Congratulations Vice President Gore

Hard earned and well deserved, Vice President Al Gore received the Nobel Peace Prize for his work spreading the word about global warming. He received it in conjunction with an organization that also supports the global climate change issue, but the important news is that he received it.

As expected, plenty of boneheads came out of the woodwork to assault both him and the Nobel committee on this prize. For example, Judge Justice Barton, sitting in London’s high court claims he’s found 9 inaccuracies in “An Inconvenient Truth.” Well done Judge Barton. With such critical thinkers and analysts, I’d love to see his interpretation of the current Bush administration and their policies.

And Marlo Lewis told CNN that he was “not surprised but was also displeased” with the price, noting that he feels the global climate issue actually fosters poverty and unrest rather than peace.

In both cases: Assholes.

Nine inaccuracies? First off, take a red, sit down and relax. But second, are they? Judge Barton claims that “the possibility that the sea could rise 20 feet by the end of the century” is one huge example of extremist inaccuracy. But let’s look at that, just like Wired Magazine did last month: The essence of the movie and that statement (further buttressed by Wired’s science advisors) is that IF current trends continue unabated, then the global temperature will rise by 2 degrees in the next 30 to 50 years. At that point, the entire ice-mass of Greenland will become slush and all evidence points to it increasing sea level by about 20 feet. So Gore is inaccurate in my book as well: he says by the end of the century, Wired and their science team say 30 to 50 years. This alone is clearly enough to throw Al Gore under the bus and destroy the movie as the paramount example of bombastic eco-propaganda.

And the “Global Climate Crusade” as Lewis puts it, wants to put an “already energy starved planet on a diet… which will only foster poverty and lead to conflict.” This may well be the most stupid piece of logic that I have ever seen. So the answer must clearly be “All full ahead” here in the US – use it all up and pollute the air quickly so that the Sudan doesn’t get any more unrested. WOW what a moron.

Here’s the deal from my perspective: people think about global climate change in terms of the world and not the atmosphere. The atmosphere is like a tiny-tiny skin on a huge bologna – and messing it up is considerably easier than any of us might imagine. Does no one else remember that aerosol cans used to destroy the ozone layer? And the fact that NO ONE believed that spraying their hair with a little cement was killing our world? Given that tiny piece of data alone – is it so far fetched to imagine that the millions of tons of CO2, Methane and other green house gases and pollutants we spit out every year are at least a bit culpable in the modification of our planet’s precious atmosphere? Combined with the devastation of the attenuating factors (like the Amazon forest) – our world has less and less ability to deal with more and more crap we make it put up with every day. The blowhard wingnuts that espouse that we are NOT in a crisis will be dead soon anyway, so screw them. I want the world to be a reasonably nice place then I’m older and for my kids. And personally I’d like to NOT have to pay taxes for more devastation to places like New Orleans or the entire Eastern Seaboard, which will certainly suffer the brunt of the rise of the ocean (at least here in the U.S.).

And we will see more devastation. It takes simply 1 degree of surface ocean average temperature rise for us to see a devastatingly different type of hurricane season. One degree. (this is well known and supported by scientists all over the world and is not contested). What will a couple of those puppies do? Do you REALLY Want to find out when it’s too late to fix it?

So back to my original point: Congratulations and THANK YOU VICE PRESIDENT GORE for having fought for understanding on this issue since the early 70s. It is my fervent hope that your work will not be in vain.