Hollywood Celebrities Challenged To Take The "Gore Pledge"

Senator Inhofe Asks Hollywood's Global Warming Activists "Are You Ready to Change the Way You Live"

In the spirit of Earth Day, James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ranking Member of the Environment & Public Works Committee, today issued a challenge to all Hollywood global warming activists. Senator Inhofe challenged celebrities to do what former Vice President Al Gore refuses to do - live up to their environmental rhetoric by reducing their home energy usage to the level of the average American household by Earth Day 2008. Global warming Hollywood activists such as Laurie David, John Travolta, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Madonna - to name a few - continue to alarm the public about fears of catastrophic global warming and demand that Americans change the way they live. The question remains however, will these same Hollywood alarmists reduce their own energy consumption by giving up their multiple houses and private jets to change the way they live? At the very least, will they pledge to reduce the energy usage at each of their multiple homes?

"With Earth Day this Sunday, I am issuing an Earth Day Challenge to Hollywood's global warming activists who talk the talk to walk the walk," Senator Inhofe said. "I am asking celebrity activists to take the `Gore Pledge' to reduce their home energy usage to that of the average American. Activists in Hollywood who assert that mankind only has 10 years left to act in order to avoid a climate catastrophe have made personal energy use a cornerstone of their pleas to the general public to save the planet. Hollywood activists should make personal energy sacrifices themselves before demanding others do so.

"It is my hope that journalists will ask these Hollywood celebrities point blank: `will you take the Gore Pledge to reduce your home energy usage to the level of the average American? Have you met the Earth Day challenge?'"

"GORE PLEDGE" BACKGROUND:

Senator Inhofe originally presented the challenge to former Vice President Al Gore at an EPW Committee hearing on March 21 - to which Gore refused, despite the former Vice President asking viewers in his movie An Inconvenient Truth "Are you ready to change the way you live?" Following the hearing, Senator Inhofe created a new website with a daily counter to track how many days it has been since Gore has refused to take the pledge. Today, the counter stands at 30 days. See: http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Pledge. The Gore "Personal Energy Ethics Pledge" reads as follows:

As a believer:

-that human-caused global warming is a moral, ethical, and spiritual issue affecting our survival;

-that home energy use is a key component of overall energy use;

-that reducing my fossil fuel-based home energy usage will lead to lower greenhouse gas emissions; and

-that leaders on moral issues should lead by example;

-I pledge to consume no more energy for use in my residence than the average American household by one year from today

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Greenie versus Greenie again

ENVIRONMENTALISM is dead. True, there are plenty of events Sunday marking the 38th anniversary of Earth Day. But most of the causes Americans associate with traditional environmentalism - recycling, cleaning up a local waterway, protecting a piece of open space, saving an endangered species or even cleaning up the air - well, they're pretty much irrelevant now.

It's not that such green activism is ineffective (as two progressive activists, Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger, asserted in a provocative 2005 white paper, "The Death of Environmentalism"). My point is more basic. Environmentalism is dead because the vast majority of environmental causes simply don't matter any more. They don't matter in the way that holding a full house doesn't matter when the guy across the table is holding four aces. Traditional environmental concerns have been trumped by a single, overriding problem: global climate change. Henry David Thoreau asked, "What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on?"

Environmentalists today face a similar question. Why fight for a local or even national cause when a global change could erase any victory? Preserving a beach ecosystem becomes meaningless if the coast is obliterated by a rising sea. Putting polar bears on the endangered species list is risible if the Arctic ice cap melts away to nothing each summer. If you are a dyed-in-the-wool environmental activist, that funny feeling you have is the ground shifting beneath your feet.

When Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proposes building two new dams in the Sierra, as he did in January, and argues that if California is going to have enough water, they are necessary to compensate for an expected reduction in the state's winter snowpack, how is a good green to respond?

Once upon a time, there was no target so quick to be challenged by the Sierra Club & Co. as another dam - and these dams certainly will be challenged. But Schwarzenegger is right; we should be doing what we can to prepare for climate change, and while I don't know if those dams are a good step, I do know that the governor's argument signals a new, brutal calculus for environmentalists.

Already, old-school environmentalists Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace, and Stewart Brand, who created the Whole Earth Catalog, have embraced nuclear power as a lesser evil than climate change. Are environmentalists entering an era of wrenching hand-wringing as they choose among evils?

I hope not. Instead of triage, the right response is to accept the hard truth that the only thing that matters is controlling global warming and preventing catastrophic climate change - and then to fight like never before to do that. The dedicated, single-focus activists who make up so much of the environmental movement may, in the future, still be able to save the redwoods, or the Mexican gray wolf, or the whales - but only if we save ourselves first.

It is ironic that what's killing old environmentalism - so long derided by its critics as elitist, fringe and special interest - is a problem that is, at last, both universal and personal for every human on the planet. Climate change makes moot past environmental issues precisely because it isn't about an obscure species or remote place. It's about us, and our fate. It is about the real possibility of the unraveling of modern civilization. When a cause becomes the central concern of a society, it ceases to be a cause. It becomes an organizing principle for an era and its people. Environmentalism may be dead, but we're all environmentalists now.

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The Greens of Wrath

Post lifted from No Pasaran

What is Earth Day really all about? Virtually nothing but greed and fantasy determinism. While some miss the entire point of the strife of the 20th century to respect the autonomy of the individual, they try to recreate "creating the new man" arguments, others are just playing at your emotions to pick your pocket. Appealing to good-old fashion group hatred, a company selling shoes used this layout in a recent fake "magazine" mailer curiously named "The Stool Pigeon."

Their faithful customers will be forgiven for not knowing that this company which presumes to be all about environmentalism, proximity of production, and all of the fetishes now though of as some sort of virtue, their SEC filing tells another story about this peddler of expensive shoes pretending to be "all Santa Barbara" (California), mailing out of Arizona, and trying to seem Hawaii surfin' cool:

Simple.

Simple is our moderately priced "anti-brand," serving the needs of a youthful, irreverent consumer base seeking the comfort of athletic footwear but the styling of more traditional, understated, _back-to-basics_ footwear. Simple was launched in the early 1990's and has been recently revised to focus on its successful legacy categories, including sandals, clogs and casual athletic footwear. Simple enables us to leverage our core footwear design and production competencies in channels of distribution not served by Teva or UGG.

Our independent manufacturers are located outside the U.S., where we are subject to the risks of international commerce.

All of our third party manufacturers are in the Far East, Australia and New Zealand, with the vast majority of production performed by four manufacturers in China.

In other words they are a subsidiary of one of those vaunted "corporations!" engaging in "globalization!" which will give $5 with every pair sold to yet another outfit of self-proclaimed do-gooders called StopGlobalWarming.org for purposes they refuse to state.

Earth Day is an "anti-brand" for a lot of things, virtually all of them discredited, including planned societies and economies where industry, consumption, and daily common behavior is regulated,

It is an "anti-brand" for the vehicle with which people can hate the success of others and displace their own individual failures, inabilities to realize personal success using science and reason,

It is an "anti-brand" for discredited notions of radicalism which lost all hope of being accepted as anything other than a violent ideology imposed on an unwilling majority by an adolescent minority who are acting out emotions of envy and hatred on others, using as a pretense their efforts at your "salvation". Heaven knows, you've been naughty, and as long as you can be placed in a subservient position, someone who is otherwise a personal failure by any normal metrics will chide you.

Somehow, Mr. and Ms. Inhabitant of earth, you aren't just their enemy, but you MUST do what they tell you, and you MUST support them at the same time. If you aren't already suspicious, you should be.




How infantile can you get?

Singer Sheryl Crow and environmentalist Laurie David have been traveling across America on a two-week Stop Global Warming College Tour, which winds up today at George Washington University. Crow and David (co-producer of the documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" and wife of "Curb Your Enthusiasm's" Larry David) have been touting their cause and chronicling their travels in a rather idiosyncratic blog. Here, on Earth Day, are a few excerpts:

David (4/10, Dallas): I am jogging outside in 40 degree freezing cold . . . 70 degrees in January and 40 degrees in April. That is exactly why Sheryl Crow and I are in a biodiesel bus going thru the Southeast visiting college campuses to talk about the urgency of this issue and how everyone . . . everyone . . . has to start doing something. I would write more, but I have to go run warm water over my hands and thaw out from my run.

Crow and David (4/18, Nashville): Our other surprise was a visit by former Vice President Al Gore who sat and talked with us on the bus about what he hopes to see happen in this country as the stop global warming movement catches fire. Having the former Vice President visit was like having your dad show up for Father's Weekend at the sorority house. We were giddy with excitement and proud to show him our home away from home.

Crow (4/19, Springfield, Tenn.): I have spent the better part of this tour trying to come up with easy ways for us all to become a part of the solution to global warming. Although my ideas are in the earliest stages of development, they are, in my mind, worth investigating. One of my favorites is in the area of forest conservation which we heavily rely on for oxygen. I propose a limitation be put on how many squares of toilet paper can be used in any one sitting. Now, I don't want to rob any law-abiding American of his or her God-given rights, but I think we are an industrious enough people that we can make it work with only one square per restroom visit, except, of course, on those pesky occasions where 2 to 3 could be required.

Crow (4/19): I also like the idea of not using paper napkins, which happen to be made from virgin wood and represent the height of wastefulness. I have designed a clothing line that has what's called a "dining sleeve." The sleeve is detachable and can be replaced with another "dining sleeve," after usage. The design will offer the "diner" the convenience of wiping his mouth on his sleeve rather than throwing out yet another barely used paper product. I think this idea could also translate quite well to those suffering with an annoying head cold.

Crow (4/19): This next idea I have been saving but I will share it with you if you promise not to steal it. It is my latest, very exciting idea for creating incentive for us all to minimize our own personal carbon footprints. It's a reality show. (I feel pretty certain NO ONE has thought of this yet!) Here is the premise: the contest consists of 10 people who are competing for the top spot as the person who lives the "greenest" life. This will be reflected in the contestant's home, his business, and his own personal living style. The winner of this challenging, prestigious, contest would receive what??. . . . a recording contract!!!!!

David (4/20, Charlottesville): Sheryl couldn't be with me tonight because of a previous commitment [Crow traveled to New York for a show that wasn't part of the tour] but luckily rock stars have rock star friends. Tonight, I spoke outside the gorgeous Charlottesville pavilion, in front of a couple of thousand slightly inebriated college men (there to see the wonderful Robert Randolph and the Family Band) who were forced to sit through the opening act . . . me. Truly, it was one of the most challenging 20 minutes of my life. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw guys yawning, I heard kids saying "where's the music?" and I think I heard the "b" word. I rushed through the speech and when I walked off the stage I immediately burst into tears. Not because I took anything personally but because it was so clear how much work is still to be done. Tonight served as a stark reminder that social change is a journey and I learned tonight that not every stop is going to be easy.

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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is generally to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

Global warming has taken the place of Communism as an absurdity that "liberals" will defend to the death regardless of the evidence showing its folly. Evidence never has mattered to real Leftists

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.

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