Environment

Snappy Greetings has a parody Al Gore global warming video that uses the theme from the movie "Grease." Al and Tipper Gore, dressed in 50s-era attire, sing the praises of global warming.

"Global warming, so good for me," Al says as he gestures to himself.

"May help you win the presidency," informs Tipper as a "Vote Gore 2008" sign appears.

If you are a celebrity, businessman or ex-president with a liberal persuasion and you have a cause to promote chances are someone from NBC's Today will traverse many miles to place a microphone in front of your face. On this morning's Today show Brad Pitt, Bill Clinton and Bill Gates all got face-time to promote their causes. However it was Pitt who stole the show with this piece of Greenie hyperbole: "We just can't keep consuming ourselves into extinction."

In the first half-hour of Today NBC's Campbell Brown highlighted Bill and Melinda Gates and Clinton's efforts to combat disease in Africa and in the 8:30 half-hour Ann Curry trudged through flood-ravaged New Orleans to promote Brad Pitt's effort to rebuild the city. On the surface one has to applaud any charitable effort to fight disease in Africa or reconstruct New Orleans but it would be nice if viewers were spared the liberal hero worship such as Brown calling Gates and Clinton, "two of the most fascinating people in the world."

Slapstick Politics has an excerpt from a recent Entertainment Weekly article on Al Gore's film, "An Inconvenient Truth." It turns out documentary films about global warming have a way of making people cool. This should be encouraging news for science club high schoolers around the country.

Minds are being changed, all right, and not just about global warming. Miraculously, over the past few months, An Inconvenient Truth has accomplished something many people once thought inconceivable: It's made Al Gore cool. The somber policy wonk who campaigned for president in 2000 with all those bland speeches about lockboxes is gone. He's now a hip and trendy (in a wonky sort of way) ecological activist. While promoting the movie this summer, Gore has been connecting with crowds more effortlessly and comfortably — even charismatically — than he ever did as a politician. He even found his sense of humor; turns out it's been hiding all this time inside daughter Kristin, a former comedy writer on Matt Groening's Futurama and the one responsible for Gore's gag

Tom Brokaw's two-hour Sunday night special, Global Warming: What You Need to Know, may be airing on the Discovery Channel, but NBC News, a co-producer of the program, is adopting it as its own even as another reviewer has asserted it provides a one-sided presentation. At the end of Friday's NBC Nightly News, Brian Williams touted, “One quick program note here about a friend of ours: Tom Brokaw's special report on global warming airs this Sunday night on the Discovery Channel. That's at 9 Eastern time.” A bit later Friday night, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann previewed a clip of the cable special: "Tom Brokaw has faced right-wing attacks for his report on global warming. We'll give you your first look at his special report and about how the latest news is that the Earth's warming is leading to the deaths of polar bears." Countdown viewers were then treated to an excerpt from the show in which Brokaw presented one scientists' take on how global warming is harming polar bears in the Arctic which, Brokaw definitely declared, are “likely to become another statistic in one's database of a species on its way to extinction." The excerpt -- identical to the preview clip aired on Friday's Today -- was certainly one-sided, but Olbermann insisted Brokaw's special “is plenty balanced. It is the Earth's atmosphere that is not balanced."

Meanwhile, in a review posted Friday by Bloomberg News, Dave Shiflett concluded: “You'll find more dissent at a North Korean political rally than in this program.” (A transcript, excerpts and a picture of cute baby polar bears follow)

[UPDATE: Saturday's NBC Nightly News aired an excerpt which showed the special matches Al Gore's fear-mongering ]

Now look what we've done! The global warming we've caused will ruin Napa Valley wine!

That's what CBS would have you believe as it picked up on a new study arguing pretty much that global warming will wipe out 80 percent of America's vineyards. But other global warming believers doubt the study's conclusions and vintners argue they can keep producing wine in warmer climes with improved technology.

For my full article, click here. Below is an excerpt:

Global warming may doom the Napa Valley, CBS News warned its July 12 “Evening News” audience. Yet correspondent John Blackstone excluded any scientists, including those who otherwise believe in man-made global warming, who warn that new computer models are conclusive or don’t match up against recorded climate patterns.

In a fine example of life imitating a Marx Brothers movie – which should give you a clue as to what should be done with your drinking vessels! – Republicans on the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works issued a press release Wednesday concerning a documentary that former NBC anchor Tom Brokaw has done for the Discovery Channel about global warming (hat tip to NRO’s Media Blog). No matter how hard you try, you just can’t make this stuff up: “Former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw’s lack of objectivity and balance on the issue of global warming appears to have tainted his upcoming Discovery Channel documentary called: ‘Global Warming: What You Need To Know’ airing on July 16.”

Isn’t this great? The press release marvelously continued: “Brokaw’s partisan past and his reliance on scientists who openly endorsed Democrat Presidential candidate John Kerry in 2004 and who are financially affiliated with left wing environmental groups, has resulted in a documentary that is devoid of balance and objectivity.” Well, it’s good to see our tax dollars are finally going to good use. Yet, because this is really too delicious to interrupt any further, here is the rest of this release for your viewing pleasure:

Better put your coffee cups down, folks – and your wine glasses for that matter – as Team CNN yesterday provided viewers with quite a knee-slapper. During the 7PM ET installment of Tuesday’s “The Situation Room,” Wolf Blitzer and the boys shared some global warming gloom that must have made sommeliers around the country spit up their merlot.

Blitzer began (with a straight face, mind you!): “Global warming threatening California's multi-billion dollar wine industry, that's the crux of a new study which says as much as 81 percent of the state’s prime growing areas will be unusable by the end of the century.”

81 percent, huh? Are you drunk?

(Update -- For even more laughs, a reader e-mailed me an October 31, 2005 San Francisco Chronicle article reporting that 2005 was expected to be the second-largest grape harvest in California history!!!)

Blitzer then passed the bottle to correspondent Chris Lawrence:

This weekend's print ads for the Al Gore global-warming-slide-show documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" explicitly appeals to liberals to vote for environmental extremism at the box office. Is this a movie ad, or a Greenpeace direct-mail letter? Judge for yourself. This prose appears on the image of a piece of paper tacked to a bulletin board (emphasis theirs):

An Inconvenient Truth' is already one of the top ten documentaries of all time.

It has a chance to become a phenomenon.

There are people in Washington hoping that never happens, so they can dismiss it as a fringe issue.

If you care... you can't let them.

You need to take your friends and family, and make them see it.

Pardon the pun, but the concept of global warming came under some more heat today from the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Science at MIT, Richard S. Lindzen. Some of you might be familiar with the name Lindzen. He has been a strong antagonist to global warmingists – especially Al Gore – and wrote an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal back in April wherein he not only contested media assertions that the Bush administration has been putting pressure on scientists to oppose climate change principles, but avowed that exactly the opposite is the case: “Scientists who dissent from the alarmism have seen their grant funds disappear, their work derided, and themselves libeled as industry stooges, scientific hacks or worse.”

Well, Lindzen wrote another WSJ op-ed published on Sunday entitled “Don't Believe the Hype,” with a subheading – “Al Gore is wrong. There's no ‘consensus’ on global warming.” This one further attacked the junk science involved in this theory, as well as the preposterous claim being made by Al Gore that there is actually a consensus in the scientific community about the issue:

As most of you will read this first thing in the morning, I not only suggest you not have a coffee cup near your computer, but also highly recommend that you remove all fragile objects from the room.

Yes, this is that hysterical, for Wednesday evening, comedian and faux-scientist Al Gore was Jon Stewart’s guest on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show.” In reality, this was the perfect venue for Dr. Gore to discuss his absurd ideas if you think about it, for as the subject was Gore’s new romantic comedy, “An Inconvenient Truth,” the yucks were aplenty.

As this was a long segment, I will highlight only a few of the finer moments, and then encourage you to watch the video (courtesy of Expose the Left) for the full effect, as this one doesn’t disappoint.

Barbara Walters, fresh from firing Star Jones off The View, took the ABC talk show back to what it does best, promoting liberal issues. Former Vice President Al Gore and his wife Tipper appeared on the June 29 edition of the show. At the start of the program, The View's announcer previewed the paranoid, frightened tone that the segment would take:

"Former Vice President Al Gore and his wife Tipper are telling you about an inconvenient truth that could destroy the entire planet."

Barbara Walters, at 11:17AM EDT, described Mr. and Mrs. Gore this way:

"Former Vice President Al Gore and his wife Tipper have been forces of nature in the fight to save the planet. And there is a wonderful movie you all have to see called An Inconvenient Truth. And in it, the Vice President, the former Vice President, lays out a compelling, horrifying, but ultimately hopeful case for finding a way to save an Earth that's on the brink of disaster. And that means saving our lives and our children's lives."

The folks at the Senate Environment and Public Works committee (GOP side) did quite a job Tuesday on an Associated Press report on positive scientific reception of Al Gore's slide-show film "An Inconvenient Truth." Now, the AP's media relations director, Linda Wagner, has filed a response.

The AP’s methodology was simple, straightforward and clean: We contacted more than 100 of the nation’s top climate researchers, including those who have been vocal skeptics of climate change theory. But we quoted only climate scientists who had actually viewed the documentary or read the book upon which it was based. As we learned in the course of our reporting – and as our story noted – most scientists have not seen the movie or read the book. And those who had seen it or read it were generally positive toward Gore’s scientific presentation.

The Senate Committee Majority’s press release was headlined "AP INCORRECTLY CLAIMS SCIENTISTS PRAISE GORE’S MOVIE." That headline is wrong: The story was completely accurate and met AP’s high standards in every way.

The AP story reported facts. It did not take a position in a debate, whether political or scientific, about global warming.

ABC’s John Stossel was a guest on MSNBC’s “Scarborough Country” Wednesday, and it is quite safe to say that he’s not buying into any of the recent alarmism concerning global warming. As a result, he and host Joe Scarborough had a lot of fun at Al Gore’s expense (video link to follow).

Scarborough began: “…for Al Gore and Bill Clinton to say it`s causing flooding and causing hurricanes and it may have caused Hurricane Katrina, that`s just ridiculous, isn`t it. There is no proof of that, is there?”

Stossel responded:

“No. And the serious scientists scoff at that. The warmer water can encourage hurricanes, but they run in cycles. But the alarmists always want you to think it`s man`s fault so you will turn your life over to them and they can tell you what to do.”

Scarborough responded: “I remember being warned in Florida five years ago about the next cycle, that from 1900 to 1945, we didn`t have a lot of hurricanes. We had a lot of hurricanes and it slowed down for the next 60 years and they said there is a time where the water will heat up again and yet the A.P, other news agencies seem to give Al Gore a free pass.”

Scarborough then hit the nail right on the head:

The Republican majority on the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works released a joint press release about an AP article entitled "Scientists OK Gore’s Movie for Accuracy."

The press release takes issue with the scientists the AP cited, as well as scientists it ignored.

The June 27, 2006 Associated Press (AP) article titled “Scientists OK Gore’s Movie for Accuracy” by Seth Borenstein raises some serious questions about AP’s bias and methodology.

AP chose to ignore the scores of scientists who have harshly criticized the science presented in former Vice President Al Gore’s movie “An Inconvenient Truth.”

In the interest of full disclosure, the AP should release the names of the “more than 100 top climate researchers” they attempted to contact to review “An Inconvenient Truth.” AP should also name all 19 scientists who gave Gore “five stars for accuracy.” AP claims 19 scientists viewed Gore’s movie, but it only quotes five of them in its article. AP should also release the names of the so-called scientific “skeptics” they claim to have contacted.

I ran out of time Friday to post the other transcript MRC's Brian Boyd did on global warming on Friday's "Good Morning America." To set up Bill Weir's fawning interview with Al Gore, ABC brought in their resident global-warming panic salesman, Bill Blakemore, calling him the "resident expert." 

So does Blakemore have a background in meteorology, or at least science in general? It doesn't look like it from his ABC biography. He's been a religion specialist, an education specialist, a war correspondent, and now he's a world-going-to-Hell specialist. As the bio suggests, "Blakemore coined the word 'spotcraft' to describe what he did for a living." That's not to say he doesn't have passion, as he's already acknowleged the "admittedly vain thrill" of being one of the first to be right on the approaching catastrophe. Here's the Friday story:

ABC's "Good Morning America" fired up the global-warming bandwagon again this morning with a very soft and friendly "exclusive" interview with Al Gore to boost the weekend box office numbers of Gore's slide-show documentary "An Inconvenient Truth."

Substitute host Bill Weir assumed the entire catastrophe is under way, asking: is the impending disaster man-made? Is it irreversible? Do we need "extreme lifestyle change"? How can Gore explain that conservatives still show "lingering skepticism"? In addition to praising Gore for raising an "excellent point," Weir pleaded that he should ponder another presidential campaign: "can the planet be saved without the help of a president?" Weir concluded: "Your passion is evident every time you speak on this."

In an Associated Press story today, Study Says Earth's Temp at 400-Year High (hat tip to Drudge), AP press writer, John Heilprin brings us the "hot" news from the National Academy of Sciences:

The Earth is the hottest it has been in at least 400 years, probably even longer. The National Academy of Sciences, reaching that conclusion in a broad review of scientific work requested by Congress, reported Thursday that the "recent warmth is unprecedented for at least the last 400 years and potentially the last several millennia.

However, as we read on, there seems to be a bit of confusion here in whether or not the earth was this warm 400 years ago or several millennia ago, as the article goes on to revisit these quite recent temperature (historically speaking) records. Now, I ask you to consider, as you read each of these statements on the historical record of warming. Is today's global warming unprecedented?

I’ve been warning people a lot lately to be careful to not spit their coffee on their keyboards as I present the hysterical rantings of hysterical ranters. Today it is my keyboard taking the bath as it were.

The following is highly typical of the liberal elites in our country: when Americans aren’t interested in a movie, book, or piece of journalism that they believe is either fabulous or socially important, give it an award. Such has happened to Al Gore’s recent piece of …science fiction which, judging from its meager sub-$7 million dollars worth of ticket sales after three weeks, is being shunned by moviegoers much as members of his party typically are at the polls every two years.

As reported by the Associated Press: “The Al Gore documentary 'An Inconvenient Truth' will receive a rare recognition from the Humanitas Prize, which honors screenwriting that helps 'liberate, enrich and unify society.'"

Yes, there's nothing like using junk science and inflammatory rhetoric for making a politic point that benefits you while debasing and castigating others to "liberate, enrich, and unify society." However, here’s the truly delicious punch line with emphasis mine (put your coffee down now):

While I’m on the subject of MRC interns wanting to pluck their eyeballs out watching Al-Gorey screeds about our impending planetary doom, MRC intern Chadd Clark sat through the entire Matt Lauer "Countdown to Doomsday" special on the Sci-Fi Channel that aired on June 14. The transcripts are so full of hyperbole it reads more like the the aforementioned Science Fiction in the usual rotation on that channel than an alleged documentary hosted by an NBC News anchor. Chadd lined up a long list of wild predictions of how we may all be dead tomorrow.

9:03 PM, Lauer on the threat of extinction: "Today, some of our greatest scientific minds are warning that we could be on the brink of another terrible extinction, only this one, is our own."

Back from a break for heart surgery, PBS talk-show host Charlie Rose devoted his entire hour-long show Monday night to Al Gore, promoting his doom-documentary "An Inconvenient Truth." Rose pressed Gore comfortably from the left: if the president has an "intellectually dishonest" position ignoring the facts, and why no one is having an "enlightened conversation" with President Bush on global warming. Once Rose shifted to Iraq, he laughed at Gore when they discussed whether Bush knew he would invade Iraq as he campaigned in 2000: "I don’t think Dick Cheney had told him yet that he was going to invade Iraq.” This, after Gore said he was trying to convey a "textured and subtle" foreign policy mindset.

In so many ways does the mainstream press demean conservatives who work on environmental issues.

In this Los Angeles Times piece by Jim Puzzanghera, conservatives wary of the Henry Paulson nomination are described as "causing problems" for Paulson because Paulson likes to watch birds.

Here's how the article begins:

WASHINGTON - As a three-decade Wall Street veteran and chairman of one of the nation's premiere investment banks, Henry M. Paulson Jr. makes a living watching markets.

But it's his hobby of watching birds that is already causing problems for his nomination as the nation's next Treasury secretary.

An ardent environmentalist, Paulson is expected to be questioned during confirmation hearings about his role as chairman of the Nature Conservancy, and whether he adequately cleaned up the organization's questionable land sale and tax break practices. Another potential sticky issue: a decision by Goldman Sachs, the investment bank Paulson heads as chairman and chief executive, to donate 680,000 acres of land in a remote section of Chile to an environmental group with ties to his son...

Quick on the heels of its recommendation that conservatives support the Senate pro-amnesty immigration bill (for political rather than principled reasons, yet), the Weekly Standard is apparently laying the groundwork for a change in the conservative position on global warming.

From the June 12 issue, in an article by Contributing Editor Irwin M. Stelzer praising Treasury Secretary-designate Hank Paulson with all the enthusiasm usually reserved for people named Bush, comes this:

Then there is the environment, a policy area in which the Bush administration is in something of a time warp. No honest person can with certainty assert that global warming is a threat. But any responsible person can see that the evidence is sufficient to suggest that it might be, and that some action to contain emissions of greenhouse gases is an insurance policy worth having. Paulson is Wall Street's greenest titan, chairman of the Nature Conservancy, a bird-watcher, an advocate of a greenhouse gas emissions trading system for the United States and of mandatory curbs on emissions if voluntary action proves inadequate. At Goldman, he allocated $1 billion for investment in renewable energy and energy-saving projects. He is likely to make his voice heard in an administration that is said to be ready to move from its justifiable opposition to the Kyoto treaty to more positive proposals for emissions reduction.

No word from the Weekly Standard on the price tag of the "insurance policy worth having" (known as 'cap and trade' to those of us speaking plainly) as if 1) the cost wasn't billions, to be borne mostly by those who can least afford it, and 2) the "insurance policy" would actually lessen global warming IF (a big IF) the environmental left's position on global warming is accurate.

Will we soon see the Weekly Standard join the New Republic in name-calling skeptics of the notion that slowing the U.S. economy would have a notably beneficial impact on the world's weather?

Media Matters is criticizing the Competitive Enterprise Institute's Chris Horner for saying, on the Fox News Channel's Your World with Neil Cavuto, that ratification of the Kyoto global warming treaty was not a high profile issue for President Bill Clinton during the Clinton Administration. The Media Matters headline reads: "On Fox's Your World, CEI's Horner Misled on Kyoto, Global Warming."

Media Matters says, in part:

On the June 13 edition of Fox News' Your World with Neil Cavuto, Chris Horner, counsel for the oil industry-funded Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), claimed falsely that the Clinton administration chose not to submit the Kyoto Protocol to the Senate for ratification because it did not consider global warming a "high-profile issue." In fact, Senate Republicans made clear at the time that Clinton would not be able to garner enough votes in the Senate to ratify the treaty...

Objecting to former President Bill Clinton taking credit for efforts to curb global warming during his presidency, Horner claimed that Clinton "set the U.S. policy, which was [that] for the final three years of his presidency, the U.S. would not seek participation in -- that is ratification of -- Kyoto." Horner made the claim to advance his suggestion that the Kyoto Protocol, a treaty mandating that countries reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, "was not a high-profile issue or a priority issue for the Clinton administration, like, say, school uniforms. It was not even a low-priority issue, like, say, finding Osama bin Laden."

On Monday, movie star/director Robert Redford appeared on "Hardball" to discuss environmentalism. Hardballs weren't really expected. (Remember Chris Matthews fawning over Jane Fonda?) MRC's Geoff Dickens found that Redford sounded predictable notes about how Bush and Cheney were "living in the '50s" with their energy policies, driven by their oil riches and narrow minds. Al Gore's film showed that green groups had idealism comparable to JFK and Martin Luther King. So why can't the Democrats win? They're too "open to all points of view."

Matthews began, predictably, by praising Redford's activism and this great new moment to be green:

Would you really want to hurt one of those? That's the implicit question in an Associated Press article run on ABCNews.com about polar bears forced to turn to cannibalism because of global warming.

According to the AP, polar bears may be "turning to cannibalism because longer seasons without ice keep them from getting to their natural food." The study that is featured in the story cites only three examples of polar bear cannibalism, all from 2004. The Three Bears must of had their fill the last two years.

The AP writer, Dan Joling, feels no shame in collaborating with environmental activists who give him two-year-old data. The right time to release the data, naturally, is during Al Gore's movie.

Every now and then, a storyline for an article hits you that it is so comical it makes it difficult to type between the laughter. This is one of them.

Drudge is reporting (hat tip from reader Sarcasmo) that former vice president Al Gore’s name has been omitted from the posters that advertise his new film: “Former Vice President Al Gore's name is nowhere to be found on PARAMOUNT's poster campaign for the new 'global warming' movie 'AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH.'"

Stopped laughing yet? Well, here’s another punch line: “‘It's not a political movie,’ a top source at PARAMOUNT explained, offering no other explanation on why Gore's name does not appear, even in the film's credits on the poster.”

That’s worth a replay, isn’t it (emphasis mine): “It’s not a political movie.”

I really love that line.

Ready for another hoot? Are you sure? Here goes:

People magazine, another publicity engine of the Time Warner empire, gives a box to Al Gore (page 35, I believe) to explain "How I'm Saving The Planet." People asked: "His film 'An Inconvenient Truth' warns about global warming. So what is Gore doing about it?"

Here are Gore's answers for the publicity box:

"1. I turn off lights in my house [to conserve energy]. We're getting sensor switches that automatically turn them off when the room is empty.

2. We got a hybrid car recently.

3. We try to live a carbon neutral life. On climatecrisis.org, you'll find a calculator which can add up the carbon dioxide you produce and give you options for neutralizing that.

4. This movie saves carbon dioxide because I don't have to fly and drive places to get my message across."

In the summer of Gore, most Americans already know the media and environmental wackos are trying to send the nation down the tubes. Now there is new proof. In an article from the June 3 Washington Post, “Fighting Our Flush Fixation,” reporter Elizabeth Williamson tells us how the left is trying to toilet train an entire nation.

The story shows the rising tide of no-flush urinals and green toilets that the left is now trying to make part of our everyday life. These descendants of the low-flush-that-won’t-work toilets “loom as the earth-friendly builder's final frontier.” This is just the latest of the media craze to focus on obscure ways to save energy, rather than dwell on drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge of off the U.S. coast.