Al Gore has complained on Norwegian television that the theory of man-made global warming is under attack by a conspiracy of special interests. Among those conspirators, in the thinking of Mr. Gore, are oil and coal companies, who expended $500 million last year on television advertisements to question this theory. This "massive, organized campaign" has changed the whole dynamics of the climate-change debate, Gore conceded. He stated that there are lobbyists opposing climate changes for every member of Congress.
Gore also denies that he has become a "Carbon Billionaire," noting only that he had been fortunate in his business investments since leaving office at the end of 2000. If that is true, the former Vice President has certainly been more successful than large numbers of investors who have specialized in studying economic trends and who have lost money in the market over the last decade. Given the policy positions taken by Gore, it is highly unlikely that he would have risked investing in politically incorrect enterprises or that the "carbon footprint" of his investment portfolio would not be seriously tilted toward what he stood for publicly.
It is also interesting that Al Gore has been silent about the very real academic fraud in East Anglia. The absence of intellectual debate, at least in the hives of academia, on global warming — despite the public questioning of man-made global warming by respected meteorologists and scientists — might suggest a campaign to adopt as holy scientific writ the notion of manmade global warming. Instead, the former Vice President seems to believe that the conspiratorial machinations are all from those who would delight in despoiling our planet.
How many years ago was it when Hillary Clinton complained on national television about a “vast rightwing conspiracy”? Those Americans who have historically been placed by political scientists as on the “Right” are surely the least homogenous group of Americans around, and those Americans are least likely of conceiving — much less participating in — a conspiracy. It is the rather independent thinking on "the Right," untouched by the tenured and subsidized officials of the climate-change industry, that has provided most of the original debate about this issue.
One might suspect those who hide or, even, destroy data were the ones with something who had an agenda separated from scientific truth. The infamous dicta in the East Anglia e-mails was peppered with certain words like “trick” and “hide,” which are usually associated with people involving in a silent campaign of sort of fraud. One might also suspect that a Nobel Prize for, essentially, doing nothing indicated that a concerted and concealed campaign was behind it. Still, the former Vice President is entitled to his opinion.
And also, for now, are his critics.
Photo: AP Images
