Amusing take on Gore's 'disorder'. But I think it's more than just psychological since it seems to be contagious.

Dave

Interesting post, if not original. Nearly all your points are wrong.
- Yes, when he was a boy, Al Gore was seen by his father as having a political future as US President. But Al Gore was not the only person to have that pressure, and Al Gore had no reason to feel his life was a failure because he did got become US President in 2000. The man had a solid political career, and likely was the real winner of the election anyway. Now, after Gore was out of politics, he changed. His activites, his appearance, and his priorities. Big deal. The man got really rich with Google stock, and was the assumed Democratic candidate in 2004, and possibly 2008. So your judgement that Al Gore went off the deep end, is not backed up by anything. He is a celebrity.
- Al Gore did not come up with an idea to make himself the savior of mankind after the 2000 election. Al Gore has been passionate about global warming since he was a college kid. He wrote a book about it in 1990. In the past few years, there has been stronger date and scientific consensus on the issue, so the timeing for his new movie and book is good.
-There are plenty of skpetics about the reality and danger of climate change. But there is a overwhelming scientific consensus. And the effects of global warming are here already.

To conclude, who is crazy, Gore or Bush? Bush mocked the idea of hybrid cars in 2000, and he has limited environmental regulations, he has disputed the impact of global warming, and has spent hundreds of billions for wars in Iraq and Afganistan to secure vast reserves of oil. Gore supports major research to clean up the environment, find alternative energy sources, and promote peace and justice in America and throughout the world.

Civilization will NOT be destroyed by a few degree temperature change. Anyone that believes so is an idiot blinded by ideology. This is being used as a scare tactic by left wingers to get government in control of industry. (conveniently what they wanted all along)

"For many years, Gore believed that the eventual attainment of the presidency was something akin to a birthright and would almost certainly be his ultimate destiny."

I think you've got the wrong 2000 candidate there, guy. His name is Gorge, um Georeg, well, he goes by "W" - I think because he has a hard time with soft consonants and blended vowels.

"Verbosity leads to unclear, inarticulate things."

-- Vice President Al Gore, 11/30/96

Greg -

well written and fun to read. I think you could chase your tail for a long time as far as what is really going on in the Al Gore mind. He definitely considers himself relevant even if many of us consider him comical.

"Sometimes adopting the speaking style of a fire-and-brimstone, Pentecostal-type preacher during his harangues...".

I think there is certain amount of religious fervor on this topic. It certainly requires a leap of faith to commit yourself to the 'belief'.

There are plenty of skpetics about the reality and danger of climate change. But there is a overwhelming scientific consensus. And the effects of global warming are here already.

There was an overwhelming scientific consensus that the plague was caused by Jews poisoning wells too, but it turned out to be a political opinion rather than one based on empirical evidence.

To conclude, who is crazy, Gore or Bush? Bush mocked the idea of hybrid cars in 2000, and he has limited environmental regulations,

And he's passed more pro-environment legislation than any president since Jimmy Carter, raised the CAFE standards and increased penalties for violations of environmental rules.

Dave

Speaking of protecting the environment, what have you done with the hundreds of carcasses of dogs you've killed on/near your property?

Dave,,,you mean the that the plague was NOT caused by Jews poisoning wells...

well Ill be....

In academia, where Mr. Gore has been tending his beard lately, there IS a substantial concensus of thought that any warming seen in global climate is the result of man's activities, especially those activities that take place within US borders.

It is only when one considers the opinions of scientists working outside the groves of academe that one sees there is no concensus. In fact, we can't assess the influence of several major factors in global climate that are non-anthropogenic. Weather is the definitive chaotic system; perhaps we should be swatting butterflies instead of signing Kyoto.

As for the bigger picture, RedTard is on the mark. Many politicians (and socialists) cynically support the whole issue of global warming since the preferred method to attack the problem is through a carbon tax (which is almost a tax on everything). There are varying estimates of how much $$ this will provide to politicians to then spend on their favorite causes (simultaneously increasing their power) but it runs into the tens if not hundreds of billions annually. Not a bad chunk of change to support a dubious scientific theory.

Nice write up... now I am neither a Bush or Gore fan... wow, never really thought of those two words together before. Well, this is my take on it. We as humans, right up there with dolphins and smart pigs need to feel like we impact everything and everything impacts us. Actually I don't think pigs feel that way. Global Warming or GW, is the new thing that has taken hold of everyone. This reminds me of when AIDS was first seen in the US. A horrible thing at best, but how many experts stated we would be gone as a people in 10 years time due to it. West Nile virus that killed maybe a dozen older people in NYC and we all went crazy. More people die from heat stroke in the summer.. just saying. Will 2 or 3 degrees make difference. I doubt it and why I think that way is that the world is always changing and always be changing. If I was gone tomorrow the world would keep spinning... and spin it will.

If climate change is gradual, it doesn't matter all that much in the short run how much carbon or other elements that don't belong we pump into the atmosphere.

If climate change tuns out to be a sudden event, on the other hand (which is what the evidence seems to point to), we should be thinking about when the slow incremental change becomes the straw that breaks the camel's (and our) back.

The consensus is in regarding global warming. Bill Gray and Richard Lindzen are now in the vast minority. Lindzen is also known to accept money from oil companies for his research, so I'd take anything he says with a grain of salt.

There will never be 100% consensus on any matter of scientific debate; there will always be dissenters. That's even true with generally accepted theories such as evolution. But the overwhelming majority of scientists around the world agree that global warming is not only a reality, but that it's being caused, at least in part, by human activity.

That doesn't prove that Gray and Lindzen are wrong, but I'll put my money on the great majority of respected scientists over the few lone holdouts.

Besides, what have we got to lose by accepting this theory? Why are right-wingers so opposed to the whole notion? Because it would force them to stop driving gas-guzzlers? Because this is an idea that's being championed by the left? Where's the threat? The technological sector will leap to meet the demand for more fuel-efficent vehicles, cleaner means of heating and cooling, better means of recycling, etc. There's huge money to be made off this. It'll be a shot in the arm to Detroit and to our economy. It's a win/win situation. Why so much hostility?

"That's even true with generally accepted theories such as evolution."

A lot of holes in that theory too!

If you have joined up in the church of GW you have a hell of a lot more 'faith' than the average Christian!

The sky is NOT falling.

KRW almost hits on an important truth. There are a lot of good reasons for fuel economy and other positive ecological measures which have nothing to do with global warming. So long as we pursue free market approaches to these issues and avoid buying into the socialist agenda that's behind global warming and accepting transparently draconian measures like Kyoto which have political goals rather than real environmental goals, we can do a lot to help the country and the environment with little harm along the way.

Dave

It seems to me that anyone who looks at the world, solar system and galaxy that we live in must be struck by the violence and hostility of the stars and planets that we live among. In particular, the planets seem to be divided among those which are essentially dead and cannot support life, and those whose atmosphere is so unstable as to not permit the development and evolution of life over long periods of time. Alone among the planets we know of is this insignificant planet Earth which has had a remarkably stable atmosphere and climate over hundreds of millions of years. It is this stability that has engendered life as we know it. IMO It is simply foolhardy to gamble this heritage on the guess that maybe it's OK to pollute the environment or that when a disaster starts to appear we will have time and means to pull back from the brink of disaster. Especially if we choose technological positions dictated by political notions which have proven to be frail in the past.

Greg Strange: Do you believe with absolute certainty your local weather forecast for three days out? How about two? How about for tomorrow? Then why would you believe a forecast for decades in the future when it is infinitely and impossibly more complicated than tomorrow's forecast?

Dr. Pat: Weather is the definitive chaotic system; perhaps we should be swatting butterflies instead of signing Kyoto.

Weather is chaotic, but is climate?

I keep seeing this argument, often from people who should know better. Surely you can see the difference between predicting events and predicting trends. Earthquakes are even harder to predict; does that mean we can't make any statement about how the plates are moving?

The fact is, we make all kinds of reliable predictions about climate - that's how we know where to put the ski resorts. Whether we really can make a reliable prediction about climate change is a reasonable question. But the implication that it is on the same level of uncertainty as predicting weather is bogus.

Comment #14 KRW said:

"The consensus is in regarding global warming. Bill Gray and Richard Lindzen are now in the vast minority. Lindzen is also known to accept money from oil companies for his research, so I'd take anything he says with a grain of salt."

The pro-global warming guys are getting tons of research money from the gov't and they know it will keep coming as long as global warming is presented as a threat to the world. Do you take what they say with a grain of salt?

Comment #14 KRW said:

"But the overwhelming majority of scientists around the world agree that global warming is not only a reality, but that it's being caused, at least in part, by human activity."

Yes, but they don't all agree, like Al Gore, that the planet is doomed. That's part of the point to this article. Gore latches on to the absolute worst case scenario possible. Of all possible gradations of seriousness to this problem, why should we only believe the worst?

Comment #14 KRW said:

"Besides, what have we got to lose by accepting this theory? Why are right-wingers so opposed to the whole notion? Because it would force them to stop driving gas-guzzlers?"

Personally, I've never owned a car that had more than four cylinders and I'd be thrilled if most people did the same. I think one of the big reasons "right-wingers" are opposed to the whole notion is because it has been elevated to something resembling the status of a religion. It doesn't seem very prudent, especially considering that back in the 70's the majority meteorological opinion was that the planet was cooling, with the next stop being an ice age. Again, if you can't trust a local weather forecast for two days out, how can you possibly trust an infinitely more complex global forecast for decades out?

Comment #14 KRW said:

"The technological sector will leap to meet the demand for more fuel-efficent vehicles, cleaner means of heating and cooling, better means of recycling, etc. There's huge money to be made off this."

I believe that very thing will happen in time. Apparently it's a very difficult problem to solve, but I have no doubt it will be solved long before the planet is destroyed. And in the meantime, we shouldn't have to throw modern civilization out the window, which is what a lot of radical global warming proponents would like to see.

Comment #18 JR said:

"The fact is, we make all kinds of reliable predictions about climate - that's how we know where to put the ski resorts. Whether we really can make a reliable prediction about climate change is a reasonable question. But the implication that it is on the same level of uncertainty as predicting weather is bogus."

I think your last sentence is wrong. We know exactly what causes the daily weather to change. The reason weather forecasting is so inaccurate is because the atmosphere is so immense, but we are only able to measure a tiny portion of it. Physics is an exact science as long as everything can be measured. When it comes to the atmosphere, that simply can't be done.

But when it comes to climate change, we really don't know much at all about what causes it. And it is indeed infinitely more complicated than day-to-day local weather forecasting.

Greg Strange: Physics is an exact science as long as everything can be measured.

Physics can quite reliably predict whether and when a pot of water will boil without measuring the kinetic energy of each molecule in it.

But when it comes to climate change, we really don't know much at all about what causes it. And it is indeed infinitely more complicated than day-to-day local weather forecasting.

In other words, it's on a whole other level of uncertainly?

The fact is, we make all kinds of reliable predictions about climate - that's how we know where to put the ski resorts.

There's a big difference between predictions like this - the farther north and higher up you go the colder it is - and predicting global changes into the future. And since you mention ski resorts, it seems interesting to me that the volume of snow and the days of snowfall have both increased in the major ski resort areas in the rockies in recent years. But of course, global warming advocates will just say that global warming causes more snow and more cold days. Uhuh.

Dave

Dave Nalle: There's a big difference between predictions like this - the farther north and higher up you go the colder it is - and predicting global changes into the future.

Yes, the two problems are qualitatively different; finding a solution to one is not the same as finding a solution to the other. However, those two problems are on a similar scale relative to the problem of predicting day-to-day weather. My point being that the difficulty of predicting weather is not necessarily indicative of the difficulty of predicting climate. My suspicion, based on the analogous differences in scale and scope I've mentioned, is that predicting global climate will prove to be a much easier problem than predicting local weather.

Greg - That's an interesting take on Gore. I have my own theory, that every few years Gore completely changes his personality. Not just his image - many politicians flip-flop - but he actually becomes a different person. In each phase, he believes what the current Al Gore is saying.

I admired the pro-military moderate Gore of the mid-1980's. He first turned environmentalist in the early 90's, at the same time that he became anti-military. He was the government reformer during the first part of his vice-presidency, then reversed himself as Mr. Insider. I think his phases as a candidate in 2000 were deliberate, but he's moulted and reemerged twice since then. Once as the scruffy, shouting Unabomber, then recently as Powerpoint Guy.

I've argued elsewhere on these pages that one shouldn't try to psychoanalyse one's political opposition, because it makes one discount the candidate or his position. But I don't see any way around it with Gore.

Baronius: He (Gore) first turned environmentalist in the early 90's

That's interesting; he was on The Daily Show a couple weeks ago and he said he's been giving this talk for thirty years. One of you seems to be mistaken.

Gore has been an environmentalist since the late 70s and I have first-hand knowledge of this, since I worked for him at the time. He was very interested in alternative energy and programs for better use of natural resources even back then. The global warming issue hadn't come up yet, of course. At that time the same climate scientists who are now predicting global warming were talking about a possible mini-iceage.

Fsbr

The only thing worse than a shrink analizing someone he hasn't actually had the chance to talk to is a WANNABE shrink analizing someone he hasn't actually had the chance to talk to. Of course, a bit of psychobabel makes it easy to dismiss things without having to deal with whether those things have any merit or not. This is like people who dismiss space exploration without knowing squat about it. They do know, however, that rockets are "phallic" and that therefore those who support space exploration are "phallically fixated" and can thus be dimissed without the bother of understanding or knowlege.

"Gore has been an environmentalist since the late 70s and I have first-hand knowledge of this, since I worked for him at the time. He was very interested in alternative energy and programs for better use of natural resources even back then. The global warming issue hadn't come up yet, of course. At that time the same climate scientists who are now predicting global warming were talking about a possible mini-iceage."

Fsbr

Uh, Fsbr, not be too picky...but shouldn't a former magazine editor know how to spell his own name...??

If you can touch type, then move your left hand one key to the left of where it would normally be and type fsbr. It's a secret code.

fsbr

"There was an overwhelming scientific consensus that the plague was caused by Jews poisoning wells too, but it turned out to be a political opinion rather than one based on empirical evidence."

Well, then, it never was "scientific consensus". It was political bias and racism masquerading as science.

If you can touch type, then move your left hand one key to the left of where it would normally be and type fsbr. It's a secret code.

fsbr

HA. I was afraid to ask, for fear of being told it was some "AIM acronym meaning..., Stupid!"

(Obviously, I DON'T touch type)

#27 Xenophile said:

"The only thing worse than a shrink analizing someone he hasn't actually had the chance to talk to is a WANNABE shrink analizing someone he hasn't actually had the chance to talk to. Of course, a bit of psychobabel makes it easy to dismiss things without having to deal with whether those things have any merit or not. This is like people who dismiss space exploration without knowing squat about it. They do know, however, that rockets are "phallic" and that therefore those who support space exploration are "phallically fixated" and can thus be dimissed without the bother of understanding or knowlege."

The fact that you misspelled "analyzing" (your spelling: "analizing") not once, but twice, as well as misspelling "psychobabble" (your spelling: "psychobabel") and "knowledge" (your spelling: "knowlege"), along with the near incoherence of everything else, makes one tend to take your comments less than seriously.

Well, then, it never was "scientific consensus". It was political bias and racism masquerading as science.

Bingo. And this is why my forthcoming article on the topic is called - Global Warming, the Intelligent Design of the Left.

Dave

krw - I think you may be confused about who's driving the gas guzzling SUV's...you may want to check out the bumper stickers on some of those monster vehicles...they sure don't all say Bush '06!

Do you know what scares the shit out of me?
When everyone wakes up and realizes that every fuckin word that's ever come out of the mouth of every Democrat, Left wing, tree hugging twit and from every Republican, extremist, bible thumpin ass hole is just some loser salesman who couldn't sell sand in a desert, just what the fuck are we gonna do with all of these computers?
Does it ever occur to anyone every one of these fucks from Bush to Gore are just moving their mouths and we all hear what we expect to hear and they don't give 2 good shits about anything except furthering the livelyhood of themselves and their dawgs. No global warming, no industrial waste, not whether we live or die! They just really don't care. And here we are, all worrying about them, trying to help their causes because they care so much about us.
Look at these clowns, Bush dressin up in cowboy boots and that charmin Texas drawl imported all the way from connecticut or how about Gore? Goes into hiding, comes back as Ewell Gibbons or how about that sinister snarl on Cheney's mug? These are all people who may snap at any time, not a one worth trusting your sister with, nevermind your future.
Sometimes, when I'm reading some of the same shit that someone else has already said I can't even remember where I stand, it all sounds like bullshit. Bullshit with a beard, with cowboy boots, going apeshit cause he lost in the primaries, starts a war to make his daddy proud, or bullshit hugging a tree.
Maybe instead of an election we should just see who can sell the most toasters.

Peter, I've lived in Texas for about 10 years fewer than Bush, and I've got a Texas accent when I don't watch myself. I had an British accent when I was a kid and had gone to nothing but Brit schools. People acquire accents from exposure. It's not necessarily a put-on.

Dave

Well, yes, it's clear that you're no psychologist. I am. It's also clear that you are whistling Dixie via your own psychological delusional state. What, pray tell, do we have currently in the White House but someone who believed it his birthright to be there, and more than that, decided that he was anointed by God, by God? Do you not recognize that the "disorder" that you ascribe to Mr. Gore is in fact one from which the current resident of the White House suffers? Or are your conservative blinders on just a bit too tight? I don't know if your "mind is open," but it's clear your brain is not!

#38 Carol Dodson said:

'Well, yes, it's clear that you're no psychologist. I am. It's also clear that you are whistling Dixie via your own psychological delusional state. What, pray tell, do we have currently in the White House but someone who believed it his birthright to be there, and more than that, decided that he was anointed by God, by God? Do you not recognize that the "disorder" that you ascribe to Mr. Gore is in fact one from which the current resident of the White House suffers? Or are your conservative blinders on just a bit too tight? I don't know if your "mind is open," but it's clear your brain is not!'


My goodness, but the good doctor (I'm assuming you have a Ph.D.) seems angry. Honestly, are you really unable to grasp that there was a bit of tongue-in-cheekness going on in my article? If you're not amused, that's fine, but accusing me of being in a "psychological delusional state" seems a bit extreme and perilously close to malpractice on your part, especially since you've never even met me.

As for Bush being the actual one who believed the presidency to be his birthright, I doubt it. As best I recall, he was recruited into the job, which means that it wasn't something he had been expecting his entire adult life.

But it doesn't really matter because I was writing an article about Gore, not Bush. If you want to expose Bush's psychopathologies, then by all means, write an article about it yourself. And if you have your liberal "blinders on just a bit too tight," I promise I won't accuse you of being delusional.

Carol, for someone supposedly trained in an analytical field, your lack of analytical ability is shocking. Do tell me how accusing Gore of having an unusual mental condition inherently means that the author is absolving Bush of that or other possible psychological conditions when Bush isn't really even discussed in the article? Loving Bush is not an automatic counterpoint to thinking poorly of Gore. The two are entirely separate, except where you choose to connect them because of your preconceptions and prejudices.

Dave

Well . . . apparently like minds seek out sites that support personal paradigms because you people are sounding a bit like spoiled western hemisphere pigs who don't want to change their lifestyles. First, you aren't watching current scientific debate (Greenland icesheets growing -- you are kidding --), you apparently missed the devastating last two years (the warmest temperatures recorded and the impact in lives). Oh, I forgot, this is just political ideology! Silly me. You claim that this has everything to do with a spoiled brat who wanted to be president. Wow! What commentary. Let's cut through the crap. What are YOU doing as a steward of this earth to make sure that human interaction and impact on the planet is within acceptable limits? Every other debate on this planet fails if in fact we have no planet to debate on. (Ms. Dodson - you rock - you think the current president appointed by God would fix it up).

schmeddy49 sez:

What are YOU doing as a steward of this earth to make sure that human interaction and impact on the planet is within acceptable limits?

Ummm, let's see...I dunno; what are "acceptable limits?" Who determines their acceptability? Who sets the "limits?" Who enforces them?

Maybe we should kill off all the humans (except for the environmentalists, of course)?

...or maybe we should just kill off the "spoiled western hemisphere pigs"...

Soylent Green baby...Soylent Green.

Clavos, you joke, but there's a wing of the environmentalist movement which advocates a mass die-off of humanity and killing about 5 billion people in the immediate future. Imagine the environmental impact of all those corpses.

Dave

Well, guys, I just find this whole global warming debate rather moot. Why can't we just agree that polluting the environment is a dumb idea to begin with and just work together as a society to keep it to a minimum, if it can't be reduced to zero??

You don't need to believe in global warming to see the detrimental effects of pollution generally on people, not just flora and fauna.

I think it's sad that some folks feel we need nightmare scenarios to get people to do the right thing. And by linking the whole debate about pollution to global warming, it simply obscures the other negative effects of pollution which are easily verifiable. It would be far easier to get the point about pollution across by focusing on effects that can be proven, than by debating global warming.

Both sides on either extreme only ensure nothing will get done because they prevent any kind of consensus and political will from forming. Without that, the status quo will rule the day.

#44: I had heard that, Dave--hard to believe, but I know they're out there.

#45: Steve, you're dead right (bad word choice!) about pollution, and about separating that issue from GW. BTW, FWIW, I don't dispute the fact of global warming, only the allegations as to its causes, and especially the related "predictions" about what will happen to the world 10-100 years hence as a result.

All movements have their extremists to both the left and the right. In no case however does it mean the core message is worthless.

I remember reading an article a couple of years back that claimed with a global population of 20 million, humans could make as much mess and pollution, of any kind, as they liked and the planet would have the capacity to re-absorb it. So I guess it could be argued that a reduction to the planetary population would be better for it, however improbable choosing that option might be.

Another extremist view draws upon the fact that when a species outgrow its resources, massive dieback or even extinction can swiftly follow and that we as a species are gradually committing suicide, like a kind of global hari-kiri.

It's clearly obvious that the planet is warming and that has to be a source of concern at the very least.

I'm an optimist by nature and prefer to believe that eventually human ingenuity will invent better ways of doing things that cause less environmental impact. If not, I guess the heady mixture of continued global population growth and climate change may yet do for us all.

Of course, global population growth is enormously lower than projections put it at. Back in the 1970s weren't Alvin Toffler and others predicting that our population would have ballooned to like 20 billion by the beginning of the new millenium. That didn't happen. I guess that sociology is no more an exact science than climatology.

Dave

Dave, not only have population growth rates been wildly overestimated, but these same "futurists" (past and current) usually grossly UNDERestimate the rates of advances in science and technology. Even Malthus did that.

I agree with Christopher, human ingenuity WILL out, especially as the potential for profit in the reduction of pollution grows.

There is a part in this movie where Gore talks about the mini-Ice Age that effected Western Europe many hundreds of years ago. This was apparently caused by the glaciers of North America melting, and all that cold, fresh water then flowing into the North Atlantic. This disrupted the Gulf Stream, and Europe became quite colder.

Gore then goes on to subtly suggest that something very similar might occur again, in the very near future, with the "imminent" collapse of Greenland's enormous Ice Sheet.

Of course, this is ludicrous. It's about as plausible as the scenario in "The Day After Tomorrow." But Gore lays it all out there with a straight face.

Does human activity impact the environment? Of course. Has human activity increased the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere? You bet. Do increased levels of CO2 in the atmosphere probably play a role in raising global temperatures a little bit? Sure. Will this somehow lead to the "END OF THE WORLD!!!" in another decade or so? Of course not!

Gore is an alarmist, but his allies in the media will always defend him, even when scientific data in the coming decades proves his "theory" wrong...

Oh, and even if Kyoto were ratified by the US Senate, Red China and India (comprising roughly 2.5 BILLION people, or close to half of the world's population) would be entirely exempt. They would be allowed to emit as much CO2 as their little hearts desired...and they wouldn't be using "clean coal" either!

Global Warming or no Global Warming, I strongly support government-mandated increased fuel efficiency in our automobiles, and large federal subsidies for research into alternative fuels (hydrogen fuel cells, "clean" coal, pebble-bed nuclear, bio-fuels, etc.)

If we do that, even if Global Warming turns out to be a bunch of leftist scaremongering, at least we will be less dependent on hideous regimes for our energy supplies...

How do you feel about fusion power, RJ? Would you support, say, a billion a year into US fusion research?

It's a sad situation to think why so many people think we need sci-fi scenarios to get the public to do the right thing.
just a thought...

Gore may be an alarmist, but his theory about a mini ice-age in Europe seems to be a real possibility. Climatologists on both sides of the global warming issue agree that conditions are right for a change in ocean currents which might lower European temperatures 5 degrees or so. Of course, that will hardly look like global warming to the Europeans as they freeze their arses off.

But I'm with you 100% on Kyoto. It was entirely political in its design, with the intention of shutting down industry in the west to give the major eastern powers like China and India a chance to catch up and become more competitive. Agreeing to it would have been suicidally stupid.

Dave

The funny thing is that Gore didn't support Kyoto in the 2000 campaign, and he paid the price for it by losing crucial votes to Nader.

Bush, on the other hand, promised to sign it.
Apparently he lied.

"How do you feel about fusion power, RJ? Would you support, say, a billion a year into US fusion research?"

Sure, but cold-fusion is unlikely anytime in the near future...that being said, there is nothing wrong with getting the basic, fundamental research out of the way now...

I meant hot fusion. I don't believe in cold fusion.

Bush, on the other hand, promised to sign it.
Apparently he lied.

One man's 'lie' is another man's 'came to his senses'. I don't so much care what he said as that in the end he did the right thing.

Dave

Why is it that when the right-wing does it, it's the end justifies the means? but when the left does it it's flip-flopping?

Read an article the other day that we could dramatically alter energy usage and heat ouput at ground level by switching to low watt, cool lighting. In fact, this article suggested that just government buildings doing this would have a massive effect.

Anybody have more on this? If we are in such danger, why isn't government even handling this part.

#61 Randy,

I read something about that the other day also. That's a good question about why isn't the government doing that.

Something else I've noticed. Every time I go into one of my local public libraries during the summer the air conditioning is so cold I can barely stand it. God only knows how much energy is wasted in government buildings alone.

The quality of the modern 'cool' lights is a lot better than it was when they first came out. They no longer look like neon - the light is a lot more natural than it used to be. Plus they just about last forever. I've switched over to them for all our lights mainly because with 100+ temperatures here in Texas the AC needs all the help it can get. My two complaints are the price - still a bit too high, so I stock up when they're on sale - and the fact that size and effective lumen output are linked, so you can't get a 75w or 100w equivalent without it being huge, often too large for a normal fixture.

Dave

Hot fusion? I don't believe there is much potential to harness that for our energy needs...pretty difficult to control a "hot" fusion reaction...and the temperatures involved would instantly vaporize whatever instruments we tried to use to measure it and utilize it...at least, as far as I understand...

RJ, that's not quite right. Google the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), the Joint European Torus (JET), and the National Ignition Facility (NIF). The idea of hot fusion has been around since the 1950s. It is a difficult problem, but a lot of money has been dedicated to this kind or research over the last few decades. There are two basic schemes, magnetic confinement of the hot plasma, and inertial confinement. In each, the idea is to convert the high-energy neutron products of deuterium-tritium fusion reactions into electricity.