Environmental Talk

I get it. Everybody “spins” and both sides of the global warming debate are guilty of cherry-picking facts that support their version of the story.

I also get that, when you’re trying to attract publicity, Media Training For Dummies suggests it is often helpful to make outrageous claims in order to attract attention - as anyone who has followed Ann Coulter’s career can attest.

The problem is that once you’ve attracted attention, people start to focus on what you’re saying a little closer. If you continue to make outrageous claims, those claims tend to be seen for what they are - attempts at grandstanding with little substance to back them up.

The Dick Cheneys and Bill O’Reillys and the Howard Deans and Barbra Streisands of the world will always have their hard-core fans. And when you get together at your rallies, or call-in shows, or concerts, all I ask is that you take a minute to consider how ridiculous you look to the rest of us that realize that you really don’t walk on water.

I know you may believe that by saying something fervently or repetitively enough that it will be accepted as fact but I reserve the right to turn down the Kool-Aid when it’s offered to me.

Al Gore has done a masterful job of bringing the climate change debate to the forefront of world consciousness. Now that you’ve got my attention, I need a little more solid information to come to a rational decision on the issue. Additional rhetoric, at this point, only serves to raise a red flag in my mind that you’re trying to pull something over on all of us.

All of which is by way of saying that I think it’s time for Al Gore to relax just a little bit and back away from making outrageous claims as he did on his recent trip to Sweden with EU Commissioner Margot Wallstrom.

In response to a question about whether he felt the upcoming report by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) would be enough to convince people of “the truth” about climate change, Gore responded, “The existence of global warming…now has a consensus very nearly as firm as that behind gravity.”

Whoa. Are you serious?! Because, I haven’t really heard of one, let alone 60 or 12,000 credentialed scientists signing a petition questioning gravity.

The sheer volume of the debate going on in the press is enough to invalidate the qualifying “very nearly” that Gore attached to the statement.

This kind of baseless assertion does nothing to help bolster the case for climate change to reasonable moderates looking for evidential backing. In fact, I would argue, it does precisely the opposite. It shows up Al Gore for the extremist that he is.

Gore would do well to tone down the excessive oratory and spend a little more time gathering and presenting a well-reasoned case.

global warming, climate change, Sweden, Gore, Wallstrom, gravity, consensus