More Al gore wasting fossil fuelsFollow

This clip runs 7 minutes but you will get the point after 2 minutes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IelDNR6qy5E

I'm pretty sure a round trip fight on this plane will have used more fossil fuel than I have in my life.

Edited, Jul 20th 2008 3:51pm by Boomsticker

I didn't read the article, but I've sold my car, composted the kids and have set fire to my house to avoid heating costs.

Amidoinitrite?

OMGOSH!!!!!!!!!!ONNE11111111111111

**FLASHIES**Al Gore rode in a private jet**FLASHIES**

Air pollution is just an old-yuppies tale told to wittle-kiddles at bedtime to scare them into taking cold showers.

I didn't watch the clip, but it sounds like stuff that has already been rebutted.

Al Gore is a proponent of reducing carbon release into the atmoshere, but where it's unavoidable, or would make life just too unpleasant, he encourages paying for CARBON OFFSETTING. It's something he does for all his airplane travel, and any excess carbon usage his family goes through.

Al Gore: "For assistance in planning green travel and purchasing carbon offsets, visit http://betterworldclub.com/

Wikipedia on Carbon offsetting:



This article sounds like the same conservative furphy as the one they like to make about Al Gore's house: a large mansion, with many many lights and electrical devices in it. That house is run on alternative energies (wind and solar) with zero carbon emissions.

Conservatives seem to have this huge stick up their butt about environmentalists wanting to degrade our quality of life, make it less pleasant and comfortable. It's completely untrue. Most environmentalists are all about being smarter. Having your cake and eating it too, by having your present, or an even better quality of life, without taking so much out of the planetary life-support system that sustains us.

More to the point though, at worst one can look at this and say "Haha! I caught Gore doing something hypocritical!". If that was the point of the OP then mission accomplished.

If there was any other point beyond smug gloating, the OP failed to make it.

Conservatives could care less how environmentalists want to live their lives.When you try to force YOUR way of life on US is when we care.

You're not a conservative. Did you mean "Ignorant fucks"? It's a common equivocation, but they're not actually the same thing.



Edited, Jul 21st 2008 12:10pm by Smasharoo

Well I know for a fact that Gore Sr is a slumlord in TN and many of the houses he rents don't even have indoor plumbing. And let's not get into the commy connection between armand hammer and the gores.

Prescott Bush was a **** supporter who tried to overthrow the US government and install a fascist regime in the US. Are we done judging people by their relatives now?

Admit it guys, Boom has a point. For Gore to be advocating what he does, he certainly does not walk the walk of a genuine enviromentalist. He talks a good game, but his lifestyle in no way reflects the courage of his convictions.

But then again, we all knew some pigs are more equal than others-- and that's an inconvenient truth.

Totem

First off. I'm absolutely not in the "OMGZ! Al Gore left his car running!!!" crowd. As Joph said, the message is more important then the messenger. However, for me, it's not about Gore himself, but the implications for the rest of us mere mortals.



So, if you are wealthy you don't have to worry about pollution. It's like buying indulgences...


Look. I get that for someone who's job requires them to travel and a public figure to boot, it's unfair to compare his energy use straight across. But I really do think that carbon offsets are a crock. Ultimately, it's a way to price energy out of reach of most people.

One of the more amusing aspects of the Left is how often they talk about the gap between rich and poor, yet it seems like they're the ones who make being rich so significant. When a middle class person can afford a nice comfy house in the suburbs, it's not a big deal that a rich person can afford more. But when that same person can't afford to live in anything other then a small duplex in the city so he's close to public transportation and can receive subsidized power, there's suddenly a huge difference, isn't there?




Let's be fair though. It's not like he runs his own wind and solar plants. What he does is choose to use a "green energy" power company. This means that somewhere in the US, there's some wind and solar plants dumping power into the grid. But this power typically costs more then the local coalfired power plant does, so only those willing to pay that company more get the power. Of course, it's all the same electricity once it hits the grid. What Gore is doing is another form of buying indulgence. By paying more for his electricity, he can claim that he's using the electricity generated by some solar panel 500 miles away.

While I'm sure it may make him feel better, it's not a choice that most Americans can afford. Again. It's not really about being more green. It's about being willing to pay more for power so that you can claim to be green.


It's one of those "solutions" that works in the small scale. We can produce a small amount of electricity from solar, wind, etc and those who want to pay extra can buy it off the grid. But if we changed the whole grid to only get power that way, most americans couldn't afford it. Not really a solution...



Not really. I'd argue that while most real environmentalists do believe this (and I know quite a few of them), very very few of those people are the same as those pushing this as a political agenda. You want to meet a real environmentalist, go hang out in some cabins up in the mountains, or those desert adobe homes and the communities of people who live that lifestyle. Most of those people will tell you what they think about the environment (and I've never heard one mention carbon offsets btw), but aren't particularly political. It's the folks who don't do anything in their day to day lives about the environment, but figure if they march in support of legislation to force others to change then they're doing something that represent the largest group who're actually pushing the environmental movement. And most of those people have no clue what they're supporting. They're just told to pick up their signs, put their bumperstickers on their cars, and, like Gore buying his offsets, they can feel good about themselves for having "done something".


And yeah. I have a problem with those folks, because the political leaders they're blindly following/supporting often don't care about the environment nearly as much as they care about the political power they gain by picking up the issue of the environment. And that's just the relatively harmless opportunistic politicians. The real dangers, and the folks I'm most concerned about are the ones who see this as a means to impose broader socio-economic changes. As I pointed out, most of what this does is make energy more expensive. Heck. It makes living more expensive. And the cynic in me observes that the poorer the people are (or believe themselves to be), the more willing they are to give up some of their liberty in exchange for government benefits.

How perfect is it to convince the people that they must pay more for a cleaner environment, but since most can't afford it, we'll have to impose more on those who can and provide subsidies for those who can't. For the powerhungry statist, this gets both groups at the same time. The first is taxed more, so they have less freedom. The second is now beholden to you for their very lives. The only people who continue on just peachy are the very rich that most of those supporting the environmentalist movement hate so much...


Funny, isn't it?

Only if they can work out the kinks in those new solar panels Smash. You're absolutely correct that 480,000 solar panels would be cheaper per panel then 100. But that's only going to work if we can get 480,000 people to buy solar panels instead of say 100 people, and that's basically dependent on the unit cost dropping somewhat (quite a bit actually).

It's *not* less expensive per panel if we're talking about a commercial operation (like say a power plant). You can see how operating a small electrical generator on your property is cheaper "per unit" then operating a full sized power plant, right? Zoning, licensing, and those pesky environmentalist lobbys suddenly get involved when you try to build something "big".

Tell you what though. When someone builds a 480,000 panel solar power plant anywhere in the US, you let me know. Oh wait! They don't just string a bunch of standard solar panels together to build a plant do they? See how your whole "economy of scale" argument flies out the window in this case?

Edited, Jul 22nd 2008 12:17pm by gbaji

WAT?????