Gore Imbalanced

The former vice president's new book is itself an assault on reason

The most surprising thing about The Assault on Reason, Al Gore's current bestseller, is that for a little while it actually makes some sense. The first few dozen pages, while hyperpartisan, mainly excoriate a dumbed-down, trivia-and-celebrity-obsessed culture, and in the age of Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan who could disagree?

But Al Gore is like one of those guys at a party with whom, once you get a few drinks in him, you never know what's coming. He's liable to strip to his underwear or start spewing expletives or waddle over with an outstretched hand and ingratiating smile and suddenly go for your ear like Mike Tyson. For just beneath that aging prep-boy facade, there's an unmistakable anger and bitterness; where Bill Clinton has always seemed too comfortable in his skin, Gore has often seemed inclined to burst out of his, like some demented political version of the Incredible Hulk.

For me, the defining Al Gore story is the one that Ward Connerly, the longtime crusader against racial preferences, tells in his autobiography Creating Equal. Having been invited to the Clinton White House as part of a group of largely black conservatives to counter criticism that Clinton's vaunted Initiative on Race was getting input from only one side, Connerly held forth on the great damage that he believed affirmative action and other well-intended policies had done to the ideal of a colorblind America. Clinton, he says, listened attentively, even sympathetically, and later threw his arm around him in brotherly solidarity. But Gore visibly seethed-and afterward, when Connerly offered his hand, he seized it in a vicelike grip and, smiling coldly, kept squeezing, until there was no doubt in Connerly's mind that he was trying to hurt him.

The Assault on Reason is like that. Yes, it's logically inconsistent and self-serving and unbelievably sanctimonious, but there's a lot of that going around. What ultimately makes the book so disturbing is that something pretending to be a brief for reason and comity is so unbelievably small and mean-spirited. It is less an argument than an extended tantrum. Reading it is often like being locked in a room with a madman.

Even more than most partisan commentators today (and of course there are more than a few on the right), Gore is blind to how recklessly he abuses facts and applies double standards, not to mention to his own viciousness. He continually rails, for instance, against those who use "fear" and "simplistic nostrums disguised as solutions" to sway an inattentive and emotionally malleable public, causing it to "overreact to illusory threats and underreact to real threats"-this from the man behind the global-warming frenzy, who consistently downplays the menace of international terrorism.

He describes his conservative adversaries as nothing less than monsters, who hold their views not out of genuine conviction about what's good for the country but because they are wholly indifferent to the general good. Moreover, he piously adds, the Right "often manifests a complete lack of empathy toward other Americans whom it identifies as its ideological enemies." Yet a little further on, he's applauding the special-interest groups on the left as "advocates of a broad and effuse public interest who rely mainly on the force of argument and the rule of reasoning," regretting only that they lack "access to the same supplies of concentrated wealth" as those on the right. He bemoans "hatred as entertainment," reserving special venom for the "Limbaugh-Hannity-Drudge Axis," yet cites the likes of Paul Krugman and Joseph Wilson as decent and fair-minded commentators.

Most bizarre of all, he insists-indeed, this is his main point-that "the public sphere is simply no longer as open to the vigorous and free exchange of ideas from individuals as it was when America was founded" (this on page 26), and then manages not to discuss the Internet for another 230 pages. When he finally does, he blithely contradicts almost all of the alarmist claptrap that came earlier, proclaiming that "broadband interconnection is supporting decentralized processes that reinvigorate democracy."

That The Assault on Reason has sold well is surely because Al Gore is now a name brand with whom a certain stripe of leftist is eager to identify. One is reminded of a recent marketing survey of Prius owners, which revealed that as many as 50 percent of those buying the Toyota hybrid do so because, unlike the Honda and Ford hybrids (which can be mistaken for regular Civics and Escapes), the Prius is immediately identifiable as a badge of virtue. Rest assured that this book, a similar emblem, will spend a lot more time on Hamptons coffee tables than at the beach.

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Watch for the coming flood of global warming litigation

Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that the climate change phenomenon commonly called "global warming" exists and is being caused, at least in part, by human activity. Who is responsible? The only sensible answer is, everybody. We all contribute to the release of greenhouse gasses, as did our ancestors going back at least to the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. One would therefore think litigation is no more an appropriate response to global warming than litigation would be to any so-called "act of god." One would be wrong.

Earlier this year, Texas trial lawyer Stephen Susman told the Dallas Morning News that "You're going to see some really serious exposure on the part of companies that are emitting CO2." He added, for good measure, that "I can't say for sure it's going to be as big as the tobacco settlements, but then again it may even be bigger."

Indeed, trial lawyers are gearing up to turn global warming into their next pot of gold. A coalition of environmental groups and cities are suing the Overseas Private Investment Corporation and the Export-Import Bank of the United States for making loans to finance oil pipelines, oil drilling, and similar projects that supposedly result in a net emission of billions of tons of carbon dioxide. After Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans trial lawyers Gerald Mapes and Timothy Porter sued dozens of energy companies, claiming they had contributed to global warming. Last year, Business Week reported that there were 16 pending global warming cases of these sorts pending around the country. More are surely in the pipeline, so to speak.

Indeed, the prospect of a boom in global warming litigation is prompting law firms to begin setting up units specializing in climate change issues. According to the Dallas Morning News, for example, Dallas law firms Vinson & Elkins and Thompson & Knight have set up global warming units with 41 and 26 lawyers, respectively.

If it weren't for the precedents set by tobacco, alcohol, and obesity lawsuits, one might be tempted to dismiss climate change litigation out of hand. After all, the law typically requires a showing of causation. Before you can hold me liable, you must show that but for my conduct you would not have been injured. Typically, you also must show that my conduct was the proximate cause of your injury. How can one firm-or even one industry-be blamed for a global phenomenon that took decades to arise? Making causality findings and apportioning responsibility in this context is ludicrous. Yet, what might a New Orleans jury still smarting over Katrina do if they got the chance to decide Mapes and Porter's suit?

This is a classic example of why tort reform is a pressing need. The Institute for Legal Reform offers some chilling statistics: "America's civil justice system is the world's most expensive, with a direct cost in 2005 of $261 billion, or 2.09 percent of GDP. "Tort costs were $880 per U.S. citizen in 2005, meaning the average American family of four paid a 'litigation tax' of more than $3,500 due to increased costs from lawsuits and other liability expenses that force businesses to raise the price of products and services. That cost is equivalent to nearly an 8 percent tax on wages."

These costs are having a dramatic impact on the US economy. A nonpartisan report prepared for New York Senator Charles Schumer and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, found that the "propensity toward litigation" in the United States is "driving growing international concerns about participating in US financial markets." Along with regulatory excesses like the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the litigation industry in this country is making our capital markets and our economy as a whole less competitive.

It's time for Congress and the president to step up with legislation that take the question of global warming out of the arena of ad hoc judicial decision making and put it into the hands of our elected officials. Both fairness and efficiency demand it.

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Miserable Failure

Post lifted from No Pasaran. See the original for links

While collectively smug greenies in Europe make five-year-plans that sound like Soviet rutabaga production figures, and repeatedly cast the United States as a mustache-twirling eco-satan, they forget that they laughed at the environmental movement which started in America while their obsession remained in highly polluting state industries.

Fast forward to today where the US advances the cleanliness of the environment technologically, quietly, and without turning it into anything like the state established and imposed and religion that it's become in Europe.

Nonetheless, for all the bluster we've gotten so used to, they still manage their practice of enfeebling anything they attempt.

For the second year running, more wind power was installed in the US in 2006 than in any other country: about 2,500MW. The American Wind Energy Association forecasts that a further 20,000MW will be installed before 2010, an investment of about $30bn, putting it well ahead of Germany and Spain which currently head the installed capacity league table. Much of this has been driven by a subsidy of 1.9 cents per kilowatt-hour for the first 10 years of any wind farm's operation and, although there has been some doubt as to whether this production tax credit will be extended beyond 2008, most of the presidential hopefuls (in both parties) have been making warm noises about the importance of renewables.

Twenty-three states now have ambitious "renewable portfolio targets", but it is California that has really seized hold of the challenge. Arnold Schwarzªenegger, the governor, is taking the credit (with the state well on track to generate at least 17 per cent of electricity from renewables by the end of the year), but much of California's success goes back to the multi-billion-dollar research programmes introduced during President George W. Bush's first term as compensation for pulling out of the Kyoto process. California has become the centre for hundªreds of start-up "clean tech" companies..

By comparison, the European renewables sector often appears stodgy, although it is fair to say that the new target adopted at the European Union summit in March (to achieve 20 per cent of all energy generation - not just electricity - by 2020) has sent shock waves through both the policy community and Europe's energy companies. The idea of generating 12 per cent of transport fuels, 18 per cent of heat and 34 per cent of electricity from renewªables will require every member country radically to rethink its policy mix.

Add to it the ignorance: several months ago I met a German engineer who was either engineering or peddling something relative to some kind of greenie blackmail. He was very proud that his native Germany had households which on average use less power than those in Minnesota. I asked him if he knew just how much colder Minnesota is than any part of his precious Heimat. He averted his gaze and mumbled that he did.






Coral bleaching on Australia's Great Barrier Reef in record cold snap

Hey! Wasn't coral bleaching supposed to be caused by global WARMING?? And what's this about record cold? Another case of heads I win, tails you lose, it seems



A RECORD cold snap across southern Queensland has triggered coral bleaching normally associated with the extremes of hot weather linked to climate change. Scientists say the bleaching has been caused by a combination of cold waters, winds and air temperatures hitting exposed reefs around the Capricorn-Bunker group of islands at the southern end of the reef.

While other sections of the reef appear to have been spared by being fully submerged or far enough north to avoid the worst of the cold snaps in June and July, bleaching has been recorded by University of Queensland researchers on Heron Island, near Rockhampton. The area is regarded as having some of the most pristine sections of accessible reef. Coral expert Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, from the University of Queensland's Centre for Marine Studies, warned researchers along the reef to look for bleaching after Townsville experienced one of its coldest days on record, on June 20.

Strong and sustained southerly winds that brought heavy rain to much of southeast Queensland in June and July exacerbated the chilly conditions for coral exposed at low tide and weakened the algae on the coral needed to keep it healthy. Professor Hoegh-Guldberg said the comfort zone for coral was between 19C and 27C but temperatures had fallen to 8C. While bleaching from extreme heat affects entire reefs, the cold bleaching appears to be isolated to the tips of wide areas of coral exposed to the chill. Professor Hoegh-Guldberg said the extreme variation in temperature might be more common as climate change caused hotter summers and colder winters. [Really? Funny warming then. Sounds like no warming at all on average]

CSIRO oceanographer David Griffin said the only noticeably cold currents were further south, around Fraser Island, suggesting water was being cooled at the surface by the air temperature.

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The Lockwood paper was designed to rebut Durkin's "Great Global Warming Swindle" film but it is in fact an absolute gift to climate atheists. What the paper says was of course all well-known already but the concession from a Greenie source that fluctuations in the output of the sun have driven climate change for all but the last 20 years really is invaluable. And the one fact that the paper documents so well -- that solar output is on the downturn -- is also hilarious, given its source. Surely even a crazed Greenie mind must see that the sun's influence has not stopped and that reduced solar output will soon start COOLING the earth! Unprecedented July 2007 cold weather throughout the Southern hemisphere might even be the first sign that the cooling is happening. And the fact that warming plateaued in 1998 is also a good sign that we are moving into a cooling phase. As is so often the case, the Greenies have got the danger exactly backwards.

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