Convenient and relative truths


Is Al Gore's film science or faith?
I missed this one on Drudge when it came out. It looks like I am not the only one who thinks that Al Gore has gone into True Believer™ mode. This is from Kyle Smith's review of An Inconvenient Truth.

People are skeptical about global warming because it builds up to the same chorus as every other lefty hymn: more taxes, more hypocritical scolding (the film is the brainchild of Larry David's wife, Laurie, part of the community of people who drive a Prius to the private plane) and especially more America-bashing.

Gore says that America, alone, is the problem. Taking us to China, he ignores the filth spewed into the air by its coal-fired cities. He does not meet with bronchitic citizens who wear surgical masks outdoors and pause to hawk up brown gunk every few minutes. Instead, he tells us America is lagging behind. "China," he says, "is on the cutting edge" of environmentalism. Nonsense.

Gore is a dangerous evangelist for whom all roads lead to his sole, holy revelation. Remember how his son was injured in a car accident, the story he told at the 1992 convention? He's still telling it, and what was once touching has become exploitative. This time, the accident's meaning is that he wondered whether the Earth would still be there for his son. (Never mind that earlier in the film, he dates his eco-awakening to his Harvard years).

A sister who smoked and died of lung cancer? The lesson is that those who used to deny that smoking caused disease were wrong, so anyone who doubts catastrophic global warming must also be wrong.

The only reason why I care what Al Gore believes is because he wants his beliefs to govern everyone else's actions. Somehow, we've skipped the debate stage.

The sad thing is that Al Gore and the global warming crowd would not accept a hardcore Christian evangelist telling them that they could only be saved if they were baptized and "accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Savior." Nor would they accept a hardcore capitalist telling them that their misplaced compassion is keeping poverty alive.

So what is the difference?

If the global warming theory depends on science, it can withstand any debate,.

If the global warming theory depends on faith, then debate is unimportant to the goal.

And that is where we stand.

Hat tip to Cori.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Sat - June 3, 2006 at 09:03 AM  Tag


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