WHY BIG AL DOESN’T DESERVE A NOBEL – A COMMENTARY

October 10, 2007 by PT Rothschild.

THREE REASONS WHY NO MATTER HOW IT LOOKS, IT’S POLITICS AS USUAL


For anyone who has seen the Oscar© winning film, ‘An Inconvenient Truth’, knows that Al Gore makes an impressive narrator, intoning the memories of a long dead sister who died of lung cancer which caused his father to stop growing tobacco, a family farming tradition. Despite earlier warnings about tobacco’s harm, it, the family’s tobacco farming, was always explained logically and business continued on as usual until Big Al’s sister got lung cancer. She was a heavy smoker. It took a personal hit to change the family’s outlook on something that had been profitable and accepted. In a way, Big Al’s presentation of the facts is the same thing and more of it. While many people are starting to shout ‘Nobel! Nobel! for Big Al, here are my three reasons for a thumbs down to him receiving the Nobel Prize.

Reason#1. Big Al pulls his punches. Rather than lay the blame by vocal accusation of who and why the U.S. is not joining the fight worldwide in banning and/or cutting the use of fossil fuels, Big Al only shows memos and articles which now and then show the ‘Bush Administration’ as the author. In truth, the Bush Administration is the chief culprit in continuing to deny, delay, or derail any meaningful environmental talks. He pussed out on fighting for his stolen election and here in the film he wusses some more. This is incredible since Bush is the guy that stole the election from him. He should be calling a spade a spade, but he ducks, softens, and weinies the truth.

Reason#2. Big Al wants to make this everyone’s fault, we drive our cars and trucks, burn incandescent light bulbs, use coal to keep warm, etc., instead of touting industry change. Rather than take his (and our) fight to the business community that makes a profit from our poisoning the atmosphere or suggesting that Congress remove hemp from the restrictive prohibitionist schedule they placed the environmental repairing plant on, this part of his ‘green’ argument is as quiet as a tree falling when no one is around to hear it. Of course this is from a politician who has not ‘greened up’ his house though he has the money to do it. To me that hypocritical attitude is why he couldn’t carry his own home state during his attempted election for President.

Reason#3. Big Al only tells half the story and this is a true case of ‘a little knowledge being a dangerous thing.’ Everything Big Al says in his watered-down narration is true and needs to be said, but the fact of the matter is that ‘global warming’ is only half of the story. The other half of the picture is global dimming. You see, all those solid particulates that spew out of your exhaust pipe, furnace chimneys, and forest clearing fires emit solid particles which seed the clouds. When water vapor coats these particles in the clouds where they hang, the clouds become like super efficient reflecting mirrors, bouncing back incoming sunlight. The planet receives 20% less sunlight than 10 years ago. The combined effect of global warming AND global dimming is why the weather changes have occurred so radically and so quickly. Even Big Al alludes to this when he says ‘scientists are surprised’ by how rapidly the poles and ice caps are melting. What is really dangerous is if they only treat one cause and don’t treat the other at the same time. Treating one will increase the mean temp which will cause global warming catastrophes and treating the other only will bring about an ice age, and not the cute kind with the squirrel and his acorn.

Who should get the Nobel Prize in Big Al’s category are the three scientists, one U.S., one Brit, and one German who have the figures and have done the research into the global dimming that is happening along side global warming. Big Al got his reward, an Oscar©. Let him sway voters with that coveted prize, but leave the Nobel to people who are really striving to make a difference. At this juncture in human history, it is important we get the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Let’s leave the wienies to Oscar, Meyer that is.

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