Brokaw's MTP disgrace with Gore

When I heard Al Gore's interview today on Meet the Press, I got hotter than the California wildfires. My first thought was, "And people wonder why Al Gore declined to run for president again in '04 and this year."

The questions and bias in Tom Brokaw's interview were so blatant and rankly partisan that for a moment I thought I'd tuned into the Faux News Channel. But, nope, it was NBC's Meet the Press, and institution that's going to sink fast if this is what we can expect from Brokaw the rest of the way until election day. I find myself missing Tim Russert more and more with each passing Sunday.

And my second thought after hearing the interview was that Al Gore is a bigger man than me. Here are a few excerpts:

Let me ask you about your attitude towards [sic] politics these days. I was a little surprised. You're a man who was in politics at the highest level in this country: in the House of Representatives; in the Senate; Vice President for eight years and yet you said recently, "What politics has become requires a level of tolerance for triviality and artifice and nonsense that I have found in short supply." Is that the right kind of signal to send to the young people of this country who more than any time in recent memory are deeply involved in the political decisions that we're making this year? And young people who want to get into the political arena look to Al Gore and he said "it's all about trivia and nonsense."

Congratulations to Brokaw for making Al Gore seem like he's trashing our political system - a sort of Karl Rove on the left. What a joke.

However, Brokaw was only getting warmed up. The worst was yet to come. (By the way, I'd expect a professional broadcaster like Brokaw to use the more grammatically favorable toward, but I guess that's being a little nit picky for a man who's been in broadcasting longer than I've been alive.)

Brokaw then proceeded to wade into the GOP talking-points pool with this whopper:

With all due respect, Mr. Vice President, I can already hear your critics and I don't do Rush Limbaugh, so I will not attempt to. But I can hear him saying on radio, "Well there's Prince Albert. There he was, 25 years hanging out with lobbyists, raising big money, then he lost and now he's above the process, calling it trivial and nonsense."

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I will never run for political office. Because had that been me sitting in Al Gore's chair, I would have unleashed a verbal dressing down that would have made a sailor blush, and I would have gotten up, tossed my mic at Brokaw, interview over.

But, like I said, Gore's a bigger man than me, and he's used to stupid questions, and blatant, partisan, leading questions at that. I really do take measure of Gore for sitting through it all calmly and coolly and answering like he'd expected the question all along.

Pretty funny that Brokaw said, "I don't do Rush Limbaugh," and then he launches into a Limbaugh-like, childish rant that in so many words called Gore a sore loser.

I would really have liked it if Gore had said to Brokaw, "Remember what you just asked me moments ago, something about 'Is that the right kind of signal to send to the young people of this country who more than any time in recent memory are deeply involved in the political decisions that we're making this year?' and it all being about 'trivia and nonsense?' Thanks for making my point, Brokaw."

People who are getting heavily involved in politics need to hear just how trivial, moronic and dirty (mostly because of money) that our politics has become, and it's absurd that Brokaw takes umbrage with Gore over saying it, because Brokaw of all people should know just how true it is.

Oh, and if I were Gore, I would have definitely let Brokaw know that while the courts might have ruled he lost, the American people didn't see it that way, to the tune of about 500,000 votes. I know, Gore has undoubtedly let it go, and I should, too, but like I said, Gore's the bigger man.

In fairness, the interview wasn't a complete disaster, however. Of all people, oil tycoon T. Boone Pickins announced last week his plan for a major shift from oil to wind power in Texas. As much as I despise Pickins for what he did to John Kerry in 2004, he deserves credit for pouring $1 billion of his money into this venture and giving it the recognition it deserves. It really is an illustration, as Gore said, that global warming makes for strange political bedfellows.

One thing that was lacking from Gore's speech last Thursday was mass transit, and the important role it will play in helping move America into the 21st Century and away from fossil fuels. And I'm yet to hear Barack Obama mention mass transit as much as I would like, either. But, an effective, energy efficient and environmentally friendly rail system is a must as part of the solution to oil. More on mass transit in the coming days, including some letters I've been meaning to write to some prominent politicians urging them to adopt aggressive strategies and funding for mass transit.

Another response to the Gore speech

I also got this response yesterday from a guy named Sean about my post on Al Gore's speech, and it's at least a little more reasonable than the response than the one I posted below. It reads:

It seems that Mr. Gore has changed his marketing message. While he still makes multiple claims that are a little hard to substantiate, he doesn't seem to be making the wild claims he did in An Inconvenient Truth (see http://globalwarming-factorfiction.com/2007/10/26/35-inconvenient-truths-the-errors-in-al-gores-movie-part-1-of-5/)

Now, Mr. Gore is taking the energy independence tactic. This is much more realistic and more people are likely to make "sacrifices" for the sake of energy independence if we state that we have to break away from the Mideast and destroy their power over us. He seems to put a lot of his reliance on solar energy though and we should probably include nuclear and hydrogen in that discussion.

Sean makes a good point here about alternative energy sources, and I totally agree - perhaps Al Gore is tacking differently now and trying another strategy. If so, good on him. I don't buy into all of the anti-Inconvenient Truth stuff, but it's certainly possible that Gore didn't get everything right in the movie. However, I firmly believe (as do many scientists) that the basic premise of the movie is sound. Sure, you can find scientists who disagree with Gore, and some of them might not even be sponsored by or work for Big Oil. But, those scientists are few and far in between. And as the North Pole continues melting as we speak, time really is running out for us.

I think Gore is moving to the next stage now. His movie and many of his speeches have sufficiently raised the alarm about the problem (I certainly hope). Now he's moving on to the Solutions stage. I can only hope our politicians are listening to reason. But, it's our job to make sure that they are.

More to follow on this, including some e-mails I've written to my legislators.

Picture above by Brendan Smialowski for The New York Times 

Gore's speech on the env't a call to arms

Above is Al Gore's speech on the environment that he delivered earlier today at the Daughters of the American Revolution Hall in Washington, D.C. (It's a little over 27:00 long, but it's well worth a close listen.)

Gore was no bore - he cut right to the chase not long after taking the stage: "We're borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet. Every bit of that's got to change."

Then Gore dropped a whopper: "Today I challenge our nation to commit to producing 100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy and truly clean carbon-free sources within 10 years." Woot! It's about time someone said it.

Now that is called political courage. Too bad it's coming from a former politician, but I'll take whatever I can get. (How long do you think it will take before the next, trite Al Gore Electricity Bill story will make headlines? Drudge is probably lubing himself up right now.)

Many, many people have expressed to me the opinion that Gore can make a much bigger difference outside of our government than in it, and up until now, I've disagreed, sometimes vehemently. But, those people were right - Gore is no longer constrained by the endless, incessant deal making and bargaining that hamstrings our political leaders in Washington.

The minute I heard his proposal that we should be using "carbon-free sources within 10 years," I yelled... well, I won't tell you what I yelled, but it's about time someone take an aggressive stance toward cutting fossil fuels instead of doing a political dance and just enough to get a few more votes.

Color me underfreakingwhelmed when I hear our politicians in Washington patting themselves on the back (and more recently, the G8 leaders) by pledging to cut greenhouse gases in half by 2050. BFD. We need a much more aggressive approach to a problem that threatens every living thing on this planet.

I've said it many times, and it bears repeating here - I'm sick and tired of hearing global warming deniers (or selfish people who flat-out don't care) bring up India and China whenever the topic of global warming comes up. I guess American Leadership is a concept that's completely foreign to them. Maybe, just maybe, if China and India see us taking an aggressive approach to this problem, we will kick the last leg out from under their platforms of resistance, and more pressure can be brought to bear on them to curb their fossil fuel consumption.

Gore echoed this sentiment during his speech, and I had a big smile on my face when I heard him say it (At around the 24:20 mark of the speech):

...in fact, we must move first, [Emphasis his] because that's the key for getting other to follow, and moving first is in our own national interest.

And it's people like Gore who are going to help get it done. Part of me hopes that Gore is a part of a would-be Obama administration, & part of me hopes not, because that just gives the Grand Old Polluters ammunition; as Bill Maher said during his Decider show last year, when the GOP attacks Gore, they unfortunately sometimes succeed in poisoning the debate on global warming.

In a show of bipartisanship, I was happy to hear Gore mention Rep. Bob Barr, the Libertarian Party's presidential candidate. It's worth noting that Barr historically was no friend of the Clinton administration, to put it mildly. But, Gore seems to be moving above politics now, at least to a point. He's not completely bipartisan right now, nor can he be, especially when the lion's share of green legislators in Congress have a "D" after their names.

I'm very proud to have cast my vote for Gore in 2000, and I hope and pray that he does some day decide to take the plunge and run for president again. He's certainly young enough to do it, but for now, I hope he continues to give speeches like the one above while continuing to make a difference outside of government. I also can't help but wonder what sort of country we'd be living in had the Supreme Court not put a stop to the Florida recounts in the fall of 2000.

I urge all of you to do three things after watching this video:

1. Write your elected leaders and implore them to back the Gore plan to aggressively develop alternative energy sources. Pledging to halve our emissions by 2050 is no plan at all. (I'll be sharing my letters to my elected legislators shortly.)

2. Look at what you consume, use and throw away, and make the move to greener products where you can, and recycle anything that can be recycled. Don't buy into the bunk that "one person can't make a difference." Imagine if everyone in China had that attitude? That would amount to 1.5 billion bad attitudes.

3. Visit the We Can Solve It homepage for more ideas on what you can do, including this page to receive e-mail updates from the site.

Umm, fossil fuels good

This is a pretty good video from the people over at Free Love Forum about fossil fuels. It's tragically funny, and the reason it's on my mind is the recent news that this summer may mark the first time in human history that the arctic ice pack completely melts in summertime. Wow, cheerful news. I'll have more on that in a bit...

Weekend Cartoons

This was not a particularly strong week for cartoons, for some strange reason. I just didn't find any that really struck my fancy. Normally, I have to struggle to keep the ones I post and comment on here below 20, and I usually debate which one I want to include first, etc., but not this week. Maybe the A-List cartoonist took a much needed vacation this week. If they did, it's not like they haven't earned it - it's been one busy year for them, and it's only going to get busier, more tragic and a whole lot of other superlatives I can't even think of right now. I've little doubt that we will most definitely look back on '08, years from now, and say that it was a watershed year in many respects; not all of them good.

Anyway, on that cheerful note, on to the comics. Most of you know the drill by now, but for those of you who are new to the blog (and judging from the rising number of readers, there are a fair number of you) - my comments on selected cartoons are below the comic.

Enjoy...


This one is painfully true. I have two things to say to this year's college graduates - 1. Congratulations on your achievement - you will remember this day for the rest of your life because of all the hard work you put into getting your degree, and 2. Consider graduate school. In many fields today, grad school sets the standard, but I suggest it equally as forcefully today because once you get out there in the world, and you see how tough this economy is, trust me - graduate school will look like a tropical oasis. Welcome to the Bush economy!

I guess we can now officially declare that there is a problem with the polar bears, now that the Bush administration has formally mandated that polar bears are threatened. This is just another footnote to a failed policy as this administration mercifully comes to a close. Bush has ignored and denied the issue of global warming for well over seven years now, but as every president is wont to do at the end of eight years, he has his precious legacy to think about. So, finally, Bush acknowledges things like the dramatic drop-off in polar bear populations and the existence of global warming, so he can highlight that in his new $1 billion shrine to himself, his presidential library. Hopefully history won't be so kind to him regarding his willful disregard to global warming and its consequences, as well as his shameless pandering to industries that contribute so much to this problem.

How our government is paying for our blatant pandering, um, stimulus checks is getting appallingly little press. I've been writing about it for a while now, and my feelings about it are no less passionate now. It's fiscally irresponsible for our government to be borrowing about $170 billion to give it to taxpayers in the hopes they will "buy something to stimulate the economy." What's worse, I've read Congress would consider another reckless tax deferment this fall to give the economy another jolt. Just a week or two before the election, no doubt.

I've written it before and it bears repeating - we certainly could use the money, and we certainly won't send it back, either, but we have so many problems right now, I just don't think this is the course of action our government should be taking. Oh, and we're not buying something with our refund, Mr. National Embarrassment - we've paying down debt. But thanks for the cash, nonetheless.

This one speaks for itself - I can think of nothing to add, it says so much. This is the mark of a devastatingly on-point political cartoon.

The interviews of West Virginians before and during the West Virginia primary were a low point during the '08 campaign, thus far. I've never seen so many backward, country-ass !$##%&*#@! !@#$#!##*&!@ in my entire life. The Daily Show did a great piece on it - I'll try to dig it up.

Isn't this one the truth. It seems the housing crisis has been knocked off the front page for a moment, but it's not off the minds of tens of millions of home owners, that's for sure. And I haven't read or heard about any meaningful legislation to put a stop to predatory lending practices, either - just bailing out the many sub-prime lenders with taxpayer money. My money.

These mortgage companies have quite a scam going, that's for sure. And it's pretty fool proof.

This raping and pillaging of the American taxpayer by corporate America, (in this case, mortgage lenders) reminds me of a scene from one of my favorite movies, Casino, starring Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, James Woods Sharon Stone and Don Rickles. Best of all, it's directed by our greatest living American director, Martin Scorcesee. Anyway, in the clip above, at about the 4:15 mark, Nicky Santoro (Joe Pesci) collects on a debt from some dirt bag, and De Niro's voice over describing Santoro's, ahem, collection methods goes thusly:

Santoro: Ace [Rothstein, played by De Niro] saw Vegas one way, but I saw it another - I saw it as untouched. I mean they had bookies, pimps, drug dealers I could shake down - who the fuck were they going to run to? So I started getting everyone in line. Best of all, for the first time in my life, I figured out a way not to lose.

Rothstein: [Voice Over] Yea, he had a fool-proof scheme alright. It wasn't very scientific, but it worked. When he won, he collected. When he lost, he told the bookies to go fuck themselves. What were they gonna do, muscle Nicky? Heh, Nicky was the muscle.

##

Okay, maybe a bit of a stretched metaphor, but hopefully you get the point - it seems like these corporations mislead, take advantage and screw the taxpayer, and when it works, they collect fat profits. When the unregulated system collapses, they go to the government with their hands out, and the Bush administration (and a fair number in Congress) are all only too willing to comply. It's quite a system... if you're a stockholder or an executive for the likes of Bear-Sterns or Countrywide. If you're the unfortunate holder of a sub prime, well, better luck next lifetime.

And I don't buy into the thought process of some people that goes something like this: "Well, no one FORCED these people to sign up for these mortgages!" Fair enough, but government can and must play a role in protecting the American people from predatory business practices. However, during the Bush administration, that had increasingly not been the case. Since Ronald Reagan took office in January 1981, the trend in our government has been deregulation, and by now I certainly hope it's become obvious to most that if big business is left to its own devices, the people getting screwed are the people from the middle class on down. It really is time to take our country back. It isn't going to be easy.

We should all be more than on guard about what John McCain is telling us he'll do about global warming. Flashback to 2000, when Bush ran on "mandatory carbon caps" by big business. He reversed that decision before his moving boxes were even unpacked in the White House. (As a bonus, he suffered NO political consequences.) I suspect McCain is doing the same thing - pouring honey in our ears, painting broad strokes about what he'll do to combat global warming, but if elected...

Just another reason McBush ought to be bounced out on his butt this November. If McCain is such a global warming activist, where has he been the last 20 years?

Hey! Welcome back, wedge issue of 2004! Where have you been, anyway? Glad you could make it for another election.

Clearly, at this point, Hillary has two reasons for staying in the race:

1. To get some of her campaign debt payed down. There has been an increasing number of reports and speculation in the media that Clinton will strike a deal with Obama when she gets out of the race where she'll get some, if not all of the roughly $20 million back that she has lent her campaign out of her personal finances.

2. She just might be setting herself up for 2012, especially if McCain wins, but maybe even if he doesn't. I'm not so sure about this one, because incumbent presidents being challenged by members of their own party are pretty rare in recent political history. No incumbent president has realized any sort of significant challenge from within his own party since 1980, when Ted Kennedy took a run at President Carter (and lost). It's easy to say now that Hillary will challenge Obama in '12 if he wins, but there are a lot of bones President Obama could throw Hillary's way. However, Hillary is only 60 years old - she certainly has a lengthy political future ahead of her if she wants one, and she would have more experience and undoubtedly more money to make a run in '12 if she's so inclined, regardless of who wins this November.

Gore's new presentation on global warming

This is a half-hour presentation given by Al Gore in February about global warming, and I found it very informative.

You really have to tip your hat to Gore - he doesn't appear to be resting on his laurels or accomplishments - not by a long shot. He's taken the smears and the attacks by the political right and global warming deniers, and he remains determined to do something about what he calls "the global climate crisis." I firmly believe he's right, too; it is a climate crisis, but the problem is getting greedy, selfish people who only care about their generation and their way of life to take steps to insure a better future for successive generations.

Gore has it right, too - as Ghandi so famously said, we must "be the change we wish to see in the world," and a big part of that is changing the laws in America. There is almost a disincentive for people to invest in alternative energy sources such as solar, wind and plug-in hybrids, and the next president must change that. It should be noted that McCain is opposed to subsidies for these very types of energy sources, according to the latest issue of Newsweek. Outrageous. We can, we must and we will end subsidies to Big Oil and turn over those subsidies and incentives to solar power and other clean, zero-emission technologies.

I also took note of Gore's mention of what he has done in and around his home to reduce his carbon footprint. I still seethe at the media coverage he received over his electric bill, less than 24 hours after his movie, An Inconvenient Truth won two Oscars. A right-wing smear campaign, financed by the Republican Party, did all it could to make Gore's electricity bill public in an asinine, transparent attempt to embarrass him. My favorite line was the one echoed over and over and over again by the likes of Hannity, Limbaugh and Coultergeist - that he flew around in private jets, contributing to global warming.

An inconsequential point, as far as I'm concerned. I'll tolerate Gore flying around the world 50 times on a private jet, compared to what the bloated Limbaugh and his ilk do to help stem the climate crisis, which is nothing. In fact, all the hot air they spew into the air no doubt worsens the climate crisis.

The evidence is pretty stark that we altering the Earth's climate, but Big Oil has hundreds of millions billions to spend on putting plenty of doubt into the minds of some dim-witted politicians, and tragically far too many citizens the world over.

My point of view is this - evidence be damned. What's so bad about cleaning up our environment and decreasing air pollution, which kills hundreds of thousands of people every year? The answer is so simple it defies explanation why some people embrace pollution as if it's a virtue.

People like Gore make me proud to be an American, and damn proud that I voted for him in 2000. I wonder what sort of world we would be living in today if the Supreme Court would not have chosen our president in 2000.

Another Drudge global warming distortion

[Click for larger image]

Perhaps some feel that Drudge isn't even worth the time to debunk. I'm not one of them - this guy has millions of hits on his Website every month, so it's safe to assume that some people actually believe this crap.

Quite frankly, I don't know what's more pathetic - Drudge's blatant distortions, or the fact that more than a few will simply see his absurdly misleading headline without clicking on the story. Anyone who actually clicked on the BBC News link would have quickly deduced after about three minutes of reading that scientists have concluded that global warming is happening, and that one shouldn't draw lots of conclusions from one year, or even a few years. So, global warming deniers (such as morons like Drudge and Sen. James Inhofe) love to make hay out of one or two cold years.

Funny, I didn't notice Drudge or his ilk saying much about the chunk of ice seven times the size of Manhattan that broke off of Antarctica last week. I guess 100 square mile+ chunks of ice just break off of the West Antarctic peninsula when the Earth is cooling.

NJ cuts down on idling... & pollution

We recently had dinner with our friends Jimmy and Jason in Collingswood, New Jersey. When we were walking down Center Street, I noticed this sign, and I love this idea. It seems to me this is one of those ideas that should have been implemented long ago, but either no one thought about it, or there was no political will to do it.

I'm heartened by the fact that communities seem to be coming up with many small ways to combat global warming, pollution, and with the astronomical cost of fuel, it's probably safe to say, fuel consumption, too.

I've also read where some schools in several states are implementing this regulation as well to control pollution around school children.

I'd love to hear counter-arguments to this regulation, but I'm no longer surprised by selfish, myopic global warming deniers. It's not difficult to imagine Ann Coulter pimping the idea of revving school buses, with free cigarettes for the kids.*

Seriously though, there are some people who will decry this new regulation as excessive government regulation. I'm not one of them.

*I'm just kidding, so don't take this seriously. Unless you want to.

American flies five from Chicago to London, on a 777!

I've got a few environmental things I've been meaning to get to, and then I'll get back to the political stuff.

This one is from last week - an American Airlines Boeing 777 flew from Chicago to London with five passengers aboard. I certainly understand that the airlines have been hit with rising fuel costs, and that passengers have to pay extra to compensate for rising fuel costs. However, this incident goes above and beyond the call of stupidity. It's stories like this that anger me to no end. This is an example of how the consumer gets screwed - by airlines making idiotic, absurd decisions like this one. Makes it kind of hard to by sympathetic to the airlines for rising fuel costs. (Oh, and why the hell am I never on one of these flights? Nooo - of course not - I get the five-year old who's been up at the crack of dawn who likes to entertain himself by kicking my seat back for 1,000 miles. Whee.)

From The Telegraph (U.K.):

A major airline is under fire from environmentalists for flying an aircraft across the Atlantic with only five passengers on board.

The flight from Chicago to London meant that the plane, a Boeing 777, used 22,000 gallons of fuel.

It led to American Airlines being accused of reckless behavior by green lobby groups.

The latest "eco-scandal" flight took place on Feb. 9 after American was forced to cancel one of its four daily services from Chicago to London.

While it was able to find places for nearly all the passengers on the fully-booked flight, five still had to be accommodated. Those who did fly were upgraded to the business class cabin.

But while they enjoyed lavish hospitality, the airline was accused of an "obscene waste of fuel" by Friends of the Earth.

It is estimated that each passenger produced 43 tons of CO2 – consuming enough fuel to carry a Ford Mondeo around the world five times.

Operating the near empty flight is estimated as having cost American about £30,000. But a spokesman said it had no alternative.

"With such a small passenger load we did consider whether we could cancel the flight and re-accommodate the five remaining passengers on other flights.

"However, this would have left a plane load of west-bound passengers stranded in London Heathrow who were due to fly back to the US on the same aircraft.

"We sought alternative flights for the west-bound passengers but heavy loads out of London that day meant that this was not possible."

Richard Dyer, Friends of the Earth's transport campaigner said: "Flying virtually empty planes is an obscene waste of fuel. Through no fault of their own, each passenger's carbon footprint for this flight is about 45 times what it would have been if the plane had been full.

"Governments must stop granting the aviation industry the unfair privileges that allow this to happen by taxing aviation fuel and including emissions from aviation in international agreements to tackle climate change."

It's stories like this that motivate me to blog and try to make a nano-difference in the world.

I'm sure the airline was in a bind, and I'm trying to understand such a stupid story. Whenever there's a price increase, it seems like the customer, the flier, gets screwed. It's bad enough that United recently became the first, and no doubt the last airline to begin charging $25 for a second checked bag.

And today, a barrel of oil closed at $111. How soon do you think consumers are going to get lambasted for that development? Partly, that's understandable, but of course Wall Street still has to be happy with fat profits, and there are CEOs that need seven- and eight-figure salaries. Yet, American is carrying five people on a 777 from Chicago to London.

The best part about this story? The reaction to it. I originally found this story on Attytood, one of my favorite Philly blogs. The minute any environmental story is brought up, it takes neo-con artists about five seconds to bring up Al Gore. (Nevermind that the story about his electric bill has been thoroughly debunked - read about that Here.)

Bringing up how celebs, politicians and liberals fly on private jets doesn't take away from the outrage of this story. Incidentally, liberals aren't the only politicians who fly in private jets. Click Here to see how America's Profiteer Mayor demands a Gulfstream IV private jet or better for his speaking engagements. But, I guess to be fair, since he now has the popularity of Chlamydia, his demands may have to be tempered just a bit. Aww, poor baby. I'm sure he'll manage to get by.

And quite frankly, considering the experience of flying commercial these days - overbearing restrictions that aren't keeping us safe, availability of flights, breathtakingly rude TSA agents and all the rest, if I were lucky enough to be incredibly wealthy, you bet your ass I'd have a private jet. I'd make up the difference in my carbon footprint in dozens and dozens of other ways.

Oh, and by the way - Al Gore is probably still doing more for the environment than you are, and he damn well is doing more than our National Embarrassment, President Bush, who only recently even took the tremendously bold and courageous political step of acknowledging that humans are "contributing" to the climate crisis.

Thank God for small favors, Mr. President.

Donaldson & Will spar on global warming

This one is from last weekend, but still worth a look - it's conservative columnist George F. Will, a noted Al Gore basher and global warming denier, taking the opportunity to highlight both, ahem, attributes during an appearance on This Week with George Stephanopoulos last weekend.

Kudos to Sam Donaldson for taking Will to task for his head-in-the-sand attitude about global warming. As Donaldson sagely grouses to Will, "If you and Senator Inhofe want to continue to have your heads in the sand, I'm going to continue to call you out on it. But, I have grandchildren. ..."

Good for you, Sam. Just because there are people who believe that global warming is a myth/hoax doesn't make it no so. And the deniers who part company with the bountiful scientific evidence that humans are making the Earth warmer deserve our scorn, and diminished credibility.

What really irks me about selfish people who can only look 20 years into the future with the attitude of, "It won't affect me, so who cares?" is that there are so many other benefits of reducing the burning of fossil fuels, even in the minute chance that global warming turns out not to be true. Increased pollution has many other adverse effects - poor air quality kills hundreds of thousands of people around the world each and every year.

Another thing that really gets on my nerves - the idea that drastically cutting our carbon emissions will harm our economy. When I hear people say this, I ask myself if we should hold a funeral for American ingenuity. Can you possibly imagine the global dominance America could enjoy if we took the lead in hydrogen, electric and hydrogen cars; solar, wind and wave power; and alternative fuels. What we really need is leadership in these areas, but if it doesn't come from a fossil, the Bush administration has shown scant interest.

Whether you like Gore or you hate him, the man is right - we really do need an "Apollo-type program to combat this problem." Gore has also often said that global warming "is not a political issue, it's a moral issue." That's right, it should be. But, unfortunately, some people will never be able to get past the fact that he's a Democrat who ran for (and won) the presidency.

First man swims North Pole

Update: I forgot to mention that Pugh performed his feat as a dramatic statement about global warming. I certainly think he made his point, too. Without question, he would not have been able to pull off this feat 30 years ago, maybe even 20, but the North Pole has warmed up to the point that it's tolerable to a human with pretty fantastic abilities.

***

I found these photos today, and they're pretty unreal. Briton Lewis Pugh has become the first human to swim the waters of the North Pole, in nothing more than a Speedo. Brrr. I cannot even imagine would it would feel like to swim in water that is -1.8 degrees Celsius (28.75 degrees Fahrenheit). No, that's not a typo - the water is that cold without freezing because of its salt concentration.

Here are some of the pictures that I downloaded from the article about Pugh in the Daily Mail...

I flat out love this picture - obviously taken with a fisheye lens. It's an amazing shot of Pugh jumping into the frigid waters for his swim, wearing nothing special; no gimmicks, no gadgets, no nothing, other than a Speedo. He even eschews the traditional goose grease so his team can pull him from the frigid water in case he develops hypothermia. (I'd love to know what Goose Grease is - it doesn't sound very appealing.)

Here's Pugh going for a swim in water I cannot even begin to comprehend. An average human would probably freeze to death in under four minutes in waters this cold, but Pugh uses a variety of techniques to survive such conditions, including a mind coach. Through mind-altering techniques, he raises his pulse from 70 to 160 beats per minute, and his core body temperature from 37C (98.6F) to 38.4C (101.12F), which makes him sweat profusely. That sounds about right - according to the article in the Daily Mail, an average person has to run for a half an hour on a treadmill to get the same results.

Pugh emerges from the frigid water. His little dip caused his core temperature to drop to 36.5C (97.7F), and 20 minutes later it dropped to 35C (95F) before he recovered with the help of a warm shower.

I think Pugh is amazing, and this isn't the first time he's accomplished some pretty amazing feats. He is the first person to swim 1k in the Antarctic Ocean, and he holds over 20 swimming endurance records, including swimming the whole length of the Thames River, the first to swim the length of the world's longest fjord and first to swim round the most northerly point of Europe.

Describing swimming in frigid water, Pugh explained his technique and what happens this way: "Before I get in, my body feels like a furnace. I become very aggressive, and my surroundings seem to slow down. Then I hurl myself in," said Push. "At first, you experience massive hyperventilation. Controlling this is extremely difficult."

Kudos, Lewis. I need a cup of hot chocolate just looking at these photos.

Fox Attacks: Global Warming

I don't remember if I've posted this in the past, but even if I did, it's worth a repost. This is a pretty good montage of what Fox does to pollute the global warming debate.

As Al Gore states in An Inconvenient Truth, the Right merely tries to create a reasonable doubt in the debate, and Fox merely serves as the cudgel for anti-global warming crowd to bludgeon voters with. In our government, this crowd is headed by Senator James Inhofe.

It's proof positive why I despise anti-environmental, big-business conservatives. The polluter stopped paying a long time ago in this country.

Edwards on global warming

Here's a video of John Edwards on global warming. Not bad - I say his proposals are merely a start, though. But, I have to give him kudos for even offering specifics; thus far, very few candidates have even done that, and most of the ones I hear are coming from Democratic candidates.

A great deal must be overcome to make real progress on global warming. What comes to mind first and foremost is overcoming fossil fuel industry campaign contributions. Between big oil and big coal, the loudest voices on Capitol Hill are the ones with the deepest pockets. It's no surprise that like many ills in our society, global warming and its causes and solutions all come back to money in politics. This is just another reason while we desperately need public financing for our elections.

Global warming debunked! As you were...

[Click for larger view]

I don't mean to harp on Matt Drudge. Wait, yes I do. Anyway, it's no secret that he's merely an extension of the RNC, but of course he paints himself as objective, saying, "he just goes where the stories are."

Sure.

His gossip blog is visited by millions every day, so I drop by at least once a day to see what the Right is reporting.

Anyway, this is what I woke to this morning.

Of course, John McCain using the f-bomb is the most important story of the day. I also got a kick out of the fact that Fox News labels Michael Moore's latest movie, SiCKO, which just premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, "brilliant and uplifting." (More on that later.)

But, what I found particularly amusing was the headline, "Climate expert says 'it's time to attack the myth of global warming.'"

I wonder just how many people see that headline, store it away as fact, and move on without even clicking on the story to see the exact source of this blarney.

I clicked the link, and I was taken to a Website called the Timaru Herald. It took some clicking, but I soon found out that this "expert" is merely a meteorologist, and the newspaper is based in New Zealand.

I don't know much about the newspaper, but something tells me it resembles The Washington Times here in the U.S. - a thoroughly irrelevant right-wing tip sheet that is merely the laughingstock of journalism in our nation's capital.

I don't like to copy/paste whole articles, but this is a relatively short article, so it's worth it (the original article can be found Here):

Climate change will be considered a joke in five years time, meteorologist Augie Auer told the annual meeting of Mid Canterbury Federated Farmers in Ashburton this week.

Man's contribution to the greenhouse gases was so small we couldn't change the climate if we tried, he maintained.

"We're all going to survive this. It's all going to be a joke in five years," he said.

A combination of misinterpreted and misguided science, media hype, and political spin had created the current hysteria and it was time to put a stop to it.

"It is time to attack the myth of global warming," he said.

Water vapour was responsible for 95 per cent of the greenhouse effect, an effect which was vital to keep the world warm, he explained.

"If we didn't have the greenhouse effect the planet would be at minus 18 deg C but because we do have the greenhouse effect it is plus 15 deg C, all the time."

The other greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide, methane, nitrogen dioxide, and various others including CFCs, contributed only five per cent of the effect, carbon dioxide being by far the greatest contributor at 3.6 per cent.

However, carbon dioxide as a result of man's activities was only 3.2 per cent of that, hence only 0.12 per cent of the greenhouse gases in total. Human-related methane, nitrogen dioxide and CFCs etc made similarly minuscule contributions to the effect: 0.066, 0.047 and 0.046 per cent respectively.

"That ought to be the end of the argument, there and then," he said.

"We couldn't do it (change the climate) even if we wanted to because water vapour dominates."

Yet the Greens continued to use phrases such as "The planet is groaning under the weight of CO2" and Government policies were about to hit industries such as farming, he warned.

"The Greens are really going to go after you because you put out 49 per cent of the countries emissions. Does anybody ask 49 per cent of what? Does anybody know how small that number is?

"It's become a witch-hunt; a Salem witch-hunt," he said.

So, a weatherman has debunked global warming, huh?

One can picture Drudge (or a team of crack researchers) hunched over computers looked for the most mundane, obscure article which contains someone, ANYONE who says that global warming is a myth.

When he finds one (like the article above), he links it to his Website, and viola! Global warming is a myth. In the last 24 hours, 13,220,669 people (as of 12:43 this afternoon) have visited his Website. (According to him - I have no way in verifying this fact.) Even if half that number have actually visited, it's a big number.

So, conceivably, 13 million people potentially have it in their minds that global warming is a myth. Nah - let's say that 1/4 actually believe that.

It just strikes me as absurd.

It's not a stretch to say that Drudge is the Fox News of the Internet. It's altogether startling, amazing and amusing that people read this stuff and could actually believe it.

Drudge's job (aided by frequent conversations with the RNC) is to just place doubt about issues like global warming. If he can just plant the seeds of doubt, he'll have accomplished his mission.

Sitting on (melting) ice to make a statement about global warming

I found this picture yesterday on one of my favorite new Websites, t r u t h o u t.

(At Left) Yesterday, climate activists Lesley Butler, left, and Rob Bell sunbathed on the edge of a frozen fjord in the Norwegian Arctic town of Longyearbyen, in a demonstration to draw attention to global warming.

The picture was accompanied by a story that had some startling and worrying facts about global warming. I will write about those articles a bit later, but you can find them Here.

Photo: Francois Lenoir/Reuters via t r u t h o u t

Blue Man Group global warming advert

I'm not a fan of the group, but I like this ad.

I've got 50 on Bangladesh

Only in America. we can't seem to come to terms as a society on how to deal with global warming, and even a certain few don't believe it's for real, but we sure can bet on it.

BetUs.com recently began taking bets about which city will be swamped by rising seas first. A few are even betting on a part of New York City. Many bettors believe that Manhattan will be swamped by New Year's Eve 2011 (above).

Business has been a bit brisk - over 3,000 people placed bets during the first few days the cite began taking action on global warming scenarios.

I'm really out of superlatives on this one - I've got nothing. Other than to say it's all too ridiculous.

Live Earth on turf

I feel about as happy as the dog above, after tangling with a porcupine.

With all the cities in North America, Al Gore and his team have elected to have the North American Live Earth concert in... Giants Stadium? I'm underfrickingwhelmed.

I couldn't believe it when I read the news today. Philly, New York, Washington, D.C. are just a few of the cities that would have made for an amazingly cool show. Instead, the concert is held in a giant ashtray. Yay.

If I owned a dog, I'd feel like someone just kicked it. I refuse to believe that this concert could not have been held at a more attractive venue. But, so be it - it's too late now to do anything about it .

I still support Live Earth and what the concert stands for, and more importantly, what it's promoting, but I really doubt I'm going to go. Maybe it will be on the Web or something.

The concert is on all seven continents, so I'm sure there will be some cool stuff on the Web surrounding the show.

To be blunt, the North American line-up blows anyway.

This is who London gets:
BEASTIE BOYS
BLACK EYED PEAS
BLOC PARTY
CORINNE BAILEY RAE
DAMIEN RICE
DAVID GRAY
DURAN DURAN
FOO FIGHTERS
GENESIS
JAMES BLUNT
JOHN LEGEND
KEANE
MADONNA
PAOLO NUTINI
RAZORLIGHT
RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS
SNOW PATROL

And this is the Jersey line-up:
AFI
AKON
ALICIA KEYS
BON JOVI
DAVE MATTHEWS BAND
FALL OUT BOY
JOHN MAYER
KANYE WEST
KELLY CLARKSON
KT TUNSTALL
LUDACRIS
MELISSA ETHERIDGE
RIHANNA
ROGER WATERS
SHERYL CROW
SMASHING PUMPKINS
THE POLICE

Okay, I partially take that back - the Jersey show doesn't completely blow, but the London line-up is much stronger. I'm happy DMB will be performing, but I can see the Dave Matthews Band any time. No one else really stands out for me when looking at this list.

Sigh. I might still go, but I'm just not all that excited about the acts or the location.

I strongly support Gore and applaud him for what he's doing - the global warming activist in me thinks this is a wonderful thing.

The concert lover in me is non-plussed; mostly by the venue.

Another quick word on the venue that I'd be remiss to not mention. Originally, Gore wanted to have the North American show in Washington, D.C. on the mall. I think it would have been a fabulous backdrop to bring attention to this important global issue.

Of course, global warming denier Jim Inhofe worked his black magic, successfully blocking the show, stating that "political causes" shouldn't be allowed to hold a concert on the mall. What an affront to democracy, free speech and political expression this man is. He's a national disgrace.

I wonder, if the concert would have been to support the War in Iraq, or advocating banning abortion or gay marriage, if Inhofe would have the same political view on the concert being held on the mall? Of course not.

He's the type of "legislator" who is bad for America. He's vehemently anti-abortion, anti-gay rights, and a global warming denier. He received the second most amount of funding from the oil and gas lobby that last time he ran for reelection.

Congratulations, Senator Inhofe. You've now succeeded Rick Santorum as the senator that most Democrats and liberals love to point to when talking about extremism in the Republican Party. Maybe the people in Oklahoma will wake up and throw this bum out of office next year.

If it were up to morons like Inhofe, we would not have had Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's march on Washington - it would have been "too political," right senator?

When it's cold, Drudge is GOP's hot cocoa with lame global warming jokes

Could Matt Drudge possibly be any more lame? Or predictable? Every time a cold snap hits a portion of the US, you can always count on the GOP shill to poke fun at the global warming debate by pointing out how cold it is.

I use his ridiculously crude "siren" above just to mock him. Here's a guy who is always boasting how much traffic his site has, and he uses a "siren" that resembles something a first-year computer science major would make. Drop a few bucks on some real graphics, you cheap bastard.

Anyway, as usual, the GOP blowhard couldn't resist poking fun at global warming on his site today after NYC's latest frigid weather with the screaming headline "NEW YORK CITY APRIL COLDEST ON RECORD?" with the picture above. Right underneath was a link to a Bloomberg story about NYC's cold weather, and had several other columns prominently featured that dispute the science of global warming. The only dispute, in my mind, is why people insist that the evidence is inconclusive.

As for late, Drudge is trying to be a little more subliminal in his criticism of global warming - he's toned it down since he's taken, ahem, heat for using the stupidest of stupid global warming jokes several times this past winter.

I don't know why Drudge doesn't simply link to Senator Jim Inhofe's Website - the most prominent global warming denier in Congress. I'd at least respect Drudge for making his allegiance transparent to the easily duped.

Wake up, Matt - the threat of global warming is real and legitimate, unlike your Website. We all know you get your talking points from the RNC. You're about as objective as Bill O'Reilly.

SC rules Bush has power to control gas

I promised a few days ago I would comment further on Monday's Supreme Court's 5-4 decision that the Bush administration (and any administration) has the power to regulate greenhouse gases.

As an avid environmentalist, I should be happier than I am. Why? Because this administration has nearly two years to go before we get a change in leadership, and by extension, a change in environmental policy.

This does signify a victory, but not a significant one, yet. If this administration had any sort of moral compass, this would qualify as an embarrassment. But, how can the shameless be embarrassed? I can just imagine the conversation in the White House: "Uh oh, the greenies are knocking at our door again. Someone get me Phil Cooney on the phone!"

The Bush administration argued that Congress never gave it the power to determine whether carbon dioxide was a pollutant as defined in the Clean Air Act. In the majority opinion, written by Justice John Paul Stevens, the court said administrations do have such authority.

Best of all, in unusually strong language, Stevens sided with scientists who say that U.S. car emissions do contribute to greenhouse gases, leading to global warming. In doing so, he refuted the argument of energy industry officials and Republicans who reason there is no proof of global warming.

Stevens wrote that the contribution of American cars to global warming is so significant that strong regulations "would slow the pace of global emissions, no matter what happens elsewhere in the world."

Since the US is by far the largest greenhouse gas emitter in the world, I'm inclined to agree with Stevens somewhat, but really, we could cut our emissions to zero, but if China and India aren't on board with controlling greenhouse gases, we're all going to cook anyway. This is precisely why the United States needs to show leadership on this issue, which, to date, the US has done a very poor job of doing. (Remember when the US showed leadership on anything other than starting wars? Yea, me neither.)

Following of the court's decision, the White House was predictably ambiguous.

"We questioned whether we did have the legal authority," said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino. [More like this administration didn't want the legal authority.] "Now the Supreme Court has settled that matter for us, and we're going to have to take a look at it and see where we go from there."

"...look at it and see where we go from there" is Bush-speak for "on the back burner until 2009," when we get a new president.

Incidentally, does anyone find it ironic that Bush campaigned in 2000 on the promise of mandatory caps on carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases (a campaign promise he almost immediately broke once appointed president), yet his administration ended up going before the SC to argue that it didn't have the power to regulate such emissions? The irony is thicker than LA smog on a hot August day.

One other thought on this ruling: The importance of the 2009 Presidential Election, strictly from the standpoint of the Supreme Court, cannot be overstated. If Stevens retires, the court will be hopelessly conservative for generations to come. Bush has already appointed two SC justices - if he has the opportunity to appoint a third, it would be a disaster for the environment, abortion rights, civil liberties and a host of other issues.

Here's a cheerful thought - heaven forbid we have another disputed election circa 2000. If Bush gets a third appointee, we'll simply have a Republican coronation for president every four years.

It's funny - I remember preaching this to many people in political discussions before the 2000 election, and it just didn't seem to resonate, even among Democrats. It matters now more than ever. The Supreme Court should be near the top of the list on DemocratIC voters minds for this election.

I can never hear or read a story about the Supreme Court without thinking about Stevens, the SC's senior justice. He turns 87 in a few weeks, and I sure hope he remains healthy until he's 89, when a DemocratIC president can name a liberal successor.

The Legislative Branch now has the authority to do something about global warming, while working with Congress. Now we need an administration with the political will to do it. Tick-tock, tick-tock - 653 days to go.

It's no secret I hope Gore enters the presidential race, but if he doesn't (and it's looking more and more likely he won't with each passing day), I wonder how receptive he would be to becoming Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency? Now that would be an amazing cabinet appointment.

Of course, there are other ways for Gore to serve a Democratic administration, and I hope he is given the opportunity.

In case you missed the footage from Olbermann early this past week about the SC's decision, here it is again...