Global Warming Watch

[citizenzen]

[Al Gore] invented the internet...

snopes.com

Internet of Lies

Claim:   Vice-President Al Gore claimed that he "invented" the Internet.

Status:   False.

Origins:   Despite the derisive references that continue even today, Al Gore did not claim he "invented" the Internet, nor did he say anything that could reasonably be interpreted that way.

The "Al Gore said he 'invented' the Internet" put-downs were misleading, out-of-context distortions of something he said during an interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN's "Late Edition" program on 9 March 1999.

When asked to describe what distinguished him from his challenger for the Democratic presidential nomination, Senator Bill Bradley of New Jersey, Gore replied (in part): During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country's economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system.

Clearly, although Gore's phrasing might have been a bit clumsy (and perhaps self-serving), he was not claiming that he "invented" the Internet (in the sense of having designed or implemented it), but that he was responsible, in an economic and legislative sense, for fostering the development the technology that we now know as the Internet.

To claim that Gore was seriously trying to take credit for the "invention" of the Internet is, frankly, just silly political posturing that arose out of a close presidential campaign.

Gore never used the word "invent," and the words "create" and "invent" have distinctly different meanings — the former is used in the sense of "to bring about" or "to bring into existence" while the latter is generally used to signify the first instance of someone's thinking up or implementing an idea.

(To those who say the words "create" and "invent" mean exactly the same thing, we have to ask why, then, the media overwhelmingly and consistently cited Gore as having claimed he "invented" the Internet, even though he never used that word, and transcripts of what he actually said were readily available.)

 

[citizenzen]

Wil, are there any other Al Gore myths you care to mindlessly spread around?

 

[wil]

By The Associated Press 12/14/2007

Al Gore, who was criticized for high electric bills at his Tennessee mansion, has completed a host of improvements to make the home more energy efficient, and a building-industry group has praised the house as one of the nation's most environmentally friendly.

Gore has installed solar panels, a rainwater-collection system and geothermal heating. He replaced incandescent lights with compact fluorescent or LED bulbs, even on his Christmas tree.

"Short of tearing it down and starting anew, I don't know how it could have been rated any higher," said Kim Shinn of the U.S. Green Building Council, which gave the house its second-highest rating for sustainable design.

Gore's improvements cut the home's summer electrical consumption by 11 percent compared with a year ago, according to utility records. Most Nashville homes used 20 percent to 30 percent more electricity during the same period because of a record heat wave.

Shinn said Gore's renovations are impressive because his home, which is more than 80 years old, had to meet the same rigorous standards as new construction.

'even on his Christmas tree'.... spin upon spin. So what is his public electric, gas and water consumption now? BWI airport could reduce pollution into the bay by 80% and still be the largest single source polluter of the Chesapeake.

And surely you don't expect me to applaud Gore for spending a few million when he got caught with his pants down do you? It is all like Ted Kennedy arguing environmental concerns to stop windmills from being installed where he can see them from his estate.

 

[citizenzen]

...[handles] a company that kicked native peruvians off sacred land to drill...

Lining on Earth — OCCIDENTAL IN SOUTH AMERICA

"A few details about Al Gore's relationship with Occidental Petroleum. Upon the death of his father in 1998, the Vice President was named executor of his father's estate, which had major holdings of Occidental stock. The stock, worth as much as a million dollars, was transferred to a family trust. In March of this year, the Vice President resigned as trustee but remains a beneficiary. The Vice President has publicly remained silent on the Uâwa tribe and Occidental's exploration activities in South America. His campaign declined to respond to our story."

========================================================



Wil, that is something less than "Handling a company..."

So what's the source of this desire to perpetuate right-wing, Fox News mythology wil? Why turn Al Gore into some kind of villain?

You talk about agendas... what's yours?

 

[wil]

Lining on Earth — OCCIDENTAL IN SOUTH AMERICA

"A few details about Al Gore's relationship with Occidental Petroleum. Upon the death of his father in 1998, the Vice President was named executor of his father's estate, which had major holdings of Occidental stock. The stock, worth as much as a million dollars, was transferred to a family trust. In March of this year, the Vice President resigned as trustee but remains a beneficiary. The Vice President has publicly remained silent on the Uâwa tribe and Occidental's exploration activities in South America. His campaign declined to respond to our story."

========================================================



Wil, that is something less than "Handling a company..."

So what's the source of this desire to perpetuate right-wing, Fox News mythology wil? Why turn Al Gore into some kind of villain?

You talk about agendas... what's yours?

Namaste CZ,

I'm beginning to question your agenda...I say he handled the families oil money investments...you quote me as saying 'handling a company' interesting.

I don't get my news from FOX, what a waste of time that would be. But do recall during the heat of all this the value of the stocks was 200 million and went upto 800 million...I could be wrong, my brain cells are getting old but I'd bet dollars to donuts it is many multiples of the 'million' they speak of...that is probably Gore's dividend on the deal...and you are quoting from a reputable non-biased source I see...good for you.

I say he said he invented the internet...you quote snopes which says:

Despite the derisive references that continue even today, Al Gore did not claim he "invented" the Internet, nor did he say anything that could reasonably be interpreted that way.

.....during an interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN's "Late Edition" program on 9 March 1999.

When asked to describe what distinguished him from his challenger for the Democratic presidential nomination, Senator Bill Bradley of New Jersey, Gore replied (in part): During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country's economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system.

I don't know why people misquoted him. Was it stupid, YES, was it out of context YES, is he an egomaniac YES.

I've got no dog in this hunt. As I said, let chips fall where they may. Al Gore is not a great representative on Climate Change. His distortions and misrepresentations do not help the cause.

What is your agenda? To me this is getting like talking to a fundie apolagetic on creation v. evolution...

 

[citizenzen]

Namaste CZ,

I'm beginning to question your agenda...I say he handled the families oil money investments...you quote me as saying 'handling a company' interesting.

Very interesting indeed! Both Seattlegal and I quoted your exact words just a few posts ago...

nah, he invented the internet, he handles hundreds of millions of dollars of the families oil money...a company that kicked native peruvians off sacred land to drill...has a house that consumes more power than the bushes ranch...

As for my agenda? I'm an advocate for a change in energy consumption. I'm for taking bold steps towards heading off the worst effects of Climate Change. And I've already made a number of lifestyle changes to reduce my part of it.

 

[wil]

Very interesting indeed! Both Seattlegal and I quoted your exact words just a few posts ago...

As for my agenda? I'm an advocate for a change in energy consumption. I'm for taking bold steps towards heading off the worst effects of Climate Change. And I've already made a number of lifestyle changes to reduce my part of it.

double check my exact words, you'll note no edit on my part...

I agree in cutting back. My kids will soon be driving, we are looking at trying to build an electric car.

I'm in a rental, so no solar panels for me...but my utility bills are low, and the kids and I compare every month to the same month last year and the average temperature and track how we are doing.

We are on the same page...it is just you feel some affinity to Al and I don't. Funny my Republican friends think me a flaming liberal and my Dem friends think me a right wing wacko...all because I call them as I see them and don't wish to cover up anything...even if it goes against what I am working towards...Full Disclosure is the only way to progress. And neither party can claim any sort of leg up on the honesty brigade...

my agenda...dump them both. third party politics...never vote against someone only for someone. btw, even though I was at the innaugaration, I haven't drunk the Obama koolaid either...I wish him the best... but know what he is up against (speaking of his own party and the other)

 

[shawn]

Eco fascists are a blight on our age.
But, whatever austerity they impose on everyone, it will do nothing to avert climate change.
Although, maybe the water quality will improve....that is, provided they stop dumping rat poison into it.

 

[citizenzen]

We are on the same page...

I think we are, by and large, on the same page. But that doesn't mean we won't engage in a scrap now and then.

No hard feelings on my part.

 

[citizenzen]

Eco fascists are a blight on our age.

Jeez... just when I was ready to kiss and make up.

Would you mind defining "Eco fascists"?

 

[seattlegal]

Jeez... just when I was ready to kiss and make up.

Would you mind defining "Eco fascists"?

I don't know about you, but I would call it using dumbed-down environmental slogans as an excuse to enforce totalitarian political policies. But hey, that's just me.

 

[citizenzen]

I don't know about you, but I would call it using dumbed-down environmental slogans as an excuse to enforce totalitarian political policies. But hey, that's just me.

Please give me an example of an enforced totalitarian political policy.

 

[seattlegal]

Please give me an example of an enforced totalitarian political policy.

I'm sorry, I should have written "propose and implement" instead of "enforce," because we're not there yet.

There is still time to raise the level of consciousness above dumbed-down slogans, which could avoid the likely unintelligent laws for the ignorant masses to follow, with indulgences sold to those who can afford them, or free-passes given out to those who are deemed "not unintelligent" (those who will repeat the slogan as some sort of Our Father or Hail Mary type penance ritual) by those pushing the dumbed-down slogans.

 

[citizenzen]

I'm sorry, I should have written "propose and implement" instead of "enforce," because we're not there yet.

If only you and shawn were as concerned with the real threat (Climate Change) as the imaginary one (Eco Fascists).

 

[shawn]

If only you and shawn were as concerned with the real threat (Climate Change) as the imaginary one (Eco Fascists)

I am too practical for that.
Climate change I can do nothing about and neither can you or even a battalion of us.
Eco-fascists (good definition seattlegal) are a present and real danger.
I am all for preserving the environment and do what I can already.
I was looking into hydrogen fuel cells years ago and have the schematics for a hydrogen boost unit (which I hope to construct this year) for my work truck .
I lived in a trailer on the reserve in Northern Alberta and rather than use the natural gas furnace, we heated with wood, exclusively, for 10 years.
The same wood that I had cut down to clear our yard space.
Which had saskatoon berry bushes growing throughout the poplars, and after years of thinning and pruning etc, we had bushes that produced 50 gallons of berries which we processed by hand for winter.
I grew up reading Mother Earth news (before it became yuppified) and have always been an avid recycler.
I have over 6 tons of polished granite in my backyard which I saved from going to the landfill.
Preserving ecology is good, but the eco-fascists use ecological rhetoric to foist fascist political measures upon everyone....for the good of mother earth.
That is a greenwash right there.
I don't have any tolerance left for such BS.

Those of us who have learned from historical example are doomed to watch everyone else who has not, make the same d@mn mistakes....again.

 

[citizenzen]

Eco-fascists (good definition seattlegal) are a present and real danger.

Good definition?!

By her own admission her definition doesn't exist!

Oh well... I'm just messing with you anyway. This what happens when I take a day off from work.

 

[citizenzen]

BTW - Today I received my issue of Discover magazine in the mail and wouldn't you know it there's a feature article on Climate Change!

In it Stephen Schneider (senior fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University) has a website with a section addressing the contrarians.

Anybody interested in looking it up can find it at: CLIMATECHANGE.NET*

• Click on the text link on the left "Climate Change"
• Then a text link at the top "Climate Science"
• The either scroll down to the bottom of the page or cllick the text link on the left "Contrarians"

I'll be checking it out real soon.




*He must be a great scientist because his website SUCKS!!! He also endorsed realclimate.org a website that doesn't suck nearly as much as his own.

 

[citizenzen]

In the Discover article, Ken Caldera (professor at Stanford and staff member of global ecology at the Carnegie Institution of Washington) puts forth an excellent point, one I think people often forget...

"There was a climate contrarian who testified before the Senate last week. He made the claim that climate scientists were some kind of club and they all made money by somehow supporting each other's findings. The reality of science is that a scientific career is made by showing that all the people around you believe something that's not true. If a scientist could provide evidence that the climate theory is incorrect and that global warming is not a product of human activities, he or she would be held up as the Darwin or the Einstein of climate science. We're highly incentivized to show that all our colleagues are wrong. If we could come up with good evidence that they're wrong, we would be out there publishing it. The evidence just doesn't exist."

 

[Avi]

I have read the last few pages of posts and there still seems to be a lot of confusion about the relationship between greenhouse gases and global warming.

Let's take a look at some of the EPA's conclusions, let's call it the "Bush EPA" (which he nearly closed down) conclusions:

Scientists know with virtual certainty that:

Human activities are changing the composition of Earth's atmosphere. Increasing levels of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere since pre-industrial times are well-documented and understood.
The atmospheric buildup of CO2 and other greenhouse gases is largely the result of human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels.
An “unequivocal” warming trend of about 1.0 to 1.7°F occurred from 1906-2005. Warming occurred in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, and over the oceans (IPCC, 2007).
The major greenhouse gases emitted by human activities remain in the atmosphere for periods ranging from decades to centuries. It is therefore virtually certain that atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases will continue to rise over the next few decades.
Increasing greenhouse gas concentrations tend to warm the planet.

So the link between greenhouse gases and warming is agreed to by even the
staunchest anti-environmentalists.

What is Very Likely:

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has stated "Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations" (IPCC, 2007). In short, a growing number of scientific analyses indicate, but cannot prove, that rising levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are contributing to climate change (as theory predicts). In the coming decades, scientists anticipate that as atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases continue to rise, average global temperatures and sea levels will continue to rise as a result and precipitation patterns will change.

Why can't we do something to improve the situation. The Bush EPA was happy to just lay down and roll over, greenhouse gases will increase, temperature will increase, oh man !!

What's Not Certain?


Important scientific questions remain about how much warming will occur, how fast it will occur, and how the warming will affect the rest of the climate system including precipitation patterns and storms. Answering these questions will require advances in scientific knowledge in a number of areas:

Improving understanding of natural climatic variations, changes in the sun's energy, land-use changes, the warming or cooling effects of pollutant aerosols, and the impacts of changing humidity and cloud cover.
Determining the relative contribution to climate change of human activities and natural causes.
Projecting future greenhouse emissions and how the climate system will respond within a narrow range.
Improving understanding of the potential for rapid or abrupt climate change.

And of course there is a lot we still do not know. Hopefully under Obama, there will be a real EPA put back in place and we can start to learn more about the reality of our situation.

By the way, good job holding up the fort CZ. It is amazing how the big oil companies have convinced people to look the other way. Even though we all know the tobacco companies did it for 30 years, people still do not want to believe the obvious.

Ref: http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/science/stateofknowledge.html

 

[Tao_Equus]

In the Discover article, Ken Caldera (professor at Stanford and staff member of global ecology at the Carnegie Institution of Washington) puts forth an excellent point, one I think people often forget...

"There was a climate contrarian who testified before the Senate last week. He made the claim that climate scientists were some kind of club and they all made money by somehow supporting each other's findings. The reality of science is that a scientific career is made by showing that all the people around you believe something that's not true. If a scientist could provide evidence that the climate theory is incorrect and that global warming is not a product of human activities, he or she would be held up as the Darwin or the Einstein of climate science. We're highly incentivized to show that all our colleagues are wrong. If we could come up with good evidence that they're wrong, we would be out there publishing it. The evidence just doesn't exist."

Same thing goes with god(s). If the evidence was there we'd know about it.