Take back Al Gore's Oscar, 2 Academy members demand in light of Climategate [Updated]

No, it wouldn't do anything for the environment.

But two Hollywood conservatives (yes, there are some) have called upon the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to rescind the prestigious, profitable gold Oscar statuette that it gave ex-Vice President Al Gore et al two years ago for the environmental movie "An Inconvenient Truth."

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FOR THE RECORD:
A Top of the Ticket post Dec. 4 about former Vice President Al Gore and the film “An Inconvenient Truth” incorrectly reported that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awarded Gore an Oscar. Although Gore appeared in the film and participated in the Academy Awards ceremony, the Oscar was given to the movie for best documentary. The post also refers to the “leak” of controversial e-mails concerning research into global warming but did not explain how the documents were obtained. The e-mails were obtained by computer hackers who then leaked their contents to the public by posting them online.

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Roger L. Simon and Lionel Chetwynd, both academy members, are among a small, meandering pack of known political conservatives still believed to be on the loose in the liberal bastion of movie-making.

In 2007, Hollywood's academy sanctified Gore's cinematic message of global warming with its famous statue, enriched his earnings by $100,000 per 85-minute appearance and helped elevate the Tennesseean's profile to win the Nobel Peace Prize despite losing the election battle of 2000 to a Texan and living in a large house with lots of energy-driven appliances.

Chetwynd and Simon were prompted to make their hopeless demand this week by the ... 

... leak two weeks ago of a blizzard of British academic e-mails purporting to show that scientists at the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit systematically falsified data to document the appearance of global warming in recent years.

The university is reportedly investigating the claims, which added dry fuel to the never-ending political debate over whether the Earth really is warming as a result of human activity or if it's just normal natural cycles and the debate is what's heated. The demand to withdraw Gore's award provides yet another opportunity to argue.

The startling leak comes at an inconvenient time just before next week's United Nations climate change meeting that will cause an immense carbon footprint with thousands of people flying up or over to Denmark to talk about saving the environment.

These airplanes will include Air Force One with its primary passenger President Obama, who's returning to the Copenhagen scene where he didn't help win the 2016 Summer Olympics for Chicago, which could do with a little global warming at this time of year.

Simon, a screenwriter who is also chief executive officer of Pajamas Media, a network of conservative online blogs, conceded he knew of no precedent for the Academy withdrawing a previously-awarded Oscar, despite decades of Hollywood hijinks and worse. But, he added, "I think they should rescind this one."

The controversial leaked documents have been assembled here by Pajamas Media and the Competitive Enterprise Institute. The joint demand by Simon and filmmaker Chetwynd is available on video here.

The television news-watching world in America has not learned much about the so-called Climategate scandal because it has not really been mentioned on the air except for a notorious cable news channel named for a three-lettered, wily, wild animal that often seems to revel in debunking liberal shibboleths.

Network news programs have been far more concerned with the obviously more important White House party-crasher story involving a couple of formally-dressed phonies.

The falsified documents do not come up in Gore interview excerpts published late last night here by Politico's John F. Harris and Mike Allen.

This week White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs claimed that global warming was no longer in dispute by most people. But a subsequent Rasmussen Reports poll of Americans finds only 1 in 4 adults believe that most scientists agree on the topic.

And while only 20% claim to have followed the leaked e-mail story Very Closely, nearly 60% believe it is at least somewhat likely that scientists have falsified environmental data to support their own global warming beliefs and theories.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photos: Associated Press

Comments

[Thomas]

Andrew, are you being condesending towards Texas with the comment "despite losing the election battle of 2000 to a Texan"?

4 of our last 11 presidents have been Texan, so your context can't be that of surprise. It appears to me you have a negative view of a great state?

[WyoWhy]

Global warming is a hoax. Al Gore and his disciples stand to make huge amounts of money off Cap and Trade. That is the real reason they are trying to push this legislation through. Follow the money, it will lead you to the truth. The fact that Gore's "scientists" cooked the books should be all the evidence you need to stop this legislation in its tracks. WAKE UP AMERICA! Send these bozo's packing!

[Doug]

And lets not forget, Mr Gore did save us from the biggest threat to our planet ever.

Manbearpig.

[Fred]

Thank you LA Times for finally shedding some light on this very important topic (Climategate-not party crashers). It is quite obvious the public is being hoodwinked by all of this global warming nonsense and lack of coverage by the MSM. Back in the 60s they were warning us about nuclear winter. Come on folks...lets get real. This is all about fleecing hard working people of more of our hard earned money for something that, even if it were true, we can not possibly fix. God will have the final say regarding planet Earth and the future of mankind (read the Bible-it's all right there).

[Nope 2012]

This charlatan should be begging for my change beneath an overpass. He is such a fraud and deserves nothing of what he has.

[Joe]

Don't stop with the Oscar, he should be put in jail for the perpetration of fraud.

[Tim in Virginia]

Forget about the Oscar. I'd rather he give back the $100,000,000 dollars he's made peddling "global warming".

[Jeff Gordon]

If people were stupid enough to be suckered into Gore's money making scam, it will teach them not to be so stupid and politically correct next time - this hack is the 21st century P T Barnum.

[Scott vinsonhaler]

Great article. Finally it has come out that we cannot control everything in life. The planet has been around a long time and we are only a blip on the time line. Al Gore has made millions off of this and the media has helped him. The earth cools and heats and we have no control over it. The earth will be here long after we are. It is interesting how the media is ignoring this revelation.

[Shenvaldave]

Apparently my first e-mail did not take. Al Gore is perpetuating a scheme to enrich himself and his cronies through this phony science known as "AGW." He should not only lose his Oscar, he should be discredited as the friend to the little guy. "He betrayed us. He played on our fears..." Yes, Al Gore wants to soak the American taxpayer.

[The Republican]

haha, Al Bore is a retard! It's snowing in places that it doesn't usually snow! Where's your 'globalwarming' now?

What an undeserving moron!!!!

[Albee Darned]

Well - if we can pull a Grammy from Milli Vanilli for faking it, why can't we pull an Oscar from Al Gore?

At the least change the award category from 'Documentary' to 'Fantasy' or 'Science Fiction'

[Laurance Marvin]

Yes....Al Gore in reality may have profited by as much 50-100 million dollars. As the mouth for what was a clearly staged scam! Gore's property was listed as a EPA Super Fund site as of several years ago. The global warming scam is really nothing but a way to scam the industrialized nations for the benefit of selling super expensive energy systems to be paid for by Taxes world wide.

Gore always has been not just a fraud by a clown...Hey remember he told the world as VP under Clinton...He invented the Internet!!

[older & wiser]

When Hell freezes over..... oh....what a minute.....maybe it is........

[MarkS- Jupiter FL]

Or at least rename the category under which he won the "Leni Riefenstahl Achievement Award".

[CHRI$ DODD]

STOP THE HATE!

[xJonx]

There are plenty of TITLES / AWARDS that are being diminished in value do to hasty decisions.

There are people who have to register as sex offenders, even though their actions were benign and had nothing to do with sex. The consequence, the title will mean less and less as time goes on. It will become a norm, instead of a warning.

The Nobel Peace prize was awarded to Obama, but he hasn’t produced any peace OR good-will. In one fell swoop, the award became not a badge of honor and accomplishment, but a political tool.

The Oscar was awarded to Al Gore to try to give credence to his … power grab? … financial investments? … faith? … (whatever you want to call it).

Although this attempt to retract the Oscar from Gore is a good way of getting the fact that Global Warming has NOTHING to do with the globe warming into the news, the Oscar has long suffered from its diminishing importance from its inception. Most Americans simply see the Oscar (and the ceremonies surrounding it) as a Hollywood Liberal Jerk-Off anyway.

[antiDave]

Thanks for mentioning the climate change fraud that has been foisted upon us by the self proclaimed "Progressives". Regressive is a more aptly applied descriptor. The blind allegiance and projection coming from these people is staggering, only to be outdone by the GOP's betrayal of conservative principals.
Many people, judging by the moms in my neighborhood, haven't even heard of the email scandal, so the major media has "helped" America again by protecting us from the truth.

[Mike Benton]

DO IT. And a year from now when Obama proves to be a fraud, take his too!!!

[XQZME]

First ClimateGate, now OscarGate

[Rick]

If they really believed in climate change they could have had a converance using facebook and webcams. This is all a sham.

[R. Brown]

How dare they? We know that lying, cheating and stealing pays off, just look at Bernie Madoff! Al Gore won that award the "old fashion way!"

[Ken]

Take it back and demand an apology for trying to lie to the World!

[Spanky Jones]

Like online political bloggers, both left and right, having been saying these last couple of years.....its a new tax. A tax on the air because they ran out of things to tax the sleeping american people who have been blinded by phony environmental propaganda. But its too late...you can't stop the inevitable, because Obama will sign the coppenhagen treaty....

I got one question for those who continue to support this global warming swindle....How do you measure carbon emission footprints?

[xinunus]

HEY IDIOT!!

AL GORE NEVER WON AN OSCAR, THE PRODUCER AND DIRECTOR OF THE FILM HE WAS IN DID.

THE PICTURE YOU HAVE IS HIM UP THERE ACCEPTING IT WITH THE OTHER GUYS.

IF HE HAS AN OSCAR IT WAS A GIFT NOT AN AWARD.

AL GORE RECEIVING AN OSCAR IS A MYTH THE LIBERAL MEDIA HAS SPREAD VERY SUCCESSFULLY.

[Cs]

19 year old in college.

Here's my lab report

prof: okay... Where's your data?

19yo: I did some processing on it, then threw away the raw data

prof: you get a 0, here, I don't need your report.

19yo: I get an F!!!?

Prof: no, a 0, so we shoud probably use a different letter, you get a K-.

These global warmongers are trying to regulate and tax everybody on the planet based on this corrupt collussion.... errrrr science I mean. This is one of the worst scandals in our species history, yet the liberal ideaology worldwide put all their eggs in the man made warming basket, so they are trying to repress its coverage.

Copenhagen is going to be a political blood bath beneath the smiles, photo ops, and private jets. We should revel I'm that like a convicted con artist sentencing.

Dont forget, this isn't science for development of human knowledge. This is being used as a basis to steal money from us and regulate our daily lives.... yet we arebeing told that discussion of deleting inconvenient emails, blackmailing dissenting scientists from publications, blackmailing publications that publish dissenting scientists, massaging data to hide politically inconvenient data trends, reforming the peer review process to keep dissenting reports out of the UN, is all part of normal technical banter between scientists.

Lucky forbid Californians our senator Boxer has pledged to get to the bott of this...... "criminal email theft."

[David]

Has anyone bothered to explain to these morons that Al Gore never actually WON an Oscar? An Inconvenient Truth won two Academy Awards - Best Documentary Feature (awarded to the filmmaker, Davis Guggenheim) and Best Original Song (awarded to the songwriter, Melissa Etheridge). Gore did not produce or direct the film. He does not have an Oscar to "give back." Idiots!

[Joseph Blough]

Wouldn't it be better if Mr.Gore voluntarily returned his Oscar along with an apology for his behavior of the last thirty years?

[Berfman]

Al Gore is not a stupid man. I believe he knew that the data was at the least flawed, and at the most erroneous.

He knowingly took the Oscar under false pretenses and it should be returned for lies ans mis-truths.

Too bad we can't take back the money he earned from this as well.

[Catherine]

Are you deliberately aiding and abetting this Fraud by deleting comments that are critical of Gore, et al? My posts keep disappearing!

[MotherGoose]

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA

As a fellow Tennessean, the goracle has been a major embarassment to all the freedom loving individuals in our great state. It's disgusting how he's made a fortune on people's stupidity and he needs to be tried and jailed for fraud. He makes Madoff look like the tooth fairy.

Mega kudos to Roger L. Simon and Lionel Chetwynd. Keep up the great work. Pajamas Media rocks.

[Patrick Dolan]

I'm glad these two Academy members are speaking out. However, your article tries to make the case that this is a conservative vs. liberal issue, when in fact, all should be concerned when the truth is suppressed for political and monetary gain.

[Duane]

The only true and verifiable source of global warning is Gore blowing hot air. But hey, he's making millions on it, so why not?

[Harry Taft]

The scandal revealed by this revelation of data tampering should be about the refusal of scientists claiming to have developed new knowledge ( any knowledge) to make available their raw data so that others in the field could confirm their findings. The essence of science, per se, is that what is true is replicable. We should all be very angry at what has been transpiring. We ought to know the truth, we need to know the truth (something about setting us free). I hope I hear rumblings about tar and feathers.

[Mr. Freeze]

Taking the statues would be a good start...then tar and feather and then?

[xjug1987]

The Academy is joke, just like Albore. Get a life!

[Phil in NY]

Rescind the Oscar...then arrest the swindling, hoax-peddler.

[NoACORNFan]

To: Main Stream (State-Controlled) Media
RE: Global Warming/Climate Change

Ignorance is not bliss. Ignorance is evil. And knowledge is good.

The LA Times is to be commended for publishing this story.

And thank God for FOX News. Without their fine work , Americans would be "in the dark" on this issue.

[Robert Gonzalez]

I like how the Libs are saying it's only a few scientists and the majority of scientist still have found warming. Yet, they don't mention that this University of East Anglia is THE Climate Change center and that many of the other studies are based on their data including Al Gore's UN IPCC. Global Warming is a hoax. They "hid the decline." The emperor's new clothes need a washing.

[St. Louis Dan]

There is justice !!!

Regarding "And while only 20% claim to have followed the leaked e-mail story Very Closely...". I can explain that.
Unless you were on the internet or watching Fox News, you would not have even heard about this. CNN, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, etc, had zero coverage on this story.Just a big liberal cover-up.

[I am so able]

Then, after he gives back the Oscar, maybe somebody will send around a retraction film to all the school children who were indoctrinated with An Inconvenient Truth.

[Tom]

It's SHIBBOLETH, by the way. If you're under the delusion that you're going to sound intelligent by trashing conservatives, get the words right.

[astatist]

Gore's a piece of crap!

[sb]

For his fraud and crimes, Al Gore should have to where a fart tube for the rest of his life, to measure his carbon emissions from his 350-lb man diet program.

[AXC]

They should take their Oscar back, unless they want to give him the Award for Best Actor instead.

As far as the Nobel Peace Prize, he can keep it. After all, they gave Obama the Peace Prize after a total of 12 days in office so we all know what the value of Nobel Prizes are these days.

[Dennis Crumpton]

This is a story of how bad journalism has fallen in our beloved country. The State Run Media stooges are running stories of the likes of Reality TV rather than the News that effects our lives. It is becoming more like the old Soviet Union. I wonder if Russia will start a Radio Free Europe to us so we can know the truth.

[MaliciousDisorder]

Will someone also tell Arnold this global warming is a fraud before California sinks beyond help

[william henry childers]

How many people have lost a job because of these lies?

[nick oreskovich]

I dont know ,hollywood is make believe after all

[Josh M]

While I agree with the sentiment, Al Gore didn't win an Oscar. The "Inconvenient Truth" award went to director Davis Guggenheim.