Al Gore... lectures at length on the need for all of us to change our lifestyles to save the planet. ...We have a choice he says - "to bring our carbon emissions to zero". We must use renewable energy and clothes lines, drive hybrid cars and cut back on consumption.
...He owns three homes, one of which is a 930sqm, 20-room, eight-bathroom home in Nashville and another a 370sqm house in Arlington, Virginia. ..."there is no evidence that Gore has signed up to use green energy". Gore usually travels to promote his film in a private jet.
Michael Moore, as Jef has previously pointed out... talks often of growing up in the working-class, wrong-side-of-the-tracks rust belt of Flint, Michigan. ...In fact, Moore grew up in nearby Davison, the son of a middle-class General Motors worker who owned the family home, drove two cars and played golf after work in the afternoons.
Moore has a penthouse in New York and an extensive property on Torch Lake, Michigan, made of 70-year-old Michigan red pine trees. ...he was recently cited by local authorities for despoiling a wetland in an attempt to extend his private beach.
Moore's image exudes the ordinary guy, the man who can hack it rough with no interest in consuming goods. He derides the elite for their excess and need for luxury. This is the same man who couldn't drink Poland Spring when backstage and had to have a ready supply of Evian. The same man who demanded he travel the country in a private jet and a fleet of four-wheel drives for his most recent book tour.
She goes on to point out the hypocrisy of other celebrity "know all - know nothings", such as Barbra Streisand (takes her neighbour to court because he took photos of her looking at four-wheel drives at a car dealership, in clear contradiction to a plea she made a few months before, asking Americans to reduce fuel emissions). And Ted Kennedy (appeals for greener choices; however the Kennedys, led by Ted, oppose a wind project off Hyannis where they sail, for example).
It's more often than not, I'd be willing to bet, a safe bet to ignore Appeals to Celebrity, especially when the appeal is coming directly from the celebrity. As Henderson says:
Let's save the planet by all means - but let's not be fooled by those who preach loudest but do not practise what they preach.
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5 comments:
Gore has form. When as Vice-President, he attended the actual Kyoto conference and gave a speech (1997), the Drudge Report calculated his personal contribution to global warming as follows:
Gore's plane, a Boeing 707 gas guzzler burns on average 4.1 gallons a mile. The complete Washington to Florida to Washington to Alaska to Japan and return to Washington trip calculated from commercial air mileage tables is just over 16,000 miles total. Gas gallons needed for AIR FORCE II to go 16,000 miles: 65,600.
hypocrisy is the punchline to many a joke; heck even this website runs on the stuff. Its a beautiful thing doncha think?
Theo, as I must point out again - being a hypocrite, celebrity or not, does not preclude one from uttering a truth.
Furthermore, Ann Henderson should have done some basic research before publishing this pap. Namely, Gore buys carbon offsets to neutralise the carbon contributions of his plane flights.
And he owns 3 houses why? And he doesn't fly commercial why? “Paying” for it with carbon offsets doesn’t physically alter Gore’s pollution and doesn’t mean he couldn’t reduce his personal emissions anyway. Or is it okay for the rich to pollute, so long as they pay for?
Also, I don’t see why you “…must point out again…” as I didn’t say anything about his accuracy, or lack there of?
I think it boils down to, “Who the hell is he/she to tell me what to do when they don’t do it themselves?” A perfectly legitimate response to self-righteous hypocrites. If the celebrity happens to be right, then one would follow the right course, not because the celebrity says so, but in spite of the celebrity saying so.
Gore is a gift to the global warming deniers. He is a man who descends into hyperbole and catastrophism to make his points and yet... at the same time he has a bigger ecological footprint than even Australia's own Al Gore (Bob Brown). Thus he is seen as a liar (not just a hypocrite).
To the uninitiated, and unconvinced, it is a simple equation. If Gore believed his own claims of imminent catastrophe unless we ALL drastically change our wasteful habits he would be "walking the walk", not just "talking the talk".
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