On March 1, while speaking at the TED Conference in Monterey, California, the Nobel Laureate admitted to having "a stake" in a number of green "investments" that he recommended attendees put money in rather than "sub-prime carbon assets" like "tar sands" and "shale oil."
This occurred as pictures of such products appeared on the screen with names of the companies involved (video available here, relevant section begins at minute 15:00, h/t NBer Sick-and-Tired):
There are a lot of great investments you can make. If you are investing in tar sands, or shale oil, then you have a portfolio that is crammed with sub-prime carbon assets. And it is based on an old model. Junkies find veins in their toes when the ones in their arms and their legs collapse. Developing tar sands and coal shale is the equivalent. Here are just a few of the investments I personally think make sense. I have a stake in these so I’ll have a disclaimer there. But geo-thermal concentrating solar, advanced photovoltaics, efficiency, and conservation.
As Gore spoke these words, pictures of electric cars, windmills and solar panels appeared in multiple slides on the screen with company names at the bottom such as Amyris (biofuels), Altra (biofuels), Bloom Energy (solid oxide fuel cells), Mascoma (cellulosic biofuels), GreatPoint Energy (catalytic gasification), Miasole (solar cells), Ausra (utility scale solar panels), GEM (battery operated cars), Smart (electric cars), and AltaRock Energy (geothermal power).
As such, like an investment advisor or stock broker giving a seminar to prospects and clients, Al Gore was actively recommending people put money in companies he already has a financial stake in.
And, as he tours the world demanding nations stop burning fossil fuels, he will financially benefit if they follow his advice and move to technologies that he has already invested in.
I'm sure the sycophantic climate alarmists in the media will be all over this in the days to come...not!
*****Update: Readers should be reminded of an exchange last week between NewsBuster Matthew Vadum and a Gore representative.
If you recall, on April 1, Vadum wrote about how the media are ignoring Gore's global warming profiteering. The following day, Richard Campbell, a spokesman for Gore's Generation Investment Management fund, had an e-mail exchange with Ian Wilhelm from the Chronicle of Philanthropy:
However, Richard Campbell, a spokesman for Generation Investment Management, called the suggestions a “nonsense story.”
In an e-mail message to The Chronicle, he writes that neither Mr. Gore nor any other members of the investment company’s board will make money 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,” he writes.
Now that Gore has admitted having investments in companies that will benefit from global warming hysteria, I wonder if Campbell's opinion might change. Stay tuned.
