Al Gore has finally won his Nobel Prize, reminiscent of the
proverbial little nut that stood his ground, evolving into a giant
Oak. Now we can only hope that he runs for President, an office
that, given recent history, surely deserves him.
Where else — except perhaps via the Kyoto Protocol on global
warming, which Gore negotiated — can someone accomplish so little
while spending so much? But, to get there, or at least to the Demo
nomination, Gore’s going to have to do something he has assiduously
avoided: debate
Gore’s standard rule on live TV has been there will be no live
challenge. The last time he ran for President (2000), he succeeded
de facto, with George “Carbon Bonoixde” Bush as the token global
warming flyweight. This time, debates happen.
That’s because Gore represents a party gone global warming
ga-ga, with some of the world’s goofiest environmental legislation
in history awaiting a Bush veto and a Gore signature.
Consider what Bernie Sanders (“I”-VT) has in the docket: A
legislative magic wand that will require us to reduce our emissions
of carbon dioxide by 90% in a mere 42 years. Since 1990, we’re up a
little under 20%. Sanders’ legislation takes us back to the 1930s,
a technological stone age. True, there’s other, more “moderate”
legislation. John Kerry’s (D-MA) proposal would cut it back 80%.
Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) is at 50%.
Each and every one has a good chance of Senate passage, and an
even better chance of a veto. So, now that you have your Nobel,
Come out and fight like a man, Al, and don’t even worry about
picking on someone your own size.
The fact is that Al has ducked, feinted, dived away from, or
fluffed each and every opportunity for a reasoned debate with any
global warming scientist not of his choice, a choice he no longer
enjoys. Heartland Institute, a Chicago think tank, spent over a
million dollars filing ads in the Wall Street Journal, the
New York Times and their ilk, begging Al to debate. No
dice. In a less public venue, my own Cato Institute sent kind and
courteous letters asking him to share our pretty auditorium on
Washington’s Massachusetts Avenue, for a civil discussion with our
scholars. Again, no dice.
Here’s the rub: if any opposition were so easy to vanquish, Gore
would relish the opportunity. Obviously there’s a substantive and
cogent argument he can’t kill.
In essence, it is that Gore has massively departed from the
scientific mainstream on global warming, even as that community may
be itself biased by the funding afforded by emphasizing the
negative.
For example, the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (of which I am a member, while Gore is not) predicts
a mean sea-level rise of about 13 inches by 2100. Gore’s book and
movie contain an undated montage showing Florida sliding beneath
the waves, something that could only happen with 13 feet
or more.
How on earth does one accomplish such a disconnect from
scientific reality?
Gore only has one scientist, James Hansen of NASA, whispering
the sweet nothings into his ear that sea-level could rise this much
or more in the next 92 years, as Greenland’s ice sheets are
destabilized by climate change.
No other scientist is willing to climb out on this limb, because
it is simply not supported by the observed climatic history of
Greenland since the end of the last ice age. For much of six
millennia, ending 3,000 years ago, it had to be warmer, and yet the
ice stuck like glue. Hansen’s amazing response, which you can read
on his blog, documented at www.realclimate.org (not exactly a peer-reviewed
scientific journal!) is that other scientists don’t agree with him
because they suffer from what he calls “scientific reticence.” In
other words, all his colleagues are chicken-bleeps because they
don’t agree with him.
How about the other pole? Every computer model mentioned by the
United Nations shows Antarctica gaining ice this century
because a slight warming will result in more precipitation which
must fall as snow. Would Gore like that out in public? Or how about
the fact that Antarctica just set its record maximum for
sea-ice extent, as measured by satellite.
The world can only hope that Gore’s Nobel propels him into
another run for the Presidency. He received it for his climate
lunacy. Now he can defend it and the Nobel Prize by merely debating
those who must be so easy to defeat.
