, actually says about predicting the future climate: “The Earth’s atmosphere-ocean dynamics is chaotic: its evolution is sensitive to small perturbations in initial conditions. This sensitivity limits our ability to predict the detailed evolution of weather; inevitable errors and uncertainties in the starting conditions of a weather forecast amplify through the forecast. As well as uncertainty in initial conditions, such predictions are also degraded by errors and uncertainties in our ability to represent accurately the significant climate processes.”

 

5. A modest amount of global warming, should it occur, would be beneficial to the natural world and to human civilization. Temperatures during the Medieval Warm Period (roughly 800 to 1200 AD), which allowed the Vikings to settle presently inhospitable Greenland, were higher than even the worst-case scenario reported by the IPCC. The period from about 5000-3000 BC, known as the “climatic optimum,” was even warmer and marked “a time when mankind began to build its first civilizations,” observe James Plummer and Frances B. Smith in a study for Consumer Alert. “There is good reason to believe that a warmer climate would have a similar effect on the health and welfare of our own far more advanced and adaptable civilization today.”

 

6. Efforts to quickly reduce human greenhouse gas emissions would be costly and would not stop Earth’s climate from changing. Reducing U.S. carbon dioxide emissions to 7 percent below 1990’s levels by the year 2012--the target set by the Kyoto Protocol--would require higher energy taxes and regulations causing the nation to lose 2.4 million jobs and $300 billion in annual economic output. Average household income nationwide would fall by $2,700, and state tax revenues would decline by $93.1 billion due to less taxable earned income and sales, and lower property values. Full implementation of the Kyoto Protocol by all participating nations would reduce global temperature in the year 2100 by a mere 0.14 degrees Celsius.

 

7. Efforts by state governments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are even more expensive and threaten to bust state budgets. After raising their spending with reckless abandon during the 1990s, states now face a cumulative projected deficit of more than $90 billion. Incredibly, most states nevertheless persist in backing unnecessary and expensive greenhouse gas reduction programs. New Jersey, for example, collects $358 million a year in utility taxes to fund greenhouse gas reduction programs. Such programs will have no impact on global greenhouse gas emissions. All they do is destroy jobs and waste money.

 

8. The best strategy to pursue is “no regrets.” The alternative to demands for immediate action to “stop global warming” is not to do nothing. The best strategy is to invest in atmospheric research now and in reducing emissions sometime in the future if the science becomes more compelling. In the meantime, investments should be made to reduce emissions only when such investments make economic sense in their own right.

 

This strategy is called “no regrets,” and it is roughly what the Bush administration has been doing. The U.S. spends more on global warming research each year than the entire rest of the world combined, and American businesses are leading the way in demonstrating new technologies for reducing and sequestering greenhouse gas emissions.

 

 

Time for Common Sense

 

The global warming scare has enabled environmental advocacy groups to raise billions of dollars in contributions and government grants. It has given politicians (from Al Gore down) opportunities to pose as prophets of doom and slayers of evil corporations. And it has given bureaucrats at all levels of government, from the United Nations to city councils, powers that threaten our jobs and individual liberty.

It is time for common sense to return to the debate over protecting the environment. An excellent first step would be to end the “global warming” scam.

 

100% MPD guy,I don't know

[Guest Guest]

While the BCV pessimists are waiting for the sky to fall, record low temperatures are being reported all over the world:

Al Gore says global warming is a planetary emergency. It is difficult to see how this can be so when record low temperatures are being set all over the world. In 2007, hundreds of people died, not from global warming, but from cold weather hazards.

Since the mid-19th century, the mean global temperature has increased by 0.7 degrees Celsius. This slight warming is not unusual, and lies well within the range of natural variation. Carbon dioxide continues to build in the atmosphere, but the mean planetary temperature hasn’t increased significantly for nearly nine years. Antarctica is getting colder. Neither the intensity nor the frequency of hurricanes has increased. The 2007 season was the third-quietest since 1966. In 2006 not a single hurricane made landfall in the U.S.

Just how cold is it during this Global Warming craze:

Last January, $1.42 billion worth of California produce was lost to a devastating five-day freeze. Thousands of agricultural employees were thrown out of work. At the supermarket, citrus prices soared. In the wake of the freeze, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger asked President Bush to issue a disaster declaration for affected counties. A few months earlier, Mr. Schwarzenegger had enthusiastically signed the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, a law designed to cool the climate. California Sen. Barbara Boxer continues to push for similar legislation in the U.S. Senate.

In April, a killing freeze destroyed 95 percent of South Carolina’s peach crop, and 90 percent of North Carolina’s apple harvest. At Charlotte, N.C., a record low temperature of 21 degrees Fahrenheit on April 8 was the coldest ever recorded for April, breaking a record set in 1923. On June 8, Denver recorded a new low of 31 degrees Fahrenheit. Denver’s temperature records extend back to 1872.

If this was the 70’s, these loons would have been right on target when it was the Global Cooling craze. But I'm happy to see that some are "getting with the program". HEH.

 

[Guest Guest]

Again....you apparently are making this up as you go. But you already know this. Your delusions are NOT reality.

 

 

thems the facts - like it or not

 

 

[GALVATRON]

See I told you guys on the old bcvoice.com all Al's maps and charts and prizes would cause a new ice age,we are now entering Al's Ice Age

 

 

@

[Guest tipper gore]

See I told you guys on the old bcvoice.com all Al's maps and charts and prizes would cause a new ice age,we are now entering Al's Ice Age

 

 

@

 

i agree with you about the global warming hoax. however, there are much more minor issues that should be addressed. nobody should be able to pollute the air to the extent of health risk. IBM took care of endicott and LA is a joke. i think it's common sense. don't pollute the water and the air. many health problems stem from these two. that should be the main concern for the environmental people. it's less hollywood, but more reality.