Beware of the propaganda army

Al Gore trains a global army

The stocky man with the soft Southern accent rivets the hotel ballroom crowd with his plea: "We are in a time of peril, so please allow me to explain a topic that has overwhelming importance in my life."
Meet, no, not Al Gore, but Gary Dunham, 71, a grandfather from Texas who was the first of 1,000 Americans Gore trained to deliver his Oscar-winning An Inconvenient Truth slide show to schools, Rotary clubs and nursing homes around the nation.

Two weeks ago, the last 150 of this hand-picked crew arrived here — paying their own way for everything but food — to go through a two-day seminar starring Gore but effectively led by Dunham and a few other graduates of the former vice president's global-warming boot camp.

To date, The Climate Project has drawn everyone from Wal-Mart workers to Cameron Diaz. And though the 1,000 mark has been reached, "we keep hearing whispers that (Gore) might do more," project director Jenny Clad says. "I wouldn't call this final."

the urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule it,

H.L. Mencken

Dedicated invidivuals donating their time and doing what they can to help. Yep, sounds terribly dangerous to me. I hear the Boy Scouts might attack next.

Oh geeze, Gore (Goes Overboard Real Easy), I loved that.

Telling people to stop wasting resources is good. Skewing reality to gain popularity is not good.

Similar activities have been observed around 1790 prior to the French revolution, around 1916 prior to the Russian revolution, around 1933, prior to the German "revolution" well sort of.

He should start with his 15,000 sq ft house. The man is a fraud and a hypocrite.

That may be, but shoot the messenger, not the message. too many people use this as an excuse to not care about the environment.

And if Al Gore is influential enough to move millions of people to stop polluting and change international policies, I don't care if he spends his spare time dipping penguins in oil and beating baby seals with them.

Also, remember he does not lead the same life as the average person, he probably has many more guests and events and that sort of deal over at his house than the average person.

You cannot offset carbon dioxide emissions from oil burning in any real way that doesn't involve putting the carbon (sans the oxygen its been combined with in the combustion process) back in the ground where it was before we drilled for oil.

Right, so leading an extravagant lifestyle is an excuse why? Isn't that the very thing that activists harp on the average american for? Oh, so its ok for Al Gore to do it so long as he's trying to win some political leverage for personal gain, but its just wrong for a corporate executive to do the same.

The man is scum through and through, and people falling for this are utter tools.

I don't know if I completely agree. If you look at the total carbon cycle, and the way it's skewed by all our uses - not only fossil fuel burning but also forestry, agriculture etc - there are lots of carbon sinks that have costs attached to them, and also some areas of research that will cost money. Granted, planting trees only consitutes a carbon sink if the total biomass is permanently increased, but it's not impossible to do that.
In agriculture, soil can be an effective carbon sink if no-till growing methods are used. So money paid to cover the cost of adapting to the new practice is a genuine carbon offset.

The real answer might be in-ground sequestration but that's going to take time and money. Would you object to carbon credits if the money went to CO2-sequestered cement plants?

to be a person of political influence, you sort of have to lead a certain life-style such us hosting parties ands events... it's just the way it goes.