VP Gore: Nobel Laureate

Former Vice President Al Gore and the U.N.'s climate change panel won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize today for educating folks about climate change and possibly how to fix it, or at least arrest it.

The Prize is normally awarded to peacemakers. Clearly the panel feels what he has done is exceptional, even though it falls outside the traditional Nobel peace prize framework[1]. "We face a true planetary emergency," Gore said. "The climate crisis is not a political issue, it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity."

The Nobel committee chairman, Ole Danbolt Mjoes, swears that the prize was not a jab at Presidents Bush and Cheney, who laughed off the Kyoto protocols, and have generally treated global warming like a hippy/fringie delusion.

The prize, of course, re-ignited the Gore-istas who still hold out hope he will run for the Presidency. Two Gore advisers told the Associated Press, on condition of anonymity, because that the award will not make it any more likely that he will seek the presidency in 2008. True. a) He doesn't want to run again; and b) the last time I checked, his numbers were low. Obviously those numbers will soar now, but I don't think that will change Al's mind...

[1] But then, Peace Prize winners Yassir Arafat, Mehachem Begin, and Anwar Sadat weren't exactly peace-freaks, were they?
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Sheryl Crowe Reiterates And Tells Us The Toilet Paper Thing Was Actually. . .A Joke

Sheryl Crowe gives us all a scolding in The Huffington Post. She also says that the whole toilet paper brouhaha was a "joke."

"It's been well over a week since our little run in with the adviser to our president. I am just now processing all that took place during the last few days of the Stop Global Warming College tour and a few concerns still hang heavy on my mind and heart. "

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The New Earth: Let the carbonizing begin

It has the same climate as Earth, plus water and gravity. A newly discovered planet is the most compelling evidence (so far) that life might be out there (that is if you don't believe in our Grey visitors). A huge red sun rises in the sky. . .ten times the size of our Sun as seen from Earth. Small waves lap at a sandy shore and there may be things crawling, walking, and wiggling around.

This may be the scene on what is possibly the first truly Earth-like planet to have been found outside our Solar System. The discovery was announced today by a team of European astronomers, using a telescope in La Silla in the Chilean Andes. It is the first exoplanet (a planet orbiting a star other than our own Sun) that is anything like our Earth.

Read more in the complete Daily Mail story here.
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Correction: "Does Al Gore Use Twenty Times More Energy Than The Average U.S. Household?" Misstated An Obvious fact

When I posted Does Al Gore Use Twenty Times More Energy Than The Average U.S. Household? on Tuesday, I characterized The Tennessee Center for Policy research as "an independent, nonprofit and nonpartisan research organization." Right.

Jeff, a/k/a Dogbowl, a friend, and astute political analyst wrote—without even looking it up—that this was clearly a hit piece. He was, of course, right. They may be nonprofit, but they are indeed partisan—something my defective BS detector should have picked up. They are known for stirring up trouble with the left. The timing alone should have rung my bells.

I stand corrected.

Ed Begley and long time friend Bill Clinton - click to enlarge

That being said, I still have some doubts about people buying green offsets to make everything right. Yeah, I get how it works, but I still have to wonder if it wouldn't be better not to use the energy in the first place.

As a former poor kid, I have a knee-jerk reaction to rich people buying their way out of the various pickles they create. Do you remember from your history of the middle ages how people would pay for "sin-eaters" to erase their sins? Or how at various points and places in history, people were able to buy their way out of military service by paying a poor kid's family to send him in their stead? This has that same sort of vibe for me.

Yes, I get how it works, and how buying offsets helps a great deal. On the other hand, I have to totally admire the likes of Ed Begley, Jr.— about as green as you can be without living in a tent—who has to hop on his electricity generating stationary bicycle and ride a few minutes whenever he wants to make a couple pieces of toast!

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