It seems the main idea being put forward by the Goreans is that the fossil fuel companies are responsible for the increase in CO2, just like tobacco companies are responsible for smokers. This presumes that fossil fuel consumers consume merely out of personal gratification or addiction, not at all to make their lives easier. The fossil fuel companies then become the pushers in this scenario.

Yet the public demanded cheap energy. Were the fossil fuel companies supposed to then increase prices to discourage demand? Imagine the outcry! We’ve just seen large oil price increases and the oil companies were accused of profiteering. So they are damned whatever they do. In reality, they profit much more from scarcity than from a glut so exactly what can they being accused of if they make fuel abundant and cheap? Giving the customers what they want perhaps? The scientific information, flaky and contradictory though it is, is available to everyone and the CO2 causes warming argument had been out there for 20 years already when the Clinton-Chavez deal ensured oil at $30 a barrel. Yet everyone was happy in boom-land. So the hypocrisy now is just breathtaking.

It’s symptomatic of today’s society that people always find someone else to blame – “it can’t possibly be us” – the lumpen public seem to say – “because we are obviously too stupid”. Well here’s a newsflash for you Goreans: You are still stupid. And your unwillingness to read beyond the headlines makes you lazy too. Get a life!

Here is Gore’s interpretation of the key statement from the GCC report that was reported in Revkin’s article:

Gore: “The largest corporate carbon polluters in America, 14 years ago, asked their own people to conduct a review of all of this science. And their own people told them, “What the international scientific community is saying is correct, there is no legitimate basis for denying it.””

I wonder if Al Gore can be sued for misrepresenting the Times article.

This was his quote.

“You ought to have the choice to get in your car, turn on your engine, and go where you want, all at a reasonable price to you and your family.”

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/economy/july-dec00/oil_9-21.html

Did he or did he not believe at the time that “At stake is nothing less than the survival of human civilisation and the habitability of the earth for our species.”?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1534549/At-stake-is-nothing-less-than-the-survival-of-human-civilisation.html

Just a few CO2 molecules among friends (and potential voters)?

David,
My best judgment tells me there are no consequences from my carbon footprint. Without consequential damages the only issue about my speech is the speech itself.

Even in the tobacco suits the plaintiffs had already suffered damages. Allowing lawsuits for potential future damages based on disputed sciences is not reasonable. I know such suits have been written into a bill by the House of Representatives, but my point is about reasonable people.

The full statement from the oil companies in Roger’s comment #1 is remarkably level headed. Especially the part about chaos and climate predictions. It is far more accurate then any science summary statement from the IPCC.

For the comparison to be valid, Madoff would have done due diligence on company prospects and situations. The evidence would have pointed to one way, say profitability. He would then have represented the situation as being another way, say gloom and doom. People would then on his assessment have taken investment action, say gone short, and lost money.

This is obviously not what he did, he operated a Ponzi scheme which has nothing in common with the above.

The alleged failings of the companies Gore is talking about were to misrepresent conclusions by their own analysts. But it happens all the time, for good and bad reasons, that a company management will depart from their own analysts recommendations.

When Enron was flying high, I personally asked our best analyst to go through all the reports and tell me was it all on the level. He spent two or three weeks, read everything he could find, and told me it was all OK as far as he could tell. I knew no more about Enron after that than what he had told me. But for some reason, I was not convinced, and told my colleagues to stay well clear. This is what I was paid for. I was paid to get my best analyst to report, and then to disbelieve him for no concrete reason.

AND TO BE RIGHT ABOUT IT.

In the end, the buck stops with the management and not with their analysts. Management can have lots of reasons for not taking the recommendations, one of which is that they think the analysts are probably right, but the payoffs are so weighted that it is a bad risk to bet on them.

As Taleb says someplace, he announced at a meeting that he was going to buy X. Oh, said the manager, you think X will go up. No, he said, I think it will likely go down. Its just that if it does go up, its going to rocket, and if it goes down, it won’t be by much, and so its a good bet.

Management is paid to be right about decisions, analysts are paid to be right about the probabilities of the inputs that go into those decisions. You put analysts in charge of the decisions, get ready to pay them more, have lots of little analysts to help them, because they no longer have time to do the basic work themselves, and also, have them depart from their recommendations, because there is something they cannot say quite what that smells in this thing….

“Interesting. no?”

No.

What is interesting – and tragic – is that Al Gore has any credibility or audience at all, let alone, been called to testify before Congress.

Also interesting, if laughably obvious, is how Gore dodged the question. When David Bruggeman observes that “. . . the effectiveness in court of competing expert witnesses arguing not in a scientific forum, but an adversarial process.”, I say, bring it on. Since the Scientific Method is all but absent in climate science, I would welcome a court case. At least weasely witnessnes could be compelled to answer the questions.