Gore's hypocrisy is apparently even greater than we thought. Bill Hobbes explains.

And I agree with him (and Glenn Reynolds) that there are lots of non-GW reasons to reduce our use of fossil fuels. When the enviros get serious about this, and stop looking for excuses to abandon technologies, and run our lives through watermelon social-control schemes, there will be lots of solutions, including nuclear ones.

[Late-afternoon update]

Some interesting thoughts on Al Gore's motives:

If he believed what he was saying on its own merits, then he would be behaving differently. Since his behavior and his rhetoric do not match, we learn something about him: that there is likely some other motivation for his policy preferences.

Those policy preferences - limit carbon, mandate the use of certain technologies, restrict land use, etc. - all seem to entail increasing governmental control over the economy. Mr. Gore’s actual motivation would appear to a fair-minded observer to be a desire to increase government power in the economic sphere - and environmental concern over global climate change is simply the convenient rhetorical tool to flog in the service of that agenda.

Wasn't I just talking about watermelons?

[Update]

Iowahawk has a program to allow sinners to repent.

Caution--high amusement factor.

The Environmental community is turning around pretty hard
on Nuclear power, of course the electrical industry
needs long term low rate financing and to lower capital
costs and increase reliability too.

The french and japanese use lots of nuclear power with
very few problems, the US industry is problematic,
the russian industry disastrous.

The US needs a long term waste storage system
to cap the fuel cycle or to make practical
recycling technology.

AS for the extremists, i have no idea.

Rand

You need to read Earth in the Balance to understand Al Gore. The increase in government control over our lives is the result of his deeply felt environmental beliefs. I am one of the last people in the universe that would support Gore but I do think that he is doing this from his core beliefs.

Central to his belief structure is that there is no technological solution to the bascially techological problems that confront our global civilization. This drives him toward co-opting the power of government to reach the ends that he thinks the world must move toward.

Gore bought the the whole "Limits to Growth" thing hook, line, & sinker.

I do think that he is doing this from his core beliefs.

Did I ever say otherwise? I'm sure he's doing so. So much so that he can't even see the hypocrisy in what he does. Energy conservation for thee, but not for me...

When someone promotes onething, but actually does the opposite, as Gore and Hoolywood liberals do, they demonstrate that they lack the insight to understand that their words and actions are not consistant. This is an example of narcistic personality disorder. In other words, they are mentally ill.

This drives him toward co-opting the power of government to reach the ends that he thinks the world must move toward.

Sounds familiar. Sounds like the 20th Century.

I wonder if Gore's carbon credit payments are tax-deductible contributions.

Simberg and his Republican cohorts show their true troglodyte colors once again. Killer trees anyone?

Hmmmm, Wiktionary.org appears to be verboten by Yahoo.

I don't care if global warming is real. I think it's very important to attack Gore. He's a Democrat and I hate him. Facts are irrelevant.

"I don't care if global warming is real."

Neither does Al Gore, despite all his over-the-top rhetoric. Actions speak louder than words, as the old saying goes.

"I don't care if global warming is real."

Neither does Al Gore, despite all his over-the-top rhetoric. Actions speak louder than words, as the old saying goes.

ELIMINATE ALL DEMOCRATS

E LIM I NATE
E LIM I NATE

The Green Bible According to Algore...

In the beginning Algore created the internet and the Love Story.

2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of Algore was hovering over the waters.

3 And Algore said, "Let there be the Internet" and there was Internet. 4 Algore saw that the internet was good, and He separated the internet from the love story. 5 Algore called the internet "cool," and the love story he called "mine and tippers." And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

16 And the Algore commanded all men, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of motor vehicles, air conditioning and crapping indoors, for when you drive, feel comfortable and crap indoors you will surely melt the polar ices caps, flood the shore lines, kill the trees and then you shall die."

But Algore says to men, "You should do as I say, not as I do", thus spoke Algore to men.

Awful lot of Moby's in this thread.

Your second Watermelons link is missing a quotation mark between the link itself and the %20target=

It looks (and works) fine for me.

Ah, the problem was on the link to "interesting thoughts." And it looks and works fine in Firefox, but not IE. Fixed now.

Whoops, I suppose when I go about correcting you I really ought to make sure that *I'm* right, heh.

I certainly agree with Rand that there are good reasons for getting away from fossil fuel usage having nothing to do with global warming. The problem with people like Al Gore is that they trump up stuff like global warming to justify greater control over the economy (and hence our lives) by the political class. This is no way to go about creating the necessary technologies to obsolete fossil fuel.

We have seen in the cases of NASA and the Tokamak fusion programs that bureaucracy and bureaucratically driven solutions are incapable of solving the problem. The suggestion by Richard Branson of a series of Z-prizes make far more sense than any kind of government-imposed regulation in solving this problem.

I also understand that there is considerable venture capital going into new energy technologies, which suggests that the problem will be self-correcting through the free market mechanism anyways. So, people like Al Gore are not necessary for solving the global warming problem, assuming that it is real.

So, people like Al Gore are not necessary for solving the global warming problem.

Worse. He slows down any reasonable solution, because his populist feel-good nonsolutions divert valuable time and social energy that could have been devoted to real solutions. He's the equivalent of a blue-ribbon committee appointed to study the subject and produce a thousand-page doorstopper report containing such useful recommendations as that something must be done...He's the equivalent of "solving" your budget problems by spending the electric-bill money on lottery tickets...

Carl, when are you going to start your blog?

That's not a complaint--just a comment that many of your thoughts would be more easily linked to, and more widely read, if they were blog posts themselves, rather than comments here (and wherever else you comment).

Typically, bloggists are commenters who realize they're spending so much time commenting, that they might as well blog.

A fair question, Rand. I don't have a really good answer. There's bits and pieces I've put out on the net over the years*, but mostly I exchange the occasional e-mail with Glenn Reynolds or James Taranto, or post at Volokh, Slashdot, or here.

I suppose...I find it less attractive to be a sole proprietor of an opinion shop than part of a debating club with a select membership. I don't really give a damn if the anonymous yoyos of the world read what I think (and I'm sure the hostility is mutual), but it's pleasant to communicate with the more interesting and capable people who run (or frequent) the sites above. I might like being part of a group blog, I guess, but no good opportunity has ever arisen.

Of course, if you mean to say I bring down the tone at TT unduly or am abusing your hospitality, you need only say so and I'll vanish. Your home, your rules.

----------
* Not necessarily under this name, however. I use several noms de cyber inasmuch as I'm a bit too g00gleable under my real name to be totally comfortable using it freely. You never know what crazy might take offense, and I've got a family and all.

Of course, if you mean to say I bring down the tone at TT unduly or am abusing your hospitality, you need only say so and I'll vanish.

No, I did not mean in any way to say that. I was just curious.

And Rand, I sense with my amazing powers of observation you were including me in those speculations ;-). I tried to guest-write on a blog for a few weeks and ran solidly into writer's block. It's easy to react to someone else and hard to chomp in on a fresh topic. Icebreaking is harder than it looks.

Rand,
Carl,

How about co-blogging? Carl can be the new Sam? As Oxblog said of Glenn, Carl makes even the dumbest sh** interesting! Carl is also reasonable, rational, calm, and intelligent. I just don't know how much Carl wants to suffer the anonymous morons that you deal with Rand.