He is always good for a chuckle (h/t Newsbusters)
(The Independent) In an extraordinary outburst aimed at America’s failure to tackle global warming, Al Gore says that if scientific agreement on the climate crisis had been reached sooner it would have been easier to "galvanise the public and persuade Congress to act".
"The nature and severity of the climate crisis had seemed painfully obvious to me for quite a long time," claims Mr Gore, writing in a new foreword to a revised edition of his book, Earth in the Balance, being published this week.
In a swipe at the scientific community, he says: "I wish that we could have had in the 1990s the deafening scientific consensus that has emerged in more recent years."
If memory serves, Al was a Senator for two of those years, and Vice President for another eight. I suppose it was someone else who was supposed to "do something."
Mr Gore accuses his nemesis, President George Bush, of having taken "virtually no steps to address the problem. Worse, he and Vice President Cheney have led the nation in precisely the wrong direction."
Mr Gore claims that concerns over the environment formed his "principal agenda for eight years in the White House". But he is light on details of what he did while in office, beyond a brief mention of his work with the Kyoto treaty (which was never ratified by Congress).
During his tenure as vice president, America’s carbon dioxide emissions shot up far faster than at any time in modern history – by 15 per cent, compared to just 1.65 per cent during President Bush’s first term. (emphasis mine)
I have the feeling that The Independent does much care for blowhards who self style themselves as scientists and champions of the environment, yet fail to actually "do something."
