I missed this one. First “An Inconvenient Truth” won an Oscar, then Al received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. Now he has finished the year with the 2007 Baptist of the Year Award.Here he is receiving a green bible at the “New Baptist Covenant Celebration” in Atlanta on January 31st.
I really liked the comment from the presenter Robert Parham: “We have with us today a Baptist prophet who is so unacceptable that the Baptist establishment in his hometown of Nashville neither acknowledged his winning the Nobel Peace Prize nor honored with coverage his notable Nobel lecture,” Parham said. “Prophets are unacceptable because their truth is inconvenient.”So is ecology, global warming, reduction of our carbon usage, etc. a moral issue? Do you support the Greens? Why do the conservative members of the Southern Baptist Convention work so hard with the conservative industrial polluters to destroy our ecology?Peter Nuhn
If Al Gore is such a religious idiot, then why did he say he inented the internet or that global waming is man’s fault? Wouldn’t it have been better to attribute these things to the gods?
Why save the earth when it is about to be destroyed in Armageddon? jesus will bring about a “new earth” so let’s trash this one. /sarcasm
Is Al Gore a religious idiot? Or is this church just trying to make itself more appealing to liberals?
I never got the impression that he was a total nutcase.
Politicians and religious establishments cozying up and self congratulating? Never!
The evangelicals did themselves a whole lot of damage by supporting BushCo. They are finally recognizing this and are attempting to do some PR to divert attention from their immoral behavior. Don’t let them succeed!
I rather suspect that Al, like any person in the spotlight who doesn’t want to lose every shred of credibility with an unsophisticated public, harbors personal views that are not necessarily in strict accord with conventional religious “wisdom.” ‘Nuff said.
I’d certainly welcome any moderating voice among the baptists. It comes as a surprise, but here we seem to have one. Just goes to show that gross generalizations (of which atheists, too, seem to be prone) do no justice to the individuals within any sort of large group.
For the morality/ecology link…what gets me is the people who think the earth was made just for them (the right color and everything!) AND if we break this one there’ll be no problem getting another one. I don’t if that’s immoral, unscientific, or just plain rude.
just because aging liberals say global warming is a threat doesn’t make it so.this same crowd in early and mid seventies were proclaiming the new ice age.odd how their solutions always require more gov’t.i am all for enforcing laws to protect nature and building more nuclear plants but people like gore are not credible.
and just to be clear i’m not saying warming isn’t taking place but we should be careful of people who claim they have a plan.
Reason,
If you reject the evidence in favour of anthropomorphic climate change, then you are either:
a) a fool
b) a liar
No, not aging hippies, but a broad scientific consensus.
Your attitude reminds me of evolution-naysayers. Its all a scientific conspiracy!!
Danger
i am a fool and sometime liar but i know that people like gore never carry the burden of their grand plans to save the world.
reason,
Just saw you next post – apologies if I misconstrued your position.
Just to be clear – do you believe that we are altering our climate in ways that may be quite disasterous for future generations (and ourselves also)??
As for the plan of attack – you are right we have a way to go on that. It is all talk, talk, talk.
Our politicians talk about reducing the rate of increase in CO2….meanwhile the concentration is continuing to skyrocket. The atmospeheric CO2 graphs are probably the scariest piece of data I’ve ever seen.
I am not predicting armageddon (I’ll leave that to the fundies), but our present course could lead to widespread mortality later this century.
Don’t any of these positive feedback loops scare anyone else???
1) As water temps rise, more CO2 is emitted.
2) As ice melts more solar radiation is absorbed by the earth.
3) Further water warming – will this destabilise the billions of tons of methane on the ocean floor?
4) Water warming causes death of reef systems around the world…important soaks of C02.
5) Disruption of phytoplankton life cycles – very important C02 absorbers. Also may lead to further loss of cloud cover through reduction of seeding particles.
To appreciate just how hot global warming can get – look at a comparison of Venus and Mercury.
Venus – distance from sun 107m km
temp – ~500C
Mercury – distance from sun 46m km (min)
temp – ~440C
Earth temperatures could easily pass 400C if enough IR absorbing gases are pumped into the atmosphere. Positive feedback loops???
Sounds like NC in July.
I always thought Al Gore did the voice of reverend Lovejoy on the Simpsons. They sound a bit alike. Now I have some new evidence.
Danger
we live in a world where millions of children are abused daily without leaders lifting a hand.the deaths of billions means nothing to the sociopaths who rule much of the planet.
alex
you could move to the cool air of southwest VA.
Comment from: reason
You are soooo right. Anyone with a shred of intelligence understands the “Global Warming” crowd are merely out to control our lives through government policies and taxes…
phreedm.
its likely that a few of the bad apples out there will take global warming as a new hot-button issue to keep themselves in power,
but that doesn’t change the evidence. ice is melting, glaciers are retreating, co2 is rising, water is getting warmer. you’d be more of a fool to dismiss it offhand than you would be to trust any two-bit politician using it as a talking point.
FW-You’re responding to someone who dismisses all scientific evidence, regardless of the mountains of proof, unless it lines up with their narrow ‘gawd did it’ agenda. I’m surprised if he/she/it believes in gravity, instead of angels holding us down so we don’t float away.
Back to topic-
Could this just be some political posturing on Gore’s part? Is he trying to be a little more attractive to the fundy vote, in case he decides to run- now, or in the future?
I’ll admit there does seem to be some evidence that man has had an impact on the temperature of late, but I also remember the talk back in the early 1970’s when scientists told us we were entering a new ice age. So guess I’ll worry a little but take a good heaping spoonfull of salt with the concern.
I’ve always been somewhat amused by those who tell us we’ve “got to save the earth”. The “earth” doesn’t need saving. The “earth” is quite comfortable with extremes of heat and cold. It seems within the realm of possibility that man may impact the earth to a degree that it might become uninhabital to himself and other species, especially as the population explodes, but I doubt the “earth” cares one way or the other.
Taking the long view, e.g. millions and billions of years, might global warming, regardless of the cause, be nothing more than evolution in action? Extremes rather seem the norm to me–haven’t we had three “ice ages”? And don’t we all know there is no good end to this earth business before it’s over anyway?
So chill folks (while you can), and reach for the salt.
I accept the science of man made global climate change but I wonder if Al Gore’s histrionics and gloom and doom scenarios are really on the mark or not. After all, that now famous photograph he used of starving polar bears afloat far from shore on melting winter ice was actually taken during the normal summer thawing of Arctic ice and of normal weight polar bears less than one mile from the shore behind the photographer (polar bears regularly swim up to 100 miles in the open ocean). Al Gore just lost a lot of credibility with me on this one.
http://my.telegraph.co.uk/bluejohn_marshall/january_2008/two_stranded_polar_bears.htm
Alex-
Thanks for the link. Very interesting, to say the least.
I think it deserves more research…
GodFree&Glad,
I think that’s the key. Scientists have been studying the issue of ‘Global Warming’ for over 25 years now and the evidence has only gotten stronger that the earth is warming, and that our releasing of carbon-based emissions are having an effect. The ‘global cooling’ scenario was abandoned quite quickly as the evidence showed it not to be the case.
Too true. The reality is, we just need to stop taking a dump in our own beds. Address the issue of pollution, and you address the issue of Global Warming.
No surprise here. The religious right has a long history of choosing blind faith over science.
The real problem is overpopulation. If there were 500 million people on Earth instead of 6.5 billion we could all live like kings sustainably. Imagine what would happen if everyone in China and India started driving cars or living like Westerners do? We would be screwed within a few years.
For me the bottom line is, are human activities having a detrimental effect on life.
Of course we are and what we are doing is not sustainable. It isn’t simply an issue of global warming and if a couple of bears in a specific picture were in fact in danger.
There are some people that don’t have children or grandchildren that can simply believe that the situation won’t get acutely bad within their life, so no need to worry. That is a perfectly valid position to hold, even though it is a very selfish position. For people that have children and grandchildren to hold that position it points out something far less than ‘I love you’.
However, there are some that rightly point out that the Earth has gone through tougher times on its own in the past and probably will at some point in the future. Well then, so what the hell, lets support the christian in its process of world destruction. Better yet, lets all just get out the nukes and have one last major kick ass party!
I am still hoping we can do better. Christians have many bad qualities, over production of babies is possibly their worst.
‘the “Global Warming” crowd are merely out to control our lives through government policies and taxes…”
Is there any evidence to support this conspiracy theory? Much less a comprehensive theory that explains all the evidence?
I have to agree with Danger-
I thought the same thing, all the arguments against human-caused warming sound like the arguments against evolution (or for ID). It assumes gross incompetence on the part of scientists, or a great conspiracy of scientists, or somehow tries to make a few scientists more authoritative than others (Carl Sagan warned about all these fallacies).
If Gore’s information on the literature review was correct…that all of 1000 peer-reviewed articles do in fact support the claim that global warming is happening and our pollution plays a role, then I’d say that is the conclusion we should base policy on.
Even if it turns out to be factually wrong, I still say this is the best information we got on hand. Science is free to change if better evidence comes to light.
phreakshow spewed:
You are soooo right. Anyone with a shred of intelligence understands the “Global Warming” crowd are merely out to control our lives through government policies and taxes…
Anyone with a shred of intelligence understands the religiously insane crowd are merely out to control our lives through government policies and taxes… because their Invisible Sky Fairy sais so! I’m much more concerned with those people – things like reason and logic will have no effect on their delusional madness – and since the Pope is starting to up the numbers of The Exorcist Squad, it seems reasonable to consider that the other groups of pagan ocultists in america will want to follow his lead.
As for Gore: as far as I can tell he’s very religious. He spent a year in Vanderbuilt’s Graduate School of Religion. And does no one remember his wife’s crusades against immorality as one of the founders of the PRMC (the infotainment morality squad of congressional wives that was active during the Ray-Gun years), along with his support of her efforts?
Gore is a great example of someone who is spiritual, but has enough functioning brain cells remaining to avoid sliding into religiously insane behavior. Wait a bit and I’m reasonably certain you’ll find some examples of the other type of institutionalized superstitious nonsense in this comments thread. Otherwise you could just wait for Bill Donohoe’s next TV appearance…
I have a dream:
“I have a dream, where some day, just the facts will be taught in schools. I have a dream where one day the personal opinions and politics of teachers won’t even enter into the arena of public education without first having been prefaced with ‘this is my opinion’. I have a….”
Okay, just talking like old MLK there!
Tom, you beat me to it!
Touché
é
Ahhh,
Touché Tom, Touché
Agreed that mankind is making our situation worse though use of fossil fuels, pollution, etc.
However, the worst pollution is people. China, India, Africa and other countries where birth control is unavailable or not encouraged. Even in this country we have couples who, rather than adopting, go the route of implanting fertilized eggs thereby producing 2, 3, 4, 5 and even 6 babies – litters, dammit! And there’s a tv show (Discovery??) about a family with something like 16 children and probably more to come. Why is this kind of lifestyle glamorized?
The only hope I see of getting couples to reduce family size is to go back to the flat earth idea. Maybe if we can convince them it’s already wall to wall and somebody is going to begin falling off the edge some of them will think before they procreate??
OT:
Does anyone else think Phreedm’s epitaph is going to consist of a single Ellipsis?
___
/ \
| |
| ... |
| |
|_____|
It would be very fitting given the number of logical omissions he makes.
Damn, my ASCII art failed me!
This blog must delete extra whitespace.
alatham
According tho the article, it wasn’t possible to resell the stock once the person bought it. This was brought up by another man who didn’t want his full name used. I didn’t know that was possible-to buy a stock you couldn’t resell-but then I know virtually nothing about it. Seems fishy to me.
I think an ellipsis would make a very ironic epitath for phreedm!
Here lies all the logic that Phreedm has forgotten to include in his arguments:
_____
/ ` ` \
| ... |
| ` ` |
| ` ` |
|_____|
Comment from: Hoodlum
Wow…you’ve got to be kidding. But since you insist. I guess you haven’t heard of the scam known as “Carbon Credits”?
Or Kyoto?
Or how about McCain-Lieberman?
Look at Phreeky’s last post. Now, how could anybody but a delusional theist whack job think that Phreeky’s last post was in any way a response to Hoodlum’s question? What goes on in Phreeky’s brain when asked a question of any type? I think that he truly does not think at all. Instead his responses appear to be conditioned responses to a stimulus question. Sit up and beg Phreeky, roll over Phreeky. Not on the carpet Phreeky!
What,
No, I won’t do it! My brain is conditioned to try to find some meaning within the content that I feed it. My brain punishes me painfully if I feed it known nothingness.
Anybody who doesn’t “believe in” global warming at this point should be kicked to the curb. I have lived on this planet long enough to see the evidence with my own two eyes.
Al Gore’s message is urgent. Perhaps he doesn’t care who the receiver is as long as it is received. Lighten up on him. He IS fighting the good fight.
Phreakshow blows more smoke out of his a$$…
Wow…you’ve got to be kidding. But since you insist. I guess you haven’t heard of the scam known as “Carbon Credits”?
Or Kyoto?
Or how about McCain-Lieberman?
The main scams I am aware of are the pagan occult nonsense from Dobson, Robertson, and the rest of the superstitious christians. They extort money based on imaginary fables about the afterlife.
The scam that is the Republican’t sadministration of the new millennium is relatively close behind. Lies, hypocrisy, and high crimes and misdemeanors that are exponentially worse than what the Republican’ts used to impeach the last legally elected President, yet seem to be perfectly okay with the sanctimonious abominations who still support him to this day.
And the con job by the conservative media has been doing to the american people on behalf of their Republican’t masters, spinning things to the far right while purportedly being liberal in their journamalism, is pretty high on the list too.
Funny… all the Republican’t spin on the climate control initiatives, much less anything from McClueless and Holy Joe, doesn’t register on the radar.
Tom hits the nail on the head.
quantum:
Gore never said that about the internet.
Surprising.