NASTY FOES NOW OWE APOLOGIES TO GORE
Joe Conason Thu May 25, 6:51 AM ET
Long before the release of "An Inconvenient Truth," the new film about
climate change starring Al Gore, the scientific consensus had ratified
the warnings he has delivered over the past two decades. Leading
business executives in the insurance, investment and even the energy
industries have conceded that he was right. Conservative politicians
who scoffed at him have since traveled in his footsteps to the
shrinking polar ice caps -- and returned to Washington as fervent
environmentalists.
Even more impressive than Gore's mastery of this grave matter is his
remarkably consistent and courageous effort to save the planet. In
1997, he went to the Kyoto conference in pursuit of a global accord,
despite advisers who said his role there would jeopardize his
political future. In the spring of 2000, he reissued "Earth in the
Balance," his 1992 book on the subject, on the eve of his presidential
nomination. Just to be sure that nobody misunderstood him, he added a
new foreword and postscript emphasizing his commitment to "completely
eliminating" the internal-combustion engine.
Admiral James Stockdale called him a "fanatic." Dan Quayle said his
views were "bizarre, detached from reality, and devoid of common
sense." P.J. O'Rourke called him "nutty." Grover Norquist compared him
to the Unabomber. David Frum accused him of wanting to "dismantle the
American economy in the name of environmental regulation."
Indeed, Gore became a safe, easy target for every Republican
politician and every right-wing commentator, who brandished "Earth in
the Balance" as if it were "The Communist Manifesto." "This is a book
written by an extremist, and it's filled with extremism. . . . He
wants to do away with the automobile as we know it today," complained
Jim Nicholson, then the Republican national chairman (and now the
secretary of veterans affairs). What was once the most controversial
recommendation in Gore's book -- phasing out that infernal combustion
engine -- is today the official objective of the Bush administration.
And, of course, the same hacks who shrieked back then about the damage
this radical change would inflict on the American economy would surely
praise President Bush for his farsighted leadership.
Eight years later, Dubya tried to have it both ways, attacking Gore
for environmentalist excess while promising to reduce carbon-dioxide
levels in the atmosphere. Upon entering the Oval Office, he promptly
abandoned that pledge, and has since flipped and flopped more times
than a dying fish.
As president, he has tried to suppress government data that backs the
world scientific consensus, while promoting the "contrarian" opinions
of quacks and mountebanks. "I read the report put out by the
bureaucracy," sneered the president when asked about a study on
climate change issued by the Environmental Protection Agency . He used
to sneer at Gore's book, too, which he never actually read, and says
he "doubts" that he will bother to see "An Inconvenient Truth."
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