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dirtbag
climber
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Installing--not installed. And much of it was using clean energy sources anyway.
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Shack
Big Wall climber
Reno NV
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It's pretty obvious that it's the Politicians and the Hollywood elite, who are wasting all the resources,
let's just get rid of them and we'll solve the Global Warming problem.
See, that wasn't so hard.
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TradIsGood
Happy and Healthy climber
the Gunks end of the country
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Installing--not installed. And much of it was using clean energy sources anyway.
What the heck does that mean? Are you trying to say he just paid more for his energy by saying serve me up some wind power? Like that really amounts to a hill of beans?
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bobinc
Trad climber
Portland, Or
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Most of my work has to do with measuring perofrmance of energy-using entities such as air conditioners, houses, and appliances. I've learned through doing this for 20 years that there are always inflated claims but that it is also possible to have success in using more efficient products. If you do actually measure things, you develop a different perspective than if you take things on faith. Simply saying something is "green" does not make it so but deciding that all attempts to use less of whatever resource is in question are futile or silly (because Al Gore uses a lot, for example) is simply ridiculous.
In this line of work, I am often asked what can be done to conserve energy. The answers I give aren't always what people want to hear. I tell them that doing things like turnig off power strips and installing insulation help but I also tell them that there are much more effective means of being more efficient such as having fewer children, driving/flying less, and building smaller houses (or not buildingn anything new at all but instead adding on to what they already have). This answer confuses many becuase they believe that they can consume their way out of any problem. I am as much of this mind as anyone else, but I have had some success in using moderation and know that it has not made my feel as though I am somehow poorer for it.
It is hard to come up with ways of doing things that are conservation-oriented yet still don't make people feel as though they are making undue sacrifice. Scolding/shaming don't work, either. Efforts such as the Apollo Project are trying to come up with new approaches and I suggest taking a look at their website for a fresh perspective.
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HighDesertDJ
Trad climber
Arid-zona
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What is silly here is that you people are just desperate to make Al Gore wrong. The numbers aren't confirmed, they were publicized by a random little organization that has no credibility and no signifance. Still, just because the $30,000 is being used over and over and over you guys are eager for that to be true. Never mind that all of the people repeating it are consuming just as much and likely moreso.
That being said, Al Gore *does* have multiple houses and he *does* overconsume. Whatever his justifications, carbon nuetral or whatever, its a great example of how it is harder to walk the walk and live a mainstream life than it is to talk the talk.
But that has little to do with the arguments you guys are making...you just want him to be wrong. Wrong wrong wrong. No nuance, no parsing, nothing. Just wrong. If Al Gore lived in a earth rammed eco-friendly home that was passive solar and whatever you'd make fun of him for that.
I agree that Gore could and should do a whole lot more to reduce his footprint, but that doesn't mean he isn't delivering a good message or saying the right things. Does it make him a hypocrit? Yeah, absolutely, in a lot of ways it does. But it doesn't make him wrong.
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dirtbag
climber
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"Are you trying to say he just paid more for his energy by saying serve me up some wind power? Like that really amounts to a hill of beans? "
Is there carbon emitted from that?
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dirtbag
climber
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HDDJ:
I don't believe he is a hypocrite: or, if he is, then just about everyone who isn't living in a cave is a hypocrite. EVERYBODY could be doing more about everything. Is he trying to do a lot? Yup. That's all you can ask of someone.
The Swift Boaters would have people believe that anyone who is not a saint is a hypocrite, an either/or virgin/whore thing, and that is not how things work.
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TradIsGood
Happy and Healthy climber
the Gunks end of the country
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dirtbag - All of the wind energy that is generated gets bought by somebody - all of the way less than one percent of what we need. If nobody opted for it, it would still get consumed.
So did he save carbon by using it. Nope. Because all he bought was going to get used anyway.
OTOH if he had used less, he would have saved some net carbon contribution.
All of the excess energy above baseload is generated by carbon emitting generation.
Baseload is the cheapest producing generation. It is the stuff that the utilities run literally 24x7.
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dirtbag
climber
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The wind energy was only one facet of his approach.
You're really going to nitpick his choice to use a cleaner energy source? You're right, Gore must be a real as#@&%e for choosing to use wind power.
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 1, 2007 - 02:57pm PT
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I can't believe how this thread took off from one sentence of mine (although I cheated with an additional word in post 74).
This being a climbing forum I wonder what would have happened if someone like Ultrabutthole or TooSlow had started a thread by reporting that I had just put up a new route with 12 pitches of beak seams and empty bolt holes!
Chromoly footprint indeed!
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Darnell
Big Wall climber
Chicago
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The Tennessee Center for Policy
The group said that Gore used nearly 221,000 kilowatt hours last year and that his average monthly electric bill was $1,359. Johnson said his group got its figures from Nashville Electric Service.
But company spokeswoman Laurie Parker said the utility never got a request from the policy center and never gave it any information.
Chicago tribune, yesterday
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jstan
climber
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Now we are having fun!
Discussing personalities is a diversion of effort from more important objectives but I would like to make a Gore comment. If Mr Gore were not well fixed he would not be able to work full time pro bono and fly around delivering his message. If he were not well fixed, we would not be talking about him. We have a huge hole in our logic if we insist on believing only poor people who fly around and work full time to deliver a message. Finally, until recently I was committed to a goal requiring work 16/6+ for ten years. I ate out three meals a day, could feel my arteries filling up, and was a god awful fifteen pounds overweight. I was damaging my health. I looked at Mr. Gore in his film. From my own experience it is clear to me he is putting everything on the line here. Everything.
But all of that is off topic. Irrelevant.
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Neil
Gym climber
Here and there
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The first part of this post does not seek to defend Al Gore. Rather, it seeks to describe why a specific argument has little merit.
The argument is:
--If there are those who preach environmental awareness and these folks do not practice it in all facets of their lives, then the points they make about environmental awareness are void.
This argument has little merit because:
1. No one is infallible. To live so strictly to a set of beliefs is to be considerd a zealot and thus an outcast. You are a hypocrit just like everyone else (yes, you!).
2. Finding one specific point on which to deny the crediblity of a campaign does not, in fact, destory the credibility of the campaign. Look hard enough and you can find an exception or contradiction to everything.
Al Gore, through his books and movie, has joined a select few individuals who have had a major impact on raising environmental awareness worldwide. I appreciate him for this. I'm willing to overlook slight indescretions rather than lambast him as a hypocrite.
Cheers
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Hardman Knott
Gym climber
Muir Woods National Monument, Mill Valley, Ca
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TradIsGood wrote:
This thread really is pretty funny. You got the people who couldn't spell their way out of a paper bag opining on hypocrisy, and whether or not the science is valid, and calling everybody who does not agree with them names.
Please show some examples of name-calling (other than Whitey) in the last 165 posts.
I missed all of those.
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Chaz
Trad climber
So. Cal.
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Algore's scared to use less energy. He insists others conserve in his place (*carbon credits*).
Gore is a Chicken-Green.
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dirtbag
climber
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"Algore's scared to use less energy. He insists others conserve in his place (*carbon credits*).
Gore is a Chicken-Green."
That's a misstatement based on only part of the facts.
Neil: great post
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bobinc
Trad climber
Portland, Or
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Perhaps, Lois. But we all "sin" to the extent that we use resources. How many of us really try to give something back by planting trees, consciously driving/flying less, and so on? In Gore's case, he does use a lot of resources flying around giving talks. But he is devoting part of his income to investing directly in renewable energy and so on. This may be true of many other prominent people on each side of the political aisle. I don't know. But in Gore's standing up and taking the hit, we have all learned about some previously less known options, right?
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Shack
Big Wall climber
Reno NV
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So if I travel around espousing the virtues of not littering,
meanwhile being a litter bug myself, I am NOT a hypocrite?...
As long as my message is good, nobody should care what I do.
Is that also true for Clean climbing proponents?
As long as our message is clean climbing, we are not hypocritical if we pound some pins on the Nose, right?
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the Fet
Knackered climber
A bivy sack in the secret campground
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Ah these threads are funny. No one really changes anyone's view, but it makes it very clear how some people think...
Such and such people think like this... some people can read minds I guess
Everyone who doesn't agree with me is a lib/rightwingnut... do we really have to choose sides?
Denial. Projection. Justification. Avoiding the real issues. I get more and more respect for some posters, and less and less for others all the time. Not based on which "side" they are on but on the logic of their thinking.
These are the facts:
1. The planet is warming.
2. Humans are contributing to it.
3. It will cost a lot less (perhaps nothing in terms of the overall economy) to figure out how to reduce our impact now, than for people in 50-100 years to have to deal with the after effects of it (rising sea levels, harmful weather changes). Not to mention what the planet will be like for our descendants 5,000-5,000,000 years from now.
It baffles me that people who understand the importance of clean climbing can't agree with the idea of reducing the rest of your impacts as much as practicle.
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