A funny thing happened on the way to Her Majesty’s Coronation. As Hillary Rodham Clinton grows less inevitable as The Democratic Party’s nominee each day, the jackals and ankle-biters* come out of the woodwork. While the whole Servergate Crisis isn’t quite the gaffe that Queen Elsa suffered over losing her glove, there is a certain fear and trembling amongst the Professional Dems that Hillary could blow it 2016 the way she blew it in 2008. There just might be the need for a savior over in Dem Land. There is a rumor that they have a bench, but it doesn’t seem to be in evidence. Fear not my one or two Liberal Readers, he’s out there for ya’. He’s tanned, he’s rested and he’s ready to ramp up the old Carbon Footprint. It’s Al Gore to the rescue!
He’s been out and about. He’s got a trip to Iowa in a couple of weeks to beat the old drum against Global Warming. Iowa, of course. He’s there to tour the heart of America’s industrial carbon footprint. Oh, wait, there’s a caucus-thingy out there, hmmm….Gore will ostensibly out in the Midwest to address a climate workshop put on by his activist group Climate Reality Project.
The Climate Reality Leadership Corps training in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, which will be held May 5-7, will bring together a select group of individuals committed to addressing the impacts of climate change and implementing the solutions that will define us to future generations. This training is an opportunity to join a global network of leaders committed to solving the climate crisis. Gore is the founder and chairman of the Climate Reality Project and he will address the impacts of climate change and implementing solutions that will make an impact on future generations.
Well, isn’t Al Gore pretty much a 1 issue candidate who lost to the man who most Liberals consider dummerer than Texas dirt and more evil than Mengele on crank? Well, it depends upon who you ask and how you define lose exactly. Conservatives like myself for example would tell you GWB had the electoral votes and that’s what the US Constitution rules as the victory condition in a Presidential Election. Gore backers would claim that the only thing Al Gore lost was a convoluted legal fight. So I can think Al Gore lost 2000 exactly as the results say he did; but can understand lucidly that nobody will ever really convince Al Gore of that fact.
And then there’s the 1 issue that Al Gore dogmatically drums ad nauseum. Al Gore speaks of a constant and never-ending commitment to fight Climate Change. Ezra Klein endorses Gore specifically because of his dogmatism. His endorsement gives us the view from inside the Liberal Tank as to why this issue gains traction better than all others.
Gore offers a genuinely different view of what the Democratic Party — and, by extension, American politics — should be about. Climate change is a real and growing threat to the world’s future. In 2009, nearly every country in the world agreed that global warming must be held to less than 2 degrees Celsius. We’re on pace to blow through that — warming the planet four degrees or more is horrifyingly plausible. No one really knows what that kind of temperature change — a swing that approaches the difference between most of human history and the Ice Age — would mean for humankind. The World Bank says there is “no certainty that adaptation to a 4°C world is possible.” Income inequality is a serious problem. But climate change is an existential threat.
I blogged recently that AGW or Climate Change, or Climate Disruption or just, plain bratty weather, was in no way the settled science that the experts demand us to believe it to be. The experts have models that are mathematical undertakings of vast scope and complexity that disagree with current reality. It is therefore the reality that has to be wrong. You will never convince a devoted Climate Scientist that there is any such thing as legitimate scientific debate. !THE SCIENCE IS SETTLED! Only evil people who take money from oil companies disagree. Good people are different when they take money from governments or environmental pressure groups. And a majority of the political left in America actually believes this stuff.**
It sort of reminds me of how Mike Huckabee had his night of Glory in The GOP Iowa Caucus in 2008. There is an issue out there in Global Warming that is energizing a lot of Liberals the way certain social issues galvanized the Conservative Right’s caucus-goers in the 2008 race. Gore gets that this is a religious issue with the Left and speaks of punishing deniers the way Islamic Clergy issue fatwas against the kafir. This is a much bigger deal to the committed American Leftist than fears of terrorism. Iowa is won and lost by getting the die-hards to the caucus meetings and making sure they stay there all night long until they are the majority in the room. Gore’s issue plays to the converted believer.
This is what the Democrats disgusted by Secretary of Indifference, Hillary Clinton, will want for their cause. They need that enemy and they need a reason to fight the foe. Al Gore can thus fly on in via the private jet and demonize all those people that waste dirty fossil fuels and put CO2 up in the air. The millibears are deluged as the polar ice cracks. Save us Obi-Gore Kenobi. You are the liberal true believer’s only hope.
*-Oh dear! Maureen used the word “wallow”! “The horror!” Said Mr. Kurtz.
**-They are probably too ecologically sensitive to handle poisonous snakes, so they need something ridiculous to believe in.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member