I just finished reading this book THE SILENT ASSASSIN by Lori Andrews who people are calling the female Michael Crichton. She lives her novels through her research the same way that Crichton does and has even collaborated with him from what I understand. The plot of the book is actually based on the discovery of skulls of 6 Vietnamese soldiers that Lori really discovered while doing research for the book – I thought it would be right up your blog’s alley.  Check out her book and her website: http://www.loriandrews.com.  Thanks.

-David

1) He is perceived as the ‘face’ of global warming supporters, due to his highly publicized campaigning and especially his film;

2) He was one of the strongest supporters of Kyoto, and still is;

3) His twisting of facts and hypocritical preaching about everyone but his own carbon sinning gets on skeptics’ nerves;

4) The global warming supporters love him, which makes the skeptics automatically loathe him;
http://scottthong.wordpress.com/2007/05/18/oh-al-gore-you-are-my-hero-i-love-you-take-me-now/

5) He is very easy to make fun of. Almost as easy as Dubya Bush. Not really a valid reason, but a very tempting one to satirists.
http://scottthong.wordpress.com/2007/07/11/al-gores-secret-message-pics/

Skeptics are of the opinion that Al Gore is, knowingly or unknowingly, perpetuating fraud by stirring up the world into a climate change panic. We reason that if he did not cheerlead the anthropogenic GW cause, it would be far less pervading a movement. he is one of the main catalysts of the fad.

That wouldn’t in itself be a bad thing (just as huge concerts for causes are not in themselves bad things). The problem is that Gore is passing something off as the undeniable truth, which skeptics contend is unproven at best and a deliberate lie at worst. And it affects us directly through things like Kyoto and mandatory emissions reductions.

To use a hypothetical scenario: ‘Super Rock Concert For the Worshippers Of Lex Luthor’ wouldn’t be a concern to most people, but ‘Super Rock Concert to Ratify the Imposing of Laws Making Worship of Lex Luthor Mandatory’ would really rile them up.

Simply put: We don’t like Gore’s hypocritical energy expenditure while telling us all to cut down on emissions, his riches-buy-carbon-offsets lifestyle which we cannot afford, his haughty assumption of moral superiority over us deniers, his twisting of facts in order to support his agenda, his perceived personal ambition behind a facade of caring for the Earth, and his pivotal role in shutting down rational debate by suddenly making global warming fact by consensus.

It may be unfair to blame Gore for all the shortcomings and offenses of the GW paranoia. We also feel the same way about the IPCC or more vocal, in-your-face supporters of anthropogenic GW theory. But Al Gore as the self-proclaimed champion of the Earth puts himself on the front lines and makes much more noise.

Whether he likes it or not, extra-strong criticism comes with being the face of the global warming believers. And if global warming doomsday warnings turn out to be a huge fallacy in 50 years, Al Gore with automatically become the biggest scapegoat to blame the hoax on.

I suppose Gore bashers can seem a little harsh. It would likely seem less personal if we stuck to bashing a faceless organization like the IPCC. But this is how strongly skeptics feel about the whole GW debate – the onesided media domination, the consensus swamping of the majority, the unthinking followingness of it all.

And perhaps too, the smearing of skeptics as being selfish, evil Earth killers tends to produce a similarly vehement response.

—————

The US never ratified the Kyoto treaty because it was perceived as unfair to the US. Kyoto targets 1990 levels of greenhouse gas emissions – instead of any other date such as the year the Treaty was ratified – because European and Japanese economic growth stagnated since 1990, while the US economy grew.

This would mean that European industry would have much less to cut down, while US industry would have to bend over backwards. So naturally the US Senate, not being suicidal, voted 95-0 in 1997 not to sign or ratify the treaty unless these flaws were fixed. It is no wonder the US refuses to sign onto Kyoto and would rather discuss new initiatives, but this Euro-advantage aspect is never discussed in the news reports.

(From pages 64-65 of ‘A Skeptical Layman’s Guide to Anthropogenic Global Warming’, full PDF at http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2007/07/a-skeptical-lay.html )

The governments that ratified Kyoto should be bashed for believing the IPCC reports without thoroughly checking the facts. But of course, the IPCC has done an incredible job in claiming correctness and authority while labelling those who question their science as ‘oil-sponsored’, ‘unscientific’ or ‘irresponsible’. Which government would want that kind of ostracism?

As of now, I don’t really need to bash the European governments which adopted Kyoto. Their economies and living standards are already taking a painful bashing.
http://www.classicalvalues.com/archives/2007/05/kyoto_destroyin.html

(Btw, Al Gore was VP of USA when the treaty was negotiated, yet the USA has never ratified it.)

What I’m really interested in is what specifically has Al Gore done to justify your bashing? Other than supporting the Kyoto protocol, because last I read, over 160 countries have ratified it. So you might as well bash those 160+ governments..

Well, Gore is one of the strongest proponents of the Kyoto Protocol, which in my opinion is a colossal waste of resources.

Kyoto already hurts the European economy by forcing taxes onto industry when cheap green energy is not yet available. The clean energy infrastructure is not yet mature or widespread enough to cater to the massive needs of modern life, so the prices are high. And then the carbon taxes add to the economic pain.
http://scottthong.wordpress.com/2007/05/22/the-star-opinions-kyoto-will-creep-up-on-us/

And what will Kyoto accomplish? Why, it will reduce (purported) temperature rise by 0.2 degrees by the year 2100, compared to if nothing were done to reduce greenhouse gas output.
And the predicted temperature for 2094 with no Kyoto is the same as the predicted temperature for 2100 with Kyoto… 6 years of time bought for an estimated USD 1.5 trillion in costs and expenses.
http://scottthong.wordpress.com/2007/03/20/star-opinion-guard-against-kyoto-protocol-hype/

And that is if the following hypotheses of anthropogenic (human-caused) global warming are actually true in the first place:

1) The Earth’s average temperature is rising (proven true)

2) This temperature rise will continue unabated in an unprecedented manner ( http://scottthong.files.wordpress.com/2007/04/redvsgreen.jpg taken from my post http://scottthong.wordpress.com/2007/04/20/global-warming-editorial-cartoons/ )

3) This temperature rise is primarily caused by human activities, not natural phenomena (such as output of the Sun or cosmic rays forming clouds – the IPCC refuses to even consider such factors seriously)

3) The human activity in question is the release of greenhouse gases (rather than our building of heat-radiating cities that affect only local temperatures, http://scottthong.wordpress.com/2007/07/04/ground-based-temperature-recording-stations-stupid-locations-for-measuring-global-warming/ )

4) The chief culprit among the greenhosue gases is CO2 ( http://scottthong.wordpress.com/2007/02/26/carbon-dioxide-and-global-warming-5-reasons-why-im-not-alarmed/ and http://scottthong.wordpress.com/2007/06/13/carbon-emissions-and-percentage-of-atmosphere/ )

That is a lot of proving to be done. Yet the IPCC jumps ahead by proclaiming its pre-formed conclusions correct when they are not (pre-formed conclusions at http://scottthong.wordpress.com/2007/05/16/classical-values-on-the-ipcc-mandate/ , incorrect data at http://scottthong.wordpress.com/2007/07/04/a-skeptical-laymans-guide-to-anthropogenic-global-warming/ ).

Rather than try to convince us of its correctness, it silences all further discussion as irresponsible ( http://scottthong.wordpress.com/2007/05/24/the-ipcc-does-not-want-balanced-climate-reporting/ and http://scottthong.wordpress.com/2007/03/23/ann-coulter-junks-al-gore-too/ ).

Meanwhile, it forges ahead on the basis of the authority granted to it by the ‘consensus’ on global warming ( http://scottthong.wordpress.com/2007/03/21/why-i-feel-about-global-warming-the-same-way-i-feel-about-evolution/ ).

Follow the above up with the even more assumption-based Gore/IPCC/Kyoto-solution’s hypotheses:

5) Global warming will have negative consequences for the world, rather than positive

6) We can meaningfully slow, stop or even reverse global warming

7) The best way to do so is to reduce greenhouse gas output, especially CO2

8 ) The costs incurred are necessary, no matter how crippling

9) Mitigation of climate change is better than adapting to climate change, thus resources should be spent on the former rather than the latter

10) Immediate cutting down of CO2 emissions is the best solution, rather than research and development into new technology ( http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/2007/03/mr-fusion.html ) or upgrading current infrastructure first ( http://scottthong.wordpress.com/2007/06/11/the-sun-the-star-green-carrot-compromise/ the principles of which Abdullah Badawi agrees to)

So what we have here is shaky science, an even shakier plan, and lots of noise and campaigning in support of all that shakiness. I wouldn’t give a care, except that the shakers intend to get us all vibrating along.

This leads to the most assuming, most low-probability, most highly unprovable hypothesis:

11) Al Gore and the IPCC are honestly concerned about global warming and believe in it, have unbiased and truthful scientific data to back up their claims, are not selfishly suckering people into a scame for the sake of power and money, and really know what the heck they are doing to us and the world.

Whether anyone knows what impact Kyoto has on anything at top of this page, http://scottthong.wordpress.com/2007/05/16/aliens-cause-global-warming/ for more.

Read http://scottthong.wordpress.com/2007/03/23/al-gore-high-priest-of-global-warming-hypocrisy/ , http://scottthong.wordpress.com/2007/03/05/ann-coulter-junks-global-warming-too/ and http://scottthong.wordpress.com/2007/04/02/john-travolta-on-beating-the-global-heat/ , before judging whether Al Gore and other GW champions act like they’re really concerned or are playing on our fears for their own benefit.

And that is why I say that Al Gore’s solutions are themselves the catastrophe. Heck… AL GORE IS THE CATASTROPHE!!!!

(I admit to heartily enjoying Gore-bashing! But that doesn’t make the criticisms about his motives, information, lifestyles and plans any less valid.)

“Heck, his solutions ARE a catastrophe!”

I’m curious about your assertion, would you be able to elaborate on that?