Oscar winner and former Vice President Al Gore brought his
global warming sideshow to Capitol Hill last week. By now, much of
America is familiar with Gore’s do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do
presentation in which he implores Americans to make sacrifices
while he crisscrosses the country in executive jets and Tipper
keeps the fires warm at home by burning exorbitant amounts of
energy funded by astronomically high utility bills.
Sadly, Gore did not make the same grand entrance into the halls
of Congress as he did at a campaign rally in Berkeley, California
last October. Gore made an appearance in support of Proposition 87,
a measure aimed at reducing domestic oil consumption.
Gore had joined the chorus of voices from other Chicken Little
liberals who insist Americans must use less energy while not
heeding their own advice. This band of hypocrites include Senator
Barbara Boxer (D-CA) who denounced low mileage vehicles at a press
conference outside a Capitol Hill gas station last year before
hopping into her staff-driven, 18-mpg Chrysler LHS luxury car for
the two block ride back to her office. Former Congressman Harold
Ford, Jr. (D-TN) appeared on MSNBC in 2006 criticizing gas guzzling
trucks and SUVs in spite of the fact he was driving a 15-mpg Chevy
Tahoe. Last year, Senator John Kerry co-signed a letter to the
White House demanding a reduction of oil use in the U.S. Yet he
jets around in a $48-million Gulfstream G-V jet that burns 750
gallons of fuel an hour.
As for Al Gore, he arrived at his Berkeley speaking engagement
in a Toyota hybrid, accompanied by a motorcade of three
motorcycles, two limousines and Dodge Ram pick-up truck. Seven
vehicles were used to transport one guy. Fuel conservation isn’t
for them — just everyone else. Gore and his pals believe they have
a lifetime exemption from practicing what they preach.
Actually, in all fairness to Gore, he justifies his exorbitant
energy use because he claims he purchases “carbon offsets,” a scam
in and of itself. What makes the scam even more remarkable is that
Gore purchases the “carbon offsets” from a company in which he has
a financial interest. What a sacrifice.
Watching Gore and the reaction he receives from today’s liberal
crowd is reminiscent of another the-sky-is-falling and
America-is-to-blame liberal. Four decades ago it was ecologist Paul
Ehrlich who received the same rock star treatment and press
adulation.
Instead of making an award-winning documentary film, Ehrlich
wrote the smash best-seller The Population Bomb. Ehrlich’s
thesis was that the world was becoming overpopulated at too fast a
rate and that the end was near for mankind. Those people who did
not subscribe to Ehrlich’s the-end-is-near view he described as the
“uninformed Americans, ‘experts’ and nonexperts alike,” “ignorant,”
and “irresponsible.” Sound familiar?
The science was in, there was widespread consensus and the
conclusion was no longer debatable, according to Ehrlich. “The
battle to feed all of humanity is over,” he wrote in the prologue
of his book. Civilization was likely doomed.
Ehrlich argued that population sacrifices must first begin in
the U.S. He dismissed the responsibility of the two most populous
countries, China and India, from having to adopt the drastic steps
he advocated the U.S. must first take. Would Americans “be willing
to slaughter our dogs and cats in order to divert pet food protein
to the starving masses in Asia?” Ehrlich wrote. One proposal often
mentioned, according to Ehrlich, was “the addition of temporary
sterilants [sic] to water supplies or staple food” in order to
achieve a zero population growth.
In his book, Ehrlich forecasted one of three scenarios would
likely occur. First, there would be global food riots owing to
shortages and war could break out. He cast the U.S. as the
worldwide villain because of this country’s insistence in using
agricultural chemicals that would have been banned by the U.N.
Second, more than one billion people would die in one year alone
because of disease and plague precipitated by overpopulation.
Third, people would simply perish due to mass starvations.
“Hundreds of millions of people will starve to death” in the 1970s
and '80s, he wrote.
Most of the grim results would occur by the 1980s and the
calamitous outcome would be well-known before the year 2000. After
the publication of The Population Bomb, Ehrlich made an
updated pronouncement that the U.S. population would dwindle to
less than 23 million people by 1999.
Ehrlich was so popular with the liberal crowd that they could
not get enough of him. He made twenty appearances on NBC’s
Tonight Show to hype his claims, according to author Jack
Cashill.
Ehrlich was wildly wrong in his population and starvation
prognostications. Yet he is still revered by the left. However,
Ehrlich is not one to sit on his unearned laurels. Ehrlich has
revised his global overpopulation warnings to now include the
dangerous impact it has on increased global warming.
