Are people concerned about global warming now? Yes, indeed. Even crowds of people in traditionally conservative Idaho.
Check out this piece by Melinda Henneberger on Huffpo.
Al Gore quickly sells out 10,000 seat arena in Idaho
- Post author:Erich Vieth
- Post published:January 23, 2007
- Post category:Environment / Politics / Uncategorized
- Post comments:2 Comments
Erich Vieth
Erich Vieth is an attorney focusing on civil rights (including First Amendment), consumer law litigation and appellate practice. At this website often writes about censorship, corporate news media corruption and cognitive science. He is also a working musician, artist and a writer, having founded Dangerous Intersection in 2006. Erich lives in St. Louis, Missouri with his two daughters.
I gotta say, there are some strange folks in Idaho. Did you catch that part about how the kids were all excited because they got "An Inconvevient Truth" DVDs for Christmas?
It's no surprise that Al Gore is packin' them in right now. The guy's a movie star! What do you expect. They're talking about Oscars for him! Of course the lemmings are coming out in droves to see him. As if we didn't know about Global Warming for decades now. But, get an academy nominated movie about it and they all come out in droves. Gotta love the power of media.
Guess he just packed a little more of a punch than Captain Planet did back a decade ago… or that sad Indian crying over people trashing the land, etc.
At least Gore less of a stick figure these days… you can definitely see some passion there. Although, this isn't much of a coup considering that a lot of automobile makers are looking at fuel cell cars and hybrids more because they know that we're getting to the point where fossil fuels just won't be as economical anymore. Where the money goes, so goes industry. They could've come up with this technology decades ago, but there just wasn't any money in it yet. Same with "Green Building". Gore just happened to hit on the right topic at the right time. Nothing special.
Cleptomanx's mention of fuel cell cars and hybrids reminded me of something I wanted to mention. The federal government…the *Bush* federal government…recently changed EPA (Environmental Protection Act) laws to change the way cars are tested for gas mileage. Under the previous EPA test procedure, new cars were tested indoors in a temperature-controlled room under somewhat ideal conditions. As a result, the mileage figures for new cars (which are quoted in television ads and printed on the sales sticker) were artificially and unrealistically high. Under the new test procedure, cars are tested under more realistic conditions that include wind and winter temperature starting, which reduce the average mileage.
Why, I wondered, would the Bush administration — which has historically been in the pocket of Big Oil and Big Business — favor a change in government regs that would make new cars appear *less* attractive to consumers, especially at a time when spiking gas prices have been making consumers jittery about the gas mileage of their cars? Wouldn't powerful lobbyists for Detroit and the UAW have enough clout to prevent such a change, which would seemingly be detrimental to their interests?
Well, it turns out that although the new fuel economy regulations do lower the mileage data for new cars, the effect is not uniform: hybrids suffer far more of a reduction than do ordinary cars — an effect that will likely reduce the appeal of hybrids. And who is behind the curve when it comes to building hybrids? You guessed it: Detroit. And who benefits from the increase in gasoline consumption that a reduced demand for high-mileage hybrids would create? You guessed that, too: Big Oil. Now, I'd like to think that this is merely a coincidence, but the fact is that virtually everything the Bush Administration has done in the past six years has benefitted either Big Oil, Big Business or the military-industrial complex, so why should this be viewed any differently? It can't all be coincidence.