Another US soldier died in Iraq today. For what? The neo-con wet dream of a Three Stooges Reich. MEANWHILE, the Global Warming story that should be one of the major stories of the last four years, i.e., leading the evening news and capturing the front page headlines, is instead relegated to the NYTwit book reviews. And the man who was elected US President in 2000, has been relegated to writing a book review that relates to his signature accomplishment, the Kyoto Protocols, instead of leading the US and the world thru Kyoto and beyond. Yes, the national security issue (identified as such by the Clinton-Gore administration) that should be at the top of the list of priorities for the US federal government relegated to further *study* on the part of the Bush abomination and the psuedo-scientists of the Corporatist cabal, and of course the "US mainstream news media" does not challenge them, despite the concerned consensus of the world's scientific community....Yes, Rome burned while Nero fiddled, now the Earth itself is on a slow broil, while the increasingly unhinged and incredibly shrinking _resident plays PNACkle...There is no more compelling reason to vote for Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mekong) and in the process to repudiate not only the increasingly unhinged and incredibly shrinking _resident but also the-shell-of-a-man-formerly-known-as-Ralph-Nader (and
his INEXCUSABLE LIE that there was no difference
between Gore and Bush), yes, yes...think about
it...Almost 1000 US soldiers killed have been killed so far in a
foolish military adventure predicated on LIES, many thousands injured, many maimed for life, the US isolated in the world, the Arab Street ablaze with
hate, the Western Alliance seriously fractured, the Geneva Accords abandoned and the stench of Abu Ghraib on high officials and on the White House itself the US military disillusioned and over-extended, hundreds of billions of dollars in Federal deficit this year alone to float a tax break two-thirds of which went to the wealthiest Americans (those making over 200K a year), and the looming naming of a Chief Justice Scalia or a Chief Justice Thomas as well as the packing of the court well to the Right if there is a second term for the Bush abomination...and so much more...but perhaps worst of all, FOUR YEARS LOST in the struggle to come to grips with Global Warming and our addiction to fossil fuels...
Al Gore, New York Times: When Gelbspan addresses the
subject of solutions, he first gives a detailed
analysis of all the significant plans that have been
offered, and then endorses a maximalist approach
called the World Energy Modernization Plan, developed
six years ago by an ad hoc group that met at the
Harvard Medical School. His basic argument is that it
is far too late in the game to waste time on
strategies that might be more politically feasible but
don't actually do enough to begin to solve the
problem.
He may be right, but the plan's authors, though
distinguished, remind me of Sam Rayburn's remark that
he'd feel a lot better "if just one of them had ever
run for sheriff."
THE fact is, many who have worked on this problem
believe it may be essential to begin with a binding
agreement among nations and then, after governments
and industries shift direction, toughen the goals.
That is the formula used successfully in the Montreal
Protocol in 1987 to begin reducing the emissions that
cause destruction of stratospheric ozone. Three years
later, the standards were dramatically tightened in
the London Amendments, and by then most resistance had
dissipated.
The Kyoto Protocol (which may soon become legally
effective if Russia ratifies it, even though the
United States has not) has been criticized by many,
including Gelbspan, for not going nearly far enough to
reduce the emissions that cause global warming. But it
has simultaneously been condemned from the opposite
side for going too far. If Kyoto does take effect, we
may find that after industries and countries begin to
comply, it will be easier to expand the limits of what
is politically possible.
Save the Environment, Show Up for Democracy in 2004:
Defeat Bush (again!)
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/081704G.shtml
'Boiling Point': Who's to Blame for Global Warming?
By Al Gore
The New York Times
Sunday 15 August 2004
The blend of passionate advocacy and lucid analysis
that Ross Gelbspan brings to this, his second book
about global warming, is extremely readable because
the author's voice is so authentic. When Gelbspan
first encountered the issue as a reporter nine years
ago, he writes, he had no inkling of how it would
change his life. But as he put together the evidence
of the global climate crisis he describes in this
book, he found himself pulled inexorably to do more
than simply write about it. So he now feels called to
a kind of mission: to describe what is happening, to
single out the specific failures and misdeeds of
politicians, energy companies, environmental activists
and journalists who share responsibility for our
predicament, and then propose bold solutions that --
unlike more timid blueprints already on the public
agenda -- would in his view actually solve the
problem.
For a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter at the top of
his game, this is a career detour requiring courage I
greatly admire. Moreover, he candidly describes how,
as he opened himself to the implications of what he
was learning in his dogged pursuit of this story, he
has undergone something of a personal transformation.
He writes that it has become "an excruciating
experience to watch the planet fall apart piece by
piece in the face of persistent and pathological
denial." He describes how mountain glaciers around the
world are melting, most of them rapidly. And he cites
early examples of environmental refugees like those
created in recent weeks in Bangladesh, vulnerable to
catastrophic flooding as sea levels rise.
In the course of this transformation, Gelbspan has
become a different kind of reporter, one who recalls
the great reforming journalists of the first decade of
the 20th century -- Upton Sinclair, Ida Tarbell,
Lincoln Steffens and others -- who not only reported
on political corruption and corporate excesses but
connected them to larger destructive patterns that had
developed in the economy and politics of their time.
They agitated for policy reforms, many of which were
enacted into statutes when they became part of the
progressive movement's agenda: antitrust laws, the
Food and Drug Administration, railroad regulation,
wage and hour laws, workmen's compensation and child
labor laws, to name a few.
It is in that spirit that Gelbspan pursues solutions
for climate change that can "also begin to reverse
some very discouraging and destructive political and
economic dynamics as well."
Part of what makes this book important is its
indictment of the American news media's coverage of
global warming for the past two decades. Indeed, when
the author investigates why the United States is
virtually the only advanced nation in the world that
fails to recognize the severity of this growing
crisis, he concludes that the news coverage is "a
large reason for that failure."
At a time when prominent journalists are writing mea
culpas for allowing themselves to be too easily misled
in their coverage of the case for war in Iraq,
Gelbspan presents a devastating analysis of how the
media have been duped and intimidated by an aggressive
and persistent campaign organized and financed by coal
and oil companies. He recounts, for example, a
conversation with a top television network editor who
was reluctant to run stories about global warming
because a previous story had "triggered a barrage of
complaints from the Global Climate Coalition" -- a
fossil fuel industry lobbying group -- "to our top
executives at the network."
He also describes the structural changes in the news
media, like increased conglomerate ownership, that
have made editors and reporters more vulnerable to
this kind of intimidation -- and much less aggressive
in pursuing inconvenient truths.
Gelbspan's first book, "The Heat Is On" (1997),
remains the best, and virtually only, study of how the
coal and oil industry has provided financing to a
small group of contrarian scientists who began to make
themselves available for mass media interviews as
so-called skeptics on the subject of global warming.
In fact, these scientists played a key role in
Gelbspan's personal journey on this issue. When he got
letters disputing the facts in his very first article,
he was at first chastened -- until he realized the
letters were merely citing the industry-funded
scientists. He accuses this group of "stealing our
reality."
In this new book, Gelbspan focuses his toughest
language by far on the coal and oil industries. After
documenting the largely successful efforts of
companies like ExxonMobil to paralyze the policy
process, confuse the American people and cynically "
'reposition global warming as theory rather than
fact,"' as one strategy paper put it, he concludes
that "what began as a normal business response by the
fossil fuel lobby -- denial and delay -- has now
attained the status of a crime against humanity."
I wouldn't have said it quite that way, but I'm glad
he does, and his exposition of the facts certainly
seems to support his charge.
Gelbspan also criticizes the current administration,
documenting its efforts to "demolish the diplomatic
foundations" of the international agreement known as
the Kyoto Protocol, and describing its approach to
energy and environmental policy as "corruption
disguised as conservatism." Again, he backs up his
charge with impressive research. Moreover, his
critique is far from partisan. He takes on
environmental groups for doing way too little and for
focusing on their own institutional agendas rather
than the central challenges.
When Gelbspan addresses the subject of solutions, he
first gives a detailed analysis of all the significant
plans that have been offered, and then endorses a
maximalist approach called the World Energy
Modernization Plan, developed six years ago by an ad
hoc group that met at the Harvard Medical School. His
basic argument is that it is far too late in the game
to waste time on strategies that might be more
politically feasible but don't actually do enough to
begin to solve the problem.
He may be right, but the plan's authors, though
distinguished, remind me of Sam Rayburn's remark that
he'd feel a lot better "if just one of them had ever
run for sheriff."
THE fact is, many who have worked on this problem
believe it may be essential to begin with a binding
agreement among nations and then, after governments
and industries shift direction, toughen the goals.
That is the formula used successfully in the Montreal
Protocol in 1987 to begin reducing the emissions that
cause destruction of stratospheric ozone. Three years
later, the standards were dramatically tightened in
the London Amendments, and by then most resistance had
dissipated.
The Kyoto Protocol (which may soon become legally
effective if Russia ratifies it, even though the
United States has not) has been criticized by many,
including Gelbspan, for not going nearly far enough to
reduce the emissions that cause global warming. But it
has simultaneously been condemned from the opposite
side for going too far. If Kyoto does take effect, we
may find that after industries and countries begin to
comply, it will be easier to expand the limits of what
is politically possible.
But Gelbspan's point is a powerful one and is well
argued. And he has, in any case, performed a great
service by writing an informative book on a difficult
but crucial subject.
--------
Al Gore, formerly vice president of the United
States, is the author of "Earth in the Balance:
Ecology and the Human Spirit."