The Anchoress

Look at that post header. We need new names in both our politics and our news broadcasts. The same damn people have held sway over everything for too damn long.

I wasn’t going to revisit Gore’s Carbon Footprint, but the footprint has legs, so here we go.

To start with, Katie Couric - to whom I have really tried to be fair, but who too often is exposing herself as lightweight lacking both depth and curiousity, yesterday posted her worries that the secular canonization of Al Gore might cause a backlash against environmentalism. Now, if you’re a committed environmentalist, that’s not a bad thing to worry about, particularly in light of the fact that - charges of “smearing” and “swiftboating” from the left notwithstanding - Gore and his own people are not disputing the reported figures of his energy consumption..

But Couric was not writing about Gore’s massive carbon footprint (which we are told becomes magically offset by purchasing and planting stuff). She was too busy repeating enviro leftist mantras and questioning none of it, indicating she has never taken the time to really look beyond whatever the DNC/Clinton/Gore/Boxer press releases say. So we read:

“…after a period of time of not conceding global warming even exists, President Bush used the term “climate change” for the first time and has talked about a way to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.”

Well…no, Ms. Couric. The teensiest amount of research would show you that President Bush has been acknowledging “climate change” since at least 2001:

Text of a Letter from the President to Senators Hagel, Helms, Craig, and Roberts 3/13/01 (excerpt)

Thank you for your letter of March 6, 2001, asking for the Administration’s views on global climate change, in particular the Kyoto Protocol and efforts to regulate carbon dioxide under the Clean Air Act. My Administration takes the issue of global climate change very seriously.

As you know, I oppose the Kyoto Protocol because it exempts 80 percent of the world, including major population centers such as China and India, from compliance, and would cause serious harm to the U.S. economy. The Senate’s vote, 95-0, shows that there is a clear consensus that the Kyoto Protocol is an unfair and ineffective means of addressing global climate change concerns. (H/T commenter cmdicely)

You could read the whole thing, Ms. Couric.

Couric went on to blather the usual talking points:

“And all the experts agree. Well, almost every expert. (There are a handful of scientists — many of them on the payroll of big oil companies — who wonder if global warming is a reality.)”

Aside from the fact that that sounds like it’s written by a 14 year old, it also is simply wrong. There is no consensus on global warming. There are only people who say there is consensus and tell everyone else to shut up, or be threatened with their jobs. Which is actually called fascism, not environmentalism, but that’s another post.

Couric offers no names or evidence that this “handful” of scientists are on these “payrolls,” and she never wonders whether some of the global warming religionists might themselves be on a payroll or two…she just blithely throws out what she knows or think she knows and tra-las away. I’m quite certain she has no idea that President Bush has a very green eco-friendly residence in Crawford, or that he has been successfully working with other countries to create effective eco-policy to replace the Kyoto treaty. The mainstream press and her handlers haven’t told her about it, and no one she knows mentions it, after all.

All in all, Couric gives the impression that she’s heard a few people talking about Global Warming as she’s meandered from luncheon to cocktail party, and this is what everyone she knows is saying - and the people she knows are the smartest people who are always right - so she doesn’t really need to actually check anything out, or read anything that might make her uncomfortable.

I never thought I would say it, but I miss Dan Rather. I may not have agreed with him much of the time toward the end, but he had a curious mind, a willingness to ask questions and he possessed a voice and presence that conveyed…oh…gravitas. Seriousness of purpose. Substance. To me it sounds like Couric dictated that thing while she was having her nails done and a non-fat mocha latte was being delivered to her.

Oh, yeah. Gore. Global Warming. Gee, I hope the rightwingnutjobs don’t start hating him just because Hollywood loves him, because they do that, those rightwingers - look at the poor Dixie Chirps. It’s Chirps, right? Oh, Chicks. Oh, that’s cute!

Enough of that. Now, about those magic carbon-offset indulgences the folks on the left are championing with great fervor. You know they’re hot - they were included in the “presenter’s thank you gifts” at this week’s Oscar telecast:

The [gift offsets] “are enough to balance out an average year in the life of an Academy Award presenter,” a press release from TerraPass asserts. “For example, 100,000 pounds is the total amount of carbon dioxide created by 20,000 miles of driving, 40,000 miles on commercial airlines, 20 hours in a private jet and a large house in Los Angeles. The greenhouse gas reductions will be accomplished through TerraPass’ [program] of verified wind energy, cow power [collecting methane from manure] and efficiency projects.” Voila, guilt-free consumption! It reminds us of the era when rich Catholics paid the church for “dispensations” that would shorten their terms in Purgatory. (H/T Larwyn)

So, TerraPass does what, exactly? Collects money, issues these certificates and then…funds wind farms and such? Is that it? Where, exactly? Not Nantucket, we know, but where? Does anyone know how much money is going into offsets and how much real alternative energy is being produced or how much tree-planting or fluorescent bulb-buying is going on? I haven’t been able to access terrapass.com, so we’ll have to find out when the site comes back up. Who runs that joint, anyway? Shouldn’t we be “following the money” a little - making sure it’s all for real - before we buy all this eco-jazz hook, line and sinker? Shouldn’t someone in the press be looking at this, even just a little? We’re talking about potentially an awful lot of money being gathered (and a lot of legislation being excited) with apparently no one asking a single question.

Meanwhile, IowaVoice (in his third update) is crunching numbers and saying Gore’s green numbers are not really making sense, or his argument is not working. And Mick at Uncorrelated wonders if it is a giant accounting scheme?

As it turns out, Green Power Switch is in fact a limited supply of power, about one 150 kWh per month for 54,000 customers. Al Gore uses 18,400 kWh per month last year–the equivilent of 123 household allocations. Without enough green power switch to go around, a lot of Tennesseans are forced to burn coal to turn the lights on.

While many are looking at Gore’s home energy consumption, I’m wondering if anyone has bothered to think about the carbon footprint of the two working mines on his Carthage, TN property (he has THREE properties, btw, not just the one we keep hearing about), and how they are being “offset” but to me this is smelling more and more like a scheme: Be noble, be green, send your money here and you’ll be alright.

As I’ve said before - I don’t buy into the whole “man is causing global warming and the earth is gonna die unless you do what we say, NOW” narrative. While I think conserving energy is a sensible thing in general (we have our flourescent bulbs and I used to keep a dandy compost heap before I stopped gardening) I don’t really care what Gore consumes. But if you’re going to wag the finger and declare yourself the champion of a “moral not political” issue (albeit one to which green presidents with R’s after their names are not allowed to be recognised) then you’d better be the greenest sumbitch that ever flew a private jet across two continents and then planted a tree, or it will all come back to kick you in the ass.

Speaking of kicking in the ass, remember when Ronald Reagan took heat for accepting a post-presidential speaking engagement that paid about 100K? Bill Clinton’s got him beat in millions of ways. Past presidents have to earn a living, and making money is not a bad thing - it can’t be, so many “highly moral” people have so much of it - but who is this guy receiving his money from? That matters because his wife might be be our president in two years, and we need to know who may be buying his influence to the tune of ten million buckaroos a year. Cal Thomas writes:

Among those for whom Clinton spoke were a Saudi Arabia investment firm ($600,000 for two speeches), a Chinese real estate firm, run by a Communist Party official ($200,000), and a Toronto company, founded by a Kenyan immigrant who was convicted of stock fraud and barred for life from the brokerage business ($650,000 in 2005 and an undisclosed sum last year). The public needs to know more about their backgrounds.

For those who whine, “stop picking on Clinton - other presidents and pols have made money from speeches,” I say, yes, that’s true but, as Thomas writes:

While other ex-presidents have spoken for money, there has been nothing on this scale and none of their spouses served as elected officials.

Scope and scale are the material point. One cannot pretend that there is no distinction between a retired president making a few bucks and one traveling the world internationally, non-stop, while his wife is running the never-ending campaign directed toward the most powerful office in the world.

Martin Peretz, apparently feeling somewhat freed by David Geffen’s recently daring to publicly speak negatively about the Clintons, sticks his toe into the dangerous waters, himself and describes just how much money the Clinton’s absorb:

All about money. Imagine if you are a friend of the Clintons. First of all you are rich, very rich. Simply because they don’t have friends other than ones with spare and bigger than big amounts of cash. Here are the purposes for which you have been asked contributions: twice for Bill Clinton for President (and all of the skeletal extensions of the local and national Democratic Party), the 727s, the White House refurbishing fund, the Clinton Defense Fund, the Clinton Library, twice for Hillary for Senate, annual contributions to the Clinton Global Initiative, each of his and her birthdays. Was there a Chappaqua remodeling project? If you have a private jet you’d have been expected to hand it over for a day, a weekend. If you have a house in Martha’s Vineyard or in East Hampton or in Aspen or in Palm Springs, why don’t you visit your in-laws? And it isn’t as if the Clintons are asking you directly. Some underling is doing it, and you’re afraid to say “no.” Or even “boo.” $1 million here, $1 million there. Pretty soon, it’s a heck of a lot of money.

They ask for money for their birthdays? I used to do that too…but I was twelve.

Peggy Noonan wrote that Geffen’s remarks were going to be a sort of test to find out if any Dems would be allowed to speak negatively about the Clintons and get away with it. It will be interesting to watch the trajectory of Geffen’s and now Peretz’s careers and personal lives over the next few years.

Oh, and poor old Hillary…once again, she’s being dogged by clerical errors within her financial disclosures, or lack thereof. Sigh. This stuff always happens to her! Billing records get lost, cattle futures make weird profit, she gets the only bad translation of Suha Arafat’s speeches…she really needs to hire more competent people.

She’s also having sensitivity issues once again. (H/T Michelle Malkin)

These people all make me tired. I’m tired of looking at them, reading about them, listening to them blab on and on. I’m tired of their tired excuse-making and double-talk. I’m tired of hearing that these people are greatest of people and that only haters could not absolutely adore them, at all times.

I can’t be the only one out there who has had enough of the whole boiling of them. When do they go away? Do they ever retire? Do they ever stop promoting themselves?

I’ll lay you ten to one, when Bush retires, he retires, and we don’t have to look at him or hear him again, unless we want to. Why won’t the rest of them take a break, and give us one, too?

Also writing on Gore:

Don Surber
Vanderleun
James Taranto
Doug Ross
Libertas
The Economist
Ed Driscoll
Instapundit
Classical Values
Hot Air
Learning Strait Up
Don Surber

Writing on Clintons:
AJ Strata
Ed Morrissey
Clinton Pardons coming back to haunt Hillary

On Couric:
Newsbusters

Weather related:
100 years of hysterics: Global Warming or Cooling? (H/T commenter Laura)
JR Dunn: Resisting Global Warming Panic
Michael Crichton’s Prescient Speech of 2003
Will Al Gore Melt?
Inconvenient Truth: Bush greener than Gore
Couric and Company