Mead on Gore, 2

Gore’s failures are not just about leadership.  The strategic vision he crafted for the global green movement has comprehensively failed.  That is no accident; the entire green policy vision was so poorly conceived, so carelessly constructed, so unbalanced and so rife with contradictions that it could only thrive among activists and enthusiasts.  Once the political power of the climate movement, aided by an indulgent and largely unquestioning press, had pushed the climate agenda into the realm of serious politics, failure was inevitable.  The only question was whether the comprehensive green meltdown would occur before or after the movement achieved its core political goal of a comprehensive and binding global agreement on greenhouse gasses.

That question has now been answered; the movement failed before it got its treaty, and while the media and the establishment have still generally failed to analyze these developments and draw the consequences, the global climate movement has become the kind of embarrassment intellectuals like to ignore.

http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2011/06/27/the-failure-of-al-gore-part-deux/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+WalterRussellMead+%28Walter+Russell+Mead%27s+Blog%29

These pieces are must read material, unless you happen to like Algore.

Pompous, deluded, narcissistic, aloof, unable to grasp priority, and possessing a kind of "moral flexibility" of which only a politician could be proud, thank whatever is holy that his sun is setting.


A few choice excerpts follow:
The global green treaty movement to outlaw climate change is the most egregious folly to seize the world’s imagination since the Kellog-Briand Pact outlawed war in the late 1920s.  The idea that the nations of the earth could agree on an enforceable treaty mandating deep cuts in their output of all greenhouse gasses is absurd.  A global treaty to meet Mr. Gore’s policy goals isn’t a treaty: the changes such a treaty requires are so broad and so sweeping that a GGCT is less a treaty than a constitution for global government.  Worse, it is a constitution for a global welfare state with trillions of dollars ultimately sent by the taxpayers of rich countries to governments (however feckless, inept, corrupt or tyrannical) in poor ones.

The dream that the menace of global warming will cause humanity to overcome its ancient divisions and unite in a grand global coalition is sophomoric. 

The science is clear, it is settled, and the opposition against it is funded by people with an economic stake in denial.  I am right about the science and my opponents are a bunch of evil opportunists in it only for the money.

That is Mr. Gore’s position, and it is his entire position.  He says nothing about the feasibility of the proposed GGCT or its cost effectiveness.  That, presumably, we must take on faith.  There is nothing to discuss about policy.  It is essentially the cry of Chicken Little: “The sky is falling and we must run and tell the king.”

Thus speaketh Al Gore: the world is burning down and so you must immediately follow my plan for fixing what’s wrong.  He does not discuss whether his plan is feasible; to anyone who objects to the ponderous, unwieldy Rube Goldberg style green treaty agenda, Gore simply bellows:  “What’s the matter you soul-dead, hired flack of the evil oil companies, don’t you believe in Science?”

Al Gore’s logic is exactly like the genealogy of the man who boasted that his line of descent went all the way back to Julius Caesar — with only two gaps.

The real issue here is not climate science.  It is true that, as many critics attest, Gore fundamentally misstates the nature of the scientific discussion of climate change and, especially, the extremely complex questions associated with interventions in it.  He overstates what is known, disregards the inherent uncertainties involved in the study of a complex system like the climate, understates the significance of the remaining gray areas, and demagogues the science to get more out of it than his case really merits.  

To argue with these people about science is to miss the core point.  Even if the science is exactly as Mr. Gore claims, his policies are still useless.  His advocacy is still a distraction.  The movement he heads is still a ship of fools.

It is a waste of time to talk science with Al Gore.  It is a waste of time to listen to him at all.  That, apparently, is what the world at long last is beginning to understand.  The policy makers and the heads of state who only two years ago were ready to follow Gore up the mountain have softly and quietly tuned him out.