Al Gore sits BP spill out

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-06-14/al-gores-bp-oil-spill-silence/?cmpid=p_yahoo

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“Al Gore has been keeping his head down now for some time, partly because of the scandals over climate science, partly because people revealed his financial incentive in passing climate legislation,” says Kenneth Green, an environmental policy analyst at the American Enterprise Institute. “He seems to have decided to take his money and hit the door.”

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"do as i say ...." 😵

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurie_David

Criticism
Large carbon footprint

In an interview with The Guardian in November 2006, David acknowledged that owning two homes on opposite sides of the country and flying in a private jet several times per year is at odds with her message to others. In the interview she notes "Yes, I take a private plane on holiday a couple of times a year, and I feel horribly guilty about it. I probably shouldn't do it. But the truth is, I'm not perfect. This is not about perfection. I don't expect anybody else to be perfect either. That's what hurts the environmental movement – holding people to a standard they cannot meet. That just pushes people away."[5]
Paving over protected wetlands

In 2005, and then again in 2009, David was cited by the Chilmark Conservation Commission for paving over protected wetland areas on her estate at Martha's Vineyard.[6]

Originally posted by zeeblebot
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-06-14/al-gores-bp-oil-spill-silence/?cmpid=p_yahoo

...

“Al Gore has been keeping his head down now for some time, partly because of the scandals over climate science, partly because people revealed his financial incentive in passing climate legislation,” says Kenneth Green, an environmental policy a ...[text shortened]... ican Enterprise Institute. “He seems to have decided to take his money and hit the door.”

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it could be. juggling two relationships didn't seem to keep his mouth shut before.

Originally posted by zeeblebot
it could be. juggling two relationships didn't seem to keep his mouth shut before.

Originally posted by whodey
Although he has amassed a tremendous amount of wealth via his carbon propoganda, and will probably become a billionare once cap and trade is inacted, he has lost his marriage along with the respect of the American people. All I can say is that I hope he enjoys his mansions and jet set life and one night stands while he helps further sink the US and world economies. [...]

Originally posted by FMF
Good grief whodey. So much for you militating for a new paradigm in Washington DC. You sometimes come across - as you do here - like the most crass kind of vituperative tabloid journalist. Same old same old, it seems. One shudders to think what kind of political leadership your angry sense of political impotence will eventually settle upon. Nothing 'new' or more decent than what you already have, that much is clear.

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
That sounded curiously like a watered down defense of Al. You should be able to do much better, were it not for the material you have to work with, I suppose.

Yes -- what about all of the statists who control the fossil fuel industries and have spent a great deal of money to ensure that government or the private sector doesn't do anything to undermine their empire?

Perhaps cap and trade isn't the most ideal approach to weaning America off it's oil addiction. But these statists don't want to really do anything at all to change the status quo - even if they do throw some occasional spare change at a solar energy demo project. So every time anyone criticizes Al Gore without offering a compelling alternative, there is a loud chorus of statists cheering them on.

If it's a bad thing when government is entirely bought and paid for by Wall Street, it should be just as bad when it is entirely bought and paid for by the likes of BP.

The American Enterprise Institute is a hack right wing organization funded mostly by big corporations. Their opinion of anybody is utterly worthless and they almost certainly have no inside information on what Al Gore is doing and why he is doing it.

Although this thread hardly deserves it, a serious discussion of the BP spill would be a decent idea. I recently read a very good article by Ezra Klein discussing the real costs of oil. He agrees convincingly that the price of oil does not take into account many costs and thus presently we are overconsuming oil. An excerpt:


Most of us would call the BP spill a tragedy. Ask an economist what it is, however, and you'll hear a different word: externality.

An externality is a cost that's not paid by the person, or people, using the good that creates the cost. The BP spill is going to cost fishermen, the gulf's ecosystem and the region's tourism industry.

But that cost won't be paid by the people who wanted that oil for their cars. It'll fall on taxpayers, on Gulf Coast residents who need new jobs, on the poisoned wildlife.

That means the gasoline you're buying at the pump is too cheap. The price you pay is less than the product's true cost.

A lot less, actually. And it's not just catastrophic spills and dramatic disruptions in the Middle East that add to the price. Gasoline has so many hidden costs that there's a cottage industry devoted to tallying them up. At least the ones that can be tallied up.

Topping that list is air pollution, which we breathe in whether we drive or not. Then there's climate change, which is difficult to slap a price tag on because it involves such calculations as how much your grandchild's climate is worth. There's traffic congestion and accidents, which harm drivers and non-drivers alike. There's the cost of a transportation economy based on a resource that undergoes wild price swings.

Some of the best work on this subject has been done by Ian Parry, a senior fellow at Resources for the Future. His calculations -- plus some data from other sources and studies -- suggest that adding all the quantifiable costs into the price of oil would increase the cost of each gallon by $1.65. According to the Energy Information Administration, the average price of a gallon of gas was $2.72 last week. It should really be as high as $4.37.

That, however, is almost certainly an underestimation. There are plenty of costs that we just don't know how to put a price on. How much of our military policy is dictated by our need for secure oil resources? How much instability is created by our need to treat oil-producing monarchies such as Saudi Arabia with kid gloves? How much is the environment worth in a poor country that would prefer oil investment to air-quality regulations?

Or take the spill in the gulf. The nation has been horrified by the photographs of oil-soaked wildlife, but how much is not being horrified actually worth to us?

http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=941195&category=opinion&TextPage=1

The US needs to find a way to have the price of its energy sources reflect all the costs that they impose upon society; this will encourage conservation and reduce our scandalous over use of energy (5% of world's population using 25% of world's energy).

Originally posted by no1marauder
The American Enterprise Institute is a hack right wing organization funded mostly by big corporations. Their opinion of anybody is utterly worthless and they almost certainly have no inside information on what Al Gore is doing and why he is doing it.

Although this thread hardly deserves it, a serious discussion of the BP spill would be a de ...[text shortened]... lous over use of energy (5% of world's population using 25% of world's energy).

Originally posted by sh76
How does speculation work into the calculation of what the price "should" be? Speculation that drives up the price of oil is a very real market factor; but it is not anything inherent in the cost of the product. Oil companies are capable of being profitable if gasoline sells for $1.50/gallon or even less.

So, if you're going to quantify what the price of gas ...[text shortened]... not part of the product's true cost. Nor are market reactions to events in the Middle East.

Originally posted by no1marauder
Speculation and market reactions are part of the demand side. I don't understand your point; why should oil speculation be "discounted"?

Originally posted by Melanerpes
Yes -- what about all of the statists who control the fossil fuel industries and have spent a great deal of money to ensure that government or the private sector doesn't do anything to undermine their empire?

Perhaps cap and trade isn't the most ideal approach to weaning America off it's oil addiction. But these statists don't want to really do anythin treet, it should be just as bad when it is entirely bought and paid for by the likes of BP.

Originally posted by sh76
Because price increases based on speculation are not really part of the underlying cost of producing the good. If, for example, speculation on oil would be outlawed, oil would probably cost about $30/barrel or less (I'm making that number up; but I think it's a fair uneducated guesstimate). It would cost whatever the minimum price is required to make the indust ...[text shortened]... osts plus hidden costs plus externalities, then speculation is not part of that true cost.