One day climate change skeptics will be seen in the same negative light as racists, or so says former Vice President Al Gore.
In an interview with former advertising executive and Climate Reality Project collaborator Alex Bogusky broadcasted on UStream on Friday, Gore explained that in order for climate change alarmists to succeed, they must “win the conversation” against those who deny there is a crisis.
“I remember, again going back to my early years in the South, when the Civil Rights revolution was unfolding, there were two things that really made an impression on me,” Gore said. “My generation watched Bull Connor turning the hose on civil rights demonstrators and we went, ‘Whoa! How gross and evil is that?’ My generation asked old people, ‘Explain to me again why it is okay to discriminate against people because their skin color is different?’ And when they couldn’t really answer that question with integrity, the change really started.”
The former vice president recalled how society succeeded in marginalizing racists and said climate change skeptics must be defeated in the same manner.
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Gore: Global warming skeptics are this generation’s racists
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Global Warming Link to Drowned Polar Bears Melts Under Searing Fed Probe
Polar bears drowning in an Alaskan sea because the ice packs are melting—it’s the iconic image of the global warming debate.
But the validity of the science behind the image—presented as an ignoble testament to our environment in peril by Al Gore in his film An Inconvenient Truth—is now part of a federal investigation that has the environmental community on edge.
Special agents from the Interior Department’s inspector general's office are questioning the two government scientists about the paper they wrote on drowned polar bears, suggesting mistakes were made in the math and as to how the bears actually died, and the department is eyeing another study currently underway on bear populations.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Friday, February 25, 2011
Oh, To Be a Teacher in Wisconsin
The showdown in Wisconsin over fringe benefits for public employees boils down to one number: 74.2. That's how many cents the public pays Milwaukee public-school teachers and other employees for retirement and health benefits for every dollar they receive in salary. The corresponding rate for employees of private firms is 24.3 cents.
Gov. Scott Walker's proposal would bring public-employee benefits closer in line with those of workers in the private sector. And to prevent benefits from reaching sky-high levels in the future, he wants to restrict collective-bargaining rights.
The average Milwaukee public-school teacher salary is $56,500, but with benefits the total package is $100,005, according to the manager of financial planning for Milwaukee public schools. When I showed these figures to a friend, she asked me a simple question: "How can fringe benefits be nearly as much as salary?" The answers can be found by unpacking the numbers in the district's budget for this fiscal year...
Monday, January 10, 2011
Intensive logging created New England's rich wetlands
THOSE who enjoy the wetlands and seafood of New England's coastline may be surprised by who they have to thank: the loggers of the 18th and 19th centuries. In clearing vast tracts of land, those prolific loggers released so much sand and dirt that open-water bays turned into swamps.
While logging devastated the landscape, it had the opposite effect on the coast. The wetlands it boosted buffer the coastline from storms, stop pollutants in the ocean from reaching the shore, and shelter marine organisms. "No wetlands, no seafood," says Matthew Kirwan of the US Geological Survey in Laurel, Maryland.
For purists who favour returning New England to its natural state - and restoration is a multibillion-dollar endeavour - the theory presents a conundrum. Many New England marshes are much bigger than they were before the arrival of European settlers, says Kirwan, so restoring the environment to a "natural" state would mean losing much of the marshland and its benefits.
