I don’t see why. There’s nothing inherently immoral about driving a Hyundai instead of a Chevy.
Do you agree that anyone who accepts the mantle of prominent leadership of a movement, institution, or organization should set a good example in his or her personal life and should be held to a high standard?
But you see you loaded the question so that if I play your game I have to agree. So to answer your question, yes.
However, I do not think Gore’s promoting awareness of AGW is quite the same as being the CEO of GM or the Chairman of the Red Cross. He is not in charge of a specific large agency and he is setting a good example by driving a Hybrid, installing Solar panels despite having to work with the town to override their overzealous zoning laws and that he is now installing Geo-Thermal to reduce that high gas bill of his, possible by a huge amount.
Can you honestly say that he has not done more for AGW awareness then anyone else on the planet?
Jim
No, the PR department of Ford keeps insisting that they are right. But that doesn’t make it so. In fact, their continued insistence and pounding on the same talking points over and over undermines the veracity of their claims.
Well, that sort of thing is very much a matter of opinion on how you make such a movie. On the one hand, I see Soden’s point that there is still a lot more uncertainty associated with what will happen in regards to hurricanes than in regards to other things. On the other hand, I don’t see anything necessarily wrong with discussing in the movie possibilities where the science is still more uncertain. [The IPCC, by the way, concludes “There is observational evidence for an increase of intense tropical cyclone activity in the North Atlantic since about 1970, correlated with increases of tropical sea surface temperatures. There are also suggestions of increased intense tropical cyclone activity in some other regions where concerns over data quality are greater. Multi-decadal variability and the quality of the tropical cyclone records prior to routine satellite observations in about 1970 complicate the detection of long-term trends in tropical cyclone activity. There is no clear trend in the annual numbers of tropical cyclones.” and “Based on a range of models, it is likely that future tropical cyclones (typhoons and hurricanes) will become more intense, with larger peak wind speeds and more heavy precipitation associated with ongoing increases of tropical SSTs. There is less confidence in projections of a global decrease in numbers of tropical cyclones. The apparent increase in the proportion of very intense storms since 1970 in some regions is much larger than simulated by current models for that period.”] Ideally, one should note the greater uncertainty and I am not sure if Gore did that or not.
Another thing is that I think Hurricane Katrina represents a lot of different issues. For me, it more highlights the fact that, even in advanced wealthy countries such as ours, we are still in many ways very much at the mercy of the elements. I.e., I think there is sometimes an attitude of being somewhat cavalier, “What do I care if the temperature changes by a few degrees? I’ll just turn up the A.C.” Events like Katrina serve to remind us that we are not as invulnerable as we might think. Of course, people in less wealthy countries are even more vulnerable to the elements.
Yeah…This is an interesting debate. Note that hurricane expert Kerry Emanuel was skeptical whether this wind shear effect would be enough to counteract the effects due to increased water temperatures. But, this is certainly an area of very active research at the moment.
Anyway, we will see how it plays out. I do like Soden and if we played “fantasy climate science,” I’d draft him on my team. But, of course, that doesn’t mean he is right about everything. My point in linking to those two articles is that I thought that the Coyote Blog was not being fair in its suggestion that there is no empirical evidence for the sort of feedback effects that are predicted by the models to magnify warming. I am not claiming that the evidence is yet completely overwhelming but certainly there is some evidence that the climate models are not at all out-to-lunch in their prediction that the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere will increase in a warmer world (such that the relative humidity remains roughly constant). It also helps that this is pretty much what you might predict based on simple intuition (although obviously in something as complex as the atmosphere you cannot rely on intuition alone).
I just don’t get it. Does this mean that we shouldn’t recognize Bill Gates for the works of the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation because he doesn’t live in poverty? What about my slightly overweight neighbor who spends countless hours every year raising funds for starving children in sub-Saharan Africa. Obviously she is a hypocrite also and her time and energy mean nothing.
Is this what you are saying?
Regarding Gore’s (and the IPCC’s) Nobel, I think it is a little premature. He has campaigned aggressively, sure, but it is too soon to know what kind of effect his campaigning has had or how bad the problem of climate change is going to be for the world. Maybe in ten or twenty years it will be clear that his efforts over the last twenty years are deserving of the honor of a Nobel prize, but at this point it is hard to be sure. I mean who knows, maybe the increase in global temperature will lengthen the growing season, the changes in rainfall patterns will make drought a thing of the past, and the increase in atmospheric CO2 will cause the world to bloom like never before and eliminate global hunger. Extremely doubtful, but possible. Personally, I believe it is more likely that AGW is going to cause economic disruption that is going to make the great depression look like a minor recession, kill millions through starvation, start wars over limited resources like food and fresh water, and cause the extinction of countless species that are unable to adapt. If this scenario unfolds, then the Nobel will have surely been deserved regardless of what his current carbon footprint is…
That’s why I used the phrase “movement, institution, or organization” in my question. Then standard I proposed applies to leaders in all 3. Of course you are free to have your own opinion.
I have no idea.
jshore, I don’t know how many times I have to say it, but I will persevere. I say again, the first step I have repeatedly advocated is the “Three R’s” … Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. I think that we should reduce our consumption in all areas, particularly energy. Conservation is always cheaper than new production. You have accused me of not advocating anything that Mobil doesn’t want … how many times have you heard Mobil say we should cut our gasoline consumption?
This is one of my problems with Al Gore. He doesn’t seem to even get to Step 1, “Reduce”. Instead, he seems to think that it is fine to consume many times the average citizen’s consumption, and then excuse it by making payments that only wealthy people can afford. Call me simple, but I fail to see how this is a prescription for a renewable future for the world. Having lived and worked extensively in the Third World, I am interested in solving the world energy problem, not in solutions that only the wealthy can afford.
I am sensitive about the current large subsidies for wind and solar because
both wind power and solar power are not new technologies, and the prices are not dropping fast enough to make them economically competitive any time soon. To do so, they would have to cut their costs to a small fraction of the current cost, and
because of their intermittent nature, neither wind nor solar can replace current power generation, but only supplement it. We will still need to have the full conventional generation capacity for times when the intermittent sources are unavailable. This means that we will have to pay for both conventional and solar/wind, which makes them uneconomical.
The TVA sells power for about 7.3 cents per KWh. Their generation costs are likely around half of that. They pay for, not sell for but pay for, renewable energy at 20 cents per KWh. For the renewable source to function without subsidy, they will have to produce their power for something on the order of 4 cents per KWh … economies of scale will cover only a small part of that.
Look, I’m a passionate advocate of renewable energy, I used to teach it for the US Peace Corps, it’s wonderful stuff in the right situation. But I am also a realist. It is not a feasible substitute for a meaningful amount of fossil fuel, which is why among other reasons, even with the subsidy, wind plus solar is only a hundredth of one percent of the TVA generation mix.
By no means. What will happen is what has happened many times in the past with a variety of commodities as they became scarce. Over the period of centuries during which the fossil fuels will run out (coal reserves are estimated at several hundred years), prices will rise, other forms of energy will come on line, and the world will contine.
My thanks to you,
w.
PS — The numbers for the TVA renewable production are available here. General TVA electrical production figures are here. Other associated numbers are available on the TVA web site, I don’t have the exact cites at hand.
PPS — Speaking of citations, perhaps you have a citation showing the cost you think people should pay, that, is the dollar cost of emitting a kg of CO2 into the atmosphere? What does that kg of CO2 cost us, and how is that cost determined?
Looks to me like both sides in this debate are pounding on the same points over and over.
But then again, I’m not a partisan pundit.
It depends what the principles and values of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation are. If the Foundation urges people to live in poverty, then Bill Gates is a hypocrite.
If your neighbor urges Westerners to go on starvation diets in order to benefit the starving children in Africa, then she is a hypocrite. Her time and energy don’t mean nothing, but she would be a poor choice for President of the Americans Should Go On Starvation Diets Foundation.
:rolleyes:
If by that you mean one side is talking about science while the other side smears, casts aspersions and obsesses over their political enemies electric bills, then I guess I agree with you.
I mean exactly what I said.
By the way, would you consider the following statement a “smear”? an “aspersion”?
Just wondering 
What can I say – I didn’t know the answer to your question. Can you spell out your point to me?
Can you honestly say that he has not done more for AGW awareness then anyone else on the planet?
I will rephrase it for you:
Can you tell me the name of anyone that has done more to rasie awareness of AGW?
Nope. So what’s your point?
So, many of us feel that this is the reason why the Nobel Peace Prize committee gave 1/2 the prize to Al Gore.
He did more to raise awareness to the issue that obviously the NPP committee considered important.
Jim
That may very well be true . . . so what?
So that was the point of this entire debate, he did deserve the prize.
For an interesting analysis of the effect of Al Gore on people’s beliefs about global warming, see this article. A relevant quote:
Again, color me unimpressed. No lasting effect.
w.
Ok, so you apparently feel that the prize should go to the person who did the most to raise public awareness about AGW, regardless of personal conduct.
I feel that personal conduct is important in many situations, including this one.
It’s just a matter of opinion.