In a message dated 1/29/2007 7:05:09 P.M. Pacific Standard Time,
johncboyle@gmail.com writes:

 <mip://03ff6dd8/default.html#LETTER.BLOCK4> Upcoming global warming
discussion. City Council to consider signing the Sierra Club's "Cool
Cities Pledge" at February 13th council meeting.

Consider the following
 

Will Al Gore Melt?

By Flemming Rose And Bjorn Lomborg

Word Count: 836

Wall Street Journal

January 18, 2007

Al Gore is traveling around the world telling us how we must
fundamentally change our civilization due to the threat of global
warming. Today he is in Denmark to disseminate this message. But if we
are to embark on the costliest political project ever, maybe we should
make sure it rests on solid ground. It should be based on the best
facts, not just the convenient ones. This was the background for the
biggest Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, to set up an investigative
interview with Mr. Gore. And for this, the paper thought it would be
obvious to team up with Mr. Gore. And for this, the paper thought it
would be obvious to team up with Bjorn Lomborg, author of "The Skeptical
Environmental­ist," who has provided one of the clearest counterpoints
to '~ Mr. Gore's tune.

The interview had been scheduled for months. Mr. Gore's agent yesterday
thought Gore ­meets-Lomborg would be great. Yet an hour later, he came
back to tell us that Bjorn Lomborg should be excluded from the interview
because he's been very critic;Al of Mr. Gore's message about global
warming and has questioned Mr. Gore's even handedness. According to the
agent, Mr. Gore only wanted to have questions about his book and
documentary, an only asked by a reporter. These conditions were
immediately accepted by Jyl­lands-Posten. Yet an hour later we received
an email from the agent saying that the interview was now canceled. What
happened?

One can only speculate. But if we are to follow Mr. Gore's suggestions
of radically changing our way of life, the costs are not trivial. If we
slowly change our greenhouse gas emissions over the coming century, the
U.N. actually estimates that we will live in a warmer but immensely
richer world. However, the U.N. Climate Panel suggests that if we follow
Al Gore's path down toward an environmentally obsessed society, it will
have big consequences for the world, not least its poor: In the year
2100, Mr. Gore will have left the average person 30% poorer, and thus
less able to handle many of the problems we will face, climate change or
no climate change.

Clearly we need to ask hard questions. Is Mr. Gore's world a worthwhile
sacrifice? But it seems that critical questions are out of the question.
It would have been great to ask him why he only talks about a sea-level
rise of 20 feet. In his movie he shows scary sequences of 20-feet
flooding Florida, San Francisco, New York, Holland, Calcutta, Beijing
and Shanghai. But were realistic levels not dramatic enough? The U.N.
climate panel expects only a foot of sea-level rise over this century.
Moreover, sea levels actually climbed that much over the past 150 years.
Does Mr. Gore find it balanced to exaggerate the best scientific
knowledge available by a factor of 20?

Mr. Gore says that global warming will in­crease malaria and highlights
Nairobi as his key case. According to him, Nairobi was founded story? Al
Gore is on a mission. If he has his way, we could end up choosing a
future, based on dubious claims, that could cost us, ac­cording to a
U.N., estimate, $553 trillion over this century. Getting answers to hard
questions is not an unreasonable expectation before we take his project
seriously. It is crucial that we make the right decisions posed by the
challenge of global warming. These are best achieved through open
debate, and we invite him to take the time to answer our questions: We
are ready to interview you any time, Mr. Gore-and anywhere:

Mr. Rose is culture editor of Jyiiands-Posten in Copenhagen. Mr. Lomborg
is aprofessorat thE Copenhagen Business School.

Al Gore recounted the words of Chief Seattle, as his tribe relinquished
their ancient lands: “Will you teach your children what we have taught
our children? That the earth is our mother?”

Al Gore uses the apocryphal Chief Seattle speech in his 1992 book, Earth
in the Balance. Though undeniably beautiful, the preceding speech is not
even remotely authentic. Rather than issuing from the very real Chief
Seattle in 1854, those moving words were written by a screenwriter in
1971. "Chief Seattle is probably our greatest manufactured prophet,"
said David Buerge, a Northwest historian. The real Chief Seattle did
give a speech in 1854, but he never said: "The earth is our mother."
Reference: Chief Seattle – Urban Legends. Well, so much for Al Gore’s
integrity.
Received on Wed Jan 31 02:57:38 2007