Althouse: "For someone rallying the planet to pursue a path of extreme personal sacrifice, Gore requires little from himself."

August 10, 2006

"For someone rallying the planet to pursue a path of extreme personal sacrifice, Gore requires little from himself."

Do you expect him not to fly around in a private jet when he's promoting his global warming film? Do you expect him and Tipper to live in a house that's not 10,000 square feet? Well, I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he doesn't run any air conditioning.

Hey, speaking of air conditioning, did you know that all the people and machinery in the Mall of America generate so much heat that no heating system is needed there, even in the winter when it's less than zero degrees? I wonder how cold it needs to get outdoors before they get to shut off the air conditioning.

25 comments:

El Presidente said...: Extreme personal sacrifice is the duty of the proletariat.; 8/10/06, 9:28 AM
KCFleming said...: I'm with Fidel, er, Raul, on this one. Whoever.

Al Gore's job, in addition to persoanlly defeating ManBearPig, is to dictate what we mere citizens must do.

Al is far too important to personally follow his diktats. That's for the little people.; 8/10/06, 9:45 AM
High Desert Wanderer said...: The extreme personal sacrifice of the proletariat is a sacrifice that Mr. Gore is willing to make.; 8/10/06, 11:23 AM
I'm Full of Soup said...: Never thought I'd defend AlBore but do any of you actually believe the utiity companies truly can divert "green energy" to those who ask and pay extra for it?

Yeah sure I can just picture the Homer Simpsonesque utility guy screwing that up plus I suspect its a feel-good type scam.; 8/10/06, 11:28 AM
tiggeril said...: I guess he's not as serial as we thought.; 8/10/06, 11:37 AM
Laura Reynolds said...: To the extent this is a real problem (a topic for another time), the ability to deal with it starts with a reality check. Kyoto doesn't deal with China and India, Duh! Al Gore, like most Americans, likes his energy.

The fact that Al Gore is hypocritical is not a surprise.; 8/10/06, 11:53 AM
I'm Full of Soup said...: Marghlar:

Used the word "fungible" so he must be new around here..FYI- Ann does not allow cursing on her blog.; 8/10/06, 12:09 PM
Telecomedian said...: I live in Arlington, Virginia and use Dominion Power, as they're the local provider. Dominions' Energy Choice program allows for competitive energy providers to contact prospective customers, but there's no guarantee that the competitors will contact these prospects. Nor does it guarantee that a competitor can deliver service to a given location. I'm not going to throw Al Gore under a bus for not having renewable energy sources servicing his home here as it simply may not be available yet.

Dominion's big green energy push is in North Carolina.; 8/10/06, 12:16 PM
altoids1306 said...: For once, I actually agree with Tom Friedman - we need to raise taxes on gas. (Yep, you heard that right...even as a free-market conservative, I am pro-gas-tax.)

The externalities of oil are enormous - because of oil, we give money to Arab state, who in turn fund terrorism, which causes the US to spend massive amounts of money on defense and law enforcement. The true cost of oil is not reflected in the price at the pump.

If Al Gore were serious about global warming, he'd call for a $1.00/gallon gas tax.; 8/10/06, 1:10 PM
knox said...: What is this "carbon neutral" crap. Moving money around does NOT eliminate the pollution you produce nor the oil you consume jetting around for photo ops.

We have just 10 years to avert a major catastrophe that could send our entire planet into a tailspin.

Must be nice to know he has a choice of three homes he can retreat to when that happens. One of them is ten thousand square feet ...what an utter bullshitter.; 8/10/06, 1:46 PM
Wade Garrett said...: The fact that Al Gore flies around in a personal jet and so forth is a little unsavory to me.

Having said that, I think he's right about a lot of things. Some enormous percentage of suburban homes in the United States are bound by restrictive covenants against using clotheslines. So many suburbs sprung up when they were tax-incentivied and gas was eighty cents per gallon, and now are full of families that need to drive 30 miles each way to get to work. If we change some of those laws -- for instance if we strike down the restrictive covenants against clothslines in the way we struck down the ones prohibitting sale to various religious or racial groups, and if we gave people more of an incentive to live closer to work, and to take mass transit, then we would dramatically reduce our need.; 8/10/06, 2:49 PM
altoids1306 said...: Too many people have too much driving to do to swallow an increase like that.

That's the problem. We all agree that we should reduce dependence on oil as an energy source, but how? By buying less oil. If no one changes their habits, oil consumption will not decrease. We can talk about energy-efficency in appliances and industry, and things like that, but 2/3 of oil in the US is used in transportation.

If you can think of another way to change habits (car pooling, smaller cars, public transportation), let's hear it. But otherwise, it seems the only way is to bludgeon ourselves with a gas tax.; 8/10/06, 3:36 PM
MadisonMan said...: Speaking as a bicycle commuter and a Prius owner, I'm all for the $1/gallon tax -- but wait, wouldn't that actually lower Wisconsin's gas tax? The key, of course, is to put those funds into something worthwhile -- public transit, for example, or better trains. Things that people can actually use instead of cars. Alas, the government would probably use the money to build more highways.

No politician will vote for an increased gas tax, however.; 8/10/06, 3:50 PM
stephenb said...: Telecomedian: You may not be willing to throw Al Gore under the bus in Arlington, but I'm serviced by the same service provider as he is in Tennessee, and the service is available. He either A) just hasn't made the time to make the switch or B) doesn't think we're smart enough to realize he hasn't.; 8/10/06, 4:14 PM
knox said...: "incentives" >>>shudder<<<

Incentives in this context just mean ways for politicians--like Al Gore--to try to force you conform to their pet notions of correct behavior; of course, their own behavior is exempt--their money or political power allows them to conveniently circumvent the rules, taxes, or fees--excuse me, incentives--they craft for the rest of us.; 8/10/06, 4:42 PM
Peter Hoh said...: The link to the Mall of America heating story isn't correct.; 8/10/06, 4:52 PM
Peder said...: If the fate of the planet is in the balance is 'carbon neutral' really enough? Shouldn't he become 'carbon negative'? And I suppose we can expect to hear him supporting nuclear power soon, right?; 8/10/06, 7:20 PM
LoafingOaf said...: Several of the comments in this thread remind me of something I've always suspected about proposed gas tax increases: you might get people to agree to a nickel or two here or there, but $1 a gallon more? No way. Putting aside the question of whether moneyed interests will go along, voters won't. Too many people have too much driving to do to swallow an increase like that.

They wouldn't have to spend more money in their driving if they bought a more efficient car and drove the speed limit. I know people are just being pathetic whiners about the increased gas prices because I see all those SUVs speeding at 85MPH on the freeways.; 8/11/06, 1:53 AM
Bruce Hayden said...: No, I don't expect any better out of Al Gore than we are seeing here. There has always been a high level of hypocracy in politics, and that is how he was raised. How is this any different from the senior senator from Mass., whose only real adult job has been that Senate seat purchased by his father's money, and yet, since then, has "represented" the poor and working class in this country (often from the family compounds at Hyannis Port and Miami)?

The problem with raising taxes on carbon based fuels is that the impact would be very disporportionate. The Al Gores of this world would not be inconvienced in the least by it, because the added cost would be de minimis in comparison with his income and net worth, but it would severly impact mid to lower income families.

So, Gore can show up in five limos at Cannes for a showing of his film, and then get away with it by pointing out that he is carbon-neutral - having apparently purchased enough verified carbon reduction to compensate for the limos, but those less fortunate financially can't afford the luxury of being "carbon neutral".; 8/11/06, 8:10 AM
nina said...: A law prof at the school where I teach once said -- "I don't vote. But I campaign hard for the person of my choice. In terms of getting the numbers, it's a better use of my time."

Al Gore has done more than you or me to get the country to think about how to address the problems of global warming. And I am absolutely certain that he has done more environmentally sustainable tasks, at the personal level, than others in government who somehow in the comments here have completely escaped criticism.

I used to work for a nonprofit. I earned one quarter of what lawyers were earning in private practice. But it was assumed that if I was to work on behalf of the poor, I, too, should take a pledge of poverty.

So, keep punching at Gore if you must. And then, for God's sake, turn off the damn airconditioning, take out the bike and quit blocking my way with the giant SUVs on the highway.; 8/11/06, 10:35 AM
Unknown said...: I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that the primary cause of global warming is not fossil fuel consumption or cow flatulence, but rather the collective contribution of hot air spewed forth by the anti-American, anti-consumption crowd.

This "you wasteful Americans" crap is as silly as the "starving children in Africa" guilt trip that some parents lay on their kids when they don't finish their dinner. Leaving a few green beans on your plate because you're full isn't going to do a darn thing good or bad to the poor kids in Somalia.

Shaming or taxing Americans into reducing fossil fuel consumption isn't going to do diddly squat in the long term. The far, far larger problem is the rise of fuel usage in developing countries. Who is the world's largest consumer of coal? Surprise! It's not the evil United States, it's China. A full 65% of China's energy usage comes from coal. Can't get any more carbon-unfriendly than that. China is also the world's second-largest oil consumer; and while they still lag far behind the U.S., their massively higher usage growth rate guarantees that they will eclipse us soon.

So do you really think that if I stop driving my SUV, it's going to somehow convince the Chinese not to continue ramping up their energy usage to suit their growing needs? Or would you simply prefer that they keep a large fraction of their citizens living in the stone age? Heck, they've already dismantled most of their rural health care infrastructure in the name of modernization, and rendered most of the older generation's pensions worthless. Let's just stop right there and things will be fine, right?

No. Any "solution" that ignores the rising energy needs of the world's population lacks any credibility.

What we need is an all-out search for clean, renewable sources of energy, and environmentally friendly methods of storage distribution. Hydrogen-based energy storage is a compelling option but the energy to create it has to come from somewhere, and somewhere clean, to be effective.

Is this realistic? Well, consider this. According to the DOE's International Energy Outlook 2006 (Google it), world energy consumption in the year 2030 is projected to be 722 quadrillion BTUs. If we got all this energy from oil, we would need about 118 billion barrels per day. In contrast, the Sun delivers over 2.6 million times times this much raw energy to the planet per day. (*) So yes, I think it's realistic to assume that we humans can figure out how to harness 0.00005% of that energy for our use in an environmentally sound manner. (In contrast, plant life uses about 1% of it.)

We just have to quit whining about those wasteful Americans and GIT 'ER DONE.

(* Source: here., but I had to do some unit conversions and other math to get the comparisons in line. I apologize in advance if I did the math wrong---it's my strong suit but I am not perfect.); 8/11/06, 12:10 PM
knox said...: So, keep punching at Gore if you must. And then, for God's sake, turn off the damn airconditioning, take out the bike and quit blocking my way with the giant SUVs on the highway.

big difference: I'm not the one saying the planet's going to end in ten years if everybody doesn't do exactly as I say.

And as far as Gore generously "teaching" us, you don't have to do much reading to know that his take on global warming is not the only opinion on the matter.; 8/11/06, 1:08 PM
altoids1306 said...: Anyone still reading this?

I don't think there's a need to get into eco-pissing contests. (For the record, I bike to work, I have no car, our AC is set to 82, I wash dishes with cold water, and I have two roommates. Being poor helps save the environment!)

Using personal credentials to undermine someone prevents intelligent discussion. Limousine liberals is logically the same argument as chickenhawk neo-cons. Should only people with no cars be allowed to speak on environmental policy? Should only veterans be allowed to make foreign policy?

If Al Gore has a point, let him make it, private jets or no.; 8/11/06, 10:40 PM
Harry Eagar said...: $1 a gallon more gas tax? It is to laugh.

I live in the US county with the highest gasoline price ($3.63 U-pump regular) and median income well under the national average.

And the roads are choked with SUVs and giant pickups.

It'll take a lot more than a mere dollar to get Americans out of their big, fast cars.; 8/12/06, 2:04 AM
Jeff Faria said...: I'm convinced that we all must consume less, in order to save the planet. That's why I'm packing my bags, and moving in with the Gores.; 8/15/06, 10:34 PM