It’s interesting that you mention the “chronic” v. “acute” argument. What is the timeframe you are considering? This chronic problem of humans causing this temporal scourge due to post-industrial emissions is on the order of decades. Considering the fluctuations in nature and the age of our environs, I’m not inclined to consider this issue particularly chronic. In this instance, relativism matters. There’s a lot of relative panic to coincide with this relatively acute concern.

The more likely issue here is the agenda driven actors desperate to emasculate a developed America (or more globally, the new West) to empower the “oppressed”. The pathology of self-loathing and guilt continues to thrive in some sectors… or at least the projection of it upon others. As has been noted, some of the most vocal heed not their own calls. Gore – thy name is hypocrisy (and capitalist).

This doesn’t mean we all become Alfred Newman with a “What, me worry?” mantra re conservation; it does mean rational policies need to be considered… one’s that don’t sabotage the economic and industrial engine that works reasonably well and can solve shortcomings if the Chicken Little’s don’t flap around shedding those feathers that clog all the gears.

That’s not saying that everybody should be driving around getting 6 miles a gallon but let’s try to keep things in perspective. It’s cleaner now than it was when cities were covered in soot from burning wood and coal.

No one ever seems to account for solar flares that might just make our temperature rise 1 degree over a century. Forest fires and the like.

Global Warming is not the greatest crisis facing humanity at this moment. This moment. Last moment. Any moment. Not even in the top 10 or 20. It’s a luxury worry of narcissists who have a Virginia ham under each arm and complain about not having any bread.

I’m all for conservation but not to the point of having our country rely on despots in other parts of the world who by mere happenstance popped their tents on top of billions of gallons of crude or threatening to cripple our economy by signing pie-in-the-sky feel good bills like Kyoto.

Approximate distance? 1 and 1/2 blocks. Several limousines, several Chevy Suburbans and full police escorts. To go less than two blocks. Several of us had a good chuckle at the time. Combine that with him allowing strip mining around his family’s farm on the Caney Fork River and his family’s extensive (at the time) stock options with Occidental Petroleum (in Venezuela) – it’s got all the markings of “do as I say and not as I do”.

One of the first “digging” pieces I did for 6MB was around the Katrina when he managed to get into Louisiana for a personal photo op. I can’t wait till the photos appear again so I can show that it was a coordinated campaign that was immediately circulated by his PR firm. E-mail addresses, diaries at TPMcafe and all.

I don’t know if that’s true, but I’ll take your word, for the sake of argument.

Two more words are important here: “acute” and “chronic.” An erupting volcano is an acute environmental problem. It happens, then it stops. Back in the early 1800s, an erupting volcano caused an entire summer to virtually disappear in the northern hemisphere. Then the next year, summer came back.

Automotive pollution, added to industry, coal-burning powerplants, etc., creates a chronic problem. We’ve been at it for over a century, increasing output every year, and so far, we’re not stopping. To imagine that pumping all that stuff into the system could have no significant cumulative, chronic impact seems a bit pollyanna-ish to me.

If you eat a McDonald’s Quarter Pounder with Cheese combo for lunch, it won’t hurt you too much. Do it every day for lunch and dinner for a year, and you’ll be obese, at best, and dead of a stroke at worst. A good conservative would say, citing personal responsibility, “well, don’t do that, dumbass.”

I think that’s essentially waht Mr. Gore is saying about our cumulative responsiblity pertaning to the burning carbon-based fossil fuels.

(Also, Ebert is an idiot. It’s false logic, though, to then say that his liking of a movie makes it bad, or that his endorsement of its thesis makes it wrong.)

He’s been a pinko activist and liberal proponent from day one. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it’s a duck.

I think he knows this is HIS one issue he can attempt to get elected on.

When he moves to a log cabin with no air conditioning, rides a bike everywhere, and forgoes inside plumbing, THEN I’ll listen.

I’m definitely gonna steal that. Just so you know in advance. That’s good stuff, that…