Nor should Focus on the Family support abortion companies.
Well, people are hypocrites – but that’s not always a bad thing. You’re perfectly right in saying that the only consistent course of action, once one is convinced of AGW’s harmfulness, is to do everything within one’s power to minimize its impact – but humans are capable of (sometimes rather shocking amounts of) cognitive dissonance; and, in the right context, that’s one of our greatest assets. Just imagine what would happen if we were forced either to act in perfect accordance with what we have determined to be necessary to further our cause, Great or otherwise, or not act at all – faced with the prospects of giving up cars, homes, lifestyles and other niceties, most people probably will very rapidly come to the conclusion that maybe this whole AGW thing isn’t gonna be all that bad anyway and not do anything. Whereas, if permitted some judiciously applied hypocrisy, you can recycle your trash while keeping that shiny new car that perhaps gets a little worse gas mileage than would be optimal; but that way, at least the trash gets recycled! (Not to mention that it’s probably not in all cases clear what the ‘optimal’ course of action is supposed to be, anyway…)
So, in order to further the cause, it’s perhaps better for a lot of people to do things half-assedly than for everybody to do fuck all, perhaps even than for a few to become totally committed.
Similarly, Blake is completely right that a wife beater’s shelter-building doesn’t absolve him of his own immorality; but at the same time, as far as society is concerned, less women are ending up being beaten. That the two measures don’t agree doesn’t mean that one has to be discarded in favour of the other – they just measure different things.
Chief, when you were in university, did you go up to vegetarians and berate them for wearing leather shoes?
Not if him choosing to fly first class makes no significant difference. If we are talking about a fraction of a percent difference in something that’s only a fraction of a percent of the problem, how significant is that? If it’s even that; would him choosing to fly other than first class actually make any difference whatsoever?
You can make a much better argument for him flying at all being hypocritical. Complaining about him taking first class smacks of complaining that he’s a hypocrite because he emits extra CO2 by breathing too heavily while he’s in that house of his.
Not the same thing. Light bulbs inevitably make a difference because there are so very many of them. Which is why there was concern about them before AGW hit the radar. There are far more light bulbs being used far more often than there people flying first class, or any class.
And again; if you want to complain, complain about him flying unnecessarily. You mentioned him flying recreationally; I’m quite sure than one of those flights is going to make a bigger difference than what class he flies in.
Is he a hypocrite? Quite likely; political leader generally are. That doesn’t make AGW wrong though, nor does he alone make much difference to such a large scale problem. So it’s fairly pointless to worry about.
Let’s try this argument: If you believe AGW is real, you must avoid all avoidable increases in your carbon footprint; if you don’t, you’re a hypocrite. The use of electricity is an avoidable increase in your carbon footprint. The use of manufactured products is an avoidable increase in your carbon footprint. Therefore, Al Gore is a hypocrite because he uses electricity and manufactured products.
If someone asks what they can do, why wouldn’t he answer? It doesn’t surprise me to know that he has information on what the individual can do, but that’s irrelevant to anything that actually matters. The number of people who are actually going to change the way they live, voluntarily, to help fight AGW is probably less than 1%. The amount that the 1% can actually affect their footprint is probably a tenth of a percent, and those 1% probably only had a footprint that was a hundredth of a percent go begin with. A tenth of a hundredth of 1% of the American carbon footprint is ultimately pointless. And trying to mandate that Americans should live differently than they do is plain off a non-starter.
Al Gore wouldn’t be where he is if he was an idiot. If you think that he’s relying on individual change as a solution to anything then I would have to seriously wonder how much thought you have put into this.
So like I said, if someone asks me what they can do and won’t accept “Vote for me!” as being the end of it, then sure I’m going to tell them to plant trees and sort their trash and whatever else, but in reality all I’m going to care about is getting nuclear energy on the table, optimizing the power grid, updating electronics standards, etc. Those are the things you see actually being proposed for legislation, and not a one relies on the individual.
No, no, no! Christ Jesus, you’re thick! If Al Gore is a hypocrite, that proves that there is no such thing as global warming! Try and keep up, won’t you?
I think you are unduly pessimistic. I do think that many, probably eventually most people can be convinced to change their lifestyles in ways that change their carbon footprint. And I do think that they can do so by far more than a “tenth of a percent”. Something as simple as buying more efficient cars and lightbulbs would do better than that. I don’t think you are going to convince people to live like it’s the 19th century, but I don’t think people are as obdurate and helpless as you claim.
Squink, I agree with you. However what you have failed to address is that Gore has repeatedly and loudly stated that this is a moral issue. It’s greater than environmental or economic or social. It is a moral issue and demands a moral response. Nobody forced him into a corner on that issue. Of his own free will he adopted the position of a moral crusader.
Doesn’t that change things dramatically? Can a moral crusader still be hypocritical on the issue? Can he still engage in realpolitick and say “they just measure different things”?
We all accept that Lincoln would have accepted slavery if that was necessary because he was a military/political campaigner. Could Martin Luther King have said the same thing and retained a shred of credibility or any of your respect? We accept that Washington thought that violence was acceptable in overthrowing tyranny however much he may have despised it, but if Gandhi had said the same thing, would he retain your respect?
My contention here is that once somebody adopts something as a moral and ethical position, rather than environmental or economic, as Gore has done with AGW, then they are necessarily held to a higher standard because they have decided that their conduct on that issue is indicative of their morality. I don’t believe that Gandhi was more moral than Washington or that King was more moral than Lincoln, but had they acted in a manner that betrayed their own stated moral position then I would judge them much more harshly.
It seems Gore wants to have the best of both worlds. He wants to take the moral high ground and portray his opponents as unethical, while simultaneously taking the pragmatic route open to purely practical problems. You can measure the mundane world many ways, not so morality. If the man believes it is moral issue then engaging in these actions are either moral or they are not, regardless of what other actions he may also engage in.
This really seems to me to be the modern equivalent of buying indulgences. Sure he knows what he does is immoral, but he’s rich so if he spends enough money he believes he can buy his way out of any moral culpability.
How do either of those affect the individuals quality of life? A car is a car and a light bulb is a light bulb. Moving to newer technology without affecting the individual’s experience of daily life is exactly the sort of thing that is actually being considered for change.
Ahh so morality is about quantity now is it? It’s not immoral to own slaves, so long as you only own one? Is that your point?
But he portrays himself as a moral leader on this subject. Not a political leader.
Has anyone made such an argument?
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He was given a freakin’ nobel prize ostensibly because he made such a huge difference to the problem.
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When the leader of a social movement is hypocrite whose actions contradict his stated position on the issue, that is an issue very much worthwhile worrying about. It calls into question the motives of the entire social movement.
Would you mind if we call you “Stretch”? As an honorific nick-name, of course.
And? I don’t see what your point is? Are you arguing that the fact that most American’s weren’t going to allow blacks equal rights made that morally acceptable? Does morality depend upon numbers now?
Yet Gore campaigns ceaselessly for laws and treaties designed to mandate that Americans should live differently than they do. Don;t you find a contradiction there?
I don’t think he’s relying on that. I think he’s relying on selling this as amoral issue, a Great Cause as the OP says. Yet he either doesn’t believe that or is hypocritical as it applies to him.
Again, I’m not sure what your point is? Gore is telling others they should do things to address amoral problem that have less impact than what he himself is prepared to do. Isn’t that hypocricy regardless of the impact? Once again, I can’t wrap my head around this idea of numerical morality.
Only if we get to call you Thicky. As an honorific nick-name, of course.
A silly comparison. Owning one slave is wrong because owning slaves AT ALL is wrong. Emitting excess CO2 is wrong because there’s too much of the stuff and because of the effects it is having; not because emitting any CO2 at all is wrong or because it’s gaseous evil.
It’s pretty much implied. Otherwise why bother to bash Gore?
< shrug > And Kissinger was given a Peace Prize. The non-scientific Nobel Prizes have been a joke for a long time.
Except that he’s either right or wrong regardless of his personal behavior, and regardless of his motives. Are you suggesting we should fry the planet out of spite if he’s a hypocrite? “We may be living in a post apocalyptic wasteland, but we sure showed Al Gore!”
But those are on the individual level, which you said wouldn’t work.
It’s not a question of morality, but of practicality. If the idea is to reduce carbon emissions, then you need to take the practical actions that will do that.
Beats “Luci”. Knock yourself out.
No. He has a big house. It certainly costs more to heat it than a conventional home. Also, he’s got a staff that work out of it and purchases renewable energy when possible. He isn’t advocating that you live in a hut. He’s advocating that you make the painless changes that you can to assist the overall effort.
Seriously, doesn’t it bother the AGW-Deniers that all they can come up with to argue against AGW is pathetic personal attacks that wouldn’t even show anything if they were true?
I have no idea what this is meant to mean. Are you arguing that if Gore realeses CO2 then that won’t contribute to the problem? That it won’t mean there is more than if he had not added it?
For precisely the same reason that you *ceasely *bash religions my friend. An individual or group declares an issue to be one of morality, tries to grab the moral high ground and to dictate the lives of others based on their own stated moral position. Why wouldn’t we scrutinise their own behaviour on the issue and bash them if it is hypocritical?
So you are arguing that Gore has had an insignificant effect on this issue?
No, that’s a classic false dilemma. He could easily be right on the facts and wrong on the morality, or vice versa, or neither, or both.
Where did you get all that straw? Where did anyone suggest anything remotely like that?
Those aren’t the individual level. The individual has done nothing different from what he did yesterday. He needed a light bulb. He went out and bought a light bulb. He screwed the light bulb in its socket. It shone light just as much as the last light bulb did.
The infrastructure for how money turns into light has changed, but nothing has changed for the individual.