Climate change concerts 'to dwarf Live Aid'

[AuGmENTor]

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/ebad1e4a-b719-11db-8bc2-0000779e2340.html
(AuGmENTor: The point of me posting this is to ask: Does anyone know how many houses Al Gore owns? Last I heard it was FOUR, the biggest having EIGHT bathrooms! Sounds like a guy "living green" doesn't it? Can we say Limosene Liberal? Mr. wonderful doesn't even buy green power for his mansions. Ironically, I heard about this on Hannity (who I hate) But I hate Al "Better than all of us" Gore, even MORE.)

By Carlos Grande and Fiona Harvey
Published: February 8 2007 02:00 | Last updated: February 8 2007 02:00

A series of concerts "bigger than Live Aid" is being planned for July, in a bid to put the subject of climate change before an audience of a global audience of 2bn.

The event, scheduled for July 7, will feature co-ordinated film, music and television events in seven cities including London, Washington DC, Shanghai, Rio de Janeiro, Cape Town and Kyoto, with major broadcasters and media owners aiming to extend the reach of public awareness of global warming.


It is understood that former US vice-president Al Gore, whose movie An Inconvenient Truth brought climate change to cinema audiences last year, will announce the event tomorrow in London.

The organisers hope to involve up to 2.5m people in events and link-ups at the cities involved, as well as other locations.

They are promising a line-up of artists to "dwarf" that of the Live8 and Live Aid concerts, thought to be branded under the name "SOS".

One person close to the event said yesterday: "The talent involved is just exponentially bigger because the issue itself is bigger.

"Live Aid was about asking people to stump up money, this is about effecting systemic change.

"The aim is not just to drive awareness but to get people to take action."

These actions are likely to include personal pledges to reduce emissions, for instance by using energy efficient equipment or flying less.

[Chana3812]

maybe you're "Green" with Envy

[Chana3812]

HE WASN'T RUNNING FOR OFFICE, DIDN'T NOTIFY THE MEDIA, JUST DID SOMETHING TO HELP AMERICANS IN NEED. I LIKE THIS GUY.

03.21.2006
Remembering Al Gore's Katrina Heroism (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jamal-simmons/remembering-al-gores-kat_b_17653.html)

As The American Prospect covers (http://www.prospect.org/web/index.ww) Al Gore, I still think his heroism during the Katrina crisis is evidence that Gore is the most passionate national Democrat out there right now -- speaking his mind, but also ACTING on his convictions. Whether he runs for President again or not, he deserves more credit for saving those people in Louisiana.



Gore For It (http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=10376)
The current Democratic leadership has a lot to learn from Al Gore.


"Don't talk about it; be about it" is what R & B star R. Kelly's disgruntled lover advised him to do if he wanted to remain in her good graces in his 1998 song "Don't Put Me Out." The infamous Kelly may be an unlikely tutor for American politicians, but some of our elected officials should heed the same advice when it comes to leadership.

President Bush fell down on the job of leading us so badly in the days after Hurricane Katrina and the flooding of New Orleans that even the reporters at conservative-leaning FOX News could not restrain themselves from criticizing the administration for allowing literally helpless Americans to die from starvation, dehydration, drowning, and heat stroke while waiting days for rescue. The American people, faced with the irrefutable televised evidence of babies screaming for milk and the elderly left to die seems to be losing faith in the president they elected because they believed he would "be about" protecting them. Thus, the twin tragedies of Katrina and Iraq have pushed Bush's poll numbers down to Watergate-era lows.

Bush's disastrous response was so horrific that -- to use another example from the music world -- hip-hop phenom Kanye West, after watching the spectacle at the Superdome, declared on national television that "George Bush doesn't care about black people"

One man who did care enough to "be about" leading people to safety was former Vice President Al Gore. Together with Greg Simon, head of the nonprofit FasterCures, Gore defied government bureaucracy, military regulations, and perhaps political interference to charter and accompany two airplane flights into New Orleans to rescue patients and bring them to safety at Tennessee hospitals. While other politicians appeared to be debating whether or not to leave their Labor Day vacations early or to be dithering with their consultants over the political ramifications of various actions and statements, Gore did what many of us watching television from our homes only wished we could do: He flew into New Orleans and rescued people.

Desperate for effective leadership, factions of the Democratic Party have been wrestling with one another about whether we should go left or right in order to win elections. Gore's actions have punctured a hole in this debate by simply going forward. The tragedy of Katrina was not political so much as humanitarian. American citizens were dying, homeless, and injured, and those who truly cared about them could not sit by and watch from the height of their private planes or the comfort of their ranches and beach houses. Gore not only cares about America; he proved he cares about Americans enough to land a plane in the midst of the misery and "be about" rescuing more than 200 desperate people.

Gore has been reluctant to discuss what he did on those two flights, most likely for fear of politicizing his actions. But maybe his actions should be politicized; Americans are hungry for any conviction in today's politics. That hunger was evident as people flocked to the promise of presidential candidates Howard Dean, John McCain, and Wesley Clark in past election years. Voters believed these men offered us something different, something genuine. They were convinced for a time that these guys wouldn't just "talk about" leading us, they would "be about" leading us.

It may be time for America to see more of Al Gore. When he was last on the national stage, he looked hesitant and unsure of himself. The nation found it hard to feel comfortable with a man who did not seem to feel comfortable with himself. That may have changed. Gore has been charging forward, voicing his consistent criticism about how and why we went to war in Iraq (uncompromised by having voted for the war resolution) and continuing to talk about the threats posed by climate change, which have only become more evident this hurricane season, and by acting rapidly and effectively to rescue sick and injured Americans on his own dime when they needed it most. Whether Al Gore wants to be President or not, his example should serve as a marker for anyone else who does: "Don't talk about" leading us anymore, just "be about it."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jamal-simmons/remembering-al-gores-kat_b_17653.html

[AuGmENTor]

How did I know this would bring you running? All you need is a bullhorn... And yet, I can't help but notice, NOT ONE WORD about my comment at the beginning of the article. Other than a bit of sarcastic fluff, you have NOTHING to say to refute the fact that this guy is running around crying about global warming, while at the same time maintaining houses that account for HOW many metric tons of greenhouse gasses annually?
You point out some other unrealated accolades. By that logic, I could be a total liar, but as long as I give to UNICEF, I'm gold (no pun, Jon).
Bottom Line: There are VERY few people worthy of our respect that are in government. If this guy had even mayb TWO houses, I could see it. But FOUR??? Cmon.

[PhilosophyGenius]

I don't see a problem with Gore owning 4 houses.

[AuGmENTor]

Of course you don't... NONE of the LIBS do. It's fine to do whatever THEY want, but control what WE do.

[PhilosophyGenius]

I'm not that liberal. And he's rich, great for him. Him going out and promoting global warming is a heck of a lot better than what other people like him are doing with there free time.

[Chana3812]

Everyone owes it to Themselves to go see An Inconvenient Truth. Gore simply wants us to know the science and the consequences... it has nothing to do with how much real estate he owns.

Awareness and education - it's all good :)

And yes, I will speak up if I want to - give me a bullhorn. I've got something to say.

[AuGmENTor]

http://www.investors.com/editorial/editorialcontent.asp?secid=1501&status=article&id=259542253407130

Solar Eclipse Of The Facts
INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

Posted 3/23/2007

Environmentalism: The same day that Al Gore lectured Congress about man-made global warming, NASA made a startling announcement: The sun is hotter and more active than thought.

NASA detailed new observations of solar explosions from a powerful space telescope that recently beamed back X-ray images of the sun's outermost layer. Scientists expected to see a calm region but instead saw a bubbling mass of swaying and arching spikes, some more than 5,000 miles long . The tangled magnetic fields dump energy back into the corona, causing huge temperature flares.

The sunspot intensity shocked NASA astronomers, who held the press conference in Washington as Gore testified nearby that the planet has a 'fever' caused by carbon-spewing humans. Of course, the media were too busy genuflecting before The Goracle on the Hill to cover the NASA news.

'If your baby has a fever, you go to the doctor,' Gore intoned. 'If the doctor says you need to intervene, you take action.'

Yes, action such as 'completely eliminating the internal combustion engine' and riding bicycles, taxing factories into bankruptcy and building windmills. In short, creating a 'carbon-free economy' and impoverishing everyone in the process.

But what if the doctor has misdiagnosed the cause of the fever? What if the remedy Gore is prescribing is dead wrong?

He and the rest of the greenhouse gasbags won't even entertain the simplest explanation for global warming. Like a solar eclipse, they've blotted out debate on the sun's factor, despite growing evidence to support it.

As we have pointed out, global temps closely track solar cycles as measured by sunspot intensity. The Danish Meteorological Institute first reported the correlation in a study going back centuries. Historic data reveal that whenever the sun heated up, the earth heated up, and vice versa.

The sun causes global warming? What a concept!

But Gore shamelessly buried the inconvenient truth of the study in the footnotes of his book. If he acknowledged the sun's role in global warming, how could he justify taxing industry and launching his massive wealth-transfer scheme?

Here's another fact he won't talk about on his way to a Nobel Prize: Mars is also warming. NASA says ice caps near that planet's south pole are melting. A growing number of scientists say solar irradiance is heating both Mars and Earth simultaneously.

And here's another inconvenient fact: The sun's radiation has increased by 0.5% per decade since the late 1970s, while carbon output has waxed and waned with global recessions. If warming were caused by carbon output, you'd expect to see temps fall in slumps and rise in booms along with carbon output. Data show no such link.

The Hoover Institution ran the numbers. 'The effects of solar activity and volcanoes were impossible to miss. Temperatures fluctuated exactly as expected, and the pattern was so clear that, statistically, the odds of the correlation existing by chance were less than 1 in 100,' according to a study earlier this decade by Hoover fellow Bruce Berkowitz.

'Yet try as we might,' the study added, 'we simply could not find any relationship between industrial activity, energy consumption, and changes in global temperatures. We tried adjusting for delayed effects. We tried adjusting for cumulative effects. Nothing — the relationship wasn't there.'

The study concluded that even if you completely shut down factories and power plants — as Gore recommends — 'there would not be much effect on temperatures.'

Ouch, so much for that theory. If the planet has a 'fever,' it more than likely got it from the sun, not furnaces and engines.

[Chana3812]

Posted on Tue, Mar. 20, 2007http://www.contracostatimes.com/images/common/spacer.gifhttp://www.contracostatimes.com/images/common/spacer.gif

Politics trump science, NASA exec says

By Joel Havemann
LOS ANGELES TIMES

WASHINGTON - A government scientist, under sharp questioning by a federal panel for his outspoken views on global warming, stood by his view Monday that the Bush administration's information policies smacked of Nazi Germany.

James Hansen, director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, took particular issue with the administration's rule that a government information officer listen in on his interviews with reporters and its refusal to allow him to be interviewed by National Public Radio.

"This is the United States," Hansen told the House Oversight and Government Affairs Committee. "We do have freedom of speech here."

But Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista, said it was reasonable for Hansen's employer to ask him not to state views publicly that contradicted administration policy.

"I am concerned that many scientists are increasingly engaging in political advocacy and that some issues of science have become increasingly partisan as some politicians sense that there is a political gain to be found on issues like stem cells, teaching evolution and climate change," Issa said.

Hansen said the Bush administration was not the first in U.S. history to practice information management over government scientists, but it has been the most vigorous. He deplored the "politicization of science."

"When I testify to you as a government scientist," he said, "why does my testimony have to be reviewed, edited and changed by a bureaucrat in the White House?"

Sitting beside him was one of the bureaucrats Hansen was talking about: Philip Cooney, chief of staff to the White House Council on Environmental Quality from 2001 to 2005.

Cooney, an official with the American Petroleum Institute before going to the White House, acknowledged having reviewed some of Hansen's testimony as part of a long-standing practice designed to result in consistency.

Cooney was asked about changing "will" to "may" in prepared testimony describing the impact of human activity -- particularly the burning of oil and coal -- on the Earth's temperature.

He said his edits were based not on political views but a 2001 report by the National Academy of Sciences.

"I offered my comments in good-faith reliance on what I understood to be authoritative and current use of the state of scientific knowledge, and for no other purpose," Cooney said.

Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., didn't buy that. He said the basis of Cooney's editing changes was not scientific evidence but "loyalty to a person who had appointed you to a political position."

Some of the sharpest exchanges came between Reps. Henry Waxman, D-Los Angeles, chairman of the committee, and a Republican member, Mark Souder of Indiana.

Souder said the Democrats' approach made "a mockery of the hearing process."

[AuGmENTor]

Interesting... :soap:

[MrDark71]

Dwarfing Live Aid?....what are they gonna do....dig up Bonham?...or have a long awaited Boomtown Rats reunion?

[Chana3812]

those goofy aussies ;)

Australian city aims for world first climate change blackout

by Lawrence BartlettSun Mar 25, 2:08 AM ET

Australia's largest city will be plunged into darkness for an hour on Saturday in an attempt at a world first blackout to raise awareness of global warming, organisers say.

A successful switch-off could then be copied by major cities around the world in a drive to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions blamed for climate change, according to international conservation group WWF.

The lights will go out in landmark headquarters buildings in Sydney's central business district, on the iconic Harbour Bridge and Opera House, and in tens of thousands of suburban homes.

"Earth Hour", which begins at 7:30 pm (0930 GMT) on March 31, has been planned for 10 months by WWF in partnership with city authorities, businesses and a major newspaper group.

"We've been astounded at the level of support we have got," WWF Australia communications director Andy Ridley told AFP.

A thousand businesses have signed up, including many of the top blue-chip companies on the Australian stock market -- and even McDonald's is going to turn off its "Golden Arches" signs, he said.

"The first commitment is lights off for an hour, and then as we go forward we're looking to try and set ourselves a target of reducing emissions by five percent over the next year."

Scientists link dangerous global temperature increases to the greenhouse effect, in which gases emitted by burning fossil fuels to produce energy trap heat in the atmosphere.

Last month Paris conducted a similar campaign, dimming lights for five minutes in the French capital and turning off the lights of the Eiffel Tower.

Twenty-seven thousand Sydney households have also registered their support online, though many times that number are expected to participate in the blackout.

The only lights deliberately left on will be those connected with public safety, such as streetlights.

Top restaurants have signed up and will serve diners by candlelight, with some offering meals using local produce rather than ingredients flown or shipped in from abroad.

"We're not asking people to go and live in a cave and eat cold beans; that can't be the way we approach the problem of global warming," Ridley said, dismissing some early criticism that business would suffer.

"The idea of this is there are simple things that are putting emissions up into the air and we can do simple things to start cutting back on them, but that doesn't mean you close your restaurant."

As for those at home who are faced with an hour of darkness on a Saturday night, "we hope people will be catching up with their neighbours and having barbecues.

"It's really about moving away from the despair that global warming seems to produce and starting thinking of what can we do about it."

Ridley said that if successful, the Sydney blackout would be a world first.
"I think people have tried it before, but nobody has successfully done it and I don't think anyone has tried it it on the scale we are trying.

"If it's as successful as we hope, we hope to take it around the world and do this in every major city we can get to join us."

Australia, already the driest inhabited continent on earth, is expected to be particularly hard hit by global warming and has already claimed a world first in fighting climate change. The government announced last month that traditional incandescent light bulbs would be phased out by 2010 in favour of the more fuel-efficient compact fluorescent bulbs.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070325/sc_afp/australiaclimatewarmingblackout&printer=1;_ylt=AijJAXOEpZRP6u48_KYJTvPQOrgF