Tuesday, May 30, 2006
DEFECTS WILL DESTROY US
“It’s a shame that environmental action is a partisan issue,” writes the Michigan Daily’s Theresa Kennelly. “Democrats and Republicans both breathe the same air, and only if the federal government steps in to combat rapidly increasing greenhouse gas emissions will we maintain an ample supply of fresh air for everyone to breathe.”
Otherwise we’ll all choke to death! Kennelly’s premonition is brought about by Al Gore’s new movie, in which the wooden (it’s a compliment) ex-VP promises total doom unless we elect a tree as Jesus and recycle our housepets. Further views on Gore and his cinematic adventure:
* Actor Leonardo DiCaprio: “Go See ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ when it comes to your town! Gore is funny, engaging, open and downright on fire about getting the surprisingly stirring truth about what he calls our ‘planetary emergency’ out to ordinary citizens before it’s too late.”
* Climate guy Dr. Robert C. Balling Jr: “The Kyoto Protocol was negotiated in December 1997, giving the Clinton-Gore administration more than three years to present it to the Senate for ratification. Given Gore’s knowledge and passion for global warming, you wonder why the vice president didn’t seize on the opportunity of a lifetime?”
* The Kansas City Star: “Al Gore’s fortune and soaring Google stock could help him launch a White House race anytime he likes, Democratic insiders tell the New York Post’s Deborah Orin. Gore has served as a senior adviser to Google since 2001.”
* The Guardian’s Gary Younge: “Where was this Al Gore six years ago when he stood for president? Indeed where was he 14 years ago when he stood for vice president? Where was he when Clinton signed Kyoto but would not honour it? Where was this Al Gore when big business was bankrolling his campaign?”
* The NYT’s Paul Krugman: “Al Gore and others who hope to turn global warming into a real political issue are going to have to get tougher, because the other side doesn’t play by any known rules.”
* Jay D. Homnick on Gore’s Saturday Night Live turn: “Gore not only jested, he attempted to laugh. Look at the two pictures in the USA Today article about his appearance; have you ever seen a more strained and ghastly rictus?”
* Jonah Goldberg notes Gore’s claim that his 15th summer was spent “study[ing] the existentialists — Sartre, Camus” at the Cannes Film Festival: “According to David Maraniss’ biography of Gore, the former vice president’s 15th summer was spent working on the family farm. Remember those stories about how Al Sr. said, ‘A boy could never be president if he couldn’t plow with that damned hillside plow’? That was the same summer. Apparently, Poppa Gore thought a boy who couldn’t both plow a field and parlez French existentialism could never be president either.”
* The New Hampshire Union Leader: “It is conveniently forgotten today that former Vice President Al Gore, among other leftists, once advocated that the government artificially raise gas prices to discourage oil consumption. With the market having set gasoline at an average price of just under $3 a gallon, some interesting things are happening. For one, leftists are proclaiming their outrage at the high price of gas.”
* Al Gore: “We face a challenge in the conversation of democracy that we must be up to in order to save the climate balance on which our civilisation depends.”
* More Gore: “Will there come a time decades from now when our children or their children will ask of us, ‘What were they thinking? Why didn’t they react? Didn’t they see the evidence? Were they too distracted or too busy? Didn’t they care?’”
* The Guardian’s Richard Smith: “As I write, Al Gore is doing his pitch on global warming at the Hay Festival ... I have no confidence that our species will survive. Selfishness means we cannot make the changes we need to make: people will not give up their cars, their foreign holidays, their central heating, their meat-eating and all the other pursuits that guzzle energy and poison the planet ... these are the defects that will destroy us.”