You don’t believe in a system of carbon credits, but Gore does. So how does his using them make him look like a hypocrite? He’s taking the exact same actions that he suggests for others.
Most of those oh-so-concerned about Gore’s “hypocrisy” have shown their opposition to his other policies elsewhere.
They aren’t “getting it” because they don’t want to get it.
- Not “per square foot” but "per person is the standard that seems right to me.
- There isn’t enough green energy b/c there aren’t enough green consumers and there is a time lag to get there. What makes sense is that an individual consume ONLY green energy AND make sure their total consumption is at a rate that allows green energy production to catch up. That is the only way GW would be affected. If, say, everyone goes to green energy but has a huge total consumption, it simply isn’t a workable solution because the lag time will be too great.
- I have indirectly criticized Mr Gore by saying I don’t find him persuasive. I don’t think I’ve been dishonest about it; I haven’t seen any data that suggests his total consumption, and his total lifestyle cost to the environmental CO2 (see my posts above) is not way above average just for the US, much less the rest of the world.
- I haven’t pretended all Mr Gore is doing is purchase carbon offsets. I’m just trying to address one point at a time. I have quoted the point made elsewhere that buying carbon offsets in the face of personal consumption of CO2-producing elements is like contributing to an abused woman’s shelter while you continue to beat your wife.
I suspect we’ll continue to disagree. Surely discourse is the way that over time we both modify positions. I’m surprised at those who find Mr Gore’s lifestyle does not diminish his persuasiveness.
When the rich guy came to Jesus to ask the way of salvation, Jesus said, “Sell all that you have” and the rich guy went away bummed. Gandhi said, “I must be the change I want to see in the world.”
For me that’s the whole problem with GW. What it would take to improve it is far above what almost all of us is willing to sacrifice. As I’ve posted above, Mr Gore is the poster child of example for that.
And I like the man. I think he’s sincere. I think he has a heart for the world. I think he cares about the fate of civilization. I just happen to also think he represents, exactly, the problem.
I don’t think the point behind buying carbon credits is to be punished for producing green house gases. It’s to take a positive action to reduce greenhouse gasses to counterbalance a negative action you’ve previously taken that increased greenhouse gasses. How much it costs the person buying the credits isn’t really material.
Do you have any evidence to support the assertion that there is “not enough” green energy?
Hijack/
Glad to see your status changed, Chief.
/Hijack
“Green energy currently provides a very small amount of electricity, generally contributing less than 2 to 5 % to the overall pool from which utilities buy their electricity.”
I don’t think Gore is a net drag on the environment and I think its great he is getting out the message that global warming could be a problem. In my mind, there is enough evidence that we could experience catastrophic climate change if we don’t change our behaviour that its worth making a few sacrifices to reduce that risk. I gues my biggest point is to stop pointing to the purchase of carbon credits like it absolves otherwise popor behaviour. If I drive a Hummer and I put a bumper sticker on my Hummer saying that I buy carbon credits for the luxury of driving my Hummer, does that make it OK for me to drive my Hummer now?
Ah. No, your point was that there was a limited amount of green energy, so that Gore should be taken to task for not conserving it. Your cite shows that green energy makes up a small proportion of the market. People buying it up will help green power producers increase their capacity.
This would be evident from the very next paragraph in your own cite:
Bolding in the above quote is mine.
I didn’t ask for a critique of the carbon credit system; that’s a different matter altogether. I asked why you consider Gore a hypocrite for using them when it certainly seems that he believes that they’re worthwhile.
Unfortunately, you only cited part of my point about the limited amount of green energy. Here’s the sentence: "There isn’t enough green energy b/c there aren’t enough green consumers and there is a time lag to get there. "
There IS only a limited amount of green energy. There is potential for much more, of course, but “there is a lag time to get there.” Building out a full green energy grid will take many years–decades, perhaps–to replace the current power plant infrastructure. It’s not that I think Mr Gore should conserve green energy. It’s that his solution to replace non-green energy with green energy is viable only if everyone cuts way back on their total amount of energy use because there isn’t enough to supply all the current energy needs. Think of it as trying to stretch the resource as far as possible. If total energy goes way down, the relative contribution of green energy rises.
I am taking Mr Gore to task for using up more than a per-capita share of energy, and finding him unpersuasive because of his total energy consumption. (Not just his power bill, but the whole amount of energy it takes to support a wealthy lifestyle. As I argue elsewhere, CO2 production most closely correlates with wealth because of all the CO2 production required to support consumption.)
I’m a little surprised that this point is controversial for you.
Let’s use an example to clarify the green energy solution:
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Let’s assume GW is real, it’s caused by human CO2 production, and the tipping point has been reached. It’s not a down-the-road dilemma. It’s a crisis. NOW.
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Let’s assume that right now per-capita CO2 production for the human population is “X.” This is the amount that is creating the current crisis. In the west, let’s say per-capita CO2 contribution is 5X. (Fill in you own numbers if you like.)
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Along comes a fella whose personal energy consumption is 10X. He has a suggestion: Switch to green energy.
He is very persuasive about the criticality of the situation, and EVERYONE follows his advice. Unfortunately, they cannot ALL switch to green energy because there isn’t enough of it. The converts come to the following conclusion: If we are to save the world we must all cut way way back until such time as the green energy infrastructure catches up for it to be a viable solution. Does the green energy preacher say, “I’m just glad I got my portion of green energy first” or does he adjust his personal consumption to X in order to be more persuasive and prove that his solution is viable?
Absent a marked willingness to live closer to X than 10X, I’m betting the average reaction for the 5X crowd will be “He ain’t doing it. Why should I?”
But we’ll see, I guess.
Cutting back on non-green energy has no relationship to the ability to build green power capacity (except to the extent that people do exactly what Gore is doing and switch over to using green power). Your thinking is a bit like saying “The only way to have more people drink New Coke is to have them cut back on their consumption of Coke Classic.”
Obviously, unless they switch over to drinking New Coke, the Coca Cola company won’t have the resources or desire to increase their New Coke production. Conserving the amount of Coke consumed, particularly in a manner that delivers less money to New Coke resources, won’t achieve the desired effect, and New Coke will die from a lack of consumer support and from insufficient resources to expand.
You’d have a point if it were clear that there were insufficient resources to meet the current demand for green power. I asked you for evidence to support that point, and you failed to return with it. Instead, you returned with a cite that demonstrates my point - consumers who purchase green power are helping to increase demand and build capacity. Given that Gore is able to purchase 100% of his energy from green power suppliers, it would seem that he is not maxing out the amount of such energy that is available.
But he did do what he’s asking others to do. He switched to 100% green power. People saying “He ain’t doing it” would be lying or exceptionally stupid.
I think it’s more likely that conservation across-the-board would lead to deflated energy prices and therefore make green power less competitive, not more. The idea is to increase the slice of the existing pie that is made up of green energy by having those who can afford it/access it spend their energy money on green sources. Once we all convert primarily to green energy, prices will likely stabilize somewhat higher than non-green. Then market forces will take care of lowering consumption.
I’d prefer you quote me rather than restate what was said incorrectly and attack a false premise.
Here’s the exchange:
CP: “There isn’t enough green energy b/c there aren’t enough green consumers and there is a time lag to get there.”
Historically people have not considered the source of their energy, and the power-producing infrastructure has not electively built green energy infrastructure. There will be a substantial lag time to do so.
H the B: “Do you have any evidence to support the assertion that there is “not enough” green energy?”
CP: Sustainable energy - Wikipedia (supporting link that at least 95% of energy isn’t green…)
This is quite a different exchange from a debate on whether or not there is enough green energy “to meet the current demand,” and whether or not increasing demand will drive increased production. Of course it will, but there will be a substantial lag time to do so.
In the interim, simply consuming energy resources at a 10X rate and suggesting that we all switch to green energy is a non-viable solution because (quoting myself here) “there is not enough green energy.”
To reiterate: using green energy is a good thing if you buy into the whole GW spiel. Buying green energy will increase demand and increase production.
If, however, there is not an immediate, concomitant, substantial reduction in total energy use, it will not be a sufficient solution to ameliorate the current crisis. And that’s the sacrifice that isn’t going to happen, in part because the wealthy are not requiring themselves to live at a consumptive level they are suggesting for the rest of the world.
I am sure Mr Gore is pleased at your defense of him and is delighted to have so many ardent supporters who do find him persuasive.
I maintain that their will be a larger number of skeptics who understand there is not enough green energy to support consumptive lifestyles, and there will not be any time soon. For them, the 10X consumer purchasing green energy is unpersuasive. The most cynical will see it as a Potemkin facade covering an unwillingness for personal sacrifice; the more charitable will see it as well-meaning but misguided and uninformed.
Chief Pedant, I don’t think I’ve misrepresented your argument. In fact, I asked you specifically to support your premise (here quoting you): “There isn’t enough green energy…”. For there not to be enough, there has to be a level of demand for which the supply is insufficient. If I said, “There isn’t enough New Coke,” wouldn’t that mean that we have zeroed out the amount of New Coke we produced?
You come back with a cite that says, in essence, that New Coke only makes up 5% of the market. This has no bearing on whether there is enough, does it? There could be billions of bottles sitting in warehouses, but only 5% of the market is consuming it. Your cite says that there is a low level of consumption of green power relative to all power consumption, not relative to available amounts of green power.
Do you have a cite that demonstrates that high level consumption has tapped out the available amounts of green energy or not? It’s just that simple and it is the key to your argument. It is no misrepresentation.
The issue of the “lag” time that you are concerned about is one that Al Gore, as much as any consumer can, is helping to address. He is increasing the demand by getting 100% of his energy from these providers. If he were not, the “lag” in the development of green power capacity would be greater, not less, because demand would be smaller. If nobody bought New Coke, but just reduced the amount of Coke products they drank altogether, the “lag” time is going to be forever, because New Coke will just be dumped since it is a drag on the revenues.
Again, either he is already, right now, purchasing 100% of his energy from green power sources, or the power company is committing fraud.
How in heaven’s name would reducing the use of electricity generated via green power production reduce the emission of carbon? Reducing the emission of greenhouse gases occurs through curtailing the use of electricity from standard power production facilities, not green ones.
Try to understand it this way: If Al Gore cuts his power usage in half and switched back to regular sources of electricity, he will have dramatically increased his share of greenhouse gas emissions.
Alternatively, describe how New Coke would have succeeded by everyone cutting back on their consumption of all Coke products?
It is worth noting that even if rich people like Gore use more energy than us poorer folk, that is not a good argument against some sort of cap-and-trade policy or carbon tax. The idea of such policies is to correct a deficiency in the market whereby it does not recognize the cost associated with greenhouse gas emissions…Therefore, it is pricing energy produced that generates these emissions at an artificially low level. I.e., it is being subsidized.
I mean, rich people presumably use more computers too and have more luxury cars and eat more caviar. Does that mean we should subsidize computers and luxury cars and caviar to make them more affordable to everyone else?
The issue of what Gore does or does not do is just a distraction from the real issue…independent of the fact that many of the people are misrepresenting what Gore says and does to make this claim of hypocracy.
If Mr Gore’s position on the cause of GW is correct, and the rest of the world, on a per capita basis, consumed the amount of energy required to support Mr Gore’s lifestyle, global warming would be vastly worsened.
I find him, therefore, unpersuasive. I understand that for you, in some way, his use of green energy is an important point. Because it is a non-implementable solution to the short-term crisis, I find it a largely irrelevant point. There is not enough green energy to replace conventional energy. There will not be for some time. Period. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t push for green energy as a long term solution, or try to increase the demand for it. It means energy consumption must also drop immediately and drastically. This is the sacrifice that will not be made and Mr Gore is a good example of someone not making it.
Permit me to also remind you that the power one consumes is not just the house bill. It’s the power related to ALL of what you consume. I gave an example earlier of how a lifestyle that stays in nice hotel must account for the power cost of the new carpets; the new furniture…blah blah blah but you get the idea. It’s living wealthy that drives China’s factories that increases CO2 production…it’s not just your green energy power bill.
So we disagree, and I suspect that disagreement will not be resolved here. We shall see, over time, if Mr Gore is right in the first place, and if, in the second place, others find him persuasive.
I wonder if the SDMB could have an “I told you so” thread where these types of discussions could get parked for 5 or 10 years and then brought up again…
Trust me, if you post something people remember. 
You still didn’t answer his question-
I’d like to add to Chief Pedant’s last post that the analogy to Coke Classic vs. New Coke is flawed, IMO. In terms of production, the difference between Coke Classic and New Coke is nil…Coca-Cola can make the decision which to produce more of at a moment’s notice, and will therefore follow market trends with no trouble. This is not true of energy. For one thing, Chief rightfully pointed out that there is a huge investment of time & capital in setting up the means to make green power. For another, green power is inherently less efficient than carbon-based energy, and therefore it is difficult to produce it in quantities that are necessary to maintain lifestyles such as Al Gore’s (and yours and mine, for that matter). The less power we use as a society, the faster and easier it will be to fulfill those requirements using green power. When certain people use much much more than even the average American (who use/waste plenty of it, as it is), it simply takes us further away from having ALL the power needs of the country satisfied using green power.
He’s asking for a citation to reinforce a point I did not make. I don’t do that. 
This will probably be my last shot at trying to clarify my point. It’s just too tedious.
I am underwhelmed by anyone who uses a lot of energy, either directly for their home or indirectly for their lifestyle, and touts the use of green energy as a solution to the GW crisis.
In the GW construct green energy IS a potential solution to GW. Personal use of green energy drives the infrastructure that creates it. Right now green energy is less than 5% of total energy.
The problem that got us here (again, if you buy into the GW construct but I’m leaving that as a given for now) is needing so much energy that we are pouring CO2 into the atmosphere. Green energy will not get us out of that problem because there is not enough of it to replace conventional energy, and the lag time to get there is too great. We therefore have to also reduce. Drastically reduce. Now.
If, tomorrow, everyone took Mr Gores position and demanded a switch to green energy, there would be a tremendous infrastructure buildout to meet the demand. In the best scenario, that would take a long time (decades?) to build out. The GW crisis is touted as being emergent right now. If we took his energy consumption as a reasonable guidleline for our own lifestyles, GW would be vastly worsened.
Therefore, sigh, there is no way around actually reducing per-capita consumption of energy as the “cure” for global warming. There isn’t enough green energy to do it, and there ain’t gonna be enough to do it in time.
But as I’ve said before, if Mr Gore’s lifestyle and total consumption level is the right thing to do for GW, where do I sign up?