The Real Inconvenient Truth…

Al Gore testifying.

It has been suggested that I do a little research before telling the author of “An inconvenient Truth” to KMA.  So I did.  What I discovered is that a man who said that all the money that he was making from global warming awareness was being given to a charity to help inform and educate, can’t be telling the whole inconvenient truth.  In fact he didn’t tell the truth in front of a Senate committee.  In May 2010 he bought a $9 million ocean-side property when his stated wealth in 2000 was $2 million.  He also bought the property without using his name, to avoid the certain “bad” press and the questions about how “green” his new mansion is.  He is also profiting handsomely from his investments in “green” companies whose profits are being skyrocketed by his message and the liberal press.  And if that’s not enough to question his message, he’s done all this during record unemployment and one of the worst recessions in history.     

What about the issue?  That glaciers are melting, weather patterns are getting more severe.  more sunspots, etc. etc.  Well, frankly, there’s a lot of inconvenient truth to it.  CO2 emissions have been growing at an astounding rate, (20% since 1990) and long before Al Gore saw it as a way to make millions by scaring the shit out of us with a book and a documentary film.  But the only solution to lowering GHG or Green House Gases is not driving cars, not using landfills, not raising cattle, sheep and pigs, not heating with fossil fuels, no refrigeration, and stop cutting trees down.  And that is world-wide, not just here in the US.  (You all remember the pictures of Beijing during the Olympics.)  There are some natural cycles and events that are responsible for global warming as well.

How likely is it that those things are going to happen?  In my lifetime?  In a hundred years?  In a million years?  You are going to have to flat-line population growth and do it now for one thing.  And did Al Gore have an impact on social consciousness?  Absolutely, and it was, without a doubt, a good thing.  Don’t forget though, Al didn’t do the research, he just became the spokesman.  What I have issue with is how rich he’s made himself over it.  Was it a causal effect?  To a certain extent it was.  Most of us got excited about changing our lifestyles, however insignificantly, to save the planet.  The real inconvenient truth is that those lifestyle changes will have little or no effect on the current problem.  Whether you want to admit it or not, it’s the use of fossil fuels and the mismanagement of global forests that are the paramount cause of the increase in CO2 levels worldwide.

    

The Big Three. Ford, Edison and Firestone.

I can’t believe that we can’t come up with a better mode of transportation than the car, or that we haven’t been able to at least create an alternative fuel, or figured out a way to eliminate CO2 emissions completely from fossil fuel combustion.  The first self-powered vehicle was invented in 1769.  That vehicle used steam.  The first gas-powered vehicle in commercial production was the Duryea Motor Wagon.  Brothers Charles and Frank Duryea first successful test of that vehicle was in 1893.  Now I ask you, in 118 years we have not been able to come up with a more efficient way of propelling a personal vehicle, or a synthetic fuel that has no CO2 emission?  Just can’t believe it.  Because, in fact, we have come up with better ways.  It’s just that they have never been commercially viable until now.  For those of you who might not know, Mrs. Clara Ford had an electric car, a Detroit Model 47 Brougham, in 1914!  Some think the failure of electric cars in the 1900’s was because they were marketed to women, and hardly anyone owned more than one vehicle, if any, in those early days.  Thomas Edison, “Mr. Electric”, as legend has it, told Henry Ford that gas-powered was the way to go.  The electric car shouldn’t be in it’s “infancy” except for the fact that gasoline was plentiful and cheap.   Not so anymore.

 

 

 

So, Al Gore can still KMA a long time ago.  Not because his message wasn’t important or true, but because he has managed to profit significantly from that message.  At least tell me what stocks to buy, Al.  WTF