Not like ecomaniacs who force themselves on masseuses?
From an Ezra Klein interview with Al Gore:
EK: Give me the optimistic scenario on what happens next. If all goes well, what do the next few years look like on this issue?
AG: Well, I think the most important part of it is winning the conversation. I remember as a boy when the conversation on civil rights was won in the South. I remember a time when one of my friends made a racist joke and another said, hey man, we don’t go for that anymore. The same thing happened on apartheid. The same thing happened on the nuclear arms race with the freeze movement. The same thing happened in an earlier era with abolition. A few months ago, I saw an article about two gay men standing in line for pizza and some homophobe made an ugly comment about them holding hands and everyone else in line told them to shut up. We’re winning that conversation.
The conversation on global warming has been stalled because a shrinking group of denialists fly into a rage when it’s mentioned. It’s like a family with an alcoholic father who flies into a rage every time a subject is mentioned and so everybody avoids the elephant in the room to keep the peace. But the political climate is changing. Something like Chris Hayes’s excellent documentary on climate change wouldn’t have made it on TV a few years ago. And as I said, many Republicans who’re still timid on the issue are now openly embarrassed about the extreme deniers. The deniers are being hit politically. They’re being subjected to ridicule, which stings. The polling is going back up in favor of doing something on this issue. The ability of the raging deniers to stop progress is waning every single day.
When that conversation is won, you’ll see more measures at the local and state level and less resistance to what the EPA is doing. And slowly it will become popular to propose steps that go further and politicians that take the bit in their teeth get rewarded. I remember when the tide turned on smoking in public places. People thought the late Frank Lautenburg was crazy for proposing a ban on smoking in airplanes, but he was rewarded politically and then politicians began falling all over themselves to do the same. That’s the optimistic scenario. And it’s not just a scenario! It’s happening now!
Don’t get me wrong. We’ve got a long way to go. We’re still increasing emissions. But we’re approaching this tipping point. Businesses are driving it. Grass roots are driving it. Policies and changes in law in places like india and China and Mexico and California and Ireland will proliferate and increase, and soon we’ll get to the point where national laws will evolve into global cooperation.
He would know.
I’d wager that climate skeptics are much less likely “fly into a rage” than warming advocates. It’s not a shouting match. The burden of proof is on those who make extraordinary claims… ANYONE who says they can predict the future state of something chaotic is making an extraordinary claim. The James Randi Educational Foundation will pay a million dollars to anyone who can accurately predict the future state of a chaotic system.
http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/1m-challenge.html
Sticks and Stones eh AL?……Sticks and Stones!!!!
Essentially Gore is relying on the “big lie” and repetition. Fortunately the raving warmists and hysterics like himself have turned the climate agenda into a comedic farce. Not a day goes by that some natural event occurs that isn’t placed on the altar of the Church of Anthropogenic Global Warming. More and more folks are coming to the realization that the IPCC and the Warmists are simply out for control of every aspect of our lives. Mention Al Gore’s name in a room and the majority of the people present start laughing. Even worse for him, few actually remember that he was a heartbeat away from megalamanical power for 8 years. Most only know him as a fat man who made billions off making poor people pay more for food and electricity while he fashions himself as the self annointed savior of humanity and the planet.
Gosh knows we deniers could stand to learn restraint from Mann, Hansen, and Gore himself. Models of civility, those guys.
This is indeed a strange being – one could even imagine that he has now convinced himself that the words that come out of his mouth are in fact ‘truth’
…and probably smoking some of his own tobacco while saying it.
Meh. I like the part where he cites current wildfires even though 2013 acreage is 2 million below the average of the last 10 years.
Except the guy that made the racist joke was likely Al Gore’s father.