Addressing inaccuracies concerning Al Gore’s supposed hypocrisies

[Guest guest]

I recently had a discussion with one of my sister-in-laws concerning

global warming and Al Gore. She questioned the former Vice

President's credibility because she had read that Gore's three homes

were not green and environmentally friendly, and that he drives an

SUV instead of a hybrid. She indicated that she found this to be

hypocritical.

 

I did some research and it seems that most of this misinformation

probably came from an op-ed (opinion-editorial article) piece in the

USA Today written by Peter Schweizer, a research fellow at the Hoover

Institution. The op-ed attacking the former vice president's

environmental record is extremely misleading. My research shows that

Gore does drive a hybrid car and was already in the process of adding

solar photovoltaic units to his home before the commentary was

published.

 

It seems to me that Gore is personally committed to living a zero-

carbon lifestyle. He reduces the global-warming pollution for which

he is responsible by taking advantage of the green power options his

utility offers, pays for his own personal carbon offsets, and then,

each year, finances additional reductions elsewhere until his net

impact on the global climate is reduced to zero. In addition, the

Gores have donated 100 percent of all the profits from his movie and

book (An Inconvenient Truth) to the fight against global-warming

pollution. Institutional carbon offsets have also been purchased by

Paramount (movie distributor) and Rodale (book publisher), which make

both the book and the movie completely carbon neutral.

 

Schweizer asserted the Gores were swimming in Occidental stock, a

company " mired in controversy over oil drilling in ecologically

sensitive areas. " Actually, at Gore's request, all of his father's

stock in Occidental Petroleum was sold almost six years ago as the

estate was closed.

 

The article also said Gore's home in Carthage was sitting on a

Pasminco Zinc mine for which he received yearly royalties, and that

the company had been cited " for adding large quantities of barium,

iron and zinc to the nearby Caney Fork River. " In a statement that

now precedes Schweizer's commentary on the internet, the USA Today

even admitted that this was incorrect: " …writer Peter Schweizer

inaccurately stated that former vice president Al Gore receives

royalties from a zinc mine on his property in Tennessee despite his

environmental advocacy. He no longer does, as the mine was closed in

2003. "

 

I would say that this alone discredits Schweizer, but we should also

consider that Schweitzer's Hoover Institution is home to

professionals who have been hired to discredit global warming, such

as Fred Singer and Thomas Gale Moore (former tobacco lobbyists). The

institute is also funded by the very conservative Scaife Foundation

and Exxon. That means there's a good chance Schweitzer was paid to

launch these baseless attacks on Al Gore.

 

Who's being more honest with the public? What did Schweitzer do with

the money he received? Gore donates the profits from his advocacy

work to the issue he cares about. He has devoted his life to this

problem, traveling around for years giving thousands of slideshows,

co-founding an investment firm devoted to supporting green companies,

making his book, movie, and new TV channel carbon neutral (Current

will be carbon neutral by the end of the year), and almost single-

handedly raising the profile of the issue higher than it's ever been.

 

Gore will continue to call on his fellow Americans to do their part

to combat global warming. And it seems to me that the former vice

president isn't asking of them what he isn't willing to do himself.

Rather than vilifying a person who is trying to make a difference,

wouldn't it be more fruitful for those questioning Gore to join the

effort to solve the climate crisis?

 

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