More inconvenient truths
posted by Liberal Eagle at 6:28 PM
So Al Gore testified today to the House Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality of the Energy and Commerce Committee and the Subcommittee on Energy and Environment of the Committee on Science and Technology, and the Senate environment and Public Words Committee.
(I know...real grabber of an opening sentence, huh?)
Gore's 10 recommendations:
Now, we can debate the merits of each of those ideas individually, and, in fact, we should. And that's the whole point. These are serious proposals on a serious issue from a very smart person who is passionate about that issue, to be considered seriously.
I've said this here before: Al Gore has been one of my personal heroes since I was 13 and read his book Earth in the Balance. I always loved that he was unabashedly wonky, and that he chose to apply it on an issue that really mattered. It seemed to me that we needed more people like him in national politics. Over the years I've disagreed with Mr. Gore about any number of things--his advocacy for NAFTA comes to mind--but I still admire him enormously and think he'd have made a great president.
And watching Al Gore behave like a serious, intelligent adult, I can't help thinking back.
Back to the 2000 election, when the wonky, intelligent, serious Gore was trivialized by the media for two years, pundits harping on his clothing choices, challenging his masculinity and his American-ness, and making up phony quotes they could use to make fun of him. Meanwhile, the genuinely trivial lightwight running against him was welcomed by the press with all the warmth of a schoolchild with a crush. Ha ha, look at that nerd over there, they seemed to say. Isn't he a great big boring dork? Do you really expect us to spend time with HIS clique at D.C. cocktail parties for the next four years? Puh-LEEEEZE. George W. Bush is soooo much more fun. And that's the only important qualification for the most powerful job on the planet.
Two years later, when Bush was conning us into a war with easily-refuted claims about Saddam's aluminum tubes and mobile weapons labs and unmanned drones and chumminess with Osama bin Laden, the press rolled over and printed every word he said uncritically, and mocked anyone who dared to dissent as, oh so ironically, "unserious." And that included Al Gore.
In the fall of 2002, Gore gave a speech on Iraq which was, in hindsight, one of the most prophetic pre-war statements made by any public figure. He said, in part, "I don't think that we should allow anything to diminish our focus on avenging the 3,000 Americans who were murdered and dismantling the network of terrorists who we know to be responsible for it. The fact that we don't know where they are should not cause us to focus instead on some other enemy whose location may be easier to identify."
The whole speech is worth reading. And how did the press and the major pundits react? Almost universally, they derided Gore's speech. As "vile." As "dishonest." As "almost entirely free of facts." I believe it was Charles Krauthammer who suggested Gore had "gone off his medication."
It was the 2000 election coverage on steroids. Gore, the serious policy-minded person who had examined the facts and come to a conclusion that would prove correct, was mocked and trivialized in print. George W. Bush, the deeply unserious person with delusions of grandeur who was drunk on power and approval and marching the country into an unnecessary and disastrous war on laughably flimsy evidence, was treated as a great big serious leader.
As Milhouse Van Houten once said, "nerds are smart." Well, yes, Al Gore is a nerd. Good for him. More nerds should have more power. Popular C-student frat types should be the ones who get called "unserious." But I've been forced to conclude that the national press corps is mostly staffed with people who were nerds in school, were deeply scarred by the experience, and in their adulthood unconsciously make up for it by kissing up to the jocks of the political world, and smugly deriding the nerds.
It's their chance to be cool, and the fact that this has major policy implications for hundreds of millions of people seems not to register. This is why people who cover politicans should never, ever be allowed to socialize with them. They end up forming the same cliques they did back in prep school. And we all suffer.
Albert Gore, Jr., is a truly great American. George W. Bush is as unsuited to high office as anyone who has ever been president. The choice the media made in 2000, and for years after, tells you everything you need to know about their coverage of political figures. It's tragic. And it's a very bad thing for America.
(I know...real grabber of an opening sentence, huh?)
Gore's 10 recommendations:
1. An immediate "carbon freeze" that would cap U.S. CO2 emissions at current levels, followed by a program to generate 90% reductions by 2050.
2. Start a long-term tax shift to reduce payroll taxes and increase taxes on CO2 emissions.
3. Put aside a portion of carbon tax revenues to help low-income people make the transition.
4. Create a strong international treaty by working toward "de facto compliance with Kyoto" and moving up the start date for Kyoto's successor from 2012 to 2010.
5. Implement a moratorium on construction of new coal-fired power plants that are not compatible with carbon capture and sequestration.
6. Create an "ELECTRANET" -- a smart electricity grid that allows individuals and businesses to feed power back in at prevailing market rates.
7. Raise CAFE standards.
8. Set a date for a ban on incandescent light bulbs.
9. Create "Connie Mae," a carbon-neutral mortgage association, to help defray the upfront costs of energy-efficient building.
10. Have the SEC require disclosure of carbon emissions in corporate reporting, as a relevant "material risk."
Now, we can debate the merits of each of those ideas individually, and, in fact, we should. And that's the whole point. These are serious proposals on a serious issue from a very smart person who is passionate about that issue, to be considered seriously.
I've said this here before: Al Gore has been one of my personal heroes since I was 13 and read his book Earth in the Balance. I always loved that he was unabashedly wonky, and that he chose to apply it on an issue that really mattered. It seemed to me that we needed more people like him in national politics. Over the years I've disagreed with Mr. Gore about any number of things--his advocacy for NAFTA comes to mind--but I still admire him enormously and think he'd have made a great president.
And watching Al Gore behave like a serious, intelligent adult, I can't help thinking back.
Back to the 2000 election, when the wonky, intelligent, serious Gore was trivialized by the media for two years, pundits harping on his clothing choices, challenging his masculinity and his American-ness, and making up phony quotes they could use to make fun of him. Meanwhile, the genuinely trivial lightwight running against him was welcomed by the press with all the warmth of a schoolchild with a crush. Ha ha, look at that nerd over there, they seemed to say. Isn't he a great big boring dork? Do you really expect us to spend time with HIS clique at D.C. cocktail parties for the next four years? Puh-LEEEEZE. George W. Bush is soooo much more fun. And that's the only important qualification for the most powerful job on the planet.
Two years later, when Bush was conning us into a war with easily-refuted claims about Saddam's aluminum tubes and mobile weapons labs and unmanned drones and chumminess with Osama bin Laden, the press rolled over and printed every word he said uncritically, and mocked anyone who dared to dissent as, oh so ironically, "unserious." And that included Al Gore.
In the fall of 2002, Gore gave a speech on Iraq which was, in hindsight, one of the most prophetic pre-war statements made by any public figure. He said, in part, "I don't think that we should allow anything to diminish our focus on avenging the 3,000 Americans who were murdered and dismantling the network of terrorists who we know to be responsible for it. The fact that we don't know where they are should not cause us to focus instead on some other enemy whose location may be easier to identify."
The whole speech is worth reading. And how did the press and the major pundits react? Almost universally, they derided Gore's speech. As "vile." As "dishonest." As "almost entirely free of facts." I believe it was Charles Krauthammer who suggested Gore had "gone off his medication."
It was the 2000 election coverage on steroids. Gore, the serious policy-minded person who had examined the facts and come to a conclusion that would prove correct, was mocked and trivialized in print. George W. Bush, the deeply unserious person with delusions of grandeur who was drunk on power and approval and marching the country into an unnecessary and disastrous war on laughably flimsy evidence, was treated as a great big serious leader.
As Milhouse Van Houten once said, "nerds are smart." Well, yes, Al Gore is a nerd. Good for him. More nerds should have more power. Popular C-student frat types should be the ones who get called "unserious." But I've been forced to conclude that the national press corps is mostly staffed with people who were nerds in school, were deeply scarred by the experience, and in their adulthood unconsciously make up for it by kissing up to the jocks of the political world, and smugly deriding the nerds.
It's their chance to be cool, and the fact that this has major policy implications for hundreds of millions of people seems not to register. This is why people who cover politicans should never, ever be allowed to socialize with them. They end up forming the same cliques they did back in prep school. And we all suffer.
Albert Gore, Jr., is a truly great American. George W. Bush is as unsuited to high office as anyone who has ever been president. The choice the media made in 2000, and for years after, tells you everything you need to know about their coverage of political figures. It's tragic. And it's a very bad thing for America.
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