Gore To Congress: Climate Change Bill As Important As Civil Rights Legislation
EmailHere’s a reporter’s notebook from an ABC News staffer at today’s House hearings on climate change:
Former Vice President Al Gore came to Capitol Hill to support what he called "one of the most important pieces of legislation ever introduced in the Congress."
Mr. Gore was one of more than 60 witnesses this week at the House hearings on Congressman Henry Waxman’s proposed Climate Change bill. Gore said he believes the legislation "has the moral significance equivalent to that of the civil rights legislation of the 1960’s and the Marshall Plan of the late 1940’s…Passage of this legislation will restore America’s leadership of the world and begin, at long last, to solve the climate crisis. It is truly a moral imperative".
Gore gave the committee a list of nightmare scenarios which he believes are growing increasingly likely: the disappearance of the Arctic ice cap “in as little as five years if nothing is done”; the warming of the Antarctic peninsula at three to five times the global average; the disappearance of salmon off the California coast; and forests that “may lose their carbon-regulating service…entirely if the earth heats up 2.5 degrees Centigrade”; to name a few.
The former Vice President says he recognizes the potential for job losses that would come with Waxman’s bill. "We ought,” he said, "to guarantee good jobs for any coal miner displaced by impacts on the coal industry."
And in a dig at the previous administration, Gore told the committee the country cannot afford "more years of sending $2 billion every 24 hours to foreign countries for oil. And our soldiers and their families cannot take another 10 years of repeated troop deployments to regions that just happen to have large oil supplies."
There was a heated exchange during the hearing. Representative Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) challenged Gore’s integrity on the issue and suggested he was looking to profit from the passage of the bill. To which Gore replied, “If that is what you believe, then you she did not know me."
Up next at the hearing, former Congressman Newt Gingrich, who acknowledges the gravity of climate change but is very critical of the bill. Gingrich argues it’s a heavy-handed, high-taxing, economy-stifling piece of legislation. As our reporter said – "Gore and Gingrich never crossed paths, but from their testimony it seemed they were from different planets."
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Ok, the day they approve the Global Warming laws in Great Britain, it snows-in October. The UK got record snows in January. The United States was an iceberg this year with record cold. It snowed in Bethlehem. And how about this from USA Today this month:
“New flow measurements for the Ross ice streams, using special satellite-based radars, indicate that movement of some of the ice streams has slowed or halted, allowing the ice to thicken, according to a paper in the Jan. 18 issue of the journal Science.
If the thickening is not merely part of some short-term fluctuation, it represents a reversal of the long retreat of the ice, say researchers Ian Joughin of the California Institute of Technology and Slawek Tulaczyk of the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Their finding comes less than a week after a separate paper in Nature reported that Antarctica’s harsh desert valleys — long considered a bellwether for global climate change — have grown noticeably cooler since the mid-1980s.”
So…why are we doing this bill again?
But then why let the FACTS distort a good fantasy? Gore dreams of Global Warming while the rest of us are freezing our butts off.
Sounds like the Noble Prize folks need to ask for their money back!
Posted by: Trimelda | April 24, 2009, 5:00 pm 5:00 pm
Gosh, just coincidentally our boy Al is heavily invested in firms that will be intimately involved in brokering carbon cap and trade. America, you are buying a scam that will give more control to the socialist government, bring the country down economically, and solve nothing. Wake up before the USA is gone.
Posted by: Ken Stewart | April 24, 2009, 5:14 pm 5:14 pm
Gore is an empty stuffed suit.
Posted by: Sluggo | April 24, 2009, 5:20 pm 5:20 pm
I like Al Gore, even the fat version 2.13.
He’d have a lot more credibility if he considered both sides of the scientific debate on Global Warming regarding whether man is causing it or not.
(sigh)
Posted by: Noz | April 24, 2009, 5:51 pm 5:51 pm
Al Gore is a FAKE with capital letters. He lives in a big mansion that uses more energy than any small town of 1500 people in a given day. He might believe what he says but he should practice what he preaches. He just needed more money now that he’s no longer the V.P. & has to pay his own bills. He should be investigated as to how much electricity & water his family uses in one month. I have a picture of his house & how much energy he’s using. So I know what I’m talking about.
Posted by: mswhipples | April 24, 2009, 5:52 pm 5:52 pm
Al stands to gain big bucks for this bill. Big bucks to live his comfortable life while coal miners will loose theirs. Well “we must make sure the miners get good jobs to replace the jobs that they will loose” he says.
Al, in case you didn’t know, we already have 6 or 7 million people looking for work now, people who can’t find anything and you want more out looking for work?
Pure unadultered greed on behalf of Gore and the rest of his fear mungers.
Posted by: david | April 24, 2009, 6:49 pm 6:49 pm
Gore should disclose how many millions he has made on the Global Warming quest. No wonder he pushes it so hard!!!!
Posted by: smith | April 24, 2009, 7:05 pm 7:05 pm
How come I just heard that Rep. Henry Waxman actually REFUSED entry to one of the Republicans’ witnesses that was scheduled to be present at the meeting — Lord Christopher Monckton, Third Viscount Monckton of Brenchley — a global warming expert and a former policy advisor to Margaret Thatcher during her years as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
Per Lord Monckton and confirmed per the BBC News (11 Oct 07) –
“A High Court judge who ruled on whether climate change film, An Inconvenient Truth, could be shown in schools said it contains nine scientific ‘errors’.
“Mr Justice Burton said the government could still send the film to schools – if accompanied by guidance giving the other side of the argument…
“…Mr Justice Burton said he had no complaint about Gore’s central thesis that climate change was happening and was being driven by emissions from humans. However, the judge said nine statements in the film were not supported by mainstream scientific consensus.
“In his final verdict, the judge said the film could be shown as long as updated guidelines were followed.
“These say teachers should point out controversial or disputed sections.”
Was it deemed too inconvenient for all of the truth to be included? Talk about manipulating a political agenda!
Posted by: Not_as_stupid_as_Congress_hope | April 24, 2009, 7:42 pm 7:42 pm
Some 20,000 scientists and engineers across the United States signed a petition stating that carbon dioxide is not causing any climate change or global warming, and is not a causative greenhouse gas. The only greenhouse gas in this planet’s atmosphere is water vapor, and the only global-warming pollution is the hot air coming from the idiots in Congress who want to codify this sort of junk-science into law.
Posted by: Ed Taylor | April 24, 2009, 8:24 pm 8:24 pm
The Department of Energy was instituted on 8-04-1977
TO LESSEN OUR DEPENDENCE ON FOREIGN OIL.
Hey, pretty efficient, huh?????
AND NOW IT ‘ S 2009, 32 YEARS LATER … AND THE BUDGET FOR THIS
NECESSARY DEPARTMENT IS AT $24.2 BILLION A YEAR
THEY HAVE 16,000 FEDERAL EMPLOYEES AND APPROXIMATELY100,000 CONTRACT EMPLOYEES
AND LOOK AT THE JOB THEY HAVE DONE!
THIS IS WHERE YOU SLAP YOUR FOREHEAD AND SAY ‘ WHAT WAS I THINKING? ‘
Ah yes, good ole bureaucracy.
And NOW we are going to turn the Banking System & the Auto Industry over to them?
God Help Us !!!
Posted by: Ed Taylor | April 24, 2009, 8:26 pm 8:26 pm
Did Al fly in his private jet or float up the Potomac in his 100 foot houseboat? Either way, this guy is a hypocrite and all he asks is little people live little as he yuks it up and makes money. Another politician who should be staked when the revolution comes.
Posted by: Barry O'Carter ll | April 24, 2009, 10:23 pm 10:23 pm
Al – it’s time to forget this foolishness about global warming. Time to move on!
Posted by: Linda | April 25, 2009, 11:07 pm 11:07 pm
…Right on, Bro!..What has happened to the US A?..It’ now USW WORLD!! This govt. that the power elite has been running and ruining, Is Pathetic!! Always blame the WORKING MAN!! Have BaraK(?), Gore, Hillary , et al, ever had a real job where they actually had to get THEIR Hands Dirty?!! Of course not! Theyv’e all fed at the Public Trough , known as WASH. D. C. ..Reagan was only the first idiot! CIA BUSH, China-Doll Bill ANTI-UNION Wal-Mart Puppet, L’ll Bush and Vice (…oops!..) President Bg OIL-BIG CROOKS Cheney, A truly insane and Evil Person, OBAMA(OAla-BAMA) His hiring of The IVY-Towered..OOPS!..Ivy League Morons : hired 17 of 20 IVY LEAGURES..Where The Hell are the Farmers, Teamsters, samall business owners, Union persons, Unemployed and Under-Employed??? The single MOM’s The Unemployed US AAA Vets ?/ And Why can’t the rest of us get any representation?..For God’s SAke Geitner (h)?..He helped destroy the damn Economy!! Now The Ruling ELITE Say it’s OKAY to get rid of Coal-Miners?!! Remember the first round of REtRaining LIE!! How many of the old Steelworkers and AutoWorkers and ALL THE OTHER small -outsourced CITIZENS got Retrained, or for that matter, Re-HIRED?/ OBAMA is worse than Corker , and Billy-Boy Shelby!!!
Posted by: Dave Bailey | April 26, 2009, 4:41 am 4:41 am
A lot of Pseudo-Science being spewed by commenter’s here !!
Trimelda,
We will see if the comments in your post hold true. I hope they will, but I doubt it…..
Nothing would please me more than to see this problem go away (problem as in GW, not as in just a cessation of discussing the topic – unless GW actually does go away).
The following is my take on this issue: (and I actually have a background in Natural Resources)
—First off – I believe Global Warming is a very serious “Very Real- Man Induced” problem.
However, I do not believe the US is to blame. All we did was develop technologies that the rest of the world would have, if they could have. We were, and are, simply more technologically advanced[ [and the world is very jealous of this, and therefore all the criticism, not to mention that we are the worlds only Superpower, and the world is also jealous of that. Kyoto is as much an attempt to undermine our economy as an attempt to solve Global Warming. Much of the world is just using it as an Economic Tool against us – and many people in the US see this for exactly what it is, Hypocrisy,….. and much of the world knows we know. Probably the main reason even Clinton and Gore would not truly support Kyoto]].
Having a degree in Natural Resources I think the evidence (about global warming) is very Clear and Convincing ‘today’. However, I was not really sure until about 1995, even though I started seeing strong evidence around about 1985. At that point a noticeable warm up started (at least where I was living, & others said they noticed it also, in my area & elsewhere). In my opinion the evidence gradually got stronger till 95, when I thought the evidence was strong enough (and has only gotten stronger, today it is downright scary – the Arctic Ice Cap Meltdown – not funny). So, I really don’t think you can blame us till then (95), and many still don’t (or don’t want to) see it, & not just in the US. However, since 95 the US has made many moves (on many fronts) to combat the problem, and many other countries are dragging their feet, or have been given a free pass (the main Kyoto problem). One of the biggest examples here is China…..but there are others.
The world says it is our Industry that caused the problem (they don’t talk about Britain, and other Industrialized nations as much), but it is also probably mostly ‘Our Technology’ that is going to solve it……………….[I could also throw in many examples of other countries stealing our technology on the international market (weak international patent protections, and many anti-US countries want it that way), the vast majority of SE Asian Industries are built on Appropriated US Technology……. Etc., Etc…………………….…
Our Technology and Industry also saved the world in WWI, WWII, and the Cold War (not to mention other situations). If we had not spent all those years developing various Industries, and Aircraft, & Jeeps, & Tanks, & Ships the afore-mentioned wars would have been lost [[prior to Pearl Harbor the only modern Fighter Plane in SE Asia, other than a Japanese model, was the P-40 Curtis Hawk (Flying Tigers), not a great plane but it kept China from falling]]. We had to use Trains & Trucks to move parts from factory to factory. It took factories to build trains & trucks also, and they had to burn fuel (all this putting carbon in the atmosphere, etc). All those planes, & jeeps, & tanks, & ships etc also burned fuel etc., etc., etc. Not to mention when ours, or the other side’s material got destroyed & released carbon.
Our Industry saved the world on several occasions, and continues to as ‘Our Agriculture’ saves substantial portions of the planet from starvation every year (also, we have established MANY Democracies around the world,….. how many has Russia or China established !!!). So when people talk about this situation as if ‘we’ are the only beneficiaries of such Industrialization, then they should look at history again, more objectively. If not for us, much of the world could today be under Japanese Imperialism, or Nazism, or USSR domination……… or Starvation……….’Comprende’.
The rest of the world has ‘As Much a Responsibility’ to solve this problem as we do,
So, THEY SHOULD STOP BALKING, and cut the EXCUSES.
—-
One final comment to you GW deniers: what are you actually going to do if the warming does occur, you seem so “Oblivious” to it !!!!!
Posted by: Mr Reality | April 26, 2009, 3:49 pm 3:49 pm
Ole’ Al is at it again, I see, trying to push his very unscientifice & flawed piece-of-crap trophy–climate change junk legislation. So what Artic ice is going to disappear. Maybe its really a good thing–better for ships navigation and new oil & drilling possibilities.
Galen
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