![]() ![]() Thus, it’s in their interest to try to undermine one of the most effective advocates of aggressive climate action.īut the hypocrisy charge simply doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. “The world isn’t warming,” the group falsely claimed in a 2014 paper arguing against climate regulations. NCPPR, which has been funded by oil interests, advocates against policies to fight global warming because it denies that global warming exists. That’s why you only see groups like the National Center for Public Policy Research releasing “studies” on Gore’s energy use. This is much easier, and perhaps more rhetorically effective, than debunking climate science itself. The claim that Gore and his ilk are hypocrites is a classic conservative attack strategy of redirection (because it ignores the core issue of climate change) and of poisoning the well (because it attempts to discredit the message by discrediting the messenger). “You know, he talks about the carbon footprint, OK?” Trump said during a July 2016 campaign speech. “He wants to solve the carbon footprint, but he gets on an old 747 that’s spewing stuff into the air.” (It’s worth noting that Trump’s travel habits are much more ostentatious than Obama’s.) “These multimillionaires are asking us to sacrifice by paying more for energy or using less of it,” Luntz explained. “But while we’re asked to sacrifice, they’re riding and flying in style.” To the average American, Luntz says, this is hypocrisy at its finest, “asking people to give up something while their lifestyle goes unchanged.” Even Donald Trump made this case as a candidate, using it to attack Barack Obama. The hypocrisy argument has even traveled beyond conservative circles, and it’s perfectly suited for today’s populist climate. Republican pollster and consultant Frank Luntz told me he thinks Rush Limbaugh “started the argument that the Hollywood Left flew their private jets to global warming conferences.” The first reference I could find was in 2006, when the conservative Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter Debra Saunders, then writing for the San Francisco Chronicle, bemoaned what she called “Learjet liberals who burn beaucoup fossil fuels in the sky as they soar around the planet fighting global warming.” Fox News host Sean Hannity picked up “Learjet liberals” soon after, using it in numerous segments in 20 and as recently as January. It’s a familiar, longstanding tactic among conservatives who don’t accept the truth about climate change. Gore is hardly the only climate advocate whose personal energy use has been attacked by the right. But ultimately the argument is deceitful faux-populism, and the real hypocrites here are the purveyors of it. This has a powerful appeal, especially today. But let’s set aside the dispute over Gore’s carbon footprint, because the report raises a much bigger question: Should prominent climate advocates be expected to live a carbon-neutral lifestyle? Are they hypocrites if they don’t? Right-wing critics would have you believe so-that these moralizing elitists are making rules for the public that they themselves don’t have to follow. McManus did not respond to a request for evidence of Gore’s offsets. In less than 24 hours of its publication, it was picked up by Fox News, The Daily Mail, The Washington Times, The Washington Free Beacon, and The Daily Caller- which, in case there was any doubt about NCPPR’s political motivations, allowed Johnson a guest column so he could declare that “ Gore’s hypocritical home energy use and ‘do as I say not as I do’ lifestyle has plunged to embarrassing new depths.” At the same time, Gore has done little to prove his commitment to the cause in his own life.” The report was a smash hit on the right. “ Al Gore has attained a near-mythical status for his frenzied efforts to propagandize global warming. “No matter how the numbers are viewed, Al Gore uses vastly more electricity at his home than the average American-a particularly inconvenient truth given his hypocritical calls for all Americans to reduce their home energy use,” Johnson writes. ” Johnson also slams Gore’s numerous attempts to modernize his home through energy efficiency, solar panels, and geothermal heating, saying they have been inadequate in offsetting his energy use. ![]() In near-creepy detail, NCPPR author Drew Johnson maps Gore’s home in Nashville, Tennessee, down to the number of windows, and concludes that “ Gore’s own home electricity use has hypocritically increased to more than 21 times the national average this past year with no sign of slowing down. On Thursday, the conservative National Center for Public Policy Research released a report, “Al Gore’s Inconvenient Reality,” that paints the former vice president as a hypocritical climate advocate. Al Gore is back in the spotlight with his new documentary, An Inconvenient Sequel, making him a top target again of the right-wing counter-intel complex. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |