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Gore's convenient half-truth
Q: In response to Sarah Palin's recent claims that climate change is based on "junk science and doomsday scare tactics pushed by an environmental priesthood," Al Gore said that "global warming is not a political issue but a moral one." Which is it? Is it immoral to do nothing about global warming?
Because of all the agendas connected with the global warming controversy today, it is at once a political, moral, economic, and ideological issue. Far too many of those who are most vocal in speaking out on the issue, from Al Gore to Sarah Palin, have agendas beyond the state of the environment and these cloud the situation and make it much more difficult to address it in any meaningful way.
While I doubt many (including Palin) think of Palin as an expert on the issue, Gore has sought to establish himself up as the dominant authority and spokesman for the environment and has been rather successful in doing so. Yet, when one looks closely at what he says and does, it becomes obvious that his lifestyle is inconsistent with what he preaches and that he is very creative in the "facts" he promotes and those he chooses to ignore. This distracts from very legitimate concerns about the environment, both global warming and pollution.
As an example, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council, clearly an organization that is ideological friendly to Gore, the summer Arctic ice cap has shrunk about 20% in the last three decades. While this is of great concern, Gore doubles that figure when he lectures. Dr. Dorthe Dahl-Jensen, from the Centre for Ice and Climate at the University of Copenhagen, recently said that the sea level rise is predicted to be just over a foot, but could be as much as three feet during the next century. Gore expands that estimate by several multiples in his lectures. Such exaggerations allow those who disagree to call him a liar, and it hurts the efforts of others working legitimately for the cause he claims to support.
While Gore overstates many of the "statistics" he chooses to use, he leaves out mention of the environmental damage caused by methane and the animal agribusiness, but it is here where the issue of morality comes quite strongly into play. Everyday, nearly 100,000 cattle and millions of chickens and pigs are slaughtered in the U.S. to satisfy the taste buds of Americans, including Gore and Palin. Even prior to their deaths, the way these animals are raised and treated is, in most cases, extremely inhumane. The livestock industry is the largest source of human caused methane production, which is second only to CO2 in its effect on global temperatures. The industry also leads in the destruction of forest land, which is turned into grazing and feed crop land, and this is rapidly depleting the earth of trees that absorb CO2. In addition, the industry is the single major cause of land and water pollution in the U.S. All of these factors add to the problem of global warming and environmental pollution, yet Gore and most of his followers seem to conveniently ignore them. They apparently find it easier to look the other way than to look at what their own diets are doing to the environment.
Surely, many who read this may take offense, but that does not stop facts from being facts. For most humans, flesh eating is an addiction, not a necessity. I speak from personal experience and that of countless others who live their entire lives as strong and healthy vegetarians. Looked at globally, the over dependence that people have on flesh as a source of food is a major factor in both global warming and environmental degradation. While there are those who live in places where other sources of food are extremely difficult to find and where a diet that includes some flesh may be understandable, still the vast majority of the world's population eat flesh products out of habit and taste, not need. If Americans were to abstain from flesh consumption even one day a week, we could do more to slow global warming and environmental pollution in the U.S. than any realistic plan Gore or others could devise for the foreseeable future.
Even the United Nation's own Food and Agriculture Organization admitted in its study released in 2006 ("Livestock's Long Shadow -Environmental Issues and Options" ) that the livestock industry as a whole, which includes the feed production process, generates more greenhouse gases than cars and is a leading cause world wide of massive deforestation and environmental degradation. Gore and others who follow him want people to make drastic changes in their lives. Maybe he and his devotees should lead the way by altering their own lifestyles first to show their willingness to play a leading role. He could begin by foregoing his use of chauffeured limousines and private jets. He could stop buying "green credits" to mask his actual carbon footprint and instead actually pollute less. I won't hold my breath. This is why many who understand the detrimental role that the animal agribusiness plays in the world today and have already made fundamental changes in their lives see Gore as a hypocrite. If he really cared, maybe he would spend a little less time trying to force others to change their lifestyles and put more efforts into changing his own and walking the talk himself.
By
Ramdas Lamb
|
December 18, 2009; 1:17 AM ET
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Posted by: coloradodog | December 22, 2009 6:15 PM
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As I remarked in the Standish discussion, we can solve this problem much more effectively by developing cultured meat. That is, meat grown in vitro from a single cell. Considerable progress has been made in this and the first commercial food products are expected in 5 or 10 years. This will yield meat with far less input energy and starting vegetable matter, at a much lower cost, and of course no animals will be harmed in the making of this meat.
In other words, we meat-eaters can have our cake and eat it too.
This might bother Br. Lamb, although I wouldn't know whether eating meat that was never part of a live animal is considered a sin in the Hindu religion. Perhaps this has not yet be resolved. I imagine it would bother him -- and indeed many others! -- if the starting cell is derived from homo sapiens. I myself look forward to that eventually because it will spin the moral compass of so many people, and so utterly confuse the moral issue. I enjoy moral confusion, especially in pompous people who would dictate to others how they should live their lives.
Posted by: jedrothwell1 | December 21, 2009 9:51 PM
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Ramdas, acknowleding that he is a vegetarian, states, "Far too many of those who are most vocal in speaking out on the issue, from Al Gore to Sarah Palin, have agendas beyond the state of the environment . . ."
He then states, "If Americans were to abstain from flesh consumption even one day a week, we could do more to slow global warming and environmental pollution in the U.S. than any realistic plan Gore or others could devise for the foreseeable future."
Absent some hard science to back up the latter statement, I'd say Ramdas has an agenda of his own "beyond the state of the environment."
Posted by: harveyh5 | December 21, 2009 5:57 PM
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I think that buying into the Right's hatred of Al Gore is hardly productive: these are people who have opposed even the most modest fuel efficiency requirements in America, and treat massive and wasteful vehicles as a way to say, "In your face, liberals," and then act all scandalized that a former Vice President of the United States has the appropriate security. (There's hardly such a thing as a bulletproof Prius out there, and if there was, it'd be too heavy to be very efficient anyway.)
Well-intentioned vegetarian activists running around calling people 'addicted flesh-eaters' also isn't helping anything, either. It's both unrealistic and insulting.
I'm personally pretty-appalled at how agribusiness treats our food animals, too: I eat meat, and my religious path believes everything we eat should be treated with respect: be that plant or animal or whatever.
The problem here in America is we *just plain eat *too much.* And too much of it is neither local nor in-season, thus being shipped all over the country and world to suit profit and a sense of convenience.
Attaching environmentalism to some agenda of 'Eating a cheeseburger makes you a bad person' is *totally* counterproductive.
It's obvious that we *overconsume,* particularly in terms of animal products, overconsumption of which clearly lead to obesity as well as all the other attendant health problems of this overconsumption, which goes on to lead to still more energy use, as people become less active and use more machines to make up the difference.
The abuse of food animals and the land that supports them can be directly linked to the *quantities* produced by factory farms, and that's the way to deal with the environmental impacts, as well as the direct health impacts: trying to get all morally-absolutist at people who don't believe there's anything *wrong* with eating meat is... Pretty pointless and counterproductive.
It's like some monotheist coming along and saying a Goddess statue is 'idolatry,' trying to tell me what it means to me, and insisting I therefore shouldn't have one.
It's nonsense to me, at best, and tends to run to the insulting.
We're a lot better off if we speak in terms of *quantity.* It's obvious from people's general girth out there that Americans just plain eat *too much.* And too much of the wrong stuff: way too many meat products, tons of white sugar, prepackaged junk, the usual suspects. It's right there in front of our faces.
Trying to sell people on vegetarianism simply doesn't address the issues productively.
Posted by: Paganplace | December 21, 2009 11:20 AM
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We treat animals inhumanely... you mean, we treat them like animals?
Lol. Sorry, I couldn't resist.
Ryan Haber
Kensington, MD
Posted by: withouthavingseen | December 20, 2009 5:36 PM
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Environmental protection is not profitable for big oil or big polluters. They hate the evidence of climate change from pollution as evil hates the light. Their Huckabee "Christian" supporters have made themselves equally blind and are mortgaging their great grandchildren's planet for corporate greed with the flag wrapped around them with one hand and a cross in the other.