Daily Caller News Foundation

Al Gore uses 24-hour global warming marathon to promote a carbon tax

Daily Caller News Foundation logo
Michael Bastasch DCNF Managing Editor
Font Size:

Failed 2000 presidential candidate Al Gore used his latest 24-hour TV marathon highlighting the dangers of global warming to promote taxing carbon dioxide emissions as a way to stem rising global temperatures.

However, Gore’s global warming hysteria is leaving many observers cold, especially given the former vice president’s long record of wrong predictions of eco-catastrophe. One meteorologist took to Twitter to criticize Gore’s global warming marathon for being a “bizarre” platform solely used to promote taxing carbon.

Bizarre rehearsed talk-show format going on http://t.co/Qd4DxpPk7L w/Al Gore. 100% of content is about instituting carbon tax. Nothing else.

— Ryan Maue (@RyanMaue) October 22, 2013

 

Gore’s Climate Reality Project ran the 24-hour TV marathon event called the odd extravaganza: “24 Hours of Reality — The Cost of Carbon.”

A carbon tax has been tossed around by Democrats and a select few on the right as a way to ease environmental regulations and offset other taxes. However, most conservatives and virtually all congressional Republicans oppose the economically devastating idea.

However, California Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer has promised to push a carbon tax as part of larger comprehensive tax reforms efforts. Under former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Golden State adopted a carbon emissions tax in 2006.

Scientists are also calling out Gore for other claims he has made during his global warming marathon, namely that the world faces an unprecedented crisis.

“We’re dumping 90 million tons of heat-trapping carbon pollution… into the atmosphere every 24 hours and it’s altering our climate,” said Gore, who for eight years in the 1990s was prevented from becoming president of the United States thanks to Bill Clinton’s sometimes precarious but ultimately sound health.

“We do indeed [‘face a global crisis of unprecedented proportions’], and that crisis is the misrepresentation of science by political activists like Mr. Al Gore,” said Bob Carter, former head of the School of Earth Sciences at James Cook University, Queensland, Australia.

“As a result, western nations are squandering money on ineffectual anti-carbon dioxide measures, and neglecting their duty to care for their citizens by not tackling the genuine hazards that accompany natural climate events and change,” said Carter who is the chief science advisor for the International Climate Science Coalition.

Gore also claimed that carbon “pollution” is driving the alleged increase in extreme weather events.

The former vice president’s track record for catastrophic predictions is not strong, however. In 2007 Gore warned that Arctic circle would experience ice-free summers “in as little as seven years.” In fact, the polar ice caps last month were the largest they have been in 35 years.

“The weather changes all the time as anyone who studies weather history knows. It is not now more extreme and the changes are well within natural variability,” said Dr. Tim Ball, former professor at the University of Winnipeg.

“It is perfectly normal. Mr. Gore’s stance only serves to underscore his ignorance of climate and climate history,” Ball added. “How does he explain all the previous climate variability and severe weather?”

Global warming has recently come back to the forefront of political issues as the Obama administration has unveiled a new plan to curb U.S. carbon dioxide emissions, largely through capping emissions from coal-fired power plants.

The United Nation’s climate bureaucracy also released it’s most recent climate assessment that acknowledged the pause in global warming over the last 15 years or so. However, the UN glossed over the data by saying it was too short a time period to glean any answers from.

“Gore says we must focus on reality. Reality says that the world has not warmed for the last 17 years even as carbon dioxide, the gas Gore blames for climate disruption, has risen 8%,”said Bryan Leyland, energy issues adviser with ICSC. “Reality says that we are near a record low for hurricanes, and other extreme weather is not generally increasing in severity or frequency.”

Follow Michael on Twitter and Facebook

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.