NYT: Al Gore Making A Fortune Spreading Global Warming Hysteria

"Few people have been as vocal about the urgency of global warming and the need to reinvent the way the world produces and consumes energy. And few have put as much money behind their advocacy as Mr. Gore and are as well positioned to profit from this green transformation, if and when it comes."

For years I have personally challenged mainstream media outlets to admit how much money Nobel Laureate Al Gore HAS and WILL make by spreading global warming hysteria.

On Tuesday, the New York Times will feature a front page story that discusses exactly that.

Readers are strongly encouraged to strap themselves in tightly, for the Times' John Broder is about to take them on a journey beyond their wildest dreams:

Former Vice President Al Gore thought he had spotted a winner last year when a small California firm sought financing for an energy-saving technology from the venture capital firm where Mr. Gore is a partner.

The company, Silver Spring Networks, produces hardware and software to make the electricity grid more efficient. It came to Mr. Gore’s firm, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, one of Silicon Valley’s top venture capital providers, looking for $75 million to expand its partnerships with utilities seeking to install millions of so-called smart meters in homes and businesses.

Mr. Gore and his partners decided to back the company, and in gratitude Silver Spring retained him and John Doerr, another Kleiner Perkins partner, as unpaid corporate advisers.

The deal appeared to pay off in a big way last week, when the Energy Department announced $3.4 billion in smart grid grants. Of the total, more than $560 million went to utilities with which Silver Spring has contracts. Kleiner Perkins and its partners, including Mr. Gore, could recoup their investment many times over in coming years.

What? Kleiner Perkins and its partners, including Mr. Gore, could recoup their investment many times over in coming years?

I thought Gore was doing all this out of the goodness of his heart to save the planet. You mean he actually could benefit financially?

Knock me over with a feather. Who would have thought it?

But it gets better...MUCH better:

Few people have been as vocal about the urgency of global warming and the need to reinvent the way the world produces and consumes energy. And few have put as much money behind their advocacy as Mr. Gore and are as well positioned to profit from this green transformation, if and when it comes.

What? Few have put as much money behind their advocacy as Mr. Gore and are as well positioned to profit from this green transformation, if and when it comes?

You're kidding, right? This can't POSSIBLY be?

Alas, it is:

Critics, mostly on the political right and among global warming skeptics, say Mr. Gore is poised to become the world’s first “carbon billionaire,” profiteering from government policies he supports that would direct billions of dollars to the business ventures he has invested in.

Representative Marsha Blackburn, Republican of Tennessee, asserted at a hearing this year that Mr. Gore stood to benefit personally from the energy and climate policies he was urging Congress to adopt.

Mr. Gore says that he is simply putting his money where his mouth is.

“Do you think there is something wrong with being active in business in this country?” Mr. Gore said. “I am proud of it. I am proud of it.”

In an e-mail message this week, he said his investment activities were consistent with his public advocacy over decades. [...]

Mr. Gore has invested a significant portion of the tens of millions of dollars he has earned since leaving government in 2001 in a broad array of environmentally friendly energy and technology business ventures, like carbon trading markets, solar cells and waterless urinals.

The Times then told readers EXACTLY what NewsBusters has been reporting for years:

He is a founder of Generation Investment Management, based in London and run by David Blood, a former head of Goldman Sachs Asset Management (the firm was quickly dubbed Blood and Gore). Mr. Gore earns a partner’s salary at Kleiner Perkins. He has substantial personal finances invested at both firms, officials of the companies said. [...]

Mr. Gore’s spokeswoman would not give a figure for his current net worth, but the scale of his wealth is evident in a single investment of $35 million in Capricorn Investment Group, a private equity fund started by his friend Jeffrey Skoll, the first president of eBay. [...]

He has a stake in the world’s pre-eminent carbon credit trading market and in an array of companies in bio-fuels, sustainable fish farming, electric vehicles and solar power.

So, Rep. Blackburn was right when she asked Gore months ago, "Is the legislation that we are discussing here today -- is that something that you are going to personally benefit from?"

As NewsBusters reported at the time, the press almost completely ignored this encounter when it happened.

Nice of the Times to finally catch up, which it did with its final paragraphs:

“I believe that the transition to a green economy is good for our economy and good for all of us, and I have invested in it,” Mr. Gore said, adding that he had put “every penny” he has made from his investments into the Alliance for Climate Protection.

“And, Congresswoman,” he added, “if you believe that the reason I have been working on this issue for 30 years is because of greed, you don’t know me.”

Yes, that is INDEED what Gore said then, but what Broder chronicled in the prior paragraphs quite refuted his claims as did NewsBusters at the time.

Other public figures, like Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who have vocally supported government financing of energy-saving technologies, have investments in alternative energy ventures. Some scientists and policy advocates also promote energy policies that personally enrich them.

What? You mean Pelosi, RFK Jr, and some "scientists and policy advocates also promote energy policies that personally enrich them?"

Really?

Readers are now advised to mark their calendars, and be careful of pigs flying overhead the next few days.

In the end, NONE of this is at all surprising, for NewsBusters has been educating readers about the money involved in this scam almost since this website's inception.

But it is nonetheless remarkable to have the folks at the Times finally admit the truth, especially on the front page.

Of course, this likely won't lead the Times to editorialize against current cap and trade legislation, nor will it produce apologies from NewsBusters' critics who have regularly published disingenuous and factually bereft articles attempting to refute what the Times now has completely confirmed.

We won't be holding our breath for retractions, for those that continue to stick their necks out for Gore are just as unscrupulous as he is, and equally devoid of character and personal integrity.

The only question remaining is how other media outlets are going to respond to the Times piece, and whether this is the beginning of the much-anticipated unwinding of support for the myth known as manmade global warming.

Stay tuned.