Gore spoke before a closed UN building to hawk his new book, and revealed that cigarette smoking is a "significant contributor to Global Warming."
Why does anybody still take this guy seriously? He's losing it. We may maybe witnessing the breakdown of AL Gore. He must believe anything any kook with the any semblance of a scientific connection. What's next? Hot tea? Blow dryers?
Could you link Gore's words on the subject, please?
Posted by Paul Goldner (Member # 1910) on :
Hrm. Argument ad-hominem because you have no substance to refute gore's claims?
Posted by Stan the man (Member # 6249) on :
coffee is next. they are out to take everything away from me. Bob, they are after our coffee!
Realistically, I don't like Gore for various reasons. One stems from a friend of mine who is a protestant minister in TN. Gore just scared him. No emotion, nothing. Just a piece of wood at the podium.
Posted by Mig (Member # 9284) on :
Sorry, here's the background on his UN presentation.
Ahh, more party-hack politics.
Posted by Mig (Member # 9284) on :
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: Ahh, more party-hack politics.
If it makes you feel better to think that Gore isn't a nut, that anyone who points-out that Gore is going nuts is just a "party-hack," then do what ever floats your boat. Sure is easier than confronting the issue, or at the very least defending Gore if you think he's right.
Posted by Paul Goldner (Member # 1910) on :
Well, so far, you've done nothing other then toss ad-hominems, so there's no reason to defend him yet, other then point out that you're not actually arguing against what he said, but against the messenger.
Got an argument to make? Make it.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
I'm not going to 'confront the issue' with you, Mig. You're at the very least intellectually dishonest when it comes to discussing politics. Democrats are bad, Republicans are good, and if any evidence is offered which challenges that conclusion you have repeatedly in the past either ignored it or dismissed it as though it didn't matter, without ever really giving a sound rebuttal.
You're a party hack, Mig. Discussing politics with party hacks is tiresome. That particular brick wall is waiting for anyone's head who's willing, though.
Posted by Mig (Member # 9284) on :
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: I'm not going to 'confront the issue' with you, Mig. You're at the very least intellectually dishonest when it comes to discussing politics. Democrats are bad, Republicans are good, and if any evidence is offered which challenges that conclusion you have repeatedly in the past either ignored it or dismissed it as though it didn't matter, without ever really giving a sound rebuttal.
You're a party hack, Mig. Discussing politics with party hacks is tiresome. That particular brick wall is waiting for anyone's head who's willing, though.
I didn't think that pointing out a nutty Gore statement would hurt your feelings. You can disagree with people on an issue, you can disagree with people on the issues most of the time, but you shouldn't take the fact that some one disagrees with you or points out things you don't like so seriously and personally that that you have to resort to insults. Hopefully you'll grow out of this sensitivity and learn not to take differing political opinions and criticism of your political fellow travelers too personally.
Posted by Paul Goldner (Member # 1910) on :
"I didn't think that pointing out a nutty Gore statement would hurt your feelings"
Except you haven't pointed out a nutty gore statement yet. You've pointed out a statement that Gore MIGHT have made (we have no quotes yet), and you've said " He's losing it" but you've yet to actually show why the statement is "nutty."
Until you do that, you haven't actually made an argument. You've been a partisan hack.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
You haven't hurt my feelings, Mig. Not even once. And I only 'resorted to insults' after repeated attempts at rational discussion were ignored by you. Oh, and you're not a 'fellow political traveler', you're a party hack. That is both an insult and a pretty fair judgement.
We can take a poll if you'd like. While I will not discuss the Al Gore issue with you-you've shown repeated willingness to lie about Bill Clinton, to the point of acting as though the 9-11 Commission simply didn't happen, I will correct the false statements you make about me.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
I don't think he's referring to himself as a "fellow political traveler," but to your fellow left-wing liberal democrats.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Oh, right. I am, after all, a left-wing liberal Democrat.
I voted for Dubya twice though *shh!* Don't tell my fellow left-wing liberal Democrats, though, they'll get mad (and I'm pretty annoyed at how my pick turned out, too)
Posted by Morbo (Member # 5309) on :
Newsmax is the Mig of news webpages: conservative, gullible, and willing to make crap up.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
Does anyone actually have a transcript or something? Google is uncharacteristically unhelpful in this regard.
Posted by Morbo (Member # 5309) on :
Newsmax and/or Rush Limbaugh appear to be the primary sources--everything else that came up was just conservative blogs dittoing that.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
If Rush Limbaugh and Newsmax said it then we should have no reason to doubt the veracity of their statemennnsha ha ha ha ha ha
whoooooo
whoo.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: Could you link Gore's words on the subject, please?
quote: While Al Gore drifts into deeper darkness on the other side of the moon, propelled by such revelations as cigarette smoking is a "significant contributor to global warming," Sen. James Inhofe is becoming a one-man myth-wrecking crew.
This statement ties Gore's name to the statement but doesn't explicitly quote him- its a very poorly written article if it intends to appear objective (which I don't think it does). Regardless, this statement seems to suggest that Gore is "propelled" by the idea, but not that he in fact, himself, said it. I'll keep looking.
I find this gem to be particularly indicative of the quality of this article:
quote: There are enough scientists to fill a fleet of Humvees who can express scepticism over global warming, despite Gore's claims that the matter has been resolved in favor of his conclusions. But none has the forum a U.S. senator can command. With rare exceptions, scientists can marshal media attention on the climate change issue only by spouting the party line that man-made emissions are causing Earth to warm. That's the sort of stuff the press laps up like a starving dog.
As an argument, this article is so intellectually dishonest, it hurts (quoting Tom ).
This bit about the Humvees is cute, but that's obviously why it's in the article- because it doesn't really signify much. What is he trying to denigrate there? The scientists who are expressing schepticism are in humvees- what does that bode for his argument? And what does "could express skepticism" mean? Seems like most scientists are skepticle... its science.
quote: The most important audience, though, is among the Americans who have no links to science. They're the ones who have a lot to learn and will benefit the most from someone who has mass access to the public and is willing to challenge the widely -- and often uncritically -- accepted claims about climate change.
What does this article even mean? Its frankly wierd! He is demanding that people be educated by a loud voice with the backing of the media he has derided throughout the article, and then appealling to the people to do.. what? And what if we do challenge the "uncritically accepted" claims about climate change? And what about them goes uncriticised? Has he heard of peer reviews? Has he been on a university campus or in a board room, ever? And hasn't there been alot of loud opposition to ideas about global warming from people like him?
Still, the argument only works for him if he continues to assert that his is a question that hasn't been asked and answered in a thousand different ways by a million people already (my figures may not be accurate). If he acknowledges any real aspects of the debate, quotes a single paper from a scientist in a respected journal, then his call to arms is worthless. He is only asking for what he wouldn't accept if you gave it to him- (proof) and so people like him will apparently never give up doing.. whatever they do.
Edit: Mig- if you think alerting everyone here that this is the kind of article you seek out and put alot of stock in... then wow. Just wow.
[ October 01, 2006, 04:58 AM: Message edited by: Orincoro ]
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
The article seems to have strained to miss the fact that the scientific world has far more consensus on the reality of global warming than, say, legislators or pundits.
But whatever, let's go ahead and let Drudge Report, Newsmax, et. al. continue with their stunning record on journalistic honesty.
KEEP US POSTED, MIG
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Just out of curiosoty, is it actually obvious that cigarettes are not a contributor to global warming? Say perhaps a billion smokers, times maybe twenty cigarettes a day on average, times perhaps a gram of CO2 per cigarette. Comes to 20 tons of CO2 daily. Which, ok, is utterly trivial. So I guess it is obvious. I don't know why I'm still writing this post. Time for breakfast.
Posted by Will B (Member # 7931) on :
I think the reason nobody debunked Gore's claim that cigarette smoking is a significant factor in glboal warming is that it's obvious. KoM has pointed out that the net volume of cigarette smoke is trivial. I'll go further and point out that the tobacco got all that CO2 from the atmosphere. Burning tobacco doesn't increase the net CO2 because all that CO2 was put into the tobacco the year the crops were grown. It's being recycled, not created.
Same goes for other crops, which are burned for fuel or "burned" as food.
If it were a choice between smoking the cigarettes and wrapping them in plastic and burying them forever, it would make a difference to the net CO2 in the atmosphere, but a trivial amount. That's assuming CO2 changes have an effect on global temperatures.
Really, I don't get the reason for attacking the press in all this. It wasn't the press that made a silly claim.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
It isn't yet shown that it was Gore, either.
On the subject of smoking, though, it occurs to me that I was looking at the wrong end. How much CO2 from fossil fuels is being released into the atmosphere by driving cigarettes around, by modern agriculture in growing it, and so on?
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Really, I don't get the reason for attacking the press in all this. It wasn't the press that made a silly claim.
The issue is really that this particular news story has a shady origin. It's a hack piece which has only been traded among a select cadre of frequently disreputable and platitudinous hard-right news sources, and the beliefs attributed to Gore are 'substantiated' by a context-less sound bite which is literally not even a complete sentence, so it's likely that he's been quoted entirely out of context and his claims taken entirely outside of belief and meaning.
The press isn't under assault. It's just that people are rightly suspect of a story which happens not to exist outside of a pocket of biased sources with no journalistic integrity, and perhaps these same people are astounded that anyone would not know better than to trust them as news sources and parrot incensing and ridiculous claims from them without some form of legit corroboration.
Posted by sylvrdragon (Member # 3332) on :
My opinion of Al Gore is not very high... but my opinion on global warming can pretty much be summed up by this: Global Warming is a Hoax!
I think Global Warming is on the BOTTOM of the list of things that we as a WORLD should be worrying about.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
What's at the top?
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
An elephant on the back of a giant tortoise.
Posted by Paul Goldner (Member # 1910) on :
Beware the coming of the [url= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Races_and_species_in_The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy]GREAT GREEN ARKLE SEIZURE[/url]
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Mig:
If you want to mock what someone said, you need to produce a reliable record of what was said.
It's really that simple. Until then, you're simply hurting your cause.
Posted by Libbie (Member # 9529) on :
quote:Originally posted by Mig: Gore spoke before a closed UN building to hawk his new book, and revealed that cigarette smoking is a "significant contributor to Global Warming."
WHAT.
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
"tobacco got all that CO2 from the atmosphere. Burning tobacco doesn't increase the net CO2 because all that CO2 was put into the tobacco the year the crops were grown. It's being recycled, not created. Same goes for other crops, which are burned for fuel or "burned" as food."
"I think Global Warming is on the BOTTOM of the list of things that we as a WORLD should be worrying about."
How do you feel about Global Extinction?
Posted by Samarkand (Member # 8379) on :
Ahh, but I do enjoy skiing and scuba diving ever so much . . . so in a strictly selfish sense, I really can't support activities which interfere with my leisure. And while I have high hopes that India and China will eventually just duke it out with each other, and the leave the US and any descendants of mine well out of it, I'm not sure I ought to engage in activities which accelerate the speed with which the people living there run out of things like, I dunno, food and water . . .
... he seems like a reasonable guy. I think? Someone should give him a correction on the urban heat island phenom.
Posted by Will B (Member # 7931) on :
It is true that tobacco farming (like all other kinds of farming) uses fossil fuel. However, the quote spoke about cigarette smoke, not tractor fuel.
I haven't been able to find a transcript. According to NewsMax, the UN originally agreed to provide an audio recording, but is now refusing to provide information. I wouldn't bet against it showing up on Internet in a couple of days anyway.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
Amazing. Somebody comes up with a quote like this, and its hard to verify. I can't believe it!
Im willing to place my bet now on this: somebody who Gore in some way supported at one time or another, or who at one time contributed to a Gore project of some kind or another, or who Gore at one time endorsed for one reason or another, said this, and maybe it was a joke. That turns into: Gore supports the notion that smoking is a significant CO2 contributor, which turns into: Gor just said that CO2 is a significan CO2 contributor, which Mig turns into: OMG LOLZ!!!!! ROFL!!! GORE IS SUCH A TOOL YO! CHECKIT!
Posted by Tarrsk (Member # 332) on :
Aw, come on, guys, we should give the interweb pundits the benefit of the doubt. After all, they wouldn't post something if it weren't true, right?
In other news, Bill Clinton hates babies and Donald Rumsfeld harpoons a dolphin every morning just to watch it die.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Oh, Miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiig! Hey Mig? Mig, are you there? Paging Mr. Mig!
So do you have anything which indicates Al Gore actually said this stuff, or not? Or will this be yet another instance of you cutting and running?
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