Al Gore: We Can't Wish Away Climate Change

Al Gore has an op-ed in the New York Times (2-27-10). Until the so-called "Climategate" scandal, I chuckled when witty, sarcastic global warming denialists on the blogs mocked "Al Bore" for being a fat, hypocritical moneybag. I didn't want to believe in the "inconvenient truth" of global warming. I was in denial. Still, I was kind of worried in the back of my mind that global warming might be true, because all of the national academies of science in the world believe that global warming is happening.

"Climategate" forced me to face my denialism. I read those e-mails and the nasty and mocking commentary about them, and then I read what the scientists actually were saying in their own words.

I'm not stupid, so it didn't take too long for me to realize that the denialists were mocking and hounding our best scientists, lying about their claims, misreporting their words, and mischaracterizing their research. The denialists were acting like the fake scholar Ward Churchill, not like honest researchers. I have posted what I am learning about climate science on my blog.

I do want to know what is true about science, and I could see the denialists weren't debating the science; they were just propagandists who were debating straw men and counting on my desire to remain in denial about the science of global warming, because it is pretty scary. I want to drive my car, heat my house, watch T.V., cook, take hot showers, and wear clean, pressed clothes.

The denialists often accuse the scientists of manufacturing "alarmist" scenarios, but I notice that denialists like the mereticious demagogue Senator Inhofe and the vicious bully-boy journalist James Delingpole are churning out a filthy slurry of alarmist conspiracy theories about sneaky scientists who are conspiring to trick us, steal our money, and set up a world government by spreading the "hoax" of global warming. Their propaganda is starting to read like that notorious anti-Semitic hoax, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, only now the poor scientists are the Jews.

I am now reasonably certain that the alarmists who claim that global warming is a scientific hoax to steal my money are probably really only worried about their money.

I now realize that these shameful denialists are just repackaging the same old conspiracy theories as the Nazis spread about the Jews or the Bolsheviks spread about the capitalists and the kulaks. Since I have a background in Soviet Studies, I should have been onto these propaganda techniques a lot sooner. But I get it now, and I am going to read Al Gore's op-ed in the New York Times (2-27-10) and his website, the Alliance for Climate Protection. I think I will even check out his film, An Inconvenient Truth.

Al Gore is probably not a bore. He can't possibly be as boring as some of those conspiracists on Faux News like Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck. I don't believe them at all any more. Every day they repeat the same conspiracy theory over and over and over and over! It is so boring! They are so self-righteous! And there is never any news!

Al Gore is trying to learn about climate change and share what he is learning with the rest of us. That's what leaders do. I'm sure he makes some mistakes when he tries to translate what the scientists say into layman's terms; but I don't think he is lying to me like Senator Inhofe, James Delingpole, Sean Hannity, or Glenn Beck.