Al Gore likens global warming to Nazi threat

Al Gore is now comparing the battle against global warming to the fight against Adolf Hitler in World War II.

In a speech to students at Oxford on Tuesday, the former vice president and Nobel Peace Prize laureate  conceded that there is still work to do to convince political leaders that the threat of climate change is as urgent as that from the Nazis. The Senate is beginning debate on a cap-and-trade bill to curb emissions, predicted to be an even tougher fight than in the House, where Speaker Nancy Pelosi had to twist arms and trade votes to win a narrow victory. Gore seemed to acknowledge the difficulty of converting grassroots passion into political will.

"The level of awareness and concern among populations has not crossed the threshold where political leaders feel that they must change," he said at the Smith School World Forum on Enterprise and the Environment. "The only way politicians will act is if awareness raises to a level to make them feel that it's a necessity."

Mindful of his British audience, Gore said the fight to cut carbon dioxide emissions will require a leader with the fortitude of Winston Churchill, who steered Britain through four years of hardship, bombings and economic deprivations to victory against the Nazis.

"Winston Churchill aroused this nation in heroic fashion to save civilization in World War II," he said.
"We have everything we need except political will, but political will is a renewable resource."

Not everyone was impressed.  At Fox News, as you can see from the clip above, they're still worried about global cooling.

-- Johanna Neuman

The Ticket goes inside politics several times a day. Click here for Twitter alerts of each new item. Or follow us @latimestot

Comments

[Angel]

I feel that "Global Warming" is a fascist propaganda farce, so maybe this news bite is a little ironic. Though, considering the nature of what I just said they might need someone more like Adolf Hitler to organize, and hood wink, the masses, but maybe they already have one.

[ronfromhollywood]

you made a remark that Fox News is worried about global cooling. Which is absolutely false. They are remarking that the earth temperatures are on average cooling. is that your counter point to the fact that Gore believes Global Warming is the same threat as Nazis? i do not understand why you have to counter a liberal exposure with that of your own contrived false view of a counter view.

[grooves1000]

Only Al Gore could make such an asinine comment as to compare global warming to a nazi threat. Obviously he was not born when the nazis ravaged Europe. Since I am cold all the time I will be very happy when global warming really happens. But please I don't want to see the nazi horror repeated anywhere any time.
Poor Al Gore. He does not know what to say any more to convince people. Perhaps he is beginning to feel that his credibility about global warming is going down the drain.

[Jude]

I tried to TELL me years ago that this guy (GORE) was NUTS/ He's made a fortune with this GREEN hysteria. With a couple mansions/flying around on a corporate jet / another hypocrite. SINCE MFG has all but disappeared in US (paper mills - steel - textile) there's nobody polluting. GORE - ask the people in East Liverpool OHIO about his LIES. HE (Clinton) promised them the nation's LARGEST toxic emissions incinerator wouldn't be built in the middle of town (across st from school). THEY both lied ---as soon as Clinton got elected GORE kicked this folks to the curb. Besides his family leaving him OCCIDENTAL OIL TRUST - check that baby out and the rain forests. People are such fools/ everything is about big bucks/ profits. This incinerator and others in the nation plus CHEMICAL alley in Gulf will keep poisoning people while GREEN POLICE taser (50,000 volts has killed over 100 people, mostly poor, mentally ill) innocent citizens trying to keep warm!!!

[harkin]

Awwww, it wouldn't be the LATimes without a skewed dig at conservatives or FOX. LOL - they even paste a link to show they get the FOX report wrong.

The LATimes business model of shilling for the unions and elite pols is failing almost as fast as Obama's economic recovery plans.

[steve rodriguez]

Al Gore all this "green stuff" has a strangle hold on our economy!

[steve rodriguez]

Global warming is a big hoax!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[DrBanks]

Gore's money-grubbing shiling of the "global warming" hoax is in stark contrast to his breathing out of the noxious, poison carbon dioxide. Only justice will come when he stops breathing out this "proven pollutant". Please stop, Mr. Gore....for the little childrenl

[Aureon Kwolek]

The Real Cause of Climate Change:

House Ag Committee Chairman Collin Peterson criticized the EPA for restricting the biofuels industry, without holding the oil industry to the same high standards. Peterson reacted strongly to EPA’s unfair application of CO2 based “Indirect Land Use Change”, an unproven theory riddled with false assumptions, introduced by an attorney. Thousands of scientists have scoffed at it.

I’ve got news: Indirect Land Use Change theory has been invalidated. During the past few years, the rate of rain forest deforestation has actually gone down, while biofuels production has gone up. The ravenous paper pulp industry in Indonesia, and the illegal hit and run timber taking in the Amazon Rainforest are the origins of deforestation, not biofuels. Palm plantations are another factor in Indonesia, however, over 70% of palm oil is used for human consumption, not biofuels. The majority of rainforest that has been destroyed in the Amazon, is being used for cattle ranching and subsistence farming, not biofuels. This has been going on for decades, long before biofuels expanded. See “Deforestation Debunked”, by Jackie Helling. Green Peace reports the same findings. Yet the EPA has embraced Indirect Land Use Change theory, and woven it into new regulations, before it has been scientifically proven.

The EPA has also been caught following UN policy, rather than its own domestic policy. This is a strategy that covertly favors big oil, by falsely blaming competing biofuels for Climate Change. EPA policy should not be based on UN policy. It should be based exclusively on balanced, in-house-verified scientific research. Collin Peterson and many others do not want the EPA restricting our growing domestic biofuels industry, an important part of National Security and Energy Independence.

Biofuels, such as ethanol and biodiesel, are derived from “recycled CO2” which is already in the air. That’s what sets them apart from petroleum based fuels. Gasoline, diesel fuel, jet fuel, heating oil, kerosene, and bunker fuel are all extracted from crude oil that is constantly bringing-up new CO2 from deep underground. Thus, fossil fuels are causing additional CO2 to accumulate in the atmosphere. Biofuels are not. The EPA fails to make this distinction - It fails to credit the footprint of biofuels for replacing “newly mined CO2” with “recycled CO2”. Another EPA omission.

Collin Peterson also criticized the EPA for “being in bed with the oil industry”. One thing is for sure - The EPA is secretly playing games and twisting information:

See “EPA Official Wrong on Ethanol and Biodiesel Yields” by Cindy Zimmerman, Domestic Fuel: Margo Oge, the EPA official responsible for regulating the entire U.S. biofuels industry for emissions, cannot tell you how many gallons of ethanol you get out of an acre of corn, or how many tons of byproduct livestock feed you get. Yet when it comes to calculating emissions, those figures are vital. It appears that the people in the shadows of the EPA are spoon-feeding Margo Oge. When it comes to basic biofuel facts, she doesn’t have a clue.

A bigger story exposing the EPA recently broke: “Suppressed EPA scientist breaks silence, speaks on Fox News”, by Mark Tapscott. Expert senior research analyst, Dr. Alan Carlin, having worked at the EPA for 38 years, wrote an in-house report criticizing the agency’s stance on Global Warming. Carlin’s report was suppressed by fellow EPA officials, who also instructed him to remain silent and not to talk to the press.

Carlin went ahead and broke his silence anyway. His banned in-house report exposed the EPA for following UN policy, instead of policy based on its own research. Regarding unproven Indirect Land Use Change theory and Global Warming, UN policy has become an instrument infiltrated by big oil – to blame biofuels - using manipulated information and false conclusions. Contrary to Global Warming CO2 theory, Carlin presented evidence that global temperatures have actually been dropping slightly over the years, not warming. So, why is the EPA regulating CO2 with inconclusive data, when something else is doing the damage?

The EPA is also playing the omission game. EPA way underestimates the cost and the environmental impact of petroleum based fuels – as they compare to biofuels. By omission, the EPA fails to factor-in what it takes to secure and protect American Foreign Oil Interests. A Rand Report called “Does Imported Oil Threaten U.S. National Security?” states that protecting America’s Middle East oil interests costs the United States 12-15% of its entire defense budget every year – A huge amount of money, resources, bunker fuel and diesel fuel burned, and a long-distance supply line to provide this protection.

The EPA also disguises the true environmental impact of Petroleum based fuels by using old or slanted information. For the footprint of petroleum, the EPA used pre tar sands data. This does not reflect more recent crude oil extracted from Canadian tar sands – which consumes twice the energy of conventional ground wells. And we import more crude oil from Canada than any other country. Tar sands oil extraction is also a major source of deforestation. Shale oil and deep water offshore drilling is also more energy intensive, yet the EPA low-balls the environmental footprint of petroleum based fuels.

Imported Oil is also transported thousands of miles - from the Middle East and numerous foreign countries - by ocean going ships burning Bunker Fuel, a major cause of global pollution and Black Carbon Soot. Compare this with cleaner burning domestic biofuels that can be produced and consumed locally. The EPA has no accounting method for that comparison. See: “Commercial Shipping Emits Almost Half as Much Particulate Pollution as Total Released by World’s Cars”.

Our concept of Global Warming itself is flawed. A one or two degree temperature change, every thirty years, is not going to melt glaciers and polar ice caps. According to Robert Felix, “Global Cooling: Bad News for Global Warming Alarmists”, 90% of glaciers are growing, not receding. And global temperatures have dropped slightly, since Al Gore became a pseudo-hero. Based on isolated cases, we have been making the assumption that glaciers and ice caps have been melting, due to excessive CO2 suspended in the atmosphere. That may be a factor, but it’s not the main cause. CO2 is being mitigated naturally by plants, forests, algae and seaweed, agricultural crops, and rain.

The EPA has kept quiet about the primary cause of Climate Change - Black Carbon - the artificial airborne residue from burning Dirty Coal, Dirty Bunker Fuel, Dirty Diesel Fuel, Dirty Jet Fuel, partially burned Gasoline, and anything that suspends particulate SOOT into the atmosphere - Soot that constantly precipitates out of the air and onto the surface of snow and ice.

See: “Sulfate Lens Enhances Climate Warming Properties of Atmospheric Soot”, Green Car Congress. This report explains how we are releasing massive amounts of black soot particles into the air, which are absorbing the heat of the sun. While it is suspended in the air, Black Carbon Soot heats the atmosphere. Then, wherever it lands, it forms a layer of solar-thermal absorption. The heat of the sun is absorbed by this layer of Black Carbon, and this is what’s melting snow and ice - Not the levels of CO2 we have today.

Suspended Black Carbon Soot is also a much bigger factor in violent storms, floods and tornados, because man-made soot becomes the nucleus around which ice crystals and rain drops form. Whereas carbon dioxide either stays suspended indefinitely, or is naturally recycled as a gas.

What we need to do is reduce and mitigate Black Carbon Soot. That won’t be easy, as long as the EPA is cooking the books on the fuels that are producing it, and instead, fingering the biofuels which replace them.

We are rushing into climate change legislation based on misleading information from Spin Doctors like Big Al and the EPA. There is no unanimous concrete proof of Indirect Land Use Change or Global Warming. What we have is inconclusive and conflicting information. The EPA has “cherry-picked” the data, in order to portray CO2 as the cause of Climate Change, when the real cause is BLACK CARBON SOOT.

President Obama, with all due respect, if you want transparency, start by cleaning-up the EPA.

[Steve]

No wonder comedian and satirist Harry Shearer calls it the LA Dog Trainer. The notion that because Al Gore says we need the fortitude and leadership of a Winston Churchill in order to combat one of the biggest challenges to our civilization in decades (and, given some of the potential for societal disruption, perhaps indeed since World War II), that he's comparing climate change to Hitler is absurd.

How about publishing Mr Gore's full remarks or at least a link thereto and letting readers decide on their own.

But that would be printing facts and not innuendo and distortion.

Never mind. Carry on.

[Richard H]

Talking about Nazis...

Doesn't that picture of Al Gore make him look remarkably like Herman Goering?

[lool]

Global Warming is a lot like the Queen; old and BORING.

I'd still quite like to have tea with it though.

Tap dat.

[Drew Peacock]

Global warming Rocks.

[Jay Dee]

Where is the science? Why are so many scientists, AKA the 9000 spear headed by the founder of the weather channel suing Al? Or the editor of Chemical and Engineering news who freaked out the membership and got a can of whop a_s when he said that the verdict is in, the time for debate is over? And what about that poor polar bear getting a sun tan during the off season being used in propaganda adds. My favorite is the little seal inching his poor little way along to the dramatic music. Stop already and admit that you jumped the gun Al. BTW is Adolph having chills lately?....It's a case study in political manipulation and blind religious fervor.Why don't you address some of these "inconvenient truths"?