ConservativeINC

Here’s Gore’s latest rant against “climate change.” The most striking thing is that he is basically calling for socialism’s “new man.” By that he and the rest of socialism means a society of people who have been transformed from being individuals to being mindless drones working for the state, wait, sorry, for each other. Yeah right.

It is long, but I will include it all here because it could very well become a historical document. “Historical?” you say. Yeah, because everyone will look back and see that liberals were completely nuts. I would say that is historical.

A Precious and Painful Vision of the Future

by AL GORE

[posted online on December 10, 2007]

I have a purpose here today. It is a purpose I have tried to serve for many years. I have prayed that God would show me a way to accomplish it.

Sometimes, without warning, the future knocks on our door with a precious and painful vision of what might be. One hundred and nineteen years ago, a wealthy inventor read his own obituary, mistakenly published years before his death. Wrongly believing the inventor had just died, a newspaper printed a harsh judgment of his life’s work, unfairly labeling him “The Merchant of Death” because of his invention–dynamite. Shaken by this condemnation, t he inventor made a fateful choice to serve the cause of peace.

Seven years later, Alfred Nobel created this prize and the others that bear his name.

Seven years ago tomorrow, I read my own political obituary in a judgment that seemed to me harsh and mistaken–if not premature. But that unwelcome verdict also brought a precious if painful gift: an opportunity to search for fresh new ways to serve my purpose.

Unexpectedly, that quest has brought me here. Even though I fear my words cannot match this moment, I pray what I am feeling in my heart will be communicated clearly enough that those who hear me will say, “We must act.”

The distinguished scientists with whom it is the greatest honor of my life to share this award have laid before us a choice between two different future–a choice that to my ears echoes the words of an ancient prophet: “Life or death, blessings or curses. Therefore, choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live.”

We, the human species, are confronting a planetary emergency–a threat to the survival of our civilization that is gathering ominous and destructive potential even as we gather here. But there is hopeful news as well: we have the ability to solve this crisis and avoid the worst–though not all–of its consequences, if we act boldly, decisively and quickly.

However, despite a growing number of honorable exceptions, too many of the world’s leaders are still best described in the words Winston Churchill applied to those who ignored Adolf Hitler’s threat: “They go on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all powerful to be impotent.”

So today, we dumped another 70 million tons of global-warming pollution into the thin shell of atmosphere surrounding our planet, as if it were an open sewer. And tomorrow, we will dump a slightly larger amount, with the cumulative concentrations now trapping more and more heat from the sun.

As a result, the earth has a fever. And the fever is rising. The experts have told us it is not a passing affliction that will heal by itself. We asked for a second opinion. And a third. And a fourth. And the consistent conclusion, restated with increasing alarm, is that something basic is wrong.

We are what is wrong, and we must make it right.

Last September 21, as the Northern Hemisphere tilted away from the sun, scientists reported with unprecedented distress that the North Polar ice cap is “falling off a cliff.” One study estimated that it could be completely gone during summer in less than twenty-two years. Another new study, to be presented by US Navy researchers later this week, warns it could happen in as little as seven years.

Seven years from now.

In the last few months, it has been harder and harder to misinterpret the signs that our world is spinning out of kilter. Major cities in North and South America, Asia and Australia are nearly out of water due to massive droughts and melting glaciers. Desperate farmers are losing their livelihoods. Peoples in the frozen Arctic and on low-lying Pacific islands are planning evacuations of places they have long called home. Unprecedented wildfires have forced a half million people from their homes in one country and caused a national emergency that almost brought down the government in another. Climate refugees have migrated into areas already inhabited by people with different cultures, religions, and traditions, increasing the potential for conflict. Stronger storms in the Pacific and Atlantic have threatened whole cities. Millions have been displaced by massive flooding in South Asia, Mexico, and eighteen countries in Africa. As temperature extremes have increased, tens of thousands have lost their lives. We are recklessly burning and clearing our forests and driving more and more species into extinction. The very web of life on which we depend is being ripped and frayed.

We never intended to cause all this destruction, just as Alfred Nobel never intended that dynamite be used for waging war. He had hoped his invention would promote human progress. We shared that same worthy goal when we began burning massive quantities of coal, then oil and methane.

Even in Nobel’s time, there were a few warnings of the likely consequences. One of the very first winners of the Prize in chemistry worried that, “We are evaporating our coal mines into the air.” After performing 10,000 equations by hand, Svante Arrhenius calculated that the earth’s average temperature would increase by many degrees if we doubled the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.

Seventy years later, my teacher, Roger Revelle, and his colleague, Dave Keeling, began to precisely document the increasing CO2 levels day by day.

But unlike most other forms of pollution, CO2 is invisible, tasteless, and odorless–which has helped keep the truth about what it is doing to our climate out of sight and out of mind. Moreover, the catastrophe now threatening us is unprecedented–and we often confuse the unprecedented with the improbable.

We also find it hard to imagine making the massive changes that are now necessary to solve the crisis. And when large truths are genuinely inconvenient, whole societies can, at least for a time, ignore them. Yet as George Orwell reminds us: “Sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield.”

In the years since this prize was first awarded, the entire relationship between humankind and the earth has been radically transformed. And still, we have remained largely oblivious to the impact of our cumulative actions.

Indeed, without realizing it, we have begun to wage war on the earth itself. Now, we and the earth’s climate are locked in a relationship familiar to war planners: “Mutually assured destruction.”

More than two decades ago,scientists calculated that nuclear war could throw so much debris and smoke into the air that it would block life-giving sunlight from our atmosphere, causing a “nuclear winter.” Their eloquent warnings here in Oslo helped galvanize the world’s resolve to halt the nuclear arms race.

Now science is warning us that if we do not quickly reduce the global warming pollution that is trapping so much of the heat our planet normally radiates back out of the atmosphere, we are in danger of creating a permanent “carbon summer.”

As the American poet Robert Frost wrote, “Some say the world will end in fire; some say in ice.” Either, he notes, “would suffice.”

But neither need be our fate. It is time to make peace with the planet.

We must quickly mobilize our civilization with the urgency and resolve that has previously been seen only when nations mobilized for war. These prior struggles for survival were won when leaders found words at the eleventh hour that released a mighty surge of courage, hope and readiness to sacrifice for a protracted and mortal challenge.

These were not comforting and misleading assurances that the threat was not real or imminent; that it would affect others but not ourselves; that ordinary life might be lived even in the presence of extraordinary threat; that Providence could be trusted to do for us what we would not do for ourselves.

No, these were calls to come to the defense of the common future. They were calls upon the courage, generosity and strength of entire peoples, citizens of every class and condition who were ready to stand against the threat once asked to do so. Our enemies in those times calculated that free people would not rise to the challenge; they were, of course, catastrophically wrong.

Now comes the threat of climate crisis–a threat that is real, rising, imminent, and universal. Once again, it is the eleventh hour. The penalties for ignoring this challenge are immense and growing, and at some near point would be unsustainable and unrecoverable. For now we still have the power to choose our fate, and the remaining question is only this: Have we the will to act vigorously and in time, or will we remain imprisoned by a dangerous illusion?

Mahatma Gandhi awakened the largest democracy on earth and forged a shared resolve with what he called “Satyagraha”–or “truth force.”

In every land, the truth–once known–has the power to set us free.

Truth also has the power to unite us and bridge the distance between “me” and “we,” creating the basis for common effort and shared responsibility.

There is an African proverb that says, “If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” We need to go far, quickly.

We must abandon the conceit that individual, isolated, private actions are the answer. They can and do help. But they will not take us far enough without collective action. At the same time, we must ensure that in mobilizing globally, we do not invite the establishment of ideological conformity and a new lock-step “ism.”

That means adopting principles, values, laws, and treaties that release creativity and initiative at every level of society in multi-fold responses originating concurrently and spontaneously.

This new consciousness requires expanding the possibilities inherent in all humanity. The innovators who will devise a new way to harness the sun’s energy for pennies or invent an engine that’s carbon negative may live in Lagos or Mumbai or Montevideo. We must ensure that entrepreneurs and inventors everywhere on the globe have the chance to change the world.

When we unite for a moral purpose that is manifestly good and true, the spiritual energy unleashed can transform us. The generation that defeated fascism throughout the world in the 1940s found, in rising to meet their awesome challenge, that they had gained the moral authority and long-term vision to launch the Marshall Plan, the United Nations, and a new level of global cooperation and foresight that unified Europe and facilitated the emergence of democracy and prosperity in Germany, Japan, Italy and much of the world. One of their visionary leaders said, “It is time we steered by the stars and not by the lights of every passing ship.”

In the last year of that war, you gave the Peace Prize to a man from my hometown of 2,000 people, Carthage, Tennessee. Cordell Hull was described by Franklin Roosevelt as the “Father of the United Nations.” He was an inspiration and hero to my own father, who followed Hull in the Congress and the US Senate and in his commitment to world peace and global cooperation.

My parents spoke often of Hull, always in tones of reverence and admiration. Eight weeks ago, when you announced this prize, the deepest emotion I felt was when I saw the headline in my hometown paper that simply noted I had won the same prize that Cordell Hull had won. I n that moment, I knew what my father and mother would have felt were they alive.

Just as Hull’s generation found moral authority in rising to solve the world crisis caused by fascism, so too can we find our greatest opportunity in rising to solve the climate crisis. In the Kanji characters used in both Chinese and Japanese, “crisis” is written with two symbols, the first meaning “danger,” the second “opportunity.” By facing and removing the danger of the climate crisis, we have the opportunity to gain the moral authority and vision to vastly increase our own capacity to solve other crises that have been too long ignored.

We must understand the connections between the climate crisis and the afflictions of poverty, hunger, HIV-AIDS and other pandemics. As these problems are linked, so too must be their solutions. We must begin by making the common rescue of the global environment the central organizing principle of the world community.

Fifteen years ago, I made that case at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. Ten years ago, I presented it in Kyoto. This week, I will urge the delegates in Bali to adopt a bold mandate for a treaty that establishes a universal global cap on emissions and uses the market in emissions trading to efficiently allocate resources to the most effective opportunities for speedy reductions.

This treaty should be ratified and brought into effect everywhere in the world by the beginning of 2010–two years sooner than presently contemplated. The pace of our response must be accelerated to match the accelerating pace of the crisis itself.

Heads of state should meet early next year to review what was accomplished in Bali and take personal responsibility for addressing this crisis. It is not unreasonable to ask, given the gravity of our circumstances, that these heads of state meet every three months until the treaty is completed.

We also need a moratorium on the construction of any new generating facility that burns coal without the capacity to safely trap and store carbon dioxide.

And most important of all, we need to put a price on carbon–with a CO2 tax that is then rebated back to the people, progressively, according to the laws of each nation, in ways that shift the burden of taxation from employment to pollution. This is by far the most effective and simplest way to accelerate solutions to this crisis.

The world needs an alliance–especially of those nations that weigh heaviest in the scales where earth is in the balance. I salute Europe and Japan for the steps they’ve taken in recent years to meet the challenge, and the new government in Australia, which has made solving the climate crisis its first priority.

But the outcome will be decisively influenced by two nations that are now failing to do enough: the United States and China. While India is also growing fast in importance, it should be absolutely clear that it is the two largest CO2 emitters–most of all, my own country–that will need to make the boldest moves, or stand accountable before history for their failure to act.

Both countries should stop using the other’s behavior as an excuse for stalemate and instead develop an agenda for mutual survival in a shared global environment.

These are the last few years of decision, but they can be the first years of a bright and hopeful future if we do what we must. No one should believe a solution will be found without effort, without cost, without change. Let us acknowledge that if we wish to redeem squandered time and speak again with moral authority, then these are the hard truths:

The way ahead is difficult. The outer boundary of what we currently believe is feasible is still far short of what we actually must do. Moreover, between here and there, across the unknown, falls the shadow.

That is just another way of saying that we have to expand the boundaries of what is possible. In the words of the Spanish poet, Antonio Machado, “Pathwalker, there is no path. You must make the path as you walk.”

We are standing at the most fateful fork in that path. So I want to end as I began, with a vision of two futures–each a palpable possibility–and with a prayer that we will see with vivid clarity the necessity of choosing between those two futures, and the urgency of making the right choice now.

The great Norwegian playwright, Henrik Ibsen, wrote, “One of these days, the younger generation will come knocking at my door.”

The future is knocking at our door right now. Make no mistake, the next generation will ask us one of two questions. Either they will ask: “What were you thinking; why didn’t you act?”

Or they will ask instead: “How did you find the moral courage to rise and successfully resolve a crisis that so many said was impossible to solve?”

We have everything we need to get started, save perhaps political will, but political will is a renewable resource.

So let us renew it, and say together: “We have a purpose. We are many. For this purpose we will rise, and we will act.”

A boatload of crazy from the ex-VP. It’s good for a laugh though. BigT

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About three weeks ago I wrote a post titled, Sterilization: Their Last Hope, which talked about a woman who had herself sterilized to save the environment. The way she, and, evidently, others, see it is that every new kid is going to produce a bunch of carbon dioxide throughout their lives so it is better to not have any new kids. According to these eco-crusaders their sterilization is “all for the environment.” But I smelled a rat.

Interestingly, this woman, who has devoted her life to “saving” the planet, goes on a yearly trip with her husband. This year she went to South Africa. But, like any good hypocritical watermelon (environmentalist, if you will), she was able to rationalize this seeming contradiction by claiming that by her not having any children she was still being better then others who decided to be selfish and have children.

Unfortunately for her and her sisters in the watermelon/environmentalist/communist movement, many people are able to look at those women’s decision to sterilize themselves and realize that they are doing what they are doing to maintain a lifestyle that is fun for them. But maybe they still have time to make up for their mistakes; it’s never too late after all.

If it is bad for the world to bring a new child into the world just think about how damaging it is for the world to have all those globe-trotting adults jetting around to exotic locations. If the watermelons really want to save the world there is only one thing they can do: abort themselves.

If you are a true environmentalist you know that you are the reason why the world is in peril. Mankind is destroying the planet and the only thing that can be done to save the planet is for mankind to die. Seriously, if you are an environmentalist you know that mankind will never change. There will always be a large group of people that will live outside of their means and drive big cars and live in big houses. Even if we do eventually find an energy that doesn’t pollute it would be too late to save the planet because the tipping point towards ecological destruction draws close.

Environmentalists everywhere need to unite around the idea of after-term abortions; abortions that happen after birth. It doesn’t even have to be slightly after birth like one bioethicist advocates (what, don’t believe me? Click here.). If you come around to the environmentalist faith, um, movement, when you are in your late teens you can abort yourself then!

Think about it. When environmentalists protest now it is usually a bunch of naked, white people in some lush greenery. It’s not exactly the best press for their movement because, well, I would have to imagine that most watermelons spend their weekends naked in some lush greenery anyways. But if you had 150 watermelons abort themselves on a melting ice cap, well, then you would have a call to action.

It might even start a wave of after-term abortions throughout the world. Watermelons could abort themselves on the bare mountains in Colorado. Or, they could abort themselves around a tree that is going to be cut down in Berkeley. Maybe they could even abort themselves outside of the PM’s residence in Australia as a protest against his government’s backtracking over climate change.

But the real reason why after-term abortions should be allowed is because it would take away at least one Western polluter at a time. Doesn’t sound like a big deal? Well think of it this way: one Westerner has to produce something like 100 times more then the average person in the world. Heck, if you do an after-term abortion on yourself in America it would be like taking 1,000 average polluters off the planet! If enough watermelons had after-term abortions the world just might be saved.

We are running out of time to save the world. Al Gore says we’re about eight years away from reaching the point of no return. In order to save the planet as many of you watermelons as possible need to abort yourselves because you know I’m not going to be changing any time soon. BigT

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Less people are dying in Iraq. This is good news and hopefully is proof that security is improving in Iraq. This being the case means that it isn’t being reported all that much. In fact, most of the story from which this information is made available is dedicated to a guy who thinks the Iraq War was a bad idea and is a failure. The really interesting piece of information from this story is about the total number of civilian deaths since the start of the war.

Iraq Body Count, an independent organization that tracks media reports as well as official figures, estimates that 77,573 to 84,502 civilians have been killed.

Regularly people from the left will peg that number somewhere north of one million people dead in Iraq due to the war. The story points out that the numbers the coalition provides are less then the actual number (the coalition admits this) but it is obvious to me that the leftist death counters over-report Iraqi deaths. I guess saying there have been “one million deaths” in Iraq is a better talking point then “approximately 80,000 deaths.”

Even though deaths are down and security is up there is still news out to make everyone hate the Iraq War. The new storyline is about how there is rampant theft and bribery going on in Iraq. I don’t want to make light of this but bribes happen all the time in most countries, even advanced ones. Here’s a picture showing who is corrupt, the darker the color the more corrupt the nation.

If you’re more of a chart person then here’s the table of corruption link. Iraq is the third most corrupt nation on Earth. But I have a feeling that once the leftists look at this table and see Venezuela not that far in front of Iraq they’ll be saying the methodology is flawed and Iraq is much worse anyways and anyone who doesn’t say so is a mind-numbed robot who is an ignoramus. Well, that is what they’re going to say, you know it.

To tell you the truth I’m not even sold on the idea that corruption is bad all the time. Take the Sudan, for example. No one can really say they’re being “corrupt” because they jailed that do-gooder teacher. They are, after all, just following the law. Sometimes corruption is necessary to make things happen, especially in areas of the world that don’t have a strong tradition of laws and institutions to enforce those laws.

Speaking about Sudanese teddy bears named Mohammad, we have a story from ABC about how Muslims are condemning those who want the teacher to die. The article points out some “prominent” Islamic scholars from the West and one from the Sudan who says that this is not what Islam is about. I desperately want to believe that they are prominent scholars who actually have some sway in the Islamic community because, to tell you the truth, it just doesn’t seem like they are talking for a lot of Muslims. Thousands marched for the death of a woman who is sacrificing a good portion of her life so that some Muslim children can have a better education. While I’m glad that some scholars are talking out against this I’m not sure it matters because they can’t control the savage masses.

Do you know what matters though? Race in America; especially if you’re a democrat. Truthfully, I can’t say I give a rat’s *&$ about a person’s skin color, but that’s not true for black democrats in Alabama.

“That doubt, that cynicism could have been written to prevent every piece of progress we’ve had in our lifetime,” said Davis, D-Ala.

Before the endorsement vote, Perry County Commissioner Albert Turner praised Obama’s qualifications, but urged the group to support Clinton.

“The question you have to put forth to yourself is that whether or not in this racist country a black man named Obama — when we are shooting at Osama — can win the presidency of the United States?” Turner said.

Turner said Clinton is the Democrat most likely to win in November “because of her husband and because of some other things, mainly because she’s white.”

I believe I’ve found one of the people who believes every conspiracy theory out there. Black “leaders” only maintain their power as long as the black community believes everyone is out to get them. Wait a second, I just had an epiphany! I just realized that I’m a republican and I’m talking about democrats. It must be that democrats are extremely racist and they would never nominate a minority to be their presidential candidate. I’m sorry black leaders, you’re right when you say you have to combat racism everyday. Maybe if you want to get out from under the thumb of your white masters you should switch your party affiliation.

What, did you think that I was just being tongue and cheek? You’re probably thinking that I’m being sarcastic about blacks coming to the republican party and that there’s no way republicans are better with race issues then the democrats are. After all, there’s a bunch more black democrat politicians then there are black republican politicians. But why is that? Is it because we’re racists? No, it’s because there aren’t that many black republicans. In fact, I would hazard a guess that blacks are overrepresented in the republican party based on the percentage of voting black republicans there are.

Why is this? Because most republicans just want to live their lives. If someone comes out saying they’re going to enact legislation that would get the government off our backs we’re going to elect them in a second. If a black person comes out saying everything Reagan said 95% of republicans wouldn’t hesitate to cast their vote for him or her. That’s just the way we are.

A further example that most people who get involved in politics care more about the issues then the candidates driver license information comes from Iowa where the hostage crisis hero, Hillary Clinton, was booed for being pro-illegal immigration. Side note: I thought she was a hero now that she stared down the hostage taker? Could it be that the people don’t care about the MSM anymore? It’s too bad that the Clintons have the MSM around their collective little finger but it doesn’t really matter that much anymore because no one gives a second thought about what the nightly news anchors say.

There’s also a chance the Iowans could have been booing because their genitals were suffering from frostbite and just wanted the phone-in candidate to get done quicker. In this age of out-of-control weather gauges the American Midwest suffered a cold snap. Blizzards have claimed three lives so far and, more importantly it seems to the MSM, it is putting a crimp in presidential campaigning. But the real issue here is what does this mean about global warming? Should we call up Al Gore and tell him something is wrong? On second thought, maybe Gore caused the cool weather himself. It is a proven fact that whenever Gore gives a speech cold weather will surely follow. It’s like he’s Mr Freeze.

BigT’s Linkapalooza:
Russians “vote” soon.
Another Pakistani exiled ex-leader says he’s not an extremist.
One of Hugo Chavez’s BFFs isn’t so BFF now.
Will Venezuela’s voters ruin any chance for democracy in their country?
Better ads for websites.
I’ll trade you this gift card to Red Robbin for your Colt 1911. Only in San Francisco.
Favre says he’s going to keep on keeping on.
BigT

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