I haven't checked out either what T. Boone Pickens is proposing on energy (I've just seen his TV commercial suggesting we can do a lot with renewables like wind power) nor have I checked out WeCanSolveIt.org, the new effort from Al Gore (but I caught part of his speech to the NetRoots Nation conference on CSPAN), but I like that these things are popping up and gaining some traction. Would it be catastrophic if half of Florida ended up slowly submerging under water, or if upstate New York had milder winters? Probably not, the Earth has changed climates and surface area over the millenia a bunch of times, and we'll adapt. But we risk a collapse of our society and a slip into pestilence and feudalism; into disease and subsistence living rather than the society of opportunity that we have now, where many people can live long, safe, healthy lives in the pursuit of their own fulfillment, if we don't handle the energy situation and its fallout into food production and climate change.
I saw this article on the tenuousness of ice at the north pole. I already know that my children are growing up when there was always an Internet, when everyone has a phone, and most people have one on their belt or in their purse; when there is air-conditioning if it's hot out and heat if it's cold and cars and planes take us everywhere. I knew that technology was ubiquitous. But I also thought that they would grow up with basically the same planet as I did. But it seems that now it may be the easiest way for my kids to get to the North Pole is to just take a boat -- no dog sleds or snowmobiles needed, just sail up there and watch the sun circle around you. And that there will be no snow in Africa, not even on Kilimanjaro. I've lived half as long at this point as my maternal grandmother lived, and she saw the growth of the automobile and the birth of the airplane and television and, toward the end, the Internet. I didn't think I would be, but I may be in for a span just as wide.
Showing posts with label Al Gore. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Al Gore. Show all posts
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Best Ex-VP and Obama for your Stocks
I've said that Jimmy Carter is the best ex-President of my lifetime, now I'm thinking that Al Gore is our best ex-Vice President. Not that he has a whole heckuvalot of competition.
I was never a big Al Gore fan while Bill Clinton was in office, nor while he was running for President, but I finally watched his movie this weekend, An Inconvenient Truth. I tend to steer away from this type of films, like I haven't seen any of Michael Moore's films since Roger and Me. (I know someone with an editting credit on that one, though he doesn't show up on IMDB.) They tend to make my blood boil or make me feel like I'm wasting my career, or both. But I watched and it was compelling, and somniferous at the same time. Al Gore himself is the dull part, although there are spotty bits of true humor. His presentation though is strong. Like comparing the current denials and "balanced reporting" on global warming to the counter-propaganda of 40 years ago from the cigarette companies. He debunks the "balance" with facts like that in a survey of 968 peer reviewed scientific papers on global warming, exactly zero of them found that humans were not a cause. That, yes, there have been historic "warm" periods as recently as the middle ages, but there has never been carbon dioxide at its current level in the atmosphere, never above 300 parts per million, it's currently above 370 ppm. Ouch. And he squeezes the current administration on twisting the arms of scientists and editting their reports. That's something I hope the next White House reverses.
Which leads me to point at an interesting editorial from Ken Fisher, a self made billionaire and fiscal conservative who sees an Obama Presidency as not necessarily bad for Wall Street in his latest article (since these tend to disappear after a few weeks, here's the salient quote: "First, years in which Democrats capture the White House are usually bullish years for the stock market. Second, inaugural years following a Democratic win in November are better than Republican inaugural years.")
I was never a big Al Gore fan while Bill Clinton was in office, nor while he was running for President, but I finally watched his movie this weekend, An Inconvenient Truth. I tend to steer away from this type of films, like I haven't seen any of Michael Moore's films since Roger and Me. (I know someone with an editting credit on that one, though he doesn't show up on IMDB.) They tend to make my blood boil or make me feel like I'm wasting my career, or both. But I watched and it was compelling, and somniferous at the same time. Al Gore himself is the dull part, although there are spotty bits of true humor. His presentation though is strong. Like comparing the current denials and "balanced reporting" on global warming to the counter-propaganda of 40 years ago from the cigarette companies. He debunks the "balance" with facts like that in a survey of 968 peer reviewed scientific papers on global warming, exactly zero of them found that humans were not a cause. That, yes, there have been historic "warm" periods as recently as the middle ages, but there has never been carbon dioxide at its current level in the atmosphere, never above 300 parts per million, it's currently above 370 ppm. Ouch. And he squeezes the current administration on twisting the arms of scientists and editting their reports. That's something I hope the next White House reverses.
Which leads me to point at an interesting editorial from Ken Fisher, a self made billionaire and fiscal conservative who sees an Obama Presidency as not necessarily bad for Wall Street in his latest article (since these tend to disappear after a few weeks, here's the salient quote: "First, years in which Democrats capture the White House are usually bullish years for the stock market. Second, inaugural years following a Democratic win in November are better than Republican inaugural years.")
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